Sociopathic thoughts

If you practise Course thinking enough it sometimes becomes embarrassingly difficult to distinguish yourself from a sociopath. Conventional coveted values of birth and death and family and friends give way to a kind of bemused universal acceptance, which superficially resembles indifference. NOT getting excited (for example) about children's day or fathers' day has the appearance of indifference. Inside it feels like clear vision. There's the rub... what psychopath doesn't believe he has clearer vision than the others?

I'm tired of America's love affair with itself. If I see one more movie which smugly depicts New York City as the glittering skyscraper capital of the world, or brags about Manhattan's "seven million inhabitants." First of all the seven million figure pertains to all the boroughs, not just Manhattan. Second - seven million is a small town to anyone who's ever done much travelling. The "medium sized" city of Chengdu which was destroyed by last month's earthquake in China was ten million people. Seoul is twelve million, Mexico City is eighteen million, Shanghai is twenty million, Tokyo is twenty eight million. New York city is historic indeed but is not at all the unique colossus it is presented to be; architecturally or in any other way. America is rapidly marginalizing itself politically and culturally.

Memorial Day Weekend

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night - only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." George Orwell.

Am I conflicted because my happy little cocoon owes its existence to might, muscle and cruise missiles? Does my bloodless, stressless, vegetarian, non-sectarian, humanitarian, libertarian, egalitarian, cavity-free, low-cholesterol life really represent reality, or is that only found in the land where ignorant armies clash by night? (see below). I ask myself just how superior do I feel; up to date on all the newest studies on what is good for me and what is bad for me, with all my books and thoughts and empty postures --- my life of sugar-free wannabe purity --- my struggles with the leading edge of nothing.

There is no truth to be found, vortexing down into the mobius interior of quantum physics. There is none to be found puffing a Cohiba in the park while discussing theology --- none to be found comparing the "great body of law" with that of living breathing organisms, and none to be found dreaming up more and more clever ways to send chatter around the globe.

"But it is only natural" the ego cries, to defend the obsession with solving the insoluble. Yes it is --- and there's the rub. Canute could not hold back the tides, nor any more can we, yet we rise in the mornings and lay down in the evenings only because we believe we progress toward the eventual inevitable conquest of that problem. Who dares speak out against hope and progress? Not once do we dare stop panting, pushing, hoping, believing, dreaming that entropy is a myth and all the golden edifices of today will not transform into the flattened ashes of tomorrow... Dreaming ... "keep the dream alive," they say, for without the dream what is there? Far be it from me to suggest the end of dreaming is the end of all time. That is not yet a welcome idea.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night

.-- Matthew Arnold.

The ego is not yet ready to give up "the struggle for peace" in favor of peace itself.

Memorial Day Weekend, 2008.

Clear mind and defective soup.

Lots of microscopic ducks in the park, swimming doggedly in single file behind their duck mothers. What to feed ducks? I've tried bread and they eat it, but I can't help thinking they'll get acne and get fat. I tried oatmeal but it just floats on the water for a while while they swim around in it and ignore it. Once I gave them half a pancake left over from breakfast and they really enjoyed that: syrup and all. SOmeone told me they like corn, so I bought a can of green giant and offered it to them. ... no interest ... When ducks don't like something they seem to have a sixth sense about it. They don't even try it. Not one little test nibble. They just know it's yukky and ignore it. It turns out, however, I was almost correct: they do like corn, but it has to be cracked corn. They go nuts over that. Put some in your hand and hold your hand out to them and they gobble it up out of your palm. That's a really odd feeling.

The mind is simplified in proportion to the visual cortex. This month I went to Florida for a few days to see a doctor and managed to fit in one day on the beach. Beaches are visually simple. They have broad simple planes and long straight lines. All the clutter and confusion of trees and buildings melts away, and so much of the static din of everyday life subsides with it. The mind can see further, straighter, deeper. How would it be, I wonder, to live on the inside of a perfectly white sphere, with even concealed lighting and no doors, windows, or furniture.

Note to Campbell's soup company: I have yet to buy a can of alphabet soup that allows me to spell my own name. There is always at least one letter missing! What did I ever do to you?

Closing of ACIM site.

Just an informational post. Nothing inspired today...

