Dear mediocremusicguy,

I am so sorry for what happened. I wish I knew what to say that would help.

Although I am not a doctor or medical professional of any kind, I enjoy reading books on neurology, psychiatry and psychology. I notice that almost all the books I read often begin with words like "Even today the human brain is poorly understood" or "Even given the wealth of information we know about the brain, we are still so much in the dark about its processes." The brain is very mysterious and as one neurologist put it, "sometimes seems to have a mind of its own."

Perhaps for this reason it often surprises us or even shocks us. Consider this . . . every waking moment your mind floods you with an unending stream of thoughts and feelings. You do not "ask" for this stream of thoughts flowing through your mind. While you can concentrate your attention on certain things, when you stop your mind will begin flowing again with all kinds of thoughts and feelings, one after another in a constant stream. This process is very mysterious. Why this thought? Why now rather than later or never? The sciences of the mind are still young, are still in their infancy so to speak and there is so much we do not know.

Although we have freedom of will, that freedom is not infinite. It is finite and limited. None of us are infinite, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful and all-perfect Beings. We are finite and so is our freedom. It can help sometimes to remember this. To be completely responsible for an action, that action must be completely voluntary. But there are degrees in what is voluntary. Full responsibility requires that an action be done with full awareness and knowledge and full freedom of the will. Many, many actions lack this complete voluntariness. What is voluntary can be limited and impeded by various things: ignorance, inadvertance, duress, coercion, strong emotions, fear and other physical and psychological forces, some of which operate outside the view of our conscious minds.

There was a woman who disliked men who had beards. She thought that was just a personal preference of hers. Later she found out that when she was a toddler ,something terrible happened to her because of a man with a beard. Although the memory of that experience was not conscious to her, her animosity to men with beards was powerful. I do not know what caused you to do what you did. But I seriously doubt whether what you did was done with full awareness, knowledge and freedom of will without impediments.

Being limited beings, we all make mistakes. But I think it is important to try to maintain perspective when dealing with our mistakes. There have been a couple of men in the last 100 years who caused the deaths of millions and tens of millions of people through campaigns of genocide and forced starvation. That is a HUGE mistake as far as mistakes go. I think it is perhaps helpful to keep your own mistakes in perspective. I don't believe you have caused the deaths of tens of millions of people, millions of people, hundreds of thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, thousands of people, hundreds of people and so on. So I hope you will keep your "mistake" and "mistakes" in perspective. Otherwise you will be weighed down with a degree of guilt and shame that is out of proportion to whatever mistakes you have made.

You are a good person. And it is really admirable that you seek to bring light into the situation you experienced. It is also really admirable that you strive for self-improvement. Not everyone does that. It is a noble cause.

I hope you will not be too hard on your brain. We have little three pound brains and they work 24/7 to keep us alive and healthy. They work even while we sleep. Our brains don't wake up one day and say: "Let's make a huge mistake today." Our brains make mistakes but don't deserve to be beaten up mentally. Sometimes our behavior is caused because we lack a very important insight. Insight is more than knowledge and experience. Insight is that crucial piece of information and insight that comes on its own schedule and timetable. We can help those insights to come through self-reflection and education, but ultimately the insights come when they come. Self-control is also something that takes time and effort . . . and . . . insight.

Since you are trying to improve yourself and your relationship, I think there is much hope for you. I am certainly no saint or sage and I struggle with many things. Please forgive me if anything I have said has not been true or helpful. It is so difficult to know what to say that is both truthful and helpful. Hopefully others here will have better words for you today than my poor words. In any case, I want to wish you only the best!

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen