- David Douglas
| A sight of the volcano fills the mind with awe…The strongest man is unstrung, the most courageous heart is daunted in approaching this place.
- David Douglas |
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My Dearest Phillip,
I realize it has been quite a while since you've received any correspondence from me. As you are no doubt aware, I relocated some time ago. Since I know you think of me as a dear friend, I know you'll be very pleased to read that I've landed on my feet. Things are going very well for me now: My businesses are returning to the productive state that they enjoyed before the minor inconvenience of my relocation. Phillip, I slipped through your fingers, and have gone on to bigger and better things. I'm sure reading that will please you to no end, and it is for that very reason that I've chosen to fill you in on my current status. I have returned to the active life of an entrepreneur who does his very best to help people get everything they want out of life. I've also learned a thing or two from my brush with you. I think you'll find that I'm much harder to locate now ... you'd be amazed at the advances in privacy both through the proper application of information technology, and the availability of other services designed to help maintain the privacy of a businessman. Take for example this letter: I'm using a very reliable re-mailing service for my written correspondence now. No amount of effort, intelligence, or persuasion will allow you to determine my current location from this missive. And no Phillip, I'm not foolish enough to invite you to track me down at my new base of operations by giving you some telling hint in this letter. I'm willing to give you some credit for your previous efforts, and would rather not have to move again just now. Just remember, you were good, but I was much, much better. But I know you won't just let it go. You're simply not the type that knows when to give up. So, I'll give you a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. Sometime later this year, I'll be attending a very special conference in a rather attractive part of the world. If you can determine where that conference is going to take place, and you can find time in your schedule (and money in your budget) to take another trip to search for me, you never know ... you might just get a brief glimpse of me. I sincerely doubt it though. I've heard you've had some ... problems since you failed to catch up with me. Not sleeping well at night, are we? I promise I won't tell anyone; it'll be our little secret. Here's some reading to give you a little background on what you're experiencing, to help you better cope with your disorder:
FAIRBANK JA, GROSS RT, KEANE TM
BLEICH A, MOSKOWITS L
SOLOMON Z, BLEICH A, KOSLOWSKY M, ET AL.
MACHOVEC FJ
MEZEY GC
WONG MR, COOK D
HOFMANN A
JACOBS WJ, DALENBERG C
JOSEPH S, YULE W, WILLIAMS R
PETERS L, ANDREWS G, COTTLER LB, ET AL.
ROSENBAUM L These works are a broad cross-section of the sorts of things you should really be reading, Phillip, if you want to better understand what you're going through. The years of publication range from early, seminal works on the subject all the way up to recent publications that express the current state-of-the-art.
Best Wishes, AQN P.S. Phillip, you really need to learn to deal with your anger a little better. A colleague of mine received a rather nasty letter from you, and in my professional opinion, the sort of aggression you are expressing is not healthy. |