Boats and Lakes
Dear R, I got your voice mail. Thank you!
I sent you an email saying so. But no reply. (Are you getting my emails? I have sent three or four over the year to the same address, no answers.)
Now, I can send you my phone number.
I finally got one. Shall I? Email me if you see this.
Meantime, this is a picture I thought you would like.
Best to you,
-D
Cojournal is a weekly project that I sometimes make ‘live.’ I have about ten years’ worth of writing prompts, which I curate for the project based on what comes up for applicants. We talk. We talk together. We relax and connect. Sometimes it is very good. Sometimes we are quiet. Both ways are fine; it’s an ambient connectivity.
Anyone can apply. No fee to apply.
The purpose of life is to live it. -Eleanor Roosevelt
But how do you live a life well? Maybe you are questioning your choices, in the past years, and wondering what could have happened to bring you to a place where you felt more fulfilled, today. This is human nature, to wonder, to question, to look at the other pastures, to think about FOMO, isn’t it? I know zero people who are completely content, personally. There is always this or that thing, to flit over to and question. I know it’s partly due to the simple fact that the pandemic has forced us to look at what matters, what counts, what we want, what we don’t want… but me, I’ve always been asking these questions. Who am I? has been the center of many stories of Kismuth’s books.
Authentic living is when you live your values.
More to share.
Apply to be part of the next conversations. There is no fee to apply. Here is a link.
The question is, who do you write for. Let me think about this out loud a little. Someone once answered this question in the exact way that I would have, had I been asked it, in the interview, in which she was. This wasn’t a video, or a podcast, this was a magazine article I had read in the days when magazines were in print.
It was a common practice for me to wander down to the Seattle waterfront, meander around in Pike Place Market, pick up something nice for later in the day, and get magazines. Print ones. From the news stand there. Today? Hm. I wonder if people read anything longer than paragraph or a blunted bit of social media, these days. Honestly I think there is too much of too much altogether and I can’t really keep up with it.
Still, I do write. I write a lot. I write for a handful of people now, though, and I hardly share any of it, publicly. People used to ask me, when I left newspapers and moved into design, then switched again to writing (memoirs and now zines), these kinds of deeply intrusive questions (all of which I avoid) but the one that I will let them ask me is: Who do you write for? Is a massive question that, for me, hasn’t had a different answer for 20 years. I write, I would have said, as another author once did, for myself, and strangers.
This week, in the writing project online with the people I do that with, every Tuesday and Wednesday, something came up that surprised me. The cojournal is taking an interesting turn. I want to share more in the conversation space for that, in email threads and in the protected forums, but here, for now, this little note. Inspired by something that MK wrote Sharing that it’s too hard to make friends that are high-quality but not overburdensome. Emotional labor, et al.
I really couldn’t believe how much there is to say about this topic, and some people have said it, insisting in lists of the kind of things that indicate that you are truly showing up for friends what is required now for someone to ‘show up for a friend.’ Really?
Discussing it. In The Cojournal Project.
A few excerpts today.
From The Atlantic…
‘Psychotherapist and Atlantic contributing writer Lori Gottlieb demystifies one of the vital components of a happy life: enjoyment. Gottlieb believes that we not only find it challenging to make time for day-to-day enjoyment, but also struggle to identify what it should feel like.’
There’s a part where older people in their 80s who are happy are described as having had rough times in their younger years. Gottlieb says, ‘I think that the reason that they’ve been through so much is because they engaged in life. So the people who want to protect themselves from pain or discomfort are the people who never really engage in life because they’re so busy protecting themselves to make sure that they’re not going to experience anything that feels bad, right? And so then they never put themselves out there. They never take any risks.
‘And when you take risks, sometimes, you know, there’s going to be pain involved. And sometimes there’s going to be great joy involved. But if you are protecting yourself the whole time you didn’t really live; you’re not fully alive. And so maybe you think you protected yourself, but you end up feeling very unsatisfied, very kind of empty and lonely.’
…
‘I think it needs to be specific, not just “have fun.” It’s getting in touch with how you have fun. A lot of people don’t even know how they have fun anymore. As adults, they grow up. They forget what fun looks like, because they’re so busy with all of their responsibilities and then all of the things they think they need to be doing. And they don’t realize, first of all, how they’re spending their time.’
Remember, the child really just wants love and affection from their narcissistic parent. To admit that their parent is abusing them means giving up all hope that this love will ever come. Since the thought of this is very painful, children simply make excuses (often putting the blame on themselves), and carry on trying to get the love that they crave…
This is part of the reason that children of narcs end up in stormy, difficult marriages. If they find a spouse who is abusive in the same way as their parent, and they can get their new spouse to love them, then maybe their parent actually did love them all along. Maybe it really was their fault for not learning exactly how to act in order to get it.
And so, difficult relationships become like a puzzle they have to solve, to prove their parent’s love really did exist – but was just being withheld. So they move from abuser to abuser, trying to beat the puzzle.
… is to remove the protectiveness around their parent. If the patient can accept that their parent was mistreating them, and that the love was probably not there, they can then break out of this cycle of bad relationships.
Of course this is a painful hurdle to jump, and as with many forms of therapy, things can get worse, emotionally speaking before they get better. But, life is easier on the other side of these hurdles.
‘Passive-aggressive behavior is a pattern of indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them. There’s a disconnect between what a passive-aggressive person says and what he or she does.
‘For example, a passive-aggressive person might appear to agree — perhaps even enthusiastically — with another person’s request. Rather than complying with the request, however, he or she might express anger or resentment by failing to follow through or missing deadlines.’
Source: Mayo Clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/expert-answers/passive-aggressive-behavior/faq-20057901
Pro tip: Know someone like this? Best to walk away.
