Some months later, after some travelling, Nasruddin passes through that village, and stops by to check on the shopkeeper. He is told something like, “it was HORRIBLE. Everyone thought I was crazy. I had to work twice as hard just to stay in business. Now my business is good, but no thanks to you.
Nasruddin replies: “oh no, it worked PERFECTLY.”
I was contemplating this morning, staring out into the rain, that I think hated my mother by the time I was 3, and I think she hated me. She wanted to break me, and not unreasonably, I did not want to be broken. I had, and I think have, in some respects, a very powerful will, although of course I was broken. I remember the dream where it became clear to me, a dream I had over four decades ago.
And I feel this sense of having been hated–and having felt hate–is not something that will ever leave me. It was early, primal, primordial, fundamental to who I am and have become. And it was extraordinarily unpleasant. My home was never a happy home. I never felt truly safe at any time in my childhood. Never. Anywhere.
But this primal deficit is the source of my energy. It is why I felt I had to save the world to prove myself. It is what fed my relentless drive for self improvement, for knowledge, for wisdom.
And I felt “you can’t replace memory”. Then it hit me “what if I could?” What if I could eliminate all those feelings of anger, worthlessness, isolation, pain and fear? What if I could do a memory wipe, such that only whatever good there was–and of course there must have been–remained?
I would not do it. Who I am is who I am. All of us have to learn how to deal with negative emotions. All of us have to learn how to transmute them, energize them, use them for good, for growth, for wisdom and learning. I would be neutering myself, destroying myself, eradicating the foundation for everything I have built.
None of us are truly wise enough to finally distinguish good and bad in this world.