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When the Time Comes Will We Be Able to Forgive?
When the Time Comes Will We Be Able to Forgive?
By
Cognitive Dissonance
How do we live with that soul numbing pain we all know so well, but desperately wish to forget? You know what I’m talking about, the kind of inner pain that cuts a wide swath through our soul and then leaves us vacant and drained. It’s so much easier to be the hard ass, first with ourselves and then with all the others. You can’t be hurt by what you don’t let in, so let’s just raise our shields and hate those bastards because…...because they deserve it, that’s why. Of course, there’s always a special place in my personal hell for a few select psychopaths who deserve my best, most exceptional rage.
The thing is, though, when we finally lay splayed upon the floor exhausted from our hating labors, we still remain unsated and thoroughly dissatisfied. It is only then that we comprehend that we are all that we have left to abhor. Trust me on this one; those are the really ugly hate hangovers, the ones that spring from our own self loathing and disgust, along with our unabashed anger at the cruel world and those who we can single out for special hatred. Come on, we can admit it. We are all so very angry, furious even, at what the sociopaths have dealt us this time around. None the less, here we are. Or soon enough will be. So what are we going to do?
I suspect some of us are sitting smug as a bug thinking that we really aren’t all that angry, just plenty pissed off and loaded for bear. And that might well be the case, at least for now anyway. But just wait until the really shocking stuff is exposed, because the ass hat parade hasn’t even begun to march down Main Street. And between you and me, those stupid little clown cars, the irritating enablers and sycophants, are really going to irritate me to no end when they start to whine. Then what will we do?
I’ll tell you what we do; either we forgive them or we will be consumed by them. Either we dismiss them from our mind with an open and honest heart or we will be owned by them lock, stock and barrel. The choice is up to us and no one else, because at this point we are just renting space in our heads to those little bastards and it is slowly eating us alive. Sure, maybe for now the rented space is just closet sized and free of charge. But when the fecal matter hits several hundred million spinning minds there is going to be giant sized outrage and then the rent rapidly rises from free to mental and emotional slavery.
Forgiving someone or something certainly doesn’t mean forgetting what has been done. Nor does forgiving mean we should let ‘them’ off without punishment or sentence. And I definitely didn’t say a thing about turning the cheek. Nope, I said nothing of the sort. Forgiving is all about giving us permission to let go of all the hate, anger and bile that has been building for years, decades even. Forgiving is about evicting the demons that have occupied our mind for so long that we no longer know where we end and they begin. Forgiving them is all about forgiving ourselves.
Speaking from personal experience and only about me, when it came time for me to forgive I no longer knew how. I didn’t have it in me precisely when I most urgently needed to know how to forgive others so that I could forgive myself. I hadn’t realized that hating for as long as I did effectively sterilized from me my naturally occurring compassion and empathy. So when the time came to turn those healing tools upon others I found to my dismay that I could not heal myself.
Now I have come to understand that if I do not use the tools I have available, they become rusted, blunt and stale. Wait even longer and they are completely forgotten, assuring that I will soon become what I hate. So now I work daily to keep my forgiving sharp and at the ready. And the funny thing is that because of my continuous forgiving labors I now see that the time to forgive might never come because it is here already.
09-06-2011
Cognitive Dissonance
Forgiving Blue
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Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.
Alice Duer Miller
We are talking about two different things here DJ. Anger simply for anger's sake or to feed the need and desire to remain in an angry state, thus unrequited anger, is entirely different than confronting your own anger or those around you.
I am not denying anger. My piece focuses on the damage anger and hate does to us internally when it is not dissipated with forgiveness. Forgiving someone does not deny justice. It does, however, deny self destruction.
you know I respect you and your thoughts a great deal and I understand your point about self destruction. I suppose, like many, I have been colored by my profession. Every day in the criminal courts I see parents face men who have done unspeakable things to their children. Forgiveness is not a term that I would use to describe the strength they lean on to move forward. We are all in that position now
You can bear much when you harden your heart and push on through. What comes afterward? My title was clear. "When the time comes......" The "time" will be different for everyone. So this is an intensely personal question.
What will do you, will you be able to forgive when the (your) time comes? We can kick that can down the road but we cannot ignore it forever.
When the time comes for forgiveness - I think the fit is going to be so busy hitting the shan that it will be a moot point. Afterwards, people may just be too mentally shocked to consider anything but survival. Yep--I will forgive-call it automatic forgiveness for the sake of efficiency if for no other reason.
CD,
Harden your heart.
Bad advice. That is what got us here.
And serve up this worlds retribution as cold as ice.
there are people here who say that my vote with Bullets.. is being to, too hard on the beaver..
from the looks of things, I may have to get in line or take a number and get in line.
I think or hope that we can have a huge block party when the time comes and enjoy each other company, Bar-B-Que and laugh.. all the while hanging those treasonous fucks who gutted our tax base and manufacturing base.
I reall am hoping that it is a happy time.. 299,999,990 people verse the 10,000 or so banksters, lobbyists and those they employ.
But I am a known romantic and hopeful person.. hopeful in people, in my people.. in "We the People".
God Bless us ALL! (except them)
Those who got the ball rolling are already dead. You will only be hanging those who jumped on the bandwagon -- whether wittingly or unwittingly, and more often than not under duress from parents, peers, employers or role models.
Well, the thing with me is...I can in fact forgive the ignorant. I will never forgive the complicit.
We have reached that point.
We now have example after example of what sovereign debt is and what the accumulation of it will do to a society. Of what credit really is. And of what real money is.
