Good Needs Bad

A Critical Reading of Ursula Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

            What is a utopia? Simply put, it is the image of an ideal city. This conversely means that it is different for each of us. It could have high-rise towers or small suburban homes. It could be a bustling city of lights or a humbly-lit and quiet community. It changes to our individual tastes. In a wider perspective, it is a manifestation of our own depictions of perfection. However, we must realize that these ideologies of ours, our notions of what is fundamentally right, must have stemmed from something—some presupposed distinction between what is good and what is bad.

            This then brings us to the coexistence of the two: good and evil. It is crucial and even automatic that both are present and known, for without one, the other will have no meaning.  How does one know joy if he knows no sorrow? What does courage mean if there is nothing to fear? In the same way we can ask, what then is good without evil? These contradictory forces are equal—neither is higher nor stronger than the other. However morbid the thought may be, good and evil are equivalent. They even define each other: something that is not good is evil, and something that is not evil, good.

            What is good and evil for each of us may have different faces for they are subjective to our own dispositions; they, nonetheless, have always been together, opposing yet, paradoxically, complementing one another. Ursula Le Guin’s short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas focuses on one side of this relationship: the necessity for the existence of evil for us to identify and value what is essentially good.

            In the story, Omelas is depicted as a utopian city, bright and colorful and lively, with its inhabitants who are happy and content of what they have. Their happiness though is not at all “naïve,” because this happiness is learned; it has meaning and a sense of worth. Their joy is not rooted on a triumph over an enemy of some sort, for “the victory they celebrate is that of life.” As to why, it is explained that the citizens of Omelas are conscious of that one locked and windowless room hidden within the city, and of the helpless tormented child that is imprisoned in it.

            Everyone in the city is aware of the child, but they are also aware that the child cannot or should not be helped. It is strict and absolute that it has to remain in that cellar, for if it is released, “in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed.”

            From here, we can see how the conditions of good and evil prevail: It is made clear that the people of Omelas can only enjoy their lives if they are aware of the suffering of that poor child. Without the child—or rather, the idea and knowledge that the child is experiencing something worse than they are, then the people’s contentment with what they have will ultimately become non-existent. Even the characters themselves are aware of this notion, which is why, after being exposed to the creature in that vile cellar, they are forced to simply accept it as a form of rationalization and justification for their own good.

            There are those, however, who cannot come to terms with this. Those who, instead of becoming comforted by this validation of their reality and see the child’s suffering as a reason to live for better,  are heavily burdened by the guilt of not being able to tamper with this unfair and cruel system. These are the ones who walk away from Omelas.

            To say that they walk away from Omelas does not simply translate to them walking-out from “the city of happiness.” It includes them walking away from its harsh structured society and from its unfair yet accepted terms. They cannot live knowing the fact that their community’s happiness must be validated by the suffering of someone. It is beyond them to acknowledge that good must have evil—that evil is necessary. Basically, they are trying to escape their world’s reality by wandering out of the gates of Omelas and “into the darkness,” driven by anguish and shame and ultimately guilt. No one knows where they are headed to. The author even says that the place they’re going could possibly not even exist at all. These people would rather get lost in nowhere than accept the painful reality of their “utopia.”

            Who are these characters in our reality? Who are those who cannot accept the established scheme of things? Perhaps they are seen in those who have chosen to create a reality of their own. Then again, there are those who have even chosen to take their own lives as an option for escape. No one knows where they were headed to, and no one knows where they are now. But they seemed to know where they were going, the ones who walked away from our reality.

            Omelas might easily deceive the reader as just an ideal, perfect, utopian city, with only a small cache: its harsh validation for its reality. In fact, the city reflects our society by hinting at the harsh truth that is the structure of it: there must be something or someone at the bottom who the others stand on in order to strive. To say that the “evils” in our society, which are greatly contributed by poverty, are necessary for the good in our society might sound like an improbable notion; however, it is true. We need the minimum-wage-paid workers in those factories that produce our appliances. We need the farmers to plant and harvest the rice we put on our plates even though they themselves don’t have any on theirs. It’s saddening to admit that in order for our society to function, and for us to achieve our utopian ideas of our reality, there must be someone at the bottom. There must be those who suffer.

            Ursula Le Guin, through her short story masterpiece, faces us with a painful truth: that, just as good needs evil, in our society, those who strive need something or someone to suffer for them to stand on. It is then up to us, as parts of this society, to compromise—to simply see this as a rationalization or a justification for our welfare, and accept these terms that are “strict and absolute.” And if we cannot, we can only walk away from reality. To where? No one knows.

I feel worthless.

     Ever since I started discovering my blockmates’ individual talents, and seeing their own lines of work, my self-esteem has been going down the drain. I feel small. I feel misplaced. I feel like I don’t what I’m doing, that I’m stupid. I feel like I was foolish to take up this course.

     I chose Information Design because, simply, I love design. I even liked to think that I was good at it, and that mindset pushed me forward even further. Now that I’m here, however, I feel like I’m not good enough. I know there will always be someone out there who is better than me, but nobody told me that those people will make me feel this way, without even trying. Don’t get me wrong. I love my blockmates–It’s myself that I hate. I used to be sure of what I’m doing, sometimes of even where I’m heading to, but now I’m lost. I’m a ghost roaming around with nowhere to go.

