My Diari

What has been bothering me so such is the concept of "forgive and forget". It sounds like a decent idea ..got from my dar status in YM but is it viable and does it carry any implications?

The most obvious flaw in Forgive and Forget (FAF from here on…) is as much an historical axiom as the phrase it helps us dissect: Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Using this line of reasoning, it would seem that forgiving is just fine but forgetting leads us into trouble.
An analogy. If some one gives you an apple that they know has a worm in it and you eat it without inspecting the apple, you would be mighty unhappy with the apple. Next time that same person gives you an apple, you will inspect it. Forgiveness has occurred, but not forgetfulness and there by both parties come out ahead.

Opponents of my dissecting will say that forgiveness cannot truly occur unless that transgression is forgotten as well. I would say that forgetting the incident would only make you a sucker twice. Some of this I would say lies in intent. One can easily forgive incidents that have no harmful intent behind them. In the case of the apple one might instantly forgive the person who gave you the apple if you understood that that person didn’t know the apple had a worm in it. The incident is not forgotten ("Hey, dude, remember when you gave me that wormy apple! Nasty!") but it is totally forgiven.

I think that "forgetting" part seems a little strange. You cannot work to forget something. One has to let it slowly pass from your mind by thinking or doing other things that put distance on the incident in question. I think it would be possible to forgive a transgression up to a certain degree and then it will eventually fade due to the diminutive stature of the incident. Large and overtly harmful transgressions are much harder to forget for a reason. They hurt and you do not want to go through similar experiences again. That basic desire to avoid pain is why FAF is not a good idea on the whole.

This leads us to the concept of what degree to forgive since I have stated that forgetfulness will best and most naturally occur for incidents of unintentional harm or of such a small hurt that they can be easily overlooked. Forgiveness is a personal matter. Some things that may seem almost unforgivable for some may be little more than a bump in the road to others. I believe that forgiveness should be practiced more liberally than forgetfulness.
Forgiveness is one of the main threads that make up the fiber of Community. If we were to stay angry at all the little paper cut wrongs that happen to us each day we would all be slugging it out the first shot we got. Why get angry about dim bulb customers? It does not solve the problem. Why get mad that someone passed you on the left? Maybe you should move over. It can be argued that this anger can lead to good things but I believe that to be a rare case. I believe than in most examples such anger only leads to frustration that gets passed along to other people. In order to get along in this overly taxing urban environment we have trapped ourselves in it is a matter of survival that we forgive small trespasses. Road Rage is a good example of lack of forgiveness.

To sum up I think FAF is not a viable idea. I think each half of the equation can be practiced to some degree (forgiveness to a higher degree in general) but to practice both all the time opens up the door to being mistreated and that not practicing both with moderation leads to a disintegration of Community.