About conscience...

Haven't you ever heard of a vulnerable spirit? I can just hear the not-agains mumbled on your mouths, not more talk of spirits. Yes, more talk of spirits; and no. More talk of consciences.

A vulnerable spirit lives in a box to protect the busy conscience from things it might consider wrong thirty years from now: the pubs with their pool tables, the slot machines, the beer; the rumours, swearing and paranoia. It's been a constant cycle of reconsideration. At the age of six, the touchy conscience told the sensitive spirit that it did something wrong at the age of four. She became obsessed with what a terrible person she was for weeks and months. She never did it again. At the age of thirteen, the touchy conscience told the sensitive spirit that she did something wrong at the age of eleven. She became obsessed with what a terrible person she was for weeks and months. She never did it again. At the age of seventeen, the touchy conscience told the sensitive spirit that she did something wrong at the age of seventeen. She became obsessed with what a terrible person she was for years and never did it again. But now the sensitive spirit realizes that the things she did weren't that terrible. And they were very isolated incidents that she learned more so from her own touchy conscience than the condescending confrontations from other people who probably did a lot worse when they were her age.

When a vulnerable spirit has a busy conscience she feels everything she does in life is wrong. It's constant self-reproach. She's totally ashamed of herself as a teenager even though street psychology proves that the embarrassment of adolescence was beyond every busily conscientious being's understanding. And the psychological instability of her adolescence is comparatively mild in many ways. Consider for a moment the idea of being too young to understand your selfish binges. Now expel it and consider instead the freedom of being a kid. The freedom of what you think about things you do wrong as opposed to the freedom from things you do wrong. These were the years of doing things that nobody can explain later. Those who think about the past too much hate themselves for the rest of their lives… and all for these years.

The sensitive conscience makes a vulnerable spirit afraid of attention, afraid of reaching out for attention, afraid doing so as a child was selfish no matter how isolated she was and needed attention. The touchy conscience makes a desperate spirit afraid to have feelings. She's afraid they're selfish even though feelings can be some of the least selfish things you can have. The touchy conscience makes a desperate spirit afraid of warmth; afraid it will make her a wus. People may get the wrong idea. She'll just seem too polite, too friendly. She's just a flake or a fake. She's up to something. Though, she's not that afraid of warmth; she can't deny all of her love and she's always wanted to give it. But she's afraid of using the word "love" in writing because some may find that artificial, a put on; and sometimes it is. But when I write about love, I mean it, my friend. Though love comes pretty naturally to a wanting soul. But a wanting soul is something a not-having mind could never understand.

The conscience is a receptacle for the exhausting pain of searching for integrity. It's trying to do good -what's most good - and constantly finding that there were more good ways of doing things. It's searching for the truth about your own character, about how you feel about your own character. And the touchy conscience fails to see the pointed difference between these two things.

Once upon a long time ago, the vulnerable spirit had absolutely nobody. She kept a low profile. Nobody knew her because she felt she wasn't good enough to be known. But she found herself reaching out to living shadows, touchable thoughts, silent distant voices, music. She needed a sense of identity to assure her that she was a part of this world even though she wasn't. She needed to find happiness. Happiness can help heal a broken conscience

Forcing myself to forget about it, or pretending nothing ever happened makes me happy for a short time. But snow in the trees, on the roofs, in the air, on my eyelashes makes me happier most of the time. The cold distant sun in the blue twilight peeps out behind the black trees. It too is happy. It's light heals the darkest conscience. Breathe the realness of nature not the goneness of yesterday. Spiritualizing. Rehumanizing. A tiny cobblestone foot bridge stretches from the front door to the woods. See lots of snow and lots of blue. This all makes me happy. But so does sucking the Jack Daniels out of expensive liquor chocolates. So my vulnerable spirit lives as happily ever after as it can.

A vulnerable spirit has to live in a fantasy to protect the touchy conscience from things it might have done wrong thirty years ago: the baby pubs with their baby pool tables slapping and shooting, the baby slot machines clicking and flashing, and the baby beer smashing and spilling; baby rumours, swearing, and paranoia. And then there's her baby conscience right there pulling her hair, giving her  a wedgie, pushing her off the swings, and putting glue in her hair saying, "Ooh... I'm tellin'."

I'm the super conscience. I remember every mistake I ever made in my whole life. I remember everything stupid I ever said, everything stupid I ever did. And it just makes me look like a terrible person. I have committed these illusory, pesky evils over and over and over again in my head. I'm a mosquito on integrity's arm, a maggot in love's wound, an antique lion-head door-knocker hanging from the knob of stupidity even though I've done nothing. I keep knocking on the stupid door of common sense but all I can do is just hang in there, hang in there right in between what is right and wrong, what is stupid and smart, what is good and bad; hanging in there like a dying child in the last days of life.

The super conscience had a friend she both loved and hated. He set her sense of good on fire with the mere spark of that abrasive look. He was one of the most honest, most principled guys she had ever met, but he was also one of the biggest hypocrites and I mean that in the nicest way possible. My super conscience aside. My conscious is not so super, especially the self conscious one. I liked this guy. And he liked me too; that's why it made no sense for him to so intimidate me. He had a big mouth when he didn't agree with you. I was afraid of what he'd think of me, and I didn't know what to say so I said what I thought he wanted me to say. For months he talked about the rigid nature of community and I kind of agreed and kind of didn't. So when I raised this point in conversation he basically said, how could you say that? in so many words even though that's what he had been saying all along, in so many words. That's terrible, he almost said. He was almost right; that was terrible. But that's not what he had been telling my super conscience and self conscious all along. And that's only what it believed to be half-true. She (my conscious, the self one) tried to share with him the half she believed to be true. He must've believed the other half. How pathetic the conscience. It is so beyond blame that it is prone to guilt, especially after saying something stupid and wondering if you really meant it. It was stupid and she (the conscience, the super one) knew it was. If she didn't know it was stupid then maybe she actually meant it. I don't know if people mean anything they say when they don't know what they're saying, when they say what they say.

Moral of this story: Never tell people what you think they want to hear. You feel bad for saying something you never really wanted to say in the first place.

I can just read the puzzlement in your minds, but haven't you ever heard of a conscience?

Elaine 07