March 16, 2007
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Right and Wrong
Do you ever look back and examine the things you’ve done that are wrong? I do it all the time, but what I wonder is that nothing ever comes of that examination. I don’t alter my behavior. I don’t try to make up for what I’ve done and I rarely find the courage to apologize for it. I don’t change my thinking and sometimes with ongoing acts of wrongness I keep on doing it unwilling to break my stasis by exerting sufficient will.
Now I haven’t done anything all that. I’ve never killed, raped, or maimed anyone. I’ve never even beaten anyone up. I haven’t engaged in overt mental or emotional abuse nor molested anyone. I haven’t cheated on anyone or on my taxes, or threatened anyone in violence or betrayed the secrets of my country to foreign powers. Heck I can probably count the number of times I’ve cheated someone or stolen something on one hand (ok maybe two hands, ah the stupidity of childhood – magic cards are expensive). Of course I am defining theft based on the classical definition of the term not that absurd nonsense that some label ‘piracy’ but seems a lot more like charity to me. I’ve only ever had two parking tickets both when I was much younger and not a single speeding ticket. I’m even in this country legally. I mention that since as you know according to morons on the news these days being an illegal alien makes you the most morally reprehensible being on this planet.
If you defined morality only in the terms of what doesn’t break the law then I must have grown into a saint in my adulthood. But alas, I think a code of morality extends far beyond just those things that the law recognizes and I don’t think there is any good standard text that can tell you what is right and what is wrong. The bible and the Qur’an are both wholly inadequate as are probably all religious texts and all codified laws. This makes some sense since societies probably don’t want to be in the business of punishing any wrong doing whatsoever. Imagine if you had to ticket anyone who ever told a lie? The expense would be beyond imagination.
But I still think there is a reasonable and rational understanding of the concept of right and wrong that pretty much everyone can understand in which I come across as not very moral at all really. And I am not merely talking about the fact that I have no real qualms about lying, exaggerating, or making stuff up. I don’t even think those are really all that wrong especially as most of the time when I do them there is no malice involved, and a lot of times there isn’t even self-interest motivating the decisions. I think truthfulness is a real virtue and I honor those who can exhibit it while still living a moral life but I don’t think a lack of truthfulness is immoral.
Rather, the things that bother me and I examine that strike me as really disturbingly wrong are a little more subtle. There are words I’ve said and statements I’ve made that have caused great harm to others or damaged their perception of me. Often I don’t even know why I said it. Was it some inner cruelty streak or internal jealousy I had? Am I self destructive or do I want others to think badly of me? Sometimes I’m not even sure if the person I said it to took offense or if the words even had nearly the significance to them that it does to me. Nevertheless, I would give my right arm to take those words back. I may not even remember the exact words I spoke, but don’t think I’ll ever forget the feeling I got after I realized I had said something so cruel and unjust and wrong. The moments stick out in my mind like a sharp nail pounded into my skull.
On the other hand, I think I am probably even more guilty of failing to speak when there was a great need. Letting someone not know what I think or feel or failing to intervene when I perceive an injustice occurring around me. Failing to foster relationships or grow trust or failing to help people who are in need even when it would cost me nothing more than a few words of encouragement or kindness. Yes I am massively guilty of that too. I would give a great deal to go back to those moments again so that I can say the right thing, the thing that was needed and assuage my soul. But to be truly honest, I doubt that if I went back I would be able to say it anyway. I’d need maybe like a thousand rehearsals then maybe I could be comfortable enough to speak words true.
But my greatest failing is probably simply the failure to act. This perhaps is the one that bothers me the most on a daily basis because it seems so imminently fixable. I can’t go back in time and relive moments to take words back or insert words in to the conversations I’ve had, but when I fail to do something today, and I fail to do it yesterday, and the day before, and the day before on and on for months or years on end, I can still always just do it tomorrow! There are all kinds of things like this, like the failure to express my thanks to someone, or the failure to congratulate someone or the failure to apologize to someone or the failure to return something to someone or the failure to communicate with someone or the failure to explain something to someone though I had promised to do so, or the failure to visit someone or the failure to acknowledge someone whose personage I respect or the failure to pay someone back a debt that is owed, and so on and so forth. Why do I not do these things? That is the question isn’t it? It’s not like I’ve forgotten. I probably think about a dozen of them every day. Sometimes I wake up resolving myself to work one or another of them today, and then I go to sleep at night wondering why I didn’t do it. I have no answers that I am honest enough with myself to give.
Sometimes on rare occasion I do break the stasis and do the things I feel are right. But often it is so long after they would have been most just and right to do them that they’ve lost all meaning. Often it is after the other parties involved in my action have long sense cast me off as an immoral cad who fails to do even the simplest acts of justice that any idiot would know to do. But more often I don’t, and I fail and fail again. With each passing day I ask, well how can I do it now? It’s far too late. If I crawled on my belly and groveled in apology I don’t think it would be sufficient to satisfy my own sense of shame at the dishonor of these failures of inaction. Yet how can I not do it now? For it is still the right thing and I will never feel peace until I do them.
Why do I suffer from this weakness of will? Will I ever overcome it? I played a game once of trying to write everything I ever considered writing and even emailing a good portion of it out to people whom I know sharing it with them. I retrospect I think I thought this would help me to conquer my akrasia. Prior to that period I was not inclined to share much of anything with anyone. I think I benefited greatly from doing that and I am a different person now for having done it, but if I thought it would make me more bold, it didn’t work out that way at all. I would feel better for having written the works, but never better for having bothered to emailed it out. I hope and would be glad to find out that the people who read them gained from the reading, and I would always be quite pleased if I can play the role of an advisor helping others to see things that they didn’t see before or generating new ideas that other people don’t necessarily frequently consider. But none of that really helps me change me.
Magic solutions and crazy rituals don’t do anything but waste your time. If you believe that all of a sudden you’ll radically metamorphize into the person you want to be or a person that can accept the person who you are then you’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of being less than you want to be. The only solution is incremental progress toward the goal of being a better person, correcting your wrongs and doing what goods you know you need to do and making yourself do a little more of both with each passing day. Everything in life takes practice. This point is so obvious a three year old could probably lecture me on it. Yet even knowing it rationally doesn’t mean I really understand it or will ever be able to do it.
Haha. You know what, I was actually going to write an entirely different entry today. I was going to write about the concept of “making up for” your wrong doing and how I think that’s a pointless pursuit because moral entities don’t have equivalents in terms of moral entities. That is to say there’s no numeric hierarchy you can really use to compare one event to another and opinions differ radically. This talk about what constitutes morality and the nature of my own immorality was only supposed to be the prelude. Oh well, I think what I’ve written here is probably more important anyway so I’ll just end it at that.
- Clef
