“It Makes Me Feel Better to Hear You Say That”

Friday’s blog entry set forth the text of an e-mail that I sent to J.D. Roth, the owner of the Get Rich Slowly blog, on May 21, 2009.

While we were exchanging e-mails re my mental illness or lack thereof, we were also exchanging e-mails aimed at solving the problem that gave rise to the discussion — the fact that my comments were not appearing at J.D.’s blog. After the e-mail set forth in Friday’s blog entry, J.D. was able to get a comment of mine to appear properly. In response to his e-mail letting me know this, I sent him the following words:

J.D.:

Thanks.

I’ll try to find a blog entry to comment on in real time tomorrow and see if I can get that to work.

I posted several responses to your comment at my blog. They contain some strong (but I think fair and hopefully helpful) words. Please let me know if they inspire thoughts in you that might help us bring this matter to a positive and constructive resolution.

I am having a very hard time figuring out where you are coming from re all this. I am trying hard.

Rob

I followed that up the following morning with this one:

J.D.:

I reread the e-mails and comments from last night in an attempt to develop a solution that is more satisfying to you while not causing me to feel that I have “doctored” an old post (my view is that words that have been said should remain said and that statements giving false impressions should be corrected through the addition of new words rather than through the subtraction of old ones).

I have added the following language (all in bold) to the end of the paragraph in question:

“[Note (added May 22): Subsequent events have shown that J.D. did NOT block my comments — the posting problem turned out to have been caused by a technical problem afterall]

I hope that helps a tiny bit.

Rob

J.D. responded by saying: “I think this should work fine. And I think this is a reasonable compromise: to add words in the appropriate spots… Thanks!”

I wrote back saying: “It makes me feel better to hear you say that. I also want to express my gratitude to you for your handling of the comments on Bill’s thread. Given the way that it’s been handled, I believe that people holding all points of view feel safe offering their sincere thoughts.”

And everybody lived happily ever after.

Kinda, sorta.