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[polydeukes]

ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ | ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇ | ᴛᴇxᴛ | ᴍᴀɢɪᴄᴀʟ ᴡɪᴛᴄʜ ɴᴏᴛᴇs

Comments

[tobetheone]

Father liked to think about how to make the world better. He always saw possibilities, not problems. But you can't solve problems if you aren't willing to see the world as it really is.

[polydeukes]

No, you can't. But if you don't see the possibility of what it could be, it might be hard to see the way things are as a problem.

[It takes a balance. Though Josie doesn't know enough about his father to make a decision one way or another.]

[tobetheone]

[It's something to consider. And it makes him hear the echo of his brother's voice trying to cajole him into reaching a particular conclusion.]

I don't think Father is evil.

[That isn't what Josie was trying to imply, but it's something he doesn't get to say aloud often enough.]

[polydeukes]

Maybe he's not.

[Because that's a valid option too.]

Maybe he's just made mistakes. People can do that too. What matters is if he's sorry for them.

[tobetheone]

I exist because he's sorry for his mistakes. And then he made different mistakes. And I don't know if he's sorry about those. But I'm ready to forgive him if he is.

That's the right thing to do, isn't it?

[polydeukes]

I can't tell you that.

[Forgiveness isn't a black and white thing.]

Forgiveness isn't really about right or wrong. People are going to always make mistakes because that's what people do. No one is going to be right one hundred percent of the time. But just because they say they're sorry doesn't mean they mean it, or that you have to forgive them or tell them it's okay if it's not.

[tobetheone]

[She explains it simply, but his eyes grow wide the longer she talks. This is a take that fully goes against things he thought he understood well.]

I don't understand.

[He doesn't elaborate which part needs more explanation. Maybe all of it does. Why would anyone apologize insincerely? How could he not forgive someone if they're sorry?]

[polydeukes]

[She pauses, trying to figure out the best way to phrase it.]

Sometimes, people don't apologize because they're sorry. They apologize because they think they're supposed to. And once they say they're sorry, they'll get forgiven and they don't actually have to think about what they did anymore.

[It's a matter of social scripts, not sincerity.]

But forgiveness is a lot more complicated than that. It's not something you owe anyone. It's something they have to earn by actually changing their behavior.

[tobetheone]

But... That's not honest.

[Neither side is being genuine in that case. People should say the same things they mean so there's no ambiguities about it.]

[polydeukes]

It's not. But ... it's the way we're programmed. We have these scripts that get us through the world, and people don't always think about how we use them.