LIGHTEN UP, MÖBIUS MAN!

I owe A Troll at Sea and you an apology. On Monday Troll posted a long comment about a couple of my recent posts. Although I denied it to myself at the time, in retrospect I clearly took offense at some of what I thought he said. I didn't like it. It made me feel bad. Boohoo. ...The next day in an AA meeting someone said, "When I don't like what someone is saying I had better listen very carefully because it means I've got a problem." Bingo. Ouch! “Now, as to what I have recommended. My advice is based solely on my experience -- with most valuable lessons learned the hard way. You seem like a pretty manic, spontaneous guy. Nothing wrong with those characteristics except when you are playing with fire. You are currently playing with fire. Slow down. That's my advice.”

I falsely accused Troll. I was not rigorously honest in my communications with him. Troll, and you readers who expect me to be honest, please accept my apology. In the future I will try to more carefully examine my motives before posting and commenting.

Now, where I come from, this kind of carrying-on would get you labeled a "drama queen"; that is one of the reasons why I left where I come from, and went back to where I came from. [Is everyone confused yet?] It is exactly the kind of Dramatic Posturing and Elaborate Repentance to which I am also inclined, and some part of me can't help feeling it the "gayest" part of me of all. My wife refers to it as "wallowing", as in "For heaven's sake, Troll, stop wallowing." It may be cruel to quote one's wife against one's brother, but all I can think to say is: "For heaven's sake, Flip, stop wallowing."

Flip, you don't owe me an apology; you owe yourself a long, hot bath and a long, cool drink and a long, hard look at the gaping disparity between what you say and what you do. I barely know you; in fact, all I know is what you choose to display en blogue, and so if my judgment is way off the mark, you can credit both my lack of smarts and tact and your own lack of what you call "rigorous honesty" in discussing "rigorous honesty". It's not that I think you are a terrible person or a discredit to AA and mankind --- you scare the pants off me because you have helped me when I needed it and I now feel that I am watching you prepare to tear yourself in two, neatly down the middle.

I don't care WHAT you accuse me of; you are probably right in any case. I don't even care whether you are honest with me, or your other readers. What I care about is that you appear to be in grave danger of embodying the opposite of what the words in your mouth are saying, because I think it will destroy you; I don't even think it will take very long. I don't count, "your readers" don't count, we are not put at risk by what you are up to. You are. OK, I admit that a flair for drama may be what unites us. But where I stare at the fault lines in myself brought on merely by the desire for what you are doing, I can only too clearly imagine [DQ, above] the kind of gap you are opening up within yourself. OK, I admit that the Grand Canyon running in a flood of fire was a bit over the top. But I was trying to get your attention.

So stop worrying about me. Look at what you are saying and what you are doing. Forget the guy in the hotel room, he is not the point unless he were to become more to you than a guy in a hotel room. I don't care if you continue to see guys in hotel rooms; I don't care if you go on a bender once a month; I don't care if you start orgies at AA meetings; it's none of my business WHAT you do. It's all OK with me AS LONG AS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND CHOOSE IT OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL.

Right now it seems to me that you are doing exactly what you claim you are not, and all of this after GIVING UP compartmentalizing your life! I can't begin to imagine what your life looked like BEFORE you gave up compartmentalizing. I only want you to be able to be whole, which means to be able to look yourself in the eye, say aloud what it is you are doing, and live in truth. Great God in heaven, if liberation isn't about that, what in hell is it about?

I'm not sure I have any more to say, and I fear I have already repeated far too much of what I said before. Let's stop playing Duelling Bloggos, and get back to figuring out how we can live in truth and grace with the contradictions we have been dealt. I will try to hold to that, and to keep my comments over on your blog where they belong, and short enough that they can in fact be called comments and not novels.

But please, Flip, for everyone who cares for you even a little bit:

Do what you have to do, BUT KNOW WHAT IT IS YOU ARE DOING.