Some really worthless garbage

[Selene]

I'm met friends I hung out with years ago, including a very significant ex-girlfriend... people I had so much in common with at the time... and been astounded at how different we were after time had passed.

KacyRay:

Now that is an extremely interesting remembrance.

I have always, personally, shunned "reunions."

I have rarely looked back at decisions and experiences.

I fully understand that no past decision can be undone.

Nice point.

A...

I'm actually chronic about dwelling on the past. I've had many conversations with many folks and it took me a while to realize how extreme I am about it compared to other people.

And I'm not saying it's a good thing. I still beat myself up over things I did years ago. Sometimes I can't help but dwell on something I wish I hadn't said or hadn't done... even when the other person in question is no longer alive. That's how bad it is.

And I've introspected on the reasons why i might do this. In fact, I'll articulate them... once I get back from where I have to go right now.

Deal...you will discover that you are not so different than most citizens that struggle with the same paths.

[KacyRay]

Without going through all of the thoughts, ideas, and contemplations that got me there, I'll just say that the end result was this (Now, remember... this is armchair psychology here, but here is where my thoughts led me...):

First and foremost, I suspect that I feel that absolving myself of missteps and misdeeds of the past would constitute a tacit endorsement of those missteps and misdeeds.

Somewhere in my mind I can't allow myself to believe that the passage of time makes a misstep any less of a misstep. Sure, it may be less relevant now than it was when I made it, but it is no less real. It is no less of a blunder.

A good analogy here would be a game or a sporting event. If you make a blunder in a chess tournament game, for example, and lose, it will hurt pretty badly. And over time, it will hurt less. Eventually (unless you are either obsessive or the game was historic) the game and the tournament will probably fade from your memory. As an old man, you're probably not going to even care what happened that day.

But the blunder was still made. It didn't get become a "less bad" move as time went by. It was bad, it will always have been bad, and it will never not have been a bad move. Just because you don't care about it anymore doesn't make it less bad.

Apply that thinking to social situations. If I said something to hurt someone, if I did someone wrong, if I made a social gaffe or made an ass of myself somehow... just because the embarrassment has faded doesn' make the misstep any less of a misstep.

It still happened, no matter how much time goes by. There are no waves that will wash that reality from the sands of time. And I feel like if I ever say to myself "You know... forget about it. I screwed up, but I forgive myself" it is no different than saying "You know... what I did wasn't really so bad".

It would feel like personal revisionism. It would feel like I was reversing my evaluation of the situation out of mere convenience.

I guess I still cannot recognize the fundamental distinction between forgiveness and absolution. The former seems virtuous and healthy. The latter seems self-serving and convenient. But what is really the difference between the two?

Would you tell a murderer to forgive him-or-herself? Would you tell someone they need to forgive themselves for having raped someone? If not, then why would you recommend that I forgive myself for having hurt someone's feelings unjustly? Why would self-forgiveness be healthy and virtuous in one situation and not the other? The injury still took place. I was still to blame. Healing was necessary. Just because the healing is finished doesn't mean the incident never happened.

In fact, it is precisely the fact that no decision can be undone (as you pointed out) that makes them so damn difficult for me to let go of. If they could be undone... I'd be good to go!

So anyway... those are just some of the rambling thoughts that have entered my mind when contemplating why I am so reluctant to let go of the past.

[Serapis Bey]

Sounds like you are drawing an equivalency between "making a bad chess move" and "murdering someone." This view lacks proportionality.

You would probably reply that the details don't matter -- that the principle is the same.

To which I say: this is where the veneration of "principle" gets you. Thanks Objectivism!

[Serapis Bey]

Obviously this also relates to free will.

You don't believe in it, most of the people here do.

Another thicket: free will, personal autonomy, personal responsibility....blame, self-recrimination, guilt

This is one for the ages, I'm afraid...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Kacy,

Heh.

Imagine the baggage a reformed hard core alcoholic and drug addict carries.

I found my way out of where you are at. I hope you do, too.

Here's a thought that might help (since it helped me a lot). It's a reality issue.

1. First, life unfolds over time. It is not a series of events frozen in time. And life either grows or decays. (It only flatlines at death.) Your events frozen in time do neither, so they are not alive. They may be bad and make you feel bad, but they are not alive. You are.

