Do I Tell Him?

This is quite long and a little self-indulgent. But perhaps some of you will have the patience to make your way through it. It's different from my usual threads, but should still be worth the read.



Earlier this year I had an experience with a man I’ve known for a long time. I worked with him several years earlier, filming and editing a documentary about the making of his music, spent quite a bit of quality time with him, and had several deep conversations.

He was involved in a major car accident that left him in a coma for a month. Unsurprisingly, it changed him. Not so obviously upon casual inspection, if fact not physically at all, as everything remained intact, but there was a psychological/spiritual shift as a result of the experience. Specifically, what might be called a near death experience occurred, or certainly a vision, that happened at some point during the unconscious phase.

I only discovered this many months after his recovery, and when we met in the street one day, had a long and extremely interesting chat about it.

There seemed quite a change in him. He appeared to have finally been successful at finding someone via internet dating, something he’d been doing for a number of years, and you could see how happy and at peace this made him feel.

He was/is planning to be with her, has spent much time around her (she lives in the US), and had begun to focus on what he felt he now wanted to do with his life, rather than how he’d been living before. He felt he’d been holding himself back by ‘seeing the signs’, reading things into certain experiences, and acting on what he felt they meant. Now he felt he was free to just do it his way.


I had an experience where I met a stranger in a field, and in the guise of an internet blogger, interviewed him, ending up going back to his house to see the many model buildings he makes from bits of old clay pipe he finds while out walking. As I came back into town, I saw 'stuart' walking towards me, and I’d just gone past his home as I did. He invited me in, and with the mp3 recorder still going (I’d been experimentally recording myself the whole time), recorded my time with him too. Something didn’t feel quite right though. I could feel something from him that I wasn’t comfortable with, especially when he reacted to something I said.

I didn’t reveal this at the time as I wanted to look at it myself in order to understand what it was. All I felt was, that until I did that, I wouldn’t be spending any more time around him.

There were a few moments while out walking when I felt to go towards him, to just turn up, as I usually did, unexpected. I even got close to doing so a few times, but just didn’t feel ready to deal with it. I was sure that some kind of confrontation was going to occur at some point. But felt the time was not yet right.

Then, one day, as I was walking along a narrow path, I saw him walk passed the end of it. He carried bags of shopping, and was obviously on his way home. Suddenly I knew I was going to follow him, and as I slowly did so, I felt myself moving towards what I now knew would be that moment.

When I arrived at the grounds of his home, instead of knocking on the outer door or just walking in if it was open, I walked around the back and sat on a chair in the communal garden. It was like I could feel the significance of what was about to happen, even though I knew that nothing did as I could still walk away.

I sat there for maybe ten minutes, meditating, and I realised that walking away wasn’t really an option. I made my way round the back, where I knew the rear door was likely to be unlocked. There was one final moment; a last resting place to sit – one final chance to turn back from this. Did I really want to do this? Did I need to do this? Was it the right thing to do?

I let go of these thoughts, put my hand on the knob, and turned it, half expecting it to be locked.

 

The door opened and I stepped inside. Both as visitor, and as intruder. I felt like I was there to see my friend, but I also felt a strong feeling of ‘you are not welcome here'.

I closed the door quietly. There was nobody else around, no sound from any other resident; just this familiar, heavy silence, except for the muted sound of a washing machine going through its cycle in the utility room.

I walked up the stairs and without any further deliberation, knocked on his door. He opened it, appeared surprised to see me, but I said nothing and just walked in.

I still had my sunglasses on, and the music in my ears was as loud as it always was; what with my ear monitors and iPod still active. My hood was also up. With the beard I now wore too, perhaps not too difficult to imagine what I must've looked like.

I knew he was saying something to me, but I wasn't concerned with what that was. All I did was come in and sit down on the sofa, in the spot where I normally sat. I felt really strange, and I needed a moment to adjust to the feeling, the atmosphere, to myself, and to become still with it.

I could see he was still unpacking the shopping, so after a few moments of not getting a response from me, he went into the kitchen and carried on putting it away. He seemed to instinctively know that I just needed some space, and I began to relax into what this strange moment was becoming, not knowing what was going to happen, but feeling like when he was ready, he'd make himself a cup of tea, and when I opened my eyes, I'd find him sitting in the chair opposite, waiting for me to reveal why I was there.

