What Makes You Feel Good?

A newspaper quoted Robin Thicke, famous (or rather infamous) for his top-selling album which featured a video of nude models and his 'performance' with Miley whatshername at the recent MTV VMA show as saying "what's really important (about music and entertainment) is to entertain and make people feel good".... got me thinking. Hmmm, so naked bodies and 'twerking' (for those who are still in 'blur-blur'land, that's the new term coined for the duo's explicit gyrations on stage) is supposed to make people feel good? Honestly, I didn't feel at all good after catching a glimpse of it quite unintentionally as I peeked over my 2 girls' shoulders, wondering why they were giggling at the computer screen. Well, so I am old-fashioned, traditional, conservative for branding it as soft porn, but that's old aunty mentality anyway. In the light of his remark, I wondered what's the meaning of feel good actually?

So I googled the word 'good'; which an online dictionary defined in 2 forms. As an adjective, good means having admirable, pleasing/pleasant, agreeable, superior or positive qualities, morally excellent, virtuous, pious, righteous or satisfactory in quality, quantity or degree, excellent, right, proper, fit or well-behaved. As a noun, good means profit, advantage, worth, excellence, merit, kindness, moral righteousness, virtue. I strongly suspect that's not what Robin or Miley both had in mind about making people 'feel good' with their act. Etymologists tag the term good as derived from the Old English word god (with a long o), the original root meaning "fit, adequate,or belonging together." Interestingly common greetings such as good morning, good day, etc all derive from the word God; indeed good bye is a contraction of the phrase God be with you. Another quick google answer says the word good is used 809 times in the King James Bible - that's a lot of times indeed.

Yet another site defined good as very satisfactory, enjoyable, pleasant, or interesting, which I venture would be the more modern and commonly understood meaning of the word. So if I could simplify it, in today's world, feel good means I like it, whatever 'it' is. Put that way, even our house cats can 'feel good', as when any of us stroke their necks, they close their eyes and lift up their heads, as if asking for more. Lots of things make people feel good in that sense and certainly, different people feel good about different things...An interesting movie, a day out with family, ice cream on a hot day, coffee-evenings with frens, an encouraging word, a cheery smile, a surprise gift, sunrise, sunset, holidays, a promotion, celebrations, that special someone...the list goes on.

Actually I didn't know, but I am not surprised to find out that the word good is related to the word God. How apt. In fact the very first things that God created in the beginning of time He already called good; in the very first book of the Bible, in Genesis 1 itself, the word appears 7 times and the chapter ends with a declaration, "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). It could be pure conjecture on my part, but I reckon good has to be tied in with God, since the original root conveys a "belonging together". But I guess these days, feeling good has absolutely no connection to any idea of godliness, being reduced as it is to just an experience of satisfaction brought about by things which please our senses. No wonder then some people can actually feel good about that 'twerking' dance.

How sad that a word once originating from the highest sense of the divine is now so flippantly used of man. Nowadays our feeling good has nothing whatsoever to do with God. Instead it's all about the little Narcissus in us; we concentrate our lives on pleasing (feeling good about)ourselves. (By the way, we all know what happened to Narcissus in Greek mythology - he literally loved himself to death.) But what God had in mind wasn't to make us feel good and it certainly extended way beyond pleasurable sensations. Quite the contrary. The highest good was brought about by an event which surely must be the epitome of bad.

I wonder what the world would be like if Jesus had confined Himself to 'feeling good' and instead of hanging on the cross,He just contented Himself with being a 'good' moral teacher. The world would have easily accepted Him as such; in fact till today, no one would quarrel to acknowledge Jesus Christ as a 'good man.' But that wouldn't have saved us. His teachings may point us to doing good so we can 'feel good'. But He didn't stop at 'feeling good' about the 'good job' He had done in His lifetime on earth. Instead He went on further to do something that, from the human perspective, is anything but 'feel good'. From all eye-witness accounts, He allowed Himself to be crucified on a cross only to arise from death 3 days later. Inexplicably, it is this pivotal event in history that ushered in eternal good - the salvation of mankind. Now that's something to feel good about, because it means no matter what happens, good or bad, no matter even that the world has got nothing to offer me whatsoever, all is well with my soul, for I am at peace, not only with man but most importantly with God; assured that in Christ, I have been set totally free to live an abundant life on earth and in heaven. And that feels real good.

'As Jesus started on His way, a man ran up to Him and fell on his knees before Him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”“Why do you call Me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.' Mark 10:17-18