{"id":1894,"date":"2025-09-16T13:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T18:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/?p=1894"},"modified":"2025-09-16T13:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T18:06:12","slug":"self","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/?p=1894","title":{"rendered":"Self"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>By Max Jitney<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I sometimes wonder how things might have been.&nbsp; What if I\u2019d married?&nbsp; Had children?&nbsp; Or of the thousands of other feasible outcomes?&nbsp;&nbsp; Not talking doctor or lawyer here.&nbsp; The roads not taken.&nbsp; Indulging in such fantasies is probably harmless.&nbsp; Or can be.&nbsp; Unless it turns into recrimination: guilt for not fulfilling the hopes your parents had for you, or you had for yourself.&nbsp; A certain degree of self-awareness is probably healthy.&nbsp; But at some point it can become morbid: a self obsessed narcissist.&nbsp; After a while, you can know no more.&nbsp; Nor should you want to.&nbsp; Which brings to mind one of my favorite quotes: &nbsp;\u201cThe self you\u2019re trying to fix is the illusion that keeps you from seeing there\u2019s nothing broken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are the millions of Buddhist monks who sit cross legged in silence for decades bothered by such concerns?&nbsp; Are they bothered by anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is this relevant in any way to my Quaker faith?&nbsp; Mary Oliver would have us be filled with light and to shine.&nbsp; Such a lovely, simple prescription.&nbsp; Not a dictum unique to Quaker thought and practice.&nbsp; Do you need anything else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what does it feel like to be a member of the Quaker community?&nbsp; Are we basically an interesting assortment of rocks that just happen to be in the same bag?&nbsp; Some of us share our joys and sorrows.&nbsp; But not all are willing or able to do so.&nbsp; Of course, you can &#8211; and should? \u2013 be friends to folks you\u2019ve never met and don\u2019t even know.&nbsp; In this sense \u201cfriend\u201d becomes a more generic term, like \u201cbuddy.\u201d&nbsp; We\u2019re a group, not a tribe.&nbsp; Friends?&nbsp; Sure, why not.&nbsp; But maybe \u201cFriendly\u201d meeting would be more accurate. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m very glad to be here.&nbsp; I assume you all are too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So what does it feel like to be a member of the Quaker community?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sept-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1895,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions\/1895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}