I opened my eyes for a moment at this point and saw his stone Buddha looking at me from the table opposite, smiling. I felt like I was doing exactly what I needed to do.

I felt his footsteps re-enter the room, and then stop in front of me. He was asking if I wanted some water. He usually asked me if I wanted tea first, and I always used to respond by reminding him that I didn't drink it. I always accepted his offer of water though. But I'd known him long enough that he really didn't need to ask this question anymore, and had hoped he could've just decided to put a glass of water next to me without needing to ask me first.

Suddenly he grabbed hold of my shoulder and shook me, as if trying to wake me up. Because I hadn't heard him ask the water question at this point, this shaking surprised me and made me open my eyes a little. I reached up and removed one of my ear monitors. “Do you want a glass of water?” I heard.

What I really wanted was to put my ear monitor back in and leave such a trivial decision in his hands. Give me water, don't give me water, it didn't matter. Just finish up what you're doing, and when you're ready we can talk. Remember, until this point, I'd been assuming he'd been getting it.

I nodded my head. I didn't really want the water, I just did something so as not to do anything that would've brought my state of consciousness back into a place I didn't/couldn't be in right now, which having to think about such things would've done.

Then, in a loud voice, I heard:

“THANK YOU STUART, I WOULD LIKE A GLASS OF WATER PLEASE STUART”. And he walked off into the kitchen presumably to get it. I put my ear monitor back in. I wasn't prepared for how that made me feel.

I realised that without having to do or say anything, I'd found out what I'd come to discover. I stood up slowly, put my glasses back on, and quietly walked out of the flat.

I left the same way I entered, and by the time I reached the back garden, was so aware of the meaning behind the experience that I sat down on the bench to just be with it.

I didn't know what he'd do when he discovered me gone, but I really didn't want any further contact with him. I wanted to be alone and look at what had just happened. I didn't know the experience wasn't quite over yet, but I sat there for sometime, perhaps fifteen minutes, until I felt enough time had elapsed for me to leave.

Unbeknownst to me, upon my very slow-paced arrival, and immediate walk round the back with what seemed like very specific intention, someone had noticed me. This bloke was probably working near the garages.

I don't know what went through his mind when he saw me walk in, appearing to have a perfect right to be there, then go straight round the back. Then, only a few minutes later, emerge again, clearly having gone nowhere else, obviously up to no good, and who was now making his way out again.

As I approached the end of the driveway, this man appeared next to me. I assume he must've said something before hand, perhaps calling out to me. I still had the music on and had no idea he even existed. He suddenly ran in front of me, turned to face me, and shouted loudly that he just wanted to see my face. I knew what he meant by this, and just before he rushed off to do something about it, I said quietly: “Friend of Stuart”.

I spoke these words for a number of reasons.

To be honest though, I wasn't exactly sure whether using the word ‘friend' was correct now, but it had been until that point. I also wanted to take away the fear he held at thinking me some random stranger that he needed to be concerned about. Perhaps revealing that I knew someone who lived there might make him feel differently about who I was. Besides, if it stopped him from calling the police, who would have had no trouble finding me due to the pace I was ‘escaping' at, that in the moment, I realised I didn't want to deal with anyone who wouldn't accept silence as an appropriate response.

I knew the police were a possibility – these things happen, and have done before. But it wasn't long before I accepted it, and was ready and present for when it did.

Did he call them? I don't know. What mattered was how much it felt like some malevolent energy had been present, which had powerfully objected to my being there. It took a while for those feelings to dissipate, but by the time I arrived home, I was completely ready to write about it.

I was sure that from this point on the connection with Stuart was broken. That I'd not be turning up at his house unexpectedly, that I didn't even want to bump into him in the street. In fact, I felt I might even walk passed him if such a moment occurred.

Several weeks went by. I'd written, looked at, meditated on, spoken about, thought about, relived, every bit of that experience, and felt I'd understood much of what went on that day. But I never made any attempt to reveal it to him. I knew it had an effect on him, and I was sure he'd been doing something similar to me. But I had no intention of ever revealing what I'd experienced that day.

Then, not long afterwards, the inevitable happened. Our paths crossed in town. He stopped me, commented on my appearance, all very pleasant, very British, and then, brought up the subject of that day. “One moment you were there, I went to get you a glass of water, then you were gone. What happened?”

