Preface To Cruelty: The Past Is Cruel, You Know

I just spent an afternoon going through many a box of stuff. I should have gone through these boxes of stuff many many years ago. They contain notebooks, letters, newspaper clipping, scraps of stuff saved from the past twenty-five years. I am trying to lessen the amount of things that I am dragging with me through time. I know it only has value to me. If I were to die tomorrow, no one would spend any time going through it; it would just be tossed away. But my friend Joe said today that he keeps the stuff as a kind of evidence of existence, no matter how ridiculous.

Names of people I'll never see again, some of whom I can barely remember. A note here, a letter there. I read through some of them, just to see if it stirs any memories. Do they still exist? Should I look for them online, on Facebook, do a Google search? If they're not looking for me - & I think it's pretty easy to find me online - should I even bother looking for them? Probably not. Everything, it seems, happened a long time ago.

How cruel, my past, you have been to me today. How appropriate, too, on this week when Self Help Radio examines cruelty.