Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

English: Tibetan endless knot Nederlands: Tibetaanse Oneindige knoop (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The need for redemption comes from the knowing or thoughtless harm of others, particular harm to those who we gave reason to trust us. It is a human need, a need for forgiveness and more, to feel that we are better than we once were, and deserving of something new.

I have listened, many times, as men (and women) who have done terrible things over the years cry at the price those things have exacted, in family, employment, freedom. They are crying to me because I am there to help, to get the monkey off their backs.

Forty years old, and the child they sired at twenty is now grown, a memory and a faded photograph in the wallet. The dream of music, or art, or craft has long since been subsumed under the daily effort of survival. The accumulated guilt over day to day choices that never thought of the future almost too heavy to bear now.

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Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

Once upon a time I came across a meme on LiveJournal asking people to identify their ten personal commandments.  I like memes. When people participate in them, interesting thought experiments spread across the world.

I took the assignment seriously and took perhaps a full week to think about what ten principles I would like to live by. I wanted them to be universal, to apply in addition to rather than instead of a religious belief, and to address both harm to self and harm to others.

Here is what I came up with:

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