Know Yourself 9-18-2010 (Part 4)

 [Continued from Know Yourself 9-18-2010 (Part 3)]

I thought I could help people by being a lawyer. Some clients did not want to face their real problems. Others, had no good solution in the law for their problems. I did my job as well as I could. It left me feeling like I had been eating ashes.

 I was not Rudie, I failed. I added every little failure to my bill until my very existence was a failure. My arrest made my failure public. Being a confirmed failure, being now as odious to the world as I was to myself, I sought suicide to pay my bill.

The federal government kept me from suicide. I had already felt the hand of fate on me when the police appeared on Yahoo and I still feel this same hand on me. I have written much about suicide and what keeps me from suicide now. I have written how friends convinced me that I was given the chance of life and I should take the opportunity to write. Whether all this writing will serve you or me any good will only be known with time.

I will think myself successful only if I learn from my errors and live life differently. That means what I write here needs to be accurate, to be as honest as I have words to describe what happened. Others may have seen things differently. Any lies -intentional or not - will be known readily enough. I was never one to lie about anything so easily exposed. Time is not to be wasted on that kind of facile nonsense.

I hope I give you something to think about. Otherwise, these words will serve no use for you. All I can say is have the courage to improve your life, do not follow me.

For anyone who thinks I am writing this only because of my crime. Maybe you will even suppose I am trying to make my situation better than it is. Nothing will make my situation better, It is not my crime, as much as my being forced to come to a full stop and still being able to think.

Are these reflections not what you expect from imprisoning me? If not, you need to re-examine the purpose of prison. 

Or do you think I seek absolution?

That one amuses me. You do not have the power of absolution. Penance should, but this is not the kind of penance I think will heal. This is meant to educate, to act as a warning. There is a chance that I will live to 2021, when the actual penance begins. I do not even think my 151 months in prison absolves me of anything. I will remain a moral leper. My hope is you will read my notes and do better than I did.

In the end, I say you can do better and be better than you have been. Whether you do this, is up to you. How you do so is up to you. I merely point out what does not work. What does work is examining your life, then building on that knowledge. I believe no one is beyond this kind of learning. But we can all be lazy.

sch