I feel like regret is kind of cliche; it's such a common human emotion, yet we talk about it like it's the worst thing ever. "I regret nothing" is quite the lie, if you ask me. We've all done things that we wish we hadn't. I suppose that the concept of regret has more to do with dwelling on regret; that's what people mean when they say that they regret nothing. They mean that they don't dwell on it anymore. But why is regret seen as so awful? I suppose it shows the lack of control we have over actions that we have already taken. Nothing is so out of control as our past.
We are fast approaching the end of the school year. It has truly gone by faster and faster the further we have gotten. I think that the end of one's senior year of high school is one of those times in life when one thinks of regret often. People regret that they weren't as involved, that they didn't get better grades, that they let a friendship fade away, that they didn't appreciate it while it happened. I think many students spend their entire high school career waiting for it all to be over. I know I did. I suppose that I do regret how I handled high school, although I can't say that I would be willing to do it all over again. I wish I had been more than just a student.
Regret is something that I have seen a lot in our most recent texts. Dr Faustus eventually regrets that he sold his soul for ultimate power; Dorian regrets trading his soul for eternal youth; Jekyll regrets his excursion into human depravity. A common theme here seems to be reaching out to absolutes that do not truly exist. There is no such thing as absolute power, eternal youth, or absolute evil. These texts seem to be suggesting that the inner monster of the human being is that which clings to absolutes. Humans are creatures of duality; infinitely powerful and weak, young and old, good and evil. The defeat of our inner monsters therefore must lie in our balanced understanding of ourselves. They regret allowing their inner monsters to corrupt their views of the world.
My inner monster, I suppose, corrupted my view of high school. I always felt that public education was poorly handled by the government and wanted more to make me conform than to make me an individual. I clung to the belief that school was an absolute waste of my time. I now realize, as many do in hindsight, that this is not true and that I gained a lot from high school and there was a lot that I could have taken advantage of if I had just been more balanced. The final lesson my high school experience is teaching me is that I can't cling to absolutes; they do not exist. I plan to make the most of college to avenge the death of a Josiah-that-would-have-been if I had made this realization sooner.
P.S. Sorry this is late. Consider my tardiness an April Fools joke. #gotcha
:-) :-) :-)
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