We are bringing the ACIM questions and answers site to a close this summer. There will be no further additions, though it will stay available online as a reference source. I feel like I'm saying farewell to a comfortable old house in which I have many happy memories, but all in all I'll be glad to move on to new challenges. My personal thanks to all the thousands of people who have participated over the years with questions and comments that always provoked, always stimulated, and often moved me deeply. My thanks too, to the people at the Foundation for A Course In Miracles for allowing me to be a part of this six-year project. I have grown a lot because of it, and because of all of you.

Have been in a strange space the last few months ... frantically, constantly busy, sometimes working half the night: but despite being on that treadmill -- less and less interested in conventional goals and achievements. We published a question about that this week at http://www.facimoutreach.org/qa/questions/questions292.htm#Q1342. I cannot claim I am the "happy learner" but a kind of peace is settling over me. I don't know, maybe it's just fatigue. Maybe it's old age and life is just losing luster. One side effect has been - I have lost all interest in reading books or columns or blogs about The Course. Seems like I passed through a door somewhere a few months ago, which clicked shut and suddenly shut out a whole lot of noise. With the noise gone, I realise how much I don't need it.

Went to see the new Narnia movie tonight. Fairly boring. Too long, too loud, too pointless. Too much CGI. I felt as if I were being assaulted by the music which clamored from start to finish, trying to tell me how to feel about every detail. The kids (in the movie) were fairly ineffective as heroes. Too bland, too British. They were like "the Railway Children." I do see they've re-issued "Last Year At Marienbad" up in Chicago. I'm hoping it will come to other cities. If you haven't seen this 1961 French classic, please do, if you get a chance.

Charlton Heston died ... when I was a boy I saw Ben Hur about 20 times and it was probably responsible for making me want to go into Film and TV work (which I did.) Now 50 years later I saw an interview with Gore Vidal about writing the script, and he was saying the only way to make the dialog scenes between Heston and Boyd (Ben Hur and Messala) anything but wooden and dull, was to postulate a homosexual relationship between them as boys. That's why Messala feels so spurned, and turns on his boyhood best friend. he is a jilted lover. They told Steven Boyd about this but they didn't tell Charlton Heston. Heston just "acts" and grimaces his way through it. Wow! Life has strange rivers.

I sent off to Hong Kong for a DVD of Ben Hur with Chinese subtitles, so my wife can understand the plot, but I can't sit through it any more. To me it is wooden even with the interesting new sexual undertones.

I miss London, you know? I had a flight booked there last month but I had to cancel it because I was just too busy with medical stuff. Maybe next year.

It turns out my nurse who spends one week a month with me giving me treatments has a husband who has a house down in Florida that sits empty most of the year. Occasionally he'll go down there for a week. But here's the odd thing -- she told me the property taxes are $14,000 per year. The house is in Volusia county which I know has a pretty average tax rate, so that must be at least a million dollar home. Just sitting empty! Why does that bother me?

The End of the Big Apple.

There's an apple perched on the shelf by the door. It's a bright green apple and it's large -- about two or three feet in diameter. It doesn't fit too well up there so it's half on and half off the shelf. I'm not sure what door this is exactly. It seems to be in the corner of a dark room. It is half-open, plain, and perfectly rectangular like those little computer icons for "exit." That's all I can really tell you about the room I'm in. It's dark in here, and other than the area by the door it is all dusk and nothingness. This doesn't seem too unusual: nothing does in dreams. Nor is it surprising that any effort to inspect the door or the apple cause it to disappear from view like Alice's house in "Through the Looking Glass." One thing I've learned about dreams is - I can't direct them. Any effort I make to consciously control my actions results in the dream vaporising. So I have to be perfectly passive, but here's the catch 22 - I have to make a conscious effort to be passive - and that conscious effort always ends the dream. So whenever a dream gets interesting enough to rouse my curiosity that's the kiss of death. There's a very small time window after that in which to explore the image, float across the floor, zoom through the window, finish the piano concerto, ask my mother that question, save the cat from choking on the spaghetti, see her face (who is she?), cram the cherries into the crystal jar and struggle with the lid, and buy the broken-down car from the Indian man who sits in the office - except I'm suing him because he didn't give me the glue to fix the chair and he doesn't know that, but if he finds out he won't sell it to me.

