![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
No One Has The Right To Remove Another's Validity As A Joke; It's Too Dangerous For Both Of Them.*
-:- -:- -:-
The only sense I can make of forgiveness is that it's linked to the person you're forgiving. For instance, I forgive my mother the things she does that drive me crazy by telling myself she's more important to me than any of the things she does; I let go of the things and hold onto her. I do the same with my friends, up to a point. The point comes when those things are actually hurting me and overwhelm the good stuff.
I "forgive" (and I use the quotes because I don't know if this is really forgiveness) people who have done (and would do again) awful things to me. I do this by trying to let go of both the thing and the person. Like confession, there's no point forgiving if you have no intention of changing your behavior, and not putting myself in harm's way again (and ending up with more pain and things I'd need to let go of).
It doesn't feel like forgiveness to me, not the way we're taught to think of it, a soft, giving thing, a blessing. It doesn't feel like I'm soothing my soul. It feels like apathy. But being apathetic toward people you can't have in your life seems healthier than hating them, and certainly healthier than loving them, so I don't know what the answer is.
And I don't forget. Forgetting leads to letting it happen again.
*East Village Other
-:- -:- -:-
The only sense I can make of forgiveness is that it's linked to the person you're forgiving. For instance, I forgive my mother the things she does that drive me crazy by telling myself she's more important to me than any of the things she does; I let go of the things and hold onto her. I do the same with my friends, up to a point. The point comes when those things are actually hurting me and overwhelm the good stuff.
I "forgive" (and I use the quotes because I don't know if this is really forgiveness) people who have done (and would do again) awful things to me. I do this by trying to let go of both the thing and the person. Like confession, there's no point forgiving if you have no intention of changing your behavior, and not putting myself in harm's way again (and ending up with more pain and things I'd need to let go of).
It doesn't feel like forgiveness to me, not the way we're taught to think of it, a soft, giving thing, a blessing. It doesn't feel like I'm soothing my soul. It feels like apathy. But being apathetic toward people you can't have in your life seems healthier than hating them, and certainly healthier than loving them, so I don't know what the answer is.
And I don't forget. Forgetting leads to letting it happen again.
*East Village Other