Saturday, February 05, 2011

Blame and Control

Ok –big insight today. This is what I love about meetings. This morning the topic was old resentments—old family stuff and “I’m still mad at my sister because when we were 13…” that kind of thing. Some were real tragedies that no one could control—just bad stuff that happens to people. But we want to blame. Blame someone.

And it hit me: Blame is a form of control. Misguided, yes. Illogical, yes. But in its way it’s a safety valve and a form of control. If I can blame someone then it means there was a way for the thing that happened to not have happened. It would never have happened unless so-and-so did thus-and-such.

When I blame I am trying to control. I’m trying to control something that happened 20 years ago, three months ago, two days ago or next week! It’s an attempt to control (and still control) the uncontrollable.

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