"We all make mistakes"

Translation: “I made a mistake thinking I wouldn’t be caught doing something that I knew was wrong, but did anyway.”

Look. Getting on the wrong train because you were confused about the schedule is a mistake. Grabbing someone else’s umbrella instead of yours when leaving in a hurry is a mistake. Failing to anticipate the full extent of the fallout from your actions may be a mistake. A mistake is something that happens by inadvertence, which is the opposite of intent. An intentional, deliberate course of conduct that involves planning and dissimulation is not a mistake — it cannot be. For the wrongdoer to call it that merely betrays his utter lack of remorse. It is a crude, lazy, perfunctory exercise in rationalization, an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has more than two or three little grey cells firing away somewhere. And thus, no apology, no atonement has any worth whatsoever as long as the word “mistake” appears in any part of it.

This is not meant to come across as impossibly judgmental. Everyone, yours truly included, has at one time or another done things that range from morally questionable to downright despicable — and it is possible to make up for them, move on, be a better person and be forgiven. But, I am a big fan of calling things by their proper names. And “mistake” isn’t a proper name to describe the actions of someone who knows exactly what he or she is doing.

“The most important thing is to forgive yourself/love yourself/realize you are special.”

Translation: “Nothing in this world is as important as feeling good about yourself. Not fairness. Not common sense. Not moral obligation. Nothing. Let everything and everyone else go to hell as a result of your actions, and it’s all good, as long as you think you are the specialest thing in the universe since the invention of ice-cream.”

Think of an awful thing you’ve done, something that did serious damage to another person. Search your memory; I’ll wait. Okay, you got one? Good. Now let me take a wild guess here: you thought of something bad you once did, and IMMEDIATELY your mind went into full-rationalization mode. You automatically started thinking about how you really shouldn’t feel guilty for what you’ve done, because, take your pick:

“It was only that one time, and it’s not really who I am.”
“I was only fifteen.”
“I was confused.”
“It was a difficult time in my life.”
“Well, I didn’t intend to hurt anyone, and collateral damage doesn’t count.”
“All my friends did it.”
“The person I hurt wasn’t a saint.”
“I fell in with a bad crowd.”
“It’s not emotionally healthy to blame myself, so I don’t. (My health emotional comfort is the most important thing in the world.)”

Perhaps I’m wrong about you, O Individual Reader; perhaps you are not like that. But that would make you exceptional. For most people, being selfish is easy and natural, especially in a culture that prioritizes loving oneself, forgiving oneself, self-aggrandizing and shielding oneself from deserved blame over making things right. To listen to “experts” and spiritual “gurus”, there is an epidemic of low self-esteem, with people wallowing needlessly in guilt. From what I see, the opposite is true — and a person’s willingness to “forgive himself” seems to be directly proportional to his willingness to be terrible to others. It’s narcissism, pure and simple. And so, it’s not important to forgive oneself — or it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be among your priorities to never think about things that make you feel bad. What IS most important is earning the forgiveness of the people you’ve hurt and striving each and every day to be a better person — better to others, that is, not yourself. Which is really difficult if you are overly focused on feeling good about yourself.

sprock wrote:Anyway, I wish I could 'think' non-verbally... though sometimes I'm not even sure if that is possible, though I guess I don't always have to vocalise my memories and I can understand a film without words and without necessarily translating everything I see into words. Hmm.