From jlarke@us.itd.umich.eduThu Dec 15 15:14:29 1994
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 15:01:03 -0500
From: Jason Larke <jlarke@us.itd.umich.edu>
To: thari@umich.edu
Subject: Ahab's diary, episode 61

	Well, that was an uninspiring little venture. We go
on our GREAT QUEST, to find the missing Prince, and it turns
out that he's doing just fine, thank you very much, and
we're kinda invading his privacy, and if his daughter hadn't
been so panicky nobody would have ever noticed the big guy
was gone.
	Sometimes, when you get to trying too hard, you end
up tripping over your own feet. This is just the price you
pay. For instance:

	Ariana is in love with Vetch. This is obviously
stupid, but that's not the point. The point is that she
asked me for help moving the bastard, who I hate quite
thoroughly and energetically, and I made a good effort to
make the entire journey nicely uncomfortable for him. Which,
in turn, caused Ariana to figure that I was a bastard, and
probably drove her closer to Vetch.
	Maybe I shouldn't have tried so hard.

	Or Lyss. She's pregnant now, by
the-Unicorn-has-no-clue-whom, and doesn't seem to depressed
about it. It worries me that my offspring are so cavalier
about bringing life into the world- I mean, like I told
Shard, the food chain is alive and well in Amber, and you
really ought to be sure you're prepared to protect a child
from it until the child is old enough. Judging by her work
with my son, Lyss is going to be OK at protecting her kid
from strained carrots, but more serious threats may be
problematic.
	So of course I explain this to her, and she gets
defensive and feels picked on. Which she is, but hey- that's
life when you don't have a clue. Anyhow, now she *has* to
have the kid and ignore the Dad just so she can prove to me
that she can handle it.
	Think I was trying too hard?

	But that's no answer to most of my problems. "Trying
too hard" must be discussed relative to what you want to
accomplish and who you want to be. And, I think, who you
are.
	I'm not particularily good at anything, by the
standards of the older generation. I'm never playing from a
good position. That's who I am: Someone who, for most of his
life, has not been getting the better of his arguments.
	Who do I want to be? Someone who is respected, as a
good man in general and a bad man to go up against. I want
to be someone who doesn't always operate from a position of
weakness.
	What do I want to accomplish? I want to make this
place less like Chaos. I want Nicholas to grow up in a world
where being slick is less important than being good, moral,
and right. I want my side to win for a change. Not Amber, or
Benedict, but *my* side. I want to see Caine in my world,
losing, instead of me in his world, losing.

	I can't get there by playing on a razor's edge of
assumed weakness. I can't be the person who lays on the
guilt until he gets his way. I only work one way: I say what
I believe, and I hope you listen.
	And no matter how long this goes on, I intend to
keep doing that. If at first you don't succeed, try a little
harder. If you feel your own mortality creeping up on you,
try a little harder. If you realize your entire life is
ultimately futile, try a little harder. And when I finally
decide to kill Caine, and he puts his dagger into my heart,
I'll just lie there.
	Until I heal. And then we'll do it again. And I'll
try a little harder.

	Sometimes I'm afraid Kimbdyl must be very
dissapointed in me.