Guilt

Guilt :

“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.”-   Coco Chanel

“You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.” -   Clive Barker

“Had Adam & Eve not felt the way they felt after eating the apple there would still be a paradise. Among all other dark emotions this one was the first born, followed by Blame, Suspicion & Shame.” – Sujal

 Among all of emotions apart from love, it’s only Guilt that has various hues, various forms and various quantities as well. And the biggest difference it has from all other emotions is that somewhere humans have become master in creating this emotion in others, either by making someone do something, and many a times by not making someone do something and still make them feel Guilty about it.  Majority of us go to graves carrying this and the twin sibling of this – Regret, in ample amounts within us. Among all other emotions this is also one emotion that we experience not at particular age, but since childhood till death. While other dark emotions also have a bitter sweet feeling about them, this one doesn’t has any except if you indulge in retail therapy.

A child still going ahead and eating the chocolate from refrigerator or the last cookie that he was so warned against to , the mid night phone calls of a teenager with the haywire hormones and newly found crush, waking up after a long night sleep when majority of syllabus still pending on the day of exam, the first physical relation with opposite sex, replying back to a mean boss when there is a dire need of the  job , an extra marital affair when there is so much belief into the institution of marriage and blind trust of partner, not being there for the kids in the form they need, not having a career the way it was dreamt and then not having people around during the final days. So many shades and yet the same emotion. So many outcomes and yet the same feeling. So many situations and yet no solution. This is what Guilt does to humans, at times it makes them more human but most of time it teaches to live with it, uncomfortably.

No emotion has been captured by Economies as better as Guilt. Travel, Hotel, Retail, Food & Beverage, Luxury, Religion to name a few industries whose major contributor is this emotion in Humans.  Every other corner at the street offers to absolve us of this feeling that too without both the parties acknowledging the presence of it in first place. Men have travelled far and wide to mend up for the mess they created, not because it was wrong to do in first place, but because they could not live with the guilt of the wrong doing. Some found the cure and were able to free themselves while many ill fateful ones carry it to their graves, still turning inside. Horace Bushnell has truly said that Guilt is the very nerve of sorrow. The mere presence of this emotion is enough to bring down great men to their knees and convert the most materialistic person into the most detached soul.    

But, this emotion is also capable of keeping one out of the moment of being where one is. It makes it tough to sleep with the self at the end of the day, let other even touch you. While it slowly gnaws at the sap of life inside, the only tentative solutions lies, either in rectifying the done, reducing the damage, or accepting the present and forgiving self. So all it takes is to acknowledge that something better can still be done about it, standing up, seeking out and trying our best to amend.

Cos somewhere we all know that though this feeling will never go away, we can only fade it by seeking forgiveness.