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Northfield Mount Hermon

When I began attending Junior High, NMH, and Hampshire, I managed each time to set myself up in advance with an adversarial relationship. This is because I am always insistent that I know what is right for me more than ``they'' do - and it turns out that ``they'' have it exactly opposite. Going to NMH, the first issue (like with Junior High) was math placement. I wanted to take double-speed Algebra II and Precalculus in one year; the director of counseling thought Honors Algebra II would be more appropriate. So, I put myself to work and wrote a letter to the department head, and he decided to give me my chance. This hot steak continued when I arrived and discovered (at the first dorm meeting) that my dorm, Hadley, was the best dorm in the entire school! At least that's what the dorm head said, and I trusted him. Perhaps NMH would be different. And partly it was. Math turned out to be good. But Hadley was the most stuck-up dorm in the entire school. It was only the best for anal-retentive dorm faculty. I suppose you win some, you lose some.

Mom says in eighth grade I really enjoyed writing a book report about an adventure to a tropical island. I do remember the report, but I do not remember enjoying that writing anywhere as much as she says I did. The way I remember it, I first really became a writer in Bill Batty's Freshman English class at NMH. In thinking about this division III, I was very curious about how Bill managed to teach so well for me, and so I went back to my old writings to see what I would discover. They were well-organized, and the reason for that is an interesting short story I'll share with you. In my first year here at Hampshire, one of my friends from NMH, George Roberts (then a student at Haverford) sent me his ``Black Binder,'' a collection of his most important writings. I decided to make my own binder, and after a week of work, I had several, including all my writing beginning with my first year at NMH. Since then, I have continued to add all my writing and letters received to these binders. Now two milk crates full, this is the archives to which I returned when I wanted to learn some more about that Freshman year of high school.

The first thing that I discovered was the incredible difference between the kind of homework I wrote for Bill Batty in English and the kind I turned in to the religious studies teacher. Whereas my writing in English (especially after the first few months) was often clearly important to me, and included my fantasies, thoughts and adventures, my work for religion was highly sarcastic and rebellious (though these religion papers do show a remarkable frankness I didn't remember). I am going to include here an example of one of these religion papers. It gives you some insight into everything I'm talking about. Fasten your seat belts, though. It's not long, but it sure is bumpy!

The topic of rituals in my own life is a hard one to write about. But I will try my best to complete the assignment using travel, change, pain, and danger. For some reason, I feel that I have done this assignment before. (Hint Hint, many times) Anyway,

The only thing that I can think of in my life that even relates to this aspect of growing up rituals is going away to a private school. The travel aspect is obvious, although it is not as great as some peoples journeys. The way I will change here is to become less independent. Some examples of this are not being able to set my own bedtime, not being able to do my homework when I want to, not having to do my own laundry, many more. The pain and danger aspects of this journey to NMH are the weakest parts. They involve being away from people you love in order to learn more. This sacrifice of pain, however, is worth it for me because the education here is overwhelmingly better and the opportunities greater although I am learning to be less independent as well. The dangers of this journey are that I might be rejected by the community and that I might come out as stupid as I went in.

How convenient that at the end of the required half hour I am done with the paper. But I have a few lines left, so I must write. Do we read The Chosen in here? I hope so. Have I already asked that? I hope not. Regardless, I have a friend who has an hour of racist, disgusting, schauvanistic comedy. I'll try to get it for you. He feels that you should not hear his tape for some reason. This disappoints me. See you tomorrow.

What a response to a well-meaning teacher! As you might expect, my teachers didn't find this kind of talk especially meaningful, and did their best to ignore it. Though I found a few similar protests in my English assignments, my reprimands in these papers were more focused on other parts of the school, and not directly at the class, teacher, or assignment itself.

I remember Bill's English classes well, and know why they helped me so much. Bill's assignments were very flexible, in content as well as due-date. But at least as important, I felt that Bill really cared about what I wrote. At a parent conference, he told my parents that he had liked one of the things I had written - even if he had had a challenging time reading my handwriting. (A few weeks later, the computer was brought down from home.) Whenever he returned our papers, Bill would go around the room and tell the entire class what he had liked about each of our papers. One time, he even asked me to read my paper in class. I could not believe it. But there was no other Chris in the room. It must have been me he was talking to. I read my paper. It was about losing one of my skis while skiing in Vermont. ``Such wonderful details in that paper. Details! Chris, read the section about the sign again. I just loved that section.'' I can picture him speaking to me, so attentively, cocking his head just so. Bill really cared about me as a person, as a writer, and as everything I wanted to be. And I knew it.

Two years later, after reading one of my papers, he said to me that he felt like a witness to so much personal growth. ``What? Better writing? Sure.'' The way he'd framed it was a shock to me. ``No,'' he said, ``I mean growth of you as a person. And I'd like to think I've been a part of that.'' But I wouldn't even consider such possibilities! No one else could contribute to my personal growth, because I was responsible for that!

One day after another has come and gone, however. Prophets are prophets because they can tell what is true that others cannot see. I hope he will have an opportunity to read this division III in its finished form. And I think he will recognize himself, not only in this section, but bursting out of every rivet hole and pouring into every paragraph. Now I do see. The power of Love so far outweighs any other power. God is Love is Truth. Perhaps I did not get it from Religion class, but thank you Bill, for I did get it from you.

There is another discovery from this Freshman-year binder that I would like to share. By the end of the year, I had begun to think more constructively about how to reframe religion class, and actually do what I ought, rather than simply complaining, day in and day out. I made the following discovery in one of my letters to an imaginary woman companion, Rebecca:

I thought to myself ``How can I get an A in religion, learn at least as much as I would learn in the Religion book, have more fun and become a better person?'' The answer arose after a few minutes of thinking. It was that I should check out some books from the library on something, read some and write about them as I read. I decided that, since the teacher seemed to be somehow interested in something to do with human sexuality since he teaches it, that I should check out some books on that subject.

From the rest of the writing in my binder, it does not seem that I got much further than asking my roommate to check out the books for me and reading some of them. Perhaps I was too worried about risking having this delicate, new part of me rejected. Or perhaps because it was the last few weeks of school, I did not have have the time to negotiate. I cannot remember, and I can find nothing else written during that time to tell me one way or the other. But what an interesting projection of who was interested in sexuality!

I first met Martin that Freshman year in biology class, but it was definitely not an auspicious start for our relationship. Here is how it happened. Sometime in the first month, I stayed after class to ask the teacher what I should do about her class being too slow for me. She insisted that I stick it out. Martin also happened to be there, and he said he felt the same way. Guess what she said? The same, of course. Sadly, I did not then realize that I had a real ally here. Instead, I felt threatened. All of a sudden the possibility existed that I wasn't as special as I had thought. Because of that, it took a whole lot longer to get to know him. We first worked together that winter or spring, dissecting a fetal pig for class. I don't remember it well, but I assume we must have sufficiently enjoyed one another that we discussed the possibility of living together the next year, and within a few weeks, it was decided. I would move to Crossley, and we would live on the first floor. Though I did not then realize that there was any difference between us, Martin understood. He knew about ``coolness'' and ``soul'' and so he knew which room to pick. He knew about art; he knew how to not offend people. And he knew that I didn't know about any of those things, and that I didn't know I didn't. But he was willing to give me a chance. I am glad he was, and I think he is too.

