Marl; On Etiquette

“He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.” -James Joyce (1882 - 1941), Irish writer. Ulysses

Why do I feel guilty when I do something unethical even if I know it would help me achieve peace of mind? The two sides of this story are: one; it IS bad that’s why I feel guilty, and two; people have been telling me all my life that there are certain socially acceptable behaviors, and if you go against them, it’s bad. And that’s why I feel guilty.

Although etiquette is useful in a social gathering, I have never found anything about it that helps me achieve self-actualization. I just simply can not accept the fact that we still have to maintain socially acceptable behavior towards a person whom we know has done immoral acts. To me, THAT’S unethical. It’s unethical to me because I am not being honest with what I truly feel. I prefer being quiet but even staying quiet becomes socially unacceptable to a certain extent.

No one wants to be put on a tight situation but we must be able to handle it one way or the other. It’s life. But how much must you sacrifice to get out of a tight situation? I think, you draw the line when your self-respect gets bruised. Self-respect must always remain constant. So if you give me a choice between respect and ethics, I’d choose respect. I think without a doubt respect (especially self-respect) must always come first before any etiquette or required socially acceptable behavior. To me, etiquettes are just lies. We use these to dress up what we truly feel inside. In the long run we realize we lose ourselves in putting on so many dresses and so many masks. Ultimately, we venture out to extreme ends just to get ourselves back. Now THAT to me IS life.

I’m not saying we forever behave to a person whom we know has done immoral acts in a social gathering in such a way that we disrespect him just to preserve our own self-respect. There IS such a thing called forgiveness. It is one of the most difficult things to do but it is one of the most powerful forces on earth. It literally can change the course of history. We are just too afraid to choose to do it. We think there’s so much at stake when we chose forgiveness. But the only thing at stake is our pride which we initially thought as our self. This pride is not who we are. It is the product of the so many dresses and masks that we wore all these years. It is the product of the so many dresses and masks that other people require us to wear socially. This pride in essence is absolutely useless towards self-actualization and peace.

It’s sad to think that after all the wars fought through out history; and after all the people who have tried to lift our foot to help us make the first step and lost their lives because of it, we are still afraid. We’ve been doing the very first step for the longest time.

(W)Hole

“In the end, you're measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.” -Donald Trump (1946 - ) US real estate developer. Trump: the Art of the Deal

Sometimes in life we get lost for a while even if we know who we are and where we stand. Just when we think we’re sure, our defenses go down. Our defenses go down because just like any other situation we stepped in to in our life, we chose to be in them; the usual we-dig-the-hole-we-fell-in-to philosophy. Funny thing is I know a few people who have dug a hole so deep and so huge it has rooms. They even redecorate the rooms so well they call it their home and they live in them for the rest of their lives.

I guess what I’ve always believed in since high school is true. Our greatest enemy is ourselves. No matter how badly we want to get out of the whole we dug ourselves into, we’d rather adapt to that hole than to confront and challenge the digger.

When we love, we feel an inner sense of security. I can’t say its peace of mind but it feels the same. It probably is peace of mind but on a sub-level. I think peace of mind comes from within you alone. When we love, someone else is involved so it’s different. We chose to share the peace that we already have. The inner sense of security that we feel when we love starts when the peace that we have offered has been accepted fully. When we feel common peace with someone we feel secure. Therefore, we chose to let our defenses go down a bit.

So, time passes and people make more choices. Some of those choices we consider later on as a mistake. This is how some partnership is put to the test. This is how some individuals get lost. As a result, when we return to our usual defenses that we’ve come to be accustomed to, it wasn’t as strong as we thought it would be. We thought we could count on ourselves but we’re weaker. We break down. We admit and face our situation head on. We retrace our tracks. We build it up again. We study it. Above all, we learn from it. Then we emerge. Suddenly, we’re not lost anymore. We’re whole again. Better. We’ve grown.

What I don’t get is how some people are simply too afraid to receive gifts of love and peace served on a silver platter. My guess is it doesn’t fit the room in their hole especially after they just redecorated the place. Or, they presumably, and most of the time prejudicially, wouldn’t want to get into a huge fight with their inner self. What do you think?