Update: PLT

A few weeks back I wrote about a family that calls themselves the Parris Love Tribe. I had met these folks while they were camping in Carpinteria and through my friends Kevin and Angela. Over the course of a few nights we did some cool drumming, shared some food, and talked about a wide variety of subjects from politics to creative expression. Good Times. After the Parris family left Carp, Jeff and I continued to keep in contact through the very mod form of communication known as texting. Now I don't know about the rest of you but my texting ability is pretty weak. I guess most phones made today are set up to text very easily and the phones will even suggest words while one is writing a message. My phone, perhaps due to its antiquated age, does not have this feature and it takes me long intervals to complete the simplest of messages. If you happen to have seen the Julian Schnabel film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Anyway, one evening Jeff and I got into a discussion on creation and destruction. I don't recall how we got on to that topic but I argued that creation and destruction are really two sides for the same idea, while Jeff argued that they were each distinctly different from the other. For me, it was good fun between friends. I thought it was for Jeff as well but developments were soon to transpire that make me wonder now if it was just fun for him as well. A few days passed and life went on until I received this text message:

Did i lose the conversation, with you, as in it is no longer taking place, and not as in a competition.
*text in red has not been altered in punctuation or form from its original
*bold is used to highlight text in some cases

At the time I thought how weird that he should clarify that he did not lose the conversation as in a competition. We're we competing? When I did get back to him, I remember it had been overcast for a few days and I was not feeling much like getting into another drawn out texting debate. I told him as much but he persisted and quickly the messages got weird. Why was it so important that I have that conversation with him just then and at no other time, and why was it so difficult for him to understand my need not to want to get into it? Then I received the next two messages:

Depression is indeed powerful, enjoyable in fact, as I too used to wallow in the web of depression. It gave me an excuse to not engage whenever I wanted. The ability to choose to love yourself is also very powerful. Why aren’t you celebrating life just to be powerful if not for yourself? Enjoy your depression and isola tion. This thing called depression is nothing more than a crutch a vice.

It’s odd for me to hear a buddhist say he is depressed. Depression or Nirvana? You are choosing depression. Does anything you say mean anything is you yourself are unable to choose Nirvana? I live in Nirvana… Always and all ways. Never do I choose depression. Why do you, and expect me to stop connecting with you while you’re choosing depression?

While he agreed that depression is powerful, there was no empathy for those who suffer from it. He also took the stance that depression is what one chooses to do. Why would anyone choose to be depressed? I suppose he believes gay people choose to be gay too. Then this statement that those who practice Buddhism cannot get depressed was really ludicrous. As a practicing Buddhist, I do not pretend to be a perfect being who is not subject to emotional, mental, and physical pain. While I practice meditation and look to the Buddha for his guidance and a path toward enlightenment, I also accept that I am still human. However, we all have our own opinions and this is his, but the next few text messages took on a very judgemental tone.

Clearly you have no idea what it takes to have lifelong friends. Poor Michael. He’s depressed, and I’m supposed to honor and respect his shitty choice. Of course you can be depressed, but why choose it? Life just isn’t great enough?

It's strange because all I requested is that we pick up the conversation another day. However, as he persisted, egging me on with crueler statements, I told him his idea of love was alien to me. I found it deliberately hurtful and cruel.

Your perception of my direct honesty is false. Why do you pervert honesty into hurt and pain? Your perception has falsely become my reality. To explain to you that i never use my energy in hurtful ways is boring. Be loving and hear honesty as love not pain A lifelong friend would appreciate my efforts of reminding him how powerful he his, rather than cry like a lil bitch.

I know you call honesty rude. Just like all the other average depressed human beings do, as you are now only a victim. Honesty is the highest form of love i can express to myself as well as to others. You are the bull shitter as it were. You are afraid and i am not. No big deal. No judgement. Just looking and seeing. Be powerful not am average s pussy

After the above text, I told him he was acting ugly.

