I’ve done a very bad thing. The worst thing is, it’s one of those bad things that is very hard to describe and sounds silly and trivial when I describe it, but it is really bad. Even though I think/hope that my victim may not have noticed, or may not have realised how bad/silly my motives were (should I tell her? She has a right to know the truth, to be apologised to, to have me attempt to make it up to her. On the other hand, ignorance is bliss and telling her might just give her a huge pile of stress and not actually help her. )
I wanted someone to like me. I wanted someone to approve of me. I wanted someone to say I’m cool, I’m right, I’m interesting, I’m good, I’m decent, I’m on the side of the angels. I wanted someone to trust me and to say to other people “You can trust sanabituranima. She’s ok.”
None of that would have been bad if I’d wanted it for the right reasons. But I wanted it because this person liking me would be a gate for me. Because if this person called me a friend, then I would win trust from others. So I was using this person. As a gate. As a thing.
I could write five hundred pages of mealy-mouthed reasons why it wasn’tr really my fault that I used this person as a gate to being liked instead of looking for real reciprocity, but the fact is it is not ok. It was my own decision to use this person as a thing. No ifs, no buts, no greys, no excuses. That quote again (everyone must be SO sick of it by now!)
“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
So I fawned over this person in the way a 12-year-old fawns over a teacher they have a crush on.
But that wasn’t the wrost thing.
The worst thing was that I used this person, not just as a gate, but as a “proof” of my own “goodness”. (A better way to prove one’s own goodness is to not use people.) Specifically, that if this person liked me, it would be “proof” that I wasn’t racist. (Using a person of colour as a symbol, an object to “prove” stuff and make me feel good about myself is a super-racist thing to do as well as a general not-very-nice thing to do.)
And you know what? You know who else I screwed over? Me. Not that I’m the important person here – the victim is always the important person when someone has been cruel. But this person is an awesome person and I just missed out on that because I was so busy seeing her as a gate and as a little gold sticker on my “Nice White Person Who isn’t Racist” sticker chart. So I used someone and I didn’t even get anything out of it. Not that it would have been justified if I had got something out of it, but sins which aren’t even enjoyable are the silliest sins ever.
So, yeah. I’m sorry, and sorry means I won’t do that again.
Look closely at your motives. I intend to, from now on.
Kyrie eleison.
So true that “sins which are not enjoyable are the silliest sins ever”.
And I like the comment about “white which has got grubby”. Reminds me of Ayn Rand and “The Cult of Moral Greyness”.
I think she did already know that she was being used, and may have a grasp of the reasons for it.
Even when we do look closely at our motives, there are things that we miss.
I used to have a special line in replying wittily to someone in a group, knowing that what I said would horribly hurt the person concerned but that no-one else would notice anything. So I felt cool, cos I’d crushed someone effortlessly, while everyone else thought I was both witty and pious. And I did it deliberately, not on the spur of the moment. That took some practice to kill!
I’ve found though that those kind of sins are easier to confess, cos you know they’re actually bad and somehow they’re not “in” you, though caused by stuff in you. Much worse is trying to get one’s consciousness round the fact that God loves us ANYWAY. The thing about being holy seems to be living with God’s approval of oneself, not one’s own approval. That is my theory, now all I have to do is work out how to realise it …!
“…sounds silly and trivial when I describe it…”
You described it very well. It doesn’t sound silly or trivial. It’s an important distinction to recognize this in your behavior. The only reason (I can think of) that some may trivialize it is because it’s so common. “People do this all the time, therefore it can’t really be all that bad. We all do it, so it’s not really wrong.” Those sorts of justifications trivialize something that isn’t trivial at all.
The important thing is: “So, yeah. I’m sorry, and sorry means I won’t do that again.”
“She has a right to know the truth … ignorance is bliss…”
She may or may not be ignorant of the infraction, but unless you tell her she’ll be ignorant of the repentance. An apology is a good idea, but even here you should consider your motives. Sometimes I feel like apologizing for the wrong reasons. I try to wait until I can apologize without expecting something in return.
That’s very good advice, Stephanie. Thanks.