Monday, August 11, 2008
Guilt
The longer you live the more you become a student of human nature, things you took for granted in the past now form patterns not just for me but I've heard others say this. You're now a detective of the human psyche and of course there's a chance you are wrong but you don't think so. Take insomnia and here I'm talking about the chronic of the chronic cases, those people you come across like at work who never ever seem to get a decent or at least an adequate night's sleep. I'd have to say this is highly unusual, even the big-time insomniacs admit it's an off and on problem. Um, in my book this falls under the "you killed somebody buddy" category, maybe a hit-and-run, who knows? and brings to mind the Bard's classic "Macbeth doth murder sleep" speech. Discussed a person like this with somebody once and she goes "must have so much on his conscience." Or take the person you're ice-fishing with and it's an unusually severe winter, we're talking at least 3 feet of pure ice and just auguring the hole and your body will be sore for the next couple days so the two of you are walking out into the middle of the frozen lake and he goes "don't walk so close to me." Or maybe you're boating with someone else and just coming out of the harbor to catch some monster blues and he goes "don't go so far out" but that's where the blues be. So you start thinking ok so what did he do? It's almost as if they expect to see the Hand of God come up over the cliff ready to smite them, they know their Bad Karma is a couple weeks overdue and they're taking precautionary measures, I mean caution is a good thing and all but what's up with the overcaution? They're not ready to meet the Maker yet. Bishop Sheen was great at seeing through all this and held that unacknowledged or unconfessed guilt create unending neuroses, shadows in the mind. I'm all the listening ear but some people are just a tad off-center is all so the next time that chronic insomniac complains to me sleep sucked again last night and is it time to go home yet I might just pull out of my pocket a "ok, so what did you do?"
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Considering that nobody is without sin, everyone has something that could cause guilt, of course there are some offenses that are worse than others, and also this doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to be better.
ReplyDeleteYou're 110% right but my angle here is if I were a detective trying to solve some difficult cases my antennae would go up. Of course detectives don't think like normal folk, I have that mentality myself to a degree too which I consider a good thing. I've come across popular people that I don't get anything out of, I don't see what others see in them but more than this they have those quirks I mentioned and nobody seems to pick them up. Then again you get the Radovan Karadzics of the world who can commit the most atrocious acts of genocide and crimes against humanity and yet pose perfectly well as some alternative therapy healer and dupe people along the way. For them the guilt doesn't even show, they're in another realm altogether, what Nietzsche called the Superman, beyond Good and Evil. As for everyone else confession is good for the soul as they say.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you missed your calling?
ReplyDeletein my next life
ReplyDeleteSeems like a gift you have in this life, if nothing else makes for some interesting blogs!
ReplyDeleteNow the choicers will say women never suffer guilt over their past abortions or if they do it's a trip laid on them by the lifers and the lifers say this is all BS but anyway I recall something Dr. Bernard Nathanson said somewhere and to my mind he's the only one who's ever brought up the topic. He claims there is mob involvement in the abortion industry. I'm surprised no other lifer has even brought this up but if true then the feds can go after the abortion industry on this front alone. Makes sense though, if the mob is involved in everything else why not? But getting back to the subject of guilt one day a woman was ranting and raving against Bishop Fulton Sheen rejecting his moral view of things and he waited patiently and finally said "you had an abortion, didn't you?" Silence. Of course I'd never say this, it seems more than a tad rude and intrusive but it does bring out the theme here very well.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of the mob connection, but they do seem to like to profit obviously without a care for any morals behind it so I could believe it to be true.
ReplyDeleteI think Nathanson was kind of brave to bring it up in the first place, maybe the other lifers think it's just speculation and won't go there or else are afraid, dunno but his allegation interested me. I think maybe the glory days of the mob are mainly over what with all those high-profile massive prosecution roundups recently and going way back to Giuliani's days as a U.S. Attorney himself. So basically what you're left with are the guttural monosyllabic ones who speak with gravel in their voice ("Hey Arnie!" or "my man in Chicago") thugging their way in, low-level goombahs who will eventually be rounded up themselves in time. Whatever, I wish Bernie would elaborate a little.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it started out as a mob thing but since the feminists have taken over the industry the mob has divested itself from it. Who knows, it is sick that people have them, no matter who is fronting it.
