To you who are reading (my Philosophic Greeting Card)

Whatever I say now, it’s your voice you are hearing.
Whatever you learn reading this, it isn’t in the book.
Whatever happens next, you know what you are doing.
Your task emerges where you are, in words, from history,
You tell it to yourself, a task to say, your story now.
Go on to read the world we have, and change.
That is the gift.
Hate? Fear? It is as if you do it to yourself.
Happy whatever!

The things to be said have been grouped into a kind of journey, across a sort of landscape, as something like signposts. But the reader should feel free to move around this space anyhow. While it has a structure, the material lends itself to skipping and selecting. There is plenty of repetition.

Sections in italics are the writer’s commentary, and each Dialogue is started by the writer speaking, with the two voices then alternating as text spacing indicates.

It would surprise me a little if anyone were to read the contents of these pages the first time through avidly from start to finish. Though things are said within a certain scheme in a way intended to be helpful, there are many starting places, and many resting places, here. The signposts point in many directions.

A process of casual skimming might not be a bad idea, so that brief acquaintance can lead to further and more extensive exploration. Almost every substantial paragraph can probably be considered usefully by itself for reading as an extract. Even parts of paragraphs will bear pondering without the rest sometimes. From my inevitably personal emphases, gathered up in the life I have lived to date, readers will find their own.

At least, that’s what the writer hopes. A possible rule would be that the readers shall sample as suits them, but never too much at once. Enough is enough. Remember that things take time.