Martin showed me by example that one need not wear underwear, approved by example of my less-than-tidy method of room arrangement, and helped me develop confidence in myself as a social person because he was interested in me despite my social inexperience. He is not one to put me or anyone else down, and he did not, even if under his breath he might have sometimes held some aggression. I think, if anything, he is too uncritical.

Occasionally, I glimpsed that Martin had a conception of me that he did not share with me. One time I remember well. I was under the impression that we were, essentially, best friends. Martin knew I thought this, and I can imagine now that it gave him a small heartache because he knew also that it was not entirely so. He had to simultaneously live in several realities, something I at that time could not.

One Saturday morning, we were walking one morning back from the Dining Hall. ``Chris, can I tell you a secret?'' he asked me.

``Sure.'' I didn't actually think he had any.

``Last night, I went cruising.'' What a surprise. I thought he and I were one. Cruising is when you leave the dorm in the middle of the night - against the rules at NMH. ``Portley and I went around midnight, and we met Jackie, who had to get out of the girls' dorm. We went to this Gazebo that she had found on a run, and we slept there, in the total darkness and freezing cold. Or, well really, we didn't sleep at all. And then came back into the dorms when they were unlocked at 7am.''

``You should have taken me!''

``Yeah, I was trying to decide.'' Needless to say, I had to rearrange my conception of reality. I guess it was hard for both of us. Hard for me because Martin had let out that I was not quite to him what he was to me. Hard for him, because he felt guilty about my pain. Now, I had to recognize the differences between my fantasies and reality.

It was early October 1990, a month into sophomore year. I was becoming a new kind of person. The kind of fantasy I had about women changed. Instead of needing cupid-arrows and love-potions, I could now imagine actually talking to my fantasy women. Occasionally, I also talked to them in real life. A few weeks after Martin had been ``cruising'' without me, the whole group again went - but this time, I went too. And I felt like I was one of the bunch. Not just Martin talked with me, but several other people too. I wrote a journal entry - a letter ``to whom it may concern,'' explaining my newfound self. That month, I also discovered a poet within me. I've included several poems from that year in the Appendix. These poems no longer illuminate the Universe for me with the Genius I then felt they contained, but if nothing else they are certainly frank and insightful about who I was.

My English teacher that year was Mr. Cinders. I have since that time discovered a helpful technique for understanding most power relationships, and I will explain it in the context of this teacher. A person's power comes either through empowering other people, or through disempowering them. The person either gains power over the other people, or they all gain power as individuals. I heard Gary Zukov explain on a books-on-tape that power over is not really power at all; he called the empowering kind of power ``authentic power.'' I think these are all equivalent ways of addressing the same ideas, and I choose the language that is most helpful in any particular situation. These two kinds of power do not differ based on good or bad intentions. Both kinds of power come with the best intentions. Mr. Cinders strongly believed that he was helping us as well as anyone could. He believed that we did not know what was best for us, and that he must force us into what is best for us. Many structures and attitudes among humans reinforce this kind of thinking.

That year in high school, several of us began to address more explicitly these two kinds of power. One thing I knew was that I felt damaged every day I attended Mr. Cinders's class. The inflection of his every word was filled with his idea that learning emanated from him. There was a force in his every word, to insure that it would sink into the recipient. I could feel these dreaded arrows, and I knew that if I let them sink into my flesh, that a part of me would die. I had to protect this most important part of me, this part of me that allowed me to think for myself, and that was developing into the part of me that could really care for other people. It was all I could do.

I saw his words, comments, and assignments as arrows, fired by the Devil at my classmates and myself, bound by the chains of school. It was as if the only way he could teach was to show the person whom he was teaching that they were wrong or guilty. This didn't help most of us, who needed to be validated first for not knowing the new thing. Instead of feeling that we could change freely, we needed to prove that we were worthwhile despite not knowing something, escalating our need to be validated as ourselves before we would be ready to change (learn). Almost all of my classmates had been disconnected from their souls in this way, though for some individuals it had happened so subtly when they were young that no semblance of self was visible beneath the layers and layers of acting. Occasionally, I could see some last piece of soul float to the top of one of my classmates' consciousness, but Mr. Cinders would immediately recognize it as an interference to his transfer of information. He would take careful aim and fire, wounding that remaining sense of self they might still hold. Sometimes I realize how Mr. Cinders too was chained into his particular kind of action by society and by the limits of his experience. But that does not make his actions any more beneficial to us.

In elementary school or before, I developed some important psychospiritual survival skills for dealing with the kinds of arrows I have been mentioning. These were, until recently, unconscious practices. When using them, I would not have been able to describe them as I can today, although I would have felt the same feelings I do when using them today. For instance, in the fourth or fifth grade, my classmates found out that I was Polish, quite likely because I told them. I discovered shortly that this meant I was (as I spelled it) a Poloc. I immediately became proud of this identity, and for several years wrote my name Chris Poloc Kawecki. Essentially, I took in my hand the weapon aimed to subjugate my self, brandishing it as my own. I often do something similar today when confronted with these arrows: I use them as tools to prove that I am more intelligent or more mature than the archer. Though it helps to prove this to another person (explaining to a friend how a teacher has limited cranial capacity, based on their errors on teaching me), I do the same mental manipulation in my everyday interactions with authority figures even when I do not have someone else with whom to share my findings.

With Mr. Cinders, I used a similar trick. One evening I was in the yearbook office, a favorite hangout. I have always been interested in the growth of persons through time, and this evening I was investigating Mr. Cinders. He had been teaching at the school for many years, and the yearbook office naturally had the pictorial history. What I discovered was that apparently just under thirteen years before, Mr. Cinders changed. His facial expression shifted. He began wearing bowties. I had never seen him not wearing a bowtie, in almost a hundred days of class.

That night, I made Mr. Cinders my project. For the next week, I wrote and wrote, trying to explain my discovery in a paper for his class. It is amusing and embarrassing to read how critical I was of him, though it is clear that at the time I did not think I was being critical at all. In fact, exactly like Mr. Cinders himself, I was simply trying to help. We were both trying to guarantee good through force. This approach rarely if ever works, and it did not work then. He thought I was taking a ``cheap shot'' and demanded I rewrite the paper. I doubt I did. Or maybe this was the one time when I handed in a paper I had previously written for another class. We both remained unconverted. He kept what he thought was his self, and I kept mine.

What a year it was, though. I began the year as a sophomore in two of the reportedly hardest classes the school offered, AP Calculus ``BC'' and AP Physics ``C.'' The departments, as usual, had been reluctant to place me in the courses, but I continued my progress in learning how to track down the right people, and to be confident in explaining my situation (though at that time I doubt I had learned at all how to be confident without being cocky, something I am obviously still working on). The courses were hard enough to challenge me, but still not hard enough to take the joy out of the learning. I would do homework each evening in bed or while waiting in line to play ping-pong, written on the shirt cardboards needlessly provided by the laundry service.