2. The second is you seem to be making a mistake I used to make. You seem to be trying to control the past as if it were the present or the future. You can't control the past. It is what it is and you can't change it. You can only control the present. And you can only plan for the future. That's all the control life permits us. (I agree with you that watering down the past is rewriting history.)

What's wrong with doing the following? Say to yourself, "I fucked up." Make amends if possible. And plan on never fucking up that way again. Self-forgiveness without that is worthless.

And send the guilt packing. Fucking up is part of life. The sin is not falling down. We all do that at times. The sin is wallowing in the mud instead of getting back up.

Relationships? Yeah, a classic fuck-up changes them. But like I said, you can't control the past. You can't have the relationship pre-fuck-up. You can only have the relationship of the present and a promise of what it will be like in the future. If that is not good enough for the person you wronged, well, that's the person's prerogative and the price you pay for the fuck-up.

Another critical part of self-forgiveness is wishing a person you wronged well without strings attached (and meaning it from the heart), even if he or she does not forgive you and hates your guts. You cut the tie that binds your guilt that way while knowing you are as morally correct as reality permits you to be at that moment.

Then just let it go like you eventually do with the death of a friend because there is nothing you can do anymore about it.

The present and future are yours. They are too precious to squander on the bad things you did in the past.

Michael

[moralist]

In fact, it is precisely the fact that no decision can be undone (as you pointed out) that makes them so damn difficult for me to let go of. If they could be undone... I'd be good to go!

There's a way out...

If it's not possible for you to make right what happened in the past. It is possible to forgive someone who had wronged you in the past. By setting them free from their past, you are also set free from yours.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Greg,

That's kind of a reverse pay it forward.

I like it.

Michael

[Selene]

Gentlemen:

Thank you.

Six (6) excellent posts.

KacyRay, just a suggestion, start by forgiving yourself.

A...

[KacyRay]

See... forgiveness is something I'm still not fully grasping. What exactly does it mean to forgive? And is it always appropriate? If not, then when is it appropriate and when isn't it?

As a refresher, we had a discussion on this exact topic earlier this year. We didn't really get into self-forgiveness, but I think that the principle of forgiveness... whatever the hell that might mean... would apply the same way regardless of the target.

I don't think it's healthy to absolve an unpaid moral debt. Well, maybe it is sometimes, I don't know. When is it? When isn't it? And why would that be an appropriate thing to do? Is accepting the harm someone else has unapologetically dealt you akin to sanctioning your own victimhood?

These are some of the questions I struggle with.

[moralist]

What exactly does it mean to forgive?

To let go of resentment.

You can tell if you've forgiven when you can remember when you were wronged without getting angry. Anger keeps the memory going around and around in our mind's "tape loop". Letting go of resentment cuts the loop.

"...forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." is not a request.

It is statement of moral law.

Greg

[Selene]

I don't think it's healthy to absolve an unpaid moral debt.

Generically, I would agree with you.

However, I have learned to be able to forgive myself. That forgiveness is premised upon reformation of behavior. Getting back on a moral path.

At least that is the way I understand absolution of any individual.

[dldelancey]

If you forgive a financial debt, you are stating that you no longer require the repayment of money, but still acknowledging that the money was loaned. You may learn, in the process, that whomever you loaned the money to is not someone you should ever loan money to again or even that you no longer want to associate with that person at all. Or you may learn that the person was worthy of the forgiveness because of some other direct or indirect financial value you gain from your association with him.

A moral forgiveness is similar in that you no longer feel the need for some kind of emotional reparation even though you acknowledge damage was done. You learn the same lessons - your association with that person becomes constrained or you find value in that person that outweighs whatever injury was dealt to you.

Kacy, your issue seems to be primarily with self-forgiveness. Obviously, you can't stop associating with yourself. Therefore, you need to find in yourself what you value enough to stop beating it up. Find your self-worth, and you will find self-forgiveness.

[KacyRay]

Just as a side note...

Reading some of what I'm writing, it occurs to me that one might interpret my tone as a reluctance to forgive that is borne from a refusal to let go of anger, or a dysfunctional sense of revenge, or something like that.

That wouldn't be true at all. I am not reluctant to forgive. I am reluctant to sanction injurious behavior. And I haven't yet decided if the act of "forgiveness" is such an act.

[dldelancey]

Forgiving and forgetting are two different things and the human struggle to assimilate the two is why it is a cliche. To forgive a behavior is not to sanction it. It is to accept the offender's reparation for the behavior or to determine that you are not in need of reparation.

