XVI - THE TOWER
The silence from Harry Scott was deafening. His checks kept coming but I had given up sending him reports and even stopped putting data into his internal reporting system. I received almost no emails from him and assumed all was going well as my disconnect from the world was growing ever more complete. On a Thursday afternoon in the middle of September Perlini called me sounding like a long lost friend and finally let on that he wanted to leave Bernstein because it seemed like the agency was on its last legs. He asked me to be a reference for a new job and I gave the hiring manager a glowing appraisal that afternoon. The next day Perlini called me back to tell me he had an offer and was leaving Bernstein. I should have paid more attention to Bernstein’s troubles but I simply rejoiced that they were losing there most important media buyer and as it was Friday, I called the Devil to celebrate and began a three day binge without ever leaving the apartment.
By Monday afternoon I was beginning to recover my senses when the phone rang. It was the new COO for Harry Scott. He introduced himself and told me that had just hired a new marketing manager and he wanted me to come down to Atlanta to talk about what I was doing and what my future would be with the company. He made it all seem very positive so while I was shaken, I still had hope that things might continue at least for awhile; it was the same Monday Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and the Dow lost 500 points. Instead of spending the next few days preparing reports and getting together a good case for me staying on I gave myself the very weak excuse that I needed more data and decided I would do the reports once I got to their offices in Atlanta.
I got to Atlanta the following Monday night and drank in the hotel instead of doing any work. I knew my campaigns were making money from some very broad reports I had run but I had no details to dig into. I got to the office and met the new COO and Harry Scott finally came in around lunchtime. I sat at a computer in an office for the first time in a year and it felt almost exactly the same as the last time I had sat at one- at Bernstein Media waiting for the call from the conference room confirming I was fired.
Harry, his wife Bitty, the new COO, his young Indian marketing manager and I all got into a big SUV and went to a nearby Friday’s for lunch. After some light talk about the market Harry Scott straightened up. “Arthur, we’ve brought in Aryun as a marketing manager and he has some questions for you.”
Aryun started in with a vengeance. “Are your campaigns making money?”
“Yes, all of them are.”
“Do you have reports? I haven’t seen any reports for months.”
“Well, I’ve had some problems getting data, something was not working in the database. But overall, yes, they’re making money because we see the overall spend and the overall results. Maybe some of the campaigns could be losing, but I doubt it.”
“You doubt it? So you don’t really know.”
Harry Scott wiped his mouth with his napkin, “Okay, let’s look at the data this afternoon and we’ll see if you are doing what you say you're doing. It’s gonna get hot in the kitchen, boy.” Then he changed the subject and I did my best not to look rattled. I had no bullets in my gun; I was done.
When we got back to the office I went frantically looking for the database guy who had helped me in the past. I caught him in the hall and told him I needed a few hours with him to get my numbers straight and he told me would help me but then Aryun called me and told me to bring my data into the conference room. They hooked up my laptop to the projector and told me to pull up my reports. I had one report, an overall monthly report that showed media spend and results but without any detail. Harry nodded, pulled out the invoice report he had and started grilling me. “Investors Business Daily, show me their results.” I had nothing. I could have done it the night before but instead I had drunk.
“I don’t have it.” They all looked at each other.
Harry leaned over. “What do you mean you don’t have it?”
“I need some data from IT to finish it. Just give me a few hours to work with them and I can get it done.” But I knew I didn’t even have the invoices; I had left them in New York. I could feel my voice getting shaky.
“Okay, Money Magazine. Where is it?” I just wanted to be back in New York drinking and doing lines.
“Don’t have it.” I began to shake a little.
“And Motley Fool? We spent twenty-five grand with them last month, don’t tell me you don’t have it.”
“Please, just give me till tomorrow. I’ll have it all by then.” I think he noticed the shaking and gave in; maybe Jesus told him to let up on me.
“Okay.” Harry leaned back, and turned off the projector. “We’ll meet at ten tomorrow morning and we will try this again.” I could feel the sweat on my brow and slowly went back to the cubicle they had given me. I could see to my right through the glass window Harry and his wife in their large office and Aryun was across from me in another cubicle. I went to my email and began sending urgent requests for copies of invoices and I got hold of the IT guy and gave him a list media of sources and he promised to get me the results by the end of the day but by 3:00PM I realized the futility of trying to come up with something; I had neither data nor the will to find it and I resigned myself to just counting the minutes to leave and get back to the hotel. I watched the people coming and going around the office and Harry presiding over all from behind his glass window and I knew then there was no way I could ever go back to an office job. The time dragged endlessly but mercifully nobody spoke to me; I was a corpse and everyone knew it.
