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From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: the basic choice
Message-ID: <1671@pucc-h>
Date: Tue, 15-Jan-85 04:54:59 EST
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.1671
Posted: Tue Jan 15 04:54:59 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 04:33:30 EST
Organization: the PIRATE ship
Lines: 72

What we are talking about here is indeed a matter of life and death.  Not
necessarily physical (though that may be involved, as we will see later), but
rather spiritual (or psychological -- and, having just finished my first fast
reading of "The Road Less Traveled", I can see the intimate relation, perhaps
even identity, of those).

But anyway....  I have just been cast in a local production of a play called
"The Tenth Man", by Paddy Chayefsky; I will be playing a character remarkably
like myself, but exaggerated in both the negative and positive directions --
a character who begins by saying that life is utterly meaningless, and ends
by praying, "Give me the ability to love", and by actually loving in a way far
beyond what I currently have the courage to.  This play served as a catalyst
for me; I could not avoid being affected by that line (and echoing it for my
own self, with tears), or by a line earlier in the play addressed to my
character by another, "Love is an act of faith, and yours is a faithless
generation."

But for all that help, it was/is still a struggle to love -- knowing that I
want to, and yet being what I called afraid to.  Most of Sunday I was in major
distress, including annoying psychosomatic problems (horrendous backache,
tense stomach); and as I spent the evening in prayer/introspection, it became
clear to me that fear was not the culprit at all -- that rather, I had to
choose between a) not loving and thus surrendering myself to spiritual death
(and, the way I felt, I wondered if physical would be far behind), or b) loving
and heading once again up the steep and rocky path toward (of?) spiritual life.
It felt as though I was really wrestling with a malevolent demon trying to
bend me toward the first course (and quite possibly I was).  My choice, for
the evening, consisted solely of this:  either remain in bed, where I had
been praying, and fall into a sleep from which it wouldn't be worth waking
up, since I would not actually be alive, irrespective of the functioning of
my body; or get up and write a letter to the woman I met on Christmas,
expressing how much she had given me by finding me likable and even attractive
when I didn't.  It was a choice between giving nothing, and giving what I had
-- which was only tortured honesty, but at least it was giving myself.

I got up.

I wrote the letter.  I mailed it.

I was so drained that I called up probably the only friend I have that I could
call at 11:15 p.m. and say "Can I come over?"...who happens also to be the
sister of the woman I wrote to.  I think my friend was pleased to be able to
help (indeed, to love) me, since I have provided her with a fair amount of
what I suppose could be called love in the past couple of years; she has
wanted to return the favor for some time.  She helped me recover a little of
my psychic energy, not to mention expending a great deal of effort on backrubs.

But anyway, all my struggles you have been seeing in recent weeks (which were
particularly bad when my therapist was on vacation for a couple of weeks in
early January) stemmed, I admit, from my trying to evade this basic choice.
(Heavens, echoes of Ayn Rand!)  But perhaps this was for the best; I have now
had the choice presented to me in the clearest terms (since I ignored all
others); and failing to share those clearest terms with anyone interested
would be a terrible reversal of that choice, hence this article.

Although I am distressed at the multitude of other choices I still must make
(or, looking at it the other way, have the terrible freedom to make), I will
try not to use that distress to provide energy for such purposes as returning
the flames I have received; that would be another, though more subtle, reversal
of the basic choice.

And of course, one can infer from the last couple of paragraphs that this
choice must be continually made and re-made as long as one lives.  Sigh....
Scott Peck (in "The Road Less Traveled") talked about the joy of being a
loving person; he also talked about the work; I find the second much easier
to believe than the first.  But I hope I can continue to believe that it is
better to work and live than to sit and die.

-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
Proud owner of two Control Data doorstops.