[Brant Gaede]

Just as a side note...

Reading some of what I'm writing, it occurs to me that one might interpret my tone as a reluctance to forgive that is borne from a refusal to let go of anger, or a dysfunctional sense of revenge, or something like that.

That wouldn't be true at all. I am not reluctant to forgive. I am reluctant to sanction injurious behavior. And I haven't yet decided if the act of "forgiveness" is such an act.

I'll be blunt, Kacy--this is not any kind of complete coverage--these thoughts about past events, you cannot forgive yourself for, generating bad feelings you do not like(?) are in the category of negative, non-constructive thinking. When you start to think about these things STOP! and ask yourself if you expect any positive result. Likely not. In that case stop thinking them. A positive result would be examining the situation to see the possibly corrective action or actions then do those as you can. But you don't keep gratuitously going back to that well and complain about the result on how you feel about yourself. You already know that.

This has also a great deal to do with self acceptance.

Another or complimental approach would be to buy Nathaniel Branden's book The Six Pillars of Self Esteem and utilize his sentence-completion technique.

I think you have a bad thinking habit which you indulge, never mind the basic reason, and the more you do it the more self-re-enforcing it is. You need a new habit.

--Brant

to think or not to think (about what), that is the question

[moralist]

I am reluctant to sanction injurious behavior.

Forgiveness doesn't sanction injurious behavior.

It's just giving up the resentment from when it was done to you.

Greg

[anthony]

More specifically here, I recommend NB's 'Honoring the Self'.

I do think self-forgiveness and guilt are inextricable, so I refer to the chapter, 'The Problem of Guilt': Branden differentiates rational guilt (earned guilt), the "alarm signal" --- from irrational guilt (the unearned), e.g. "I feel guilty for being intelligent, capable, talented, beautiful", etc.

He adds:,

"There is a paradox in the acceptance of unearned guilt. Very often the result is the creation of real guilt." [NB]

For earned guilt, he suggests steps of acceptance, acknowledgement to the harmed person, making amends, and "a firm commitment to behave differently in future".

(More or less already mentioned by others.)

[moralist]

All of the points that have been raised here serve to demonstrate that the real war takes place within our own minds. And if you can prevail in the internal world... the external world graciously acquiesces to you.

Greg

[moralist]

Greg,

That's kind of a reverse pay it forward.

I like it.

Michael

Yes it is.

All truth is palindromic... even Sarah.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's a thought I have mulled over for a while. It concerns looking at life as a zero-sum game.

I do believe there are times when zero-sum game thinking is appropriate. You cannot be sort of pregnant. You either are or you are not. Ditto for times when there are fixed resources or time. By taking possession of it, you are denying it for something or someone else.

But there other cases where the abundance of the universe is so vast, there is no way for zero-sum to be anything but a wrong opinion. Start with growth. Cell splitting and growing and splitting again and so on is not zero-sum. Kill one cell in your body, there are still oodles growing. Creation in general works like that.

Taken to the moral realm, I believe this is critical when thinking about forgiveness. Is the person you forgive likely to learn from the experience and reevaluate his morals (i.e, grow), or will he think you are a sucker and he got away with something (zero sum)?

In the first instance, I believe forgiveness is appropriate. In the second, not.

The conditions of forgiveness are also something to think about. In my view, the best forgiveness happens when the conditions (including penalties, etc.) are such that maximum growth takes place all around. In business, I adopt the standard that the best deal is win-win. If only one side wins and the other loses, it's not a good deal.

I believe this to be the case with forgiveness, too, when it is granted. If only one side wins and the other only loses, it's not good forgiveness.

The rub in judging this is what's at stake to win.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

All truth is palindromic... even Sarah.

Haras?

That didn't work.

[Serapis Bey]

http://rawilson.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/undoing-yourself/

The blood-thirsty nature of Christianity and Democracy which is obvious, psychologically, if one listens even for a few minutes to a typical speech by Rev. Jerry Falwell or his good friend Ronald Reagan is, of course, based on arrogance, megalomania and a deeprooted sense of total moral superiority to all non-Christian and non-Democratic peoples. But beyond that, the violent nature of Christian/Democratic countries is rooted in the singular delusion shared by both the Religion of Love and the Politics of Liberty. This delusion is the belief that human beings are born with some sort of metaphysical free will which makes them unique in the animal kingdom and only slightly less exalted than the gods themselves.

