To the best of my knowledge, I’ve just entered the sixth decade of my existence. (I say it’s to the best of my knowledge because it’s all I recognize. Whether or not this is just one more episode of reincarnation, or my actual beginning, has no bearing on the topic of this article. What’s important is, I’ve been traipsing about a fair amount of time.)
In that time, I’ve had opportunity to make mistakes. I’m here to tell you, I made the best of most of those opportunities. But please don’t misunderstand. My putting things in a somewhat waggish vein considerably attenuates the sometimes sharp and biting memory of the blunders, but making light of behavior that caused physical, mental or emotional pain and suffering in others, while it may have its eventual place, should be left for a time after admission, contrition and — one hopes — reconciliation have held sway.
I’ve read about men, (and yes, once again, it’s almost always men, although truth be told, women seem to be adding to the ranks), who have lived long and full lives, and who say they have no regrets about anything they’ve done or said.
I wouldn’t trust one of them to guard an empty piggybank.
If you’ve reached your thirtieth year, and you say you have no regrets, either you are:
1. Lying.
2. Willfully indifferent to your mistakes.
3. Pathologically indifferent to your mistakes.
4. Jesus
. . . or some sort of combination of 1, 2 or 3. Hell, most five year-old kids have already done something they regret. (I mean, besides getting caught.)
I’m reminded of the recent film, The World According to Dick Cheney, wherein Cheney, after being asked his favorite virtue, (integrity), what he most appreciates in a friend, (honesty), and his idea of happiness, (a day spent fly fishing on the Snake river), is asked to comment upon his main fault. The man pauses to consider the question, then comes up with,
. . . I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my faults, I guess.
(Author’s note: See #3, above.)
The context is faults, as in character faults, which naturally lead to acts of commission or omission that, for most people, will by and by lead to some form of regret. If you choose to not contemplate your personal faults, you, by obvious extension, have concluded that whatever fault you may or may not own is either inevitable, or not worth the time to contemplate. If you think a fault is inevitable, that somehow you are hardwired to commit that fault, refer to #3, above. On the other hand, if you grant that you might possess a fault, but believe thinking about said fault is a waste of your time, refer to #2, above.
Either way, Dick Cheney regrets nothing.
This, from a man responsible for:
. . . at least 189,000 people [dead] from causes directly related to [Iraq] war violence, including 4,488 members of the U.S. armed services and, at least, 123,00 to 134,00 Iraqi civilians . . . the cost of the Iraq War to U.S. taxpayers [is], at least, $2.1 trillion.
That, from a man who holds integrity and honesty highest among all virtues.
Honor, interestingly enough, was a bit further down the list . . .
Tell me what terrorist attack you would have let go forward because you didn’t want to be a mean and nasty fellow,” he says to Cutler, the film’s creator. “Are you going to trade the lives of a number of people because you want to preserve your honor?
Sorry, Dick, but the Grinch is a “mean and nasty fellow”. People who concoct and spread treacherous lies and start wars and torture human beings are something else. (War criminal comes to mind. Traitor is running a close second.)
Granted, telling somebody to “Go fuck yourself!” is fairly mean and nasty, and shooting a friend in the face is probably in there as well, so I’ll give you those.
Truly, Dick was … and remains … a dick.
And his former boss is no better.
And his daughter Liz, a recently announced Senate candidate, is fruit that dropped quite close to the tree.
“I will never compromise when our freedom is at stake,”
Right.
Exactly how Liz Cheney defines our freedom or at stake is more than a little unclear, but considering her past comments, the dots aren’t all that hard to connect.
Quick Aside:
Sorry. I can’t resist. Since Liz insists waterboarding isn’t torture, maybe she should take the Christopher Hitchins test? HEY! It’s not like we’d be torturing her, right? How can it be torture if Dick and Liz Cheney say IT ISN’T?
C’mon, folks. Either Dick and Liz’s interpretation is right, or everybody else on the friggin’ planet is right. Really, who you gonna’ believe, Joe Stalin/Chairman Mao/Dick & Liz Cheney, or your own, lyin’ eyes?
Anyway.
Where was I?
Regret.
In his Apology, Plato quotes Socrates:
. . . the unexamined life is not worth living.
Can I get an amen? Examining one’s life is directly related to understanding the cause and nature of regret. But more than simply understanding, the self-examination that is often melded with regret also implies the heartfelt desire to improve, to behave better, to stop doing the things that caused the regret in the first place. Unless you’re perfect, (refer to #4, above), you will commit acts throughout your life that will give you reason to regret both the act, and the decision-making process that led to the act. And learning to stop doing all that is called maturation. The idea is to commit fewer and fewer of those regretful acts as you get older.
One would suppose.
But some among us think differently, and behave differently. They don’t examine their life; not even a casual glance in the proverbial rearview mirror. It’s one thing when someone like this shutters himself away and minds his own business as his character festers and molders and rots. It’s another thing, however, when he or she inserts himself or herself into Village life. And it’s a completely different thing altogether when we, the Village, drape a mantle of power over their shoulders and hand them the keys to everything that can and will go boom.
Yeah … I’m talking to you, Liz.
That, tragically, is the very definition of regret.
