4 January 2004: Resolution (Excerpts from Email)

 

Indented text in this font is by Argus.

Italic, doubly-indented text in this font is Argus quoting from my previous message (which was also my previous journal entry).

Text in this font is by me, as usual.

Civilian names changed to kennings, as usual.

Read my previous entry first.

•     •     •

Thanks for your words, which I think are intended to be mostly kind and loving. I'm pretty excited (and surprised) to hear you say you now like Wolfina. That's very cool. I'm glad Conflict #1 is kaput.

As for your personal growth and spiritual work and such, I'm excited to hear some details about what you've been up to. I bet there's a lot more in your journal (which I've only read a fraction of), and I look forward to catching up with more of your Great Work adventures by reading that if I don't hear it all face-to-face (and probably even still, since I love your writing).

There is, indeed a lot more in my journal. I've finally become prolific. I'm in the midst of a very powerful and transformative ritual lab, which started in late November, and I've been chronicling every single session. I hope you'll check it out - that's what it's there for.

Even though I think you're being sarcastic at times in your email, I know that you're a generous person & that you're very dedicated to your friends and your spiritual work. So, I prefer to read generosity, compassion, Chesed, etc. in your words. Thank you, and thank you for wanting to still be my friend.

 

I admit to the occasional indulgence in sarcasm. I confess that I rather enjoyed it. That's one of the perks of having ceded all claim to the moral high ground. I figured you could handle it, and that you'd probably recognize it as merely being the last bit of residual venting I needed to do around our conflict. Glad to see I was right.

As for your solution, it's fine by me, except I'm not interested in "winning," whether privately or publicly, and I'm not interested in having a moral high ground or being recognized for such. (I mean, sure, I like winning as much as anyone, and I like looking good as much as anyone, I like being right and I like being righteous, but I have other priorities that take precedence.)

Jesus, Tom, I know that. I'm not letting you win because I think you're some kind of infantile petty tyrant who needs to always be right; I'm letting you win to make sure that I'm not being some kind of infantile petty tyrant who needs to always be right.

As for the important part of your solution, though -- you forgiving yourself for your humanity and allowing yourself to do as you please for the rest of your life -- I'm certainly in favor of that. Believe it or not, I always have been.

Well, good, since it's what I'm doing. It's fun. And I even give you permission to do it, too - along with anyone who reads this when I put it up in my journal. Not that you need my permission, any more than I need yours - but it couldn't hurt. You don't even have to send me money or anything, though I wouldn't mind it if you did.

I obviously gave you the impression that I thought otherwise, but please consider that I'm telling you the truth now, and that we had a misunderstanding.

 

I have no doubt but that you're telling the truth; it's by no means an alien perspective that I need to "consider." And I think it's been obvious from the start that our conflict was rooted in misunderstanding. As a firm believer in the aphorism "to understand all is to forgive all," I'd be pretty darn flummoxed if it turned out to not be a misunderstanding.

In case it got lost in all the sarcasm last time, the essence of my solution to our conflict is this: since all our conflict is rooted in our frequent inability to understand one other, I have decided to simply agree with your understanding, and to refrain from attempting to convince you of mine, thus making the whole understanding/misunderstanding polarity largely irrelevant to our friendship. I love you and I enjoy hanging out with you and collaborating with you. The only time things are less than glorious between us is when we misunderstand each other and get into a cycle of mutual frustration over it. That won't happen anymore, because I won't participate in it anymore. I'm fine with any understanding of me that you choose to express, and will cheerfully agree with it, as long as it's not expressed through hitting me with a bat or something.

I believe that to understand all is to forgive all, but it hasn't proven to be especially helpful to us, because we've kept getting stuck in the understanding part. So what I'm doing is skipping straight to the forgiving part. Understanding seems to take a lot of time and trouble and effort; I'm finding that forgiving, these days, takes none at all.

I want to reply to some things you said, because I think they may illustrate our misunderstanding.

You believe a whole lot of stuff about me which I think is about 10 percent inability to let go of the past and see me as I am now, about 20 percent projection, and about 70 percent pure bullshit...

This may be so, but please consider the possibility that you may, at least partially, misunderstand what it is that I believe about you.