Inspired by me memories of physics, I would like to digress for a moment to discuss what it means to think for oneself. Frankly, I think most teachers and parents believe that students can think for themselves without really doing anything. They believe that one develops this ability by thinking for oneself on a math test, or on some other project designed by the teacher, rather than in meeting one's own goals. Paul Goodman explained the predicament this way:

Programmed teaching adapted for machine use goes a further step than conforming students to the consensus which is a principal effect of schooling interlocked with the mass media. In this pedagogic method it is only the programmer - the administrative decision-maker - who is to do any ``thinking'' at all; the students are systematically conditioned to follow the train of the other's thoughts. ``Learning'' means to give some final response that the programmer considers advantageous (to the students). There is no criterion or simplification. That is, the student has no active self at all; his self, at least as student, is a construct of the programmer.[7]

I agree with Goodman's description. This ``programmed'' or curriculum-based method does not develop the ability to think for oneself or the habit of thinking for oneself. I believe that thinking for oneself can only happen when there is a goal in the learner's mind, when that goal is important to the learner, and when the learner is free to explore the possibilities for approaching that goal. Thinking for oneself means developing a plan for oneself and implementing it (they are both absolutely indispensable). It takes a dedicated, caring, intelligent person to understand that supporting a child working toward its self-designed goals is one of the best ways for that supporting adult to play a successful role in that child's development. Sadly, there are not enough people like that. Few encourage the students to do what they think they should in order to reach some goal that is meaningful to them. Interesting, this is a result of an upbringing that did not encourage those parents to think for themselves. Chicken and egg perhaps? But luckily, God made the rules, not reductionist seventh grade biology teachers, so this is not an impossible problem!

This kind of thinking for myself was exactly what made me such an efficient worker in math and science. I understood the nature of questions and answers. I had practice visualizing ends (goals), and working towards them. I had practice deciding the right steps to take. This is something that only came from messing up thousands and thousands of times, and learning to keep going. On the micro level, when I approach a math or physics problem, I spend some time visualizing the problem. Then I go through dozens, or hundreds, of possibilities, for how to begin solving it. Most are dead ends. Learning to think meant I was learning how to explore possibilities and go beyond the early dead ends.

My classmates, I discovered, had a different approach. I was not sure what it was then, but since then I have spent more time teaching physics, and have a better understanding of their approach. For one thing, they do not try to understand the problem. They simply try and solve it. This sounds silly, but I have found it to be true. For instance, when I see a new problem, I will try and visualize how it would change with time, or how it would be different if I changed certain parameters. That is all part of understanding the problem for me. And I visualize what part the solution plays in the whole system. People who do not ordinarily think for themselves try and find ``the solution'' - not by running through possibilities, but by immediately choosing one of the few formulas they read about. They try the formula before knowing whether they really need it. I figure out what I need with a fast brainstorm, then use it. Almost without exception, the formulas simply emerge from the understanding of the problem, not from trying to fit the problem to the few formulas in the book. The truth, it seems to me, is that usually none of the formulas in the book apply. Every problem has its own formulas, and every problem can only be solved well by thinking about them, and discovering these unique formulas.

Sometimes I think of opening a psychotherapy business, and doing physics problems with my clients. How people approach these problems is like a window and key into their psyche. Most people literally have the habit of being robots instead of geniuses, and they don't want to go through the process of learning a new way of being. Partly, it's a scary transition, because one can only see that one's new self is a genius and the old self a robot once one can see from the perspective of the new self! They are in such a habit of believing that they have been thinking that it takes a revolution to change.

It's hard at first when a person tries to start thinking in a new way. It seems to take so long to solve a simple problem. Or else the person thinks they are a failure because they can't think. But that's always wrong; it's just that they're not used to it. It takes a lot of encouragement. But gradually, they become more familiar with goal-oriented thinking, and they own the problems rather than the problems owning them.

Withdrawing from that digression, let me continue with my sophomore year. On a hastily scribbled note, I applied for a position on the Residential Life Committee of the school. I was not granted an interview. I responded with a politically idiotic explanation of exactly how stupid their decision seemed, and I gave them the opportunity to rethink their decision: ``If you take this position because you are subscribing to the belief that you can judge me merely by reading a letter which I wrote, I believe that you are utterly wrong in this belief,'' read my letter. I was in fact granted an interview, but I am sure I shot myself twice more in each foot during the interview, and I was not accepted onto the committee. My roommate Martin had also been interested in the Committee, had written a letter and was granted an interview. But he was accepted. He did not quite know how to handle this with me. He knew that I was completely unaware of ``presentation'', and that my way of offending people was exactly why I could not possibly be chosen for the committee. But how could he approach that subject with me? How could he simultaneously believe that I was immature and yet give me as much support as he could for who I was? He tried to ignore the matter entirely, and except for a few times when it slipped out, it was out of sight, out of mind.

Though I may not have been ready for administrators to want to deal with me, I was at least well-behaved enough so that I became more accepted in a group of friends. And my development that sophomore year had much to do with those friends. By the end of the fall term, a group of us consistently ate a late dinner in West Hall. I put myself in the group although there were times when I was unsure how full a member I was, like the first time they went cruising, without me. After dinner, the group of us stayed in the dining hall until the work job students had stacked all the chairs but those at our table. There, we discussed everything from art to school to parents. We had a reasonable amount of diversity, for a group of middle-class, college-bound white kids. Our group had me, the self-proclaimed scientific thinking genius of the school. And at the same time, it had several students who avoided such subjects like the plague. We had gentle athletes (runners, skiers, and so forth), brutal lacrosse players (Portley and Martin), and non-athletes. There were maybe six of us, sophomores and juniors. Most important to me were Martin, Jackie, and Portley. Jackie was the yearbook editor, a junior. Portley was an artist, also a junior, a day student constantly in rebellion from his scary schoolteacher mother. Martin was everything, or nothing - at one time discussing math with me, at another time with Portley smoking tremendous amounts of pot and breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules, and at a third time, developing a relationship with Jackie.

Perhaps the main distinguishing feature of this group was that we acknowledged parts of ourselves that were not alright in greater society. We discussed the idea of open relationships, though none of us actually talked about it specifically with regards to our own relationships. There were several times when relationships had funny implications in different directions within the group. We were not yet aware or confident enough to discuss these ideas with each other. But yet at the same time, I know how much more aware and confident we were of ourselves than most other groups. We would joke about these ``others'' sometimes. We understood things they did not. We understood, period. For me, I imagined us as a kind of Transcendental Club, a century after that of Emerson, Thoreau, Ripley, Alcott, and Fuller. Gradually, I also grew to see our group as one that would create a commune, and for some time Martin said that the two of us, at least, would one day. Later, ``some time'' had passed, and Martin informed me that I would be the one building the commune, and he would be more than happy to help some, but that it was no longer his project.

Martin was in a course called ``Ancient History,'' one of the few courses he had at that school that really turned him on. It met at the same time as my physics class. With his contagious enthusiasm for it, I decided that I must find out what it was all about. Tuesday was the day that my physics class did not meet, and by midway through fall semester, I was spending that period that day in Ancient History. It was not quite as amazing for me as it was for Martin, but still it was worthwhile. The teacher taught ``spirituality'', and thinking about it now, I know part of why Martin took such a liking to him. They were both people who thought that spirituality was something slightly other-worldly they might sometimes encounter, but that in the ordinary reality they must be resigned and depressed. Or at least that is the way they seemed to me. I contrast this with the spirituality that I am now developing (and I think Martin is too), where spirituality is very much of this world, where one is still in a sense resigned, but rather than being resigned and depressed, one is resigned and ecstatic. As the year progressed, I discussed the possibility with my physics teacher of not going to physics class except for tests. She approved, slightly wearily, and I began to go to Ancient History more. It was still a very different experience for me than it was for Martin. It was as if somehow in the first few weeks, he had developed a bond with the teacher and the material that I did not understand or share. I suspect, though, that it was more a matter of readiness for the material and for his relationship with the teacher than of the extra few weeks.

