Sadness, Repentance… Useless

The other day, I was in a rather grim spot, emotionally, and I found myself going over my various failures and transgressions — my, for lack of a better word, sins.

As I say, it wasn’t particularly pleasant. It was, indeed, one of my little side trips into the persistent depressive disorder (PDD) that I mentioned a while back. But, I thought it might be useful to examine those incidents in which I had hurt others, and then, perhaps, learn from that history, so that I wouldn’t do such things again. Go ye forth and sin no more, and all that.

Honestly, my confessions weren’t too exciting. My sins are real enough, but rather colorless. I have not killed anyone. I haven’t bullied or tormented anybody. I have remained faithful to my wife. I don’t think I was abusive to my son. At least I don’t remember hitting him or screaming at him or a regular basis. Though, God knows I was tempted.

Even so, I do feel that there are things I’ve done that I should be ashamed of. And I did feel shame. I found myself thinking, almost compulsively, about the things I’d done wrong — things which, on a rational level, were rather petty. Yet, for me, they seemed overwhelming. And I must confess that I began to wonder about my own value to anyone.

And then, I had a curious insight.

To wit, self-reproach—at least when it reaches a certain, melodramatic level—is strangely akin to self-love. Or self-pity. You are, in a funny way, evading responsibility. You find yourself saying something like “how could you…God, or Circumstance, or Fate, or Society, or Mom and Dad, or Whoever…have allowed me to be so flawed that I did such awful things?” Or, to put it another way, how could heaven and earth allow me to suffer with the knowledge of my sin?

And thus, the focus of the story ceases to be on the victim… of whoever you have harmed…but yourself. And there is something horribly narcissistic in that.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Regret, shame, repentance…these things are good, when they have some positive result, that is, if they drive you …drive me…to atone, or not to hurt others again in the same way…

But if they do not, I fear they have no benign effect. I fear, in fact, that they actually compound the problem. After all, if you have already decided that “Oh Lord, I am not worthy,” there is nothing to be done…no reason to work and sweat and sacrifice to seek redemption.

And thus how comfortable…how serene!…it is to remain exactly where you are… armored with your guilt, defended by your shame.