It's hard, very hard, to lie prone at the epicenter of a dream and just do nothing. For one thing the buzzing kaleidoscope of the dream is too attractive. Not attractive as in beautiful but attractive as in gravity. Every little flickering phenomenon dislodges us and we begin rolling toward it like ballbearings on a tray that just tilted. I wonder how might it be - to be completely tranquil? Completely at peace. Completely without concepts. That's the trick, you know... not to ignore the bubbling static of the world, but not to recognize it ... or try to. The Buddha sits in a world of formlessness, formless herself. The Buddha does not say "Ah that is an apple but I will ignore it." The Buddha sees no apple and says nothing. The Buddha sees no green. Apple is a concept. Green is a concept. Concepts are labels we use to assign forms to the formless because formlessness is non-identity, formlessness is fear. Concepts are the atoms and molecules of consciousness. We click them together and rearrange them like Lego for the ego, forever trying to model what we think lies beyond the fundamental dualistic division of me and not-me.

Nirvana is a sanskrit word that is hard to translate. One explanation is - the highest happiness, release from karma - but that is more an outcome than a translation. Another good one is - to cease flickering - like a flame that becomes steady and calm. The best one I ever heard was from Kalu Rinpoche at an Ashram in Toronto in 1976. Was I a seeker in those distant days? Hell no! I was a cameraman. Rinpoche came to Toronto and I went to Union Station to film his arrival, in yellow and saffron robes, greeted from the train by a Buddhist dance troupe ??!?! Then I went to the ashram to hear him speak - through a translator. Someone asked: "What is nirvana?" He answered all questions in Tibetan so the translation is not really his, but his translator's translation ... if you can follow that ... The answer was: "Nirvana is the end of all concepts."

You know, when I started writing this I had no idea what I was going to say. Now I've said it and I've no idea if I said anything. It's all a dream anyway.

How do we know when to say no?

This opinion was kindly written and contributed by "Marian," and is very timely and appropriate to the present discussion. Marian and I have known each other via mutual internet blogs for a couple of years (and yet she still talks to me!!) We are both students of ACIM, so I asked her to guest-write for me. You can visit her blog here. Feel free to leave comments here for her if you like.

There's a Simpsons episode in which Old Gil, the sublime, hapless, unemployed victim, insinuates himself into living with the Simpsons, mainly because empathic, soft-hearted Marge can't say no. Days, weeks, months fly by and he's still there. Marge swears every day that she's going to throw the bum out (he's not a good house guest, obviously) but chickens out. Finally at the end of nearly a year, she reaches her last straw, storms into the house ready to throw him out, and discovers that he's already gone.

"But I have a big 'NO' inside of me waiting to get out!" she says. At this moment, Homer walks into the room dangling a thousand-dollar bill from his fingers and says, "Hey Marge, want a thousand dollars?" And of course, she yells, "NOOOOOOO!" And he takes his lighter out and incinerates it before she can say, "Wait! I mean YES!"

Why are we so confused as to how to respond to people whom we believe are less fortunate than we are? Is it possible to see someone as a victim if we ourselves don't feel like victims? And if we can clearly see the ways in which the pained person has chosen his or her fateÑthen what constitutes help? What is kindness?

Let's start here, from A Course in Miracles:
"The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this is still true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream." T.27.VII.10.1-6

And here, from Jane Roberts/Seth, The Nature of Personal Reality:
"Again, if you are ill you may say, "I did not want to be sick," or if you are poor, "I did not want to be poor," or if you are unloved, "I did not want to be lonely." Yet for your own reasons you began to believe in illness more than health, in poverty more than abundance, in loneliness rather than affection."

Even if we accept these messages as true, which I do, we must still admit that telling someone who is in pain, or who has just lost everything, or who is grieving, that he is doing this to himself, is not kind. Nor would it be kind to say that this is all just a bad dream. Using the movie analogy, if there is a fire in the projector, we will see the fire on the screen. In this life, when we are burning with guilt and confusion in our minds (the projector) we experience the fire on the screen of life -- the projection.

Is it ever correct to throw water on the projected fire? Can using magic to alter the illusion ever quench the fire in the projector? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends upon how willing the person is to change their mind. But the real question is, how do we access that knowing? How do we know if we are actually helping, or just being a nuisance and making the overall situation worse in the long run? When are we acting just to appease our own delusional guilt, and when are we actually helping?

We can only help someone at the level at which they are willing and able to accept help in this very moment. In future moments, they may receive something deeper from the gesture we make today, but right now, we can only pour our help into the shape of their receptacle. Knowing whether it is our business to do the pouring is a matter of the heart, not the mind. Within the framework of this dream we call life, we run into trouble when we begin to make intellectual decisions about whom we should or should not help. Thought, which is both the existence and the vehicle of the ego, is not the place to look for advice on this matter.

