Borrowing Another's Guilt
By Goratrix bani Tremere
Originally posted here on February 7, 2022.
Back in November, I wrote an essay entitled
"The Art of Regret, and Why I Can't Do It." It was a deep dive into the interactions of my morality and my past, and yesterday I had something happen to me that made me think about it again, and gave me some thoughts to expand upon. By no means do you need to read my previous essay to engage with this, however, I have linked it if you wish to.
I frequently make the claim that I do not have a conscience, and, in terms of how vampires back at home think about it, I don't. I do not subscribe to the tenants of Humanity--I do not feel bad for my actions, I do not regret, in a moral sense, and I do not look at my wrongdoing and wish to fix it because it's "the right thing to do." I don't care. I haven't for many centuries, and I'm not going to start now.
Except, yesterday, I did, and that both bothered and scared me.
It's a symptom of being part of a system, and settling into a role that I would not necessarily label as "co-host" but more "co-fronting with the host 80-90% of the time." Sometimes, when co-fronting with someone, you will feel their emotions for them, or have an emotional reaction to something that would set them off, or otherwise get your wires crossed and feel some strange ways about people and events. This led to the interesting circumstance of thinking about Therimna--someone I wronged very deeply--and Tanix's hyper-empathy taking over, making me feel guilty about my treatment of her.
Me, guilty! For the first time in eight hundred years, at least! I didn't like it.
I've squashed most of that down, at this point, because it runs counter to my own moral system. I, and, in general, people, do the best we can with the information we have, given what we feel is right given our own morality. My priority has always been Tremere and, failing that, given the semi-betrayal I had to live through, my own survival. Therimna was tertiary; a passing thought. Was that right? No. Could I, should I, have done better by her? Of course. It was a waste to turn her into an executioner, a vehicle of my will through violence... and then abandoning her, more or less, letting her be cast out of the clan for only trying to find a new way.
(Forgive me for keeping the details on her sparse. Some part of me is still not yet ready to talk about her in any kind of detail, nevermind Tremere.)
But not once in all of these years have I felt guilty for what I put her through. By the time it occurred to me that I had done wrong, I had long since cast off the ability to feel guilt. Feeling guilty doesn't accomplish much, in my experience--it just weighs you down and shackles you to other people and their expectations. (Your mileage may vary.) So to feel it again, so strongly, after so long... If I'm honest, it nearly sent me into a panic attack, something else I haven't dealt with in quite a long time.
Feeling emotions long since abandoned and nearly forgotten... I don't recommend it, personally. I am familiar with disappointment in myself, yes, but not... guilt. Not regret. A desire to do better, yes, but no more. No moralizing about it. It's almost embarrassing. Yet, it haunts me--that feeling, even fleeting, changed something fundamental in the way I see the world, from my position in this system. I just don't know what that change is as of yet, but to be sure, you will be the first to hear about it when I do.
I suppose, if I wanted, this could be a catalyst for going back. I could set aside my power-based moral system (which I intend to write about soon). I could return to the path of humanity, feel guilt and regret and everything else again, but I don't want to. I don't. I only ever got hurt when acting and feeling that way, and I just don't know how I would manage if I were to go back, in the shadow of everything else I've done. My goal is to survive: and I doubt I would manage it if I gave up my perch on the Path of Power to come full circle back to the vulnerable, emotional man I used to be.
Circles, in circles, my life often goes, but not this time. Not like that.