Whose ugly? I have a smile on my face. Why assume? Then, why assume ugly when beautiful is a choice also? Because you are indeed the one who is ugly. You know this victim inside you is ugly. I see you as powerful and beautiful, but you don’t. What can i say or do? There is no tone in a text. Why assume a hurtful tone?

Is it possible he wasn't aware of how mean spirited his words were? Is it possible this really was his idea of showing love? Well, at this point I received a call from my friend Angela (another person to be stung by Jeff's love) and as we spoke for awhile, Jeff continued to text me. The following are the final four messages I received:

You are so arrogant? Giving the silent treatment to love? No wonder love is silent in your life

What do you know about lifelong friends? As I observe you and me, I see you with zero friends that have and always have been there for you and I have three. Why do you argue for your pathetic point of view

Stop crying. You’re alive. You’re breathing. Celebrate life. Pussies are ugly. Lol. Hahaha. Have a boring life without the p l t. L8r

There was actually a small span of time between the above three messages and the final one which must have come to Jeff almost as an afterthought.

By the way, delete the p l t from your blog please

While the above experience was bewildering and disappointing, it did not change my initial experience or what I wrote regarding Jeff and his family in my original post. I thought it sad that he was so embittered from texting that he didn't want there to be any traces left that we had ever known one another. However, editorial control of my blog is solely mine and I chose to leave the original post as is.

Since the above transpired, I have received additional messages from Jeff through the blog's comments feature.

The previous comment was posted prior to Michael's true weak colors shined completely through. The way we receive others is all that matters. To choose to hear hurt in other's words is weak, and we no longer are associated with Michael. We've asked to be removed from his blog, and he refuses to do so. He allows depression to control his actions and non actions, which is the opposite of a lotus. Please, again, Michael remove us from your blog.

The above, I suppose, was to retract/replace the response to my original post about Jeff and his family that he left. Can you feel his love here?

Michael....Please delete the Parris Love Tribe from your blog. We do not want our name associated with a person so weak, a person who doesn't know how to hear or receive love. You are a front. Please remove us.

Thank you

This whole experience continued to confound me. Why has it been so imperative that I remove the original post that, once again, was completely complimentary? Was the irrational concern that someone may have thought we were friends? Does one have to be friends with one whom they have written about? Whatever the concern was, perhaps this post will clear any misunderstanding.

Lastly, I decided to do a little more research into what went down here. What brought out so much vitriol and bitter discord? What was it that Jeff really believes about himself and those around him? For answers, I went to his MySpace page and found a link to an essay he has written called Hope, Control, Common Sense, and a Bowl. In it, he makes a number of statements, some of which reminded me of the Jeff I originally met, but what he has stated about arguments was ironic considering his behavior.

As I remember I can clearly see we are all perfect, as The Creator has made no mistakes. We are shown the beauty of free will and free choice, but are designed to live within the bars of decision, which is not free. Our ability to choose has been clouded through the controlling of a mass. We will argue for the sameness of decision and choice, but we will not converse about the differences. This is a design flaw within our choice making process. We all know that to argue will create an argument, yet we still choose to argue. This is insane, especially when the choice to converse about the differences, which creates a conversation, is there along side the choice to argue. Why choose to say out loud that arguments are no fun, and then choose to argue?

For answers to the question (why choose to argue), I went to an expert on the psychology of those who do so. Deborah Tannen writes in her book For Argument's Sake; Why Do We Feel Compelled to Fight About Everything? that

...perhaps the most dangerous harvest of the ethic of aggression and ritual fighting is -- as with the audience response to the screaming man on the television talk show -- an atmosphere of animosity that spreads like a fever. In extreme forms, it rears its head in road rage and workplace shooting sprees. In more common forms, it leads to what is being decried everywhere as a lack of civility. It erodes our sense of human connection to those in public life -- and to the strangers who cross our paths and people our private lives.

Is this what ultimately happened between Jeff and I? It would seem so.