Like having feelings, making mistakes is an essential part of being human. Both are non-negotiable conditions of humanity. Please know that there's not a human being on earth who hasn't had many, many feelings and made many, many mistakes. If you meet people who say otherwise, don't listen to them; they're full of nonsense (to put it kindly).
...
My solemn promise to you is that if you do this work of building yourself up, brick by brick, skill by skill, step by step, you'll reap the tremendous rewards. As you build up the pyramid of self-love, you'll be climbing it too, until you reach the top and find that you have a level of kindness and calmness within yourself and for yourself that you never knew existed. And when you turn your powerful compassion upon yourself, you'll be living with a new You. A You that's lovable, fallible, imperfect, with strengths and weaknesses, wins and losses, sensitivity and resilience. A full and connected You.
~ Running on Empty, Jonice Webb
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
What a generally terrible weekend.
Had to deal with horrible situations personally, and then also this New Zealand massacre thing (and now I hear, another shooting in Amsterdam) -- I'm so tired from feeling stressed out and sad. And crying all the time. I feel like I've cried more in the past year than all my adult years before.
And then earlier tonight, my SLP class shared that one of our senior SLTs had her husband in the shooting massacre, but thankfully he appears to be recovering. #icannot It's jarring to think this scary event is no more than one degree of separation; it makes it that much more real and devastating. And my family is going on a trip to Paris soon-ish -- and I'm quite scared at some level, although insya Allah, all will be well. Everywhere in the western world sounds terrifying to me at the moment. But I do want to visit M and her family! They are such wonderful people and this divide that shouldn't be -- who is creating this divide! I have so many non-Muslim friends; so many. Scattered the world over. They are beloved to me. My closest friend E is a non-Muslim, and I would have you know she stood guard over me while I prayed in the freezing cold at a park in Japan. She knows that I need to pray five times, and sometimes reminds me about it; orders my halal food for me even before I need to ask. Many of my friends are like this. Why must there be this apparent stupid separation as though there aren't more things that are common than different between us?
Essentially why can't humans just be more accepting of difference;
it is my personal pet peeve to hear anybody mock anyone as weird
with no apparent rhyme or reason other than that the person is different from you.
So what! So what if someone is different from you!
Are you in high school and that young and stupid?
And why should high schoolers be excused to begin with -- ugh, all my memories of stupid clique-ish behaviours, and ostracizing individuals for whatever reason when we were teenagers. So stupid, and truly are the roots of horrible dehumanizing behaviour. If you're a bully in a small situation then you can be a bully further on. Anytime you leave somebody out of the group feeling smug about your being part of the in-group, it contributes to a culture of discrimination. You insecure, emotionally-weak, stupid bully! Stop trying to make yourself feel good at the expense of others' well-being!
Ugh, I have so much anger with the world.
Why are humans like this.
Is it because the ones who know enough are not doing enough?
I feel if there's anything, there's that.
There can't be true good without evil?
Had to deal with horrible situations personally, and then also this New Zealand massacre thing (and now I hear, another shooting in Amsterdam) -- I'm so tired from feeling stressed out and sad. And crying all the time. I feel like I've cried more in the past year than all my adult years before.
And then earlier tonight, my SLP class shared that one of our senior SLTs had her husband in the shooting massacre, but thankfully he appears to be recovering. #icannot It's jarring to think this scary event is no more than one degree of separation; it makes it that much more real and devastating. And my family is going on a trip to Paris soon-ish -- and I'm quite scared at some level, although insya Allah, all will be well. Everywhere in the western world sounds terrifying to me at the moment. But I do want to visit M and her family! They are such wonderful people and this divide that shouldn't be -- who is creating this divide! I have so many non-Muslim friends; so many. Scattered the world over. They are beloved to me. My closest friend E is a non-Muslim, and I would have you know she stood guard over me while I prayed in the freezing cold at a park in Japan. She knows that I need to pray five times, and sometimes reminds me about it; orders my halal food for me even before I need to ask. Many of my friends are like this. Why must there be this apparent stupid separation as though there aren't more things that are common than different between us?
Essentially why can't humans just be more accepting of difference;
it is my personal pet peeve to hear anybody mock anyone as weird
with no apparent rhyme or reason other than that the person is different from you.
So what! So what if someone is different from you!
Are you in high school and that young and stupid?
And why should high schoolers be excused to begin with -- ugh, all my memories of stupid clique-ish behaviours, and ostracizing individuals for whatever reason when we were teenagers. So stupid, and truly are the roots of horrible dehumanizing behaviour. If you're a bully in a small situation then you can be a bully further on. Anytime you leave somebody out of the group feeling smug about your being part of the in-group, it contributes to a culture of discrimination. You insecure, emotionally-weak, stupid bully! Stop trying to make yourself feel good at the expense of others' well-being!
Ugh, I have so much anger with the world.
Why are humans like this.
Is it because the ones who know enough are not doing enough?