The kind of flexibility in my education that I had in that physics class was something I demand and often achieve. As I examined some of my journals from this time, I read an interesting comment from my friend George (who has since then read some of them). In a discussion of why I was writing papers for English (in an English paper), I wrote, ``Perhaps I should write more papers for English.'' George's comment was fun to find. He wrote, ``Most people do not see this amount as variable. This typifies Chris's approach to education. If writing more papers is good, he's gonna do it.'' I guess that's true!

The experience of these several things - the new social acceptance in a group of friends (in particular the influence of Jackie and Martin), and a totally new look at life, including something called ``spirituality'' - took me one step further towards being a full participant in existence. In the middle of sophomore year, the biggest realization I was making was concerning the doom of our technology-based world. This was one of the moments where I have found a new self and have had to leave my old self behind, a spiritual moment of truth when I chose progress over stagnance. At this time, the self I had to leave behind was the one that saw myself as the ultimate math and science genius. After all, I realized what was that worth? Our world was doomed. The bombs, the hate, the exploitation. It was too much. Though I continued to enjoy the exercise of thinking in calculus and physics, and continued to do well on the tests, I resolved that this would be the last year I enrolled in math or science courses in school. I wanted a commune, not an office, and I would take lots of histories, not math and science! When I registered for my courses for the next fall, my counselor was somewhat surprised at my selection. She called me on the phone, inquired, and accepted my explanation. She was a good woman, a person who, when it came down to it, did trust me to know what was right for me. I appreciate her for that.

That spring, I was again a bicycle-racing maniac. The previous spring and summer, I had been gaining a tremendous amount of experience and rode thousands of miles, but still I experienced only small successes. This spring would be different, I resolved. Of course, it was not up to me - something I didn't fully understand then - but to my great satisfaction, my resolution was fulfilled. I won many races - I think at one point in the early summer, I won almost ten junior races in a row. It was a real confidence-builder. I was a somebody! But it also precipitated its own fall. I planned my own training schedule, and I planned it hard. Riders who plan their training well can peak at the most important part of the season. They know that they must rest to avoid burnout. I thought I was exempt. I planned to peak for the whole summer. Needless to say, it did not work. By the end of the summer, I was what bikers sometimes call ``toast.'' Still, it was a good beginning, and again I resolved to do better the next year.

It was a great summer in other ways, too. I discovered the book Summerhill, on a shelf when I briefly visited Martin's house in Delaware. This was the book that helped me to realize there was the potential to have good schools - there even were some! I think I discovered the Nearings' writing at this time, too, and promptly became a gardener. And I was playing guitar for about three hours a day all summer (I had just started playing that spring, with help from Martin and Ron Carpenter). Jackie had been in Spain in the spring, and we wrote many letters. Now she was in Warsaw for the summer, and we continued our letter-writing. I'm not sure exactly how Martin felt about this - as best I could tell he was not a big letter-writer, despite the relationship they had begun shortly before her departure.

Of course, the whole summer, my critical mind was whirling away, attempting to figure out just how to fix NMH. I was convinced my logic and conviction would cure their problems. My files show two documents written during this period: a new and improved letter of application to the Residential Life Committee, and a letter, dated 7 July 1991 (almost five years ago to the day), to the same Mr. Cinders who I had tried to convert earlier. Again, this letter epitomizes the forceful (and sloppy) technique I used to try to get my message across - a technique that, I learned four years later, could not conceivably achieve results, because it did not validate the person I was addressing.

The letter was sent, but remains unanswered. As I mentioned, this letter demonstrates a common error - perhaps the most popular, damaging, and famous misunderstanding of history. This misunderstanding is the notion that one person can force another to be good. My experience reading the great spiritual leaders of all time corroborates my feeling that this is a very important law, if also perhaps difficult to learn. This is what Tolstoy calls the ``law of love: enduring of injuries, insults, and violence of all kinds without resisting evil by evil.''[21] In this case, acting in accordance with the law of love would have meant finding a way to express my own pain to Mr. Cinders, showing him a way to help both he and I, but without making him feel guilty. But instead, in the name of what I claimed was his best interest, I was trying to force him to change. There are many kinds of force that can be employed for this purpose, and still be co-option. In this case, the force I was employing was that of logic. I was intent on proving to him that he was wrong and that there was a better way he could be. I completely failed to recognize the need to validate him for his own experience.

The other letter from that summer was an application letter to the Residential Life Committee, written almost two months later. Here, rather than simply complaining or telling others what to do (though there was a good measure of these), I proposed a role for myself as a liaison between the students and the Residential Life Committee, as well as proposing several decentralized, democratic forms of governance for dorms. But the letter was still filled with poorly-written witticisms, pleasing no one but myself: ``It is completely unjustified to believe people should be told their new policy without having been allowed to comment on, to contribute to, or even to be made aware of, the possible policy before it becomes policy, for whatever the reason, and not one the NMH school should ignore, much less profess. That philosophy is one called fascism. Many people believe fascist principles are quickly becoming the norm in much of America. Because government denies this, some call Americans closet fascists...I propose that the NMH school do its best to prove America is not just two hundred fifty million closet fascists...Some might think this will take a lot of time. They are right. Nothing is free, junk is cheap, and quality demands commitment.'' Looking at my proposals for democratic structures in dorm life and advising, I now believe that they might work, if there were enough students and faculty who understood the value of self-governance. But successful decentralization is very hard to create in a short time if people do not already understand the value of it.

Do you remember that comment my Mom made about my being inflexible with regard to institutions because they were inflexible with regard to me years earlier? I hope you can understand that now. I imagine myself if I had not had all that built-up hatred. I would have been a very different person, with ideas at least as good, but I would have figured out many years sooner how to empathize with people, and how to achieve political goals rather than shoot myself in the foot with hatred.

Martin's appointment the previous year to the Residential Life Committee was for the duration of his time at NMH, so he was part of the group selecting the new members. With his inside help, I was again given an interview. I was completely confident. There was no way I could not be chosen.

A week later, I found out that my version of the external world wasn't the only one. Perhaps it would be a little more accurate to describe it this way: when I read my mail, I almost lost my pants. They had turned me down. What could they possibly be thinking? Well, apparently, even if I had not made as many total enemies as the previous round, I still had enough stored up. And that's all there was to it.

Back then, I had no idea how to be honest when it came to social encounters. I was afraid, for instance, that upon returning to campus a show of excitement about seeing someone would make me look weird. Who can I hug? I'm not a hugging person. But who should I talk to? No one came to see me. What should I do? I'd rarely ever come to a place where there were people I cared about but hadn't seen for a while. So, for lack of a better way of doing it, I more or less ignored the reunions. I don't think this strategy proved at all effective at solidifying already-strained friendships.

There was lots to learn. I discovered that people changed over the summers. Things were a little bit again like the old days, when I felt like everyone was different from me. The boys lived off in their own rebellious world, and the girls either followed the boys or were otherwise not interested in me. Add to that the opportunity to find out what it's like to take history courses, which couldn't be conquered on the back of a shirt cardboard in the few minutes before class like physics and math could be. But it wasn't all bad either. Jackie and I, for a time, were closer than ever - even if not in the way I might have preferred it. And I was a new man, with hair grown long for the first time, a guitar of my very own, and a singing voice of sorts (though at the time, I sounded like Bob Dylan played backwards and upside down).