All my energy focused on how I was going to get out of that office. The new COO had picked me up at the hotel that morning and I didn’t want to have to suffer through waiting for him until late that afternoon. At 4.30PM I noticed Aryun getting his things together and I leaned over and asked him if he could drop me off at the hotel. He agreed then went into the COO’s office where they closed the door and spoke for a few minutes until he finally came out and motioned for me to follow him. I said a quick goodbye to the COO then began walking out with Aryun hoping there would be no calls from Harry Scott. It seemed an eternity before we got out the door and began to drive away through the suburbs of Atlanta to the hotel. Aryun and I made small talk about the industry and avoided all mention of the reports we were to discuss the next morning.
Making reports had always been extremely easy for me, it was my forte and I loved to work the data and see trends. But I sat in the hotel room and just looked at the blank excel sheet and couldn’t even give it a title as I had no data and I hadn’t even bothered to follow up with the IT guy before I left the office. I gave up but without contemplating what that surrender really meant and asked at reception where the nearest restaurant was and they told me there was a mall a mile or so down the road so I decided to walk. No one walks in Atlanta, at least not in the suburbs but I walked and walked and finally got to the mall and surrounding restaurants. I found an Olive Garden and sat at the bar drinking wine, eating garlic bread and looking blankly at the TV unable to think or react. The phone rang, it was the COO. He told me they were worried about me and hoped I could get something together by the next morning. He tried to give me pep talk about all the good things he had heard about me and I told him I was hard at work on the reports. After hanging up I became frantic. It was 7:30PM and I had about fifteen hours to either come up with something or sit in a conference room defenseless and be completely humiliated.
I left the restaurant but I wasn’t ready to head back to the hotel so I walked the mall. I hadn’t been in a mall since I left California and it depressed me even more. I found my way into a very big arcade with a bar and played arcade games and drank bourbon. A ten year old approached me while I was playing a shooting game and asked if he could play with me and I escaped into the game, enjoying the shootout with the youngster. Back at the bar I drank and waited for something to click in my head but nothing came and I stayed there till closing. I
was too drunk to work so I would not only be humiliated but I would stink of bourbon during my interrogation. I just wanted to be back in New York and I began to have fears about money. How would I live? I had no job, but there was Bernstein but then I remembered what Perlini had said about how Bernstein was ready to shut down. I stopped thinking about money. There was enough, that was what I told myself.
I stumbled back to the hotel and almost without thinking I asked the concierge for the number of a car service and he gave me a list. Once in the hotel room I called Delta and asked for the earliest flight back to New York and they told me there was one at 6.20AM. I changed my ticket and called the first car service to tell them where I was and the time of my flight and they said they would have a car for me at 4:30AM. I would be back in New York just as they began wondering where I was. I poured myself a drink and hooked up my computer and mercifully Marina from Kamchatka was online. Almost as soon as I started typing she knew something was dreadfully wrong and we chatted until it was time for me to leave the hotel but those dark moments together didn’t fail to create a strong bond between us.
I packed and wondered whether Delta would send the folks at Harry Scott an email notifying them of the flight change since they had bought the ticket. Then I started to imagine they might be keeping an eye on me; I was the only one who knew all the contacts for the campaigns and without me they would be completely in the dark. The guilt and fear were growing by the minute and my only consolation was remembering how much money I had made for them. I knew I was being a coward but I had reached my limit; there was no fight left in me. I smoked in the parking lot while obsessively looking at my phone, waiting for the car service to arrive. Finally the call from the driver came and as I had already checked I simply made a beeline for the black Lincoln while looking around furtively as if someone where watching. The nerves abated slowly as he pulled out onto the freeway and we cruised smoothly through the night towards the airport. I watched the lonely cars in the pre-dawn and thought about the millions of people in Atlanta who would be getting up, going to work and putting up with the grind knowing I wasn’t one of them- that was the last office I would ever step into as employee.
