Rational Religion


Contact the author:
tuppennyprofet - at - aol - dot - com
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Commitment:

 

Anybody who has tried to live with another human being for any length of time has had to put up with irrational behavior.

 

This applies pretty much across the board.  Whether the cohabiters are genetically related family members, lovers, spouses, or college dorm mates chosen by lot, sooner or later the other person is going to do something that makes sense only to him-or-herself. 

 

Sometimes it's just damned annoying.  Ofttimes it's high enough off the wall to threaten the relationship.

 

People break up; get divorced; shoot each other over these things.

 

Most of the time it shouldn't get that serious. It tends to get serious when the startled party overreacts. 

 

(Of course, there are people who are so out of touch that most of what they do or say doesn't make sense.  I'm not talking about the mentally ill;  just ordinary, oblivious, in-their-own-world human beings who shouldn't try to live with anyone else for more than about a week at a stretch.)

 

The trick is to know it's going to happen.  It's a consequence of every human creature belonging uniquely to his or her own internal universe

 

We all come from different places, to get to where we are at a given moment.  There are bound to be stretches where our frame of reference simply doesn't mesh with anybody else's.  If this sufficiently surprises us, or them, it can be defined as irrational.

 

The answer is to ride it out.  Forgive it; respect it; ignore it; whatever keeps the peace.

 

This is the nature of commitment:  To forgive your partner for being unlike you in certain important ways; and to forgive without forgiving, since forgiveness creates obligations which further cloud the issue.

 

I would specify understanding, except that irrationality defies understanding.  Just get past it.