My English teacher for Junior English that fall was a kind woman, Charlene Ellis, hired only to teach a few classes. She valued journal writing, she told us, and every day the first ten minutes of class were devoted to journal writing. I found a journal I had used for part of this year. Some of the entries look very interesting, so I'm going to include some excerpts - mostly from the class, but apparently even from a few weekends.

September 14 My first cross-country practice since Jackie talked me into running was yesterday. I was actually pretty surprised. I can still run. It felt good to go fast. Perhaps I'll do well this year. The fellow who was always just ahead of me last year is now second man on the Junior Varsity team; I hope I get a lot better so I can run Varsity. I also hope that I can talk to Jackie a lot. It feels really good to have people want me to be about. A new experience; I don't remember anyone consciously seeking me out since early in elementary school, when someone from my class invited me over, not knowing it would be my birthday and that I had nothing planned.

I feel sad for Martin, who, it seems, is no longer going out with Jackie. I do not know whether my heavy letter-writing played a part in that. The relationship between Jackie and I (on the other hand) is definitely better than it was six months ago, before she went to Spain. I really want to be able to continue the good relationships I have. I think I will be able to, or at least I hope so.

p.m. Saturday night. My friends are being assholes. Portley, Dobson, Nathan Pullet partly and Martin partly. I almost wasted an entire Saturday night. I want to be with Jackie.

September 16 Martin and I had a nice, long talk last night, Sunday. The subjects ranged from Saturday night to the people on the hall to Jackie to pot. He feels kind of happy that (I think he knows) I want to go out with Jackie. He isn't interested anymore. ``She's changed, that's the way I feel.'' But who's changed, I wonder. I don't say it though. I never heard him talking all repulsive about this drug and that drug and all neurotic about anything that moves, until this year. And all smoking your too-cool Marlboro reds or drums.

Martin says our clique is lost - what it had - which it is. But what he doesn't say is that this is basically his opinion and his choice. That pisses me off, because how come he can decide what my friends are worth and whether we should hang out together.

I am really pretty depressed about (human) life in general, that it seems we are actually just a bunch of fuckheads.

I hope Jackie goes to breakfast. It is a mystery to me what she wants of me. I wonder what the world would be like if we knew what other people thought. Probably pretty sad. I really wonder, though. Would it be generally happier or sadder?

September 17 Last night I got to walk down to the farm with Jackie. I really enjoyed it, and I think she did too. I think there might be something in our future. I sit sometimes and imagine us together, arms around each other. Oh how I feel for this moment. But it is not here today. Perhaps tomorrow.

September 18 I wish there were some way to see what Jackie thinks of me. I am so afraid of losing what we have now that I cannot try for anything more. But I love her with all my emotions. I really hope it works out well for us. From my standpoint, the uncertainty of her erotic love for me is the only thing between deserving each other in the best sense of the world. How now, Chris? I will see what I can do this weekend with Jackie. Maybe go to the movie. I do not know.

Jackie and I are totally meeting eye-to-eye on realizing the doom of technology. I think it started last year, but now it's just so clear and obvious, kind of goes along with all these assholes, too. It's kind of funny that I seem to be about a half-year behind Martin - in being totally bummed about the world, in being in love with Jackie. Now all that I have to do is see what befalls him, and I will learn my own future.

I have written a song I call ``The Midnight Song'' but it just goes G-C-G-D eight times. Not quite what I want yet.

September 20 I packed a wicked fatty (chewing tobacco) with Martin last night. Blew off shitloads of homework, but it was damn worth it. It feels so weird dude to be totally buzzed. We're going to have to get Jackie to do it sometimes (she has this totally anti-drug attitude) and I don't think she will.

p.m. Dude, I am totally psyched. Went to the movies with Jackie (it was pretty bad - Reversal of Fortune) then she came up and saw our room for a little while. We talked and looked at some old pictures I found somewhere. She left at 10, when ``open dorm'' is over. I am totally in love with her. Tomorrow we are going to eat breakfast together then go to Northfield Mountain for the harvest race (on bikes). Dude, I am going to invite her up to my house for a vacation. Can't wait. Boy do I love her!

September 22 It's a good thing that my dreams were not true. Martin, Jackie, and I went to the woods and laid down. Martin left after a while. Why can't we just pass the torch and do it right? It really hurts Jackie when she thinks people are ``coming down to my level.'' Jacked off last night, but it didn't feel right at all. Felt much better just being with Jackie. I guess I might as well stop it. My dream that I remember was that Martin decided he liked Jackie again. She, him, and I saw each other - that is, we went to some meeting together - and they were holding each other, and Martin was massaging her breasts. But then I woke up. Too bad I'm an hour late for my breakfast with Jackie. Now I feel pretty dumb, but I think she'll understand. He talked some about drugs. She is against them, but we can't figure out why. I think she'll end up trying some at one time this year. We'll see. I'm going up to breakfast. Hope she slept late too, but most unlikely.

September 23 I do think Jackie and I are going somewhere in our relationship. Yesterday, we sat out in the cold wind for an hour talking. We love each other very much, but because I think we are going to have a long relationship I want to ease into it instead of trying anything spectacular right now.

September 25 Martin is addicted to cigarettes. This is not good. I feel that the only person who is really a person is Jackie but I am so scared that she doesn't love me as I love her that I cannot get myself to show her that I love her. I am in a mother fucking dilemma. A BIG MOTHER FUCKING DILEMMA. I want to go and be a farmer with her for the rest of our lives, nothing more.

I fear sometimes that sex will be commonplace for me in life, not that I have the right to talk about it.

When I am with Jackie sometimes now, I think we should certainly be together, that we love each other truly. Then other times, I do not see any way she has shown me that she loves me. I fear she does not, for the only thing I have to go on is logic, and logic is not the means to love.

This is to say, she is happy with me quite often, spends quite a bit of time with me, though I don't see her going out of her way to. I do not know. I have the image every so often of Martin deciding that he likes Jackie again, and going to her, and ending up seeing me somewhere, them together. And then them making love. Jackie's eyes, I can see her eyes, in this fear, and they are looking right past me into Martin's. And Martin stares like a machine. (I have to make it really horrible because otherwise it is too real. I am afraid of Martin's power. I am afraid of the sway Jackie has with me.) I ran a good cross country race today. Jude just asked me how I'm doing. ``Good.'' ``For real?'' ``Damn right.'' I do not look as happy now as I was over the summer. I'm not, either. I have a stupid English assignment. I'm not sure if I'm going to do it.

My first English story is going to be ``you are never closer to nature than when you are a kid.'' In the second, Jackie and I are in love with each other. I am a non-violent dude, but all of a sudden she is going out with Martin, and I want to punch him. Though I don't really.

September 26 I want to see her run down the hill to get to me, I want to have her give me a story. I want her to come over to my dorm and ask for me sometime. That last one would be really good, actually. Because I have gone over to her dorm a number of times to get her. I want her to show me that she loves me. I have tried to show her, but I do not know if I have been successful. I would wager yes, because I have given her stuff, run to her, sat with her as she eats some meals although I was already done eating. But perhaps she is as worried about the whole business as I am. Perhaps because she is as wanting of me as I am of her, but I wish I could see that. I think my cold is going away, but it's raining like a mother-fucker, and I'm probably going to get another one as soon as I get rid of this one. I have to do some homework before class starts.

