[busy signaL]
[Tuesday, March 21, 2006]
what is the last straw?
a few days ago, i was at tapa king, waiting for friend x, with whom i was hitching a ride home. friend y, who was also supposed to ride with us, hadn't yet arrived when x pulled up. when x inquired about the whereabouts of y, i was suddenly seized with a mad desire to tell x that y had changed his plans and wouldn't be joining us.
i don't know why that rogue thought crossed my mind. i had nothing to gain from this stunt; indeed, i wouldn't even be there to witness y's reaction to our sudden disappearance. my callousness may even have resulted in the irrepairable severing of ties between y and myself, a strategic liability, to say the least.
on that note, what constitutes the degree of forgivability of an action? how does one know when one has crossed the proverbial line? in my experience, forgiving is different from forgetting, and only few are capable of applying both to injury on a regular basis.
forgiveness defines how one is to relate with the offender in future encounters - does one retain the same degree of familiarity, or even a degree of civility? does his|her speech and manner now warrant deeper reading? this is an inherent incapability of the masculine, evident in the clichéd stiffness with which old rivals greet each other.
forgetness [if such a word exists], on the other hand, rules over how much one regrets the current state of things - whether one loses sleep over it, or instead dreams about some alternate timeline where one's friends remained so. this is more of a problem for those with a greater degree of femininity, as it less associated with the superego than the id.
it is in how much hubris and ennui an other charges within the self that decides when the last straw has been broken. this, i feel, is by definition a relative matter, as the same scenario may evoke a different mix of emotions depending on when, where, why, and with whom it occurred.
sige ingat.ü
posted by stani at 1:14 PM
a few days ago, i was at tapa king, waiting for friend x, with whom i was hitching a ride home. friend y, who was also supposed to ride with us, hadn't yet arrived when x pulled up. when x inquired about the whereabouts of y, i was suddenly seized with a mad desire to tell x that y had changed his plans and wouldn't be joining us.
i don't know why that rogue thought crossed my mind. i had nothing to gain from this stunt; indeed, i wouldn't even be there to witness y's reaction to our sudden disappearance. my callousness may even have resulted in the irrepairable severing of ties between y and myself, a strategic liability, to say the least.
on that note, what constitutes the degree of forgivability of an action? how does one know when one has crossed the proverbial line? in my experience, forgiving is different from forgetting, and only few are capable of applying both to injury on a regular basis.
forgiveness defines how one is to relate with the offender in future encounters - does one retain the same degree of familiarity, or even a degree of civility? does his|her speech and manner now warrant deeper reading? this is an inherent incapability of the masculine, evident in the clichéd stiffness with which old rivals greet each other.
forgetness [if such a word exists], on the other hand, rules over how much one regrets the current state of things - whether one loses sleep over it, or instead dreams about some alternate timeline where one's friends remained so. this is more of a problem for those with a greater degree of femininity, as it less associated with the superego than the id.
it is in how much hubris and ennui an other charges within the self that decides when the last straw has been broken. this, i feel, is by definition a relative matter, as the same scenario may evoke a different mix of emotions depending on when, where, why, and with whom it occurred.
sige ingat.ü
posted by stani at 1:14 PM