Why

I woke up this past Saturday morning explaining to myself why I kept a journal, why I am putting all these notes online.

Therapy explains many items. Therapy as in my coming to grips with my continued existence; therapy as in explaining why I stayed alive after all my efforts at self-destruction; therapy as in coming to an understanding what I was to to do with the time remaining to me. Publishing my journals in the proper chronological order would have better explained my purposes. Sorry for any confusion.

Writing was a talent I had in high school. This talent I gave up except for legal writing for most of the past 40 years. After my arrest, two people encouraged me to write - KH and CC. When I arrived at Ft. |Dix FCI another person - JC - kept me writing. Now it is all too late to stop. I started studying writers and their works - this is why you find the labels "On Writing" and "Books" - and I wrote about what I found and what I thought of what I found. I hope these may help someone else wanting to write.

Religion through the Orthodox Church kept me alive. The Orthodox Church gave me an alternative to suicide and a framework for living through the Christian virtues. Almost my first thing on getting internet access was to look for a church, I found  Existence and TRUTH - Fr S Freeman this on the site for St. John the Forerunner Orthodox Church which I think sets out what it means to me to live as an Orthodox Christian. The Church recognizes confession as a sacrament and you will find much that is confessional in these notes. That you get to see my follies and ignorance and mistakes because the Church emphasizes humility.

Fort Dix offered no therapy. I did this on my own. I wanted to fix what driven me to wreck my life. Writing has helped me to figure out what I did wrong and where I could do better. Let me know if I have hit the mark.