Most of my years were taken without risk. I have tried to change that in the last ten years, but some risks are too great for me to overcome, now. Wise words.

Rick, your post about taking risks has a special resonance for me. It's almost uncanny, in fact, because my post for tomorrow will talk about my exiling myself from life, from any meaningful existence, because of my fears: "I myself suffer from a boundless sense of guilt. That sense of guilt is the prism through which I view the world. I see myself as an undiscovered murderer and try to avoid contributing to my guilt by withdrawing from the world as much as possible. I seek thereby to attain a state of innocence, but my maneuvers only serve to prevent the development of any relations with others and obviate any meaningful interaction in the world of men. I live in a black and white world populated by murderers and innocents, by players and the uncorrupted. In my warped value system, human interaction, no matter how well-meaning, is rife with corruption, while the status of innocence is reserved for those who minimize their commerce with the world."

BTW, are you gay? Or are you just sympathetic to gays? I'm basically asexual and have been celibate for many years. I've never had a homosexual experience, though I have fantasized about homosexual sex. All my psychiatrists say I'm not gay. They say I have gender-confusion. I really can't see myself realistically being intimate with a guy. I have passionate emotional feelings for some guys, though, without a sexual component. They are "non-sexual crushes," I suppose -- assuming I'm not in total denial. My feelings for other guys who I idealize are lifelong, not really crushes in the normal sense. Once I start to idealize a guy, it stays with me indefinitely. I have a "pantheon" of guys who I've idealized in my life, going back to high school. (I went to an all-boys high school -- whatever that means).

Here's what Freud wrote about homosexuality: Freud maintained that "it is not scientifically feasible to draw a line of demarcation between what is psychically normal or abnormal; so that the distinction, in spite of its practical importance, possesses only a conventional value."