rue and revel

From my mental annals of seldom-used words comes the words rue and revel. Rue means to feel sorrow over, repent of or to regret bitterly. Revel carries the meaning of taking great pleasure or delight in (an action, thing or person). Folks may do the actions of these definitions but just call them something else.

I've come to understand that everyone rues and revels throughout their lifetime to one degree or another. Ruing and reveling has many levels and intensities depending on the amount of joy or pain that comes to a person from any given experience and their attitude toward it.

Folks can sometimes rue and revel at the same time in the very same experience. For example - One can rue the day they bought a stationary bike for their bedroom because they don't use it anyway, and now this is the third time they nave stubbed their toe on it today - but they can revel in the fact that it's a great place to hang clothes.

It seems to be considered the depths to rue and the heights to revel - but such is not always true. If one rues the wrong they've done and it causes a change in their morality (for the better) - then it would be the heights of rue. But then if a person revels in wrongdoing - it would have to be the depths.

I've seen those that rued their revelry and even a few that reveled in their ruing, but can one rue their reveling in ruing - or revel in their ruing of revelry?

Self-righteousness could even raise its ugly head on some of that latter stuff. This brings up the necessity for standards and/or clarification in the area of these two words because one person's rue could be another's revelry. But I'll save that pain (or joy) for another day. ec