Park says:
... existential guilt will not stick to a definite violation of standards. It seems to float from one fault to another. When it does temporarily attach itself to one moral weakness, which we then correct, it takes wing and settles on another fault. Sometimes our existential guilt spreads itself over many 'sins'. ... Our existential guilt arises not from past events but from our core of being.
We tend to look to moral violations to explain our feelings of guilt, but that's a mistake. Why do we make it? "Perhaps we are reluctant to give up our moral interpretation of guilt because we lose control over the problem — and the solution."
Interestingly, during recent weeks and months as I have started to recognize how guilty and inauthentic I feel, I have also noticed how increasingly desperate I am to keep in control of everything that goes on within and around me. It's like my ever-present guilt is an acid I'm carrying around in a beaker, which is now full to the brim. I feel I have to use any method I can to keep from spilling it. So if I give my free-floating guilt a moral interpretation, then perhaps I can control it by amending my life or confessing my sins. But if moral transgressions are unrelated to the guilt — as they are with existential guilt — then I am left without recourse to one of my prime hoped-for stabilization methods.
Park:
When we treat our existential guilt as if it were conscience — by turning away from a troubling dimension of our lives — we discover that existential guilt follows us. Diversion brings no relief; it only spreads the problem. Because our existential guilt arises from within ourselves, we might attempt to escape by jumping out of our selves: We brick up the access to who we really are. We function automatically, hoping to 'quarantine' our disease. If our inner selves are consumed by guilt, we dare not dwell there. So we plunge into frantic and obsessive external activity.I've done that from time to time. Recently, I've gone through a period of being obsessive about (I know this sounds really weird) my Apple TV. An Apple TV is a device that streams movies from iTunes to an HDTV. I bought one a couple of months ago and soon found myself getting sucked into mastering the technical details of (among other things) ripping DVDs and obtaining illicit movie content on the Internet in other ways.
And another of my obsessions is even weirder, since it is a sexual one: I get a voyeuristic charge out of the idea of women relieving themselves in public (or, for that matter, in private) and can spend days happily looking for pictures of them on the Internet — and there are many of these pictures — engaged in the act of "popping a squat" or sitting on a toilet. Park has a section on Sexology in which he promises to take up the topic of "Imprinted Sexual Fantasies." I'm looking forward to reading the book, when he gets it written, since I imagine that I somehow got imprinted with this particular sexual fantasy from an early age.
But for now my point is that my obsessive behavior in response to pervasive existential guilt can paradoxically involve morally dubious preoccupations: engaging in copyright violations, nurturing a secret (now, not-so-secret) interest in women's excretory functions, etc. It is if whatever guilt I am "supposed to feel" for transgressive behavior has been so drowned out by my free-floating existential guilt that I am now engaging in downright provocative behavior to try to revive the normal connection between behavior and guilt.
Meanwhile, I feel detached from my "true self," as if I were indeed "jumping out" of who I am by taking on the role of devil-may-care copyright violator, or secret pee voyeur, or, say, in another of the personas I have recently explored, the quintessential appreciator of life's ironies — even though the "real me" is inclined to take everything quite seriously. I find that I usually wear some kind of mask, even with my friends. The fires of my inner spontaneity are considerably damped.
Park:
As we become morally better — correcting one fault after another — we might have to invent ridiculous sins to explain our sense of guilt. Is this an attempt to transform existential guilt into moral conscience?
I think so. I'm clearly "inventing ridiculous sins" by acting them out. If I can do that, maybe my moral conscience will oust my existential guilt. Then I can deal with my pangs of moral conscience in the usual, approved ways.
Park:
Moral 'backsliding' might be caused by on/off guilt: As we climb the ladder of self-improvement, we should feel less guilty as we become better. But if we are really trying to overcome our existential guilt, becoming more perfect does not make us feel better. Thus, if we feel just as guilty near the top of the ladder, we give up — and slide all the way back to the bottom again.
That's definitely me!
Park, again:
Let a basketball represent our resilient personality-shell: The air inside is our pressurized existential guilt. The knocks and bumps of everyday life are the pangs of conscience. Little mistakes make us feel clumsy, inadequate, ashamed, inept. But usually we bounce back to shape quickly and easily.
Sometimes, however, these wounds of conscience injure us deeply, pierce thru our tough external shell, releasing our existential guilt. We might experience a gush of guilt or a devastating explosion. The explanation: We have a reservoir of pent-up existential guilt, which is sometimes released by a puncture-wound of conscience. But the tack that punctured our shell did not cause our existential guilt.
I have cleverly learned to avoid the "gush of guilt or devastating explosion" by various psychological dodges, which unfortunately have had the side effect of quashing my joie de vivre. My spontaneous inner self is factored right out of the equation, while joie de vivre depends on expressing the spontaneous self, warts and all.
So, is there hope for me?
If [our guilt] management techniques prove inadequate, we might still yearn for complete release from our existential guilt. If the pressurized guilt inside our basketball can be removed — replaced by forgiveness, atonement, joy, peace, & fulfillment — the little punctures of life will no longer release a gush of guilt.
When we understand the nature of our existential guilt, we can open ourselves to Existential Freedom. Existential Freedom removes our existential guilt, even if normal mistakes continue. Under Existential Freedom we still have pangs of conscience when we "mess up", but we no longer experience overwhelming guilt 'for' trivial reasons.
Wow! Where do I sign up?
We might have to grope our way toward freedom from existential guilt. Perhaps only after some years of struggling with this deeper guilt will we be convinced that becoming better does not cure our guilt. Then we can abandon our moral striving, surrender completely, & open ourselves to Existential Freedom — which overcomes, removes, & abolishes our existential guilt.
OK, consider me in "grope mode." But it's hard to imagine abandoning my moral striving, even now that I've begun to recognize what I'm groping toward. And exactly how do I "open myself" to existential freedom? It sounds like one of those things where you have to stop doing something that seems as natural and habitual as breathing.
Toward the end of this web page, Park asks some significant questions, including:
Have you known moments of release from existential guilt?
If so, how did you open yourself to Existential Freedom?
... what keeps you caught in existential guilt?
My answers are:
- Yes, I have known many moments of release. In my own lexicon, I call them moments of "lassitude," but that's wrong. Lassitude is a state of mental and physical exhaustion. Here, what's exhausted and wants to retreat into its hidey-hole is my existential guilt itself. In a sort of "moral exhaustion," it simply shuts up for a while, and I feel as if God's in his heaven again.
- It just happened, and I don't know why.
- I don't know why I can't find the "lassitude" when I want to but can't.
More later ...
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