Apparently the journal entries end here. I remember one more story, soon after. Jackie and I were working together at the farm center, and Richard, the farm manager, had us washing some stuff for maple sugaring. Things were definitely not going well between us. I don't think I was taking it at all well that Jackie had said she thought I was a ``brother'' to her. It gave me the feeling I assume I'd have if I had a ball of horsehair caught in my stomach. Richard comes in and asks Jackie whether she would like to drive the tractor. I'm a little envious that he didn't ask me. She says no, and explains that she doesn't know how. He says she can learn. She says no thanks. He goes away.

``Was that scary, the idea of driving the tractor?'' I ask her.

``Yeah, it was. Why do you think that is?''

``Maybe you were just so afraid of failure that you couldn't take the risk to do something that, really, you would like to do very much.''

She stares at me steely-eyed but with a tinge of despair. ``Do you always have an answer for everything?'' She had already invalidated my feelings for her. Now she was invalidating my way of thinking too. It hurt. Now I felt like a machine. I couldn't control myself, didn't have a self. And she, with increasing despair, ``That's scary, Chris. That's scary, because this is the first time anyone has ever been able to see right through me like that.'' And all we wanted to do was feel close to one another.

We started putting together sets of indian corn, three to a bunch. Jackie was obviously troubled. I didn't know what she was thinking. I didn't know whether to be pleased that now she felt some counterpart to my horsehairs, or feel sorry for her, or not worry about it.

She became really self-conscious working with the indian corn. ``Is this one OK?'' she asked. ``How about this one?'' They were all OK, of course, but she kept asking. I tried to illustrate that she didn't need to worry about it by making some joke. It didn't work. I tried to explain. And then I realized there is no such thing as explanation, closed my eyes, waited for the pressure of the tears to pass, opened them up again, and shut up.

All is quiet as we finish the corn. And just like that our relationship is over, stopped dead in its tracks, our illusions broken to bits and bits and bits as we realized we didn't have any idea what the other was thinking or meaning, what we had thought before or what we would think after. No way to know, no way to help, and almost no way to go on.

Martin and I grew more distant, and I began to realize that I was my own person, and that I could think about what I wanted for myself independent of him.

December 15, 1990 It's all getting too stale. Too fucking stale. I am becoming goddamn toast. I need it real, and need it now. I have ten fingers and ten toes, and two eyes and two ears and two nostrils and one nose. I have blood running off my bleeding lip, dry as hell from too much wanting and drooling over it, and the salt dries that lip out like it made my back itch in Delaware.

I need it. I do not know if ``it'' is me, or if ``it'' is the place, or if ``it'' is the people, or ``it'' is the grass that's not green enough. I am perpetually wondering whether the grass might not be better over there on the Northfield campus or ``over there'' in general. Martin and I don't do too much just us two, except what we do in this room. I miss it. I miss going up to Sunday dinner with Martin next to me. Now he goes with Lily and Dobson and Gem. I'm allowed to tag along, I've gathered, but he doesn't even really go out of his way to explain that. Not that it would be virtuous if he did. It's like the beginning of last year, in a way.

December 29 Martin and I talked some just before I left campus about me moving down to Nathan's room. Martin had told me already that he wanted to live with Barr. Then he'd said he'd rather not live with Barr, that he would prefer a single. I don't know if Martin knows what he wants. In a way, this is one of the first times when I've realized that he is not after all a God. After that, I started noticing more and more contradictions in the things he said. Maybe the base reason I wanted to move is that I sensed he is not a God. Of course, everybody knows that no other person is a god. But I was just basing myself too much on him. I was not saying this is good for myself, but this is good if Martin says it is good (like who the cool people are or where the cool place to live is). I know Martin's become bored with me, too. Whereas he used to really get excited when I just said something, now he just says ``yeah.'' I can almost see visions of nicotine dance in his head. He knows that I have insecurity about who I am. He would not want to risk making me unhappy, because he is too a good person. With my dependence on his agreement manifesting itself more and more, it was time for a change, and I told him so. He said that he had been thinking about it some too. I figured he had been. I hope it works.

I think everyone I know at that school is on one drug or another. I think I like music. I really do.

A few days into the winter term, I called my Dad. ``I'm not coming back to school next year,'' I told him. Naturally, he was a little surprised, but when I explained my plan, he thought it sounded quite workable. I would continue to study on my own for the year, at home, reading and writing the things I was interested in. My own way. He and mom would help out. ``Do you have any more bombs to drop?'' he asked before we hung up. I talked with Martin about the new idea, and he thought it sounded like the right thing for me. ``I think it'll be great,'' he said. That was all I needed. Now that Martin had said it would work, I knew it would.

But before long, I had modified my plan. Rather than taking a year off, I decided I ought to go to college early. Depending on whether NMH would allow it (as you read in the introduction, it did not), I would either reclassify as a senior and apply normally, or else simply quit at the end of the year and apply for early admission. How come I had decided to do this instead of spending the year at home? Because I realized that the one thing I didn't need was to learn how to live with my father. We already shared all the same bad habits. I knew I needed, more than anything else, new people to get to know. I told Martin. Again, he approved, and again that was enough for me. It was a plan.

My mother and I have for many years had some difficulties in our relationship. I think probably everyone who has had a mother will know what I am talking about. She wants to hear how I'm doing; I want to go on my way. She wants to help me out; I don't need her help. She thinks she understands my situation; I think she doesn't understand anything. Sometimes it's worse than other times, and on the other hand, sometimes it's not bad at all. Before including a few letters from my mother to me, I am going to take a brief digression here to discuss the nature of parent relationships. Like many people, my skills, attributes, habits, and neuroses were learned primarily from my parents. Whenever I discover a neurosis in my own personality, I can usually find it in my parents. For instance (and this is a big one), I have recently become very aware of how difficult it is for me to let other people be themselves, when I think they could be something different. My sister will be starting college, at Columbia, next fall. As hard as I try to encourage her, I still have a nagging part of me. It keeps telling me that no one should pay the amount of money she'll be paying for an education, that the best education can only come from a person understanding their means and their place in the world, and figuring out how they want to live it, themselves. But meanwhile I can also see how irrational my behavior is. It's not helping anyone - neither me nor myself - to think my sister should be someone she's not. In fact, it's hurting both of us. That's what I call a neurosis. An unconscious habit that feels ``justified'', but under more sober analysis the benefit involved (making someone feel ever-more justified in their infantile righteousness) is less than the cost.

Recently, I discovered my Mom playing the same idiotic role I had played with my sister. But she was playing it with her boyfriend. His son had just gotten married, but every time they discussed the marriage, my mom insisted on discussing how much it had cost. Her boyfriend, luckily, is quite good at just letting her do her bitching and not letting it get to him (so my mom might have a chance to improve, whereas if he'd insisted on changing her back, she would have been much more stuck). When I saw that, I laughed at myself. At least I wasn't the only one.

