To Be, Or Not To Be... Joseph Heller, Let Us See...

Dear Juliet

I'm worried...

Should I be more assertive, should I be more pious and ethical, should I be more kind?

I think kind wins it. I can't go around telling you what to do, but on the other hand it's all relatively simple. And if I don't you may end up stuck like Norma Desmond in some sordid mansion just off Sunset Boulevard...

And yet I can't just tell you to call me so we can discuss it...

It's a real Catch-22 situation.

To be, or not to be, that is the question... 

All right, all right...

I don't think you should suffer many more of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, though letting them instead whistle like the forlorn wind past your cheek and by such opposition ending them may seem harder than scaling the world's highest, harshest peak.

Will's going to have my guts for garters for that one...

Well, I'll give voice to a little risk: you can call me if you like, but not if you don't want to.

And no, the shoe won't drop.

Or perhaps simply go back to basics: remember who you are and that you have agency. You are, indeed, free.

Not only that, you are Hollywood royalty and a celebrity in America.

You really do have quite a lot of power. You don't have to do things just because people (including me) think you should or in order to mollify the egos of others.

I know these sound like big steps, but it only takes a small one to get out of a cage, however gilded it may be.

You don't have to go on feeling like a wilted flower. I don't want you to be a wilted flower. I miss the vibrant girl who got back to me via email with lots of emojis and exclamation marks. I wonder where she's gone and I want her back.

She's still in there.

I hope she comes out. I hope she comes back.

Love,

James








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