If the suffering person's help-receptacle has a leak, then we will be pouring that same form of help into it until we are exhausted, or until they are willing and able to patch the leak. Sometimes, as in the case of Mark, the leak is an addiction to a certain type of ego sensation. Sometimes, as in the case of aid money to Africa, the leak is corruption on the part of the distribution officials -- an addiction on the part of many people to a certain type of ego sensation.

As is the case with all decisions, because we are so messed up in the judgment department, it is imperative to get quiet, go silent in the mind if only for a moment (in the case of a panhandler) or for a longer period (in the case of a longer involvement) and ask for help in seeing clearly. Are we helping because we ourselves are suffering, and so we have an increased projection of suffering upon the people in our lives? Are we hoping that by helping someone else we will alleviate our own inner guilt and purchase our own salvation? Are we simply afraid to say no? Do we have a belief that it is wrong to say no, and a fear of repercussions if we do?

As any parent will tell you, there is tremendous relief to be had in throwing money and material goods at a nagging problem to make it go away. But in many cases, the resistance to saying no to someone else's demands is exactly the same as our inner resistance to saying no to our own ego. We are terrified of that feeling of emptiness when a demand is made. We aren't hungry, yet the ego demands food. We have things to do, yet the ego demands the oblivion of television or the internet. We know we should remain silent, yet the ego demands that we speak. We know we shouldn't give our child what she is asking for in the store, but the ego is terrified of the disapproval of our fellow shoppers when the child throws a tantrum. If we are afraid to stop our habitual responses and say no to the ego, we will be afraid to say no to another person. We will not truly understand the constructive and loving importance of sometimes saying no.

The ego IS fear. And if we are tempted to say no to someone when they are asking for something, we will always experience a flash of fear. So how do we tell the difference between this type of situation and plain old selfishness? Doesn't the Course tell us that if our brothers ask us for something "outrageous" we should do it because it does not matter? That we should do it because otherwise our opposition establishes the dream as real?

The answer is probably this: if we would feel fine about saying 'no,' then we'll be able to say 'yes' appropriately. In order to make a correct decision about anything in life, we have to have access to a complete palette of responses. If some of the responses are cordoned off by fear, or its handmaidens of political or religious dogma or intellectual philosophy, then we cannot act correctly. So in this case, if we are afraid to say no, (or yes), we are prejudging the situation and throwing the election -- no matter what it seems the Holy Spirit may be saying. We are deciding on the answer before we even ask the question.

So where is forgiveness in all of this? Forgiveness means we overlook our opinions about the nature of reality. We release ourselves from any concepts and beliefs we have about what is happening in front of our eyes. We accept it and respect it, without demanding that if be other than what it is -- without demanding that it be different. So when someone is impoverished, our first thought is not a knee-jerk reaction that says "this should not be happening." Our first thought is not "how can I change this?". We should not automatically assume that anything needs to change.

I'm not saying, of course, that if you see a child running into the street in front of a car you should not do the automatic and loving thing. But what I am saying is that even if a person seems to be experiencing a life of great hardship, we need to have ultimate respect for their choice of lessons, before we decide that we should intervene. It's not a decision, again, that should be made from a religion, a philosophy, or a dogma. It's a decision that is made in the present moment, from a position of silent receptivity to the part of ourselves that can see what we cannot.

There are people in this world who have a hotline to their Source, and who can help without becoming a nuisance. For the rest of us, I think it's important to learn to get our preconceptions out of the way first, before we try to help someone -- preconceptions not only about what help would look like, but about whether or not help is appropriate in the first place.

