Skating

Many years ago, I was skating around in a crowded rink during free skate time. I skate fairly well, and I was zipping around various people struggling to move or stay on their feet. I feel free on the ice, with none of the constraints of having to exert effort to move and be balanced as I feel when I am on my own two feet. Some people feel more at home in the water or in the air, but being on the ice feels so natural for me.

Anyway, so this little girl popped out behind another person and immediately I slowed and tried to hold her to prevent her from getting nailed, and to prevent me from skating into any else around me (possibly causing a comedic dominos scenario). Her reaction was to fall back away from me and she landed on her elbow. She started wailing and I knelt on the ice to see if she was okay. It was hard to tell, and to diminish the scene I had caused, I backed away from her and skated away. On my next pass around the rink, she was still wailing. I may have apologized, but I don't remember honestly if I did.

I think this is a good example of how I have lived my life. Skating as though I have no cares in the world (yet only skating in a circular path), avoiding those I can help to avoid, and occasionally running into people. Apologizing for those run-ins is really beside the point. I've not gone anywhere. And, for all the nonchallance and confidence I exude, for all my ability, I am still moving in circles. And while the people get in and out of the ice rink, I remain. New people to avoid, new people to run into, but everything else is the same. I am still trying to live in freedom, reveling in the weightlessness of the ice and my advantage over all others on the ice. Yet for all the passes I make, zipping around like a wily butterfly to a net, I arrive back where I started.

Unforgiveable, in the inexorable stream of time - the one resource I cannot get back and cannot replenish.

Who among us can claim forgiveness for one's own failings? Doesn't it behoove oneself to let go of the past and move forward?

Sartre wrote, “Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.” Does this presuppose the non-existence of God the Mighty, the Omnipresent, the Creator of all? I choose not to take Satre in that way. I honestly don't believe Sartre was talking about Everything, but pointing merely (and yet powerfully) to the freedom of the mind to choose and to believe in one's own existence. Now, as aside Sartre was most certainly an atheist, but his aforementioned premise is not diminished in my eyes by his faulty assumption of lack of a Supreme Being.

I take Sartre to mean the following: the human being must learn to accept the premise that in isolation, apart from God, there is no-thing, no-person that can take responsibility for oneself. God certainly does take responsibility for all, but we as human beings must take responsibility for ourselves. It is under that yoke of responsibility that we sin and do evil, that we fall away from God. We exist first, thus our responsibility for our lives comes before we are ready to accept any of it.

It is a hard lesson. And, the corollary to this is that there is no forgiveness for existence. God may forgive those who believe in Him, believe in the power of repentance for Sin, but not for those who merely by freak occurence exist in this world. We are, first and foremost, and least of all. Sin is that which separates us from God, but our existence predates Sin. And who can forgive ourselves for being who we are? Some folks believe that we have no choice but to forgive ourselves and move on, to simply let go. But whether it is due to my own immaturity or even my extreme idiosyncratic empathy, I've had a tough time doing so.

At some point, I must learn to walk on land and go forward. We do not live on the ice after all, and while there may not be forgiveness for being me, I must move forward.

-David