#honesty

writingsforwinter:

REPEAT AFTER ME

ADDICTS ARE NOT BAD PEOPLE 

ADDICTS ARE HUMAN LIKE EVERYONE ELSE 

ADDICTS DESERVE LOVE NOT HATE 

ADDICTS NEED OUR HELP

ADDICTS ARE NOT TO BE JOKED ABOUT

ADDICTS ARE MORE THAN THEIR ADDICTION

My fault? When I tripped over because I didn’t tie up my shoelaces, that was my fault. When my favourite plant died because I forgot to water him, that was my fault. When I lost a friend because I kept putting off contacting them, that was my fault.

When you locked me in your room, when you tried to finger me under the tables in our science class, when you told everyone we had sex, when you made fun of my body and called me a whore, when you tricked me, when you groomed me, when you made fun of me for going to the police, was that my fault? You say yes, I say fuck you.

Those parts of me I’ll never have back, you stole that. There was no us, and there certainly was no me. You haunt me, when I see you my legs don’t work, and I want to run towards you, to embrace you, then thrust my knife into your back. Because that is what you did to me.

I see you laugh at me; I see you jeer. Whore, slut, skank, did you ever really know my name? Did you know what my favourite colour was? Did you know what show I loved the most? Did you even want me? Or did you want my body? You salivate, dripping drool like a dog with a gaping maw, you ate me, then spat me out when I resisted. You didn’t want me when I fought back.

You’re a monster, a lying cheating beast who prays on those who are smaller. You saw a rabbit, ripe, fresh and full of hopes, and you snapped its neck. For so long that rabbit lay there dormant, its neck hanging like a loose rope. I loved you once, at least I thought I did, I was 12 when you started attacking me. You said you love me, then proceeded to treat me like a toy.

You won, you won finally, I broke. 2 times I stood on a ledge, 2 times I choked myself with a rope. I turned, naïve, thinking maybe you’d see what you did. You were laughing. Mouthing “jump”. So, I tried, and 3 angels held me down, took me to the hospital and tried to fix what they could. They mended my physical wounds and tried to fix my brain. They had to remove the TV remote chord, I tried to die again.

I haven’t seen you since, and that brings me great joy. Every time I hear your name, see you active online, I laugh. I’m not fixed, not yet. I don’t think I ever will be. There’s no way to fix what you’ve broken, but that doesn’t mean that it will always bring me down. One day I know I’ll be able to stop the flashbacks, look past the trauma and know it wasn’t my fault. Until then I just must play it day by day. One day you’ll be scared of me, like how I am with you. And on that day, I will have won.

Eat better.

No, I don’t mean just eat better foods. After all, disinformation aside, at this point I feel reasonably confident that “eat food. not too much. mostly plants” works just fine for my body type, metabolism, and tax bracket. Granted, I don’t always take that advice. But I mean eat in better ways. Don’t choke down breakfast; chew, savor, appreciate, think of the all the days I woke up sad and punished my system with a Bustelo-only diet.

And on the flip side of this, no more gorging - whether stoned, in a hurry, or having just come off cardio. No matter what basal command urges an ever-ramped chew/swallow/repeat, slow down. Create a reasonable portion. Dip over the boundary of that portion only when appropriate, not just when available. Quit eating with a scarcity mentality.

Binge good TV, use bad TV as emotional caulking

I was piercingly depressed this week and I watched the 2nd half of THE LEFTOVERS first season, which for all its shaky starts turns out to be the truly bleakest and most perfectly depressing show on the current roster. This is good TV. HOMELAND, for all its stupidity, can be binged in two days for an experience akin to classic 24 with better casting and half the episodes. 

Bad TV is used to muffle the buzz of boredom when nothing more healthy will do. It is a way of sitting in one place, alone, dislocated. When you must exist in empty space. But it should seal narrow cracks, not shingle your roof.

Stop softpedaling language

Professional interactions in publishing (and I’m sure it’s not alone) so often subsists on a mat of insincerity and complicity in that insincerity. We say that sounds great but we mean that sounds like words. We say we’ll do it but we mean we’ll do it when you prompt us the 2nd time. We say it’ll be good when we mean we have no fucking clue how it’ll be. We say we’re excited when we mean we don’t want to say we feel nothing. We say she’s nice when we mean she’s boring. We say that’s unfortunate when what we mean is that we’re happy they’re failing. We say all good when we mean some good. We say we really enjoyed it when we mean that we burst into fractured sobs upon turning the final page because somewhere in this mound of edited text was a sharp edge that rent a hole in our heart’s exoskeleton and we don’t like that such a thing can happen because it hurts and pain is bad. 