I kept having fears that my ticket would be cancelled and I didn’t fully relax until the plane was in the air but once it was I had to face reality; I had no job, Bernstein was dying and I’d alienated Chip, Scott and the Vector people. I had been in bad spots before but this time I had no fight left. I was completely overwhelmed and only wanted to escape, to run and hide and wait for something to happen, not sure what. Mercifully I got a wild Indian taxi driver who drove kamikaze style back to Manhattan from LaGuardia and once on the island I felt a little better knowing I was far my southern inquisitors. I turned the phone off when the plane took off and it stayed off and I switched to another number. I should have been exhausted but I was a ball of nerves and I knew there was no way I could sleep so I headed to my local to chat with the cute Bulgarian waitress and imagined the calls going to my other phone.
I ate a big Irish breakfast and drowned it with beer and began to feel a bit better so I decided to make a plan. I would call Larissa and see if we could meet that afternoon, then I would see Karina and finally I would go to a bar to watch some baseball as it was the end of September and the pennant races were on. That was all the planning I could do. The fear fused with an immense sense of freedom launching me into a truly altered state. Larissa said we could meet at seven so I stayed as sober as possible before going to her place in the Bowery.
She sat very seriously at her kitchen counter as I poured her a glass of wine. “Okay, tell me what happened.” I gave her the whole story and left in all the details, I needed to tell someone. She nodded and asked a few questions for clarification. “Well Arthur, you knew something like this was going to happen. I mean, I think you almost wanted it from the way you approached your work. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing for you, maybe you’ll find a way to start doing something you feel better about. Don’t worry, I can help you. If you need a place to stay you can always stay here; this is my place, my husband never comes here.” It was September 24th and I was already thinking of how to get out of my apartment and the $3,500 rent which suddenly seemed enormous.
“Thanks, I might take you up on that for October. Things are bad; I’ve heard Bernstein Media has stopped paying affiliates, so I may have gotten my last check from them too.”
“How much savings do you have?”
“None. I mean, I don’t even know how much money I have.” She raised her eyebrows and took a deep breath.
“Okay, don’t worry, just get things in order. I mean, you have to change your lifestyle.”
“I was thinking of going to spend some time with my cousin in Virginia. He has a house down there and said I could spend some time there if I liked. We were like brothers when we were kids.” I didn’t have a cousin in Virginia and I was really thinking of going to see Marina in Kamchatka who was the only person I wanted to be with. I left Larissa and went to see Karina.
She drank coffee and I kept drinking wine and we both smoked incessantly. “Look, Karina, I have some stuff I want to sell, the deco table and bar, and a few prints I have that are worth some money. Do you know anyone who could just come and take all of it?” I knew she would have a plan as this was right up her alley.
“Arthur, I know a guy in Brighton Beach, a Russian Jew. He can come by and he’ll take the prints and the furniture and pay you good money. He’ll take it all, don’t worry.”
“Thanks babe, can you call him? Maybe we can meet him tomorrow? I’m in a hurry. If you want any of the kitchen stuff, you can have it. Otherwise I’ll give it to the cleaning lady.”
“No, thanks, it’s okay.” With that, I headed back to my local and watched a good Giants-Dodgers game and returned home drunk enough to sleep. I got up very early the next morning as my nerves wouldn’t let me rest. Karina called at 10.00AM to tell me her guy would come around two. I assumed she was taking a cut but it wasn’t my business and she needed the money anyway.
Karina called me from downstairs and told me that I’d forgotten to give the doorman my new number and that I had to come down to let them in. When I got downstairs the doorman told me he had a message for me and he handed me a plain white envelope as Karina was introducing me to the furniture buyer so I slipped it in my pocket for later. The furniture buyer was a gruff Russian in his fifties wearing an old cap and a raincoat. He took a quick look at the furniture and prints and he offered me five grand for everything. I agreed and he told me he would come the next day with a truck to take it all away. Karina and I had a coffee together and we arranged for the cleaning lady to come by the next day to pick up the kitchen things.
As we sat and talked about how our lives had been turned upside down since we met, I opened the envelope. There was a card from an FBI Agent and a note. “Dear Mr. Edwards, tried to call you several times but your phone was off, please call me at your earliest convenience.” I began to visibly shake; just when I was getting my bearings another shock had come. At first I thought maybe it had something to do with the Devil but Karina didn’t think so, not the FBI. I turned on my old phone which I hadn’t looked at in over five days and I had sixty-two missed calls and almost as many messages.
“I’m going to call him. What the hell could they want? Maybe something with that database from Vector.” She sat and watched nervously as I called.
“Inspector Lund, this is Arthur Edwards, how can I help you?”
