It was 1972. I was 24 and dancing professionally, touring the world in a major modern dance company — on top of my game. But I knew something was missing. And I knew I wouldn't find it cruising on Christopher Street or in the bars and baths. Then I met Paul.

Well, first I met Dean Hannotte. We were in a talk group that formed out of the Gay Activist Alliance's Fire House at 99 Wooster Street, the first gay community center, located in SoHo when it was still real and not a trendy mall.

Our group had maybe 10 gay men and we'd meet weekly or so in each other's apartments. Then Dean told us about his then-partner Paul who was starting the Ninth Street Center which serendipitously was opening up a few doors down from my own Ninth Street apartment! There was a kick-off party in an upper-west side penthouse and the buzz was something about polarity and finding meaning in being gay and we joked about being "butch and nellie." But the serious tone around meaning intrigued me.

I was eager to attend the meetings and I attended regularly — so grateful for a gay community that was serious, supportive and fun. The Ninth Street Center was a wholesome place, in a very confused and permissive world, to make friends and form bonds and to find a deeper meaning and purpose in being gay.

I admired Paul since he had been a fancy psychiatrist in suburban Chicago with a house, wife and son, but he knew it was false, not truly him. He left and became a short-order cook in Long Beach, CA, if I remember correctly. This was so compelling, courageous and real, especially for me living in a world of creativity for sure, but also pretense.

What I got from Paul was that there was a gift in being gay beyond our newly acquired liberation. Remember, Stonewall had happened just 3 years before. There was meaning for gay folk beyond our right to act out in the bars and baths. Paul said being gay was creative in and of itself. And also, we weren't our careers — we were more. Our identity was fuller and richer than even the fanciest career. What a gift these ideas were, especially for me being over-identified with my fancy dance career and feeling a bit empty because of it.

I remember my last performance as a dancer was in the relatively small theater at NYU adjacent to the East Village. After performing in huge opera houses in Europe, South America and on Broadway and the Kennedy Center, this was the end of that trail.

I walked out and away from that world and into the East Village to discover if I were loveable, creative and real just being me — as Paul so bravely suggested. He inspired me to follow the most humbling, dangerous and fulfilling path of all — of being myself.

Another highlight: I remember the night Paul announced that the American Psychiatric Association had removed homosexuality as a disorder from the DSM. We all laughed — we knew we weren't crazy being gay. But we were a bit lost and hurt and Paul created a loving, real and wise haven to find a better way.

Now as we gays are being accepted into the main stream, we have lost some of our edge as an outsider group. But back then, we were in the wilderness finding something real. And Paul was there, creating a safe and inspiring outpost in a very troubled world.

I'm always grateful to Paul. He was a courageous beacon and example of being true in a corrupt world. This is a goal I hold for myself and I often think of his brave example. Now I'm a therapist myself and hope to inspire the people that I counsel with as brave an example as Paul Rosenfels was.

Thank you Paul. You truly helped me find and be myself. In a world that rewards conformity and pretense, you helped me ring true.

I do believe in an afterlife and I can't wait to see you, Paul, and compare notes.

Paul Rosenfels is #3 on my top-ten list of those who most profoundly helped me in my life's journey.

On Amazon.com, Fred's new book, , is described as follows:

Why is Homo sapiens a suicidal species? Why do people bring innocent children into this violent, overpopulated world? Why do people ignore the mounting evidence of environmental collapse? Why is humanity courting its own extinction?

In addressing these questions, Field Guide to a New Species identifies two species of human — Homo sapiens, which have been around for the last seventy thousand years or so, and Homo veritas, which are just evolving into being. The guide also explores two intermediate types, Rebels and Seekers, thus delineating four categories of human beings, each in its own place on the evolutionary path to consciousness. The guide investigates how trauma and truth affect the behavior, attitudes, and sustainability of each — and, in so doing, provides the reader a self-reflective tool for personal evolution

Fred Timm is a writer, psychotherapist and visionary. Since moving to New York City in 1970, he has written radio commercials, taught movement for actors, written and produced Off-Broadway plays — and toured the world as a modern dancer with the Nikolais Dance Theatre. Through it all his primary purpose has been to know himself and evolve.