I've done some things I regret. I'd expect that a lot of people also have a secret list of things they wish that they had never done. It's just how people work. One time I kicked a guy in the mouth and knocked a tooth out. But he had stepped on my hand first, so I guess I don't really feel that bad about it. Feeling guilty about things essentially lets us say, "Hey I feel bad about this thing that I did and didn't feel so bad about before but since I feel bad about it now and you can see that, I must be some kind of okay person." Guilt is supposed to reassure us that we won't make the same mistakes tomorrow that we did yesterday, even though we know it'll happen anyway. That's okay, I guess.
It's kind of silly if you think about it. Most of the time we express guilt publicly as if we're telling people to give us a break because we already feel bad about whatever. It's a ploy we've developed to extract pity from others in order to manipulate them into feeling bad so that we can feel fine. Everyone does this. It's like a fad that never went away so it's probably not really a fad at all. That's okay too, I guess.
In elementary school we had a drug education program called D.A.R.E. which told us all about the horrors of recreational drug use and the splendor of sexual education. It also hinted at the sunshine world that is venereal diseases. My parents decided that it was the role of the parents--not the teachers--to tell children about drugs and sex so they pulled me out of D.A.R.E. programs entirely. I usually sat in the hall during the programs and drew pictures of things. Then I threw them away when I went back to class. In 5th grade they sponsored a multi-day camping trip called Live Oak. Everybody was super excited to go because of all the cool activities that we'd been told about. Also it was really exciting that we, a class of 10 year old kids, would be away from our parents for several days while hanging out and having fun with all our friends. Everybody left.
Except me.
Also, Matt. Matt was the new kid at school. He was extremely different from everyone else and for that he was excommunicated from the playground games. He was basically like Rudolph, but if Rudolph had spiked hair, piercings, and listened to metal. I guess he wasn't really like Rudolph at all. He was about as punk as you could be at 10 years old. Since he had transferred to the school a few days before he was unable to get his permission papers signed to go to Live Oak in time. So there we were. The only 5th graders in the school. The teachers struggled to find things for us to do, sitting us in a study room and making us study Texas history for hours and hours without talking. We had to color like 70 fucking flags. Then we would eat lunch with the 4th graders and hang out with them, playing Pokemon in our free time. I named my Pokemon things like "poop" and "weiner," which was pretty classy humor for elementary school. The week dragged on until Matt and I, despite our differences in appearance, interests, humor, and everything actually became friends. You can be friends with anybody in elementary school because those are the years where nobody is stupid enough to hate anyone else.
I thought.
Live Oak ended and everybody came back, full of boring stories and stupid jokes. My friends filled me in on all the major events that'd transpired in my absence, like "who had a crush on who" and "who screwed up the trust fall." Things I generally did not care much about. What it came down to, finally, was that I could not keep my old friends and continue my new friendship with Matt. I would have to choose which friends I wanted because Matt was apparently too weird and different to be accepted. They took sides as I stood in the middle and looked between my friends and Matt. After a tense minute I stepped slowly towards my friends. "I'm sorry." I whispered to him. He looked at me. "But I thought we were friends." I looked around the playground. Everyone else was having fun playing on the swings and on the playscapes. Why am I not playing over there, I thought. Why the fuck am I stuck in the middle of this stupid drama shit? I would've thought that but I didn't know words like that at the time. "Are we friends?" He asked. I looked at the ground for a few seconds before looking back at my friends who all had their arms crossed. "I... no." I answered. I looked up at him but he was already walking away. I watched him walk up the stairs and disappear back into the school. Then we played Star Wars on the playground.
I never saw Matt again, but I never stopped thinking about that. It was disappointing to think about how I'd failed so astronomically that I couldn't even admit that he was my friend to the others. How I wasn't strong enough to stand up for him. How I never told him he was my friend. How I never said sorry. But I mean I was like 10 years old, so there's that.