ReplyDeletesin is what separates us from God. when we are rolling around in it instead of dealing with it, it affects many areas of our life, sleep would definitely be one of them.
ReplyDeletekw
I'm running on fumes as it is, thanks to a tyrnannical two year old.
ReplyDeleteLa Cosa Nostra is kaput. The Red Mafia is scarier.
As for sleep and the chance for guilt to settle in. When I do toss and turn, it isn't guilt that seeps up, it is what can I do better. I am nearing my mid-life crisis and what I thought was going to be a speed bump, may be the Alps
kris: "Sin is what separates us from God, when we are rolling around in it..."
ReplyDeleteand that's the point, when we are rolling around in it we're less likely to recognize it. It is only when somebody does something out of character that it is more likely to bother him.
I hear ya obob! mine might be the Himalayas. I find the 40s are a dreadful time, not quite an oldster rapping about his hip problems at McDonald's but no longer a spring chicken either. When Hemingway went everyone said he lived a full life, when I go I fear it'll be he did a few fun and good things but in between were those periods of boredom which the French call ennui, some spells of loserhood, a nostalgic depression for not so much something you missed as for something you never had (whatever that is, doesn't always have a name but it exists), at any rate slicing baloney ain't the meaning of Life...oy vey I'm getting depressed!
You seem to take time to smell the roses and there is nothing wrong with simply enjoying nature and the gifts God has given us. But I think its common also to wonder what our purpose in life is, I am still waiting to figure mine out, too!
ReplyDeleteLike in that show 2 1/2 Men the biggest problem the Charlie Sheen character faces is where to take a nap after getting laid by 5 women. The show might have a snappy script, you might laugh but it's not relateable, he ain't Everyman (unless you're Hef and even that's in doubt, alot of smoke and mirrors going on here). Well let's say I never shot a lion on a safari, I never invented the Jarvik Artificial Heart, I never tapped an Indian princess, what am I and WHAT ARE WE?!? Our blogs are like pebbles in a brook that the daily joggers on the cyberhighway pass by every day, there's a sign for the Huffington Post a 1/4 mile ahead and to your left is the DailyKos but they're missing out on the little treats in their haste, the refreshing draught from the well of the obob blog.
ReplyDeleteWHO ARE WE?????
(with tongue firmly planted in cheek)
You could always do something out of the ordinary, like take a trip into town some Saturday for dinner, lol.
ReplyDeletesounds like a quiche kind of deal.
ReplyDeletespeak for yourself, who says it's not relateable?
ReplyDeletei related this elsewhere but one time it was my b'day and i opened up the card from mom & dad and didn't even read the syrupy hallmark saying but noticed a nice crisp 50 dollar bill, they probably thought i was going to college some day. i was trying to live a clean life at the time and even went to church for 2 weeks but i started shaking and got a tingle in my stomach and so me and my friend brian went out to wendy's, got some pornos at the local gas station and bought some majorska and went over his place 'cause his folks went to aruba. to this day i feel guilty over it like masturbating on christmas eve.
ReplyDeleteWhy most people would make poor detectives, they get sucked in by the cult of personality. The person could be guilty as sin but "he's so charming at dinner parties!" Probably why so many people get sucked in by scam-artists. Objective Reality not, thought for the day.
ReplyDeleteSame reason people are voting for Obama, isn't it?
ReplyDeletesadly
ReplyDeleteYou know every time Drew Peterson appears on The Today Show which is now every few weeks or so and his lawyer's sitting next to him fielding probing questions from Matt Lauer, you know what this is all about? he wants to get paid bro ("listen you're gonna do this interview whether you like it or not").
ReplyDeleteIf the name is not familiar it might be one of those googleable topics,
ReplyDelete