3

Put your pebble on the pile,
Pass your baton in the race-
The finish isn't yours to see,
Be satisfied you took your place.

16 February 2005, 09:19

2

Since I've written at least four times since your last message, and that was more than a year ago, I thought it was best to remove you from my friend list.

How would you define friendship? For me, it's exchanging ideas, be they emotions or news or opinions. If there is no exchange, no awareness of the other, then there is no friendship.

And I'm not going to simply collect people like those collectable cards that kids have, just to have 500 'friends' of whom the vast majority I never hear or learn anything. Behind every square of pixels on the screen stands a human, and that goes for me too. And humans are not collectable cards.

I don't wish you ill, far from it; I wish you only success and happiness in what you do in life. But the lack of contact between us means it's time to move; you into my past, into your future.

1

Culture shows us what we are
and what we could become,
Rehearsing what we might yet do
And showing what we've done.
It gives shape to the shapeless clouds
Which we could never name,
And gives support to halting thoughts
Which used to hobble lame.

watching: Mika Motosugi
reading: 'Japan Edge'
listening: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mikrophonie I (also listen here)