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I might be talking about you alone, part of you and part of someone else, or a whole bunch of people all at once

By Rob

This is one of many posts where I write out a longer explanation of something that I will reuse to save time, forwarding a link instead of rewriting the same idea again and again.

Frequently, I will include information from correspondence with or observation of specific individuals in the materials I publish.

Sometimes my response treats one specific case. Often, I amalgamate more than one person or experience to respond to several people all at once or to attempt to make the message more generally applicable.

Though I probably do it very poorly, I freely weave together chunks specific to specific people, as well as chunks derived for groups of people and chunks intended for everyone.

There may be a better way, but doing this achieves several objectives:

1) It gives you the opportunity to practice the art of honestly scanning for information that may be helpful to you among information that may not be. It's good to keep that active and sharp.

2) It gives me the ability to increase the priority with which I reply. It is easier to argue for the importance of a reply to three people over one, all other things being equal.

3) It allows me to provide specific guidance while preserving my tendency to instantly separate the sinner from the sin, to adopt a phrase I believe is to tradition-charged to be worth much. The point I'd like to make here is that by the time you see, say, a video where I call you out on full blast for something we discussed, I probably have no recollection of the event, let alone who took part in it. The pace I live at makes it difficult to remember what I had for dinner last night without great effort. I can hardly remember a discussion with someone two or four weeks ago.

So, if something I say helps you value what you already have more than you do, or persuades you toward obtaining something better than you have, or influences you to change to become better than you are, or entices you to do more to help another do any of these things, by all means run with it. If it does not, let's hope it does for another while you allow it to roll off your back like water off a duck. In the event it is helpful for no one, please excuse and do your best to correct my folly.

Thank you for the many who have been good examples of this.