--- In [email protected], "Xenophaneros Anartaxius"
<anartaxius@...> wrote:
>
> --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <authfriend@> wrote:
> > --- In [email protected], "Xenophaneros Anartaxius"
> > <anartaxius@> wrote:
> > (snip)
> >> Well then, why don't we just forgive Robin for his past
> >
> > Why don't we hope that Robin can forgive *himself* for
> > his past?
>
> I do not think that is necessary. The past is past. We ARE ourselves, it is
> redundant to think of ourselves as something we can converse with as if we
> were something else; the more one meditates, the less something else exists
> anyway. To me forgiveness is the final relaxing of that clenched heart that
> one has when one supposes one has been wronged in some way. You become free
> of the entanglement of the fallout from that event. Whatever might be up with
> Robin, those whom he harmed would give him more space to heal, if that is
> necessary, if they forgave him, that is they let go of that clenched heart.
> Letting go is much harder than it seems because it is not a willful act, it
> is a spontaneous letting go, and so one never knows when it will happen, if
> ever.
I find your description of forgiveness really lovely. Simple and clear.
>
> Personal self-directed recrimination is of no real value, more important is
> that whatever happened, that it never happen again. If one has some dark
> thread weaving though one's life, softening that and hopefully having it
> disappear is what spirituality is for, otherwise that dark thread has to be
> restrained with forces external to it, like being put in prison or being
> isolated from society in some way. But it is always best if one takes that
> transformation as a personal project; it always seems as if there is some
> threshold of perception that one must pass over before the transformation
> becomes feasible.
>
> >> and then shoot him.
> >
> > And then, since we don't have any evidence to the contrary,
> > treat him like a normal human being, mental-health-wise?
> >
> > You are right about no evidence. These
> >> are surmises on my part. Whether he has what would be
> >> termed a psychiatric illness or not, if we take an average
> >> human being in the centre of the Bell curve, no matter what
> >> Robin is, I do not think he would be near the center of
> >> that graph.
> >
> > I'm not sure "average human being" really means anything.
> > But I agreed with you several posts back that Robin wasn't
> > "average" in many specific respects. Why that would suggest
> > to you some kind of personality disorder, in the absence
> > of any evidence of same, is peculiar, to say the least.
>
> What evidence do we have that anyone is normal or does not have a personality
> disorder, how does one gauge this? If a typical example cannot be created
> ('average human being'), or even if it can and is meaningless, then any
> metric that describes or shows a person's deviation from that also has no
> meaning, no utility. I think we all have some largely unconscious benchmark
> in our minds by which we measure the behaviour of others in relation to what
> we already think we know. It is largely unconscious because we are not aware
> of how we do it, much like riding a bicycle - how do we know we are staying
> in balance? - the process is silent and hidden.
>
> By your benchmark, if I were an average human being, then average human
> beings would be pure malicious vengefulness. Our benchmarks about others are
> floating benchmarks because they are influenced by what we like and dislike,
> they are generally not free of those feelings and perceptions, or our current
> situation; on a day we are feeling good our benchmarks may be more tolerant
> than when we are feeling rotten. None of these senses we have about others is
> based on factual evidence, it is based on our interpretation of our
> interactions, and if there is some kind of factual evidence, such as an
> e-mail, a document, a letter, a video, even then we fall back on our
> interpretation of that evidence. When we use our mind for interpretation, we
> are always dealing with second-hand knowledge or second-hand hypotheses that
> depend on our pool of previous experience; and that pool might be relatively
> clear water, or a sewer, or a mix thereof.
>
> If you feel free to say I am pure malicious vengefulness, why should I not
> have the same freedom to say Robin, you, or anyone, is a psycho? I just think
> there is something very peculiar about Robin compared to what I am used to in
> human interaction, and am trying to find a way to describe it in terms of
> what I know, or think I know. Psychology, and particularly psychiatry, is
> hardly a mature science. As laymen, we sometimes use these benchmarks
> developed in these disciplines, probably rather inexactly, to attempt to
> figure out our fellow human beings.
>