There was no way I was getting into it like that, so I said I'd written about it and I'd send him something, and walked off.

When I got home, I looked at what I'd written, went though it just to be sure that it contained what I really wanted to say, and emailed it.

I sent him a version of what I've just told you (which I still have by the way).

The next day I received his reply. I wasn't really sure I was going to get a reply, or what form that reply might take. What follows is the conversation that followed. Fortunately, I didn't need to recall it as for some reason I kept the emails.

 

Hi,

Thank you for your response. Yes, we are quite different in our outlook on life.

My belief is that we are all here to engage with life, not withdraw. That we are here to balance the finite and infinite within. In that sense we are complimentary opposites that have something to learn from the other. We are not here to withdraw through fear, and you discovered that when here.

Know that you are loved. None of us are perfect, but it is that sense of perfection within that drives us all.

You are most welcome in some future time when you feel the need to engage, interact and converse.

Stuart



To which I felt to reply:


Stuart, you missed the whole point, although I'm not surprised, as to see it another way would've meant accepting certain things about yourself that you might not be wanting to.

Instead of engaging me, exploring what went on, or even acknowledging some of what I experienced, you choose to play the part of the spiritual teacher and impart words of wisdom instead.

Promoting an idea of who you think you are, or would like to be thought of as being, is fine. Nothing wrong with wanting to live as you believe you can - why not be a spiritual teacher?

It's OK that you didn't recognise what was going on for me - I doubt many would. I left because I felt I'd been there long enough. My visit was over. If I hadn't been so affected by what I was feeling, I might've tried to engage you. My initial feeling had been to sit quietly until you'd finished putting the shopping away, and once you were finished, and were sitting down, be with you for a bit. The way you dealt with me revealed so much. I felt I'd seen what I'd come to see. I felt no negativity towards you as I left - I'd seen the truth, and the truth is always what I expect to see.

I write these things as it often helps me understand what's happening for me more clearly, but I don't always share them. I have no right to pass judgment on an experience, and if I feel I have, then I slowly work it out until I let it go.

You may be sincere in what you say, and have good intentions (there's a road somewhere paved with them I hear), but what you said came across without the energetic counterpart to make it feel real for me. You seem caught in some mind-made construct - perhaps we all are.

You're first words to me yesterday were how I looked, which may have been a coping strategy to deal with this unexpected moment, or something you just say because you know people like to be flattered, or, you just said something positive as this makes it more likely you'll engage in conversation, but it wasn't real and it didn't feel like it.

You may not see this as the truth, you may not even be reading this anymore, it matters not. What matters is that I say it because it's how I see it. I tell you because you asked me. And most importantly, I do so because I need to reveal my truth more clearly now and not hold myself back anymore.

Thank you for reading.

 

He responded with:


The 'whole point' is receiving without conditional judgment. The whole point is to embrace, unconditionally, and through that learning experience grow and become. What we think attracts more. We have been given a great gift, the gift of reality. What is going on externally is but a reflection of our inner condition. Denial of that results in blaming our reality and the people around us for our inadequacies.

We are all imperfect reflections of our potential. Our one true goal is to be one with ourselves and one with God which is the same.

Love,

Stuart


My response:

I agree with most of what you said. You are clearly the enlightened spiritual teacher

Now, do you want to get real, or are platitudes the only way you can communicate?

Let me ask you a question.

Take yourself back to that moment if you will.

What were you feeling after you asked me whether I wanted a glass of water? Do you remember?

Here's what I experienced: Your ego became inflated. You were either put out, insulted, offended, bothered, (fill this in yourself), and rather than give your friend a little space, you responded in a way that felt judgmental and condescending. If that wasn't what you experienced then please clarify so that I might understand.

I had only just arrived. I was wanting, no needing, a few minutes silence so that I might be able to be with you in a way I'd not been able to before.

Nothing needed to happen - everything happened just as it did. I'm not blaming you for anything. It was as it was. But do you accept that it was as I describe? Does it matter? Or do you see things differently.

Enlighten me if you wish.

 

His response:

In answer to your message, what you think becomes your perception of what is. In other words, your perceptions colour your reality.

Stuart


This is how that made me feel:

If you're saying that what I experienced that day and what you experienced were completely different, that will always be true on some level. So what did you experience? How was it for you? Or is you're memory of things different because you're only capable of seeing it your way?

