jbrains

You might be done with people, not the internet.

We have had an embassy mix up two passports, so we received one and someone else received the one we were expecting. Their trip was in three months, so they had no urgency, but ours was in four days.

We ended up tracking down the other person while we looked into our options. At one point, we were about to fly from Toronto to Ottawa and back in order to pick up the passport ourselves. In the end, we paid them to send the passport on a flight with a courier, so that at least I didn't have to go.

We got the passport at midnight and left for the airport 10 hours later.

Good luck.

Helix? I've never noticed a security problem.

At some point I stopped listening to him

Excellent. Sometimes, you are simply the person available for them to scream at. In situations such as that, pretending to listen without listening represents a useful strategy.

I hope you can make it past this incident soon. Time means distance means peace.

I think there's room for both.

Let me see whether I understand.

I could make a handful of guesses about OP and their situation, and then use those guesses to write hundreds or even thousands of words, some of which might help and many of which wouldn't. On the contrary, some of them could be downright damaging, depending on a bunch of factors I don't know about OP, their relative, and the relationship between them.

Or I could ask some questions and wait for the answers, then narrow my suggestions to those that, given that additional context, are more likely to help.

I'm trying to help one person, not write a chapter of a book.

As for this:

But coming back to my main point, I still don't see how the motivation could dictate strategies most likely to help.

You said that. I told you that the answer fills a bookshelf. I suggested two books to start. I totally understand if you don't care enough about the answer to read a book. I guess you could ask an LLM to summarize one of those books for you, in case that would be more palatable to you.

And yes, I know that this sounds evasive. I genuinely don't mean it that way. I don't have a 50-word answer for you that distills decades of research into why people choose to do what they do, such as OP's relative choosing not to learn to read. They might not understand it at all themself.

It's fine with me if we disagree on this point. Indeed, I have no interest in trying to convince you. I'd like to help OP and I'm not much concerned about justifying my methods to you. If you're actually interested, read the Deci book. I really liked it.

Peace.

I know what it can be, but I don't know what it is. When I know more, I can offer more helpful advice.

For example, if their motivation really is as simple as "I want to", then quite frankly, their relative has no obligation to give OP what they want by letting OP help. And trying to force that on their relative seems risky and invites failure. This is known as "inflicting help" and is a very common source of friction in relationships.

That's why I'm asking.