…fool me twice… and i will punch you in the face.
i digress.
as a child, growing up i wrestled with the idea of forgiveness.
i saw plainly in my home the notion of both loving forgiveness and permanently etched memories of ill-will.
on one hand, it’s clear that a transgression had been committed, and equally clear that it was let be. sometimes it would take days. maybe even weeks (an eternity for a child!) or even longer before such a level of acceptance was achieved. but in the end, it was the result of introspection, growth, and simply time’s ability to repair our brains, breaking the associations of pain and hurt from the neurons in question.
but on the other hand…
there were some things, people, events, experiences – some that remained. they were etched a permanent taint upon the self. you could see this in someone’s reputation, when their lifestyle choices or character was revealed or spread. rumors could potentially be gravely damaging in this context, for example. perhaps even the worst kind of near-truths that were perpetuated causing unbreakable stalemates of social dogma.
most of these things were shakeable. one need only focus and direct their attention to do so.
and in the cases where i was involved as one party or another – it’s easy to look back and think “oh, we were just kids” or “we were in high school, we were so young then”
and so it is with life, that we make mistakes at young ages, and learn from them. grow from them. and they bind us and bond us in groups of life, experienced.
but the thing i’ve been contemplating for the past couple of weeks is what to do about such feelings as they happen today.
we aren’t so young anymore.
and so i have learned to be more careful, myself, to do my best never to offend when i know i might. unless i have thought it through and am absolutely sure that it will be something i am ok with. and that’s a hard thing to know. where i might be the transgressor, the fork is typically – either this person will be ok with this statement or mode of behavior… or they will not, and then i don’t care about them anyway. it’s a reasonably simple conditional with potentially deep ramifications. but if i’m able to think it through and decide that this is the case – especially where i might be particularly offensive – then it results in many wins for me.
on the other hand – i’m faced with people who do not give as much thought to their words or actions, and so i’ve had to think about how to deal with these situations.
words are simple. they are weightless, effortless. i know more than most the dark power of words that can be inflicted with such simple utterance. i don’t often tell people that i can look back upon my life, just a few years ago, and remember seven words i uttered so callously, and yet they have had a profound impact on my life since. i will never know what happened if they were never uttered. but because i know how easy it is to say words that can be damaging, they are fluid. nebulous. it’s ok.
but actions are strong. actions are backed by intent. it’s again easy to impulsively act, but the activation energy required is much much greater.
and then there are actions which when considered at scale seem almost like a conspiracy. that there might be a design to the sequence of actions that are put forth.
again, we aren’t so young anymore.
