For: Transfinite Joy

By: Catherine Frances Borovicka

 

 

G is for Guilt

 

 

 

I wonder how much influence guilt has in our lives.

  • Remorse: Guilt causes remorse which causes us to vaguely wish that we had said the right thing instead of the wrong thing at the wrong time. That’s not a severe problem but it’s bad for our mental health if we obsess over it. Remorse also probably serves as chief motivation behind making apologies - sometimes it is hard to tell whether apologies are given because we care for the other entity (person, group of people, event, etc.), or because we are suffering from personal guilt. This is a common theme among literary works, I think.
  • Food: The relationship between guilt and food depends on whether you are female or male. The effects of this relationship can become very strange.
  • Sleep: Guilt motivates us to skip sleep – for example, if one goofs off all evening, it is hard to go to sleep without feeling guilty for not being productive. So then one has to stay up a little longer to finish that paper.

Or, instead of skipping sleep, you may get too much sleep. That is, if you are feeling vaguely guilty about something, but you don’t know what, and it is really aggravating you, you may sleep to avoid the situation. In fact sleeping is used an as escape for many things, not just guilt – that is why it is one of the symptoms of depression.
  • Crime: People may choose not to commit a crime because then they might get caught and be found guilty. So guilt is also prevention for certain things. Sometimes.
  • Silence: It causes this too.

 

Additionally, feeling guilty all the time is a very self-centered thing to do. This is because it leads to thinking about oneself all the time.

Remorse is usually centered on silly little things, so it’s usually not worth our energies anyway. So guilt may stem from not having anything to think about, or being bored. But then we can’t be busy forever to drown what we are thinking, because that’s not healthy either. I believe I’ve stumbled into a contradiction.

Since guilt grows upon stagnation, I suppose a good way to deal with it is to take action to fix things. If there is no way to fix things, then start something new.

I am going to conclude this now because it is becoming too vague.