The free will fantasy is not a minor error, like thinking it is Tuesday when actually it is Wednesday. It is not even to be compared to a major intellectual blunder of the ordinary sort, like Marxs notion that once a totalitarian workers state was created, it would then quickly and magically wither away. It is even more nefarious and pernicious than the medieval lunacy that imagined witches everywhere and burned over 10,000,000 women at the stake on the basis of hysteria, superstition and the kind of hearsay and rumor that no modern court would permit to be entered as evidence. The free will delusion is much more serious than any of that. It is the kind of radical 180-degree reversal of reality that, once it enters a persons mind, guarantees that they will be incapable of understanding anything happening around them; they might as well be deaf, dumb, blind and wearing signs warning the world, ULTIMATE DESTINATION: THE MADHOUSE.

I do not speak flippantly, nor do I mean to be understood as writing satire or polemic. The facts of modern biology and psychology have demonstrated clearly and conclusively that 99 percent of the human race is in a robotic or zombi-like state 99.99999 percent of the time. This does not refer to other people. It refers to YOU AND ME. As the Firesign Theatre used to say, Were all Bozos on this bus. The best that can be said of any of us, usually, is that we have occasional moments of lucidity, but that can be said of any schizophrenic patient.

EAST, WEST AND THE MIDDLE

In the Orient, which has its own idiocies and superstitions, there has always been a singular sanity about the free will myth: virtually without exception, all the great Oriental philosophers have recognized that donkeys, grass-hoppers, dolphins, toads, hummingbirds, dogs, chickens, tigers, sharks, gophers, spiders, chimpanzees, cobras, cows, lice, squid, deer, and humans are equally important, equally unimportant, equally empty, equally expressive of the World Soul or Life Force. Buddhism, Vedanta and Taoism also recognize that each of these clever animals just mentioned, including the humans, have about equally as much free will as flowers, shrubs, rocks and viruses, and that the human delusion of being separate from and superior to the rest of the natural order is a kind of narcissistic self-hypnosis. Awakening from that egotistic trance is the major goal of every Oriental system of psychology.

Opposing this Oriental recognition of, and submission to, the order of things as they are, and yet opposing also the Christian and Democratic delusions of free will and individual responsibility, there is the hidden tradition of Sufism in Islam and Hermeticism in Europe. This occult teaching recognizes that, although domesticated primates (humans) are born as mechanical as the wild primates (such as chimpanzees), there are techniques by which we can become less mechanical and approximate in daily and yearly increments toward freedom and responsibility.

These spiritual (neurological) techniques of Un-doing and rerobotizing oneself are, of course, of no interest in the Orient, where it is accepted that we are born robots and will die robots; and they are of even less interest in the Christian-Democratic cultures which assume that we are already free and responsible and do not have to work and work HARD to achieve even a small beginning of nonmechanical consciousness and non-robotic behavior.

The Orient forgives easily, because it does not expect robots to do anything else but what was programmed into them by the accidents of heredity and environment. The Christian and Democratic nations are so bloody-minded because they can forgive nothing, blaming every man and woman for whatever imprinted or conditioned behavior is locally Taboo. (This is why Nietzsche called Christianity the Religion of Revenge and Joyce described the Christian God as a Hanging Judge.) The Sufic and Hermetic traditions are almost Oriental in forgiving robots for being robots, but are far from sentimental about it. As one Sufi poet said:

The fool neither forgives nor forgets;

The half-enlightened forgive and forget;

The Sufi forgives but does not forget.

That is, Sufism and other Hermetic traditions recognize that robots will behave like robots, and does not blame them, but it also does not forget, for a moment or even a nanosecond, that we are living in a robotic world an armed madhouse in the metaphor of poet Allen Ginsberg. Those of this tradition know that when a man spouts Christian and Democratic verbalisms that does not mean he will act with brotherly love at all, at all; he will go on acting like a badly-wired robot in most cases.m

[moralist]

All truth is palindromic... even Sarah.

Haras?

That didn't work.

It was just a joke... PALINdromic.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Greg,

Oops...

I'm thick sometimes...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I do not speak flippantly, nor do I mean to be understood as writing satire or polemic.

SB,

Of course you do.

That, and saying any old thing just to push mindgame buttons so people will get pissed qua pissed, is about all you do.

I have seen nothing different in your posts to date, including the one I quoted.

Big on posture, empty on substance.

Michael