Hey Ben, Carmine here,

Interesting, and to think -- I really thought you were always the intelligent capable and caring person I have come to know you as! Maybe you were, but never stopped long enough to realize it?? Don't know - but could be?

I have always found it fascinating, the ability people have to focus all their awareness into one finely tuned beam that, like a spot light, only focused on a given area. It's kinda like being in a very large, very dark room, with only a penlight to find your way. No matter where you focus the light, you wind up eliminating everything else in that room. Then all of a sudden someone turns on the light switch - and now you can see all of the different things that exist in that room. Yet, they were always there to be seen...it was just a matter of being able to realize this.

I remember some time back, I was living on the streets and had never been in a major supermarket. There were the local mom and pop stores that lined the streets of New York that I would often step into, viewing the limited selections that lined the shelves. I can remember believing that this was all there was - well, at least until I stepped into a "real" super market. Shit, I couldn't believe my eyes, all of those choices that lined the shelves!! It took me over an hour just to decide which breakfast cereal I wanted to try.

When I got my first car, I was sixteen years old. It was a Volkswagen Beetle that I had paid fifty dollars for. It didn't even have a starter. I had to park it on hills so that I could pop the clutch to get it started. Sometimes there wouldn't be a hill to park it on, and when I needed to start it I would have to push it, jump in, pop the clutch. I got very good at it after a while. But still better, was the idea of getting my hands on a starter motor. I don't know why it took so long for me to think about getting one, and it really doesn't matter, but I will say that getting in that Beetle after I did get that starter, and being able to just turn the key --

It wasn't until I had purchased my second car, a '68 Ford Mustang, did I realize that there were other kinds of music to listen to. The Beetle's radio was stuck on one station - an AM station no less. But in that Mustang I could choose from so many different radio stations. I can remember just sitting there - turning that dial -- just so that I could exercise that choice.

There was a kind of wonderment in having come from the having to live on the streets into a world with so many different choices. Everything was new! At every turn there was a different aspect of life awaiting my discovery! I would get the greatest joy out of the simplest things. When I moved into my first house there wasn't a switch or button in that house that I didn't take joy in playing with.

I guess this is the way I now view NLP. So many different switches and buttons to play with! There is no end to what I can experience! There are so many choices that I could be stuck in the worst of traffic and still enjoy fully what I can do with my own subjective experience.

As for you, maybe you were the sort of person that you thought you were. But I will never believe it! I will always see you as having had the choices that you have now, it was only a matter of being able to experience them. Perhaps you did have some interesting and challenging experiences along the way, but I don't think they were a representation of you, only things that you had learned to do along that way. And as I know you, you learn things with fervor. And as you are learning you give your all. Shit, you can't ever fault yourself for having mastered that old set of choices as completely as you did. It is your passion to be the best you can be, and at that time, given the choices you were aware of, you really mastered being a bastard. Now you can master anything you want, anything whatsoever! I guess the question now is one that asks, in light of the choices that you now have, is what I am wanting to do in the future worth doing? Think about it, you can have any carrot you want. Hmmmmmmmm.

I respect your willingness to try on new things, to ask questions, and to actually try on the answers you get before jumping to any conclusions. I respect you!

Carmine