Here's one last quote. This is from Eva Pierrakos, channeling "The Guide," Lesson 175, Consciousness
"Since the possibilities are endless, infinite, and limitless, the consciousness can explore itself also by confining itself, by fragmenting itself off -- to "see what happens," as it were. It experiences itself: instead of expanding more, it contracts, instead of unfolding, it tries out how it feels to draw in; instead of exploring further lights, it wants to see how it is to feel and experience darkness. Creating is fascination per se. This fascination is not eliminated simply because what is created is -- first perhaps only by slight degrees -- less pleasurable or blissful or brilliant. Even in that may lie a special fascination and adventure -- just to tentatively try, if I may use these very limited words.
Then it begins to take on a power of its own. For everything that is created has energy invested in it and this energy is self-perpetuating. It takes on its own momentum. The consciousness who has created these channels and pathways may experiment longer and more than it is "safe" because it no longer leaves itself enough power at the moment to reverse the course. It may get lost in its own momentum, unwilling to stop, and later it no longer sees how to stop on this course. Creation then takes place entirely, or primarily, on a negative scale, until the results are so unpleasant that it seeks to get a hold of itself and counteract the momentum by "recalling" its real knowledge of what could be.
At any rate, it knows there is no real danger, for whatever suffering you human beings feel, it truly is illusory in the ultimate sense. Once you find your true identity within, you will know it. It is all a play, a fascination, an experiment, from which your real state of being can be recaptured, if only you will truly try."

Tied Up ... conclusion

There must be fanatics out there who troll the Internet daily looking for any mention of their sacred cows so they can immediately send angry comments. One small mention of Ayn Rand, a relatively insignificant literary figure with a hard-core cult following, seemed to attract a storm of protest. The comments from "Richard", an Ayn Rand groupie up in Toronto were pretty typical of the ilk. Either you completely submit to the dogma, or you are "refusing to be rational." There is no question of disagreement. That does not compute. Some people are just plain old control freaks, masquerading as philosophers. The Internet is a rich hunting ground for them.

About a month has gone by. Mark still does not have a job. I have fixed up a couple of interviews for him with business colleagues. Both seemed keen to meet him but neither hired him. They both gave me different excuses - along the lines of - "we really don't have any vacancies," which is not what they said when they asked to meet him. It could have something to do with his appearance, which is getting very shabby. Whenever I give him a ride somewhere these days I need to deodorize my car afterwards. The other day I gave him money for a haircut, but he didn't get a haircut and he didn't give back the money.

He's living in a homeless shelter now. I don't know exactly where it is; as an "inmate" he's not allowed to say. The shelter is in a church building and consists of about 30 mattresses on the floor, with a shared bathroom. Sometimes there is hot water. No phones, radios, computers, etc., are allowed. The church does not want anyone knowing it is a shelter so no-one goes in or out directly. Instead, all the residents have to congregate at some church "office" about 10 miles away, every evening at 7.00. Then they are given a breathalyser test and placed in a small inconspicuous unmarked bus, and ferried down to the shelter where they must enter quickly through a back door. They are not allowed out again till 7 am, when they are taken 10 miles by bus back to the office and released for the day. I think they are given sandwiches. He can stay there a maximum of 30 days. That's usually about the time of day Mark calls me to ask me if I can take him here or take him there. If it's job-related I will often agree, but it's surprising how few actual job interviews he goes to, and how many coffee bars all over town he wants to go to, for no good reason.

He is now getting some kind of counselling through the Easter-Seals organization. I'm not sure to what extent this is psychological, and to what extent vocational. I do know he berates them as "idiots" who just want to "control" him. Nonetheless I've noticed some adjustment in his attitude since he started going there. He now occasionally makes a point of thanking me for my help, and talks a lot about how he is responsible for his own situation and has to be constructive and make the best of it. This is all good I suppose, but I can't help thinking it is just lip-service. I think perhaps these topics come up in counselling and he is just echoing this new lexicon (with his oratorical flair) to show me and show the world how adjusted, humble and contrite he is.

I know, I know: now I am the cynic. But I have my reasons for my suspicions. First, these concessions to humility are usually only made at the start of a meeting. By the time an hour or two has elapsed he is back to his old negative self. Second there is the strange matter of Mark and the Internet. Why are his long empty days spent in one coffee-bar after another, where he nurses one small cup of the cheapest brew for hours. Every time I pick him up or drop him somewhere it has to be at a Starbucks or a Caribou or Panera ... all places that have wireless Internet. He is never without his laptop. As time went by I began to wonder what on earth was so important about the Internet. We all send and get a little email and need to look up a few things here and there ... but there is no need to live day and night in cyberspace, any more than one needs to live in the Post Office, or in the library. I would ask him; "Mark --- why the hell do I need to take you all the way to ______?" He would answer "Because they have free Internet there." I would ask: "What on earth is so important about the Internet? You need a job, not an Internet connection." He would say mysteriously: "Well I need to dig up some stuff online." Well fair enough. Sometimes we all need to "dig up" some stuff online, but all day? Every day? Month after month? When you're out of work and homeless? What is that all about?