Feeling guilty really doesn't make you feel any better about anything. It just reminds you of how weak you really are inside. Guilty people have some kind of critical flaw in their character that they either try to compensate for or wish away their entire lives. Once you find out what your flaw is it gets worse, though. It's like finding a bruise. It doesn't hurt until you see it. The fear of failing again eats at you until you can't go anything anymore. You do you trust if you can't trust yourself?
But it's okay, I guess. We're all still doing stuff so it's probably not that big of a deal.
It's kind of silly if you think about it. Most of the time we express guilt publicly as if we're telling people to give us a break because we already feel bad about whatever. It's a ploy we've developed to extract pity from others in order to manipulate them into feeling bad so that we can feel fine. Everyone does this. It's like a fad that never went away so it's probably not really a fad at all. That's okay too, I guess.
In elementary school we had a drug education program called D.A.R.E. which told us all about the horrors of recreational drug use and the splendor of sexual education. It also hinted at the sunshine world that is venereal diseases. My parents decided that it was the role of the parents--not the teachers--to tell children about drugs and sex so they pulled me out of D.A.R.E. programs entirely. I usually sat in the hall during the programs and drew pictures of things. Then I threw them away when I went back to class. In 5th grade they sponsored a multi-day camping trip called Live Oak. Everybody was super excited to go because of all the cool activities that we'd been told about. Also it was really exciting that we, a class of 10 year old kids, would be away from our parents for several days while hanging out and having fun with all our friends. Everybody left.
Except me.
Also, Matt. Matt was the new kid at school. He was extremely different from everyone else and for that he was excommunicated from the playground games. He was basically like Rudolph, but if Rudolph had spiked hair, piercings, and listened to metal. I guess he wasn't really like Rudolph at all. He was about as punk as you could be at 10 years old. Since he had transferred to the school a few days before he was unable to get his permission papers signed to go to Live Oak in time. So there we were. The only 5th graders in the school. The teachers struggled to find things for us to do, sitting us in a study room and making us study Texas history for hours and hours without talking. We had to color like 70 fucking flags. Then we would eat lunch with the 4th graders and hang out with them, playing Pokemon in our free time. I named my Pokemon things like "poop" and "weiner," which was pretty classy humor for elementary school. The week dragged on until Matt and I, despite our differences in appearance, interests, humor, and everything actually became friends. You can be friends with anybody in elementary school because those are the years where nobody is stupid enough to hate anyone else.
I thought.
Live Oak ended and everybody came back, full of boring stories and stupid jokes. My friends filled me in on all the major events that'd transpired in my absence, like "who had a crush on who" and "who screwed up the trust fall." Things I generally did not care much about. What it came down to, finally, was that I could not keep my old friends and continue my new friendship with Matt. I would have to choose which friends I wanted because Matt was apparently too weird and different to be accepted. They took sides as I stood in the middle and looked between my friends and Matt. After a tense minute I stepped slowly towards my friends. "I'm sorry." I whispered to him. He looked at me. "But I thought we were friends." I looked around the playground. Everyone else was having fun playing on the swings and on the playscapes. Why am I not playing over there, I thought. Why the fuck am I stuck in the middle of this stupid drama shit? I would've thought that but I didn't know words like that at the time. "Are we friends?" He asked. I looked at the ground for a few seconds before looking back at my friends who all had their arms crossed. "I... no." I answered. I looked up at him but he was already walking away. I watched him walk up the stairs and disappear back into the school. Then we played Star Wars on the playground.
I never saw Matt again, but I never stopped thinking about that. It was disappointing to think about how I'd failed so astronomically that I couldn't even admit that he was my friend to the others. How I wasn't strong enough to stand up for him. How I never told him he was my friend. How I never said sorry. But I mean I was like 10 years old, so there's that.
Feeling guilty really doesn't make you feel any better about anything. It just reminds you of how weak you really are inside. Guilty people have some kind of critical flaw in their character that they either try to compensate for or wish away their entire lives. Once you find out what your flaw is it gets worse, though. It's like finding a bruise. It doesn't hurt until you see it. The fear of failing again eats at you until you can't go anything anymore. You do you trust if you can't trust yourself?
But it's okay, I guess. We're all still doing stuff so it's probably not that big of a deal.
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