Dan finds anger, even anger directed at himself, exhausting. He's never found it motivating the way some people do. He just finds it a toxic waste of energy, a destructive and useless emotion, and guilt and blame are so adjacent to it as to be included in that judgment. Dan feels regret and responsibility at taking Ellie on missions. He feels regret and responsibility at plenty of things in his life, but he doesn't blame himself, and that seems like a fine and important distinction.
So frequently, Dan thinks of people's mistakes not as emblematic of them as a person, but as the result of their circumstances. Maybe Miguel made mistakes. Maybe they were mistakes from pride or selfishness or greed or fear or any of the other reasons people have to indulge their worst impulses. But more often than not, Dan finds that what defines a mistake is the circumstances surrounding those mistakes, and that the difference between someone's mistake being a foible and being a catastrophe is luck. Just luck.
Miguel just seems like the sort of person whose mistake took place in a context where it went from an error to a tragedy.
Dan starts to set up the balsam with a clamp and vice, preparing to start actually carving. "I already took what I could from my mistakes, which was the lessons and the instructions not to do it again. Anything past that ain't productive."
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Dan finds anger, even anger directed at himself, exhausting. He's never found it motivating the way some people do. He just finds it a toxic waste of energy, a destructive and useless emotion, and guilt and blame are so adjacent to it as to be included in that judgment. Dan feels regret and responsibility at taking Ellie on missions. He feels regret and responsibility at plenty of things in his life, but he doesn't blame himself, and that seems like a fine and important distinction.
So frequently, Dan thinks of people's mistakes not as emblematic of them as a person, but as the result of their circumstances. Maybe Miguel made mistakes. Maybe they were mistakes from pride or selfishness or greed or fear or any of the other reasons people have to indulge their worst impulses. But more often than not, Dan finds that what defines a mistake is the circumstances surrounding those mistakes, and that the difference between someone's mistake being a foible and being a catastrophe is luck. Just luck.
Miguel just seems like the sort of person whose mistake took place in a context where it went from an error to a tragedy.
Dan starts to set up the balsam with a clamp and vice, preparing to start actually carving. "I already took what I could from my mistakes, which was the lessons and the instructions not to do it again. Anything past that ain't productive."