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To Wit

You asked what was the root cause of the depression. Do you want to know why I feel that everything is meaningless?

It was October 2006. I had been in a car accident in February, someone decided not to stop for a red light and rear-ended me and I was still dealing with the fallout. I had to have a couple of surgeries, one in August and one in September. I was in horrible pain and dealing with recurring infections and I was exhausted. I was asked (told) to work on a project at work, it was on a client with whom I had an outside relationship. I made full disclosure of my relationship with the client and the client asked that I be removed from the project--not because they didn't trust me, it was simply that my outside dealings with the company made my working on the project inappropriate. My company didn't see it that way. I was the only one who know how to do my part of the project so they just had me work on it without telling the client. Integrity is everything to me--everything. I have, in fact, studied philsophy and ethics and understand that ethical behavior is absolutely central to a properly functioning society (which largely explains why our society isn't properly functioning) and I make sure than everything I do meets the highest ethical standards--I have always been more than willing to sacrifice self interest to obtain the highest ethical outcome--that's how important it is to me.

At work, I was forced into working on this client. I couldn't afford to lose my job and I was too sick to go looking for another. I was taking 1000 mg or more of vicoden a day and when that didn't work I was on morphine and I was forcing myself to focus, working 10-14 hours a day on a project which was causing a profound crisis of conscience. When the project was finished in December, the account manager who only put in eight hour days and who did end run's around me to slam together a project that was NOT Sarbanes-Oxley compliant and who was in part responsible for causing my crisis of conscience was rewarded with the highest possible honor and a big bonus from my company and I got jack shit--not even a thank you. I recently lost my job there while they went out of their way to keep him on as a virtual employee.

I can deal with everything except the crisis of conscience--they had no right to impugn my integrity. None whatsoever. I have put up with a lot in my life--a lot of abuse, humiliation, hard times, anguish, frustration, death--and I have put up with it with a sense of humor. But losing my integrity is something which I am having a hard time coping. It's been 18 months and I am no better. It has cut a hole in my soul that I don't think can ever be repaired. Integrity is a framework in which to build a system of values which give life meaning. I have no more integrity, I have no more values and I value nothing--that's really the heart of the matter.

Posted by AuroraBorealis at 13:23 on Jul 1st, 2008

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WIT	Posted on 06:35PM on Jul 7th, 2008 Well, I just can't accept that you have no integrity or values. And even what you say about someone cutting a hole in your soul cannot ever be spiritually true, not in my opinion. There just has to be, maybe just in the Platonic sense but nevertheless in a way real for all that, where in deep, deep truths, these ideals just can't be touched by such negativity. I harp on about the child because their innocence is to be treasured. No negative force or base behaviour on earth can be truly allowed to despoil that, no, it can't. When I was betrayed badly it hurt and devastated me at the time, of course it did, but in a deeper sense, as I keep saying, the person who is really betrayed is the one who did the betraying. And in your own experiences, as bitter and as unethical as they were, the only real victim is the one who did it to you. These are not just words, for me, or to be applied like a poultice to ease the hurt and pain away. I so often find my comfort in the words of the great Wiliam Blake and in his: 'My Spectre around me night and day, Like a Wild beast guides my way. My Emanation far within Weeps incessantly for my Sin.' This isn't wishful thinking on my part. I see writ large in the eyes and souls of those you refer to the fear and deep burden of survival. It is as if in the very air they breathe.
AuroraBorealis Feeling exhausted	Posted on 07:08PM on Jul 7th, 2008 I'm tired and I've been pretty fuzzy and I think that the point of both of these blogs has kind of gotten lost--it's not that I see myself as a victim, it's that I'm appalled at my own behavior. On the job I took the path of least resistance, I went along with something that I knew to be wrong. With that other person, it scares me that I could consider being so cold and cruel to a fellow human being. I'm eroding. I'm not a Christian and I don't believe that I will ever have to answer for my sins, I just believe that there is a minimum standard for appropriate behavior and I'm sinking below it. There have to be standards or society just can't properly function. How can anyone hang onto anything even resembling standards or ethics in a society that places no value on them? It's just absolutely wearing me down!
WIT	Posted on 12:31AM on Jul 8th, 2008 When you say you went along with it, what specifically do you mean? Condoned it, tolerated it, turned a blind eye to it, encouraged it, initiated it, ignored it? I'm a teacher and the unethical behaviour I have knowledge about on the part of teachers and educationalists I have met and/or heard of, could fill a book. Does my knowledge of this mean I too am culpable? It's more than saying I'm not my brother's keeper. I've often thought about this, usually when faced with a nonsense question centred around the fact that everyone is capable of murder, for example. Ipso facto, you're inherently no different from anyone who murders. This kind of spurious logic bases its argument on rubbish like if your children were being threatened you'd kill etc. Are you tarred with the same brush simply by virtue of being in the same employ as those to speak of?
AuroraBorealis Feeling exhausted	Posted on 09:37PM on Jul 9th, 2008 I was complicit--I went ahead and did something that I knew to be inappropriate. When my back was to the wall I took the easy way out--the path of least resistance. That's fine for people who aren't capable of understanding the ramifications of their behavior--and most of the people where I worked were grossly incapable of doing so, but I do understand the broader ramifications of unethical behavior, therefore I have to be held to a higher standard. Someone has to be held to a higher standard, otherwise we all sink into the morass. Which isn't to say that everything I do is right--it's just that I beat myself up more when I'm wrong. Actually, you've kind of hit on a sore spot for me--I've had a great deal of experience with teachers and unethical behavior. (BTW--I was the only person in the history of my high school to single handedly force a teacher into early retirement, YAY ME!) But I still support teachers--my take on the old maxim is: Those who can, teach. Those who cannot teach become guidance counselors. Those who can provide neither guidance nor counsel become Peter Principals. (Although I don't know if that translates so well across the pond--do you have guidance counselors and principals over there?)
WIT	Posted on 01:23AM on Jul 10th, 2008 What actual choice did you have, and I mean in real terms of free will in the sense of having a choice to play on a Tuesday evening, say, Table Tennis or Chess, and being able to make up your mind freely and without negative connotations or influences impacting on your decision? I love the cynicism about counsellors and particularly Principals. Matter of fact, the principal at the school where I now teach is one of those 'deeply commited Christians' and you'd be hard pressed to find a real Christian bone in his body. It's the same here in Australia and England where I come from. It's in the nature of the beast, like in 'Lord of the Flies'. But I for sure disagree with you about your being reponsible for the actions of others, particularly in terms of unethical behaviour. The conscience of society left in the hands of a Simon from 'Lord of the Flies', makes personal responsibility for the Jacks and Rogers of this world meaningless. Sometimes I feel that people can be divided into different basic groups and one of the most appealing to me is the host and parasite analogy. The parasites give nothing and take all and I often believe that it is envy for the host plant that most rankles with the parasites that frequent work places the world over. I don't see you as a parasite but as a host, you seem to me to be wearing the sins of others. I'd personally be giving that very short shrift indeed and not simply to make things easier for myself, either. It also makes my blood boil, seethe and rage - and it's not easy doing all three at the same time, I'll give you the tip - that when you do not behave in such a way, you can have such a comment as 'Let he who is without sin' etc., levelled your way. As if simply speaking the truth or acting ethically can be considered being holier than thou. What absurdity! How base we would be if that was our yardstick. Throw off your shackles.
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