The Imaginary: 038
<2003-05-28>
Dear Friend,
Do you know what are the most precious things you possess?
Your writings, your paintings, your music?
Nope. It’s you.
If a calamity strikes and destroys everything you’ve made—writings, paintings, music—but leaves you intact, it wouldn’t have been a calamity. You will remake all of what’s been lost (or at least all that still matters); you’ll make much more. You are the Creator, the Minstrel, the Lover, the Caresser, the Comforter, the One Who Feels.
(Are you the one… =)
Do you understand now why I value you more than any of your writings, paintings or music? Can you Feel now how I value you, Friend?
But you want me to be honest. But, you may object, my writings, paintings, music represent me at my Best. Why would anyone, you may want to know, value the me that burps and picks his nose and pities herself and talks everyday nonsense, as opposed to the me that has concentrated, expressed, sung hirmself into those beautiful pieces.
You know what: I’d hate to be valued for my Best only. My Best is not separable from my Rest; it is the same source, multi-faced as it may seem sometimes, that they spring from. And since I seek to transform all those everyday moments into a never-ending ballad of Beauty and Joy and Laughter, I’d like to be valued for my Whole; and this is how I value you, too.
(Plus, who said that fairy-tale princes never pick their noses? Perhaps the storyteller was too busy picking hers to notice.)
I want to be honest myself. Here’s when I shall not value—Love—you: when you try to harm another Being intentionally. Then I shall not Love you, and I shall try to stop you, and I may harm one, or both, of us in the process.
… Or would you trust me more if I say all of this in a way that doesn’t require words?