Maybe. But sometimes you also have to be mature to understand what happened to you as a child and how it’s affected you as an adult.
I think the forgiveness comes when you have kids of your own and realize how impossibly difficult it is to be a parent.
I made all sorts of mistakes as a father, but at least I brought my kids up free of religious hang-ups. And my daughter is a great mother, so we must have done something right.
Indeed.
8 year old Cranky didn’t understand his daddy was suffering from 'war neurosis…He only knew daddy was mean and nasty and that he was frightened of him
The teen and adult Cranky wasn’t any more empathic. No longer afraid of his father, he came to both love and hate him, and thought he was cunt.Consequently,Cranky and his three younger sibling each got out of dodge at 18
I think that’s the point White was making. Having no children I’m unable to empathise with that claim, but it sounds right.
My lack of empathy was also because of the undiagnosed Asperger’s . These days I’m OK at what I call ‘situational empathy’ . I can empathise to a degree if I’ve had the same experience .Still hopeless at understanding non verbal communication. Consequently, I have the social skills of a houses plant…
I also believe that forgiving all the time is not a sign of humanity or maturity, its just means you let people take advantage of you all the time and suffer silently no matter who is that person to you . We wont be able to forgive all the humans that abuses us, but we have the power in our hands to let them go of our lives without asking anything in return from them neither goodness or bad anymore. I have learnt to focus on my life and not think a bit about those people is the best way to a better life and to have a better relationships in the future.
Don’t think that’s what I said. Nor have I claimed to forgive all the time. I’ve never been able to do that.
To forgive doesn’t mean to forget or that the person escapes the consequences.
As for someone taking advantage of me, I live by the principle " Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me"
It was my intention to mention that forgiveness is a psychologically healthy thing to do, as opposed to remaining all angry and bitter for years. Although this makes perfect sense to me, it’s not simply my opinion. It is my understanding it is a well established psychological principle.
Having said that, I think being able to simply let it go as unimportant and as a learning experience would be even better.I envy you the ability.