The problem is that we make assumptions about what is, then project out what we believe to be the ought. Often based on our desires, rather than any particularly insightful understanding of the is.

For example, the central, underlaying premise is that good and bad are some cosmic duel between the forces of righteousness and evil, but the reality is that they are the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The 1/0 of sentience. Even bacteria get that.

That a functioning society needs some general sense of do's and don'ts does make it a collective code, but than societies function as organisms in the larger ecosystem. Ultimately they rise and fall, as individuals do.

Can we overcome some pretty elemental facts of life, or do we find how to live within and find deeper understandings in doing so?

We are all mortal. No matter how rich, or poor, or how long we live, the individual live is pretty short, in the grand scheme of things. Might it be more effective to sense how we are part of this larger whole, than fight against it?

Both good and bad are pretty necessary to who we are. If everything was peachy keen, we would still be little tadpoles, swimming around in the muck. Fear and desire are pretty strong motivators to reach outside ourselves and learn. What if we reached that point where all desires are satisfied and fears eliminated?

Who are we? As these mobile organisms, we have a sequential process of perception, in order to navigate and a narrative based culture, so we think of time as the point of the present, moving past to future, but it is change, turning future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

So there is just this dynamic physical state and while the process goes past to future, the patterns generated go future to past.

As consciousness goes past to future, while thoughts and feelings go future to past.

Or as the light of a movie projector goes from one frame to the next, past to future, the frames go future to past.

Consciousness, then would seem to be this light shining through the film, not just the images and story line on it.

So while we think it is all about the punchline, the pot of gold at the ends of the narrative arc, the ends, rather than the means, the reality is more the cyclical and reciprocal dynamics of the present, not some ever futher destination over the horizon.

Just because our minds are constantly sorting and judging, as a function of living and navigating, that doesn't mean there is some ultimate goal and destination. It's more like a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

We need to take root in the soil in which we are cast, not pine for more fertile soil. Hopefully we leave it more fertile for what comes after, not just sterilized by our own fears and rejections.

Without the ups and downs, it's just a flatline.