Secular Thought for the Day

Who made the rules? For those among us who want a harm-free, mutually beneficial, socially reciprocal life there is a list of rules; unwritten, mostly reached by tacit, mutual agreement and wholly based on general decency. Rarely are these rules dictated by governments, religious groups or corporate entities. Their rules are top-down, predominantly self-serving, with the occasional cursory nod towards “security” or “health”. They rarely do much to improve anyone’s wellbeing or happiness and in many cases, just make things worse.

The only rules that count are our collective ones; borne of plain common sense and a desire to be treated fairly. To those with a healthy sense of altruism and a strong, unselfish streak it’s redundant to cite examples of the rules, but for anyone who needs a little nudge here are some to get you started:

Don’t swear if there are children within earshot, don’t play music loudly late at night, do say please and thank you, be polite to restaurant/café staff, look after your front garden, return things you borrow, don’t push in when queuing, put things back where you found them.

I firmly believe that most people are generally decent and are well aware of this set of rules encoded in our brains. We don’t need to be told what to do. Left to rely on our own sense of fair-play we rarely transgress and seldom inflict anything above mild irritation on our fellow humans.