I feel if there's anything, there's that.
There can't be true good without evil?
---
🙏
Let me post some happy things instead.
Earlier in the week, I actually came across this anime series from 2007 --
Lovely Complex.
It was amazingly hilarious and beautiful at the same time;
I loved it so much. And it had Tegomass's Kiss Kaerimichi no Love Song,
which made me all nostalgic, of course!
and I am proud to say I remembered the lyrics soon enough, hehe.
It's about a short boy and a tall girl struggling with their feelings for each other;
it's beyond adorable, and entirely relatable. I laughed so hard and cried equally hard.
I am going to be a bit crazy and post a crazy number of clips now --
spoilers ahead!
we need more happy stories in the world!
💜
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Was cleaning up my hard drive and found my collection of notes
from The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller.
Children who are intelligent, alert, attentive, sensitive, and completely attuned to the mother's well-being are entirely at her disposal. Transparent, clear, and reliable, they are easy to manipulate as long as their true self (their emotional world) remains in the cellar of the glass house in which they have to live -- sometimes until puberty or until they come to therapy, and very often until they have become parents themselves.
I keep telling my friends, sometimes offending them I'm sure, that parents should stop attempting to fix their children and fix themselves. I grow increasingly certain of this. Happy parents make happy children. Stressed out, anxious parents create distraught children. The most powerful teacher is the role model. So, you can say one million things to your children -- but if you don't embody it, forget it. Your children will learn to be whatever you are.
And these incredibly intelligent and sensitive children? The perfect children you have that you show off to everybody, on whom all your hope resides? It breaks my heart. They are truly the easiest canvases on which to project your inadequacies as an adult. They will be whatever the parent unconsciously wishes them to be; they are so smart they become what you need! And if they don't ever meet an adult who truly pays attention to them, they grow up also never paying attention to themselves, and feel disconnected from their real selves.
You know how they say the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother? True, I think, because if you have an insecure and emotionally-distraught woman, she will project all her needs and lack onto her poor children, and the smartest ones will carry the heaviest burden. Unless you have a strong woman who stands up for herself and for her children. I'm thinking of Trevor Noah's mother who he depicted in his autobiography Born A Crime; that lady was jaw-dropping, haha. She made Trevor and her jump out of a moving vehicle to save themselves, all that told in hilariously comedic prose. She also left her useless second husband when it came down to it. Women who continuously allow themselves to suffer in silence do a disservice to their children. You think your children can't tell how miserable you are? It comes from you in waves. And it creates all sorts of complexes in their young minds.
It's hard to be a parent, I get it. (Or maybe I don't since I'm not one, but I can appreciate it at least.) But I'm just saying, human beings should work on being good human beings.
Work on yourselves.
Then maybe... you'll be a better spouse, a better friend, a better parent.
from The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller.
Children who are intelligent, alert, attentive, sensitive, and completely attuned to the mother's well-being are entirely at her disposal. Transparent, clear, and reliable, they are easy to manipulate as long as their true self (their emotional world) remains in the cellar of the glass house in which they have to live -- sometimes until puberty or until they come to therapy, and very often until they have become parents themselves.
I keep telling my friends, sometimes offending them I'm sure, that parents should stop attempting to fix their children and fix themselves. I grow increasingly certain of this. Happy parents make happy children. Stressed out, anxious parents create distraught children. The most powerful teacher is the role model. So, you can say one million things to your children -- but if you don't embody it, forget it. Your children will learn to be whatever you are.
And these incredibly intelligent and sensitive children? The perfect children you have that you show off to everybody, on whom all your hope resides? It breaks my heart. They are truly the easiest canvases on which to project your inadequacies as an adult. They will be whatever the parent unconsciously wishes them to be; they are so smart they become what you need! And if they don't ever meet an adult who truly pays attention to them, they grow up also never paying attention to themselves, and feel disconnected from their real selves.
You know how they say the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother? True, I think, because if you have an insecure and emotionally-distraught woman, she will project all her needs and lack onto her poor children, and the smartest ones will carry the heaviest burden. Unless you have a strong woman who stands up for herself and for her children. I'm thinking of Trevor Noah's mother who he depicted in his autobiography Born A Crime; that lady was jaw-dropping, haha. She made Trevor and her jump out of a moving vehicle to save themselves, all that told in hilariously comedic prose. She also left her useless second husband when it came down to it. Women who continuously allow themselves to suffer in silence do a disservice to their children. You think your children can't tell how miserable you are? It comes from you in waves. And it creates all sorts of complexes in their young minds.
It's hard to be a parent, I get it. (Or maybe I don't since I'm not one, but I can appreciate it at least.) But I'm just saying, human beings should work on being good human beings.
Work on yourselves.
Then maybe... you'll be a better spouse, a better friend, a better parent.
... a mother can react empathically only to the extent that she has become free of her own childhood;
when she denies the vicissitudes of her early life, she wears invisible chains.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.