Now what I do with my skills, attributes, habits, and neurosis is much more up to me. I can become my parents, lock stock and barrel. Or I can become myself. If I become myself, it will most definitely include much of what my parents are. But it will also not include some of those things. It's not that I rid these parts of myself that I don't want, but I come to understand them in a new way so that I can recognize when I am wont to invoke them, and why, and learn to fill those needs earlier upon recognition, so that they do not erupt in full outbursts of the neurosis. If I dedicate myself, as I have, to understanding these unconscious parts of myself, then I have a tremendous power to become myself. This doesn't mean I need to do this full-time. It just means that whenever possible, I have to be honest with myself. That's all. I remember hearing Ram Dass say that in his decades as a psychologist, as a patient in therapy, as a meditator, he had not gotten rid of a single neurosis. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's not that you rid yourself of the parents within you. They will be there forever. What you do is to learn about them, understand them, forgive them, and care about them so that they do not take your conscious mind over.

But despite the stupid habits I've learned from Mom, I've also learned a whole lot of valuable things. My mom has shown me her genuineness, a willingness to work hard on relationships, naive optimism, love of hard work, willingness to listen, willingness to try change.

To illustrate these qualities, I want to include a letter from my Mom written in January during this difficult period in my junior year.

Dear Chris,

You've been on my mind a lot - sometimes growing up causes pain. It's a normal part of growing. I sure would like to protect you from it, but I know that's not possible. Anyhow, it helps me to write.

I'm glad you were able to talk today. I know it's hard, but I think it's important. I think that it's good that you can set it aside and not let it get in the way of your life entirely, but I also think you need to think about it enough to decide how you want to handle it.

Every half hour I think about this I have a different thought. Here are the most important ones:

I'm quite afraid that now that you've talked to me and I've talked back that you won't talk to me again for fear that I'll do this - but at least when it's in written form, you can just chuck it.

It may be that each one of your difficult feelings I've seen this year (unhappiness with lack of control over learning, wanting not to return, social discomfort, issues about home: Dad, Dad's girlfriend, divorce, me, whatever) are temporary issues that you will successfully work through. I think you can. However, my biggest concern is that the accumulative effect of these struggles will gradually diminish your self-esteem which may leave you with issues that might be harder to overcome later.

I may be projecting here because that's what happened to both your father and me. Because we had to deal with difficult stuff growing up (significant losses, being different from others), it left us with issues (me: an inability to be independent in some ways; your Dad: difficulty in being open to other people's needs and in talking about his own). On the other hand, all people grow up with some issues left from their childhood. No life experience is perfect. Everyone has things to work through in some way or another. In my role as parent, I desperately want to help you through these issues which are so normal, but painful so that they have as little negative effect as possible. It's hard to do that, though, when you're not here.

I'm also a little frustrated about you living with Daddy. Of course I want that for you, but I'm afraid that he tends to bury things and will model that for you. On the other hand, it's a valuable skill to set aside worries and go on with other parts of your life. Sometimes it's a hard balance on this issue.

Perhaps most of all about my Mom, I value the genuineness with which she relates to me. Most people would not think of being so honest with their 16-year-old son. But then, too, these people would likely find reasons to hold back their feelings and situation no matter who the other person is. Even if I may have not understood everything she was talking about, or cared, she modeled for me the importance of communication, and specifically, communication about my feelings - something I didn't get much from Dad. Many times, our relationship has been difficult for her when I was not communicative with her. But she has worked hard to not condemn me for bad behavior, understanding that it is more her expectations and less my behavior that bothers her. She has done admirably, I think. And I appreciate it.

Though my social world was certainly the biggest thing I was thinking about, it wasn't the only thing on my mind. I was very involved in writing a paper on Eugene McCarthy for AP US history. Also, I was trying to figure out an independent study I wanted to write about Utopian society and individualism from Marx to Lenin to Gorbachev. I met with the teacher I'd had for world history my sophomore year, Kyp Wasiuk. Once I'd written her a proposal (as she suggested), she wrote me a letter in response, suggesting that there was someone else I should really be talking to about my proposal. I would have been more excited to work with her. She gave me a couple good suggestions though, centered around a general comment on how to go about such studies:

I would suggest that you try re-forming your thinking by asking a question, rather than announcing a topic. This has the advantage of making you come up with a thematic core, from which you could string appropriate readings. If I understood you correctly, your question might revolve around what binds/separates Marx, Lenin, and Gorbachev in their understandings of socialism as an economic system... and/or a social construct.

I met the man she had suggested, apparently very knowledgeable, and told him how excited I was about this project. I wanted to read the primary sources - starting with Das Kapital. He immediately told me that was completely unnecessary. He said he knew some secondary sources that were much better. But he said this with such a complete disinterest in me and in the subject material that he managed to destroy my plans and enthusiasm, and put nothing there in its place. And there we were, staring at each other. He said I could come by his office and pick up a couple books. I never did. He could screw himself. I was going to create my own non-hung-up learning community. Or at the least find one that would work for me.

And that is exactly what I was doing at the time - applying to colleges. By the time I actually finished my application to Hampshire, I was late applying. But the admissions office had accepted the application just the same, and sometime in the middle of March I could await the news. I was nervous, of course. Why would they want to take me? I was a cocky kid who hadn't finished high-school. I later found out there was no need to worry. But in the meantime, worry I did - about everything from school to sex to bike racing. But especially sex.

March 13, 1992 I am such a little fool. A little fucking bastard. I am what you might call sexually inept. My wretched soul creeps forth and stings me harshly. If I do not have a good sexual relationship with someone soon, I am on the verge of letting my subconscious actually take over and develop a full-force aversion to sexuality. That would be wrong, and I know that, but yet I am ever failing. It is going to happen soon if I don't stop this trend. Well, actually, it's of course not going to happen at all. But still. The millions of years of evolution mean nothing compared to a good, subconscious mind-block. I am ruining myself, I have ruined myself, I am driving myself mad.

I am going to tell Lily when I get back that I am smarter than she is. I know exactly where the conversation will go: my sexuality. For my intelligence is the real reason for my lack of real sexuality. I am going to cry like she's never seen a guy cry before. The best possible thing that could happen is that she could decide to help me develop a real sexuality. I doubt she will, but I will have a lot to gain from talking with the most sexual person I have ever met. This has been good. I have gotten out my anger at Finky for being better at women than me, and in particular about the one I'm attracted to who he's doing better with.

That particular journal entry is one of the most psychotic things I found in this entire archives of my writing. Wow.

Soon after that journal entry, I received letters of acceptance from Marlboro and Hampshire, and for Hampshire in particular I got a terrific financial aid package including a merit scholarship for $4,500. Hampshire would cost just less per year than I was paying for NMH. I was a new man, headed for what I was sure would be the ultimate utopia. Naive? Boy, you bet. But alive? Absolutely.

The experiences of the past year and my excitement for my future prospects brought with them a new productivity of writing in the change-the-world realm, too. Two such documents were ``I Appeal to the Powerful to Resign in All Respects'' and ``An Intellectual Appeal to the Emotion of Masses and Leaders.'' The first, as the title suggests, asked teachers, parents, and governments to stop not only abusing their power, but also to stop their using it. Here is the beginning and the end of the second, though it seems to have been aborted prematurely:

The world has very little hope left. Each of the various ideologies we have come up with has come back to traditional exploitation. We have tried the mass appeal of emotion throughout the ages, but each time the leader has become corrupt and ruined the goals and therefore the hope of the people as well as their meaning. We have tried allowing private ownership of the means of production, but this has resulted in extravagant exploitations, supply-based economies producing useless products (not necessatily exclusive to capitalism, but rather visible wherever corruption of the controllers of the means of production occurs), but most importantly in the wholesale bid of the Ronald Reagans to sell off everybody else's American Dream for a dollar.

