Tag: feeling guilt

meaning in life, Philosophy

Thoughts of Death Haunt Me

carolyncordon

In these troubling and almost surreal times, I’m finding myself thinking about death, which would be fine, if the deaths were of characters in the Cosy Murder Mystery I’m supposed to be writing. But the deaths are not fictional deaths of some characters in my work-in-progress ‘Winds of Death at Talloola’, instead the deaths are real deaths, as the total of deaths from Covid 19 rise, and rise, and rise …

And there was a death in our house recently, one not caused by plague, but in response to something that sometimes becomes plague-like. It was a mouse, a not yet fully grown mouse, that made the mistake, as mice too often do, of coming into my house, my kitchen, and falling victim to our range of mouse traps.

This mouse fell victim to not just one, but two traps, both at once, and while it pains me, it is also good that it was trapped, and will never again invade my kitchen, possibly spreading disease … I’ve taken the mouse out of the traps, and released the body back to Nature, where other creatures will welcome the carcass, as much as I definitely didn’t welcome the living creature.

Mice are cute as pets, I suppose, but I don’t want them in my house.

There was another death too, this one caused entirely by me, and the guilt I feel is magnified by the esteem in which I hold the creature I killed. I was driving home from a needed visit to pick up something, and a quick visit to see my mother. The car I was driving has cruise control, and I was cruising along, on cruise control, when I saw this creature, but I didn’t slow down quickly enough, and crashed into the magnificent owl standing on the road, too close to where I was headed.

Crash, bang, an explosion of white feathers, and another owl fell victim to man’s most dangerous weapon, the motor vehicle … I’ve looked at some photographs and from what I’ve seen, it was quite likely an adolescent Barn Owl, out at the wrong time, and in the wrong place. There is a little less traffic out and about at the moment, but it only took one car to kill this magnificent bird. My car.

My heart aches, but that is nothing compared to the destruction of this bird’s life … There was going to be a poem written about this, but I am still too shaken about what happened to write that poem. It may remain inside my head forever, and I hope, may make me even more careful, when I drive. Cruise control is great, but I must be the one doing most of the ‘control’, and slow down when I need to …

The Barn Owl is a common bird, all around the world, but that doesn’t lessen this particular owl’s importance. To say I’m sorry is an understatement, but my sorrow, while comforting to acknowledge, does nothing to bring back the life of this bird … I can spread a little knowledge about the bird, and encourage other drivers, as well as myself, to be aware of all of the living creatures on and around the roads, when we are driving, human, animal, and particularly confused owls, who would have been safe at home in their nesting place, not standing on the road in the mid afternoon …

Some information about these owls : https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barn_Owl/id

Life, in these times of Covid 19 virus-driven deaths, feels even more precious than ever.

Writing

We All Feel Guilt At Times

carolyncordon

Guilt is a Human Thing

This is a blog I set up for myself as a writer, and now I seem to have stepped of that track or niche, that of a Writers blog. into the niche of theĀ  New Age/Self Help realm. But fear not, there is method in my ‘madness’.

Guilt and being a writer are two subjects that go together well, with possible deadlines looming for publishers and your books, of for getting something written for a particular purpose, but you’ve spent untold time flaffing around on Social Media, yet again, instead of attended to actually writing something more than comments on somebody else’s ‘thing’.

Then you feel guilty, and hate yourself, and possibly seek solace in the comfort of a much loved blog, or website of some other writer’s. And after some thought, and possibly with reminders from someone else (a publisher wanting that manuscript you promised?), well then you get back to actually doing the writing you were ‘supposed’ to be doing.

But there’s the guilt happening, and surely feeling guilty is a bad and stressful thing, right? Actually, that is only true sometimes. Guilt is very much a human emotion. Animals don’t feel guilt. If you have a dog, and you feel it shows guilt, when you find out it has done a bad thing – eating something meant for the humans, or had an ‘accident’ inside, the dog looks up at you with those big brown guilty eyes, and you may forgive them.

But I don’t think that was guilt. Dogs are excellent at picking up human emotions, and that dog could see and feel your anger and disappointment, at what happened. Not guilty though, that hangdog face on the dog shows it is worried, not guilty. Dogs don’t like it when their owner is upset, they aren’t guilty though, worried about you being upset, or worried about what your actions may be, because they may have learned that when you act like that, they may end up getting a belting, so of course they’re worried.

This is an excellent little post on a website about this matter, I recommend you go have a look. The thing it shows adds to what I wrote about guilt, with a clever little experiment to prove the idea that dogs do not have guilt. They end the post with that silly thing about cats and dogs, where they say cats have staff, not owners, which was actually funny the first thousand times I read it, but hmm, not so much nowadays, but still …

 

Moving Back to Humans

Humans certainly can feel guilt, but that guilt isn’t always a bad and stressful thing. Taking it back to my wasting time on Social Media thing, when a writer (Me/I) wastes writing time of fluff and nonsense, they can hate themselves forever, or they can pull up their socks and get right back into getting that writing done. Books don’t write themselves, books need a writer to write them, before they can get published.

Beating yourself up with guilt, and not getting on to that writing asap won’t help at all. It may cause you stress, and stress is certainly not a good thing for anyone, whether they are writer or not. A stressed body is an unhealthy body, if we’re talking about mental stress. A stressed body, can become a body burdened with illness. Be careful of yourself, and stay away from bad stress!

Good stress, as that website post explains, can be beneficial though, so if you can use stress in good ways, excellent, well done, it may be the thing you need to get, and keep you on track with your writing!

 

A Happy Ending to the Story

So all of this can tell you that getting on with your writing instead of flaffing around online (or in other, non-productive ways), these things can cause guilt and stress. That guilt/stress dynamic can be a thing that breaks you down, or it can be a thing that makes you stand up tall and resolute, to get you right back on track with your writing!

20190505_114825And getting you writing written, surely that is a great thing if you are a writer! Buster the Dog, who lives inside my head, who has helped me write three dog-related books so far, he says ‘Woof!, get on with it Human, write those words, then take me for a walk!’