On Guilt and Washing

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There were recently reports to the effect that washing yourself cleanses you of the memories of actions associated with negative emotions. It was already known that the act of washing rids us of the feelings of guilt- but this finding goes a step further, showing that not only we feel less culpable, we find the need less so, because of weakened memory for those events.

If you look around you, you do wonder how people can live a normal life, seeing the kind of sham and hypocrisy and even unfairness, that our life is full of. No doubt we have mechanisms that help us balance that part of our life with the rest of it- and washing should be one of them. Those of us who are sensitised morally and ethically through religion, and lead our ordinary lives do have a difficult time reconciling our everyday activities with our ideals: and I think ritualised washing helps us handle that dissonant part quite competently.

See how often we wash when we do something of a religious nature: even as we enter a temple we wash our hands and feet to make them clean. And I find that religious people are the kind that focus on cleanliness a lot more than the others- some of them are quite obsessive about it. I don't think that is because they are more corrupt than us- it is just that they find more causes of uncleanliness in themselves because of what they have been taught.

May be it is good that we have this sensitivity, but if it is gotten rid of through such a simple act of washing- the guilt is gone, and the oppressive memory is erased-, there is not much to be said about it: our consciousness is without depth, and is easily manipulated by words, images and actions without reference to anything outside of itself.

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