Well, there is at least a possibility that you are still reading this because you do not understand English. If that is the case, you have my apology (for being rude) and I forgive you for encroaching on my territory.
But then, if you do not understand English, not only that will you not know that I do not want you here, you will also not know that I have been rude and it is also not right for me to describe your mere "seeing" of this page as "reading" (But is "reading" the same as "understanding"? Anyway, I "see" my palm but I can neither "read" nor "understand" my palm). Then why am I apologising to you? Why do I think that you deserve my forgiveness when you do not even understand whatever that I am writing here?
Does that mean that I do not need to apologise to people who do not appreciate the evil I have done to them? (note: I do not speak to god)
Let's say I am in Italy and for reasons unknown to everyone around me I started cursing every Italian I came accross on the street in Hakka. Assuming that none of the people I cursed understood Hakka, and my innocent-looking face did not make it obvious enough to the loud Italians that I had been cursing them, the question is: do I owe them an apology?
It is just like how sometimes when you are behind the wheel and you accidentally let your car move into the lane of another very close car, and since it will be insane for you to park your car by the side of the road and flag the car you have wronged down just to apologise to the driver, the only thing you do, perhaps to clear your conscience, is to stay in your driver's seat and blurt out "sorry!", as if (a) the wronged driver can hear you, (b) the wronged driver understands English, and (c) the wronged driver believes that he or she has indeed been wronged.
So I guess I do apologise to people who either do not know that I have done bad things to them, or who do not appreciate the language or the frequency my apology is conveyed in.
That makes me wonder if an apology not heard by the intended receiver is good enough. For instance, writing on my website that "I am sorry" to a friend. If the friend does not even know that I have a website, I guess it is a bit hard to argue that I have apologised. What if they do know my website? Is it good enough? It is something like saying sorry by e-mail or by sms. If the other party never replies (i.e. I cannot be sure that they have read it), will I feel good enough about my apology? (never mind what the friend thinks)
Perhaps it all boils down to how important the person is to you. I am happy enough with my kind of am-really-only-talking-to-myself apology to other drivers on the road, but I do not think it is good enough for me to apologise to my friends on my website or by e-mail or by sms. What about strangers with face, like those Italians whom I have cursed in Hakka? I probably should, because I want to believe that I still have my conscience to take care of. But again, in what language? I know nuts about Italian. May be I should just smile, just to show them that I mean well. But what if they misconstrue my smile?
I am getting tired. I was really only writing to shoo you off this page. If you are still reading this, you can now begin to visualise me cursing you in Hakka. But I am not sorry about that at all, and I will not even pretend to whisper "sorry" to my computer screen. Explaining this is relatively easy. If you are a stranger, you are one without a face to me. I have enough doubts about apologising to strangers with face. What makes you think that I will apologise to you, the one without a face. If you are a friend, I have just told you that an apology not heard by you is not good enough.
I know I am not making much sense. So just leave me alone, and do not, ever, come back. ("never" is not good enough, as "never" could mean "not ever")
3 June 2004 at 15.55
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