Good morning from Thailand, Chris, which is where I am right now. The other day, my dear friend Melissa and I were discussing those who didn't much like us. She is gay and her partner has two near-adult adopted kids, one of whom virulently dislikes Melissa. Melissa being Melissa, she did all she could - and please hear air quotes- to "make" Sean like her.

i said Sean doesn't like Sean. This has NOTHING to do with you.

We both cracked up.

Such truth is so fucking freeing. This person's vitriol has nothing whatsoever to do with you. Nothing, nada. Such verbal vomit is little more than a sandwich board advertising a level of self-hate that we see everywhere today. ALL such comments, the incredible tsunami wave of attacks, have nothing to do with us. Only statements about themselves. Equally true for ourselves.

When I am far, far wiser than I am most days, I am forced to take into account that when I write angry comments- and on really good days I catch myself and promptly erase them- I remember that I can only and always and forever speak from my own truth and only about my own state of mind. So it is with all of us. Don't waste time feeling anything for them. Their journey is their own. Yours is your own. The benefit of such experiences, above all, is to use them as stairsteps to seeing differently. that's brave work.