Day 223 - Old Boy - Revenge

I have watched the movie Old Boy, read and was inspired by these two following blogs, my writing is building upon that which I have read, so please go ahead and read them for better context.

http://viktorpersson.com/2014/09/day-168-old-boy-the-revenge/

http://michaelwilliammcdonald.blogspot.com/2014/09/day-656-old-boy-revenge.html

After watching the movie and reading the blogs, the point that is coming up for me, in regards to how we can learn from the movie to better ourselves and our life experience, is by taking it all back to self.

The movie is clearly about two men stuck in a revenge cycle, where the one imprisons the other for 15 years as revenge for something he blames him for that happened in their childhood, then the other seeks to pay back the man who imprisoned him, only to find that the revenge wasn't over. They hurt innocent bystanders as each other's loved ones and associates as part of their revenge towards one another. They stop at nothing. They are moved, motivated and controlled by revenge, it is all they see, it is all they live for.

These men have given up their lives in possession and obsession of revenge.

The movie is expressed in a very extreme way and thus makes it very clear for the viewers to see the madness that revenge can drive us to, within that as well to see how wasteful and utterly ludicrous this revengeful behavior is, to spend ones entire life in revenge, instead of letting go, starting fresh, and allowing oneself to enjoy and live a full life.

Once I can see the construct clearly within the movie, presented in the for of one man doing to or against another man, I like to ask myself where else do I see this construct in my life and environment. Where do I see the same play out played by different characters.

What intrigues me most within exploring the lessons I can derive from this movie, is to research this construct of revenge as I see it playing out within myself, as myself and towards myself. In other words, seeing this construct, as it exists externally, equally existing internally, within the principle of "as within so without".

Let me explore the situations where I revenge myself, hold onto grudges towards myself and blame myself for things that are long gone from my physical experience, yet I hold on, judge, punish and revenge myself for them, maintaining and perpetuating this endless cycle of self abuse.

When I say revenge as an act of self abuse, I see it as any form of deliberate self abuse (all abuse is deliberate), done based on some point of blame, shame, guilt, judgment from the past (it is all from the past) - so basically  lot of self talk, communication with self, if not supportive, is a form of revenge.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to revenge myself as I hold onto memories of things I've done or said and regret, blame, shame and judge myself for them, instead of forgiving myself within the starting point of learning and expanding from the experience

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself within / as myself as I revenge myself in blame / judgment / regret, as if the one me will do something that the other me will not approve of and thus, I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see, realize and understand that the revenge I am inflicting upon myself, as punishment and abuse is an indication of a time where I allowed myself to not be in alignment with myself, where within participating in revenge I am perpetuating that very same structure of not being in alignment within and as myself, and thus I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to take that experience / memory as a point of growth, expansion and learning rather than beating myself up in revenge, blame and punishment

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that I have used revenge to justify to myself the continuing participating in thoughts / words / deeds that are not in alignment with that which is best for all in self honesty, where I allow myself to think / speak / act in self interest and abuse / harm myself and /or others in the name of protecting my mind / characters and then I justify / validate / maintain the cycle by punishing myself in blame / judgment and in doing so revenging myself for allowing myself to fuck up in the first place, instead of seeing this whole entire play out, as seeing the fuck up and the revenge that will follow, and to simply stop

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to live in the past as to remind myself of how "I fucked up", "I should have done it this way or that way", "I shouldn't have done that", where in each time I remind me I am doing so in blame, shame and guilt as the form of revenge, as a way to punish myself for what I have allowed in the past, rather than investigating my past mistakes from a starting point of neutral self exploration, within the realization that only through seeing myself clearly, without any judgment, just seeing simply who / how I have allowed myself to be / do / act / say, only through facing myself in forgiveness can I actually start a fresh page and free myself from the chains that the past holds on me as long as I allow it, within holding on to revenge.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing mysel to see that the point of payback as revenge is an indication of living in the past and thus compromising self here for the sake of the idea / memory of my perspective of what had happened in the past, thus, I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that the point of revenge will inevitably become a point of regret and thus a point of a self judgment / blame and thus the cycle of revenge continues,  instead of simply stopping

When and as I see myself participating in revenge, towards myself or towards others, in form of thought, word or action, I stop myself and breathe, I stop the revengeful though, I stop the justifying thought, I stop the belief that I was wronged or was wrong, I stop it all and breathe. I bring myself back here and notice the physical body that is here as me. And within breath I speak self forgiveness on the origin point and the reaction in revenge that came up.

Day 222 - Just Fucking Do It

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to talk about the things I want to do instead of actually doing them

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to talk about thing I want to do as if I am planning to do them when in fact I am talking about them as a way to express to others my direction without having to ever go there

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that the more I talk about a point I want to do / accomplish the less likely I am to actually do it, because if I were to do it I would just fucking do it

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that talking about a point is avoidance of actually walking the point

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that talking about a point from the starting point of making myself look as if I am walking the point or am about to walk it is self dishonesty, as separating myself into two beings, the one who talks as if I will do or am doing something, and the one who is existing in avoidance and isn't actually doing it, thus being split between my words and my deeds.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a loop for myself where I see and realize that I am trapped in an endless cycle of talking about a point and not walking it but at the same time still believing myself to be actually trapped, not realizing that I can simply stop the cycle in one decision, in one breath

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a cycle for myself where I am already sick and tired of hearing myself speak about the things I want to do, such as to support myself in writing, and then as I see myself not do it to judge myself and add self hatred to the situation, instead of simply seeing myself in the loop and make a deliberate decision in that moment to take immediate action and to for example sit down to write

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create such a big deal out of sitting down and writing where I have become so intimidated of writing that it really seems like a huge point to tackle, when in fact I have been writing since the first grade, and it is not in fact a big huge task, but rather one that I simply must direct myself to do, and once I start doing it each time I realize that not only is it not as hard / scary as I feared, but in most cases I rather end up enjoying myself.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to remind myself that I do in fact enjoy writing and that many things that I tend to avoid and feel like I have to fight with myself in order to do are things that once I allow myself to get started I actually enjoy them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to re-live the pattern/memory from my childhood where my parents would urge me to go into the bath and I would fight them not to but once I was in I would love it so much that I wouldn't want to get out

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to learn from the memory above but instead to re-live it as to be frozen in time within it, instead of evolving / growing from it

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to spend so much of my time and energy in trying to avoid doing the things I really want to do, instead of just fucking doing it

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fill up my time with complaining about not wanting to do the things I actually on a deeper level want to do, or complaining about not doing the things I say I want to do, instead of just fucking doing them

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to establish a clear starting point within myself as to why I want to do the things I say I want to do

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that without a clear starting point it is no surprise that it has been hard for me to stay dedicated to a decision that I am unclear about what it stands for and who I am within it.

I commit myself to find and define within myself a clear starting point, to investigate what that even means to me, to create from within myself the definition of why am I walking and where am I going.

I also commit myself to write daily, even if just one sentence of self forgiveness or one point of realization, I commit to write out a self directed supportive statement / paragraph / blog each day. Within this, I commit myself, if resistance to writing still comes up, to write about the resistance and not allow myself to be directed by it, but rather to take it as a point of self discovery and exploration, and at the very least, as something to write about.