Forgiveness. Letting go. Acceptance.
Living to help and give.
If you want a Family Feud style list of “components of a worthwhile life” these would make the board. They're sentiments related at the end of this documentary The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling. Taken together, you get any number of self-help books or religious cliches. I don't know that the process of arriving at any is that well understood, and if you're someone like myself, you might be openly hostile towards them.
Let's take forgiveness. To be honest, I don't really know what it means. It's one of those words that I think I know what it's supposed to mean, but I don't have a strong concept of it affecting me personally. I “forgive” things to the extent I feel I understand them. It's a depersonalized sense. I “forgive” the things you might say or do while drunk, for example. I “forgive” the consequences of mental illness or youth and inexperience mimicking mental illness.
The purpose of forgiveness is supposed to be...acceptance? God forgives you, so you get accepted into heaven. You forgive someone who wronged you, so you...I'm truly drawing a blank. You get peace? You don't necessarily understand them or their motives. You accept that potentially flat out evil intent? I really need help with this. Acceptance isn't like taking a package someone hands you. It's a shift in your perspective. In order to do so, you have to make a kind of mental allowance for its reality. Perhaps it's you seizing the day because you've accepted death more readily than anyone around you is comfortable with.
Frankly, I don't really forgive. It's very particular to when as objectively and sincerely as anything can exist gets maliciously destroyed. I don't forgive parents for terrorizing their kids. I don't forgive watching someone sacrifice and care, and you taking advantage. I don't forgive shunning opportunities to learn or try at better understanding. In a word, I don't understand what I've come to define as “evil.” Deliberate maliciousness. I don't expect people to forgive it of me, and I won't forgive myself when I think a line has been crossed. It's a physical revulsion point that prevents me from persisting too long on thoughts that would trap me in an evil place. It stays my hand and tongue.
I try incredibly hard to cope with an over-active mind and agenda while tempering myself with the stories of those who seemed to let it overwhelm them. I don't want to feel like deep in my bones my essence is tied to some fight with my mother or anxiety about not being rich or famous enough. I don't want to think I squandered chances to be madly in love but only managed to fall for myself. I don't want to operate under the illusion that I'm “helping” or “giving,” when the capacity and responsibility to do so might not even be mine. That's something to let go of. That's a hard truth to try and accept.
I don't actually know that I can or do help people. That's the truth of it. People can chime in or chuckle, but my impact is theirs to discern. I can try to do things that comport with my understanding of living a worthwhile life. In so doing, the theory is that that will help. It helps me to live cheap, so try to provide people a means of living cheap. I need to write, so give people the opportunity to watch that process and hopefully write for themselves. I want to create and learn at my leisure, well independent of the societal structure I've been conditioned to fetishize and promote, so meticulously accounting for that structure and how I might arrange my own needs to constantly take place.
I think if you “forgive” the things that drive you to want to do better, you run the risk of quitting and growing complacent. I accept that there's little reason to believe “love” or “truth” or some starry-eyed ideal about how to conduct life will win out. That doesn't mean I forgive those who seem to go out of their way to make it harder to try and be better. I don't fundamentally trust you, but it's always going to be me setting myself up to pay the price in trying. I don't try to say or advocate for the word “love,” but learning the pain of having what become limbs ripped off will always be raw.
Let's move on to acceptance. That's kind of the end goal in all of this right? The idea that you accept what's happened or is coming. In accepting, you can move with instead of against. Maybe you alleviate a measure of stress you've burdened yourself with about all you've yet to achieve. It just seems like a fancy way to scapegoat. “Accept me as I am!” some self-righteous tumblr page might declare. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Tellingly, I think to call it a scapegoat, and the phrase most associated with it is a request for God.
If we press on it, what can't you change? At some level, somewhere, what is fundamentally beyond your capacity to change? Surely it's giant astronomical events right? Unless we get weird and entangle some of your particles with particles residing in the center of stars. You are change. You're a mechanism by which everything changes in and around you. If anything, it's a kind of prayer and sentiment that should provoke you into the wisdom that you'll never achieve serenity until you bother with changing as much as possible! Courage is a choice, not a gift.
I think the world belongs to the people who take responsibility for it, and it happens to the ones that don't. While I'm accepting of the idea that there are many many people working in service to what I consider evil ends, I don't accept it as a matter of course or forgive them their unwillingness to try harder. When you go about life having no definition of what constitutes behaving in helpful or forgiving and accepting ways, it's easy to consider yourself as having mastered or understood them. How about this? I accept that there are things I won't forgive. I accept that I'm always as dead as I feel, and am running out of time to be meaningful in my own eyes. I accept that most of my friendships were superficial. I accept that the help isn't coming. And I accept that over and over again what I say and try to do will get thrown in my face, disrespected, and misconstrued, because I “forgive” animals who masquerade as human.
