Letters to the Editor
Monty Johnston
Published Letters: 120 Editor's Choice: 9
-
Dear Mr. Green -
[Read the article: My wife was having an emotional affair for years behind my back]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]She can't handle intimacy with you, is why she rambles around. You neither, with her; though you would claim, perhaps loudly, that you want nothing more than that. I can tell you don't because you are totally centered on her and have no interest in your life and your being. See, one can only get as close to someone else as they can get to themselves.
I don't know what to recommend, but this may be a start.
I like to be with people who like to be with me.
Best,
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
-
Dear Mr. Green -
[Read the article: My wife was having an emotional affair for years behind my back]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wrote you one of the first letters. After I sent it I felt that it was too brusque. It was true but brusque.
Cary was really nice to you and your situation.
An Emerson quote came to me that goes some way to explaining my brusqueness: "We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten."
I thought too of a first girlfriend when I was 16. I was too passive. One day she comes walking down the highschool hallway holding some guy's hand and smiling up at him. I'm told I went white all day. Something in me said, "Never again." It never has happened again. I can't treat myself that way, to not be a stand-up person. I'll take a little crap, but only a little.
I liked the letter from the woman who described how she'd been like your wife, who did not blame her husband for her screwing around. I look at it a little differently: A stand-up person stands up to stand up, to be who they fully are, not to be attractive. But doing it - standing up - makes you more attractive. Not standing up makes you more unattractive. Spine is attractive. But it's an inside job. You get spine from the inside out. Though you may have it in all other areas of your life, you are describing not having it with your wife. Good luck with that.
Your wife needs more than you standing up. Good luck to the two of you.
Best,
Monty
-
Evolution and fanatics
[Read the article: The Senate says "Om," Part 2]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Relative to evolution and fanatics, you ask the sensible question, "how does such religious idiocy survive? What is it fit for?"
Because they hate themselves and don't want to fix that self-hate, it is vital that fanatics of all stripes establish a sense of self that makes almost no sense, which they try to force down others' throats, and which they will defend to the death.
This was the ancient state of mind that established human life on earth and made for its survival: this original survivalism. Here we have the insane self-hating risk-taking courage with which little people jumped bears and mammoths, and decimated neighboring tribes. You couldn't live life if you weren't willing to throw it away.
Shame and shamelessness figures in there too.
We see now that this view of life is no longer adaptive. Don't worry - They're busy killing themselves off, which is fine as long as they don't get us too. But it is a cornered rat thing too.
Best,
Monty
(Much more on this specific topic, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
-
Dear shaky atheist -
[Read the article: Is atheism dead?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not so good on the father kind of god, a personal god, or faith and belief. I'm more for experience. Some call it spiritual experience. I like the term egolesness. It can be had by the religious, the atheistic, and anyone else.
There are many ways to find egolessness, not that it's listed in the Yellow Pages. Meditation, 12 Step groups, the arts, physical movement, etc. Coming into the moment. Any kind of self-exploration. Shoot, psychotherapy.
Mormons, from a PBS TV show I recently saw, apparently attack the problem of impermenance by trying to make everything permenant, surrounding themselves with ancestors and family. Buddhists do the opposite: the reality of impermenance is a meditation to experience the ground of being.
I hope you find what you're looking for. Good luck. Actually, my experience was to look without knowing what I was looking for. The hunt at first was a bit of a pisser, but it was worth it.
Best
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
-
Carbon yellow ribbon -
[Read the article: I hate buzzwords! It's not "carbon," it's "carbon dioxide"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have a pet peeve about people who have pet peeves.
You have come to believe that this is very important, at least important enough to get quite angry about. I don't think it's very important. When I get too angry about something that's not very important I do my best to take a good long look at me. Something always turns out to be going on that I need to not be dodging around by getting too angry about something that's not very important. But that's me.
Best.
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
-
Whose class warfare are we talking about here?
[Read the article: The Bill Richardson difference]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm surprised this class warfare stuff has stuck; Republicans accusing Democrats of declaring class warfare against the rich. It's another framing coup. Don't get me wrong - we are now even glandularly devoted to thorough-going rigorous though non-violent class warfare against the rich, in the name of Government of the People, et cetera. But it didn't start that way. It started with us noticing that, through the auspices of George W. Bush and the Young Republicans, the rich were surreptitiously doing very effective clean-sweep class warfare against all of us who were not rich. And when we said, "Hey, bitch, I see what you're doing!", WE get accused of class warfare.
As one who's mind periodically goes to mush, I can appreciate the honesty of any candidate willing to make that admission. But it is best to accurately see the slope of the playing field most of us are in or near the far end zone of, with old Voldmort behind the curtain (not the Wizard of Oz) rigging it.
Best -
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")