FOR ME IT IS NO PROBLEM TO DEPEND ON OTHERS. I am always curious to see how far people will go, how big a test one can put them to.

CERTAINLY THERE ARE HUMILIATIONS INVOLVED, but aren’t these humiliations due rather to our limitations? Isn’t it merely our pride which suffers? It’s only when we demand that we are hurt. I, who have been helped so much by others, I ought to know something of the duties of the receiver. It’s so much easier to be on the giving side. To receive is much harder — one actually has to be more delicate, if I may say so. One has to help people to be more generous. By receiving from others, by letting them help you, you really aid them to become bigger, more generous, more magnanimous.

YOU DO THEM A SERVICE.

AND THEN FINALLY, NO ONE LIKES TO DO EITHER ONE OR THE OTHER ALONE. We all try to give and take, to the best of our powers. It’s only because giving is so much associated with material things that receiving looks bad. It would be a terrible calamity for the world if we eliminated the beggar. The beggar is just as important in the scheme of things as the giver. If begging were ever eliminated God help us if there should no longer be a need to appeal to some other human being, to make him give of his riches. Of what good abundance then? Must we not become strong in order to help, rich in order to give and so on? How will these fundamental aspects of life ever change?

BY CHOOSING TO LIVE ABOVE THE ORDINARY LEVEL WE CREATE EXTRAORDINARY PROBLEMS FOR OURSELVES. The ultimate goal is to make this earth a paradise.

—Henry Miller, 1891-1980

+ + + From: Julia — Seattle, WA, USA + + +

WHEN I WAS 18, MY MOTHER DISCOVERED THAT MY STEPFATHER HAD INSTALLED A SMALL PINHOLE CAMERA IN MY BATHROOM.

He was given several misdemeanors but I did not press charges despite the overwhelming pressure from everyone to do so. Actually, seven years later, I’m still in contact with him.

VERY FEW PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS DECISION. They think I should have sued him for all he’s worth and destroyed his life. “Why do you still talk to that pervert?” they ask.

MY ANSWER IS THIS: BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND WHAT HATE WILL DO IF I GRAB HOLD OF IT. It will lodge itself in every corner of my mind and soul and I will go through life believing I’m a victim and that things are happening TO me. I’ll focus on what I don’t have instead of what I do.

I MUST INSTEAD FOCUS ON THE GOOD AND THE LOVE. My stepfather wasn’t abusive, verbally or physically, in any way and, in fact, he was a damn good stepfather most of the time.

We are who we are not based solely on who we decide to be in any given moment but what society, people around us, and our environment TEACH us to be. Don’t jump to conclusions about others. Rather, take the time and energy to understand why they do what they do and how they got to be who they are.

LOOK INWARD. Forgive yourself, forgive others, and put love out into the world.

Love to you all.