We have reached the point in time where the guilty can longer pronounce that everything is another shade of grey. Things are now very much black & white, observable to all.
To say otherwise now makes them an accessory.
http://www.banktech.com/risk-management/231600907?cid=nl_bnk_daily
Ex-Citigroup VP Admits Embezzling Over $22 Million A former vice president for Citigroup pleaded guilty Tuesday to embezzling more than $22 million from the company and funneling the money to his personal bank account.
Added to the list ;-)
Therein lies the crux of the entire piece. In order to move on and create a better more just world (something I assume ZH is trying to achieve), for better or worse forgiveness is a necessary component. Justice (karma?) will be served, no need destroying ourselves sewing the seeds of hate, anger and violence and perpetuating the foul cycle.The perpetrators are for the most part trapped in their own vicious cycle which is also self destructive, as we are witnessing.
Often we have to observe, acknowledge, act against our emotions, as difficult as it can be. It is only this quality that really separates humans from animals.
I can never settle that question in my own mind, if we are separate from animals. We preach that a lot but sometimes we act much worse. I have never discussed these issues with dolphins or apes but sometimes I wish I had their input.
We do get their input. We just don't listen.
ah
+ a green
I too think that God / the universe / karma will dispense justice in the end. Perhaps a rough justice that is unfair and not equalto the evil deed(s), but justice all the same. I have seen that most assholes get more-or-less what they deserve, and that most decent people come through OK.
Liberarting ourselves from hatreds and old grudges that are corrosive will in the end be better for each one who does.
There are a variety of self-help books that document people making their lives better through self-effort. I am on more than one of those paths.
You won't need to liberate yourself from something you never took on board.
Hatreds and grudges are entirely non-productive ... generally directed at the wrong party ... and more often than not are entirely soul-destroying: A waste of time and energy that are more productively used in working toward a better future.
People only do to you what you let them do.
Forgiveness will only follow individual demonstrations of their sincerest contrition, and receipt of their most genuine apologies. And I don't mean their regret for killing the host, I mean that which can only follow an epiphanous event of some kind.
I have no expectation that any such repentance is in their nature, or within their ability, regardless of how things play out, so I waste no time pondering forgiveness, let alone planning for it.
I do not speak of 'forgiveness' Gene. I speak of 'forgiving' and to 'forgive'. All the difference in the world between your 'forgiveness' and the other two words.
What's the difference? Forgiveness is "the action or process of forgiving or being forgiven." Maybe I'm dense on this, maybe you're being esoteric. In either case vengeance will be the word if and when their bill ever comes due. Whatever emotions happen beyond that can be dealt with then.
In the manner that many are using the term forgiveness, they are saying it requires repentance etc. They are talking about the perpetrator asking for forgiveness or to be forgiven. When a person decides to forgive someone there is no requirement that the other person repent. They can decide this is what they want from the other. But the person can also decide to forgive without repentance from the other.
This is why I stayed away from the term. Because it can be used several different ways and that means it can and will be twisted.
And while it is all well and good to say that "whatever emotions happen beyond that can be dealt with then" the entire point of the essay is that very often they are not dealt with then for various reasons. People who wish to enact vengeance rarely stop when they should and often self destruct because of it.
Anger and hatred are like taking a poison pill, and hoping that other guy will drop dead.
I understand that forgiving is something that I do for myself and not the forgiven. I'm OK with that. The State, on the other hand, must seek justice or it will continue to be just another band of thieves. If justice is ever to be served we must retain enough righteous anger to get the job done.
No, no and just no, forgivness is not an option, forgetness on the other hand is to be attained when all your enemies turned ash
Yes --I will forgive myself for busting knee caps-- each and every time I do it
Ask for forgiveness, and then I'll think about it and probably say "fuck off".
Go to the clown confessional box and ask for forgiveness.
twat
Fuck you CD just fuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuu!
Ok I feel better now
Love Ya!
There is much that can be forgiven but somethings cannot be forgiven.
You are forgiven CD.
Hang'em high.
Forgive and forget can immediately follow the lynching.
Can't be, after all these years. Oldphart can you lift your safety deposit box?
Had one, when it got to thirty pounds I closed it and moved everything out. Don't have a box no more. Wish I had bought gold, but silver is more in my price range.
After the hanging should come the drawing and quartering, followed by the placing of heads on spikes along Wall Street.
Or better yet would be to encase the shocked heads in clear resin and embed them in the sidewalk along the financial district like the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Wow, and I thought I was twisted :-D
Forgiveness does not require justice to be forsaken. Forgiveness without Charity is charity, and justice is Justice without Charity.
Render unto Caesar what Caesar's. Do not confuse those in the circus eating bread with those in the ?????????. Doing so leads to Socialism.
Forgiveness does not require justice to be forsaken. Forgiveness without Charity is charity, and justice is Justice without Charity.
Render unto Caesar what Caesar's. Do not confuse those in the circus eating bread with those in the Academy. Doing so leads to Socialism.
+
"I love the smell of banksters burning in the morning...When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' bankster body...Smelled like victory. Someday this war's gonna end... "
Me too. Hang the bankers. Let people who took out junk loans pay back every penny to hard working taxpayers. Let bullion holders rule the world.
Fairs fair.
Never forgive, never forget.
as Shopenhaur said (something like): "Why forgive an enemy who's very existence is diametrically opposed to your own?"
Hang them by their balls. All Forgiven then.
I'm with you , Oldphart