The most profound spiritual truths in the world can usually fit on a bumper sticker. That doesn’t mean they’re easy to put into practice, “Simple, not easy” being the profound truth of that matter!
But in general, if we manage to faithfully follow a set of core maxims in our daily lives, we will very likely die happy and content in the knowledge we have fulfilled our most basic human obligation: to have lived a decent life.
“Be kind,” “Love thy neighbor,” “Practice compassion,” “Show mercy,” “Express gratitude,” “Dare to hope,” “Spread joy,” “Tell the truth,” “Commit to something beyond yourself.”
You can make that list longer at your leisure. Here’s a cheeky, counter-intuitive one I came across recently: “Kindness is so gangster.”
Ha!
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I started writing this post a couple of weeks ago, thinking to finish it up in time to hit the “Publish” button sometime last weekend. But in that interim, the United Staes invaded and effectively took command of Venezuela, and just four days after that, Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.
Because despite the world’s abiding imperfection, for anyone paying unbiased and unjaded attention, John Gorka has it right.
Even in one of the more tempestuous eras of recent history, these events stood out as uncommonly dispiriting, arrows to the heart of an already wounded, reeling country.
Highlighting a song that extolled the goodness of human beings and the world they often seem to abuse and squabble over in about equal measure struck me as odd, ill-timed, even naive.
So I set it aside.
But then the days passed and the song seemed to resound. The more I listened to friends, media and the currents of dismay coursing through my own heart these past 10 days, the more I realized how important it is to give a listen and take to heart the message of John Gorka’s “Particle and Wave (Goodness in the World”).
All the more so for the beautifully simple way he sings it as one of the more literate and profound singer-songwriters of our age.
What exactly should I have been waiting for to get back to this song? For the world’s billionaires to come together and finally solve the world’s hunger problem, the oceans to cleanse themselves, and humankind to set its differences aside and never again bomb, shoot, invade or subjugate another person or country?
Because despite the world’s abiding imperfection, for anyone paying unbiased and unjaded attention, John Gorka has it right. Let’s give him a listen and consider the particulars for a bit before winding things up with another gem from his 2025 album, “unentitled.”
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At first glance, the two halves of the song’s title, with the second half in parentheses, seem incongruent. The first involves the “particles and waves” of physics, scientific through and through.
The second is a morally based human abstraction of there being “goodness in the world.” Physics doesn’t concern itself with the good; it is all about describing “isness” and where that “isness” might be heading next. Humans, on the other hand, have been passing subjective judgments on the world since the cradle days of the civilizations they continue to build.
But let’s have Gorka explain from his “One Song Concerts” website how he brings those two planks of the title together:
“‘Particle & Wave,’ written in Seattle in March 2018 on the morning of the March For Our Lives rally against gun violence. It was inspired by the sight of all those hundreds of thousands of people in the streets and the speeches of the students. I thought about photons, the smallest bits of light. Sometimes they act like a particle and sometimes like a wave.”
Or as Mr. Google elaborates:
“Particles are points, waves are patterns, and while classical physics sees them as separate, quantum mechanics reveals that everything exhibits wave-particle duality, behaving as both depending on how they’re observed.”
Clearly, Gorka sees human beings as both tiny, almost inconsequential points of light, but…when gathered together in solidarity and resolve, they become waves capable of changing the world. But the key is that “goodness exists in the world,” and even more important for its human inhabitants, goodness exists in great abundance in human beings.
This is where Gorka leaves physics behind and embraces, prayer-like, the quite indisputable fact that even given the sordid histories of conflict, evil, and every one of the seven deadly sins that course through every person and society at one time or other, most people want to do good, be good, and be thought of as good—most of the time.
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One of my personal favorite activities in life is to just perch myself on a seat at the airport, cafe, park or music venue (or sunflower field!) and simply behold the flow of humanity moving past or stopping to greet, embrace or chat with someone they know (or have just met). It’s a kind of spiritual practice in and of itself to pause, observe, and therefore be able to remind myself how much love and goodness is being expressed all around me through so many moments of every day, by the vast, vast majority of people I am able to feast my eyes upon.
Multiplied some 8 billion times to encompass most all the world’s population of individual selves.
Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? And it’s one that bears, no, requires repeating in order to forestall those times when we find ourselves groaning yet again at the latest atrocities and absurdities playing out in our regular barrage of news alerts.
To wit: most people in the entire world, whatever their faults and failings, want and most often do manage to do good, help where they can, and in the lexicon of child psychologists, “play well with others.”
Not all, and not all the time, but plenty enough to keep ourselves going by remembering how most people we ever come across fall into that category, yes?
