(no subject)

[cybermule]

Well, I dyed a chunk of my hair. Did the strand test and all that. Still not sure about it, so I might just dye a bunch of streaks in it. Hmm. It's come out a really intense pink-y violet. And it's growing on me. Hahah - literally :P


So anyway, I went away for the night. Had a good day hiking in the Wye Valley and a night under canvas. Slept the best I had in ages, just dozing and thinking and looking up at the stars. I was mainly thinking about guilt. And I decided that in my opinion, guilt is a self-indulgent piece of crap. Even if you do did something wrong (and that's a big assumption), who gives a toss that you feel guilty? It never fixes anything.

I say that doing wrong is a big assumption because I find it hard to tell "wrong" from "right". And the inverted commas are an important part of that statement - I do know that killing old debt-collectors isn't right, but I don't have confidence in the badness of all the things labelled "wrong".

And as a side-rant, I don't like being judged immoral by people with black-and white moral guidebooks. What is it about them? I leave them to their naive over-simplification, but they come and bug me for being immoral? Meh!

Anyway, back to guilt. Make the best decision you can, right then, and go for it. If it was the wrong decision, learn from your mistake, reflect and move on. No point wallowing in self-pity.

Take a person running up debts on the family credit card, for example. Often they spend so much time feeling guilty, and that destroys their relationship. Far better to learn how to stop doing the deed, or even to decide what is really wrong and then act without remorse. Whatever. Just don't shield yourself from getting a real grip on life by sitting on a big cushion of self-indulgent guilt.

Not that I'm saying that I'm perfect. I fuck up repeatedly. Not that I'm saying we should all be guiltless and evil. Obviously not. I'm just reminding myself not to waste any more life by pointlessly feeling bad over things that I either can't or won't fix.

Comments

[aras-55555.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good resolution :) You're right, feeling guilty and beating yourself up over what happened in the past doesn't solve anything - if anything, it wears you out so that you don't have the energy to do anything positive...

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Aras. I'm quite chuffed with myself for working that out. Sometimes I just feel like I'm stating the obvious, but that doesn't seem to bother me so much these days :) I guess I just feel that I want to get some sort of meaningful grip on the world, you know? Stop misdirecting my efforts and actually get there.