First I will deal with the reasons why each ideology thus far cannot work, then I will present my own and explain why that cannot work. Why even present my own if it will not work? Because I am now only getting the basic ideas of it together. I may leave it for a while, come up with some solutions, and I want to have this to look back at and see what ideas I thought of then. It is certainly my hope that here somewhere exists an ideology with the potential to fix - one which has not been documented, probably, and obviously not tried - and maybe I will just step upon it...

I only have one idea for the way things need to be. The first question is whether the system must be based on logic or emotion. The answer is that on a global level, decisionmaking must be based on logic, whereas on a local level it must be based on emotion...The only way for the system to work is if people want to do it and believe in their role in it. The system must not become corrupted. But as we have seen, there have been really no cases where the power has not become corrupt, and therefore we are headed on a one-way street to being really fucked.

But though the external world was still, as far as I knew, in said condition, the internal world was ever improving.

Saturday, March 28 1992 Today shall henceforth be recorded as such a day as that I, Chris Kawecki, made one of those things that can occasionally be referred to as a BIG STEP.

As of this moment, I embark upon that miraculous journey toward self-jellocarnation, whereas I become one with (you guesed it!) - jello!

This process will be significantly aided by a new drug called life.

Such life on the trail of mad women; dead, frozen Bolsheviks; and most significantly, HOLES IN THE DAMN DAM.

IN OTHER WORDS, I hereby declare myself on such a path as to take me to be a real person.

But significantly said real person will not be just any person, but in particular ME.

I AM that REAL PERSON. The world is but the bowl of jello to jump into, eat from, deposit my best into, gloppeta gloppeta, and EVEN GREATER leap forth inwardly into the far reaches of JELLO.

To also aid me on said swan dive into the multitudes, I have gathered with me my trustworth companions. Martin, and Lily. The next tool is the harp, or formerly and formally, the harmonica.

I also took upon myself to be an activist for positive change at NMH, realizing I didn't need a seat on a committee to help out. I wrote a letter to the school newspaper explaining my reasons for leaving:

An open letter to NMH:

Out of hope that someone somewhere may think about the problem I see foremost at NMH, and out of hope that perhaps those thoughts could contribute to improvements for the students of NMH, I write this farewell letter to NMH, in which I will discuss the main reason for my decision to leave the school after my junior year.

There are really two parts of this school: one part involving interaction among students themselves, between students and their academic materials, and other activities, and the philosophies running parallel to those interactions; the other part of the school involves what is necessary to make the first part possible, such as the physical plant, buses, a financial office and the wages it pays, but also rules. An example of something belonging to the first part of the school is what happens during a class. A few examples of the second, related to the previous example, are the building in which to hold the class, the wages paid to the teacher, and a rule forcing people to go to class. I have to be honest here and acknowledge that the idea of a division similar to this one comes from Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence.

The problem coming out of this is that the first part of the school is subordinated to the second. For example, if some students were in an Ultimate Frisbee class and wanted permission to bike on some days instead of going to frisbee, it would be denied. Here, the philosophy behind the rule, namely that people should get exercise, is in conflict with the rule ``people may not skip class.'' And the rule takes precedence. But this is rediculous, first of all becaus the philosophy comes first (was the reason for the rule) and secondly (pragmatically) because the people might have gotten some diversity in their physical education, along with developing their self-confidence (they actually did something they weren't required to), as well as not stifling their self-initiative.

This is the main problem I see at NMH, but its effects are enormous. It is not the only problem, but it is one which has not been identified.

And for the many people who have accepted me for who I am while I have been at NMH, I thank you forever. And I hope that this school may yet shine forth that vanguard light it is so proud to affix to itself.

That wasn't all I wanted to leave NMH as my legacy. I also made a short speech at campus meeting, to explain the existence of the Residential Life Committee, and to suggest to the students that they insist the RLC seek out their input on policy issues.

It has been difficult selecting what to write about from my experienceds at NMH. There are so many important relationships I want to describe to you. I want, of course, to print every one of Martin's letters to me. There are maybe even ten total. He is such a good writer, such an incredible person. And I desperately want to write about Mindy Almond, my first girlfriend. I want to write about how at the end of that school-year I felt so rejuvinated by our relationship (my first) - I worked so hard on it, and my parents drove me down to visit her often (I only got my license later that summer). I want to include all my letters here. I don't know why. But despite (or perhaps because of) her greater experience, she was much slower getting into the relationship than I was. Later in the summer, the cosmos switched quadrants in every way. My frustration (which had been buiding) with her not being more involved with me turned into disappointment and dissatisfaction. Meanwhile, on the one hand she became much more involved with the relationship (her letters are aeons more mature than mine in understanding relationships), but on the other hand she was having terrible problems with her mother and drugs. And those terrific problems were something I was completely unable to relate to. She just seemed crazy. Strangely, this change in my thinking was about simultaneous with her becoming so much more emotionally involved - perhaps (but I am not suggesting it) because she was noticing the beginning of my distance.

We exchanged many letters describing out feelings and insights about the relationships. Mindy was a tremendous woman - far more caring, thoughtful, aware, aware, honest, and loving than I gave her credit for at the time. She was barely 16, and I was 6 months older. Here is a letter she wrote to me just as the change I wrote about was happening, after my long, honest letters had stopped. I was being a terrible communicator, not knowing how I could say things that I thought she wouldn't be able to handle, but kind of hinting at them. I'm so embarassed. Her letter is bordered by cut-and-paste flowers from magazines on one side and the bottom, two felt-tip stars and a sun on the other side, and a drawing of purple and pink trees on the top.

You said in your letter you thought maybe you were putting an emotional burden on me by having the kind of relationship where we aren't able to see each other for long periods of time. No, Chris, that is not a burden on me at all. I don't want to ``forfeit myself from being able to have a more realistic relationship'' because we won't be able to see each other for a while. I only want our relationship. I think our relationship is realistic. And even though we might not see each other for a few weeks, I'm not going to stop thinking, dreaming, or caring about you. Nor am I going to start any of the above with someone else. Are you worried about that at all? No, no, no, never could I do any of that. Not with you in my life.

Often I am confused by what I want with us. Not now. I only want to be with you, no one else. But if you need a break, I'd be happy to ``separate'' for a while so you can figure out what you want. And if the few weeks until August, the next time I see you, is time for you to figure anything out, that's OK with me. And if it takes longer, that's fine too. You are so special to me, Chris. Whatever you want to do is OK with me. I want to say ``please don't break my heart,'' but you take care of you first. Love, me.

I want to put all of Mindy's letters in here. She is so amazing. So mature and loving. She is one of the people who deserve the most credit in helping me to become myself. Later in the summer, I saw her as immature. I don't want to excuse myself for letting this part of the relationship hurt the rest of it, but now I can see why she was immature in some ways - ten percent her, but ninety per cent that her school and parents and society forced her to be immature. Her letters demonstrate incredible maturity, except when the issues of parents or school come up. It is a real tragedy that incredible people feel forced to ``do time'' in school. That's what she was doing, and it wasn't helping her any at all.

I hope you're ready for me to move on to college, because that's what I'm going to do. It would be impossible to track all of my development during high school. I think you still have quite a picture of the adventures that made me who I am, and of many of the important people in my life. It might be a neat idea to go read the introduction and the first chapter, on finding a college, once more.

It finally seemed to me that I was going to have the freedom I needed in my education and my life. Silly expectations!