I'm not saying you had to, could, would, should, be able to see things from my perspective. I'm merely telling you what I experienced and so far you've avoided dealing with it.

Perhaps you'd care to answer my question rather than slide past it?

I'll ask it again slightly differently:

What might you have been feeling, after you stated loudly and indignantly: "YES STUART, I WOULD LIKE A GLASS OF WATER PLEASE STUART!" As if you were teaching an ignorant schoolboy about his lack of manners?

 

This is what came back:

In what way would my perception foster a better understanding and growth for you?

Stuart


My response was short and sweet.

You will have to reveal your perception in order to find that out.


…and finally, after all the platitudes, he revealed this:

I felt mixed emotions when you came around. I was firstly confused by your disengagement and uncommunicative response. This was swiftly replaced by my need to give time and energy to unpack and put away my shopping. When I came back into the room and I could see that you were going to persist in your uncommunicative way I tried to engage you by enquiring as to whether you would like a drink. When there was still no response I shook you by the shoulder to enquire again as to whether you would like a drink of water and this time (I can't quite remember) when you mumbled a response I decided to make light of the situation by having a comical two way conversation with myself - if you had bothered to open your eyes you would have seen that I was caustically smiling. When I reappeared with the water you were gone.

My emotions then progressed to a feeling of rudeness on your behalf that you enter invited, but then proceeded to ignore my welcome, which then transformed into one of pity for you that you couldn't, or wouldn't engage. Then I thought to myself, that is the way [he] has always been. It was quite an awareness, thinking just how different we are.

Now explain to me how that helps you in your understanding of your own growth.

Stuart

 

What follows is my response, and it was to be the last one I made. I never kept his reply to it, which turned up a few days later, as there wasn't much to it, other than a little more platitude. He wanted, perhaps needed, the last word, and I let him have it.


I can feel by the vibration within the text that what you've put here isn't the whole truth, but it's a lot more real. So for that, I thank you.

The word comical is the first thing that stands out. For in order for you to have felt this, your actions would have needed to emit a certain vibration, which they did not.

My eyes were not closed by the way. I saw your face clearly. But it wasn't your lack of described body language that mattered, it was what I felt.

Your say your 'emotions progressed to feeling rudeness on MY BEHALF'. Your judgmental nature was well and truly at the fore by this point, and you're ego could now take over properly as you began to experience feeling aggrieved that your welcome had been, as you put it, ignored.

Your ego, your judgment, and your superiority, moved everything quickly into feeling sorry for me. You felt pity that I couldn't or wouldn't see things ‘your way', at least through the eyes of Stuart's book of how to be. But then you had an interesting realisation - that is the way I've always been. Yes, but just because I walk along my path doesn't mean you always see me.

You should understand that my being there was a conscious action, and everything that occurred during it, before and after, I experienced consciously. You may not accept this, but it is true.

I haven't revealed myself to you properly before. I am only now beginning to do so.

The work I do, who I am, how I live, you have no idea about. Why should you? You only see what you see, what you think you're seeing, what you're capable of seeing, what I'm showing you. Unless I choose to reveal myself as I am, there's no reason for that to ever change. That was the point of that day. I was there to reveal myself in a way I'd not done before. To see if you could experience me, and I you, in a way that had not happened before. I wanted to engage you in a different way, without needing all the platitudes and pseudo spiritual stuff you often throw at me.

What can be learned from this? Instead of being the teacher, feel like the pupil. I cannot reveal myself until you let go of your need to help me, teach me, or feel sorry for me.

I've been attending what I call conscious school for as long as I can remember. I get taught things directly, in a class just for me, and have been conscious of these lessons for many years. I often play a part, depending on how I feel, that affords me the opportunity to learn something about myself that I might not otherwise. At first, it wasn't always something I was conscious of doing until it was over.

I don't like labels or descriptions, so I tend to avoid them, but sometimes they're useful to give someone an idea. The work I do involves helping people, some in this country, some abroad, but mostly over the internet. I could use the terms: Entheogenic Therapy or Shamanic Channeling, but these are not quite right, so I won't bother doing so.

In interacting with people, I learn to express myself, be myself, so that I'm able to get myself out of the way more effectively. Much has happened to accelerate this recently. I have plenty to do for which I feel blessed.

