Leigh wrote the following:
Quote
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
...
I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.
This is sort of a merging of thoughts.
I have been thinking a lot about this particular poem ever since she wrote it. There are a few key verses that I can relate to almost directly and I am not sure if it is good or bad or neither.
Good general definitions of the following (in my own words) are:
Selfish: Primarily Concerned with ones' Self.
Selfless: Primarily Concerned with Others.
Assumptions are:
Selfish is a bad moral / karmic value.
Selfless is a good moral / karmic value.
My analysis of these verses goes something like this.
If we create two laws from the verses listed above:
1. Be true to yourself no matter what, even if it means betrayal of another.
2. Be able to truly like yourself
Is it fair to betray someone even if it means not betraying yourself? Does that make me selfish if I choose to betray another to be true to myself?
If you betray another person to be true to yourself are you still a good person?
If you do not betray another but are not being true to yourself have you done a good thing? Would this be the selfless thing to do?
If you can be alone with yourself and you do not like the person you are. Do you betray another person to be true to yourself? If you do betray another person, will that betrayal cause you to not like the person you have become?
If you are faithless, meaning you have faith in nothing, what do you hold on to? The obvious answer is yourself, your own confidence, but what if you don't have that confidence? What if you can't gain that confidence without being true to yourself, but to be true to yourself, you have to betray another, and if you betray another then you won't like yourself for it, and therefore, you do not like yourself for what you have done, and then you do not gain the confidence to hold on to yourself.
Can you betray another and still be trusted?
With me, the two laws will always conflict
If I betray someone, I will not like myself for it.
If I don't I will never be able to be true to myself.
The only way they would ever be in harmony is if one of the following occurred:
1. Betrayal was not selfish
2. Selfish was not 'bad'
My personal take on things.
I was honest with my wife from the beginning, before we were married. I told her about my issues with gender. But I feel like that is just a defense I am using. I can't help but feel like I would be betraying her because I did marry her.
Marriage is a binding promise. Intentionally doing something that I know would cause our divorce would be intentionally breaking that promise. Intentionally breaking that promise would be betrayal. Betrayal is selfish. I would not be happy with myself for that action.
I can't stay the same and be true to myself. Any steps I take to be true to myself would lead to divorce, she has made that clear. Therefore, any steps I take to be true to myself would knowingly lead to divorce and thereby be betrayal.
There is no compromise between these two points. Our two views are diametrically opposed.
So one of them has to be broken
Either I betray to be true to myself ... which would be selfish?
Or I do not betray and am not true to myself... which would be selfless?
I can not keep both laws, it isn't possible, only one of them.
