From: callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu (Paul Callahan)
Subject: Re: General Theory of Depression
Organization: Johns Hopkins Computer Science Department, Baltimore, MD
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 22:19:04 GMT

<IDJMW@ASUACAD.BITNET> writes:

>do i care about honesty??? do i CARE about honesty????

>its been so long, who the hell knows??

Warning: years of pent-up rage follow. 

There are definitely things I don't care about anymore.  Like, I don't care
whom I hurt anymore.  For example, I have no problem with the idea of 
encouraging some woman to break up with another guy to date me--even if he's 
not a scum.  I don't care who he is.  I'd be happy with my own success and I'd
laugh in his face.  In fact, I'd make a special point of laughing in his face, 
because I'd enjoy it so much.  I'm sure he'd do the same for me, given the 
chance.  

Also, I've pretty much given up whatever sort of puritanical notions of virtue 
I may have maintained up until a few years ago.  I don't know if it's right or 
wrong.  Again, I don't care.  I know what I want, and I'm perfectly willing to 
admit it.  Fidelity, for example, is a good thing, but if some woman is willing
to cheat on her boyfriend, it's not my job to keep her from doing it.  I've
gotten over the problem of pretending it is.  It took years, but I got over it.

All I'm doing is belatedly adopting the rules other people live by, regardless
of what they tell themselves.  I'm not entirely happy about it.  It's a 
compromise.  I'd like things to be more friendly, and more fair, but  
they're not, and as far as I can tell, never will be.  If I were younger, 
maybe I could get the idealistic thing to work.  I tried it a few times, and 
sometimes it seemed like it could work under the right conditions.  At my 
current age, it doesn't seem too likely anymore.  I'd be fooling myself, and 
I'm sick of fooling myself.

What I won't give up is my integrity, because it's all I have left.
I'll be an asshole if I have to be, but if you ask me what I'm doing, I'll
tell you that I'm being an asshole.  I have no problem with this.  Well, I
have some problems with it, but it's part of a necessary compromise. 

My big gripe is with the sort of woman who has this vestigial guilt about,
say, cheating on her current boyfriend.  But, like, she'll *do* it, just 
so long as she can attribute all guilt to the other guy (i.e. me).  Every 
sort of physical interaction must be *my* idea.  She never actually says yes 
to anything.  Maybe she wants me and hints and hints and hints, but 
she holds out from giving genuine consent because she can't stand the guilt.  

You cannot win in such a situation, unless you are willing to sacrifice your 
integrity.  If you have any self-respect left, you can't win that way either, 
because it becomes impossible to live with yourself afterward.  So, (if you're 
like me) you also hold out, again to avoid feeling the guilt.  At the same 
time, you watch a parade of other guys with no integrity and no 
self-respect--whom she doesn't even *like* as much--go by and succeed where 
you could not.

Dueling guilt.  I don't enjoy it, but it's something I'm pretty good at.  My  
guilt is the more valid, as far as I'm concerned.  I mean, there's nothing
wrong with feeling guilty about cheating on a committed partner, as long as it
follows that you're not going to do it.  In fact, that's something I admire.  
But if you do it just so long as you can fool yourself that it's not your 
fault, then the guilt is completely invalid.  I refuse to offer any assistance 
in this kind of guilt avoidance.

In this way I limit my options, which are already limited anyway.  It sucks,
but I've made all the compromises I intend to make in this lifetime, and I 
already hate myself enough.  It goes well beyond the issue of sex or 
relationships.  It's a metaphor for the contract I've made with the world.
I could modify it to get more money or power or sex, but I suppose I like it
well enough the way it is.  I'd like more money and power and sex, but (call
me an ideologue) I only want these things on my own terms.
--
Paul Callahan (callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu)   
..who wouldn't mind Usenet so much, 
except you have to go out for espresso,
and there's nobody shouting "Go, Daddy, Go!"
Newsgroups: alt.angst