Symbiosis
by Jonathan Quince
Wednesday, January 28, 2004 15:09:09
This from a recent e-mail conversation:
This new discipline also brings to mind another thought of mine.
As long as you're tangled up in my net, I will be proposing, aiding, and abetting the most wanton of prurient situations between us. I am quite keen on using you for my pleasure, and you seem eager to please. But there needs to be some sense of balance, even for amoral deviants like we are.
If I am going to continue corrupting your nearly-nonexistent morals and feeding your perversions, you are going to need to do something to balance this out with self-improvement. Whether a new line of study for fortifying the brain, a new line of exercise for stimulating the body, or anything else good and challenging and stimulating, you need to choose no less than one worthy endeavor in which you are not already involved.
It can be as hobbyish as collecting stones and studying practical geology, or as artistic as taking up a musical instrument, or as erudite as learning Middle English and reading Chaucer in its original script, or as mundane as taking up knitting. It must, however, be challenging, and it must have some practical, artistic, or intellectual value. And it must be something you enjoy or could learn to enjoy. You may have seen one example in my blog of studying art history. Choose something after your own heart.
You must work at it independently; in fact, it shall have nothing at all to do with me. The effort required could be as simple as going to your local library every week, or as expensive as hiring private tutors, or even as elaborate as travelling to a foreign country and enrolling in a school there. It's all up to you.
I like my playthings to be of the highest caliber; as I mentioned to you, I have limited use for dumb crack whores. And I don't want you to meet my basic standards; I want you to exceed them as far as you have the basic potential to do. Your own self-improvement is actually an excuse and an ancillary bonus; even if I see no direct benefit from it — and I expect that I most probably will never profit by it personally — you are doing this for me. It's the principle of the matter. If you refuse to do this, I will be disappointed; and if you lie to me and say you are doing it when you are not, then if and when I find out the truth, I will fry you.
You've mentioned that you've worked hard for what you have in your life. Always extend that one step further; always work to increase beauty and achievement. Even if it's a small step, the honing of a relatively insignificant skill that takes only a few hours a week, take it and be fruitful by it.