The Evil Which Families Can Do

My complaint against my sisters---the source of hatred, loathing, and contempt----is their willingness to plan my life, their willingness to commit me to a course of action.....


In complete ignorance of who I am.  After all, neither has had a normal serious face-to-face conversation with me for ......(could it be true?) twenty-five or more years....
And so, when you rely upon the merest snippets of conversation---or reports of what someone
heard or thought they heard me say----- and fill in sentences with fuller
paragraphs of your own, you can hardly have a chance of knowing what a person is like, how he thinks, how he lives.......no chance at all.  You are ignorant, blind, stupid.  You do not know who I am.


And, certainly you are in no position to commit that imagined other to a course of action.
(Especially not when the plan of action you've imagined is especially beneficial to you,
and your desire to make no change in your own life----to make no sacrifices.....)


It's no defense to say:  but how could you be unhappy? You have enough to eat, and a place to sleep.....


Neither is it a defense to say:  The life you complain about is not so very different from my own.


Yes, there's the rub.  I don't want and never have wanted a life like yours!  But, dear sister,
you've never bothered to notice that fact.....


And, for that, too, I condemn you.  That too, is ignorance and arrogance......


No, but that's not quite right either.  It's wrong to suggest that you would do what I have done.  On the contrary, you would not be willing to commit yourself to doing what I have done.  You would willingly commit me to live in a way that you yourself were unwilling to live. What I have done you are unwilling to do.  But, still you planned for me, even tried to chose this life for me----And, now, when I refuse to follow your plan, you are angry.  You wanted me to do what you yourself would not do, and now when I refuse, you have no right to complain.  You've shown yourself insincere and compromised by your very refusal to do (or even consider doing) what I have done........