From Zhawq:
I love the way Amy Winehouse sings her song ‘Love Is A Losing Game’. It doesn’t matter much that I basically don’t agree that love or anything else is a losing game per se, it’s the sound and the explicit fun I have with expressing the emotional content that matters to me.
During the last four days I’ve been in solitary confinement, so I’ve had plenty of time to think about many things. One of the things that came to mind (again) is the apparently absence of Remorse in my emotional repertoire. As I was being walked through the gate, through the prison and to my cell, I sensed the silent, but very easily observable expectation from some of the guards towards me, that I “ought to be remorseful”. Not because of the mistake I am being punished for, but because of the ‘deeds’ I did those many, many years ago.
I remember the questions during my trials when the prosecuter asked me: “[Zhawq], do feel any remorse about the people you’ve killed?”, and I remember how I lied and made the ‘correct’ display of being remorseful. I know I couldn’t have felt it even if I had wanted to.
And I guess it’s an example that is hard to explain, because how do you explain that you really have no reason to feel remorse about doing what I did? I’ll spare my readers such an explanation and try a different approach:
I am not sure if I can find a song where remorse is part of the emotions described by lyrics and/or sound. I can try, but it would be a shot in the dark. Instead I will ask something of you, my readers:
Inform me of a song with the emotion Remorse. Give me it’s title and the name of the artist/s or band. It doesn’t matter what genre or what year it is from, nor does it matter if the singer is a woman or a man, or if the lyrics are about a man or a woman. All that matters is that it has some kind of expression of the emotion we call remorse.
Once I have such a piece of music or a song to work with, I will find out whether or not it is posible for me to at least imagine this emotion. I will find out if I know what about remorse makes this emotion different from other kinds of sadness or sorrow, or maybe shame, …whatever it could be mistaken for.
I will post the result in an article and I will describe my experience with it, or with trying to find out what it is, as well as I am able.
…..
Zhawq will try and get to call me again tomorrow or maybe Monday. The priest said he would try to get time to let Zhawq visit his office again maybe Sunday, but he wouldn’t promise anything. But from how I know Zhawq, and seeing that he actually did get to call me, and he sounded very sure, then I wouldn’t be surprised if he convince him again. — Jeanny.
