joe1

Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 10:27:06 -0700
From: Joe Conte 
To: clburke@passport.ca
Subject: An attempt at being a friend
X-URL: http://carolyn.org/~clburke/Page26.html#f

Carolyn:

As Peter Parker (?! Egads ?!) says, you scare me too! :-)

I want to explore your recent pain and take you through it. If I fail, then at least I tried. If you do not appreciate the effort, I will never try again. :-(

Why do you write in the diary? For others or for yourself? I suspect the latter. Then, if this is true, why do you care what others do with what

you write? If Richard uses it to harm, is this a reflection on him or you? I suspect the former. Does this mean anything about you? Yes. It means you are so far advanced from his state of being that he requires personal attacks just to keep up! This should evoke a sense of pride, not hurt.

You are and have built your life to become a great person. The measure of a great person is not achievement, but what you make of achievement. Richard, assuming he can be said to have achieved as well, has made of it a pathetic creature who must resort to personal attacks garnered from private information (albeit made public) in order to control. This means he is not a great person. You are.

If this seems trite, then let me suggest another course. You, by mere dint of exposing your inner thoughts and feelings, have attracted to you a vast number of others who, genuinely, are interested in what happens to you. Like moths to a flame they come to merely bask next to the warmth you generate. You have proven (or should have proven) to yourself that you are worth...while. But there is some degree of danger in what you have done. To achieve the proof, you have had to expose yourself. Inevitably, there is evil in the world and this evil will take advantage of weaknesses. By exposing yourself you have exposed yourself to the evil intent of others.

But isn't it worth it? Look what you have gained from the experience! Self confidence, stature and others who share your beliefs (or at least some of them). Yet others who have shared their (interesting?) beliefs with you and allowed you to learn from them.

Trite statement: There must be pain to feel pleasure; evil to identify good; emotion to make logic credible. Take the bad with the good and experience all as life. Start with the assurance that you are fine, nothing wrong with you, great: as you have proven. From there, hurt and emotion can only be experience to make you greater.

Luv U 4 bee ng U. :-)

--