cc: file, Mom, Sara and Des, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Charles and Diane Cluff, and Claude and Katherine Warner, Forest and Amy Warner, Ivan and Chell Warner, and Eric and Renee Miner
"Roice and I had an interesting discussion about `selfishness' when we had dinner on Thursday night. In that part of our conversation, I talked about how my Thoughtlet on `Integrity' seemed irrelevant after an e-mail from Chuck. Roice started out with, `Who is Chuck?' I explained he is Diane Hafen Cluff's husband and Diane is Uncle Toney's daughter. I reminded him of when Uncle Toney took us 4-wheeling at the Santa Clara Creek several years ago. Maybe some of you remember Chuck going parasailing after we went the the Hafen family reunion a couple of years ago in Pine Valley. I thought Chuck's e-mail was really good. He wrote:
`For many years I thought it my duty to "improve" on my parents. Sometimes I would console myself with the words, "My mom and dad were never able to do this or provide that for us." But it was empty consolation (in fact, it was a blatant cop-out!), because at the end of the day, I am responsible for how I perform to my gifts and talents and against my flaws and shortcomings, not theirs.
The world is full of people who managed to "let go" of their baggage and create a life they could enjoy. So, rather than use my parents as my yardstick, I choose to remember them as people (with all that that entails) that did the best they knew how with who they were and what they had.
For myself, I can keep my emotional integrity if I strive to better myself, using my past performance and behaviors as my yardstick, and my current goals and dreams as my "playing field". This way, it's easier for me to free myself of their burdens and my own "victimness", and move on to better things.
I know this seems a little like splitting hairs, but the subtly different mental and emotional posture makes all the difference to me.
I think my parents would feel terrible if I let their mistakes and victories define mine. Far better to define my life in terms of who I am capable of becoming, rather than who I am right now.
In short, I have it if I choose it and maintain it, and I can only do that in the present.'
In thinking about Chuck's comments, I had an interesting image come to mind. It was an image of a geologic basin growing through time, with subsidence due to the cooling of the earth, sea level changes because of periodic ice ages, and packages of genetically related sediments. Scott Bowman, who I officed with for three years, has a software program which mathematically models this kind of geologic growth. One of the interesting results is that during each ice age, when sea level is low because the water is at the poles of the earth, there is a major erosional boundary created at the top of packages of sediments. My discussion about integrity could be compared to talking about these major `generational' boundaries. Chuck, on the other hand, beautifully captured what we need to do in our own lives, in one of these packages of genetically related sediments, to find personal integrity.
Then Roice started talking about what motivates us, how happiness is `a biproduct of following a more specific and purposeful mission statement.' The discussion centered around selfishness as the primary motivation of our lives. He then verbally pinned me down.
Roice: `Dad, what is your personal mission statement.'
Me: `To continue to make a difference.'
Roice: `Why?'
Me: `To make the world a better place for you and your brothers and sisters and our grandchildren.'
Roice: `Why?'
Me: `Are you asking if it is just selfishness? (An affirmative nod.) There are three basic motivations: power or control, empathy or society, and accomplishment or achievement. There is a selfish component to each of these, but it seems to me there is less selfishness for achievement than the other motivations. There is selfishness in fame, and I have achieved quite a bit of notoriety in my field of study. But that fame was never the objective. The objective was to improve oil and gas exploration, to help find more hydrocarbons because they are so important to today's society.'
And so our conversation continued and I kept thinking about interity and whether anyone ever achieves the kind of integrity Chuck and I were trying to describe. Or, are we only motivated by selfishness? This was on my mind Friday, on the drive back home, and at the movie `The Mirror Has Two Faces' with your Mom on Friday night. Then on Saturday morning, when Mom was giving me a haircut, I learned she has told each of you she plans to file for divorce after the first of the year. All of a sudden my thoughts about integrity and selfishness took on a new significance. As you kids know, Mom has talked about this for 5 years. Maybe I started these `Thoughtlets' as a pre-response (a little over a month before I made another significant emotional-reaction mistake, and provided the motivation for her to start taking specific action). I wish I understood all of the dynamics and could fix everything. But I don't and I'm coming to recognize I need to let Mom have the freedom to make her own choices. Trying to find a positive side to what is happening, I have specifically seen my own life in two movies this past year. I continue to hope, like the chess playing computer scientist in 4DX and the university math professor in Barbara Streisand's movie, the time will come when Mom and I can be a loving couple again. Is this just selfishness? Probably. I will do everything I can to support each of you through this hard time. I know other family members getting copies of these thoughtlets will also. It is neat to have such a wonderful heritage.
It is easy to point fingers and say mean things. As I got into the SEG in Denver on Saturday evening, the cab driver and I had a long conversation, including about his recent divorce. He said, with the voice of his 9 year old daughter at the appropriate phrase, `I have finally figured out how to answer the question: Daddy, why do people get divorced? Selfishness on the part of one partner or the other. Selfishness is the most serious sin there is.' I'm sure this conversation was a basis for Roice and my dinner conversation. I do recognize we can not continue to exist without some degree of selfishness. I recognize that I have smothered each of you and your Mom, making too many of the choices when you were in our home, and being too rigid on the rules. I am sorry. My intentions were honorable. My methods were not. I now realize, too late, I need to back off. I love each of you, and I hope that someday my efforts, like these Thoughtlets, the paintings, and the poem Prime Words, will have the meaning to each of you that was intended by me. My primary motivation has been love and not selfishness. Hopefully time will convince each of you of this fact."