“I wonder how quickly Katz could have saved up the money if he wasn’t always buying flowers, pizza, going away on weekends, etc. If I need something, I don’t waste money on things like that. I prioritize and save. I also know for a fact that he is not as authentic as he states. Much of what he writes is greatly exaggerated or completely untrue. He frequently makes stories up and always has, to justify his personal opinions. I live near both of them, and neither are highly regarded by the people that know them.”

– Anonymous post from the website coldantlersham

“My dad was  raised as a farm boy in North Carolina. Times were hard. There were times, though, when he would walk to a neighbor’s home to borrow some eggs or some other type of provisions. In return they freely gave what excess they had to their neighbors in need, whether they were black or white. They were after all a community…The coldantlersham post really struck a nerve with me and I find it hard to believe there are so many mean-spirited people in the world. Unfortunately social media gives them the tools to vent their own unhappiness.”

-Bob Dudley, in an e-mail message to me this morning.

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But social media also gives Bob Dudley a way to send me a thoughtful message like that. Technology is like that, it gives something and takes something away.

So there it is, really, two very different ways of looking at the world, and responding to trouble. We each have to choose our own path, Bob Dudley’s or that of Anonymous.

Four years ago, Maria and I were caught in the real estate crash of 2008, and like so many other people, we lost pretty much everything. It took four years to sell our house and by that time, we had drained our savings and borrowed money – we had two mortgages to pay –  to turn it over to the bank so they could keep whatever money there was.

We expected for nearly a year that we would lose our new home as well.

My home, the first Bedlam Farm, was the biggest investment of my life, I put all the money I had into maintaining and restoring it and keeping it from foreclosure, which I could not bear. When it was sold, my life’s savings went with it.

I find it revealing in a way that anonymous thought we ought not to be eating our  white pizza with organic vegetables from the Round House Cafe sprinkled across the top. Or that I should be ashamed to buy Maria flowers at the supermarket or go away on a weekend. I thought a bit about her question, I like to assume such questions are sincere  – if we had not gone a way for weekends, or bought flowers at the supermarket for Maria, or had pizza two or three times a month – just how much money would I have saved?

My best quick estimate is about $500 or   $600, all told. We only went away twice, that was our only vacation in the past four years, and to pretty cheap places, and I only bought Maria three or four bouquets of flowers for about $9 each.  She loves flowers, and it was winter, before our gardens had come up.

Next year, I will buy more.

Our real estate crunch put us nearly $300,000 in debt. Since you wondered, Anonymous, I’m not sure that would have gotten us out of that pickle, (I can only imagine offering that money to the bank) and like you, we work hard every day of our lives, whether we are short on money or not.

I think Anonymous would love to bring back  the Debtor’s Prison,  I suppose I would have been thrown in jail for a long time for owing so much money. Do I deserve that? She thinks so. But it’s not really for me to say. If she thinks I  wasn’t entitled to pizza, I can’t imagine what else she thinks I should have given up.

Anonymous, I know it is pointless to argue with people who hide in the shadows behind false names on raging websites about people they don’t know, but you don’t need to make this stuff up in order to challenge or question me. If you have legitimate concerns about my life, which is lived openly, you have every right to raise them. You can, like Mr. Dudley, even raise them with me.

You obviously live nowhere near me, as I only have two or three neighbors, and we are all very good friends, and they have supported us in every way. I’m sorry, but I do not make up stories. I do sometimes embellish them, I will admit to that, it is just not always something I can resist, like almost every writer there is, I am a story-teller. Fortunately, I rarely need to embellish them.

If you actually live nearby – I guess this is not true – and want to see for yourself the truth of what I write, come see for  yourself, as so many people have done. I have no secrets, that is the beauty of openness. Fortunately, my life is rich enough that stories fall on me from the sky.  Just try living with border collies and donkeys and a pony.

One day I hope you will understand that being authentic is not about what you say, but what you do. I hope that one day you will be authentic enough yourself to put your name on your words and take responsibility for them, as I do.

When you don’t put your name on things, it is too easy to hate and lie. When you put your name on your ideas, you will feel differently and express yourself differently. I guarantee it.

I put my name on everything I wrote, good or bad, and I am very proud of that. I wish the same for you.

Bob Dudley has a different view of the world, he associates difficult times with community, and his view has been my experience. I have found community here, just as he has in his town.  During our very difficult and draining year, we encountered many people who not only knew what it was like to be in our shoes, but who were standing in the same ones.

I am embarrassed to say that once upon a time I also thought a bit like Anonymous, and had this reflexive idea that people who found themselves in bankruptcy or financial struggles were somehow to blame, somehow brought their troubles unto themselves. I know that is sometimes true. I wince to say I once could have written a post like that. I apologize for that.

And there are many people who feel that way, I have learned in the past year or so. People like Anonymous tend to hate people who get into trouble, and are eager to blame them for it. If only they had not eaten pizza or bought flowers for their wives?  Perhaps they do this because it is frightening to them to think they might one day end up in the same place. Blaming the victims makes it seem more distant, more remote.

When civilized nations got rid of the Debtor’s Prisons, it upended medieval ideas about debt and acknowledged that  financial ruin can happen to anyone. But the Debtor’s Prison idea makes sense to many, they can lock up the people who frighten them and never have to see them, let alone read their blogs.

I learned many things from my venture into bankruptcy. It is good to be with someone you love and who loves you.

It is good to have that community that Bob Dudley wrote me about. Friends matter.

There are many blameless people in bankruptcy court these days, good people caught in one storm or another – recession, the collapse of real estate markets, sudden layoffs by uncaring corporations, the movement of their companies to China and Mexico, the loss of their IRA’s savings and pension plans.

These were not wasteful or lazy or reckless people, they were me, they were us, they were you. Ironically, I will say that I will never again blame people for falling into darkness. Whether they lose their money or their health.  My wish for anonymous is that she learns this the easy way, not the hard way.

Compassion is the most glorious gift of the human heart, and we turn cold and dark when we forget it.

It was good to meet these struggling people in bankruptcy court and see them and talk to them, we hugged and cried and comforted one another, how good to be among people who understood. Like us, they were often ashamed, and often frightened, and often felt judged and alone. There were bankers and doctors and writers and artists and farmers and cops and union workers and business people, all of them had worked hard and often successfully in their lives, they had, like me, run into some storms.

After all, we live in a vast and complex system, a corporate and capitalist nation whose very existence depends on scaring the wits out of people who can’t pay their bills and debt, and crushing them if necessary. If we didn’t fear that, if they couldn’t shame us, their system would collapse, their profits and bonuses decline.

That did not happen to us, we were not crushed or defeated, I am happy to say. We are coming out the other side. Hard work does matter, and does pay off. And I don’t need Anonymous to lecture me on working hard, I love my work every single day and will compare my accomplishment to  hers whenever she wishes to come out into the light.

I wish for everyone who faces this in their lives to remember that for every Anonymous sitting behind a computer spouting hatred, there are many Bob Dudley’s, who understand how precious community is and what it means. People are good when given the chance, just look at the crowdsourcing sites.

I hope they all eat as much pizza as they want and buy flowers every week to brighten up their homes and raise their spirits. I hope they go online and find some good and cheap hotels to run off to also. I recommend it, especially during bankruptcy.

Cheap hotels by the beach in winter is just as much fun or more as a four-star hotel in Manhattan.