Philosophy for the Inclined

The Impracticality of Regret Part II

I am writing this post almost 4 years after I wrote my thoughts and collections in Part I. After logging back on from what I can say has been a very long hiatus, I can't help but discuss what I've learnt about that way of thinking, and how I could refine it after taking it on as my personal mode of living. 

Do not worry, I am not undergoing some great paradigm shift in thought. I am fairly happy and confident with my thoughts and comments in Part I about regret. The fact that it is useless, it does not get you anywhere and most importantly, provides no type of solid foundation to build anything constructive except to deteriorate it further. Rather, I seek to append those thoughts with some things I have learnt along the way and overall make it an easier practice, socially, to not live in a regretful manner.

The subject of regret has been brought recently in the great public stage with audience members sometimes asking celebrities whether they have ever regretted something in their life. One response particularly left me in thought, it went, "Well, I am not the type to not regret anything but...". This was meant to give the impression that regretting nothing is somehow a dirty word, as if people who regret nothing give themselves the right to do anything. It wasn't only this comment either, many thought similarly! Expressing their disdain for those who do not have regret and thus a care in the world. This is by far an obscuration from the path I intended to seek in Part I.  It has always been my intention to design a method of thought to eliminate self-pity and feelings of helplessness and enhance reinforcement of the self, by avoiding more situations which may cause this form of deprivation. The types of people which are being referred to here, are those who eliminate the negative emotions that come from regret but do not eliminate the chance of it reoccurring again through their actions. 

This to me, defeats the purpose of this philosophy. What is the point of not caring about what happens for the purposes of not creating ties with the past, if you yourself willingly and knowing repeat what has been done carelessly to simply ignore those extra ties created? There is no form of learning through this. Learning to avoid making the same mistakes to achieve a better outcome in the future. 

Such a person is not aware of the people around them, especially when they act selfishly to avoid themselves suffering at the risk of repeatedly causing others suffering. Especially when those others are people they themselves care about. 

What does that reflect onto such a person who lives by such a philosophy from a romantic point of view?
For some, it exudes feelings of excitement, adventurousness and a person with no limits except that of their imagination. These are positive emotions that are only shallow perceptions of the true experience. After all, a person who truly is disconnected from the past would have difficulty reconciling arguments with their partner, choosing to ignore rather than to mend. Such a person by definition would be incapable of acting as a unit with their loved one, choosing to act independently of how their partner feels, to avoid the risk of being tied down to emotions which they themselves choose to run away from rather than to bunker down and get over.   

The 'perfect' person for such an individual who chooses to regret nothing, would be one who immediately connects with them from the get go, and any arguments that might arise are either ignored, or non-existent.
That is not a relationship, but a lie made out to be real. It is a fake experience with a person who would necessarily have to be robotic and thus devoid of emotion rather than a person who would truly have the capacity to love.    

This might appear to be going on a tangent, but these thoughts have led me to reconsider how I act in my own life, and made me want to seek a philosophy about regret that is more inclusive to other people, and to achieve the most happiness while eliminating the most suffering. It is the evolution of ideas from Part I which dealt with things on a local level, very much like an island, independent of what happens around it. Evolving into something capable of acting as before but differently in order to work well with other islands too.