On Remorse
Of all the emotions I have encountered over the last year, remorse is the sharpest, and most tragic. All my other feelings hold out the the promise of consumation. If I have a crush, I can cling to the knowledge that I will almost certainly find actual romantic love in the forseeable future. If I am angry, I can know that some anger is justified, and perhaps even ought to be satiated.
But remorse differs, because it longs for the impossible. If I am remorseful, I do not want a second chance. I desire instead to have not botched the first! But who can turn back time? If you make a wrong turn, you can turn around and go back to the right one, but time is a one-way street. Once a turn is chosen, you are commited to see it through to the end, however painful.
What can I do? To even ask for forgiveness feels to me decietful. It seems like I am, in effect, saying "I know I really did do something horrible, but lets all pretend I didn't anyway." The fact is, the fact still exists, whatever we think about it.
So, what to do then? The normal solution is to move the blame, to claim extenuating circumstances, a misunderstanding, or perhaps the willfull action of someone else. I have a friend whose chief complaint is that she gets the blame for everyone else's problems. But oddly enough, I have never heard her admit fault for one of her own problems. This path seems as dishonest as the last, if not more so.
And watch what happens as soon as I do this! All of a sudden, I have lost control of myself. I have become a robot, programmed from the begining to respond exactly this way to that stimuli. You cannot blame a robot for the evil it commits. But you also cannot credit it for the good.
If I cannot take blame, credit cannot be allowed to me either. If my bad deeds are excused because of a stomachache, my good deeds must be written off to good digestion. But on the other hand, to the exact length I am willing to accept blame without excuse, I imagine I am also allowed to accept glory for my good without being egotistical.
So the most popular ointment for remorse is thrown away, not due to its harmfullness or dishonesty, but simply because in trying to restore my sense of worth, it removes any foundation of worthiness. If you pass the cookie, you mustn't be annoyed if you go hungry.
And oddly enough, I find even in my religion no consolation for my remorse. God does not promise to let us undo our past, but rather he takes our past upon Himself. This doesn't truly cancel our debt, but merely transposes it from punishment to gratitude. The useless wish that I had not done this or said that still remains. The damage is done. I can glue the vase together again, but I cannot unbreak it!
Still, if my religion has no consolation, it at leasts offers one in the future. We are told that God will wipe away all tears. And this makes sense, for if remorse has no consummation, perhaps it is because remorse was not part of the original program, but was written in to inspire repentance after the fall. I suppose that when the rescue is complete, the rescue tools will be disposed of.
I must look forward then, to a future with no remorse.