brief statement, in case this becomes known as the year the war began

1. just because i do a) what i really want to do and b) what some other people really want to do doesn't mean that a) it is an easy thing to do and b) my unhappiness can be discounted because (i) it is what i chose/i went into it knowing it was hard/etc (ii) other people would love to have it/what am i complaining about/etc .

2. everyone needs support in everything they do but people who choose to do what is unconventional need more support in their choices, because as julian said, they don't have people they can take for granted to lean on.

3. this support, i have felt over the last year, comes much more freely, and without complication, from those friends who are neither inclined towards or desirous of what i do, nor are unhappy with what they do, because they can sympathise with a specific situation i present to them, regardless of whether they feel, or i feel, or i feel they feel, etc, that a) my getting to do what i do should be enough in and of itself or b) becoming a competition in comparative unhappiness

4. there is obviously a rift in the lute.