buhogrunon: You just like arguing! There's so many parts that I could pick apart your argument, if that's what it is, I don't even know where, exactly, I should start...

Well, I guess here's as good as anywhere else... I don't know why you would just assume that I would think you were lying, it really never crossed my mind when I read your letter. Nor do I minimize your accomplishments or try to snatch your glory from you by claiming that anyone could do the same if placed in the same situation with the same opportunities. The fact is that many have had such opportunities and haven't done the things you have done or are doing. I would even say that I was impressed, but I'm sure you would say that you don't need a compliment from a prison inmate... etc, some other smart mouth remark... I don't even doubt that you can/will achieve your goals and possibly make some beautiful mark on the world.

Where does this come from? I keep hearing this from you over and over, maybe it's my inability to make you understand where I'm coming from... or maybe you just have your mind set on what you think Christians believe so during an argument, you're just gonna assume and make us believe it whether we do so or not. I'm talking about the "People like you will always try to... avoid responsibility for themselves", I really don't know what you mean by this... much less who the "people like me" are supposed to be? Catholic? Convict? Whatever else you may label me? I have a real strong will... I just need even more to achieve what I aim on achieving. I'm real disciplined... a lot of things people may look at as a failure that I do, and it's the complete reverse, I just don't want to achieve the so called 'goal' that they would be focused on if they were in my situation, so in fact a failure may be a success in so many instances.

I don't 'avoid responsibility' at all, I just now look at it as God puts so many tools and opportunities in our hands and it's up to us to make the best use of them all. We can utilize them to the best of the ability He gives us, or we can drop the ball and refuse, either way it's out RESPONSIBILITY. I'm real disciplined, and push myself at times 'cause I feel I am not disciplining myself enough. I broke them addictions you talk about, I was strung out on about every drug you can imagine from about age 12 to 16. That's addiction, I was all of 96 lbs when I first went to youth prison at 16, nothing but bones. You call it willpower, I call it Grace, but I don't even like drugs no more, haven't even touched dope since I was 19 years old, except a couple joints, which I really don't even like, and smoking ICE 3 times just to prove a point. 'Cause I was surrounded by these fools stuck on it acting like they couldn't live without it... I would always turn it down and just to show them a few times I said yeah, let me see it. If you call that willpower, call it whatever, but I had my mind set on other things last time I got out. It's probably just on a goal a little beyond my abilities, yet if I would have believed that I would never have tried and failed. I still don't 'avoid responsibility' as you call it, I just have learned a little more about how to go about it that I could never have possibly known beforehand. But now I know.

A lot of stuff I don't even look at as achievements. After 8 years in prison last time, not having a thing to my name I went to work, bouncing from lower job to higher job, packed up, went to another city I had never been to, didn't know a soul in... put myself through a trade school that would secure me a $90,000-$100,000 year job (which is more than I need), put myself through school, juggled 2 or three jobs, maybe getting 3 hours sleep a night, looking forward to the weekend to catch up on sleep. Yeah, I also took care of friends that didn't have the willpower to pick themselves up. I'm not in here for being a junky... or stealing some tools or some desperate crime. I wouldn't be here at all if the officers and judges would abide by the same laws that they swear to believe in and uphold. Is that avoiding responsibility? Hell no! Was there things that I could have done different? Of course. But was my goal simply to remain free and accumulate material things and have a supermodel chick? Now that was not my goal. If that was the sum total of my goal, there is not a doubt in my mind I could have achieved that goal... I had that. Had a "10" chick fiancee pregnant with my kid (just crooked FBI agents/informants killed it when they attacked her) etc, why bother explaining all this...

We'll see if life throws you a curveball in the pursuit of your plans. I hope and pray that it all goes according to your plan. And I have no doubt that you will keep pushing to achieve your dream to the extent that you are able. Really, I hope not just for you, but for all those you may be able to help with such a goal.

"So yes, I am strong, regardless of what you may think", hmm. And why would you think that? I just think you aren't invincible, nothing human is. I really don't know you or have any reason to believe that you aren't strong. Certainly intelligent from as far as I can tell. You must just have an inferiority complex, as I have thought pretty highly of you in this little time that we have been writing.

Bisexual/gay... whatever. It's all the same. Ha! Man, I went back and re-read some of your letters trying to find out why I had the (wrong) impression that you were some gay dude. How long you been in Britain? I had a homeboy growing up from there, so I know the accent. I guess it was the way you said certain things, like "...it's really quite a shambles..." or "...you can nattering on about..." Ha! Now when I read it with a British accent it makes sense, but before I knew you were there, I guess it's just odd to hear over here. My homeboy talked all proper like that, which threw people off 'cause he was really a big dude, tough S.O.B. But these fools over here would take him the wrong way until he showed 'em.

