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theatrical_muse from 12/31/2005, 36 of 50.
I'm not usually the kind of person to wax eloquent on the values of forgiveness and kindness. Mark your calendars, this may be a red-letter day.
Who do you need to forgive?
Who do I *need* to forgive? That's easy enough. In fact I've talked about this once already. It's incredibly poisonous and damaging to the psyche, not to mention just plain annoying, to have to share eternity with people you hate. So I *need* to forgive the various people on the other side of the civil war, those who were so dedicated to the proposition that nothing in the Continuum should ever change that they were willing to murder my friends to achieve it. And I *need* to forgive my ex for walking out on me and my son (not so much the walking out part as the vicious things she said about the boy at the time.)
Of course, *can* I forgive these things? Maybe in another few million years.
I have, however, managed to forgive a former close friend, the guy who got me thrown out of the Continuum. Mostly.
Talk about a moving act of kindness you experienced or witnessed.
Although I have seen many, many beings commit acts of kindness throughout my existence, I am generally unmoved by them. Usually acts of kindness are a good way to advertise that you are a doormat, and I have no respect for doormats. Or they're performed with some ulterior motive in mind. Or, they involve concepts like forgiving your enemies when you are not omnipotent and immortal and therefore said enemies can still kill you if you aren't paying attention. I don't respect stupidity, either.
The first act of kindness that actually moved me, and the one that still impresses me most, happened during the aforementioned time period of being thrown out of the Continuum, when I was mortal and helpless. Entities called the Calamarain were trying to kill me, the people I'd taken sanctuary with hated me (not quite enough to throw me out the airlock and let the Calamarain kill me, but they made sure I knew they were contemplating it), my greatest mortal nemesis stabbed me with a fork and then gloated over me after the first time the Calamarain almost killed me, and I was feeling incredibly isolated and miserable. I had dug in my heels with a me-against-the-universe attitude, mustering up all kinds of anger and bad feelings about pretty much everyone so I wouldn't have to face how lonely I was. I mean, when everyone in the universe is out to get you, or at least standing against you, rage and paranoia and a profound dislike for everyone in the universe is a fairly normal reaction. At least I think so.
Then the Calamarain tried to kill me again, and an android named Data, who had been my sole guide and source of assistance in surviving my awful new life, came to my rescue, and held onto me (despite being electrocuted) in order to save my life.
Ironically, Data's act in saving me at risk to his own life led me to decide to kill myself. As long as I was full of so much anger at everyone, I couldn't see outside my own head at all, I couldn't bring myself to face the truth -- which was that it was pretty obvious these people couldn't protect me and still save themselves and several million random mortals on a planet whose moon was crashing out of orbit -- and I couldn't accept how much I needed not to be alone. Data's sacrifice in saving my life broke me out of my self-absorption. The fact that someone else would, and did, risk their lives to save me broke down my defenses, and I realized that it was completely unfair for someone who wasn't as miserable as I was to die for me, that I didn't want to live if I couldn't belong anywhere, that the fact that everyone else hated me actually hurt (yes, that seems like it should be obvious, but I was used to being hated by mortals. It was kind of par for the course for me, actually. I wasn't used to being emotionally vulnerable to it.) And that these people who really couldn't stand me were actually making a sacrifice themselves, on the basis of their principles, to keep me alive, and it was going to get them all destroyed. Sooner or later the Calamarain would destroy them to get to me, and then millions of innocent people would be killed. Or, they'd have to betray their principles and toss me to the Calamarain, and it would cause a whole lot less suffering all around if I just took the decision out of their hands and handed myself over.
My people decided that getting my head out of my own ass and thinking about other people for once qualified as enough of a change in my usual behavior that they could take me back. So, indirectly, Data's act of kindness in saving my life enabled me to be reinstated to the Continuum. Nothing else I've seen (as far as acts of kindness, anyway) has made quite as much of an impression on me since.
theatrical_muse from 12/31/2005, 36 of 50.I'm not usually the kind of person to wax eloquent on the values of forgiveness and kindness. Mark your calendars, this may be a red-letter day.
