The Grey Zone

I believe with the progression of knowledge, the verdict about a person cannot be just based on black and white, right and wrong. This increasing awareness amongst us has introduced a grey zone in the middle. To clearly understand what I am talking about, here is an extract from a movie called “The Bucket List”.

In the movie, there is a conversation between Carter (Morgan Freeman) and Edward (Jack Nicholson) which also involves Emily (Edward’s daughter).

Carter: Has your life brought joy to others?

Edward: Let me put it to you this way. After the break-up, Emily went to live with her mother. You know, we tried to stay close, but it gets down to holidays, phone calls, birthday cards. Anyway, Emily goes to college, joins one of her Save the poor people, the animals, what not. Meets a guy, decides she loves him. Good looking kid, driven, smart. But there was something about him. So when she said they were engaged, I told her I was against it. But being my daughter, she went ahead and married him anyway. Needless to say, I wasn’t invited to the wedding.

Carter: That must have hurt.

Edward: You think? First time he hit her, she came to me. I wanted to bash his brains. She wouldn’t let me. She said she loved him, it wasn’t his fault, she was the one who picked the fight. Next time it happened, she didn’t come to me. The ex told me. Nice to hear her voice again.

Carter: What did you do?

Edward: What any father would do. I took care of it. I called a guy who called a guy who handles these kinds of things. Dont know what he said, don’t know what he did. All I know is he didn’t kill him and my daughter never heard from him again.

Carter: How did she react?

Edward: Called me names you wouldn’t believe. She said I was dead to her. I am not proud of everything I did. But I am pretty sure I would do it all again. If they don’t let me into Egyptian heaven because my daughter hates me, well then, thats just the way it goes.

Now, try answering the question, “What Edward did was right or wrong?” This question cannot be answered without any doubt in your mind, without any dilemma.

So now that you have a clearer picture about my topic, lets get into it. When deciding a person’s character instead of two zones (good and bad), now, there are four zones. These four zones are namely Black, Grey with a black tinge, Grey with a white tinge and White. I think it is self explanatory, but still for those who are not clear what the zones mean, I will elaborate. The black zone is for pure evil. Mainly sadists fall into this bracket, people who would just like to watch the world burn. White zone is for pure gold, true innocence. The only qualifier for this zone in the real world, in my opinion, is kids and babies. The rest can fall into the grey zone. A lazy person may easily classify everyone into the grey zone. That is why I have purposefully suggested two other zones – grey with white tinge and grey with a black tinge.

But whom you classify and on what basis you classify the persons is entirely upto you. I am just suggesting a new scale for gauging people in front of you. Hope this helps you in making clearer decisions.