Cynthia Daniello has a fascinating question for me about the thanks and adoration she has been getting for her so far successful and at times lonely campaign to save 50 small gardens and bird feeders  in her elder care complex from the bureaucrats seeking to ban them.

She also is getting a lot of praise for her new blog.

She is shy and humble and careful to not be self-serving.

The question was “how do I handle this kind of adoration?” It was new to her, and a shock.

I get the feeling that Cynthia has received much love in her life but not much adoration or praise.

She was too modest to publish this on her own blog, so she sent it to me. She should have known better. I have no secrets. And she better get used to adoration, she is an amazing person, I’ll give her plenty myself.

Her message:

You can’t intimidate  her, and she doesn’t quit.

Two weeks ago, Cynthia published a new blog, MyNeverEnding Song, she already has a substantial  following. She has true courage and natural empathy, and an unrelenting strength. My role has been to contact various news organizations, I’ve gotten lots of sympathy, so far no takers for the story.

I guess this post is really about fear and power. And admiration. I don’t know how to handle admiration either. Criticism is easier, and I get a lot of both, perhaps they balance each other out.

I just say “thank you,” I’m not sure there is anything else to say. And usually, I am a bit embarrassed, as Cynthia is.

Since Cynthia is offering me some admiration (I suggested that she start a blog when she called into my late radio show “Talking To Animals.”I was impressed), I will offer her some guidance, something I rarely do for other people.

I get some admiration now and then. I get some nasty messages now and then also. Welcome to the modern world. People tell me all the time that if I put myself out there, I am asking for it. Hardly an uplifting moral law.

But this is a good question, and one I have wrestled with myself. So I want to try to answer it for Cynthia.

I am one of those people who is wary of praise and admiration.  It always seems strange to me. I never feel I deserve adulation, even as I am pleased to read it most of the time.

I like it, and I need it, I am careful not to be a slave to it, or to be writing with it in mind. When you started writing for praise, you are doomed.

If someone dislikes me or resents my work, I tend to wonder at first what I am doing wrong.  I am used to cruel and unthinking messages, they can sting if you don’t have a way of dealing with it. Mine is to say these are not the people I listen to, and then move on. Sometimes it takes minutes, sometimes hours, once in a great while, days.

I don’t really believe admiration when I first hear it,  yet I need it sometimes and find it affirming. That is how I felt about Cynthia’s note. I believe everything she says.

I live for the idea that I am making a difference in somebody’s life, or that I am making someone think, or that my own experience is useful to them in some way. I relate to people, not movements, political parties or broad ideas.

Adoration reinforcing that keeps me writing and strengthens my moral and social commitment.

I make a point of never telling other people what to do, or lecturing or preaching to them. I write about myself and offer it in the hope it will be entertaining, enlightening or useful. That is why I write about me. I don’t ever write to argue, even though some people don’t want to accept that.

I am careful not to drink in too much admiration, I don’t want it to distort what I write or how I write. I don’t want my head to fill up with it.

There is an innocence in admiration, wrote Nietzsche, it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired. This is true of Cynthia, and has often been true of me.

I like admiration more than criticism, but I wish I could live in a world where I didn’t receive too much of either, admiration or contempt. Admiration can be gratifying, but it cannot be enabling.

That is, I know, a fantasy, even a delusion. We don’t get to choose the world we live in, we just have to accept it with grace.

At the same time, I can’t say I ever get enough of admiration.

Cynthia will learn that there is far too much feedback in the world for people like us.   People who pop up ideas have no time to think or breathe.  Within seconds, a vast army of second guessers appears.

Anybody in the world with a computer or phone and Wi-Fi can find you and tell you what they think, good or bad. Some of it is invariably not very nice. Some of it is.

Putting yourself out there is a bittersweet thing, adulation is the sugar,  hostility and judgment is the vinegar. The important thing is to show up.  You, Cynthia, are showing up.

What I say when someone praises me, as you are being praised now, Cynthia, I think a simple  “thank you” is all you need.

Simple enough and appropriate enough. And move on. Too much of anything can mush up a writer’s brain.

Ayn Rand asked if  we ever feel the longing for someone we could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to? I do. I think that is your real struggle, Cynthia, to accept that this is the person you are, finding your voice is simply a part of it.

I got a message of adulation today from A, who is “coming out” in her law firm as an intuitive who can hear voices. Everyone around her is appalled or in shock.

I’ve heard from her before, she is intelligent and thoughtful, I value her messages. She is happier than she has ever been.

“..It has been your blog that has been an unlikely companion on this journey to having no secrets,” A wrote. “With your example, I am becoming injured to the useless opinions of others and am now on the board of a spiritual retreat center. Mystics are everywhere if you give them a chance to show up. I am showing up. Finally. Thanks for the great example.”

I was stirred by that message, although I can’t honestly say I am completely insulated from the things people say to me or about me. I just don’t let them slow me or stop me.

Words hurt, and hurting words sail across the Internet like birds migrating in Spring. They are free and easy, lots of broken people get their power in this way. In this world, there will always be someone who doesn’t like something I say. That’s the deal, the price for being free.

I can say these people and their words will never shut me up,  have never  changed a word of  my writing. I have a good and full life, it will not be social media that brings me down.

I can’t express how much the two messages from A and Cynthia mean to me.

Cynthia crediting me with her starting her blog, her voice to the world at 84.

And A freeing her inner self to show up for life, just like I preach.

I want to cry when I get messages like this, and yes, I am grateful for them, they lift me up, they are my fuel and sustenance, I wouldn’t ever lie about that. I can just say thank you. One message like that can carry me a long way.

Cynthia, I would encourage you to be grateful for adulation. It is rare in this world.

You, like me, have worked hard for all the appreciation  you get, you think before you write. you are empathetic and compassionate,  and you care about what happens to people and to animals.

Believe me, there will be people out there who will find you threatening and  arrogant and will seek to knock you down a peg. In your mind, see them as red soccer balls and kick them over the horizon or fence in front of you. I love doing that, and it works.

The Internet is a miraculous thing, but it also a cesspool of hostility and judgment. I see anger as a toll for freedom.

I would advise you to think carefully about the people you listen to and pay attention to – those who nourish you and lift you up, as you have done for me, or those who come from small people who hate anyone bigger than they are or freer.

Don’t listen to them, they are peckerheads, toothless ducks and midgets, as a  great man once said. They will nibble you to death if you let them.

When you encounter messages of adulation, in person or online, bow your head, be grateful, and move on. I think it’s as simple as that. You deserve every sweet note you get.

And please remember that there are many people in the world who will never hear a single world of adulation from anyone. I always give thanks when I get some, and ration it for the future.

I offer admiration for people whenever and wherever I can.

I have learned to never speak poorly of my life, and never dismiss the power of praise and encouragement.

And I am learning to move on, the path to real spirituality.

As you wrote the other day, you are just singing your song, Cynthia, at age 84 and from your wheelchair, Hannah the Brittany. That alone makes me want to cry along with you.