Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Bereft Man's Lament

Once again, I am left alone with my conscience. A man and his conscience are a strange grouping indeed.

I have made a decision and I don't know if it is the best one, but it certainly was one that my gut instinct told me was good at the time.

Right now it doesn't feel so good. Right now I'm remembering stuff and of course painting it rosy as one does in this situation. I am asking myself to remember the good times in order to help me to torture myself.

As I wrote yesterday, it is all relative. Somewhere down the line, this will turn into a good lesson and the impact of it depends on how long I let it sit in without acting a whole lot. I could sit and mope or I could get on with whatever it is that I do to pass the time. This is nothing unusual.

I mean, it's not like I'm giving up a bad habit or something. It's not like I quit smoking or drinking alcohol. It's not like I quit drugs or even gave up something like coffee or drinking cola.

It's fair to say that what I gave up weighs billions of times more important on any scale. There is nothing "wrong" with it, There is nothing stopping me from doing it and there is nothing illegal about it. It's actually very very enjoyable and if say, the perfect solution to an equation were a perfect 10, this helped my paltry 3 become an 8 or 9. It was that damn good.

So why would I stop doing something I enjoy? Well the answer is simple in one way but difficult in another. My conscience would not let it continue. My gut instinct and feelings would not follow it through no matter how I tried to reason the situation. Something deep down and inexplicable told me to stop participating. My mind was all for it, my heart was in it to some degree, but my personage would not let me participate. My being, my lessons, my experience - whatever, would not let it continue. There is certainly more depth I could go into, but what I want to say at this point is, even if something appears to be going well, it may not always be beneficial to focus on only the good things that come of it. I would say a person is in a certain denial if they ignore every aspect of what they are involved in, be it an addiction, a relationship or involved in some kind of ideology or other. One must always be open minded and aware of everything outside of what one is involved in. One must participate whole-heartedly with 100% awareness in everything one chooses to do. I figure this is generally the best way to do anything.

And so it goes that I had resolved to be this way from some point in the past that I do not recall well enough to be accurate. But I made a solemn vow not too long ago that should my heart or mind be involved in any affair, that my awareness and reasoning would always be right alongside too. We have a gift that we should be grateful for too in this life. It transcends the judgements of your mind and heart. It's the gut feeling and the awareness that you are experiencing more than just simple feelings and thoughts alone. The thing that helps you to "know" when something's not quite right. You are in fact always in control of it. In the driver seat, if you will. And you can always change what is going on, even if you cannot change yourself. It's always possible to change the moment you are in when you are weary of it.

So once again, another day, a man deals with his conscience. His mind and the workings of his body in order to become a better mechanic or maintenance worker for that one vessel he will always control. I mean, If you can't drive the Ford Fiesta, why on earth would you be better able to drive the Ferrari? Why would you ever advise but never take that advice yourself? Why would you only half-fix something only for it to explode in your face somewhere down the line?

If I listened too much to advice from others, I would be a mere shell of myself. If I listened only to myself only, I would be an idealistic, selfish twat. If I didn't consider the feelings of others I would be a sociopath. But if I did too much I would be a slave. Somewhere there is a balance that only I will recognise and it fits like a glove.

The on-going conclusion is this. Though I may weigh heavy with a conscience right now, I am doing the best for myself and all around me in the long run. And it won't last forever. I have felt bad before and I will again. But it is temporary. That can be very easy to forget. You have to actively make yourself feel bad it would seem.

~fin~

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