About Guilt

In the landscape of my psyche, I keep coming back to these two books or they keep coming back to me.

1) Bernhard Schlink's "The Reader": A Holocaust novel. About the limitations of the law when it comes to reform of criminals. The purpose of punishment, such as jail, cane or fine, is to make the perpetrator reflect on his act and feel guilty about it. The law fails if he or she does not feel guilty despite it all.

To disgress from the storyline, but on the same theme, during the genocide, German citizens were too afraid of the secret police to help the Jews, many of which were their neighbours, or to rise up against the Nazi. So they just stood aside and watched as one by one, their neighbours were taken away, supposingly knowing that they were never to be seen again. After the fall of Nazi, as part of the terms of their surrender, German citizens were made to bury the bodies of the dead Jews. Now, I will never be sure what went through their minds, as they put shovels to dirt, pouring it on bare, unmoving bodies. Did they just bury their guilt even deeper, such is its draw, or brunt, only to rediscover it much later in their lives or at their death beds?

My point is guilt, after all, is a consciousness, an invisible yardstick that binds us all as members of the human race.

On a more personal level, I used to joke, albeit crudely, that you may think you can do whatever you want with your life, but thinking further ahead, is it worth it? That is, are you wiliing to bear the guilt that may follow even much later? On the flip side, any inaction now could also result in subsequent guilt. Are you willing to bear it then?

P.S.: I think I am too mentally exhausted after writing this. Will write about the second book on another day.