sans souci.
When you do something, and then you stop doing it, everyone always wants to know if you have regrets.
This is especially true if you’ve started and stopped doing something as controversial as, say, porn.
This is what I have to say about regret:
First off, there is the fact that I choose to live my life without regrets — the theory being that, given that the past can’t be changed, regret is a useless emotion that causes pain and heartache and doesn’t fix anything.
So even if making porn had been the worst experience of my life, my personal philosophy wouldn’t allow me to regret having done it.
But it wasn’t the worst experience of my life, which is really the more important part.
I got into pornography at a (relatively) young age, and I let it take over a section of my life. I let it transform my life, really, and — for better or for worse — it had a huge effect on me.
If I try to imagine my life without porn, I’m forced to eliminate so much of my experience, so many of my friends. Pornography shaped the course of my life, brought amazing people into my social sphere, and, for that alone, regardless of everything else, I am so grateful for the experience.
Happy to see you quit and are processing your experiences. I wonder how the idea of not having regrets plays out. For example I participated in an abortion with a girlfriend when I was young, I regret having done that. I am at a place now of thinking of that act of mine as being immoral. I do not have guilt about it. Other’s opinions about it are inconsequential to me. I do revisit the experience in my mind though, try to taste the emotions driving me then and I feel regret about having those kinds of emotions having had that kind of control over me. I want to be happy and content with my life, with me. I am not perfect though and make bad choices sometimes. They are a place of learning and regretting having made certian choices and trying to avoid them in the future is so useful to me I can’t imagine not having regret.
Your strength, intelligence and vitality are such key ingredients in serious spiritual practice I can’t help but think that if you are not following a spiritual tradition right now you should seek one that agrees with you and pursue it with vigor.
All the best for you,
Andrew
ps I looked at that modesty site you mentioned a couple blogs ago, what is with this “look at me I am so virtuous” rhetoric they are espousing? I don’t mind their ideals-each to their own-but the shameless display of them left me feeling embarrassed for them. It’s like Martha Stewart before she got caught…