Come on, I don't even know why you even TRY to argue theology with me, especially since you don't believe so what do you care anyways? But all that "if you read your bible properly..." Come on. I've read it back and forth more times than I can count, working on being able to read it in the original Hebrew now, which I will accomplish, I already can read a great deal already. But there's no way around it, a thousand different ways it "objects to modern Christians being gay" regardless of whoever the heck Michael Vimes is, not that I even care. There are so many passages in the Bible to refute that crackpot theory I don't even feel like listing them. 'Cause if I know the little bit about you that I think I do, you don't even have a Bible handy to read what I listed, or wouldn't bother looking up the passages if I did list them. That's just an example like that Susan Anthony chick (I think) you quoted awhile back about believers being convinced that God's will is what they want it to be (or something like that). There are a lot of gay Christians out there that have even rejected that false and easily proven so theology. They just choose to live a life of continence now. I can't think of the group, some brother they had around me awhile back had an article about them. That was his cross he had to bear, I don't remember the church or group of churches... I like full grown women... but if I wanted God's will to be what I wanted it to be, well, there would be nothing wrong with me taking deep revenge over slight offenses... or looking at jack books... etc, the point is that one of the main messages of Christianity is overriding what I want to do and doing it God's way. Kinda shreds Susan's theory. I don't even know why Gay people try to twist the scriptures, it would be easier just to pick and choose a false god that the Greeks used to worship, they had a god that condoned just about any deviance they cared to indulge. But whatever. Not like I look down at you or anything, we're just on different levels and beliefs... I got my own struggles to worry about something you aren't even struggling with.

Yeah. "ONE set himself on fire..." What's that, some recent case? There are so many examples of that you would forget the names. They did it so many times in Vietnam when it was a French colony that one of the women monarchs was caught remarking that she wished they all would burn themselves alive and take care of her problem... I've studied Hinduism (which is the predecessor to Buddhism etc) but they have done and can do some pretty remarkable things with their bodies. Not just self immolation without moving a muscle, but they can increase their body heat so much that they can drape soaked sheets on their bodies in freezing weather and generate enough body heat to dry them. They can consciously control any muscle in the body, even stopping the heart, or speeding it up so fast in seconds that the machine shows them flatlining 'cause the ventricles aren't even filling with blood before the next beat... the pulse drops to nothing... I've studied that Hinduism but again, that destroys your argument, it certainly doesn't support it! How can you say they achieved them feats by willpower, when they would deny that the power was theirs? They believe they are tapping into Divine energy. All their beliefs would contradict your materialistic, rationalistic worldview. I mean, they can move their mind from not only the conscious to the subconscious mind... but even from there into the ID, going into the parts of the brain that controls involuntary functions... they can go in and repair damaged nerve vessels... other stuff that is beyond conscious control -- supposedly. You know all the Freudian terms... but they believe not only in a SUBCONSCIOUS, but also in a SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS. Like they can move out of the mind into a higher power that inhabits several minds and see what you are thinking and feeling, and seeing... anyways. It contradicts your willpower argument. They are not using willpower. To top it off you are arguing the merits of willpower? And the monk's goal was to what? Liberate Tibet? Hmmm. Is Tibet liberated? Guess his willpower wasn't all that strong enough? Maybe if it was a little stronger he would've had the sense to learn that its liberation would take another tactic. Sounds like your example of the monk's exalted willpower, he's the one who gave up. He could've organized organizations to educate people of China's anti-Tibetan policies or how their supposedly "Glorious Cultural Revolution" actually resulted in the systematic destruction of Tibetan culture. Maybe organized militias and insurgents to actually oppose China's rule. Or put together an ideology that would've inspired and driven Tibetans to put enough opposition as possible to drive the cost of ruling Tibet so much that China would see it as a waste of time. That would have been willpower.

It could be done. The I.R.A. did it in Ireland against Britain... see all the opposition to that will Britain made them pay? A lot. A lot of sacrifices and they still maintained their "will" to resist. That would've made a better willpower argument...

Anyways... the Sabbath in the ten commandments is Saturday. Just like it's still celebrated in Israel today. But I'm not Jewish. I celebrate Sunday.

Anyways. I do appreciate you taking the time to write. I really enjoy our correspondence. I disagree with you on probably everything, but I do appreciate you expending your valuable time in your attempts to antagonize me! Heehee... aside from all that; you do have a beautiful personality.

Well, I'm gonna close this up, may study some more of the Bible, since I haven't seemed to have read it properly yet. :-) Waiting to get shipped outta here so I had to trim down on all my books. They'll chuck 'em if we have too much property. I really wasn't feeling this program.

Take care of yourself out there.

Chris

Hey, we've been going back and forth for a minute & you sorta put some of your personal business out there in this last missive. If you even want to bypass the delay and having your comments out there for the world to see - you can write me direct. I'd really enjoy the opportunity to speak with you more openly anyways. I know this site is free & a letter or J-Pay ain't - so I'd be more than happy to shoot you some stamps - I know you're a struggling student and all. They got this electronic site called www.jpay.com to send electronic letters or my address is:

Chris Hall #156195
Ellis Unit
1697 FM 980
Huntsville, TX 77343

BUT, either way, lady, it's been nice chatting with you!