If you want a Family Feud style list of “components of a worthwhile life” these would make the board. They're sentiments related at the end of this documentary The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling. Taken together, you get any number of self-help books or religious cliches. I don't know that the process of arriving at any is that well understood, and if you're someone like myself, you might be openly hostile towards them.
Let's take forgiveness. To be honest, I don't really know what it means. It's one of those words that I think I know what it's supposed to mean, but I don't have a strong concept of it affecting me personally. I “forgive” things to the extent I feel I understand them. It's a depersonalized sense. I “forgive” the things you might say or do while drunk, for example. I “forgive” the consequences of mental illness or youth and inexperience mimicking mental illness.
The purpose of forgiveness is supposed to be...acceptance? God forgives you, so you get accepted into heaven. You forgive someone who wronged you, so you...I'm truly drawing a blank. You get peace? You don't necessarily understand them or their motives. You accept that potentially flat out evil intent? I really need help with this. Acceptance isn't like taking a package someone hands you. It's a shift in your perspective. In order to do so, you have to make a kind of mental allowance for its reality. Perhaps it's you seizing the day because you've accepted death more readily than anyone around you is comfortable with.
Frankly, I don't really forgive. It's very particular to when as objectively and sincerely as anything can exist gets maliciously destroyed. I don't forgive parents for terrorizing their kids. I don't forgive watching someone sacrifice and care, and you taking advantage. I don't forgive shunning opportunities to learn or try at better understanding. In a word, I don't understand what I've come to define as “evil.” Deliberate maliciousness. I don't expect people to forgive it of me, and I won't forgive myself when I think a line has been crossed. It's a physical revulsion point that prevents me from persisting too long on thoughts that would trap me in an evil place. It stays my hand and tongue.
I try incredibly hard to cope with an over-active mind and agenda while tempering myself with the stories of those who seemed to let it overwhelm them. I don't want to feel like deep in my bones my essence is tied to some fight with my mother or anxiety about not being rich or famous enough. I don't want to think I squandered chances to be madly in love but only managed to fall for myself. I don't want to operate under the illusion that I'm “helping” or “giving,” when the capacity and responsibility to do so might not even be mine. That's something to let go of. That's a hard truth to try and accept.
I don't actually know that I can or do help people. That's the truth of it. People can chime in or chuckle, but my impact is theirs to discern. I can try to do things that comport with my understanding of living a worthwhile life. In so doing, the theory is that that will help. It helps me to live cheap, so try to provide people a means of living cheap. I need to write, so give people the opportunity to watch that process and hopefully write for themselves. I want to create and learn at my leisure, well independent of the societal structure I've been conditioned to fetishize and promote, so meticulously accounting for that structure and how I might arrange my own needs to constantly take place.
I think if you “forgive” the things that drive you to want to do better, you run the risk of quitting and growing complacent. I accept that there's little reason to believe “love” or “truth” or some starry-eyed ideal about how to conduct life will win out. That doesn't mean I forgive those who seem to go out of their way to make it harder to try and be better. I don't fundamentally trust you, but it's always going to be me setting myself up to pay the price in trying. I don't try to say or advocate for the word “love,” but learning the pain of having what become limbs ripped off will always be raw.
Let's move on to acceptance. That's kind of the end goal in all of this right? The idea that you accept what's happened or is coming. In accepting, you can move with instead of against. Maybe you alleviate a measure of stress you've burdened yourself with about all you've yet to achieve. It just seems like a fancy way to scapegoat. “Accept me as I am!” some self-righteous tumblr page might declare. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Tellingly, I think to call it a scapegoat, and the phrase most associated with it is a request for God.
If we press on it, what can't you change? At some level, somewhere, what is fundamentally beyond your capacity to change? Surely it's giant astronomical events right? Unless we get weird and entangle some of your particles with particles residing in the center of stars. You are change. You're a mechanism by which everything changes in and around you. If anything, it's a kind of prayer and sentiment that should provoke you into the wisdom that you'll never achieve serenity until you bother with changing as much as possible! Courage is a choice, not a gift.
I think the world belongs to the people who take responsibility for it, and it happens to the ones that don't. While I'm accepting of the idea that there are many many people working in service to what I consider evil ends, I don't accept it as a matter of course or forgive them their unwillingness to try harder. When you go about life having no definition of what constitutes behaving in helpful or forgiving and accepting ways, it's easy to consider yourself as having mastered or understood them. How about this? I accept that there are things I won't forgive. I accept that I'm always as dead as I feel, and am running out of time to be meaningful in my own eyes. I accept that most of my friendships were superficial. I accept that the help isn't coming. And I accept that over and over again what I say and try to do will get thrown in my face, disrespected, and misconstrued, because I “forgive” animals who masquerade as human.
