Click here or on the image to write to Robert Dyer

When I was a child, I spent a great deal of my time in movie houses watching cowboy movies.  My heroes were Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.  It was easy to identify Roy and Gene as good guys because they always wore white hats.  The bad guys always wore black hats.  When Roy and Gene captured the bad guys, they were such good shots that they never killed them; they shot the guns out of their hands, knocked them out, and turned them over to the sheriff.  Those were simple, gentle times.

As I grew older I was introduced to confusion.  Hopalong Cassidy and Lash Larue started appearing in movies.  They were good guys, but they wore BLACK HATS!!  This was my first exposure to real life.  I then had to observe what these cowboys did and make a decision as to whether they were good guys or bad guys.  What really made it difficult was that sometimes the good guys did bad things, for reasons that I wasn’t aware of; and sometimes the bad guys did good things, for reasons that I was not aware of!   I find I am still trying to make that decision today.  This confusion lead me to discovering what I feel is a great truth in life.  It is not what people do that makes them good or bad; it is why they do it.  The act a person performs might be good or bad, but the reason they perform that act is what determines whether that person is good or bad.

I would appreciate input from you readers supporting or denying this conclusion.  I believe we need to bring more philosophy back into our society, and WE can do it together. 

Just click on my photo, and give me your input.  It could be fun!!