~ Max Planck, Quantum Physicist
So, I stole this quote from a TED Talk about a fairly spiritual topic;
note how this speaker, consciously or not, labeled famous Mr Planck
as a scientist, trying to highlight the fact that hey guys, even super-rational,
brilliant, smart people say such seemingly mystical, fluffy, and self-improvement-type lines!
Duh, believing in divine things seems super-rational to me.
the things you look at change.
~ Max Planck, Quantum Physicist
So, I stole this quote from a TED Talk about a fairly spiritual topic;
note how this speaker, consciously or not, labeled famous Mr Planck
as a scientist, trying to highlight the fact that hey guys, even super-rational,
brilliant, smart people say such seemingly mystical, fluffy, and self-improvement-type lines!
Duh, believing in divine things seems super-rational to me.
More things, as above, to bolster me for this week, and future weeks:
This, this, this.
thank you.
Although some days can get difficult,
I feel over time, (over the years of fighting and contemplation),
it's been getting easier. To be me.
I am me, I am happy to be me, I'm grateful to be me,
Thank You God for allowing me.
Now let me love You,
in the way You have made me.
I don't want to be anybody else.
shall end with a cute one!
yes, don't listen to "society".
(I do believe this is key to raising yourself to a higher standard.)
hehehe,
yes shutup shutup shutuppppp hahaha.
I love how heart is so blissfully happy here.
Just use your head, follow your heart,
and live life with gratitude and trust in God.
Monday, March 11, 2019
Here's to a better week this week;
to fighting inner battles successfully,
and facing external difficulties with grace,
insya Allah.
Blessed be he who has found his solitude,
not the solitude pictured in painting and poverty,
but his own, unique, predestined solitude.
Blessed be he who knows how to suffer!
Blessed be he who bears the magic stone in his heart.
To him comes destiny,
from him comes authentic action.
~ Herman Hesse
Wisdom = valuing the things you have while you have them
to fighting inner battles successfully,
and facing external difficulties with grace,
insya Allah.
Blessed be he who has found his solitude,
not the solitude pictured in painting and poverty,
but his own, unique, predestined solitude.
Blessed be he who knows how to suffer!
Blessed be he who bears the magic stone in his heart.
To him comes destiny,
from him comes authentic action.
~ Herman Hesse
Wisdom = valuing the things you have while you have them
Sunday, March 10, 2019
beauty is truth, truth beauty
I can't recall now what brought these words to memory quite suddenly,
but the words just came to my mind, and I looked up the poem again.
It reminds me of what I'm reading now about the beauty of everyday things,
and the profundity hidden in beauty that needs to be contemplated.
The first time I was introduced to this I was probably 13,
in one of the few literature classes that actually stayed with me.
(We had such crap literature teachers in RG;
the few successful lessons, this one with a Mrs. U,
stayed in memory like gems.)
Ode on a Grecian Urn
by John Keats
I may have said this before, and not so recently,
but it's so hard to express all the complexity that roils inside,
that sometimes, only art such as this comes close.
Striving to this, to beauty, to goodness, to equanimity,
to all the high virtues, is so bloody hard --
there are days I almost feel like tantrum-ing.
I can't be magnanimous every day.
Sometimes, what people say and how they think,
still cut. And it's exhausting having to rub against this
as a way of life, every single, bloody, day.
Implicit beliefs, perceptions, and thoughts, that you don't want
to subscribe to but are constantly bombarded with anyway.
God, so tiring. Sometimes, one's resources are depleted.
I was thinking last night,
when I find that precious thing...
or when I get married, whenever that may be,
I'd want it to be as small and as quiet as I can get away with.
People ruin beautiful things.
---
but the words just came to my mind, and I looked up the poem again.
It reminds me of what I'm reading now about the beauty of everyday things,
and the profundity hidden in beauty that needs to be contemplated.
The first time I was introduced to this I was probably 13,
in one of the few literature classes that actually stayed with me.
(We had such crap literature teachers in RG;
the few successful lessons, this one with a Mrs. U,
stayed in memory like gems.)
Ode on a Grecian Urn
by John Keats
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
I may have said this before, and not so recently,
but it's so hard to express all the complexity that roils inside,
that sometimes, only art such as this comes close.
Striving to this, to beauty, to goodness, to equanimity,
to all the high virtues, is so bloody hard --
there are days I almost feel like tantrum-ing.
I can't be magnanimous every day.
Sometimes, what people say and how they think,
still cut. And it's exhausting having to rub against this
as a way of life, every single, bloody, day.
Implicit beliefs, perceptions, and thoughts, that you don't want
to subscribe to but are constantly bombarded with anyway.
God, so tiring. Sometimes, one's resources are depleted.
I was thinking last night,
when I find that precious thing...
or when I get married, whenever that may be,
I'd want it to be as small and as quiet as I can get away with.
People ruin beautiful things.
---
not unrelated so I wanted to put this here;
hehe.
God, give us patience.
God, give us friends.
