Honestly, I don't think it hurts for me or anyone else to hear a few more times.
[ Claude might need to hear it in particular and especially coming from a friend. Someone he values and has come to trust fully, which makes this conversation even more important.
Though it's the tiniest deflection to add 'anyone else' as a qualifier, it doesn't make it less true. Nor does it mean that yet again there's still not more to be added. ]
I won't pretend like I've ever been a saint by any standards - even with war and what it demands aside. Not having a lot of... or really, any friends growing up meant I had to find ways to stay a step or three ahead. Something I lived by and by that only for a long time, but not for some time now when it became more than that.
Seeing the scale it could go to if I'd made different choices was unnerving. Even if none of that actually happened - if there's a way to avoid it, I'd certainly like to.
no subject
[ Claude might need to hear it in particular and especially coming from a friend. Someone he values and has come to trust fully, which makes this conversation even more important.
Though it's the tiniest deflection to add 'anyone else' as a qualifier, it doesn't make it less true. Nor does it mean that yet again there's still not more to be added. ]
I won't pretend like I've ever been a saint by any standards - even with war and what it demands aside. Not having a lot of... or really, any friends growing up meant I had to find ways to stay a step or three ahead. Something I lived by and by that only for a long time, but not for some time now when it became more than that.
Seeing the scale it could go to if I'd made different choices was unnerving. Even if none of that actually happened - if there's a way to avoid it, I'd certainly like to.