I'm feeling much better today.
I've been upset with my administration because they've been pushing me too hard. I think they still think they can pressure their way to better results. And I've resented the shit out of it. It's clearly not working and has been seriously counterproductive both in dealing with me, without a doubt, since I just can't be emotionally up to being as productive as long as I am feeling like shit, and I think when dealing with the kids, as well.
A lot of folks who are responsible for others feel like they need to pressure others as long as they are going to be providing for them in some way: paying them a check, providing them an education, raising them to be grown-ups, etc. And especially when people have no alternative, they will often take that. But I'm way past taking it, whether I have an alternative or not. And I'm quite confident that I have other alternatives. I have lots more to learn. But I learn best when I have plenty of room to learn and to make mistakes and make better judgments and I have a much harder time, as do most people, when people are riding me or pressuring me.
And amidst all of this craziness, amidst the general mood for force and against more forgiveness, openess, communication, discussion and debate and space to resolve issues, and as I reflected today with a friend about situations I've had with other friends at different points in my life, something occurred to me.
There is this paradox that we all face that is at the heart of some of the ambivalence we are feeling about a more forgiving and openhearted, openminded spirt, right now.
The paradox goes like this:
We all screw up. Sometimes we screw up big. I've done it. I hope to stop doing it now with some reflection and responsibility on the matter. When we do, we violate peoples' trust. Either in big ways or in small ways. And we are responsible for the screwups. People do not have to forgive us. And, sadly, too often, they do not. But we definitely need to forgive ourselves and take responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Many of us do not. Many very powerful and wealthy people do not. It's far too common, really. But it's a sad fact of life. But it's only in the screwup and in the forgiveness that we learn a lot of lessons in life, including this one.
The paradox is that though noone owes us forgiveness and we do not owe others forgiveness, necessarily, we cannot function as individuals, as communities, as societies, and as a species without it. We function terribly without it, actually. All kinds of violence and hatred and oppression and terrorism and genocide and all the worst forms of oppression find their source in our failures to forgive some past wrong or legacy.
We need the forgiveness, big and small, to do the learning, big and small. Without the forgiveness, there is no learning. And without the learning, we are stuck with the same old poorer ways of doing business.
Both facts of this paradox are important truthes about the world.
Noone owes us forgiveness. And we can't function without it.
So something's gotta give.
At the very least, we need to learn to forgive ourselves. And we can always control the fact that we can forgive others, even if those jackasses won't return the favor or do the same for someone else.
But if we're going to function better as friends, family, lovers, and neighbors, we're going to have to learn how to forgive more readily. There is just no way around this one.
We shouldn't go around assuming that people owe us forgiveness as an excuse for taking advantage of their generosity. But we need to give each other that kind of generosity if we are going to be able to do the learning that is the foundation for our forward movement.
So our trust in one another is built on a necessary paradox. We must be able to trust one another to not take advantage of our decency and kindness. But we need that decency and kindness and forgiveness to make our lives bearable, functional, and with any capacity for thriving in this otherwise cold world (although to be fair to the world, it offer plenty of hot spots and mild weather, as well). Without forgiveness, we can't learn from our mistakes. And without that learning, we can't move forward. As individuals and as nations.
And my experience on this one has been that the larger the stakes - meaning both the importance of the screw up and the harsher the consequences we threaten to impose - the harder it is to cough up the apology or to face the shortcoming. And the harsher we treat one another, the worse we make that predicament, no matter how much we may pretend otherwise or sometime get a lucky strike and call it genius for the forces of repression.
Repression drives the shortcoming from our own good sense and judgment, nevertheless from the view of others. It and the threats and harsh treatment that enforce it make it harder for us to acknowledge our follies and serious and not-so-serious errors to ourselves, not just to others. Which makes it all the more difficult for us to take responsibility and to cut the bullshit out.
There has never been a time when our more threatening or mean-spirited efforts have made those same mistakes go away. Ever. We just pretended more, kept things to ourselves more, kept one another in the dark more, and otherwise kept our secrets closer to our chests.
The only way to end that cycle is to do what wise men like Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha and Mohatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu and others have implored and encouraged us to do which is to take forgiveness and letting go of the pain seriously as a personal and societal commitment. As Jesus argued, it is the only way to see better our own faults rather than forever being obsessed with the faults of others. And as Desmond Tutu has argued, it is the only way to work through the most serious sins, like genocide and crimes against humanity, nevertheless the ordinary sins in our ordinary lives.
That part I knew before today. What I wasn't as clear about that I am more clear about today is that it is actually important that people know and be clear about the fact that we are not owed forgiveness. Not because we don't need it, when we've done wrong and when others have wronged us, because we surely do. But that forgiveness is not an entitlement. To be given genuinely, it must be given freely. And to be given freely, it cannot come out of any sort of pressure to be better than we are ready to be when we finally get around to doing the right thing.
A clarifying moment. I'm getting used to them these days. Makes life so much easier to understand and navigate when I can get peek at a little more wisdom than I was planning for.
Love,
Ben