Stop being so negative to seem cool

Negativity and irony in media and publishing is easy and comforting. By saying something is terrible or the worst thing ever or the worst or pretentious or flawed or just awful or stupid or that it’s your most hated example of another thing you don’t like, you’re very quickly and efficiently saying I’m Not Like That. Compulsive othering is a human feature but it’s not a good thing. Especially when it’s used to silence benign positivity; “I was happy because of this thing, it made me feel good” “you must be naive and stupid and if you really think that you’re not one of the cool kids” it’s fucking sickening and it drives so many ad-revenue engines and while I recognize nobody can always exist in a perfectly warm bath of good vibes about any and all things unless that person is literally a god, it is tiresome and boring to read and listen to people who can never be expressly and messily vulnerable about the many things that make them feel comforted and beautiful and perfect in the moment and strip away every ounce of self-consciousness like a cleansing fire, because they are afraid of sounding happy. Criticism and lazy outrage are not easy unless that’s all you do. A heart that beats with emotional flab is not one I wish to sync with.

Defend Kid Rock

Kid Rock writes great songs, he’s very talented, he gives a lot to charity, he likes a lot of the same music as me, and I’ve been listening to him for years. He has a new album out. I’m gonna probably like it just fine and continue to argue that anyone who doesn’t listen to him because a mean kid in fifth grade used to yell the lyrics to Bawitaba during recess (or equivalent) is being needlessly self-limiting.

Be skeptical and call out when appropriate the people who use texts to validate their opinions poorly

Smart people have nuanced ideas of how “the world works” and “how humans think” and yet I see some cling to the idea that one book like sof (or similar) has unlocked the secret molecule of Truth about all humans and therefore they can make sweeping statements on how neuroscience works is gonna be getting a frowny face from yours truly. I’m drawn to these people, but I prefer smart people who remember they’re tiny and stupid and insignificant sometimes.

Visit every NYC bookstore new and used

Every Barnes and Noble, every tiny stack of used books on the streetcorner table or in the cramped floor-through apartment, every place that sells books in every corner of this ridiculous city. Staten Island, Gravesend, Bronx, I’m coming, I swear.

Panic better

Every time I panic now I set my phone timer for 45 minutes, to trick my brain (panic part) using another more powerful part of my brain (procrastinating part). I can panic in 45 minutes. It’s working.

Read white guy novels with healthy and skeptical abandon

I like Knausgaard, Richard Ford, John Updike, and DFW. Don’t need to defend that because nobody is threatening this. Nothing wrong with enjoying books by or about members of your tribe - just as long as you don’t get hung up on it. (This includes books only set in the last decade.) There’s a lot of good- and bad-natured criticism of white dudes who write books, and none of it should stop you from reading their books if you want to. Just read non-white non-guy books with abandon too. This is part of the “like what you like” thing. 

Re-embrace uncertainty

I have a Career now, but I still don’t know how my 401k works, the difference between “then/than” every time, or when my parents will die. I have a new nephew but I don’t know what his life is gonna be like (though it’ll be filled with love and good food because my sister’s a bomb-ass cook and nurturer). But in order to not get riveted by the Now and spiral into a pit of depression, I must remember that I cannot understand the ramifications of every single action I do or do not take. Sometimes shit is just going to happen and no amount of control-freakiness can change that, so I might as well quit worrying so much.

Trust the right doctors

Before I switched jobs I got a physical where the doctor found a suspicious mole. I then visited a dermatologist (my first - I don’t have the world’s best skin but it’s always been a'ight) and got a biopsy that said nothing cancerous but the doctor still urged that I should get the whole thing removed.

Then I got a new job and switched insurance and suddenly I had to start the process again - find a new dermatologist and find a surgeon that wouldn’t ask for two week’s pay up front. Months went by. And every month, that first dermatologist emailed and called to check if I’d gotten the mole removed. Without any possibility of financial compensation, she urged me over and over to address the mole, get it cut off, do it quickly, wherever, whatever it took. I resented this. Not everyone is a rich doctor, right? Not everyone can afford to get surgery for a benign cluster of cells at any point in the pay month.

