[marvin4242]

Nas perfectly said. I agree completely and this says what I was trying to say infinitely better. It simply buzzes with clarity.

I tried to stop myself but failed….

[Treasur]

 

[xyzcf]

Something to contemplate on gratitude:

Sam’s Big Brother Brian, who still takes him every Tuesday for a few hours, is married to a very funny Southern woman named Diane, who’s bleached fabulously blonde, sober fifteen years, very Eve Ardenish. She says that we’re all so nuts amid so much beauty that it’s like we’re at the circus. In one ring is an amazing array of clowns and bears doing all this great stuff, and in the middle ring is a woman who does breathtaking tricks on horseback, and in the far ring are elephants or seals and maybe more clowns, and above us are trapeze artists, doing these death-defying precision feats, and we’re sitting in our seats looking around crabbily, going, “Where’s that damn peanut vendor? I want my goddamn peanuts!”–- even when we’re not particularly hungry.
      - Annie Lamott, Traveling Mercies

[UrsaMajor]

Saw this on FakeBook today. I don't know how long the link will be good for....

[Treasur]

Well, that rings pretty true for me, UM.
Looking back, my biggest emotions were deep shock and grief…..everything else was just embroidery really.

[FaithWalker]

Yes, good one UM.  Thanks for sharing.

[Nas]

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-enjoy-your-problems-and-reach-enlightenment

Another pretty good article with a truly terrible title. I’m never going to “enjoy” my particular set of life challenges. Learn to look at them from different angles? Sure. (I forgot where I read this, but some person somewhere who was a somebody at something said to ask “why?” five times in order to get to the root of *your* real feelings about a situation.) Learn to get creative about seeking solutions and mitigating damage when the solutions don’t exist or are very limited? Yeah, sure. Learn to live with certain truisms that I’d rather not be so? Yes, I can do that. I’m mentally strong enough to accept reality. The steps it takes to make reality acceptable are often exhausting, especially lately, or another level past exhaustion but not yet having fallen into the peaceful surrender of a coma. (Jesus, Nas, the drama…)

Anyway, it’s worth a read and touches on things I think LBS might find useful. I really want to live a life that fascinates me. I never thought of it in that way, but when I read it, I thought, yes, of course, that’s exactly it, THAT is what I want. To be fascinated. And maybe fascinate a little too, why the hell not.

🎶 https://youtu.be/kb5_hIuEk8g?si=173M4eFEYDajgxuB

[Nas]

My friend died. I didn’t know it yet when I posted last night. I met her at a cancer benefit a few years ago and instantly liked her. She had a completely different life than me, a completely different past than me, a completely different cancer than me, but those differences didn’t matter.

It’s funny how fast it happens, I saw her just a few months ago and she was fine. She was energetic even, and we went to a museum and she gave me a little lesson in impasto, light and illusion. Which now seems funny because it feels like that day with her was an illusion.

She went “home” to another state to stay with her daughter and family. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t know that day at the museum would be the last time I would see her. It made me think that the last several years I suppose prepared me for really never being able to say goodbye. The people I care about have people who care about them in lives I’m not part of. So I just have to appreciate the moments they offer me, with the knowledge that it’s going to end, so don’t take it for granted. Just take it in and enjoy it for what it is, even if it’s just an hour having coffee or walking through a museum.

We spoke briefly on the phone last week. She was having trouble hearing me. She sounded only half awake. I didn’t know what to say so I just told her I would think of her every time I look at Frank Auerbach. She said “Well that’s better than what I think when I look at Auerbach.” And we laughed and it felt unreal. I didn’t say enough. I didn’t actually say “goodbye.” I realize that just now as I read a text from a stranger to me (her sister in law) telling me she’s gone. I read it twice because it was so strange to hear someone I’ll never meet “introduce” themselves and then give me heartbreaking news, all in one unpunctuated sentence. So now, as the article I posted yesterday suggests, I guess I’m just immediately “telling my story” before I even start to process. Or grieve, which I never get better at. 😔

[JohnnyBravo]

Sorry for the loss of your friend, Nas.

[Nas]

Thanks, JB.
Grieving is a process, I think, that opens up so many doors of growth if we choose to open those doors. (Although the doors often seem to be in a haunted house, and at some point, I'd like to grow through processes that maybe even feel a tiny bit uplifting or hopeful or...reassuring.)

I really loved this article and it was timely for me:

https://psyche.co/ideas/your-life-is-not-a-story-why-narrative-thinking-holds-you-back

 "Perspectives, then, determine the narratives we adopt. In other words, our core beliefs and values shape the way we see things and what we take to be important in our experiences. It is our perspectives that generate our narratives. Perspective also explains why our narratives can differ so radically from those of other people, even when we experience the same events...
And so, instead of just changing our narratives, we should learn to understand the perspectives that shape them. When we focus on our own stories, we live life as we already know it, but by loosening the grip that stories hold over our lives – by focusing on the perspectives of ourselves and others – we can begin opening ourselves up to other possibilities."

[The bold emphasis is added by me - particularly good to remember if questioning why someone else is doing what they're doing - this shows why it's truly a waste of our precious time]
I really feel like this is adjacent to the quote I posted a while back, “Emotions love themselves: they often make us feel like acting in ways that strengthen them.”
Maybe this one is: Our perspectives trust themselves too much: they often make us believe/think and/or act in ways that reinforce them.
Or something. I don't know, it needs workshopping.

I could say a lot more about this, but I think I'm also using it as a way to avoid myself. I discovered Sartre at the same time I discovered poetry a bajillion years ago, and I really like his philosophy; the goal is to embody it. I've always felt my perspective was flexible, and in many ways it is - flexible and expansive - but grief in particular circles me back to core beliefs that don't serve me.  I'm sorting through thoughts that are resisting becoming fully formed, probably as a self-protective measure against thinking them....fun stuff. Okay, not fun at all. But necessary.

https://youtu.be/sx9SVAtMkJM?si=BSA0GZmORO1Jz1J9