A few days ago he hung out at my house for a few hours. I gave him a chair and a little table for his laptop and left him alone. Later I needed him to look at something so I said "can you come here for a moment?" He said "Hang on -- I just need to finish something ---" and he was typing busily. Then he was sitting back looking at his screen for a minute, then typing again, then waiting, and so on. He had a kind of half-smile on his face. I realised he was chatting online. I know it was none of my business but a little alarm bell was ringing in my head. I asked him outright "What are you doing?" He said he was talking in a "support group." "What kind of group?" "Oh," he said nonchalantly, "It's Al-Anon. Some of those people are pretty messed up."

How many of "those people" did he know? How did he know they were "messed up"? It occurred to me that this was what he did all day long, and had been doing since I met him. He lived online in some kind of support group, and was for all intents and purposes addicted to it. Not an hour could go by when he did not have to find some way to log on and participate. Everything else, including finding a home, finding a job, making and keeping friends in the "real world", was secondary. He could tolerate and rationalize being penniless and rootless, he could tolerate living in a world of "idiots" that constantly tried to victimize him, but he couldn't tolerate being without wi-fi and a laptop. Were these cyber-people his real "family"? Did he really have deep, lasting, meaningful relationships with "Anxious in Alaska", or "DayByDay in Denver" while his exterior life crumbled?

I would guess probably not. Calling them "messed up" is a fairly strong clue. He obviously doesn't see himself as "messed up." With his natural dominant traits and his flair for dogmatizing I wouldn't be surprised if he were dishing out advice and rhetoric to gullible minds. He had an Internet following... a little kingdom where he could be king, unlike the cold unfriendly wastelands of the world in which his body lived. It was that half smile that said as much. There was something so out of place about it on a face so habitually careworn and creased. it was not a benign smile of affection or forbearance. It was a crocodile's smile; all salivation and anticipation of a forthcoming kill. It was the smile of Richard III: "I can smile, and murder while I smile..."

He is probably very good at it. People who become "sponsors" in 12-step groups are sometimes covertly very controlling types, who want to dominate the lives of others. The naive new 12-stepper is an easy mark. But to do this it is necessary for the sponsor himself/herself to ignore his own plight. Perhaps not ignore it, but certainly use it as a tool to gain credibility and an advantage. If the sponsor ever recovers and moves on, they no longer qualify to sponsor others. Fortunately in the world of 12-stepping no one ever recovers from anything. To do so would be to stop being a victim, which would be too radical. Instead you just move up the seniority list.

So the day arrived recently when my phone rang at 8 am. I knew who it was of course. Mark knows perfectly well I tend to work until very late at night, and don't get up before 9. He knows this but he seems to think he has a free pass because of the "urgency" of his situation. On that day he wanted me to pick him up at some Starbucks and take him to fill out an application for a driving job in a town an hour away. Something inside me clicked. I said - "I'm sorry, I'm tied up today." There was a long terrible pause. Then he said "OK, what about tomorrow?" I said "I'm pretty busy tomorrow too. In fact I'm tied up all week." There was an even longer pause which smelled of "deeply wounded" then a few faltering remarks about "well -- ok --- I guess I'll work something out --- " etc. Then: "See you." and he hung up. He never bothered to ask how I was, but then, he never did. I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn't. I was afraid I'd just sent him to jump off a bridge.

I know I've painted him as a selfish irresponsible pig, but that was this week. Last week I painted him as a hapless victim of circumstance who slipped through the net. The week before he was a fallen God who could find no comfortable home on earth. Yes, all the same person. Which is the real Mark? Is he the hopeless hapless victim, or is he a predatory irresponsible bum? Which is the real Derek? Am I the Samaritan who tries to dress the stranger's wounds or am I the one who passes by on the other side of the street? Am I healing myself by trying to heal the life of another, or am I taking on too much responsibility for the plight of others. Can we/should we/must we try to change the world into a kinder gentler place, given that the world was designed to be a place of insoluble problems and endless suffering, laced with just the occasional promise of happiness for bait? What would Jesus do? What would you do?

I know what I did. I uttered those prescient words -- "I'm tied up." It doesn't matter how you say them -- to someone who is totally dependent on you they are a death sentence. To someone who is just using you they are a notification that the game is over. Either way they are three words that mark the end of an era. What did I achieve with them?

Time and my fridge door will tell.