As you are
Forgiveness is one of the trickier concepts in life. Morally speaking, we should forgive and forget, but how are we to do so when such an action is in direct conflict with living and learning. I want to forgive you so that I might ignore your actions and allow you to be whom I choose as opposed to whom you are. Maybe I should be more grateful than resentful. If anything you were being true to your nature, which on some level I resent since I have not learned to be so true to my own nature. The nature of things can cast a doubt on anyone whom (like me) is caught up in idealism. It’s the contrast between being and nothingness; I should focus on what is really happening instead of what I create. The personality or characteristics I place upon others are not whom they are, so these traits are actually nothingness. They become the false traits I use to identify and relate to you. So while one may follow their true state of being, I am angered when they aren’t whom I have created them to be. This is a standard that is not only illogical, but non beneficial to either party. An illusion is made to elude the truth and has no use in human interaction, thus it is nothingness since it exists, but is not reality.
On the other hand there is being. A man should be evaluated solely on what he is. This is not to say that a man is only as great as his accomplishments, but on the contrary a man is great because he is a true ‘being’ and refuses to fall into ‘nothingness’. So if a relationship was based solely on the ‘nothingness’, than it never really existed and thus was not being.
This too is the problem of love. No topic has been more greatly dissected than love. Though it is intangible and a phenomenon, we beg to transcend its opaqueness. We seek to grasp the intangible which in and of itself cannot be grasped. It is similar to man trying to understand the will of God, whereas love is his most beautiful gift and like the presence of the almighty, we feel it but cannot know what it is. Mans awareness of being isolated, causes us to search through nothingness for love. True to mans absolute lust for power we manufacture our own love into being. But this is not love; it is the illusion which I spoke of earlier. So when we conjure what really amounts to heavy lust, we call it love. Love cannot be sanctified alone; it takes the acceptance and the knowledge of both parties. For a man who loves anyone that does not love them in return, does not truly love. He instead embraces rejection and finds only solace in his own persistence. But again persistence to an endeavor where one cannot be perceived is a task in futility. Furthermore persistence can also be stubbornness; I become set in my ways and am stagnant when I insist you will love me.
My feelings have expanded beyond the space you have made for them. And while I claimed to understand your boundaries, I instead have trivialized their implications. I took the map you have laid out for us only as a suggestion as opposed to a requirement. You see it had become easier for me to accept always, getting nothing, and sacrificing self for a greater good. A greater good that can only live and flourish in my defeat. Continuing to place myself in a subordinate role allows me to take no blame for the results, as I was only going along with that greater good. I consider it a ‘Martyr’s Mentality’ which would be to assume the more I am forced to sacrifice the greater my reward will be. But sacrifice and reward operate independent of one another. They are not tied in a ‘yin and yang’ fashion, but instead know not that each other exists. Persistence doesn’t promise results and its only product is dedication. But dedication alone is not a positive, since dedication refers only to my position and not to my feelings and if I am to focus only on my position and not my feelings, then I am repressed. And since repression takes away accountability, I convince myself I am free and without regard. This school of thought is problematic since its will end in chaos. For the only constant in my life is myself. Not love, not family, not possessions, just me. I understand this is a lonesome concept, but a real one never the less. The chaos caused by loosing oneself is felt universally as each person has a reason for being whom they truly are, as opposed to whom they portray or are seen as.
I have placed a higher value on the wants of self as opposed to the basic necessities of humanity.
If a man is hunted down and tortured till his death, there is no earthly reward to make amends. He is dead. And the sacrifice is in vain, for his life, the one true thing which is each man’s own possession, has been removed and forsaken. Now it could be argued the reward is in the afterlife, but it does not change the hole made in this world. Since no man is an island where he may be free of the effects of life, we are all connected. And a single heart that is not loved is the same as every heart not being loved.
So if I am being true to myself, I must be true to everyman. Whether I know him or not is of only slight relevance. I must love myself as much as I love my neighbor. By willingly being repressed I am in turn repressing another. Even though I may never know this person (s), I have still effected their since of self-worth. By loving you in chains, I am placing my own shackles on his unknowing wrists. And that is a burden too great to bear.
