"You seem incapable of letting go from holding on to pictures of what you 
think people should be.  ... and then enforcing that picture on others,
fitting them into your own mold, shaping them in your mind to what you want."

It makes it very hard to relate to others when all one knows how to relate to
is caricatures of others ... not the essence of others.

I felt raised to think in terms of "shoulds" about others' actions and my own.
"This is proper; that is not."  "I am better than most others."  "I am proud
of myself and my actions, because I don't do *this-or-that*."

I DO manipulate others in my imaging and imagining.  And when people step out-
of-line from what my imaging of them expects, I *do* employ tactics to get them
back into line.  My world then is a world of roles and responsibilities, of
pictures of what people should be doing in fitting in those roles painted in 
my mind for them.

It boxes them in.  They resent the guilt trips.  Tactics, like guilt trips,
that box people in violates their freedom of expression of who THEY really are.


	One's Self I Sing

	   ONE'S-SELF I sing--a simple, separate Person;
	   Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.

	   Of Physiology from top to toe I sing;
	   Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse--I say
        	 the Form complete is worthier far;
	   The Female equally with the male I sing.

	   Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
	   Cheerful--for freest action form'd, under the laws divine,
	   The Modern Man I sing
					--Whitman, Walt.  1900. Leaves of Grass.


No wonder many people feel constrained, restrained ... and run away from 
friendship with me.  Because my mind is not open to behaviors that I find 
unacceptible.  And the mind, curious, wants explanations for every behavior,
especially what I judge as bad ones.  

My mind and heart fears behavior out of the norm from what it expects.  And
when it expects (fears), it does all kinds of strange things ... like when 
I want so much, but fear, relationship.  Then enters pride and envy into the
mix.  Envy of how I see others relating, lovingly, with one another; and how
I don't feel them relating to me in that way.  "What makes these others so
much better than me??"  Pride that I at least have my integrity to hold on 
to, not having to jump through the hoops that many others seem to have to 
(including the hoop of compromise) in order to relate.  I don't have to com-
promise:  I can be whole with my integrity.

I can be who I am, and be darned proud of it!

...and be very lonely.