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JOE'S DEATH WAS SO UNEXPECTED. It shocked, it numbed, and then I was flooded with the regret of not having seen more of Joe and Tess in the past years. I was reminded sharply of how easily we treat life as if it had no time limit, and act as if today's opportunities will still be there tomorrow. The sudden loss made me again aware of how much we allow the pace of life, the simple too-muchness of life to determine closeness and quality of friendships and lessen our opportunity for rich exchange. Life imposes on all of us the often painful necessity of choosing from the options available, but far too often do we fail to ask the questions leading to choice and thus allow time and convenience decide for us.
I believe Joe to have been a person who did ask questions, who was aware that our actions have consequences, and that clarity of choice was important, in fact, mattered a great deal. Joe Barnett's life was cut short. But, I believe, the life which was given to him he lived with an in-born intensity fueled by emotional and intellectual passions; an intensity which he brought to his experiences with the world, the personal and the professional ones. In our professional circle, Joe was one of the few true impassioned theorists. Theory about people mattered, not as a monument of beauty, but because theoretical clarity could enhance the clarity of therapeutic effectiveness. In analyzing human difficulties in living, Joe emphasized our human propensity to adapt to life by selective vision or selective blindness coupled with an inclination to create fictions or myths about the world around us. Thus it was important to him