Socrates wrote that wisdom is knowing when to seek help, but that unwanted advice was a poison, the enemy of identity. I don’t know what Socrates would have made of open heart surgery, it brings the idea of help and advice sharply into focus. I am receiving more help that I have ever asked for or received – from doctors, nurses, friends, Maria, my daughter.

I would not even list the things that I cannot do for many months – drive, lift, open, push, pull, run, bend, close or slide. I can walk, thank God, and am. Five miles yesterday, 3.5 today, up and down hills, back and forth on roads, I feel like one of the prophets, I have my walking stick, all I need is my robe. I am already a familiar and disheveled figure around my town.

Angels appear, one of them is young Tyler, a neighbor who has appeared out of the mist to stack firewood and take over the mowing of the lawn, which my friend Jack Macmillan has done for the past three weeks. Tyler loves to work and I don’t wish to take advantage of Jack, he is over here several times a week bailing me out of one dumb thing or another. I have no trouble asking Jack for help, I do it almost every day. He does not offer advice.

Help is different from advice, as Socrates pointed out, and I have different feelings about unwanted advice, as my readers know. We have been tangling over this issue for years. People tell me all the time that if I post my blog to Facebook, then I am asking for it, and ought to accept it. If I don’t want people minding my business, second-guessing me, or offering dubious and amateur opinions,  then I can just stop writing or shut down my blog or take it off of Facebook. People seem to love giving advice on social media, they love giving it and seem to love receiving it. Perhaps because it is free. In my life, free advice is always bad advice, I have never cared for it.

I am odd in many ways, I do not give advice – fools don’t take it, smart people don’t need it – and I have little regard for most of the advice given by the many armchair experts on social media. Much of it it is foolish, irrelevant, a lot of it is dumb and dangerous.

I understand that this is an argument I will never win, and that will never end, it is, in fact, the price one pays for being public, for sharing a life. You have to see it as a toll.

I do not accept that by writing openly I am asking for it, any more than attractive women in nice dresses were asking for it when they go to fraternity parties. People have the right to define their own boundaries and identity, whether other people like it or not. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else or start your own blog. I often shake my head at messages on Facebook that begin this way: “I know you don’t like advice, but…” Those deserve a special place in the Social Media Oblivious Hall Of Fame. If you know I don’t want it, then here’s an idea: don’t give it. I insist on being respected for my beliefs, even if people don’t care for them. I will not surrender that to the likes on Facebook.

What is the problem that keeps recurring in this eternal debate that will never be resolved? For me, it is one of identity. First of all, I don’t need to be told that there are fly masks for donkeys or that lambs can eat poison weeds and die, or that dogs need to be fed each day. Secondly, I like to figure things out for myself, solve my own problems. I don’t believe Henry David Thoreau would have appreciated Facebook, sitting in his cabin and being bombarded by messages suggesting what weeds to eat, how to fish or how to build a fire and stay warm, or warning him about eating squirrels and wood stove fires.The idea was sort of for him to figure this all out. Me too.

My latest advice tiff came when I wrote that the donkeys are having trouble with flies. I said I did not need advice, I had been dealing with the issue for years – masks, ointments, balms, fans. People gave me advice, of course, and also expressed annoyance that I didn’t want any. Even if I didn’t want any, maybe they did, suggesting I was being selfish.

I am a big fan of Thoreau. He has always inspired me. I moved to upstate New York and my farms to achieve some level of self-reliance, to learn what I needed to know, to gain the confidence to live on my own on a farm with animals, learn what I needed to know, life a life of independence and purpose. This is not a group activity. I love sharing my life, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. But my life is a monologue, not a dialogue. I welcome comments and ideas, disagreements and observations. I get lots and appreciate them.  I do not care for advice.

When Thomas Merton retreated to his hermitage in the abbey of Gethsemani,  he did not seek advice in how to pray, meditate or be alone. He learned how to do it. He did it, and thrilled to the joy of self-discovery. He is another inspiration for me.  I do not believe he would have accepted advice on Facebook, it is not the ethos of the Trappist Monk. When he was stuck, he prayed or went to the abbot, or maybe God.

Sharing one’s life is not giving it away. I believe social media is boundary-killer, and an identity thief. We are not all one thing, we are not all friends. I offer my life to you in the hopes it will be entertaining, useful and hopefully uplifting. I do not offer my life to you so that you can take it from me, tell me how to live it, take over my problems,  or share it with me. The vast majority of people get that and accept it, a substantial minority do not get it and will never accept it.

I will not, of course, drop the issue. It’s not really in my nature to surrender my identity, it is hard fought and much valued.

Tyler reminds me again that there is a difference between help and advice, and Socrates got it right.  People who offer unwanted advice are intruding, people who offer bounded help are helping.

A wise person knows what he can do and cannot do. A foolish man takes responsibility for his life and gives it to others, he loses his own identity and sense of self in the stories and unsolicited experiences of others. I see so many people lost and caught in this hoary Facebook idea of one great and intimate conversation. I appreciate that Facebook sells a ton of books. I think the key to advice is knowing where to get help when you need it. Facebook will never be the place for me to seek help or get advice.

I have come to value this disagreement, it is important. It affirms my identity, strengthens my sense of boundaries in the new world of social media and, like Thoreau, helps me to experience the precious experience of self-reliance. I am responsible for me, and of the hundreds of crises I have had, I am so proud today that I have figured out each one for myself. And grateful also that I learned to ask for help when I need it.