The Experience of Clarity

186 A petty life is so overwhelmed with the noble that it feels itself unworthy, unable to stand anywhere but in its shadow ... or in other cases, so humiliated, so indignant that it can do nothing but scream, set aflame — always to itself in the hope of scorching its enemy, regarding this self-destruction as “revenge,” or even “self-sacrifice.” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

187 Another person has only as much depth as I concede to him.  He can be a cardboard cut-out or the very God incarnate.  To take conscious control of this mechanism, to be able to switch at will between perceptions of the real and the illusory serves me well.  When another person proves harmful, I can say, “If I am sober, this thing is mechanical and therefore meaningless and I am free of all need for retribution.  It is a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out.  I’ll wait a while.  Time, like a breeze, will blow it away.”  On the other hand, when someone proves congenial, I can say, “You intoxicate me without fail.  Stay a while.”   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

188 Requiting those ignorant of what constituted the offense is cruelty.   And our compassion here serves us well: a stoical apology dispenses with idiots sooner than a refutation they cannot understand in any way other than as an affront.  I move on and away. Never do yourself the harm of keeping as an enemy someone whose excellence in rivalry would have propelled you into a higher existence. Never get revenge on anyone beneath you, nor above you.  Never revenge.  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

189 The object is not to forgive in spite of oneself.  The object is a higher degree of clarity.  That this state “forgives” is coincidental and accounts for the misunderstanding.  To forgive or not to forgive was never the conflict.  The true conflict was one of level: whether one had the strength to climb above the lower conflict, to exist from a higher point of view. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

190 Genius is power of direction.  It actually amounts to less power than talent or innate ability, as there are some talents so great as to be sent out of control. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism