Why? 6-19-2021

 I woke up this morning explaining to myself why I kept a journal, why I am putting these writings online.

Therapy explains many items. Therapy is a form education; education may be therapy. Therapy as in my continued existence; therapy as in explaining why I am still alive after all efforts at self-destruction; therapy as in coming to terms with what I am to do with the rest of my life. Publishing my journals in the order of their creation would have better explained my purpose.

Writing was a talent I had in high school. This talent I gave up for most of the past of the past forty years. After my arrest, two people - CC and KH - encouraged me to write. When I arrived at Fort Dix FCI, JC kept me writing. I started studying writers and their works - that will explain all the posts under "On writing" and "books." I put down my thoughts to sho0w how I have been spending my time and with the hope they will help other would-be writers.

Religion through the Orthodox Christian Church kept me also alive. The Orthodox Church gave me an alternative to suicide and a framework for living through the Christian virtues. Orthodoxy has confession as one of its sacraments and you will find plenty here of the confessional. Orthodoxy also emphasizes the virtue of humility. I think putting my mistakes, my ignorance, my follies, my failures online seems like a proper exercise in humility.

Fort Dix offered no therapy. I undertook my own cure. If I was staying alive, I intended to rise out of the wreckage I had made of myself and offer something better to the world. I use writing because this feels like a God-given talent. Let me know if I have hit the mark.

sch 

[This was a note written in my halfway house notebook. There will be a few more coming.]