     I don’t know what to do now.

I’m sure this is what they call frustration.

     I visited my old Multiply and, after reading my posts from when I was in second to third year high school, it made me realize how much I missed blogging. I used to blog about almost everything that I experienced, from the places that I went to to even just the random things that popped-up in my head.

     I made a WordPress because I wanted freedom. I could no longer blog in Tumblr because I was starting to get overwhelmed of how public it is. Unfortunately, I did not achieve that freedom here in WordPress as well, but this was my fault. For some reason, I had set some sort of standard that the posts that go here should only be the concrete ones, the ideas that I can put structure to, the ones with a point. That was difficult, of course, because not everything in my life–in everyone’s life–has structure. Mostly it’s the random things that make our day. Random words. Random events. These irrelevant objects are what usually consists the mind and the life of a person like me. And these irrelevant objects are what I used to blog about.

     Blogging about such things is freedom. I was blogging as if I was just talking to a friend about my day, about an idea, about a new song, about a movie I just watched, or whatever, and that is what I missed the most. I could say anything and everything. Freedom.

     I don’t know what I want to do now, though. Half of me wants to go back, but the other half is afraid. I don’t know why. I’ll…think about it?

     I won’t be giving out the link to my old Multiply, though. It is far too embarrassing. Haha!

The Tea Shop by ‘Wich Kraft

     Walking by the strip of restaurants and establishments along Katipunan Avenue, who wouldn’t easily miss that simple blue door between Copylandia and Boston Barbers? Its blue is of a lighter shade, but still it is rather vibrant, perhaps attempting to catch the attention of a passerby. It even has transparent glass panes so that one could maybe take a peek of what’s inside. These aren’t enough, however, for the door still camouflages into its surroundings, appearing as just one of the many doors and windows beside it. Its vibrant color pales in comparison to the numerous show-stealing posters and tarpaulins around it, making it seem boring, if not completely insignificant. I’d passed by its way so many times before, and I never even noticed it was there. Hadn’t it been for one of my friends, I would have never discovered that opening this door would reveal a narrow staircase that leads up to the Tea Shop By ‘Wich Kraft.

     The shop’s interior has a homey atmosphere. A huge glass window allows a generous amount of natural light into the dining area. A few tables and chairs are arranged in the space, as well as some couches in one corner, and some bean bags in another. The walls are painted a bright color that somewhat livens up the mood even more. The tea beverages that the shop serves are relatively cheap, considering that they’re just as delicious as those from the more “dominant” tea shops in Katipunan. Also, the menu isn’t only limited to tea products: some small meals are available, like sandwiches and burgers.

     The Tea Shop By ‘Wich Kraft looks like such a charming place not only to dine in but also to relax after a long tiring day or to have a nice conversation with some friends at, and yet it seems to me that it fails to attract the attention of prospective customers. Every time I visit the shop, I only notice two or three other customers around me. Perhaps this is just because its facade does not reflect what appeal it stores inside, and most of us, we must admit, usually look at only the outside of things, and judge it as a whole from what we see there.

     Maybe that’s the reason why the more dominant tea shops are “more dominant” in the first place, and why the Tea Shop is overshadowed by the others. They’re more visible and convenient, therefore they gravitate more customers. We usually like to take the fast lane and use the tried-and-tested routes towards not only our favorite beverages, but most of our needs and wants in general.

     Unfortunately, this deprives us of the benefits we can get from those we ignore, just like how the tea drinks in Tea Shop are less expensive than those from other shops, even if they are virtually the same quality. Because we try to avoid the hassle of finding and trying new things, and prefer the easier and faster way, we sometimes sacrifice some things we might have been able to keep or save.

     That sky-blue door, to me, doesn’t only reveal the staircase up to Tea Shop By ‘Wich Kraft, but also it shows me that facades aren’t what make an entire object, that the popular choice isn’t always the better choice, and that there’s actually milk tea that isn’t such a big blow on my daily allowance.

I don’t even call myself a wallflower anymore–I’m just the wall.

Socializing is my worst enemy. I absolutely hate having to form friendships from nothing. I don’t mean I hate people, I just hate how hard and awkward it is to try to make new friends out of complete strangers. Ever since I was in pre-school until I got into high school, most of the faces around me were the same people, with the few exceptions of those who left and those who added in that time span. BUT STILL. They were basically the same people every year for like, eleven years. To me, “everybody” meant them. By the time I got into high school, everyone was at least a friend of a friend.

This is why I hate college. Everyone is a stranger. Some are just that great of a person that making friends is just that easy for them. I envy those people; sometimes, I envy them so much to the point that I hate them. And here I am in some dark corner, too busy blogging about being an anti-social freak.

Sure, I’ve made acquaintances. I think I’ve even made friends, but still, I don’t know where to place myself. I can’t even be myself yet, as in my wild (normal) self. There are even those people who makes me feel as if they don’t like me or something, and the uncertainty is killing me.

It’s just me. For some reason, I’m just really not that good in small talk, in making new friends. I wish I could open up quicker. I hate being this awkward tall guy. I hate myself.