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Figuring people out.
October 27, 2001 5:02 a.m.

I spent months trying to understand you, FRUSTRATED at my inability to grasp what you stood for, wishing life was simple and you could explain it to me calmly in a non-threatening tone. I thought about it at night when I couldn't sleep desperately arguing over and over in my head, "why?"

And then today I simply opened your desk drawer, and it was all explained without so much as a word....

There is no reason, no rhyme to your madness, no steadfast values or mantras for which you stand.

There's only an image. An image you so desperately cling to. You won't take a breath of anything that might compromise that image. I started out angry. "How could you ridicule me?" Soon my anger turned to self-righteousness..I KNEW I was right....but my self-righteousness turned to pity. My pity turned to sadness, because, really, you're kind of a slave.

Your image fools you and tells you you're different. It tells you to scoff at all those "followers." It tells you to close your mind to anything different from it. It tells you, you know better, "they just don't understand." It tells you how to dress, how to act, what to listen to, and what to watch.

It tells you, you need it to be accepted and liked. And I feel bad for you.