This was never meant to be about ego, even though it has been active in this conversation. I have no agenda, no position, no stance, and no point of view that must be made. I don't need to win this exchange, nor do I wish you to feel uncomfortable by what I say to you.

This interaction was only necessary for this understanding to take place.

 

Phew!!

. . . and finally we come to the reason for this thread.

Thank you for reading this so far.

Since this happened, many months have gone by. I have only glimpsed him once or twice since then, but have never come across him in a way that would require anything else to happen. For me he simply no longer exists. I don’t hate him or feel bad towards him, I just accept that he's no longer in my life. I felt there was nothing more to say to him.

But I now feel there might be.

I feel like whatever he experienced, and whatever the results of our interaction were, something still needs to be said. Something needs to be revealed. Call it closure. Call it healing.

I don’t feel I need him in my life. I’m not looking for forgiveness, approval, or acceptance. But I was responsible for creating an experience, and the reaction it caused, even though it seemed necessary, still had a strong negativity attached. When I asked myself if there was something I could do about this, whether it needed to be done or not, what follows is the idea I came up with.

The question is: Should I send it to him?

If you’ve come on this journey with me, then I’m asking you, specifically, this question. Not because I can't do this myself, but if you've read all this, then I’m interested in how you see it. It may very well play a part in whether I do or not - that remains to be seen. Until I know what I’m going to do though, telling me how you feel will be of real interest to me.

The following is what I’m planning to send.

 

I once accused you of making a judgment about me. It wasn't surprising that you did so as you had nothing else to go on. How could you have done anything else really? How I appeared seemed so obvious.

But because you were seeing just an image of me, and because I didn't reveal what was going on for me at the time, it was inevitable that as a result of what happened, I'd either have to find a way to do so, if I wanted to continue to know you, or walk away and accept that things had gone as far as they could.

When we last spoke, I took the opportunity to be really honest with you. I realised, and accepted, that I probably wasn't going to be in your life any longer (you'd probably be moving to the States soon anyway). So it was easy for me to do something I've been able to do since I was a kid, and what psychologists might label as the 'psychopathic' part of me. I just let go of you emotionally, completely, so that I was able to tell you how I really felt. It's very effective at releasing me to be honest, as it creates the space I need to speak the truth.

But even though I felt the connection was broken, if the results of my actions affected you, even though it wasn’t my intention to do so, I’d like to do something about it. Even though I don't know this to be the case. I do know I want to say something.

I wrote an article recently that I published online. I do this quite a lot. Many people read these things, and a few comment on them, but there was something about this one that I wasn't happy with. So I looked at it again, rewrote much of it. It seemed better; it said what I was trying to say, but something still wasn't right. Then it hit me. Every time anyone reads something I write, they do so in their own voice. They decide how to say the words, where to put the emphasis, the inflection, and that makes them see it in a way that reflects where they are at the time.

I can say all sorts of things, in all sorts of ways, and when I'm really open, I can reveal things in a way that I rarely get close to when I write. But I don’t feel able to speak this way all that often, and really, if I'm going to communicate some of the things I feel, so they’re less likely to be misunderstood, I need to say them in my own voice. So I decided to read the article and record it as I did.

There's still another level of course - speaking words from the heart, spontaneously, in the moment. But this will do for now.

We both know change is not always easy to make, but I believe I've been making it. I'm not expecting to accomplish anything from this, I just feel it might help to clear things up.

Audio Link (10 mins)

 

I can’t tell you how many times I try to post something here and the site goes down or becomes unresponsive. Mostly what I write gets through (or I manage to copy the text just in case). You’d have thought that I’d have learned by now and do ALL my writing in Word before pasting it in. But even though I know it can happen, occasionally I don’t, and occasionally I lose it, this was one of those times. That's OK though, because something new will come out of the ashes.

I want to say thank you for all your comments – they have been of help.

I thought you might feel something like this.

It’s not easy to accept that sometimes we do things that feel right at the time, that we feel need to be done, or so we think, and then realise that how we did them may not be how we’d do them now. I’m not saying what I said or did wasn’t right on some level, because it was what I felt at the time. But a lot of the feelings going on during this time related to what were suppressed and unresolved feelings from before Stuart’s accident, where he behaved in a certain way towards me that I felt was unfair and unjust.

