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Dad • 02/21/03 • 2:03 PM:

who are your heros?
what makes you happy?
what’s the hardest you ever laughed?
cried?
most influential book? event?
do you care what other people think?

having posed those questions, after too short a time thinking, I wonder about why your website is so important to you. Maybe that can tell you something. I never give advice I don’t need myself, and I think our family (and my family before) spends too much time trying to be clever. on the scale of virtues, cleverness or coolness is merely OK, and not very important. we prize great lines and “come backs” as a measure of intelligence, but in the end they don’t inspire us to greater goodness, but merely to immitation. A good sense of humor is a great gift, and witty conversation is a great joy, but the business of life has much greater challenges for us than how we bide our time. If this sounds overly critical, probably it is (and that’s another bugaboo for us to work on). Still, there are important questions we might ask. How have you helped someone today? How have you been a good listener to someone? How have you brightened another’s life or lightened their burden today? I focus on today, because that’s where the present is. What do others think of you? What are you doing to further your goals right now? and so on and anon. all questions I ask myself as I ask you as I ask anyone.

Patrick • 02/21/03 • 8:26 PM:

Dad has taken the serious track. I kind of got the impression, just from reading your site, that you’d want to do a humorous interview. But after reading Dad’s comments, I think it might be better to offer a serious side too. I have been reworking my writing portfolio site because when I read it now I think it’s too sarcastic. So think of questions like what’s your first memory? What is your biggest weakness? What do you dream about? Maybe.

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