Shame on You (But It's Ok)

I have a confession to make. I am a jerk. As I related in my last blog, I was robbed about a week ago. Things have improved since then. Our landlords moved us to a different apartment and my work gave me an advance on my paycheck so I could buy food. Before things were settled though I behaved pretty badly. I went through the days in a state of self-pity. Several days I almost started crying when I was hanging out with people because I felt so shitty about myself.


I've always believed (or thought I believed) that life would work itself out: that "you can't always get you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need" that "we should look at the crows; life is more than food or clothes," etc. It's not that I don't work hard. I do. I've just always believed that life provides. But here I was faced with a financial hiccup and I was acting like someone had sentenced me to a life's imprisonment with Kathy Griffin. I've been criticized for this because sometimes people view this attitude as carelessness or unpreparedness and maybe sometimes it does manifest itself this way, but I've stood by it, because I believe it is the only way to face a life that will surely contain much greater struggles and challenges than being robbed of a month's paycheck. But looking at myself last week, I'm a little bit ashamed. If I can't even keep this attitude in the face of such a small problem, what will happen later in life? Will I become like Britney Spears or something? I told myself today that whoever stole that money probably needed it more than I do.





If you haven't read the "The Fall," it's a very short (approx. 100 pages) monologue by a guy in Amsterdam * (hell) relating the story of his "fall" (Adam and Eve-style.) He used to be a man who lived life to help other people. He was a defense laywer and made the summit of his ambition a moral one: rather than monetary or career-oriented. Then after a series of events that challenge his opinions of himself, he slowy spirals into this realization that everyone is constantly judging everybody and now he tells people his story to get them to judge themselves. It is a great book. There are some really interesting bits about religion, especially towards the end. But the quote that resonated most with me was this: " we have lost track of the light, the mornings, the holy innocence of those who forgive themselves."



This quote touches on something Camus followed through with in detail in the novel, which is that most people walk through life punishing themselves for what they have or haven't done. Camus ended by alluding that humanity was just a giant tribunal, that we're constantly up for judgement by a voyeuristic society, but I think he was really insinuating that the greatest and harshest judge is within ourselves and this internal judge rationalizes misfortune as our condign punishment and to respond to this punishment with bitterness towards people because nobody else can offer relief or sanction.



The people who cause the most damage to other people are those that secretly or not so secretly have a desire to hurt themselves. This happens in big ways and small ways. Who hasn't started a fight with a friend or sig. other because they wanted to feel bad about themselves? Who hasn't pushed someone away because they wanted the selfish pleasure of misery? Kundera talks about it in a more limited scope and labels it "litost-" an untranslatable Czech word, using the examples of a child purposely hitting the wrong notes in front of a harsh piano teacher or a man hitting his female lover who is a better swimmer than him because he "feared for her safety." They are self-punishment masquerading as the punishment of others. It's a terrible feeling and its one that is easy to adopt as habit.



I guess what I'm trying to say with this is that my overreaction to the robbery was really just a way for me punish myself for things I should have forgotten about a long time ago. Didn't somebody once say that self-pity is the greatest of evils? Either way, I'm embarassed for my behavior and I promise to "trust the bears" in the future.



In other news, I've been walking around lately playing "Brass in Pocket" over and over again on my ipod. I keep accidentally making eyes at strangers.


*Amsterdam actually is hell. I'll skip the details, but my trip there two years ago ended in my assurance that a nice Korean man in a Hawaiin shirt sharing my hostel room had a black briefcase full of torture tools he planned to use on me in my sleep.