Who do you need to forgive?
Who do I *need* to forgive? That's easy enough. In fact I've talked about this once already. It's incredibly poisonous and damaging to the psyche, not to mention just plain annoying, to have to share eternity with people you hate. So I *need* to forgive the various people on the other side of the civil war, those who were so dedicated to the proposition that nothing in the Continuum should ever change that they were willing to murder my friends to achieve it. And I *need* to forgive my ex for walking out on me and my son (not so much the walking out part as the vicious things she said about the boy at the time.)
Of course, *can* I forgive these things? Maybe in another few million years.
I have, however, managed to forgive a former close friend, the guy who got me thrown out of the Continuum. Mostly.
Talk about a moving act of kindness you experienced or witnessed.
Although I have seen many, many beings commit acts of kindness throughout my existence, I am generally unmoved by them. Usually acts of kindness are a good way to advertise that you are a doormat, and I have no respect for doormats. Or they're performed with some ulterior motive in mind. Or, they involve concepts like forgiving your enemies when you are not omnipotent and immortal and therefore said enemies can still kill you if you aren't paying attention. I don't respect stupidity, either.
The first act of kindness that actually moved me, and the one that still impresses me most, happened during the aforementioned time period of being thrown out of the Continuum, when I was mortal and helpless. Entities called the Calamarain were trying to kill me, the people I'd taken sanctuary with hated me (not quite enough to throw me out the airlock and let the Calamarain kill me, but they made sure I knew they were contemplating it), my greatest mortal nemesis stabbed me with a fork and then gloated over me after the first time the Calamarain almost killed me, and I was feeling incredibly isolated and miserable. I had dug in my heels with a me-against-the-universe attitude, mustering up all kinds of anger and bad feelings about pretty much everyone so I wouldn't have to face how lonely I was. I mean, when everyone in the universe is out to get you, or at least standing against you, rage and paranoia and a profound dislike for everyone in the universe is a fairly normal reaction. At least I think so.
Then the Calamarain tried to kill me again, and an android named Data, who had been my sole guide and source of assistance in surviving my awful new life, came to my rescue, and held onto me (despite being electrocuted) in order to save my life.
Ironically, Data's act in saving me at risk to his own life led me to decide to kill myself. As long as I was full of so much anger at everyone, I couldn't see outside my own head at all, I couldn't bring myself to face the truth -- which was that it was pretty obvious these people couldn't protect me and still save themselves and several million random mortals on a planet whose moon was crashing out of orbit -- and I couldn't accept how much I needed not to be alone. Data's sacrifice in saving my life broke me out of my self-absorption. The fact that someone else would, and did, risk their lives to save me broke down my defenses, and I realized that it was completely unfair for someone who wasn't as miserable as I was to die for me, that I didn't want to live if I couldn't belong anywhere, that the fact that everyone else hated me actually hurt (yes, that seems like it should be obvious, but I was used to being hated by mortals. It was kind of par for the course for me, actually. I wasn't used to being emotionally vulnerable to it.) And that these people who really couldn't stand me were actually making a sacrifice themselves, on the basis of their principles, to keep me alive, and it was going to get them all destroyed. Sooner or later the Calamarain would destroy them to get to me, and then millions of innocent people would be killed. Or, they'd have to betray their principles and toss me to the Calamarain, and it would cause a whole lot less suffering all around if I just took the decision out of their hands and handed myself over.
My people decided that getting my head out of my own ass and thinking about other people for once qualified as enough of a change in my usual behavior that they could take me back. So, indirectly, Data's act of kindness in saving my life enabled me to be reinstated to the Continuum. Nothing else I've seen (as far as acts of kindness, anyway) has made quite as much of an impression on me since.