In Steve's letter there was far more than what I shared last time. I consciously skimmed over mentioning some of the parts of Steve's letter that had to do with me. Some of it struck way too close to home.

I've always appreciated Steve's radical honesty (sometimes I even think the guy is incapable of lying completely, to the point where some of his relationships have clearly suffered---uhm, can you say, 'social graces,' Steve?). ;o  )  Anyway, Steve and I have always shared a desire for honesty and transparency in human relationships. It was sensed as lacking by both of us, so we swore to always be honest with each other. No matter what. Not sparing thought of a single feeling. Never worring to offend the other. Just be honest. 

Steve, in my opinion has taken this to a level far beyond what I have. I still go along and promise to do things that I don't really want to do when someone asks me---'Oh yeah, sure.... I would be happy to.' I still lie. I am still caught up in a web of relationships where I feel forced to go along with someone else's agenda in order to maintain peace.... in order to maintain a relationship. 

This is what Steve busted my balls for. He sees my complicity in lying for social reasons as enmeshing me in relationships that I would not otherwise freely choose to be in. He as much as called me a 'slave' in his letter. He attributed some of his recent disaffection with this-world to me. He said I had let him down. Me! That he always felt like he had at least one comrade in this-world... and that I was that one.... but that in the past year and a half (pretty much since my son Uriah's conception) I have begun exhibiting tendencies and doing things that he asks me to consider are possibly against my Nature.

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"You know I love you Deej. We have been through so much shit together. Most people will never understand what we have meant to one another. I know. And because I know I have to tell you you are disappointing me. Yes, I know you have a son now. That's cool. But is having a son any reason to compromise and totally throw your soul away just so you can fit into some image of what others expect of you as a parent?

"See, you think I have lost a little fire for living. You are questioning me Deej. But what about you? Do you ever wonder what I see in you? Do you ever wonder why I don't want to come around to a Birthday Party for Uriah? Do you really ever ask me? Or do you just assume you already know the answer: that I am some big Dick who doesn't care?

"I do care Deej. I probably care more than most. That's a lareg part of my problem. I actually give a shit about something more than 'society' and 'social norms' and 'fitting in' and 'keeping up with the Joneses' and 'status' and all of the games people play to try and 'one-up' their neighbors. And that caring is why I am going to tell you why I didn't show up to Uriah's Birthday Party.

"1. You don't get along with the other-side of Uriah's family (his mother's side, I should add). And if you do it is all an act.

"You remember those talks we have had Deej? I do. I know how you really feel. I know what you have told me. Those are not the kind of people you would ever choose to hang out with if you had an option of doing so. I do have an option, and as your friend I refuse to spend time with people who I clearly cannot share a single meaningful word with. They are loud, obnoxious, and ill-mannered. And you know it. But you just grin and bear it. For who? For Uriah? Is that how you teach him Deej.... to be inauthentic like that? Are you teaching him to cover over his real feelings? Teaching him to lie to himself and everyone around him about how he really feels about certain people and situations? Are you modelling that to your son?

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Can I just say, 'Ouch!' here, before I continue with more of Steve's letter? 

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"I am not asking you to take parenting advice from me Deej. You know better of me than that. All I am asking you is to think about the subtle little ways in which you have given your soul away in the last year and a half in order to maintain an illusion of peace and stability for Uriah.

"Get that? It's not real Deej!! You don't really want to spend time with certain people. You don't. Shit I don't. Shit even people amongst that family can't stand to be around each other!! So why force it? Why make an illusion of togetherness when there is not the spirit of togetherness present? Why do it? Why put on the show? Why manufacture the lie?

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This is where some real soul-searching begins for me.

I have had almost 3 weeks to consider my friend Steve's stark and unrelenting honesty. It took me aback at first. I adopted Steve's position relative to what he perceived as being my 'inauthenticity' since becoming a father. It was nearly 2 weeks of me examining my motives and recent decisions over the past 12 to 18 months. I melded with Steve's perspective. And in doing so I hated my self---- I hated life!

That's when it dawned on. Steve was totally right. I was being inauthentic. I was lying to myself. I was being less than perfectly honest with people close to me. But it was not with who Steve thought it was. I was, instead, and perhaps to Steve's dismay, being inauthentic in relationship to him.

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Steve assumed--as did I--that we were still comrades fighting the same old battles against the world. It was Steve and I against conventionality. It was Steve and I refusing to conform to conventional wisdom. It was Steve and I out on the limb. It was Steve and I distancing ourselves from those whom we assumed 'just didn't get it.' It was always Steve and I as long as I can remember.

Then I became a Father. Then, more properly put, I became responsible for caring for another being in ways unimaginable to me before. That's where Steve and I diverged.

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I was the one to try and maintain the frienship. Even with all of Steve's spewing forth about suicide and ranting against the world, I still attempted to connect with him. I still tried to empathize with him. Even to the point of denying myself the realization of what I now know.

Like I have already mentioned, I wrestled with what Steve had shared with me in his letter about me 'giving in' and becoming increasingly 'inauthentic' since engaging parenthood. I think part of me assumed that Steve was right. I respected Steve's opinion maybe too much. Now I know that.

I know that because in adopting Steve's perspective as my own I was feeling less and less enamoured with the prospects of living. I felt how much 'hatred' and 'spite' there was in Steve's view. I wore those clothes Steve. I put on the glasses you told me to look through and the world became a dark and foreboding place indeed!

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Something Steve doesn't understand is that I don't have the luxury (if you want to call it that) to enagage philosophically in the ways I once did. My existence is far more practical now---and I ought to mention, far more meaningful. I have to constantly forego the tendency within me to want to disengage from the world around me by entering into philosophical rhetoric about this, that, and the other thing. I can't piss and moan about the world nearly as much as Steve can because I have the duty of caring for a little boy who looks to me for support, guidance, love, strength, wisdom, understanding, instruction, and nurturing.

Steve cannot possibly understand that. He has no reference point. His experiential base (though he will never admit this as far as I can tell) is such that he cannot possibly empathize with me. He hasn't tasted the fruits of parenthood and the kind of care and compassion it elicits. Which is why his words ring shallow--if not empty--to me now.