If you have, in any way partaken in any portion of these few words, I am your debtor. And it is a debt I am totally unable to repay. There is a charge against my account as a man of which I am only barely aware, and of which (and of myself) I am in all disability to discharge. In one sense it matters not if I continue, as though incurring more charge, or desist; what is done by thought, word, or deed has already been done and I am in no position other than any other man to make an accounting for myself to any satisfaction. I am as stuck as any in a vanity and frustration made aware to me well before I tapped out anything upon this keyboard. I am a man who cannot…undo.
The “do” of me, once undertaken in all blithe mimicry I did not avoid nor could have of myself, has been presented to me of some adequacy. I can only leave you to judge whether adequacy in this case is accuracy. A self which in the beholding of “other’s doing” prompted a response to either do in accordance or resist of obstinacy. A self of some form of consciousness presumed adequate to judge according to its own knowing. At whatever moment this took place remains hidden to me, but that I am sure it occurred somewhere, and at some time, leaves me little doubt. “I will be like some others, and I will not be as some others”. Here mimicry is no more laudable than resistance. And recalcitrance, obstinacy…even rebellion when accounted, have all the same root. For the mimic and the resistor are all of one in the self same…self. A self considering itself…as adequate to itself. It can do no more than it sees or even imagines. Yet at any and every point it remains convinced “I know what I know”. (To ask here whether you agree would be the mootest of all matters)
But listen here, if you can. If you can. From where I write is to some form of another self, and I can either assume you are in some way no different than this self writing, or altogether not at all “like”. Either our “selves” hold some commonality or they do not. And I am to one either betraying some form of consciousness of self to another, or must appear to some “other” one as a traitor (betrayer) of reason…even of consciousness. A fool and liar dressed as a man. How this is all “out of my hands” is made too plain to me. Gibberish or some appeal to a likeness I once foolishly thought in my control.
This self from which I compose and have done my doings, has known a thing as regret. It has done according to some impetus toward an imagined end. But at the point of its doing, at that or those moments of impetus toward, it did not know it was all and only dealing in imaginings; it actually embraced to itself the knowing of outcome. “If I do this, this must surely happen” (or such and such will not happen). Only later by failing or failure (whose depths are measurably equated to experience of regret) did it come to be seen as not knowing but only imagining (as self created image). And being surveyed then as either a lesson “learned” (trying to eke some success out of failure, even if painful) the failing was never truly addressed as to its true nature. The failing was assumed to be only in execution, and the depth of regret became the tutor, the taskmaster to ensure that the “knowing better now” remained the knowing better now…to ensure better execution. Taste regret…and remember. See how it tastes? Yuck! Remember. Do better…now. Yes, I was (and often remain) in that circumstance with regret as tutor…until I am disabused.
Yes, I am inclined very much toward acknowledging regret and its consequence of shame in failing as the most potent teacher my self can know. And such knowing is and remains most potent until such disabusing comes (by rebuke) that makes too plain a thing as stated above…I cannot undo.
I am forbidden a fruit I am all inclined to taste and enjoy. That from failure or failing in whatever experience I am allowed to “take away” (eke out a success) by embracing “now (or more saliently “but now”) I know better.“
For the rebuking question, and questioner…has come. Not of my bidding, nor surely not of my will nor desire. For I would in all, and in every circumstance (but for the rebuker) always opt, choose, desire, to think of myself no matter what pile of failures trail me…as one who “knows better…now”.
But ahh, that rebuker!
His question cuts to the heart of it, shreds in his advance past all my imaginings (as vain as they are) shown by supreme ease with which he cuts through them. Where I was stopped he advances. Where I saw end, even end in proposition of “better execution” to avoid shame and failure…he cuts through as sharpened iron swung through vapor. All my thoughts of doing better…because I now “know better” are shown as the rank vanity they are.
His question is supremely simple, yet in it holds all deliverance from regret and shame though it appears as most shamelessly asked, too brazen, too bold, too extreme of rashness for myself to either accept or even conjure. Yet it is…the question…something or someone brings to “my self” in consciousness. It’s light is too cutting. Too precise. This consciousness invading…is other.
No, it has not been my execution, that if perfected would ensure better and shameless outcome than of knowing failure and regret. That is and always has been the limit of my knowing. The “How to do.“
The question above all that either comes or does not, but is nevertheless there, regardless, has all to do with the man who sees now what he did not know “then” and is even moved to consider “If I had only known…” (in admission of his not knowing) is simple…
“Then why (or what is it) that caused you to think you knew (then) when now you know you did not?”
This one asking is far more about the being of man than the mere doing that is the limit of all men.
The question is again, simple, and though mentioned already it always bears reminding to my self, repeating from a place other to the place of my self. Addressing even all my inclination(s) always to embrace “but now I know better”.
Whatever “then” I occupied prior to my knowing of failure and such regret or shame that accompanied in falling short, was not, nor ever due to execution at all. The failing was in the impetus itself by which such doing ensured itself.
And the impetus was a confidence in my knowing.
Therefore the question provokes “If I no less thought myself as knowing then which has shown itself inadequate to perform to success by its consequence of failure and I am now the man in consequence to that failure, whence comes any assurance “I now know better”?
I do not fail, I am the failing one.
Yes, surely I thought I knew then…enough to do…and did. Just like…now. I am that man.
I cannot undo…that then. Anymore than I can of myself escape any thinking I now know better. I cannot undo…what I am.
How could any man escape the bondage of their own consciousness if that consciousness were always in continual lie to him about its knowing? Fraudulently representing itself as judge and arbiter of what is…and can be? Even to such point that the man could think or say “If I had known better…” (as though he could “replace” himself there, in that other moment he now sees of not knowing) and telling the man he can be “better”.
Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.
Seek the consequence of that man’s doing. He knows what He knows. He is unfailing.
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