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From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuqui Q. Koala)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: 2 Chuq articles
Message-ID: <2201@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-Jan-85 00:02:49 EST
Article-I.D.: nsc.2201
Posted: Fri Jan 18 00:02:49 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jan-85 06:43:26 EST
References: <2133@nsc.UUCP> <1648@pucc-h>
Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuqui Q. Koala)
Organization: The Warlocks Cave
Lines: 132
Summary: 


 
>From Chuq Von Rospach (nsc!chuqui):
> 
>>> Without the pretty face she will not buy the package at all.  
>
>> If you aren't careful, your Manufacturer could get sued for
>> deceptive packaging that way.
>
>No, I'm the one who makes the package; it's not His fault.

If you fail, He can't be sued. If you succeed, why should He get the credit
then? That's what you are doing, you know, taking the failures upon
yourself without the praises. It goes both ways, jeff. You are human, both
good and bad. Start seeing the good side for what it is-- just as much a
part of you as anything else. He might not be sued for your failures, but
He shouldn't be credited for your successes, either. You should-- He may
have helped, but YOU did it.

>> If you leave yourself open to view, you'll find someone who likes you,
>> and will never be disappointed again.
>
>But will I like them?  Or, more to the point, will I be attracted
>to them?  I'm sorry, but I'm getting tired of ending up just friends
>with the women I'm really attracted to; on the other hand, being more
>than that involves such a level of trust and self-giving that it is
>a frightening prospect too. 

If I didn't know better, I would think you are purposefully looking for
useless tangents on the topic so you don't have to face the real facts, but
that is something only Ken Arndt would do. The key to what you say is
trust. It IS frightening. Try falling in love with someone you haven't met
face to face for frightening, Jeff, but it can and is done. You're problem
is not that you can't trust others, but you can't trust yourself in that
situation. Which is, of course, silly. You ALWAYS have control of your
actions, you can't hurt yourself unless part of you wants to, and if that
happens you ought to go to someone to find out why. Self hate is a very
destructive trait, and the cause needs to be located and wiped out, and you
can't always do it alone.
> (It is frightening to put yourself in the
>power of someone who is superior to you in some way; I realize that this
>works the other way, too, that no woman worth her salt would want to put
>up with my desire to be superior & in control in every way, but it's
>still scary to me to think of being SO-close to someone who has any
>superiority over me at all.)  There doesn't seem to be any way at all in
>this life to be safe and happy.

sigh. Any woman worth anything will be superior to you in some ways. She'll
be a much better mother than you, for example (I refuse to call you a real
mother, on the grounds that that joke is worth a lot of flames-- I won't be
my own straight man). You will also be superior to her in some ways-- she'd
probably make a terrible father, for example. The point is, no one person
is a relationship, and no one person is, or should be, truly dominant. A
relationship is a partnership, and sharing, and please quit trying to turn
it into a situation where she is putting up with you or you are putting up
with each other. It is both, and more, and neither (and if you don't
understand that, we can slap you on the face... *grin*)

>> self-acceptance IS a decision you need to make for yourself.
>
>But one of the things that I can't accept about myself is the fact that I
>want others to like/accept me -- and saying the above implies that indeed
>I should *not* want others to like me, that I ought to be able to find
>everything I need within myself (and/or from God).  But I cannot stop
>wanting human friends, warmth, love; and the idea of self-acceptance being
>something you have to give yourself suggests that wanting any of this good
>stuff from anyone else is utterly illegal.

What am I, chopped liver? I like you, I accept you, sometimes I think I do
more than you like and accept yourself. No man is an island, Jeff-- you
CAN'T survive on your own, or alone. Try, and you will waste away from
neglect and lonliness. But on the other hand, you can't depend upon the
support of others to keep you going-- you need to build the foundations
that others will use to come close to you. Nobody else will do that for
you. Suggesting that you shouldn't want warmth or friends or love is
ridiculous. That is what makes humans humans, and the whole point of having
a God around is to help you find those things, not take them away. Only you
are keeping yourself from those things...

>
>I know perfectly well that I have lots of good POTENTIAL.  The thing I feel so
>guilty about is that I don't use it.  I think this is because it is still
>mostly potential, and thus I'll have a very hard time doing things perfectly
>-- and failure and imperfection are anathema to me.  I don't know what will
>have to happen to change this.  (Some of my Christian friends will say
>"Trust God", "Leave the results up to Him", etc.  What does that mean,
>PRACTICALLY?  How does one do this?  Remember, this goes back to my earlier
>paragraph -- how can I trust One who is superior to me, not in some way, but
>in every way?)

None of us come close to our potential (there may be exceptions, of
course-- Mozart, Shakespeare, whatever, but even Einstein felt there were
lots of things he should have done but didn't). There are lots of things
that I have the potential for that I don't even look at for various
reasons. 

Let me give you a little hint. Failure isn't that big a deal. I'm an expert
at failing, because I believe in trying things I've never tried before, and
until you figure out how these things work you tend to blow it. Waiting
until you are perfect at something means you will wait forever. I'd rather
try a bunch of things, get good enough at them to hold my own, and be
happy. the worst failure of living is to never live, and if you never try
(and by definition fail) you never live. A wasted life is worse than no
life at all, and wasting the gifts that God gave you because you are afraid
to try them out (because you are afraid they won't work perfectly the first
time) is the biggest sin I can think of, because you are ignoring God's
personal gifts to you. Look at it this way-- nobody has the exact same set
of gifts you do, so God had to give them to you personally, for a reason.
If you don't use them, or search for the reason, He is going to be mightily
upset at you for wasting His gifts, no? 

If you wait for God to do it for you, it will never get done. He has given
you His gifts, and your potentials, and He wants you to use them. He has
His own gifts and potentials to use, why should He use yours as well? 

the question is not whether to do something, Jeff, but what to do. My
suggestion is 'anything' but do it now. It may not work, but then you will
at least know one thing that DOESN'T work. If you try enough things, then
one of them will eventually work. Life is very much like Alice's caucus
race. If you aren't moving forward fast enough to stand still, you're
moving backward. Failure isn't a step backward, nothing is a step
backwards. A failure is simply a step closer to success. Do it now, Jeff,
whatever it is. Someday tomorrow won't be there.


chuq
-- 
From the ministry of silly talks:		Chuq Von Rospach
{allegra,cbosgd,decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui  nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

Do not wait until tomorrow to tell someone you care. Tomorrow doesn't
always come.