Where did we get this conviction that, say, laziness has to be fought? And along with laziness, by the way, all the other “negative” qualities too. It seems to me that the very idea of rooting out our negative qualities — and indeed the idea that “negative” qualities exist as such — is the main obstacle to solving the problems connected with them.

What we usually call negative qualities do not exist on their own, as a separate phenomenon you can get rid of: they are always just a component, an inseparable part of some other, natural phenomenon that we use as a tool. It is precisely because we need that tool that we carry these flaws around along with it. After all, a human being — body and mind — is a fairly sophisticated self-adapting, self-developing system, and it would simply have discarded the useless junk if that junk brought it no benefit at all. Every harmful quality is the flip side of another, useful one. In other words, there is no harmful quality without a matching useful one — and if there is, the subconscious won’t put up with it for long and quickly gets rid of it as unnecessary — whereas a useful quality can perfectly well exist without a harmful one. You cannot get rid of one, or even reduce it, without affecting the other, because they are one and the same thing. One and the same phenomenon looks like two or more different qualities because we relate it to different frames of reference. Whether you call an agent a spy or an intelligence officer depends on whom he is working against.

“If women whet your appetite,
Seek out the flaws in their delight.
Then everything gets simple, see:
A slender girl? A bag of bones!

A flirty one? We’ll call her a tart,
A cheerful one? She’s had a few.
A chubby one: she’ll burst with fat.
A generous one becomes a spendthrift.

A thrifty one? We’ll dub her a skinflint!
And if she’s petite? A pint-sized runt!
And if she’s tall? A gangly lump!

Just give it a day —
Just give it a day —
Just give it a day —
Love’s cooled away!!!”

Any charm in one frame of reference can easily turn out to be a flaw in another. You can spend years cultivating altruism and tolerance by following the detailed instructions of some spiritual teaching, achieve perfection in it and… turn the page of that same teaching to find yourself a squanderer and a spineless doormat. In most cases you cannot get rid of a negative quality without getting rid of the function it performs.

“....It settled in and made itself warm
Inside my heart — the rat of jealousy,
It gnaws my heart, the rat of jealousy,
And I could kill it,
But with it I would kill my heart as well...”

Strange as it may sound, to eliminate a flaw you simply have to stop using it — and therefore stop enjoying the benefits this “flaw” brings. To avoid being a treacherous spy, you have to not be a talented intelligence officer; to avoid being a heartless blockhead, you have to not be an impartial rationalist.

Let me share a few jokes that make it easier for me to explain my point: fighting what are often called the side effects of some method of getting what you want is self-deception, because those side effects are, in fact, the method itself:

— Cheburashka, why are you hanging there tied up by your leg? — I decided to hang myself. — Then why by the leg? — By the neck it hurts.

To soften the harm that air strikes cause to peaceful Afghan civilians, the US Army has introduced a series of humanitarian reforms. Now, shortly before a missile is launched, humanitarian aid is dropped in advance on the very same spot.

— Vladimir Ilyich, what shall we do with the prisoners? — Shoot them!!! But give them some tea first! And make sure, do you hear me, make sure it’s hot!

To sum it all up briefly: we have any negative or positive qualities because they perform certain functions.

If we have something, it means we need it for something. Behind our vices hide our virtues

From this we can conclude that there are no negative qualities — there are simply qualities that may or may not fit into a particular social system.