Thinking

I have been thinking -

(...and nowadays, there really is a lot of time to think things through thoroughly. There are no other demands on my time, so I find that I can enter into elaborate constructs, simulations and assessments, without the fear of having to be interrupted halfway. Some people may say having too much time on your hands to think is a bad and frightening thing, because you never know what your consciousness and subconscious will throw up at you. Some people subscribe to the sweet silence of ignorance. That is wholly understandable; but I find that I need to know more than I need to feel content. As such, time to think is an empowerment for me, and not a liability. And anyway, surprises tend to show oneself the true boundaries of one's capabilities, and as such, the discoveries one comes across when thinking deeply are signposts pointing towards self-knowledge.

Though, perhaps, "thinking" is a rather crude approximation to use to describe what I go through. It isn't only, or even merely, intellectual analysis; I am aware that a purely intellectual experience and examination leaves out critical parts of an experience. Perhaps what I really mean is a fully conscious experience of a thing, on as many levels - intuitive, emotional, intellecutal, social - as one can be aware of. The term, I think, more accurately describes what I am looking for: reasons. And how these reasons can be found can be through intuition, intellectual enquiry, emotional feeling - any number of processes that we normally go through when we say we "experience" a thing. In other words, I am looking for why things happen as they do. For what reason do things fall into place as they do? What meaning can there be in the pattern? And the answers to this can be glimpsed through the multifarious and conscious ways to experience a thing.)

I have been thinking about the changes happening to my people, who have been away now for almost two years at university. Everyone changes; some people change a lot; a few change in ways that I had not expected, that I had not envisioned. Some people thrive; other people falter. Some people become even more wonderful; others give up their wonderful bits because they are too difficult to sustain. All make compromises, but some come out of it gaining, while others lose too cheaply. What is it about the environment over there, about the experience that they find themselves facing Elsewhere, that makes some of them reassess their priorities in certain ways? Why do certain things that used to seem beautiful and worthwhile suddenly seem superfluous or intolerable through the lens of Elsewhere?

More so this year, I think, I find that some of the people returning are significantly different from the people I expected to come back. It is disconcerting, to find out that you actually don't know what has happened over the last year, and cannot account for the slight but important shifts in perspective that have occurred. Shifts that point towards more substantial, more fundamental changes in a person. It is disconcerting to, on the one hand, continue to feel the old regard and admiration and friendship towards a person, but, on the other hand, to suspect that perhaps the reasons that these sentiments were originally based on may have been eroded away. One hopes that there are other reasons that can come in to justify the old sentiments, but the realignment, the setting onto new foundations, takes time.

And in the meantime? Here is the difference between indulgence and self-indulgence. It is an indulgence to continue an old sentiment when the old reasons for that sentiment are no longer present. It is indulgence to accept the changes in another person without first seeking to understand the reasons. Indulgence, in this sense, therefore is founded on a sort of sympathy and compassion. It is based on trust, trust that the indulgence will turn out to be the right choice, trust in the person that he will not let down the important things that lie between us. There is no question of forgiveness; that would really be over-dramatising the situation. There is nothing to forgive, for there has been no wrong committed; and even if there were, then the forgiveness is a natural given, based on what existed between us in the past.

Self-indulgence, though, is to expect people to act in a certain way, and then subsequently, self-indulgence is to regard these expectations as paramount and to use them to pass judgment on other people for not living up to them. Self-indulgence is to savour the feeling of righteous injustice, without seeking the reason of whether the injustice is really righteous, or even if there was an injustice. Self-indulgence is to feel without thinking, or to think without feeling. Self-indulgence is to refrain from acting, and to let circumstances wash over one unimpeded, with no reflection. Self-indulgence is also to act on circumstances based only on one's own interests, without considering the needs and wants of others.

The key, then, is to act indulgently without being unjust or condescending, and without being self-indulgent at heart. It is to act in a way that is worthy of the past and what it holds, and yet that is considerate of the present and open towards the future. It is to act in a way that does not do violence to shared things in the past (even if the shared things no longer exist), and yet does not demand ossification of the shared things. And all this requires a lot of careful thinking, to find the path forward. And so, I have been thinking.

But if there should ever come a time when I act self-indulgently, putting my own needs above those of others, or asserting myself over others for personal satisfaction, then I would be much obliged if you pointed it out right away. There are few things less worthwhile, more repugnant, than being self-indulgent.