| | When I was a Christian, I had a very strong guilt complex. Having a close relationship with Jesus put me in a paradox--I was supposed to be happy that Jesus had come to save me, but how happy could I be when I wasn't good for anything without the grace of a savior who forgave me for my sins because I was a bad, bad person? No matter how hard I tried, I could never completely absolve myself from my "base human nature", because that defeated the whole purpose of Christianity. My emotions functioned like a negative feedback loop--the happier I was, the more I felt that I was deluding myself. God forbid I be happy when I was such a sinful human being.
When I developed that complex, I had also convinced myself that my efforts to be kind to people were bullshit. If I was kind because I was holding myself up to a standard, that meant that I was acting a certain way for myself and not out of love, and this was no good. I would beat myself up for being a phony, for acting fake.
I don't quite have a guilt complex anymore, but sometimes I do question my motives for acting decent or reaching out to people. Sometimes I ask myself if I am a genuine person, and if my actions are good for anything if I'm doing something out of a sense of duty or obligation.
Of course this is leading to an epiphany. The other week I was driving my mother to Point Reyes. We were driving on 101 North in the carpool lane, and I was going about 75 mph or so. A white SUV pulled ahead of us two lanes to our right, and the driver, a guy with long hair, a goatee, and sunglasses, had his window down. He was hunching over the wheel and watching us, then he started mouthing something and gesturing angrily. I couldn't figure out what he was saying, and I ignored him. I continued driving, and the guy once more drove into my line of vision. I was distracted, trying to look in my side and rear view mirrors to see if I could understand what he was trying to communicate, and then my mom said, "I think he's asking us to pull over. He just gave us the finger!"
I'm a conscious driver, and thanks to my stupid run-ins with CHP for driving in the carpool lane alone, I watch my rearview mirrors like a hawk. I would have noticed if I had a close call with the SUV, and this guy seemed to have appeared out of nowwhere--meaning, he was not in any close proximity to me before he drove near my car or I would have seen him. I waited until the driver took an exit, then took the next exit so that I could pull over to inspect my car. While I had been driving I ran through a list of things that could have been wrong--maybe I had a flat tire, maybe one of my brake lights was out, maybe I had left the gas cap off after we had stopped for fuel. My car was fine, and no other drivers paid attention to us for the rest of the trip.
When I got home I told the story to my house mates. When I mentioned pulling over, they all acted surprised--I had not clarified that the driver was no longer on the freeway, and they had all imagined that I had pulled over to talk to him. All of them said that they would have called the police before talking to him, and to be honest, I was ready to call CHP if he had continued act the way he was acting. The fact that he wanted me to pull over was what freaked me out. Unless there was an issue with my car--or if I had done something to his car, which I would have noticed on the freeway--there was no reason for him to try to get me to pull over. Road rage is definitely not a good reason, but that was the only motivation I could think of.
After this all happened, I was reflecting on why this whole episode had bothered me so much. I realized it was because a total stranger had exercised some sort of power over me just by making me afraid. It was unfair, it made me angry, and it made me want to climb some ladder of physical and social dominance just so that I could feel safe. Then I had an incredibly cliche thought, albeit one that I have quite frequently: the world would be a much better place if no one ever had any motivation to hurt someone else.
After that, I say, to hell with purity of motivation for acting kind. If someone acts decently toward me because they are holding themselves up to a standard that will give them a sense of gratification, I'll take that any day. The world needs decent people, and no one can afford to be scrutinizing. To say that a kind act is nothing if not given from genuine altruism or love of mankind is looking a gift horse in the mouth.
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| | Posted 7/7/2009 5:16 AM - 4 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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