>>Syd: Richard was reading that Zulip blog often prior to my meeting you both in the houseboat, do you remember? See also: Syd is currently visiting Richard and Vineeto and journaling it (link). I took that as a sign that he implicitly consented to my publishing the meeting reports on Zulip, else surely Richard would have asked me not to do so any time during that 6 weeks period, no? Thus, I believe, what you are saying is that it would been considerate of me to explicitly gain Richard’s consent anyway, before publishing the meeting reports publicly in Zulip. If so, I actually see your point now. Not checking the accuracy with Richard was also my mistake. If I’m missing something here, please say so explicitly. (link)
Hi Syd,
Now that you reminded me of the context, I remember it well. Both Richard and myself read the blog, each day prior to your visit, and if Richard had any corrections he would have told you so when something was to be corrected.
As such there was no need to ask for my confirmation/ correction about the summary you made of the article in the you quoted at the beginning of this thread (now deleted). Viz.:
>>Richard: Bullying in childhood is all-too-common—the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago fell victim to the bully-boys and feisty-femmes due in no small degree to being a particularly sensitive feeling-being—incurring all manner of childhood hurts. Yet, even so, anyone who carries those hurt feelings, no matter how deeply felt, over into adulthood (and stubbornly nurses them in their adult bosom) is surely yet to have earned the title ‘mature adult’. (…) (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression and Anger)
Syd: In addition to this, I thought it is worth posting something Richard told me in person back in 2024. Copy-paste from my notes:
4/23/2024
Syd: In regard to bullies in general, Richard recounted a past incident to illustrate the fact that behind the bully’s aggression lies their fear. They have learned to channel the fear towards aggression. And, if you learn to respond directly to their fear (rather than aggression) and call their bluff, it would diffuse the bully-victim dynamics. I hope I’m representing Richard’s words faithfully here. I’d like to understand this point a bit, actually; might revisit it. (…)
Vineeto, please correct me of I’ve misremembered it; I’ll be happy to correct this post. (link)
As I could not see that there would be anything to correct in this highlighted summary of yours – in fact Richard would have done so at the time as explained above. Hence I looked for the reason of your request in the second part, you labelled “Private Correspondent”, also guided by your introduction to it saying “I’d like to understand this point a bit, actually; might revisit it”.
And because it was public knowledge that you corresponded with Rick as the only member on this Zulip thread, and large parts of your correspondence at the time was published on this forum in the “Burnt Toast” thread on April 24-25, 2024, with both yours and Rick’s name, I automatically assumed (my big mistake), that you had renamed something Richard wrote as “Private Correspondent” waiting for my confirmation/ correction. Well, this is where this thread derailed and I apologize for my mistaken assumption. In hindsight, I should have inquired who this “private correspondent” referred to.
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>>Vineeto: Besides, the last sentence of that supposed correspondent – “This marked the start of a depressive period for which I am yet to recover” makes it clear that whatever you remembered is not what Richard could have possibly said.
>>Syd: Oh, I didn’t realize this could have been misinterpreted! The ‘private correspondent’ was not Richard, of course (it is the other participant in the Zulip who replied to what I had to report). (link)
>>Claudiu: Yes this is what I was attempting to clarify — for what it’s worth, it also had a tooltip containing a recounting of a story Richard told you (in case this was missed which I did miss at first) (link)
Claudiu, by tool tip did you mean the link to Richard’s article or was there another one?
Thank you both, Claudiu and Syd, for clearing up this to-me-mind-boggling mystery.
Cheers Vineeto