A few guys have written back in response to my “Message boards rationale” email. One offered a criticism that I’ve wondered about myself, i.e., Why would anyone find it helpful to be reading excerpts from what essentially is my journal? He wrote:
One thing that I might mention is that the emails are very interesting but are more focused on what you are up to rather than specific advice/comments that might benefit the general population of men. I do occasionally get something out of them that I can apply to my life but I feel like I am reading your journal. This gives me an odd feeling from time to time.
I didn’t reply to him, preferring to think about it for a while, and then I got an email from another guy that seemed to answer the question, at least for him:
I’ve been reflecting on how your reflections (hall of mirrors!) effect me. Not that it’s necessarily all about me, in an egocentric way, but there is an incremental effect that is emerging. I don’t have another similar experience to use as comparison. The daily eavesdropping on work conversations creates distraction and confusion; the Joe to Gos give me a small pool for reflection that as a cumulative effect of enlarging the pool. It has helped to be reading Kent Nerburn’s “Letters to my son”. This is an elemental part of my life that requires nurturing. The Joe to Gos are nurturing. They are yours, and I’m not vicarious about this, your touch points transfer to corresponding touch points in my own life that trigger a personal reflection.
I see this as one guy’s discovery providing a much better answer than I could muster to another guy’s wondering. I took it as a confirmation of my plan to create a message board where stuff like this could happen waaaay more often than if all communications goes through me.