Forgetting is the easier and more effective of the options if you can manage it. A wrong forgotten is a wrong unavailable for either forgiving or the opposite. But where is the virtue in a mere mental lapse? To forgive the unforgotten wrong -- now there is the moral challenge, one rarely met, although almost all of us deceive ourselves in this regard. We try to forgive, and we may succeed for a time, but then, in an unguarded moment, the memory of the offender obtrudes, and suddenly the thought is front and center: That asshole, that worthless piece of crap! Such thoughts do not evince forgiveness.
What advice do I give myself? Guard the mind! But even the monks in their monasteries, far from the world and its provocations, are not very successful at that.
We aim at ideals the realization of which is beyond the reach of our own efforts. One might conclude from this that there must be a Source of help beyond the human-all-too-human. For 'ought' implies 'can': what I morally must do, I must be able to do, if not by my own power, then with the assistance of Another. So there must be this Other.
Or one might conclude that because there is no Other to render assistance, we are crazy to torment ourselves with the contemplation of ideals, which, being unattainable by us, cannot count as ideals for us.
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