Guilt

1.06.07

Last night I went to sleep feeling terrible about the accident, yet also terrible about not feeling more terrible about it. I have accepted that I am responsible for what happened, yet what happened is only that. It is not a reflection on my innate characteristics, except that I am a thinker prone to distraction, or my inherent value as a human being. Yet, as I think about her injury which so far seems to be a possible "fractured hip" and the fact that she has engaged a lawyer, I am aware that she will have a long recovery period, pain and possible other consequences to her life (job impact, physical rehabilitation, traumatic memories) as a result of my imperfection and that I pay a price as well, through this legal system which seeks pecuniary retribution for mistakes. And which does not allow me to take cookies to her in the hospital for whatever verkakt reason.

I am prompted to look up Guilt in Wikipedia as I struggle with old, old messages from my childhood that have been triggered from this and other recent events. And I come across many defnintions as well as references to art, including:

"The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements ISBN 0-06-050591-5 was Eric Hoffer's first and most successful book, published in 1951. It discusses the psychological causes of fanaticism.

The premise of the book is as follows: Mass movements spread by promising a glorious future, and they need people to be willing to sacrifice all for that future, including themselves and others. To do that, they need to devalue both the past and the present. Therefore, mass movements appeal to the frustrated; people who are dissatisfied with their current state, but are capable of a strong belief in the future and to people who want to escape a flawed self by creating an imaginary self and joining a compact collective whole to escape themselves. Some categories of such people are the poor, the misfits, the creative thwarted in their endeavors, the inordinately selfish, the ambitious facing unlimited opportunities, minorities, the bored, and sinners. The book also explores the behavior of mass movements once they become established (or leave the "active phase")."

Parents use guilt and shame in raising children to teach them conformity and help them socialize effectively. Some less than completely actualized parents also blame their children for their own inadequacies. And here is where I see the confluence of society, using guilt and shame, to shape a malleable populace for its purposes and parents sculpting their children for similar reasons. A consumer economy needs people to feel inadequate so they will buy products. A religiously driven culture needs its people to feel guilt or fear in order for the powers that be to remain so. A Communist society needs brainwashed cogs in wheels to serve teh greater good of unity. And a nuclear family needs to channel its children's energies in ways that serve the parents' desire for order and predictability, for continuity and perpetuation of its lineage and sadly, often, to preseve a mother or father's fragile ego state.

When someone, or group of people, breaks the rules, does something they "shouldn't do" according to their society's constraints, they might feel righteous rebellion, guilt, shame or, in the case of psychopathology, nothing at all, depending on the severity of that action's consequences. When Rosa Parks broke the rule of her day, or the students in Tianamen Square, protested their muzzles, or a long upstanding member of teh Catholic Church comes out of the closet, or a Harvard bound teenager chooses to apprentice with a Yogi instead, they are becoming themselves. Very few of our rules, laws, mores, and regulations are about constraining a persons right to be themselves, at least in America where we have the freedoms of speech among others. Yet we live within so many culturaly imposed constraints and messages of guilt and shame. Thou shalt not rejoice in thy God given less than perfectly proportioned, size 2, body. Thou shalt spend countless hours and measures of psychic energy trying to reform it into an impossible ideal. Thou shalt buy into the consumer culture, endlessly replacing teh old with the new, never questioning true need. Thou shalt seek satisfaction in pleasure seeking activities based on virtual experiences rather than truly connecting with other human beings. Thou shalt want bigger and better and more and faster and prettier and edgier until you implode under a pile of credit card debt, cirhossis of the liver, diabetes, lung cancer or depression.

Rilke's poem, op cit, looks at the legacy children inherit from parent who doen't self actualize. I can relate to making my family a priority in face of desires to at times exercize my inner gypsy, in contrast to my parents who did take off on their own quests, leaving divorce's dust and dirt behind. I put my children and relationship first, partly because I know myself better and what I need. Their mistakes, alcoholism, infidelity, depression served as examples of what not to do (although I developed my own set of coping mechanisms). But I also honor their values by living simply, putting life experiences in front of things, passions before sloth, relationships before aquisition, duty before desire. Were they alive, I think they would be proud. (Indeed a radio psychic a couple of years ago voiced my father's approval.)

But I can also see how their guilt (my mother for her failed relatinoships, my father for his failed marriages, both for their unrealized career aspirations) got smeared on our forheads, plastering down our unruly hair and exuberances. My sister and I both manifested symptoms of depression and ways to cope with it (my bulemia, her drug use) long before it was so well known. My half sister has her own issues and divorced as well. My full sister has never married. When i think of my parents unrealized aspirations and dreams of love, parenting together, their artistic endeavours I wonder how they differ from my own.


I have achieved 18 years in a relationship (theirs lasted 6) with 2 kids, 8 & 10. I have been able to explore work that I love and community involvement that has been meaningful. Yet, I have not had many of the "successes" I dreamt of as a child and I wonder where the wet blanket of shame and guilt and fear has held me back over the years. My mother was afraid of botching another relationships after her 2 failed marriages and so never mated again, living a fairly lonely and bitter life, blaming my father and her kids for tying her down. My father, 2 failed marriages and 3 kids behind, chose the opposite route and mated many times, rejoiced in his children's presence and finally settled down to his last happy union with his 3rd wife. He never spoke ill of my mother, only admited his own guilt at not being able to make things work. So, 2 messages I received on how to deal with failure, guilt and shame; one was blame and escape through alcohol. The other was serial mating but eventual self inspection and risking love again.

Is it any wonder then, that at mid-life I would choose my father's wind blown cape over my mother sodden mantel? She took of at this age for Morocco with my sister, then 16. I don't know what she found there, but she returned back to NYC knowing it was time to leave there and headed North to her family's summer residence. I now have the desire to explore a different culture and way of being and but the pull for me is to the South. However, I am also aware that wherever I go, there I am, and perhaps what I desire is not so much a different culture or country but what it symbolizes. The idea of a pedestrian life again, in a colonial town which reminds me of Europe, where people shop at mercados, life is cheap enough one can afford the time to not work as much (at least in my priviledged situation, with funds of my own), where things go more slowly and people laugh more loudly, and touch each other, where the mountain air is clear and my ears can be bathed in a language I love and where the things I care about (a university, flamenco, music, an orchestra, good coffee, fresh fruits & vegetables, a gay community, restaurants, and clubs) are readily available without a car. Those are the things that I value. Question is, can I get them without leaving home?

And what about the kids and work for both me and my husband? Well, that's the reality check. They're happy as we are. But it's valuable to look at dreams and see waht it is that they are about, not necessarily the specifics. I feel that living this life, leaves so little time to live and yes, I can organize my life better, we can adjust schedules, refine goals and work towards having more of our values met. We can check and make sure that those values are not derived in defense of or in retribution for or as an escape from our parents unrealized dreams and the mandates of our cultures or even the demands of the kids' college funds. If we're lucky in this life we can look at guilt, when it tells us "should or shouldn't" and examine whose demons we're talking to. True freedom is not from guilt or shame, which in their fleeting application serve as guides and reminders of our imperfections. True freedom comes from lifting guilt and shame's historical and omnipresent oppression of our true dynamic selves. We can be right and merry, responsible and vibrant, and alive and conscious of our footprints along the way.