So I finally slipped in an appointment with a new doctor before Christmas, who biopsied the rest of the mole to be absolutely sure what the follow-up treatment would be. Turns out I have a stage zero melanoma. Which is exactly as unconcerning as skin cancer can possibly be - you basically just get it snipped off and that’s it - but I wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for the first doctor, who gave so much of a shit that she hectored me like a good doctor should. When I emailed to thank her, she just said “I just wish we had national health care. I’m glad you did this.”

Find good doctors, stick by them, keep yourself alive.

Say I was wrong

Admitting you fucked up when you fucked up will make your life a lot easier. Just don’t admit it all the time and for no good reason.

Don’t smoke things you find on the street, it never ends well

Street weed gave me a headache and street Newports gave me the hangover equivalent of Ragnarok so, yeah.

Read more poetry

The more good and blood-drawing poetry I read the cleaner and stronger I get. It’s expensive to buy. It’s worth it.

And finally…

Read what scares you and makes you angry

Patricia Lockwood scares me. She’s so good and writes such terrifying things. Kiese Laymon scares me. He describes anger and paralysis and fear and systemic injustice so perfectly and so VITALLY. People who are either so talented or are so good at describing terrifying realities or fictions that they make you question the entire cocoon of ways you make yourself Feel Okay are the people you should read. People who disagree with you and who say things that offend you and frustrate you are always hard to read and you can burn yourself out but if you approach them out of a sincere desire to understand who they are, why they do and say what they do and say, and what big tectonic forces and filters have shaped their perceptions to make them so different from yours, are the people who will save a significant part of the intelligent person’s life, every time.

Happy new year!

dailynietzsche:

“Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty.”

—F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §26 (excerpt).

It’s important to have morally neutral language to describe actions. This is especially important for actions that are always, usually, or sometimes morally wrong.

For instance:

• In English, ‘killing’ and ‘murder’ mean different things.
  
• ‘Murder’ always means killing that is either illegal or morally wrong. 
  
• ‘Killing’ can describe any act that causes someone to die. 
  
• This distinction makes it possible to talk about when killing is and isn’t justified. 
  
• Even for people who think that killing is always murder, this is important. 
  
• Without morally neutral language, it’s impossible to express a clear opinion on whether or not killing is ever acceptable.
  

For instance (names randomly generated using http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/gen-random-us-us.php):

• Heather: *shoots Sonja*.
  
• Sonja: *dies as a result of being shot by Heather*.
  
• In this situation, Heather definitely killed Sonja. Whether or not she murdered Sonja is something people can argue about.
  
• Eg: If Sonja was trying to kill Heather and Heather shot her in self-defense, almost everyone would argue that this isn’t murder.
  
• Eg: If Heather was trying to rob Sonja’s store and shot her to prevent her from calling for help, almost everyone would consider that murder.
  
• Eg: If Heather felt threatened by Sonja in a public space and shot her rather than trying to run away, most people would consider that murder, but some people would vehemently disagree.
  
• Because ‘murder’ and ‘killing’ are different words, everyone would be able to express their opinion in a clear way.
  

When it’s impossible to describe actions without condemning them, it can be impossible to describe what people are actually doing. This makes it hard to have an honest conversation, and even harder to hold people accountable.

Here’s a disability services example (randomly generated names):

• Charles (a staff person): I don’t believe in coercion. I never control my clients or tell them what to do. They’re totally in control of their own lives.
  
• Patricia  (a disabled adult client): I want to eat some cookies at 3am.
  
• Staff person: You can’t eat cookies at 3am. You agreed to take care of yourself by making healthy choices, and it’s important to keep your agreements.
  
• Patricia: You’re telling me what to do instead of letting me decide. 
  
• Staff person: No I’m not. I’m telling you that you can’t eat cookies at 3am because staying up past your bedtime and eating junk food aren’t healthy choices. I would never tell you what to do.
  
• Patricia doesn’t get access to cookies, and is put on a behavior plan if she leaves her room after 10pm.
  

In this example, Charles is blatantly and unambiguously controlling Patricia and telling her what to do. When Patrica says ‘telling me what to do’, she means it literally. When Charles says, ‘telling people what to do’ he really means ‘telling people what to do (without a good reason)’. He doesn’t realize that coercion is still coercion even if he thinks it’s justified coercion. Without a direct literal way to refer to the act of controlling people, it becomes nearly impossible to discuss when coercion is and isn’t justified.

