Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site mhuxd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxd!amc
From: amc@mhuxd.UUCP (Andy Cohill)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: beaches, titles, etc....
Message-ID: <4424@mhuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Feb-86 20:46:25 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxd.4424
Posted: Sat Feb 15 20:46:25 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Feb-86 09:09:02 EST
Organization: AT&T Technology Systems/Springfield Operations
Lines: 51

Noise on the net again...what to do on the beach, what to call
yourself. I use my first name. It has not occurred to me in a long
time that I need anything else, professionally or otherwise. If you
worry about titles, my guess is that you have a low self-image.
Seems to be a lot of that on the net. Too easy to play out our
fantasies in this electron world. Yah. Women at war with men. Pissed
off that men wrote the rules for a while, so now they want to play
the game too. "I am going to change the rules to suit me, and I am
not going to tell you what they are. You figure them out." So these
angry women are now no better than the men they despise. One might
think that self-indulgence and intolerance have become acceptable.
Everyone is looking for some kind of formula with which to run their
lives. 
    WHILE (life)
        IF  (I meet X) THEN
           DO (some rule)
        ELSE DO (some other rule)
    UNTIL....

and so on. Too many hours in front of the terminal; X-rays have
changed your brain. You can't make life work the way you make your
programs work. You believe too much in control, too much in the cool
glittering logic, too much in the splendid  isolation, the singular
lack of dissonance in the programmed computerscape. Too cool. Like
ice, it is. No room for emotion. No room for music. "All variables
have a name, a symbol that holds the meaning, so I must need a
symbol too, a title that tells people exactly who and what I am.
Can't have no mis-understanding." Yah. And you do not understand the
music, either. Inside each one of us is a door. Open the door. Let
the music out. Forget titles. Ignore the people that
annoy you. They will go away. But do not hate them. Hate takes such
a lot of effort. You cannot focus if you hate. Hate is a special
kind of anger. Lots of anger here. Lots of angry women. Lots of men
angry that the women are angry. Behind the anger we hide. Behind the
titles we hide. "Know me by my title, because I cannot let my true
self out." "I am angry with my true self, so I will use a *title* to
keep you from me." And if you are not careful, the anger becomes so
much a part of you that you no longer see it yourself. The great
danger is that hanging around with angry people will make you take
on their anger, too. So now we come to faith, and love. And hope.
Faith in yourself (no labels). Hope for the future (if I am patient,
the angry ones will leave, and the space will be filled with others
like me). And love (the great white light that has nothing at all to
do with sex). Sometimes I wonder: is it an act of hope or
desperation to post this to the net? Ah well. It is not important.
The bundled masses of electrons that compose the net are too
ephemeral to take seriously. 

Best regards,
Andy Cohill
ihnp4!mhuxd!amc