Dear Milton

October 26, 2023 | OPINION | By Zeke Lloyd

Dear Milton,

I love your weekly column. I really appreciate your coverage; I’ve been seeing a lot about this subject in the news recently. Just wanted to reach out to ask for a recommendation from you.

I’m looking for an enemy. I’m tired of searching. I just want to know what to think. Can you help? I trust you. It seems like everyone has an enemy. The worst of the worst, all theirs to hate. I want one too.

Ideally, it’d be the enemy of my dreams. The one that kills me in my nightmares. The one who’s always stronger. Bigger. Tougher. The one who catches me every time because I can’t ever run away fast enough.

But real. And now it’s their nightmare. And I get to be the hero.

Do you know of anyone? Just one enemy will do, but it’d like it to be my worst enemy. Gratis, of course.

I just don’t know how everyone else has got an enemy. At first, I thought they checked The Times. I couldn’t find one there. And it took too much time to look. I had to get past the inconveniences of it. The nuances. Then I checked The Post and The Journal. Nothing.

So now I’m reaching out to you. Really, I’m looking everywhere I can think of.

It’s just that I know the evil is too great – at least, everyone says so. But it really is everyone. And if the enemy is that horrible, I can’t stand idle. Let me know if there’s anything you recommend. Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Fred

Dear Fred,

Thanks for the kind words about my work. I appreciate that you read my column. Sorry, Fred. I wish I could give you one, spell it out right here. I just can’t. There is no morality in wrath. There is no victory in violence. Animosity is not advocacy. Protectors of peace utilize a unique methodology; one I might recommend to you.

It’s difficult. Peace has few true enemies. The trouble is that it’s easy to mistake almost anything for one. To find something and hate it. All of it. But you can’t look for that, Fred.

Directionless anger is the greatest enemy of peace, wrath we carelessly assign because it makes rage, fear and ignorance easier to bear.

But pure evil is a rare manifestation. We can’t bargain for it.

Cordially,

Milton