Joe Rogan and Russell Brand talk about forgiveness. They make good general points:
Joe - “Are you really going to not forgive someone who made a mistake because they were scared?”
Russell - “One must have values like clemency”.
So we forgive. Even those who do not ask for it. Even those who ask for it disingenuously. Even those who are still making mistakes? Even those who offer no humanity or clemency to ourselves? So we are all forgiving balls of tolerance for all time?
What next? Do we still have to act like we did before? Do we still need to have regular dealings with the people we respected before but now not so much? Do we need to act like we are not still deep in the grips of a global crime syndicate? Should we take no actions to keep informed or wary of those who would abuse us because we would look thankless for the good things we do have?
It reminds me of a quote: “Be careful what you tolerate. You are teaching people how to treat you”
or another quote which went along the lines of - Tolerance without reciprocation starts to look identical to abuse.
My feeling is that if you put yourself in a situation where you have to forgive over and over again, that is an unhealthy relationship and you should change something.
There are still a huge number of people in the cult, or awakening from the cult. The more patient among us can bite their tongue when cultists say things like “Oh we just now learned that masks didn’t work”. Or “Maybe people got a bit carried away, but there was still a pandemic, and people on the whole did their best”. Congratulations to those kind souls. Me, I loudly disagree. People did far less than their best. People are still unapologetic for wildly malevolent words and actions. I want to understand why, which is part of the reason I ruminate in public here, and why I read/talk so much about human behaviour, and do my best to empathise with the people who are dismissing me and treating me so poorly. What drives them to do that? What drives them to conduct harmful genetic experiments on their kids then show no interest in learning they were fooled, then show no intention to warn anyone else?
With understanding comes forgiveness. But what next? I still need to decide who I want close relationships with and how respectful I want them to be. I still get to decide what type of conversation I enjoy (hint: I avoid conversations with the underlying premise of delusions around what went down over the last few years). I still get to decide how much I want to euphemize what went down. (Not much). I still get to decide what level of human rights and citizenship I want (all of them, plus equal first class citizen, please and thankyou).
This is not what I expected. When I ran thought experiments prior to the scamdemic, I always predicted that in hard times, I would still aim for tolerance, peace, equanimity, zen (which I was famed for pre-covid). A glance at any article I’ve written should clue you in that this is not how I responded at all. The first time in my life I was faced with really serious abuse, I became ANGRY. I am proud to say that I maintained my civility, my sense of honour, and I expressed my anger in ways which feel appropriate. It just felt so wrong to be tolerant in the face of such utter evil. They are still murdering babies, and I am still angry.
Yes, I agree the only way to win internally is to be able to forgive baby murderers. But externally, the only language psychopaths understand is force. There can be no forgiving your way out of a narcissistic, abusive relationship, and you should only aim for forgiveness when you have set your structure, boundaries and systems for remaining in it, or more simply, moved away from that relationship entirely. If you feel, like I do, that you would only find peace after an attempt to understand something, then your only option is to ‘Whitepill’ yourself. That means forgiveness and celebrating the joys in life only after you have addressed, with honesty, the darkness.
My friends/family who turned on me during the covid times are not my enemy. They are victims in this whole charade. They likely have it harder than me, though they may not know it. They are easy to forgive, but only in the context that most have not asked for forgiveness or shown any understanding, and it’s hard to imagine any form of those things which would be satisfying to anyone now, 3 years on. While they seek happiness in ignorance, the best I can offer them is to forgive quietly and spend my time on things or people where there is a common understanding of reality. It looks awfully similar to avoidance or petulance but does not feel that way internally.
And what of the people who are my enemies? I tend to be especially wary of forgiveness for those groups. “Never forgive, never forget” does seem reasonable when the likely alternative is simply the normalisation of lies and persecution. Anger has always been a healthy aspect of humanity, if only to prepare us for how hard we are going to have to work on that other healthy aspect - forgiveness.
Thanks for your musings. I think if someone doesn't repent, then one can/must forgive them but one doesn't have to trust them again. If someone has no idea of the hurt they caused/continue to cause, and thus no inkling of the need for repentance, then it is very difficult to broach the subject at all. I know this from personal experience - I now avoid at all costs topics of conversation that will be upsetting. Even a tangential comment can provoke a harsh word, and it is very upsetting to live this way, walking on eggshells.
Forgiveness seems to me to be on ongoing exercise. I've tried to think through whether I should apologise for following my conscience, exercising prudence, and remaining unvaccinated. But I think it's best left unsaid. I wait for the day when the MSM will do broach the subject for me, or some other event prompts a revelation and self-reflection by those who demonised me, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm not a practising Christian, but I do find great wisdom in many of the statements attributed to Jesus. Jesus offered forgiveness to sinners who repented. The word repent is a translation of the Greek μετανοέω [metanoeō] which means to think about the wrongs one has committed, regret them, and change one's mind for the better. It's not just or right to forgive a person who has not repented, and doing so only incentivises them to commit more wrongs.