This is an excerpt from a letter responding to a letter that my friend wrote to me telling me about all of the terrible things that were going on in her life in early '98. Note some details have been changed to protect the innocent. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I was reading your m@il and it brought back a conversation I had last week with a friend of mine, I'll spare you the details (because they don't really convey well), but the idea was that he's been out of work and feeling like a stooge writing and living off a fiancé that he's been having troubles with. I pointed out to him how no one of any interest or creative value in history ever had a straight forward life. These f*ed up chapters make those of us who are interesting, interesting. Problems make you smart, pain makes you tough, trouble makes you strong, diversity makes you creative. You listen to that stuff and it sounds like you should embrace pain, trouble, anguish, etc. But that's not the case. If you enjoyed pain it wouldn't truly be pain. It's funny. There are guys like Rollins and Neitche that are quoted enough saying, "Pain makes you strong". But very, very few people understand what they're saying. Anyone who says, "I embrace pain because it makes me stronger" isn't growing or evolving. Their threshold for pain may be increasing, but they aren't truly getting stronger. The fact that pain makes you stronger is not a fact that you can take comfort in. It doesn't make any of the pain go away. It might make you feel vindicated or give you the strength to carry on, but if it makes you feel better or makes the pain go away, you're lying to yourself. So when you compare your life to the wonderful homogeneous lives of the cheerleaders at your school who have happy friends and cute boyfriends and new cars and are already accepted to college, remember what Lou Reed said, "My week beats your year." Another thing I realized is that time moves on. That's one of those things that everyone knows, but no one appreciates. No matter how bad things are they won't stay that way forever. I'm not saying, "Buck up, don't worry, things'll get better". I'm saying that everything always changes. You will either graduate and get a job, graduate and go to college or get kicked out and move to New York. You'll never be anywhere forever. You aren't stuck in the room until you work your way out, you're stuck in the room until someone opens the door. People just do the work because when the person opens the door you have to answer for what you did and everyone fears the person that opens the door. I'll give you a hint on who this feared door opener is... her name starts with "the" and ends with "future". So my advice to you when you tell me about all of the s**t that is happening to you is: Make sure you take good notes. On a lighter note: I saw the movie "Pleasentville". It's killer. And I've gotten on a Danzig kick. So I recommend purchasing anything by "Danzig". Free advice though, the album "Blackacidevil" is all electronic and industrial so it doesn't sound like his other stuff. Hasta, Bride ------------------------ A related thought from another letter to another friend... -------------------- It's not that all life is suffering, it's just that all life isn't Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy. It's happy, joy, sad, sorrow, grief, elation, pain, hurt, pleasure, embarrassment, fear, confidence, indecision, anger, love, hate, freedom, responsibility, trapped, satisfaction, lacking, hollow, crowding, everything.