Watching that essential truth on display in front of me in various venues and moments of any given day is a powerful and for me, necessary antidote to the despair that can sometimes grip my heart when I consider the suffering of the world at large and the particular sufferings of those close to me.
That suffering is exacerbated all the more by the dark currents that descend upon every person at one time or other, and which tragically take up permanent residence in certain people with the power to foist their demented ways upon the world.
Dwelling too little on those people ensures they will thrive in your ignorance, but dwelling too much is a sure ticket to despair. Better always to stay awake to the former and appreciative of the latter, joining your particle to the waves moving forward—inch by hard-won inch—in shaping the world.
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PARTICLE AND WAVE
Never stop believing
There is goodness in the world
There is goodness in the world
There is goodness in the world
I see children marching
There is goodness in the world
I listen to them speaking
There is goodness in the world
When we finally do the right thing
There is goodness in the world
Goodness in the world
We need to be reminded
There is goodness in the world
Too often we are blinded
To the goodness in the world
They are working hard to find it
The goodness in the world
Goodness in the world
You can’t beat fear with fear
You can’t beat hate with hate
Only love can do that
It’s not too late
No, it’s not too late
No, it’s not too late
Though justice seems to hesitate
It’s not too late
I saw a sea of people
Both particle and wave
Teach the ones who came before
A new way to behave
I saw a sea of people
Both particle and wave
Wash over the world
Their very lives to save
Never stop believing
There is goodness in the world
There is goodness in the world
There is goodness in the world
Never stop believing
There is goodness in the world
See and hit the Follow button at https://www.facebook.com/andrew.hidas/ for regular 1-minute or less dispatches from the world’s great thinkers, artists and musers, accompanied always by lovely photography.
Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing
Homepage rotating banner photos (except for library books) by Elizabeth Haslam https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/
Library books by Larry Rose, Redlands, California, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com
Photo of yours truly walking my grandson to a nearby park on a cold winter holiday, courtesy of his mother, Dakota Hidas
Women in sunflower field by Antonino Visalli, Sāo Paulo, Brazil https://unsplash.com/@antoninovisalli
Thank you Andrew! John is indeed thoughtful, gentle and talented! I appreciate you bringing him to us.
It’s a great way to wake up Sunday morning! I went looking and found The Road to Swannanoa, also very moving! Thank you!
I read your incisive comments as I was getting ready for bed and listened to John Gorka’s calming song and slept like a baby.
Meggan and Barbara: It does my heart good to know you resonated with this. I’ll pass your sentiments along to Mr. Gorka, and I’m sure he’ll be just as pleased.
What you’ve presented here is why I’m so drawn to the spiritual act of the Buddhist monks walking from Texas to DC. Their simple but deep message of peace and loving kindness that is within each of us if only we stop to breathe and feel it. The particles of individual people becoming waves of crowds supporting them, moving with them, just wanting to be touched by their presence.
I most certainly echo the comments of Meggan and Barbara, a great way indeed to start my Sunday morning. Gorka’s song “Particle & Wave” goes right to the heart of the matter, simple without being simplistic (lord knows attempting to grasp the physics behind the particle-wave duality has always left me scratching my head, but feeling like “kinda getting it”). Your post provided a much-needed positive vibe uplift to my morning, followed by reading about the Buddhist monks walking across the US for peace (including an appearance by the Monks’ recovering “peace dog” Aloka!). I think I’ll join in taking our dog, Bailey, for a walk/run right now! We call Bailey the “Doggie-Lama” since just like the Dalai Lama, she spreads loving good vibes to everyone she meets – a most excellent role model for canines and homo sapiens alike!
I’m glad both of you mentioned the Buddhist peace walk, Cathy & Kevin. I finally caught up to it in the news a couple of days ago, and it seems to be picking up a lot of momentum. (Not making them walk faster, but garnering increasing attention!) Such a simple idea, just to walk gently a good way across the country projecting peace, but it’s a powerful image. The fact it’s going on amidst the maelstrom of our current political life is quite remarkable, just adding another actor on a stage that feels more consequential every day.
I did not know about the Buddhist peace walk, and the song calmed me down today, so it is all progress and thanks for the sangha :)
Pleasure’s mine, Jeanette! It’s all coming so fast I doubt even AI is keeping up! But we shall Keep the Faith anyway…
I need reminders about the goodness. And when standing in front of an ICE facility (Wednesdays) or in my own town’s rotary (Saturdays), with 200-1,000 other people, it reminds me. But John Gorka is a more gentle, heart-opening reminder. I need that, too. Thank you, Andrew.