Shitter Ontology

I would like to provide you with a little insight into my inner dialogue.  I was taking a crap at the local massage... place? ...institute? ("Massage parlor" makes it seem like I entered and exited with dark sunglasses and a hat covering all hints at my identity.)  On the wall in front of me was a picture of a cat in Japan.  I thought to myself, what's it like being a cat in Japan?  My inner asshole responded with:

"What the hell do you mean?  A cat is a cat!  It shits, fucks and eats."

"What I mean is, the basics have to be different, right?  It's in Japan.  There has to be unique feline cultural differences."

"It just means it shits, fucks, and eats in Japan."

"But the resources must be different.  What if it gets injured?  Would it be treated differently than here for better or worse?"

"If a cat gets injured, it shits, fucks, and eats with a limp."

What I believe my underlying existentialist dick wad was telling me is the level of consciousness I assume a cat has is inadequate for a personal narrative.  Its identity is biological: an entity that fills this space and requires these resources (food, sex, territory, affection, etc.).  The cat is not burdened by hope or aspiration or expectation.  A broken leg doesn't represent lost days at work, inability to ski or surf, or an opportunity to learn guitar.  To a cat, broken leg means "I feel pain as I do these chores of daily living."  The pain, and more importantly the dysfunction, is now.  It is not a representation.  It exists.

I want to be a cat.  Don't get me wrong, I adore my consciousness, as well as my sub- and unconsciousness.  They provide a great deal of entertainment and distraction.  The near random meanings they apply to the non-existent directions my life can motivate me.  My consciousness, and more importantly my self-consciousness, allows me to expand.  It makes me ten to the tenth.  

The problem is that in the end, we're all going to die.  And sometime in the middle we are all going to suffer.  That suffering is bad enough in itself.  It doesn't need to expand.  I don't want the burden of the implications of my suffering to push the actual pain beyond its borders.  I just want to shit, fuck, and eat with a limp.

Forgiveness

I apologize for my absence.  I've been vacating, both literally (vacation) and figuratively (coughing and spitting and aching and snotting and hiding and complaining).  But I'm back for what it's worth.

My wife and I were talking about forgiveness yesterday.  I, of course, charmed her with the knowledge I derived from Matt Damon movies.  In discussing the impetus for pardoning those responsible for South African apartheid, Mr. Freeman informed Mr. Damon (and thus me) that forgiveness is the ultimate weapon (it may have been Nelson Mandela who said this but I'm not splitting hairs).  My initial thought on this statement was that it is a bunch of bullshit.  If one is wronged in a life altering way (i.e. as a victim of racial segregation and the violent consequences that follow) the proper response is a beat down of the perpetrators, both literally (i.e...well...a beat down) and figuratively (i.e. policies and procedures that ensure a loss of personal freedom and integrity. As an aside the word "justice" is a derivation of revenge not equality.).  

This is of course not a sound ethical response.  It does however, feel good.  Why does it feel good?  Because it helps relieve the tension created by the impenetrable anger that betrayal creates.  If I am wronged in someway, the effect it has on my life is magnified: the drop of objective alteration ripples into a riptide of subjective anger and resentment.  My life becomes plagued by a need for vengeance.  The problem is, the relief of a beat down doesn't last.  It's like drinking away your sorrows: you will sober up.  The anger will return.

Morgan was telling us that the true power is to let it go.  To forgive.  Forgiveness isn't necessarily hugs and kisses and servitude.  The forgiver tells the forgivees that they don't have control.  What they say or do has no effect.  When I forgive you, it says that I am independent of you; your actions have no meaning in my life.  For human beings whose lives and self-worth a wrapped up in meaning, forgiveness can be an attack.  Forgiveness can be a beat down.