Friday, May 13, 2005

On guilt

As I looked over my blog to see how regularly I’ve posted as of late, I made a disturbing discovery. I haven’t had an original thought in more than a month. Sure, I’ve posted regularly, but for the past thirtysomething days, it’s been link upon link. I dress them up with witty titles and lines, but it’s nothing that required any great creative investment on my part.

This led to a pang of guilt. I was going to label it “self-imposed guilt,” but then I started thinking.

****WARNING: Philosophical babbling ahead****

Isn’t all guilt self-imposed? What is guilt but the soul’s alert system warning us we’ve done something incompatible with our internal code of ethics?

So is there such a distinction as deserved and undeserved guilt? No – at least not according to the definition we’ve just established. It becomes a matter of examining the internal ethical code that resulted in the “guilt alarm.”

Of course, that leads into dark territory. If you you’re given to punishing yourself with guilt excessively, should you re-examine your morals every time you feel guilty? And will that erode your morals?

It’s about this time that my head explodes.

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