“Yes, Mr. Edwards, thanks for getting back to me. I wanted to ask you a few questions about some campaigns that we understand you’ve been running for The Harry Scott Corporation.”
“Sure, I can help you on that. But just to be clear, as of a few days ago I no longer work for Harry Scott, but I did handle their online media buys up until recently.”
“I see, did you work with an affiliate named Email D
irect?” That was my email guy, and I was sure that Chip and Scott had thrown me under the bus.
“Sure, he was an affiliate of ours. He generated leads for us.”
“How much were you buying from him a month?”
“Off the top of my head, I would say in the fifteen-thousand dollar range. Can I ask what you’re investigating?”
“We’re looking into some databases that seem to have been compromised.”
“Interesting, in our business that can get, very complex, as I’m sure you know.”
“What are you referring to?”
“Well, many third parties collect data, work it, and are paid a percentage, and they in turn pass the data on to others, and so on.” I realized as I said it that it sounded like I was trying to cover something up.
“Yes, okay. Is there someone who we can speak to at Harry Scott? Someone who is handling their marketing now?”
“Sure.” I gave him the COO’s name and he thanked me and hung up. Again I started to shake and Karina looked on scared and was surprisingly speechless. We said goodbye and I left immediately for the offices of an agency that administered Russian visa’s and I gave them my passport and filled out the forms for a one year business visa which they told me would be ready in three weeks. Marina from Kamchatka and I had talked about spending the New Year together so I put the date of my visit from December 15, 2008 and then went to the small office of my email guy, Email Direct, on 2nd Ave in the sixties. I filled him in but he didn’t get overly excited. I couldn’t tell if he was really calm or if he was just putting up a good front. He owed me a ten grand kick back from what he had already been paid from Harry Scott and he wrote me the check which I deposited and I checked my balance which was twenty-five grand and change not including his check. I thought if I used my credit cards as much as possible and held on to the cash I would be all right for a few months, maybe even six months.
The next day the Brighton Beach Russian came by to pick up my furniture and he gave me a check and I went to the bank to deposit it and again checked my balance but it had dropped to thirteen thousand. After a few inquiries I discovered Harry Scott put a hold on my last pay check and after asking a few questions it turned out there was no way I could get it back, accept by going to court. Another shock and that one did me in. I called Larissa and we met, for the first time ever, at a cafe. As I lifted the coffee my hands were shaking and it was difficult to speak. She ordered me a glass of wine and tried to calm me down.
“Look, this is too much. I see twenty-five grand in the bank, and the next day, twelve disappears, just like that. Everything is falling apart and I don’t know what to do.” I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to leave the cafe; I just wanted to stay there with her for as long as possible.
“Get out of your apartment and come stay downtown. You’re okay for now; all of this has been very sudden. You need some time to adjust to the new circumstances and once you do, you will come up with a plan. I know you’re not feeling it now but you’re a very bright, handsome, charming man, don’t forget that.” She was being kind but I knew that I was no longer any fun for her.
Back at my apartment there was nothing left except clothes piled in suitcases. I was lying on an air-mattress and the light of the apartment seemed much brighter without any furniture. I remembered that a little more than a year before I had been focused on creating the atmosphere of the apartment in order to settle down with Irina. It was Friday and September 30th was that next Tuesday so I had to face the facts of the math. I would have about twenty-five thousand dollars in cash when I collected all that I had to collect and that would be it; there was no more money coming in. I had a bunch of credit cards that I could use for another month or so from which I could also cash a few checks to pump up my war chest to thirty. Thirty was it, that was what I would have and I again began to get anxious when I realized I had no future prospects. I couldn’t even imagine sending out resumes or looking for a job; I simply didn’t have it me. Something had clicked and a whole part of my life was over.
Then I began to worry about the Feds and how they might freeze my bank accounts so I decided to put it all my money in cash. As the checks cleared, I would cash them. I went to the branch office of my bank and told them I would need $20,000 in new hundreds but they told me it wouldn’t be ready for three days and I was afraid that such a request might have sounded some kind of internal alarm in the bank. I didn’t sleep well until the morning I went to the bank to pick up the cash. I stood in a long line and finally reached the teller. “Hi, here is my account.” I showed her the withdrawal slip with the amount. “I came in the other day to order the cash.”
