Guilt seems to be part of some people's psyche, and they feel guilty about the oddest things. A friend fessed up the other day that she feels no guilt at all about buying a dozen bottles of wine – but if she spends the same amount in a bookshop, it tugs at her and she feels she has no right. It took a while to get my head round that, and the only explanation I could come up with was childhood conditioning about sharing and not being selfish. A bottle of wine is usually a shared pleasure, but a book is a world in which we shut ourselves away from the real world and take no one with us. Maybe we'll recommend, or even lend, the book after we've read it, but the pleasure of reading it isn't something to share. So, for people who do guilt, I suppose there's maybe just a vestige of logic there.
Me, I gave up guilt a long time ago. I came to the conclusion that beating myself up because something might be my fault doesn't really achieve a lot; much better to accept it, feel bad about it for a while, do what I can to make amends, then move on. And a lot of the time it wasn't my fault anyway, either partly or entirely. I suppose to believe in guilt you also have to believe in sin, and that's another concept I'm uncomfortable with. Sure, there are things you shouldn't do, and some people do them anyway, with or without the accompanying guilt. But a baseline of trying not to hurt other people seems pretty sensible to me (though I reserve the right to take a dig if someone takes a dig at me first!), and if I do it inadvertently, I may not like myself much for a while, but, well, see above.
And feeling guilty about reading, or buying books? I've had a good look around that psyche of mine, and I think I can honestly say that's something I've never felt guilty about in my life. Not even reading D H Lawrence, or whoever was feeding my soul at the time, instead of doing my history revision homework a week before a big exam – and boy did I get flak for that! And these days, if I had enough money in my pocket for a bottle of wine or a book and had to to choose between them, the wine wouldn't even be in the race, and guilt would be the last thing on my mind.
Also these days, when most of my reading matter is crime fiction, I struggle to get my head around the idea of crime fiction as a guilty pleasure, or worse, guilty secret. What is that about! It's a claim I've heard from people who are otherwise straightforward and intelligent – as if Reginald Hill is in some way inferior to Ian McEwan, or Val McDermid to Margaret Forster. Different, maybe, but that's all. Doesn't it depend on what you need at the time?
And as for guilt... purr-lease!
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