Going Back to Cali

[ornoth]

Prologue

I never really had a bucket list-a list of adventures I wanted to have before I die-mostly because as I identified things I wanted to do, I found ways to do them.

In fact, when I finally did sit down and make an attempt at a bucket list, I found 42 things that I had *already* done, and only eight that were still outstanding! Bucket list:

Comments

[ornoth]

Re my lack of compassion: I'm not sure where you inferred that I didn't feel compassion for the mother. I didn't write about it because it's neither noteworthy or related to the points I wanted to make, which were that I was discomforted, and that people have a very one-sided view of what it's like to be what they term "a priviledged member of society's elite".

Re not relying on friends: I think that's a simple case of differing values. The things you value -- communal support, connection through vulnerability, mutual interdependence -- are things which were anathema in the family environment that I grew up in. In our household, independence and self-reliance were the supreme values, and I still hold a portion of that to be valid.

I'm not saying that your values are wrong, of course; they're just not mine. My response was an expression of my values, which are equally not "wrong". I would choose similarly again in the same situation; having different values, you would have acted differently.

Note that despite my disposition toward self-reliance, I actually did call on the one local friend I knew. Since the situation didn't have major consequences, there was no need to request support from more distant sources.