KD-ADS: Expanding Horizons

Cos thinking should never be stagnant...

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Back in The "Policed State"

It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven't done anything wrong: how nobel! Whereas it is rather hard and certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent.

Hannah Arendt
Eichmann in Jerusalem

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As I write down the title of this current entry, I am reminded of the fortress stage I am in for Ninja Gaiden (X-Box). Somehow I think there's an uncanny resemblance there....

As I also write this, I am back in my home country. My exam results have been released and I am more than surprised at the unexpected results I received. I had thought worse of my achievements this year, but thankfully, some had turned out for the better. However, I never thought much about grades in the first place, if anything, it would be disappointing to me that my least "effortless" work could be rewarded with a grade that I deem unworthy and undeserving. And even for those subjects I might have received a fair grade, I tend to think I learned the most from there.

I refrain from speaking about personal details of my life but shortly before my return, I have been hit hard by guilt, remorse, anxiety and stress over a close relationship of mine. In handling such an episode, I have tried to manuever out of conventional psychological tricks that would have had a temporary effect on my self-esteem, confidence and perception on my self. I took the hardest route I knew, which was to accept the pain familiar to me so long ago and while not of a religious connotation, my "repentance" derived from my interrogation of my own moral self. I realised that the pain thus endured might never be justified along with the actions that predated my guilt, but it was indeed the real path to healing.