Novel quote

“When I was young, I resisted thinking about my childhood, or my character, for that matter. Perhaps that's not surprising. My therapist once told me that all traumatized children, and the adults they become, tend to focus exclusively on the outside world. A kind of hypervigilance, I suppose. We look outward, not inward-scanning the world for danger signs—is it safe or not? We grow up so terrified of incurring anger, for instance, or contempt, that now, as adults, if we glimpse a stifled yawn while talking to someone, a look of boredom or irritation in their eyes, we feel a horrible, frightening disintegration inside-like a frayed fabric being ripped apart—and swiftly redouble our efforts to entertain and please.“



P. 60 The Fury by Alex Michaelides. There is more, that is interesting, but that is enough of a quote.

Self compassion

 

Kristin Neff (sorry I covered 3 letters) says self esteem obsession can have some downsides, which compassion sidestep. I haven’t read a self help book in a while. This came out in 2011. Friend mentioned it, so I’m trying it. Resonates with me so far.

"We can't be moved by our own pain if we don't even acknowledge that it exists in the first place."

She feels self compassion isn't self pity or self indulgent. It's about activating and not passivity.

You can test your self compassion.

Here are my average results:

Mattering

I think a lot of psychological research is proving the obvious but here's another one from the New York Times: Want to Believe in Yourself? ‘Mattering’ Is Key.

And if you need a gift copy to read, you matter, blog reader, I'll send you one. Post your email address in the comments, and I'll send it and delete your comment so nobody knows your email address.

Acting in your own best interest

My daughter doesn't like to be told what to do, and there are internal forces that amplify that idea in her head. An independent streak is good, and American. But listening to good suggestions even though your psychology tells you not to, can be overridden by the idea of acting in your own best interest.

I'm like that too, the idea has to make sense to me before I will do it, but sometimes I don't consider ideas because I didn't think of it. It's a flaw I'm trying to push past. Pushing past flaws that I own is an important growth mode. Owning the change in the fight for maturity before senility. 

Sometimes we don't like the choice so we make the wrong choice based on psychological reactivity. 

Sometimes the environment pushes us to make the wrong choice.

Act in your own best interest is a good mantra, a good coping statement, a good way of being that attempts to filter out distracting information. In the age of information filtering out irrelevant data is essential. 

 

Being too much

I always think of Zelig. He copies everyone, and needs therapy to find his true authentic self. He was told he was too reserved, and needed to express himself. So he's had therapy and the psychologist asks him how the day is. He expresses himself and he disagrees with the psychologist, and they get into a fight. The trick in life is how much to be out, and express in your public self. There's a meme of Kafka, he says he wore his true face to a costume party. 

I'm reading a wonderful profile of Lisa Yuskavage in the New Yorker and this is how it opens: 

"Thirty years ago, when Lisa Yuskavage and Matvey Levenstein were young painters trying to establish themselves in the East Village, they got a message on their answering machine. An acquaintance who had invited the couple to a party wanted to let them know that people felt Yuskavage was “too much,” and that, on second thought, they’d rather she didn’t come."

The truth is people don't have to like the unpleasant parts of you. People like you in spite of them. Often times asshole stars think the world will love everything about then, a tragic mistake.

You need to be positive, sweet and compassionate, even if that's a contortion, because other people have enough of the other inside. True genius is positive, not negative.

It's OK to go through things, to have a bad day a bad week, month and year, even decades. Everything is OK but you can't get away from the fact that being difficult around others pushes you away, and you want to draw people closer so they can accept all of you, the good and the bad. Or maybe you want to push people away. 

Beautiful women and men don't want all the attention they get, just the best selection of it. Famous people only want what they want, not all that other nonsense. Rich people want the perks of being rich, without the nonsense. Elon Musk doesn't want you to know where he's flying even if he's one of the reasons the world is going to pot, rich people with luxury jets, flying back and forth from California to Texas between his companies. We don't like that but that's part of his contribution to the world: global warming. 

Trying to be more loving and kind to others in your actions and ways of being is the underlying hope of self development. Stop being such an asshole. How does one feel authentic and real and protected and not really difficult to others. It's also OK to want to be alone and isolated, but that doesn't work for most people. 

I woke up today with one of the local people ranting on the street. I recognize that rant. Maybe you could go to the park and face the highway instead of being around houses. 

When someone tells you you need psychotherapy, they're saying you're difficult, being too much. You don't understand there's another person there, and you're just thought vomiting on them.

It's OK for Yuskavage to be that way in her paintings: “My work has a very unpleasant edge, and I’m aware of that,” Yuskavage told an interviewer who visited her first studio, a shared space on East Second Street. “From looking at advertising and being in the world and listening to men comment about women, listening to my dad comment about women,” she continued, “I know a lot about how to degrade a woman.” (op cit)

The wants to interrupt the male gaze. Doing horrible things like pouring blood on a fur coat is the whole point of some protests, you can't protest nicely all the time. Not everything is a protest, and you have to really target these things.

"What has remained constant in her career is an extraordinary way with color, a penchant for scenarios that defy interpretation, and a fascination with rendering a particular kind of naked lady." (op cit)

“Why have you made this outrageous, hypersexualized . . . white nude female figure the sort of centerpiece of your visual language?”

“Because,” Yuskavage shot back, “that’s the history of art.” (op cit)

One of her favorite paintings is The Garden of Earthly Delights. An amazing work that resides in Madrid Spain. Take a gander at it, it's too large to upload for Blogger's taste. 

10/1/23. Thinking about this post. I think people can be superficial and only want positives, it's a kind of materialisticness. People who befriend people with problems are often pitying, they think they're heroes doing for others, and that might be just as offensive and avoiding problematic people, but they at least are there. Maybe we should think virtue talk is wrong, that you can only be friends with those who have virtue, not vice. Maybe we just accept people in the good and bad. Maybe we don't just skim the good off others. Maybe true friendship is when it's hard in the mire of problems.