danaeris | Sep. 25th, 2004

Tonight at Wine and Song, I brashly proclaimed that I didn't feel that there was much of anything I'd truly want to repent if I were celebrating Yom Kippur. Upon arriving home, however, I began to think about it, and discovered, of course, that there were several things I could think of with minimal digging worth repenting. And several I dare not repent.

The concept of seeking out sins from the past year is potentially quite dangerous for someone with my issues, and with the depression I've been struggling with. Acknowledging some things from this past year as sins, faults, or mistakes, would be the beginning of a downward spiral difficult to check, kind of like opening the floodgates on self-flagelation, masochism, and self-hate.

I know Yom Kippur is supposed to be like that in some ways, but my concern goes beyond Yom Kippur. I beat myself up year round for my mistakes, although I'm trying to learn not to do so. Some mistakes hit closer to home than others, however, and it is very easy with those to get into a closed loop of self-hate if I regard them as faults, mistakes, or sins. Instead, I choose to accept them as facts, and strive to change the facts of my psychology. Doing otherwise makes my depression ten times worse.

One of these things are the things I failed to do, or handled poorly, due to depression. If I can truly believe that it is ok for me to be depressed when I'm depressed, that it doesn't make me a bad person, then the depression is far easier to cope with. The problem with this, of course, is that there is a large grey area where I may or may not be making excuses for myself. During the depression, there are things which I perhaps SHOULD push myself harder to achieve, and don't. After the depression, there are things I did in its throes which may or may not be facts of being me -- for which I may be culpable. But I cannot distinguish between those, and so if I find culpability for any mistake which stemmed from my depression, that downward spiral of self-hate will take effect. For that reason, I choose to let those "sins" slide. I can ambiguously say, "If there are sins I committed while depressed, I am sorry and hope to do better in the future." But I cannot catalogue them and identify them. That way lies madness.

In a similar vein, my ethics are a little strange in that direction. You see, my sense of morality and ethics incompasses human weakness. There are many mistakes I've made, sins I've committed, etc., which are excusable given my ignorance, depression, or situation. I view morality as a scale, from the "worst" thing to do to the "ideal" thing to do. I do not expect myself to always do the ideal thing, although I strive for it. If, taking into consideration my circumstances, I conclude that it was reasonable for me to do whatever I did, then I find no fault with my actions even though they were less than ideal. If, however, I look back and think "I should have known better," or, "I'm stronger than that. I could have done differently, but instead I cosetted myself," or somesuch, then I HAVE transgressed, made a mistake, sinned, or whatever word is appropriate. And that is my take on this particular aspect of ethics and "being a good person," in a nutshell.

...

I find the overlapping of Mabon, Yom Kippur, and Folsom to be... interesting. In some ways, Yom Kippur and Folsom are very well in keeping with each other (except for the wearing leather part). In other ways, as people take pleasure from the pain, it is a perversion of the goal of Yom Kippur.

Mabon, on the other hand, strikes me in some ways as the polar opposite of Yom Kippur (at least, as I understand Mabon). It is about plenty, about the wonderful things we hope will be included in the next year. It looks forward. It is a feast of the foods we hope to include in the future, and much more. Yom Kippur, on the other hand, is about looking back over the past year, and cataloguing the bad things we did, and punishing ourselves for them--asking for forgiveness. We fast on Yom Kippur; on Mabon we feast.

If I thought I had the fortitude...
I would be fasting for Yom Kippur
I would spend Yom Kippur meditating both on the past year and on things that need to happen to fix things in the past year so that I can move onto the next year.
I would clean as much of the apartment as possible, in a meditative fashion.
I would make sure to get a harsh beating at Folsom.
I would fight against some of my current issues to overcome them, even briefly, in order to have a taste of the things I dream of having in the next year (no, I won't be more specific than that).

I'm not saying those things will happen, or that they won't happen. I'm saying I would like it if they happened.