�The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.� -Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author (1712-1778)

I�m very concerned about someone I love. It�s so difficult to sit by and watch someone bring misery upon misery into her life. Every little thing that happens is a catastrophe, an attack against her person, deliberately imposed by earth, wind, water, or fire. How do you fix that attitude for someone else? That�s rhetorical, there, I know it�s impossible. But dammit, I don�t want it to be!

Someone I love is angry all the time. Indignant, unhappy, self-hating, and full of rage. I want to help her. But every time I try, the attack is turned on me, the onslaught of angry words and rants about life in general drain me of my energy, and I lose interest in helping and gain interest in slapping her into silence. I never do raise my hand. But I do turn away.

And I�ve never felt so helpless as I do when her words fall on a deaf ear, when that ear is mine � because my ear should never be deaf to that kind of pain.

-Barbarella

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