Lipton’s Journal/January 25, 1955/262

This Journal in so far as it is a piece or a record of my Lipton’s self-analysis has had one objective correlative. For in a way this Journal is a great big wager—I am betting that the under-dog (the H in me) is going to score. That I am going to come out of this bigger than I went in—successfully analyzed. And today before I started writing, I spent four hours with my father, and we talked, and it was the first talk we ever had in our lives, and I was able to tell him that I love him. And for once I was able to give him what he needs, to tell him what a great guy I think he is, instead of hitting him with all kinds of shit and making him feel like a piece of dirt. In a way, for the first time I understood him, understood him from inside himself and I was close to tears all the time, not tears of pity for him but tears of sorrow for myself and the way I had acted, and tears of pride at how marvelous he is really, and how his gambling was an expression of his artistry, and how now at the age of sixty-three he isn’t ridden with cancer or asthma or heart trouble or rheumatism, but instead looks hale and hearty and handsome, a dapper little guy who’s always been a gentleman and never hurt anybody except as he was forced to reluctantly in expressing his artistry. And I really got the feeling that he’s going to grow in his old age, and find pleasures in play.