Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

I’ve left a long paper trail.

Not as long and as extensive as others, to be sure, but nonetheless pretty clear.

The positive side is people can objectively trace my growth as not just a writer but a person through the published letters / articles / reviews / stories / interviews I’ve written.

The negative side is people can objectively trace my dumb ideas and behaviors through the published letters / articles / reviews / stories / interviews I’ve written.

So be it.

I will never pretend it’s not there, or that I didn’t say / write things that I did.

But I will try to demonstrate I have grown and changed for what I trust is the better.

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

-- 1 Corinthians 13:11

You can find remarkably bad political ideas I expressed as a teenager.

You can find me quoting Richard Pryor and Quentin Tarantino.

You can find me arguing from ill-informed points of view on race and gender and orientation.

You can find my name on mastheads of once cool / now contemptuous publications.

You can find jokes and cartoons and snarky remarks I uttered in bullpen sessions that were intentionally vulgar and sarcastic at the time uttered.

So be it.

You may ask if I’m ashamed.

No.

What does shame garner any of us?  It’s a useless emotion.

You may ask if I’m regretful.

No.

What’s done is done.

I said / did / wrote those things.

The genies cannot be put back in their bottles.

You may ask if I’m sorry.

Yes.

There are those I hurt unintentionally and those I hurt intentionally, and many of those I deliberately hurt were not deserving of the ire and sarcasm directed at them.

That’s not to say they were right in any particular instance, but I was certainly wrong in how I treated them.

And many of those I hurt were people I liked and admired and enjoyed working with, people who deserved better from me.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. 

I hope I made it up to them when there was still time.

You may ask if I’m repentant. 

Yes.

To repent means to turn away from, to literally do a 180 on previous opinions and attitudes and approach issues from a new angle.

That I have done, and that I will continue to do. 

Twenty-five years ago you would have found me holding the belief that same sex attraction was a form of mental illness, that it could be cured through therapy, that transgender people needed psychiatry and not surgery.

But even though I held those opinions, I did something almost no other people who held those beliefs did.

I said, “If I’m wrong, show me where I’m wrong.”

People did, remarkably patient people.

And I held up my end of the bargain:
I changed my opinions based on new facts I learned and logic.

I think one reason I’m able to do this is because one of the guiding principles in my life is adherence to the creed that all should be treated equally, and not prejudged for things they have no control over.

You show me evidence that convinces me more people will be treated in a more equitable fashion by society, and I will change my opinion to embrace those facts, because those facts help bring about something I believe in my core being:  Liberty and justice for all.

None of which erases stupid / painful / hurtful things I said / did / published.

But it does show that I’m trying to be better today than I was yesterday, and better tomorrow than I am today.

If someone has a specific grudge against me for something I said / did / published, I’m willing to discuss the matter with them to see what can be done to right any wrongs I committed.

That’s all I can promise.

That’s all I can do.

© Buzz Dixon