In his time on the Forum, he's grown as a reader, an editor, a creative writer, as a person, and as a digital citizen in ways he foresaw, and in unforeseen, welcome, sublime, and profound ways, for which he gives hearty thanks.

He heartily thanks Forum members who have provided him insights, topics and subjects for study--and unwitting subjects for observation--and who generously welcomed and supported and encouraged him. He gives special thanks for those who, for a saddly too brief a time, shared with him a moment or two of intimate comraderie in his passions. He is deeply moved by those figurative embraces.

If the one-percenter rule applies--he believes it does for both you heroic outliers and you ignoble miscreants participating above and below the pleasanter corps of the Forum's participants--he thanks you one-percenters too for forcing him to appreciate that a healthy, diverse lifestyle gives and takes all kinds of viewpoints.

Therefore, with one percent of his gratitude, he also thanks you ignoble miscreants for your unwitting, impulsive, or deliberate trespasses. You contributed in large, unintended ways to his personal and creative growth. Noteably, you gave him deep insights into his failings and frailities. You goaded him into learning how to better cope with his damaged personality and your trespasses upon it.

He offers in return an earnest fare-thee-well gift, a list of principal causes of you ignoble miscreants' trespasses you perpetrate on the Forum and those you and others of your ill-willed ilk perpetuate abroad so that you may know them in order to take what corrective action you can, and so you will be known by your ignoble actions.

• Uncalled-for personal criticisms; also known as argumentum ad hominem
• Pointless point-by-point refutation arguments; also known as argumentum ad nauseam
• Self-indulgent, self-justified arguments based on an "everyone else is doing it" irrational excuse or an after-the-fact hypocritical justification of "you do it too;" also known as argumentum tu quoque
• Miscelanea: self-righteous justification for trespasses due to their tempering effects, otherwise known as "thickening skin," use of imperative voice, gloating of any kind, browbeating perceived subordinates, gibes deviously calculated to incite and perpetuate arguments, negative cohort and peer pressures, your indifferent ignorance of others' vulnerable personalities and toward your own vulnerable personalities, your intolerance of others' beliefs, opinions, values, needs, desires, passions, and convictions, holding others hostage to your unyielding standards, artlessly singing one's own praises, assigning and using belittling or derogatory terms or names, and a host of your other picky-petty disruptive minutia; also known as the sin of pride

He thanks you ignoble miscreants for prompting him to learn how to write about, read, interpret, and understand those fallacies and frailties in whoever he encounters them, and thanks you for teaching him how those trespasses once crippled his ability to communicate, due to and contributing to his miseries, and from learning about, now offers him some small measure of quiet, patient endurance for yours and others' trespasses.

He thanks all for their positivity, and you ignoble miscreants' negativity, for prompting his sharing this swan song. Although it has kicked around in his mind since his abrupt departure, prompting this farewell soliloquy, he intended to keep it to himself. However, after a critical examination of his motives, his stakes, his conscience, he decided to let it fall where it may.

He asks forgiveness for his trespasses, please.

Thank you, Ms. Dalton-Woodbury, for your judicious forbearance, your many and various praiseworthy contributions, and your compassion.

Once again, extrinsic ranges alone on the coldly comforting periphery; pages to read, to write, to study, to edit, to publish before he sleeps.

No longer helpful, I understand. But harmful? Now I'm worried.

Edited to add: Feel free to email me if you ever need a respectful discussion or critique.

I understand you leaving if you feel that you are gaining nothing here, but I think it is sad if you are leaving only because of a few people have been disrespectful.

I enjoy your posts and insights. I think that you bring a unique perspective to this community, and I will miss you. I hope you change your mind.

Timid as I was upon my first posting in this forum, I braced for a noobie brow beating the second I hit submit. To my delight and relief insightful feedback, which came in a long and wise post was what I instead recieved. This contribution led to a few group sessions that discussed published short stories and to this day was the most valuable experience I have had in this workshop.

Thank you , Extrinsic. Your participation in that little group and your contributions to this workshop overall will certainly be missed by me, for one.

I certainly understand the reason you are parting. I myself and a few others I respect and have worked with here have been facing a similar choice to leave for the same reasons.

Hopefully your leave will only be a brief one. And hopefully you can forgive whoever riled you up. I always say nobody's perfect - one day they are angels, the next day they are a**es, then the day after that they are angels again. Can't be helped, we all are an unpredictable bunch. Forgive, accept, and move on, I always say. Or it'll drive you nuts, lol.

Where are these ruffians? And where is this conflict? I'm not saying it isn't here, I just don't see it so I'm curious.

I always thought I was the resident miscreant. And I don't think this is my fault, given my absence.

And like the three ruffians of old, you'll never gain a master craftsman's understanding by killing him and hiding his remains under an acacia.

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or what was it that Albert Einstein called those who do things over and over again, expecting different results?

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