Fear of guilt

There is an elderly man hunched against the wall, gazing out of a second floor window at the people below. Since his retirement, he has had too much time to spend alone with his thoughts. Before long, he began to look back on his life, to reflect on what he did, and didn’t, achieve. And doing this causes great pain to the man. It used to make him weep, but now the tears are gone. Now the man is silent, only his eyes still exclaim frustration. He avoids the young, because he hates them for having their whole lives ahead of them, and because he can see them making the same mistakes that he did. And he avoids those his own age, because in them he sees himself.

Yet to those who knew the man, his bitter rage is an enigma. By all accounts he led a life of excellence. He reached the top of his chosen field, had a loving family, and was proficient in hobbies ranging from music to sport. He cared for those around him, and was active in the community. But still he regrets.

One day, I summoned the courage to ask the man: why do you feel this way?

In the first place, he knows that he has missed out on so much of what life has to offer. He can see that his life could have been so much more, his experiences far more vital and diverse, had he had the bravery, creativity and wit to push himself further. In the only test of undeniable importance, he failed.

But, he laughs, what is bitterness when set against the agony of guilt? I am confused: this man was no criminal, indeed for all seventy years of his existence he had barely scraped the feelings of another person. Still, he insists, he is guilty, so deeply guilty. Now, in his old age, when things are so clear, he tells me that he can feel the enormous burden of all the suffering that he allowed to take place. On every day of his life, there were people crying out in need, and he did nothing. Through ignorance, indifference, and feelings of insignificance, he let the suffering continue. And how terrible the suffering was. Person upon person upon person had wallowed in life’s wretched underworld, only needing the extended hand of another to lift them out. Without a single malevolent intention, he sighs, he had soaked his clothes in blood.

I feel that the man is too critical of himself, and tell him so. He pauses and stares at me for an eternity. And then, the weight of his sorrow crushing, he speaks slowly and deliberately: “I did not bring my brothers to the pyre, but I let them burn”.

I am afraid of wasting my years. But more than that I am afraid of what might happen if I live my life according to status quo morality. I am afraid that I do that, then come 2060, I may find that the moral system which accords with my deepest sentiments tells me that for my entire life I have been accumulating a debt of sin. A debt that is immovable and unbearable.

It is this fear that drives me to wonder: what ought I to do?