Conscience

Day 63. Conscience.

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully. Richard Bach. Illusions: The Adventures of A Reluctant Messiah.

You've read the book by now, right? Okay, I'll give you a few more weeks, but I really would like it if you read it this year. Six weeks, you can do that, right? If you need a copy, let me know. I have a few still laying around I need to share.

The section where conscience comes up is one of the sillier moments, when Donald Shimoda is teaching Richard about choices. The ones we make that affect others. No matter what you do in life, good or bad, right or wrong, it affects others. Sometimes those choices hurt. But it's not your choices that can hurt others. That's their choice: to be hurt or not.

Shimoda uses a fake vampire to threaten Richard to the point of violence, then pulls it back. Showing Richard that both he and the vampire had choices. Richard had lived with the pre-conditioned notion that even if we are free to do what we want, we can't hurt the people around us. I agree with Shimoda: we have to learn that we can't hurt others. Yeah, crazy, right? But hear us out.

We choose to be hurt. Or not be hurt. It's US who decides. Not someone else. The vampire story is a simple example. When threatened with giving up his blood, Richard says he will kill the vampire before that happens. Richard is free to follow through on that: he can give up his blood, ignore the threat, tie up the vampire, drive a stake through his heart. The vampire also has choices: forget about it, run away, resist by fighting back. Choices that can cause him pain. Or not. Same for Richard. Some hurt, some don't.

Choices we make, things we do. We can see the paths we need to take, and the effects on others. We can't make choices that will spare others, we can only please ourselves. We can't hurt them, they have to let us cause them pain, and we enlightened souls don't let that happen. We are resilient. We choose life, and love, and happiness, and freedom.

"We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do."

Lesson Sixty Three:  Do you sacrifice your own happiness in exchange for what you believe is least hurtful to those around you? Have you ever gave up on something out of fear of the harm it might do? You might not know Shimoda yet, but trust yourself like he trusts you. He can't hurt you, remember?

667 to go...