I love your inqury and wisdom Willem, no matter how much I annoy you 
I have been thinking about a better model, I mean, after all, aren’t we using a poor language model to try and describe something this language has fought against?
One thing that came to mind was not-enough, enough, and too much.
These are terms that are defined by the receiver, not by the labeler.
If one was not enough, then they should strive towards enough. If one has too much, then one should ease their own reigns, or give away until they have enough.
So in reference to above, originally when I was saying ‘evil’ or ‘idle’ or ‘cynical’ or ‘suffering’, I was referring to too much or not enough. (by the way, you do have a good axiom up there, how about, “always painful, hardly suffering” for english primitivity.
Cynical to me also means not enough optimism, it’s pointing to something out of balance. Unfortunately, I do recognize how it also sounds like 'you are THIS, and only THIS". Same thing with evil. It implies ‘not-good’, and neither good nor evil implies there is a balance of the two.
The joy is in farmers changing, I think. Not in the drought itself. If the farmers go and do the same thing, in another place, until they cause drought there, too, how is that net ‘joy’? (or, as I was saying above, how is that ‘enough’ rather than too much or too little?).
I think part of what doesn’t work within civilization is the constant striving to spending less time getting more things. What happens when you spend no time to get unlimited things? That is impossible. You have to spend at least some time to get many things. It’s obvious that civilization steals from every source in order to maximize this getting.
I also recognize the innateness of this striving, who would adopt the easy and let go of the difficult?
We have many behaviors, and I work on mine all the time, that relate to this ingrained thievery. As it relates to greyspace, I’m thinking of the literal greyspaces that appear when one brings up google maps. I’m thinking abut the spaces where no one takes a stand. I’m thinking about spaces where people don’t realize they don’t have ‘enough’.
I’m also thinking about myself, sitting at my mom’s house, waiting for my assignment to start in New Orleans. How I’m absorbing solar energy through coal-fired electric heat, rather than being outside. I’m thinking about how this appears ‘grey’, as opposed to red or blue, green or brown.
Grey is the color of indifference, of metal, of potentiality, even, but it is still only potential. I think we do a lot of bad things when we are idle, like say, myself, attack people on the basis of what they made me feel and think, rather than directly address my issues with specifically what they said. Of course, in verbal conversation, this all gets hashed out much more organically and compassionately…
I feel like I lose my ‘edge’ of clarity as an idle american. When I work and my body is not slouching, but reaching, I feel amazing, and am more clear, more blue, less grey. right now, I feel like I have have too much, I feel red, and grey, I feel my metal, my iron becoming overcharged, sparking at some pretty distant gaps.
I feel like many people, not handling their red or their blue very well, become grey, indifferent, and, although they reside in potentiality, even that potentiality begins to rust…
I feel like the daemons that plague our psyches are daemons that take away our red and our blue, our anger and our compassion, and instead, make everything grey.
We are a people of no energy at all. It’s all external, our life fire is in the middle of our grey machines, and not in our hearts. OUr blue, our compassion, is wrapped in grey metal pipes, rather than being help in our hands for a cool drink.
I am glad to have this opportunity to re-interpret and reflect on the nature and power of language. Thank you.
