Everything You Know Is Wrong pt4

Then I made an amazing discovery. Well, perhaps I already knew this but it came upon me with such clarity considering my line of reasoning and frame of mind at the time, that it seemed like something new. The discovery was this; not only was I an alien to this world, I was, in a sense, an alien to my own body. I realised that as much as this world didn't live up to my expectations, and made me feel peculiarly out of place, I myself was also alien to, and couldn't live up to, my own expectations.

I had this set of standards that seemed fundamentally bound within me, which for some reason I could not live up to. I wondered why so many more people did not realise the strangeness of this juxtaposition. Certainly it is no big deal that other people could not live up to my expectations, simply because people are varied in their thinking and have vastly different ideas about what is the best way to live. This is inevitable. But what was staggering was my inconsistency with meeting my own ideal. This is on another level beyond the simplicity of me not fitting in to the world; I did not fit myself. I was an alien to my own body. The things that I desired to do to satisfy my sense of rightness, or that which I knew I ought to do, I found I could not always do. Also the things that I desired to avoid, (knowing full well that they were damaging to me), I found I was actually doing. Why was it that even my own body rebelled against me. This I found to be a most unsatisfactory and distressing situation which surely other people must experience even if they cannot arcticulate it. In fact, I suspected that there was nobody who could live up to their own standards all of the time, hence this universal concept of some sort of Utopia which never comes to pass, despite many peoples extraordinary efforts to achieve it.

Now some people might say that my sense of "ought" was bound in my desire to live up to my parents expectation, or to in some way satisfy the behaviour that was taught me as a child. They might say that my disappointment, and inability to meet this ideal is borne out of unrealistic parental expectation. However it runs deeper than that. Certainly there is some expectation that is laid upon us from our parents, but the truth is that my parents never pressured me with difficult or hard to obtain ideals. Theirs was simply to be myself and live the way I thought was good and right. But I already had this feeling deep within me anyway. It is not something that I learnt through my environment or upbringing, or even something embedded in my genes. I believe it is something that was born in me the moment that I began to exist, and perhaps in every person the moment they begin to exist. We nurture this sense, or we crush it depending on our choices in life, and I felt that I wanted to nurture and fulfil it. That also seemed to me to be right, and a good thing to do.

So I was certain that I had this integral sensitivity for rightness, and believed that all men and women also have it to varying degrees. Even Athiests have morals, so it was not peculiar to religious people alone. What we decide to do, and how we deal with it seems to be an individual choice. I suppose the outcome can possibly be one of guilt because we cannot satisfy our own standards, and guilt is not a thing that can be tolerated within us without it damaging us. So I felt that there were two choices. Firstly I could justify my failings by redefining my standards and hence eliminate the guilt from affecting me. But I suspected it would manifest in other ways if I did this, and it seemed unnatural to beat back my conscience merely by force. Secondly I could somehow find a way to deal with not only this sense of guilt but the very real truth of guilt. You see there are things that you can feel guilty about even though you haven't done any wrong. This is not the sense in which I mean guilt. I am referring to actions or lack of actions that by their very nature imply the certainty of guilt. Unquestionable, irreversible guilt, not mere feelings. To deal with this guiltiness I could begin to meet my standards (as impossible as that seemed) but even if I succeeded in this endeavour, that would not undo the wrong that I had perpetrated in the past. I felt that this might be something I just had to live with unless there was some miracle that could remove or undo all my failings, which I thought was impossible.

At any rate it seemed to me to be a universal ailment of man to conceive of, and lay down ideals, which inevitably he can never completely live up to. These ideals I believe are common to us all in the same basic core of who we are. Being compelled to meet our own inner standard, combined with our lack of power with respect to autonomous, moral self-control, leads us to an inescapable, irrepressible paradox of unfulfilment.