There’s a couple of sayings that often resonate with me based on past experiences: Never lend money to your friends, and never work with them closely, not if you want them to remain your friends afterwards.

I’ll leave the money side for another time, and apart from the experience I had with Stuart, I have rarely worked with friends. But our experience didn’t end well (which might also say something about who I was at the time anyway), and rather than deal with how we feel, it’s often easier to make up a rule so we never have to.

Well, obviously I have to, yet because he went and had an accident, which by his own admission, based on how he was, and how he knew he was, was the only thing that could’ve stopped him in his tracks and made him take stock of who he’d become, meant that I wasn’t really talking to the same man anymore.

I won’t go into what happened between us, only to say that I can now see that because it left a bad feeling that remained unresolved for so long, it became easier to let him go, to stop loving him, so that, in this instance, rather than allow him to return with the water, then talk about what had happened, what was happening, and remove any feelings of negativity from then and now, I used the past to let go of him altogether, thus giving myself permission to tell him things, albeit as I saw them, but in a way I’d never do otherwise.

Sometimes when I’ve been close to someone, and then something happens between us, around us, that causes me to judge them, I get caught in feeling how I feel, accepting that it is what I feel, but not wanting to judge them for it, even though I know I have. This internal conflict stops me from revealing anything about how I feel directly. I can then only acknowledge it by any future actions I might do. I’ve done this ever since I was a kid.

As I’m sure it is to many. But you must understand something.

I always show up unannounced. I make no plans, have no thought, I only deal with what happens in the moment. So if I get a feeling to go and see someone, if they are in or not, available or not, it doesn’t matter as there is no expectation of realizing anything from it. It’s not essential that something happens. I am not attached to it doing so, only creating the possibility for it. Several times Stuart has been out when I turn up, one time he was on the phone with his girlfriend and not at liberty to entertain me. When that happens I just walk away without inferring anything from it. Nothing has to be just because I want it to be.

For me, a state of unconditionalness is what I look for in someone. I know people who have no problem with me or any friend just walking into their home when we turn up, going straight to their fridge, helping themselves to something they find there. Feeling free to come and go as they please, without airs or graces. Family, in the true sense of the word, is loving and accepting and sharing, without conditions attached. Perhaps it’s a Jewish thing, perhaps a British Jewish thing. Certainly something I experienced in Israel.

So for me, I’m never a guest in someone’s home when I visit, I always make myself at home when I’m there, as I expect them to do the same in mine. For many, especially in the UK, this way of being is too ‘outside the box’ for most people. And that’s fine, as I usually only want to spend time around people who understand such freedom in their way of being.

With Stuart, this was, on some level, an attempt to discover if this anglo-saxon bloke, who I’ve known for many years, and who sees things clearer than most, could just accept me doing something ‘outside the box’ without causing offense.

Good point. As I have mentioned, I find it hard to always love others the way they want or need or expect to be loved. I often feel a resistance to doing so, preferring to love them my own way, whatever that means. Perhaps it’s a control issue, perhaps one of ego, I can’t say exactly. But I know it has something to do with being truly unconditional, almost as if I can only do something, love someone, as long as they don’t feel they must return or reflect that love just because they’ve received it.

This is really good. Resonated deeply with me. Thank you.

 

What would you say is the simple approach?

 

It's interesting that those who responded, mostly felt to comment on what happened, what I did, how I behaved, rather than on what I'm looking to do about it, which is the reason I made the thread.

I said things in response that perhaps move it in that direction, as I accept that it may be right for me to do so. But is it always right to do something just because I feel it might be? Isn't this what you all picked up on as being part of the original problem?

I feel he will have done his own soul-searching since this happened, understood himself better hopefully, and probably moved on. Is it right to bring this up again just because I want to? Or should I just accept that it happened, did so for a reason, and learn from it, learn about myself, as I have, and just let it go completely, allowing fate to create any future moments should there be any?

 

Lol

Steady.

I didn't just walk into his house, only into the apartment complex.

Care to elaborate a bit?

Thank you for tackling most of it. What happened to the final 10% though? Perhaps that last bit was where it all came together.

You might be right.

 

What happened so that after 5 months you were free?

So in some ways, you could say the whole experience was good for you.

No Probs. Takes a man to admit when he's been one.

Sounds like your luck changed just as you were ready for it to.

I hear you.

You're not wrong there.