New Peril

It is the same at age 60 as it was at age 6; whether you are the town doctor or the town drunk, the principles do not change. When you have made a mistake — and by this I mean when you have fucked-up good and proper —there are exactly four duties you must attend to in order to mend fences:

1) You must acknowledge your errors in a vocal and meaningful way.

2) You must apologize with specificity and sincerity for that thing you have done.

3) You must enter into a good-faith conversation about recompense.

4) Once those have been accomplished, you must descend from the abstract, into the physical. You must step forward into the void and extend your right hand to the one whom you have offended. By doing so, you are saying, 

Here are my flesh, blood and bones — see how well they slip into your own?’