Know Yourself 9-18-2010 (Part 2)

 [Continued from Know Yourself 9-18-2010 (Part 1).]

Thinking you cannot slide into wrongdoing or cannot fall into depression is prideful. That is a sin. (Unlike C.S. Lewis, I think all religions and philosophies have seen the danger of pride.) If you think you are beyond sin, then I say you are more sinful than I have been all my life. If this shock you, or seems untenable, consider this definition from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity:

...Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people ae proud of being rich or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest....

Having devastated my life, I have no reason for pride, but therein lies another trap for pride: I could easily fall into a pride about my desolation. 

Unlike St. Augustine, I write not from hindsight but in a flux. What I make of myself out of this self-examination is without a conclusion.

The psychiatrist said to me, I have a great talent for rationalization. I find this comment similar to my former wife saying I ran away from emotional challenges. I had a great talent for giving up rather than healing emotional troubles and taking the blame for my failures. I suspect if T2 or TJ or CC were to read this that they would agree I withdraw when the emotions get too raw.

My only defense lies in stating that my upbringing made stoicism and fatalism easy. I read Marcus Aurelius only to find out so had my Aunt Mary Ellen and had found his ideas comfortable. Even before I read Nietzsche, I knew his "Whatever does not kill you, makes you stronger." I could be a friend, I could be loyal, I could a lover, but I was not good at exposing my emotions. I would have liked to. Instead, I let one failure beget all my further failures, until I wanted to destroy myself and pay off my life of failure. Cutting my ties to humanity seemed like a good idea. The dead feel no emotions; thy do not know their inadequacies when comes the emotional crunch time.

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[Continued in Know Yourself 9-18-2010 (Part 3).]