[CM] January 003 - Contrite
Jan. 15th, 2007 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
standardblackContrite...funny word, that. You know, being a doctor, I deal with a lot of Latin terms...and occasionally, it can come in handy. Contrite? It’s origin is the Latin contritus, which is from conterere...it means ‘grind down,’ or ‘wear away.’
Fitting, I think...because that’s exactly what contrition does. At least the meaning most people give it. If you’re contrite, you’re guilty...you feel guilty, you wear guilt like a shroud. To be properly contrite, you have to be a shell of a human being, emptied by your suffering. Wear your fist to the nub, beating your chest, and grind your throat raw with your own wailing.
Contrition is an expression of remorse, not guilt...and I think a lot of people have forgotten that.
Remorse is harder to deal with than guilt...guilt is shallow, pale, a piece of spun glass that can shatter so easily. You can shake guilt with a good, hearty ‘I’m sorry’ and a handshake. At the same time, you can feel no guilt for something you did, and at the same time regret it...be remorseful for it.
Contrition runs deeper than guilt...it’s remorse and regret together. Guilt is for the thing you promise never to do again, knowing that you will. Contrition is the thing you can’t promise to never do again, but know that you’ll never again choose to do. It’s the acknowledgment that you’re a slave to circumstance, but not to your own will. If a man comes at me with a knife, I’ll kill him to save my own life, but if a second man comes after me the same way, I won’t kill him unless my life’s in danger again.
My father drank...but he got help. Then...I pushed him to a bad place, and he went back to the booze.
I don’t deny my part in it...but that’s just what it was, a part. And I know that in the long run, that night I spent in lockup for going after my own father in an AA meeting was a building block that led up to the day he had a few too many and ended a young woman’s life...a young mother’s life in the operating room.
I know I ended his career in more ways than one. And I don’t feel guilty for it...lives were saved by taking the scalpel out of his hands.
But remorse...that’s the one thing I can’t get away from. For my part in all of it, I feel regret. Every day, I regret what I did. I regret that I didn’t try harder to fight...not for Sara, but to let go of her. If I could have saved my father that way...looking back, I would have.
That’s contrition...and I tried to pay my debt to my father. And I regret that I failed.
I know I had a hand in damning him...maybe that’s why I’ve tried so hard to save everyone else on this island...making up for it, as it were.
Letting go is still something I haven’t learned to do, though...but not for lack of trying. And I am trying...I’ve been trying for a while now when it comes to letting go.
I’m just hoping that eventually...I can succeed. Before contrition wears me down to nothing.
Muse: Jack Shephard
Fandom: LOST
Words: 560
Fitting, I think...because that’s exactly what contrition does. At least the meaning most people give it. If you’re contrite, you’re guilty...you feel guilty, you wear guilt like a shroud. To be properly contrite, you have to be a shell of a human being, emptied by your suffering. Wear your fist to the nub, beating your chest, and grind your throat raw with your own wailing.
Contrition is an expression of remorse, not guilt...and I think a lot of people have forgotten that.
Remorse is harder to deal with than guilt...guilt is shallow, pale, a piece of spun glass that can shatter so easily. You can shake guilt with a good, hearty ‘I’m sorry’ and a handshake. At the same time, you can feel no guilt for something you did, and at the same time regret it...be remorseful for it.
Contrition runs deeper than guilt...it’s remorse and regret together. Guilt is for the thing you promise never to do again, knowing that you will. Contrition is the thing you can’t promise to never do again, but know that you’ll never again choose to do. It’s the acknowledgment that you’re a slave to circumstance, but not to your own will. If a man comes at me with a knife, I’ll kill him to save my own life, but if a second man comes after me the same way, I won’t kill him unless my life’s in danger again.
My father drank...but he got help. Then...I pushed him to a bad place, and he went back to the booze.
I don’t deny my part in it...but that’s just what it was, a part. And I know that in the long run, that night I spent in lockup for going after my own father in an AA meeting was a building block that led up to the day he had a few too many and ended a young woman’s life...a young mother’s life in the operating room.
I know I ended his career in more ways than one. And I don’t feel guilty for it...lives were saved by taking the scalpel out of his hands.
But remorse...that’s the one thing I can’t get away from. For my part in all of it, I feel regret. Every day, I regret what I did. I regret that I didn’t try harder to fight...not for Sara, but to let go of her. If I could have saved my father that way...looking back, I would have.
That’s contrition...and I tried to pay my debt to my father. And I regret that I failed.
I know I had a hand in damning him...maybe that’s why I’ve tried so hard to save everyone else on this island...making up for it, as it were.
Letting go is still something I haven’t learned to do, though...but not for lack of trying. And I am trying...I’ve been trying for a while now when it comes to letting go.
I’m just hoping that eventually...I can succeed. Before contrition wears me down to nothing.
Muse: Jack Shephard
Fandom: LOST
Words: 560