This happens a lot, in any number of contexts, often following this kind of pattern:

• Person: I would never do The (Unacceptable) Thing!
  
• Person: *does The (Unacceptable) Thing*.
  
• Someone else: You literally just did The (Unacceptable) Thing.
  
• Person: No, I didn’t do The (Unacceptable) Thing. I had a good reason, so it wasn’t The (Unacceptable) Thing. I would never do The (Unacceptable) Thing.
  

Sometimes people who talk this way are lying — but not always. Sometimes it’s that they don’t understand that reasons don’t erase actions. Sometimes they think actions only count as The (Unacceptable) Thing when they consider the actions to be unjustified/unacceptable. If you point out that they are, in fact, literally doing The Thing, they think that means you’re accusing them of being bad — and that you couldn’t be right, because they have a good reason.

This language problem is breaking a lot of conversations that need to happen, particularly around privilege and misuse of power.

Tl;dr: It needs to be possible to describe what people are doing in morally neutral terms. This is especially important for actions that are always, usually, or sometimes morally wrong. Scroll up for more about why and a concrete example.

I discovered this new game: We’re not really strangers. Have you played? It’s basically the Truth part in Truth or Dare, in cards. It’s meant to be a “purpose driven” game that helps you break ice and get to know other people beyond the surface. It’s silly to think that we need a game to facilitate deep discussions, but this is just where we are right now. I’m not going to be one of those people who forgo things because “in principle” it shouldn’t even exist. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how you start, as long as you able to reach your objective. What’s important is the conversations you are able to have. Plus, social interaction is becoming less and less intuitive, and do we expect to just drop interactions all together? Do you not have a conversation with someone simply because they don’t speak the same language? Anyway. The game has questions on cards, from “How are you, really?” to “What’s the most pain you felt that wasn’t physical?” It helps you push boundaries, dares you to be brave, and even provides you blank note paper so that you can write secrets, confessions, to “dig deeper.” 

I came across the game with that last question, “What’s the most pain you felt that wasn’t physical?” And I contemplated a long time: have I even experienced pain? Other than for professional or work-related purposes, I haven’t thought a question for that long, racking my brain for experiences, figuring out how I would find a suitable answer. And it’s likely that I don’t have a good answer, because in my mind, there is nothing more painful than loss. I think losing something you can never have back can be extremely painful, and I don’t know if I remember feeling that. I know that your brain tends to purposely block out painful experiences, so I couldn’t recall anything acute. I remember saying once, when I broke up with a boyfriend, that it felt like a deep physical cut in the upper left part of my abdomen, but I couldn’t remember howthat felt, except that it hurt a lot. The things I do distinctly remember and perhaps can still feel though, are the droning hums of ache, nothing “painful” per se, but achy and unable to pinpoint. All things that happened when I was younger: Feeling unwanted in a given context, wondering why I couldn’t love myself, feeling invisible, feeling misunderstood, grief, etc. Our lives as we live it aren’t always punctuated by tragedy, but most of us still go through important, defining, hurting moments. It made me think, how lucky I am, to not have to deal with change so suddenly. But maybe that’s not the way that we should think about pain. It isn’t as clear-cut as choosing between a second of intense pain vs. a minute of ache. Maybe the most dangerous pain is the kind in which you don’t know where it begins and ends. 

The entire thought process made me wonder if we should each play the game alone, and confront ourselves with these difficult questions that often times we don’t even dare ask ourselves. Maybe I should get this game.

Happy Monday. 

Edit// I think I came up with an answer. 

Points for honesty!

Cobra Kai 1x8

theplayfulsadist:

fuckmethroughthesheets:

Ask me super embarrassing questions about all sorts of dirty things and then hold my chin in your hand and force me to look you in the eye when I answer.

Sounds like a plan

One of my favorite games.

5 Steps to Cutting People Out

I’m only twenty-five and I’ve definitely cut out at least as many in my lifetime.

And guess what?

I’m proud of it, and the best part is that my therapist approves!

There is so much toxic energy in this world, that I honestly don’t need.

via GIPHY

It started in high school. I was bullied, called a slut, and my “friends” often were talking behind my back. In college, the same thing. So, I simply…

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