“One moment.” She walked back to talk to a supervisor and they both went towards the vault. I didn’t know what kind of expression I should wear when they finally came back with the bills, all wrapped. She counted and I watched. There was eight-hundred dollars left in the account. I put the cash in my back pack and walked out on the street only to realize I had another problem- where was I supposed to put all the cash? I immediately went home and couldn’t stop looking at the back pack with the money; one more thing to be paranoid about.
That night I chatted with Marina on Skype using the video and when I told her I had requested the visa to go see her she started to cry. It was an enormous relief to know that someone, somewhere, really wanted to see me. We planned on me arriving around December 17th and spending time there through New Years and into January. That was it; I had no plan after that.
I made one big suitcase with a good suit, three sport coats, a few nice shirts and pairs of shoes and the rest were jeans, sweaters, and tee-shirts. I left some room for heavy winter clothes I was going to need to buy. The rest I gave away to the Salvation Army and when I brought the clothes down the girl asked if I wanted a receipt for taxes and I realized I had no plan about that either. I had no idea how much I owed or how I would even figure it out.
Breaking my lease would have meant another’s month’s rent as penalty and since I’d had very good credit it wasn’t neccassary to leave a deposit when I arrived so I opted for the Irish exit. It took two trips that Saturday night to Larissa’s place downtown. When I got back to my apartment at around midnight I left an envelope with the concierge containing all my keys and a note saying I had to leave suddenly.
I sat in Larissa’s apartment, alone, with my four bags: a large suitcase, a carry on, my computer bag and a small backpack- that was all I had in the world. I put the cash in the carry on bag and hid it in the back of the closet. I told Larissa about the plan to see my cousin for Christmas and she seemed okay with me staying there until then but her calls became less frequent and our sexual relations had completely stopped. No one called me and my only consolation were my chats with Marina. I made the trip to Rockefeller Center to the Aeroflot office to buy a ticket to Kamchatka but the place gave me the creeps and I had second thoughts as to where I was going and why. By the end of October I had my Russian visa and my ticket and it became a long wait until December 15, 2008.
On election night I made a rare trip uptown to watch the results come in at O’Neil’s on 3rd Ave in the forties. I felt like I was watching an Ohio State/Michigan game and I wondered at the absurdity of it all while talking to an Australian banker until closing. November moved slowly and I spent hours alone in hipster bars in the Lower East Side mostly listening to young folks talking about music while the world wobbled on the brink during the financial crisis. Wild Bill called a few times and we chatted on the phone but I didn’t have it in me to see anyone. I spent Thanksgiving at home alone drinking but at least I had given up calling the Devil since I got back from Atlanta, probably for fear of the police. I became a regular on astrology and Tarot forums and wrote a couple of follow up articles on the financial crisis that continued to have a lot of success in the alternative media. I even began doing Tarot and astrology readings for free for people online, honing
my skills and those readings became my liturgy.
December mercifully arrived and I hadn’t seen Misha in almost a year so I sent him a message giving him my new phone number and email. The first week in December he called to check in with me and I gave him the quick story and told him I was going to Kamchatka in the middle of December and would spend two nights in Moscow. He told me he was going to be in Moscow during that period and we planned to meet at my hotel which was near the airport. The night before I left I had dinner with Larissa at a restaurant. She asked me if I was coming back to the apartment downtown and from her tone I gathered she would have preferred that I didn’t. “How are you feeling?” She asked.
“I feel like I’m in free fall, just falling, with no idea where I’m going to wind up. It’s very scary and it’s has been this way for a few months now. I wonder where and how I will land.” She just nodded her head in silence.
The next day was a good day to leave: dreary, damp, and cold. The car service picked me up at four and I made my way out of Manhattan for the last time. I sat at the bar near the gate at JFK and drank bourbon and chatted to the girl behind the bar knowing it might be the last time for a long time.
The next morning I sat in my hotel near Sheremetevya Airport in Moscow and wondered what the hell I was doing in Russia. I spent the day walking around Red Square and it gave me an indescribable feeling of gloom and despair, finally making my way back to the hotel riding the massive Moscow subway. I realized that those were the last nights I would spend in a nice hotel for a long time so the next day a just lounged around the hotel enjoying the luxury and waiting for Misha to arrive.