Indeed I may. But for the reasons explained above, it doesn't matter - your opinions and beliefs about me are a non-issue to me now.

I feel especially confident that this is the case because my opinion of you is so benign. You seem to think I hold you in low regard, or believe you possess a host of foul traits. I don't.

Again, it's a non-issue. However, to the part of me that is still concerned about my public image, this assurance does come as a great relief, seeing as how I've already publicly announced that everything you believe about me is true.

I do think you're human, same as me, and I know that every human is selfish, lazy, scared, and insane, even though they may often be generous, rigorous, brave, and wise. But I don't condemn anyone for having those traits. That's like condemning someone for having shit that smells bad.

True. But once again, a non-issue now.

I never claimed to know you better than you know yourself, but I have claimed to see things that you didn't. I obviously didn't get across the idea that I considered my perceptions to be possibly flawed, but that's always been clear to me.

My recollection is that I've consistently stated things like, "It sometimes looks to me like you do X, or might come across that way to someone who doesn't know you as well as I do." I understand how that can sound like, "You're a goddamn X and always have been and always will be unless you clean up your fucking act, and P.S. everyone hates you for it," but it's not the same. I'm sure I haven't stated things that carefully all the time, but I beg you to give me a break, forgive me for some of my own humanity, and accept that I'm telling the truth when I tell you what I think of you.

It seems to me that our conflict stemmed from my disagreeing with your opinion of me, which is why I've now ceased all such disagreement. But I never once thought that you were intentionally lying about your opinion of me, and I apologize if I've ever chosen my words so poorly as to give you that impression.

What I'm learning here is how to be friends with someone whose opinion of me is not what I want it to be, without needing to try to change that opinion. This is a good thing to be learning. On the other hand, I have no interest whatsoever in being friends with someone who actually lies about me. I've had a few experiences with that over the years - very few, fortunately (Broken Wind was the most recent, and that was more than three years ago, and the last time before that was over a decade ago). Although I've become more forgiving of such people in recent years, I certainly don't go out of my way to continue my friendships with them.

I know the difference between "perspectives that differ from mine," and "lies," and, no matter how much your words have pissed me off over the years, I've always known that they fit squarely into the former category.

I love you, I admire you, I respect you, I believe most people feel likewise and rightly so. That's what I really think.

Non-issue or not, I certainly don't mind hearing that.

So, if you think I believe otherwise, then your perception of my perception of you is a pile of stinky poo.

Along those lines--

Unfortunately, I'm such a horrible person...

I don't think you're a horrible person.

Neither do I. I was lying. Does that make me a horrible person?

...I'm also so hostile, stubborn, arrogant, selfish, terrified, lazy, and insane that I refuse to ever work on fixing any of the faults that you have so wisely and compassionately brought to my attention.

As you wish. You don't have to fix anything. Let me know if you want to collaborate with me on the Great Work in the future. We don't have to do spiritual work together in order to be friends.

Of course we do, silly. Being friends IS spiritual work.

(And spiritual work doesn't have to connote fixing things, either, so please don't assume that the two are inextricably intertwined.)

Another aphorism dear to my heart is Niels Bohr's statement, "There are great Truths and trivial truths. the opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great Truth is also true." I'd say that "Spiritual work connotes fixing things" is a fine example of a great Truth.

In fact, my recent work has enabled me to be honest enough with myself to recognize that my strategies of selfishness, dishonesty, laziness, paranoia, and psychotic rage work so well for me that I'm not just going to keep them, I'm going to intentionally get worse and worse.

As you wish, it's your life. It's not quite clear to me how those strategies will lead you towards maximum fun in your life, but it's not for me to judge.

 

As you wish. My previous letter was, essentially, a declaration on my part that you're entirely welcome to judge me as much as you like, and that I won't take offense at your judgments. But if you choose not to take advantage of the offer, that's fine by me too.

As for "intentionally getting worse and worse," I have the feeling that what you really mean is that you're going to give yourself the freedom to be yourself, and keep that freedom forever. Which sounds great to me.

You have interpreted me correctly.

 

I'm happy to remain friends with you if that's what you choose.

Of course, you doof!

Then I eagerly look forward to much enjoyable time in your company in the new year.

Cool!

P.S.: Phew!