MY KINDNESS
The greatest kindness is the truth all that has been said in my writing would urge me to be open and truthful about myself, my thoughts and emotions. It has urged me to be honest with myself and with others. Nothing is taken back here. But it is absolutely necessary to realize that nothing in my writing asks me or justifies me in becoming a judge of others. I can tell you who I am, report my emotions to you with candor and honesty, and this is the greatest kindness I can extend to myself and to you. Even if my thoughts and emotions are not pleasing to you, it remains the greatest kindness to reveal myself openly and honestly. Insofar as I am able, I will try to be honest with myself and communicate myself honestly to you.
It is another thing to set myself up as judge of your delusions. This is playing God. I must not try to be the guarantor of your integrity and honesty: that is your work. I can only hope that my honesty with and about myself will empower you to be honest with and about yourself. If I can face and tell you my faults and vanities, my hostilities and fears, my secrets and my shames, perhaps you will be able to admit to your own and confide them to me, if you wish.
Trust is a two way street. If you will be honest with me, report your triumphs and tragedies, agonies and ecstasies to me, it will help me to face my own, and to become an integral person. I need your openness and honesty; you need mine without it my life would be full of emptiness. I promise that I will try. I know I have a long way to go, but I’m willing to give it a try. To tell you whom I really am.
It is another thing to set myself up as judge of your delusions. This is playing God. I must not try to be the guarantor of your integrity and honesty: that is your work. I can only hope that my honesty with and about myself will empower you to be honest with and about yourself. If I can face and tell you my faults and vanities, my hostilities and fears, my secrets and my shames, perhaps you will be able to admit to your own and confide them to me, if you wish.
Trust is a two way street. If you will be honest with me, report your triumphs and tragedies, agonies and ecstasies to me, it will help me to face my own, and to become an integral person. I need your openness and honesty; you need mine without it my life would be full of emptiness. I promise that I will try. I know I have a long way to go, but I’m willing to give it a try. To tell you whom I really am.
MY IDEAS AND JUDGMENTS
My ideas and judgments, there is some communication of my person. I am willing to take this step out of my solitary confinement. I will take the risk of telling you some of my ideas and reveal some of my judgments and decisions. My communication usually remains under a strict censorship, however as I communicate my ideas, etc., I will be watching you carefully, I want to test the temperature of the water before I leap in, I want to be sure that you will accept me with my ideas, judgments, and decisions. If you raise your eyebrow or narrow your eyes, if you yawn or look at your watch, I will probably retreat to a safer ground. I will run for the cover of silence, or change the subject of conversation, or worse, I will start to say things I suspect that you want me to say. I will try to be what pleases you.
Someday, perhaps, when I develop the courage and the intensity of desire to grow as a person, I will spill all of the contents of my mind and heart before you. But still you can know only a little about my person, unless I am willing to advance to the next depth-level of self communication.
To refuse the invitation to interpersonal encounter is to be an isolated dot in the center of a great circle… a small island in a vast ocean.
My ideas and judgments, there is some communication of my person. I am willing to take this step out of my solitary confinement. I will take the risk of telling you some of my ideas and reveal some of my judgments and decisions. My communication usually remains under a strict censorship, however as I communicate my ideas, etc., I will be watching you carefully, I want to test the temperature of the water before I leap in, I want to be sure that you will accept me with my ideas, judgments, and decisions. If you raise your eyebrow or narrow your eyes, if you yawn or look at your watch, I will probably retreat to a safer ground. I will run for the cover of silence, or change the subject of conversation, or worse, I will start to say things I suspect that you want me to say. I will try to be what pleases you.
Someday, perhaps, when I develop the courage and the intensity of desire to grow as a person, I will spill all of the contents of my mind and heart before you. But still you can know only a little about my person, unless I am willing to advance to the next depth-level of self communication.
To refuse the invitation to interpersonal encounter is to be an isolated dot in the center of a great circle… a small island in a vast ocean.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never shared.
No one dared to disturb the sounds of silence.
We give nothing of ourselves and invite nothing from others in return. This is the fact about others… we do not step very far outside the prison of our prison of our loneliness into the real communication because we expose almost nothing of ourselves. We remain contented to others what so-and so has or done. We offer no personal, self-revelatory commentary on these facts, but simply report them. Just as most of us, at times, hide behind clichés, so we also seek shelter in gossip items, conversation pieces, and little narrations about others.
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