At 6:00PM sharp he walked into the lobby and I almost jumped for joy when I saw him. We got into the back of a Land Rover as he had a driver and traveled for at least forty minutes until we had left Moscow and were somewhere in the country. During the ride I gave him the whole story of what had happened since we had met the year before and he listened attentively. For Misha, there was no editing and no spin so by the time we finally arrived at what seemed like a village he knew what had happened and why I was in Russia. We continued to the outskirts of the village and parked beside a restaurant while the driver stayed in the car. It was a rustic place with a big open fire and pretty waitresses dressed in traditional outfits. We sat at a wooden table and Misha asked me, “How about we eat with Vodka, Russian style? You’ll need to get used to it.” I nodded in agreement.
They served us several salads, pickled mushrooms, salted fish, and a bottle of vodka. Misha poured us shots then put his fork into one of the mushrooms, touched his glass to mine and downed the vodka then ate the mushroom. I did the same. “Arthur, I can see it’s all coming together for you. It may seem like it’s all falling apart but in reality what had to die is dead and what had to crumble has crumbled. I think you knew all along that this was going to occur but of course when it really does, it’s terrifying.”
“But Misha,” I asked, “Why the Russia part, everything in my life for the last two years or so has been Russian. Everything, women, friends, you, even my cleaning lady for God’s sake, and now I’m here.”
He laughed heartily. “Ah, my dear Arthur, the Russians. Why the Russians? My guess is that it has something to do with your shadow side, your concept of evil. Evil is the part of us that we can’t accept, that we necessarily project on other people or other cultures. You grew up during the Cold War and Russia was the other, the embodiment of all that was dark, scary, unknown- evil if you like. To become whole you must embrace that side of you because there’s no such thing as good or being good; there is only being whole. Those who strive to be good, who want to live without hurting, stealing or dirtying their hands are just running from themselves. The true path is one of wholeness, of unifying the opposites. For you, I think, embracing the Russians meant embracing your dark side, really jumping into it. Russia will be an enigma for you not because of what it really is, but because of all the hidden parts of you that are projected on to it. Watch, as Russia becomes more familiar, so will too will you become whole.”
“But what am I doing? These last few months I have really thought I was losing my mind. You’re the only person, apart from Marina, who even knows I’m here. People would never understand.”
“How important is it to you that they do understand? What would it mean then? Probably not a whole lot. If you had gotten married and bought a house what would that mean to you? It would signify that you had succumbed to the social norms and become a productive member of society. I think you have always known that’s not your path, if not, you wouldn’t be here. If I could snap my fingers,” and he snapped them forcefully, “and bring back Irina and your job would you really prefer that scenario to being here with no idea of what will become of you?” As he spoke I had the very clear feeling that if I had asked, he actually could have brought it all back.
“There is no doubt at all, I would take this.” I said, “This is being alive and what was left behind was left behind for a reason. Sure, sometimes I wish I had Irina back, that feeling of connectedness and wholeness, but I can’t go back, it’s gone.”
“Yes Arthur, so true. And remember, what you had with her connected you, but at a different level which wouldn’t be enough now. That world had to crumble and with it the dogmatic belief in romantic love. It’s certainly wonderful but you must transcend it if you want to become conscious at a higher level, and you will. You’re right to let go, just remember some of the things you will latch on to now you will also have to let go of later on. In alchemy it’s distillation. After death, we distill and purify the new spirit that has returned.” They served us some barbecued meat and we continued to eat and drink. It was very comforting after all I’d been through to have Misha there with me for a few hours.
“I’m afraid though, very afraid.” I said, “Not only of what will happen to me but what the world must think of me. Am I just escaping? I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of. I mean, I feel guilty about a lot of it.”
“In every true adventure isn’t there always some element of escape and a bit of underhandedness? It’s okay to be troubled; you’re leaving behind things that must be left. First the physical desires, then the religious dogma, the cultural matrix along with the nationalism and tribalism and eventually even the esoteric learning. They’re all like crutches that eventually you must discard.”
He continued, “You must even let go of your own personal ambitions. You must learn to live without desires, needing nothing, not even wanting to help others. Of course if someone asks you, you help, but there is a big difference between that and trying to control peoples lives. Get rid of the superfluous, live light and the good things will come. I think much of the difficulties you’re having now are the consequences of you discarding and simplifying; it can be traumatic, but it’s part of the growth process and what your doing takes courage. The vast majority of people spend their entire lives doing everything they can not to be troubled and they end up with the ‘quiet desperation’. You’ve faced many of your demons and there are more to come but what is beyond that has no description; it’s not for words.”