Tag: Anger

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Anger is a cousin of intelligence. If you are not revolted by certain things, you have no boundaries. If you have no boundaries, you have no self-knowledge. If you have no self-knowledge, you have no taste, and if you have no taste, why are you here?

― Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People (MCD, February 27, 2024)

Notes:

  1. Book Review: A Dazzling Humorist Returns With a Deep Dive Into Loss. NY Times, Feb 24, 2024.
  2. Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Sleep, Harris. Rest from Yourself.

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Rest…

leave behind fear, hope, anger, spilled milk.

Take silence only.

Sky, wind. Sunrise after the rain.

Forget the rest.

Sleep, Harris.

Rest from yourself.

— Reverend West (Vondie Curtis-Hall), Raymond & Ray (Apple TV+, 2022)

 

 

We create worlds

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We create worlds. As soon as you decide to project your misery onto someone else, you start building a grudge world. Every time you visit it, you lay another brick. I think some people build grudges up in such detail that their grudge worlds become too big and too real. They stop living in the actual world and begin living full-time in a universe built by resentment and anger. The grudge turns into something dark and obsessive. And when a person confuses a grudge with a real problem, they may start making real-world decisions using grudge-world logic. They think they really hate people they don’t even know. I don’t want to do that. I play around sometimes in these made-up worlds, in which I cast myself as a hero and a snippy person at a party as a villain. The conflict I imagine between us stands in for how mad I am about so many things I can’t do anything about. But I think I would prefer to live here, in reality.

— Mary Laura Philpott, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives (Atria Books, April 12, 2022)

Notes:

Good Friday. Yet, not so Good.

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I’m not proud of this. Nope.

And Peace be with you. On this Good Friday.

It’s a quiet morning, a day off, a Saturday morning pulled forward. What’s better than a long weekend?

The quiet is interrupted by ringing. And ringing.

We have a cheap home phone, with a piercing ring, one phone on each floor. Who uses a home phone anymore?

What used to be a source of such joy and anticipation in the pre-internet era, has turned into something vile.

Robocalls, a ratio of 7:1 to legitimate phone calls.

I count the rings. Most days I let it ring. And ring. I lean back in the chair, or close my eyes in bed, and count the rings. And feel my anxiety climb.

Other days, I pick up.  And all the pent-up frustration of the week explodes on the Parasite on the other side of this line. I Rage against the Machine.

Continue reading “Good Friday. Yet, not so Good.” →

Running. With *$!# Management.

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6:58 a.m.

First day of Winter. Temperature: 61° F. Repeat: 61° F, on December 21st. Paradoxical? Global Warming? Heti whispers: “Not everything has to be so heavy all the time.” Whoa Sheila, try walking with me in this Head for a few yards.

I step on the scale anticipating a bad outcome…and expectations are exceeded on the high side. Now Sheila, here’s some real Heavy.

Rain patters on the roof, bangin’ on the gutters. I flip open the Dark Sky app…it’s calling for heavy rain for the next two hours. 

“Severe weather alert: Coastal Flooding.”

Well, maybe that might work – a flash flood to drag me along the highway, scrubbing the cheese, gingerbread cookies and peppermint chocolate gelato off these bones, and cleanse me of this mood while it’s at it.

I pause as I put on my sneakers. Maybe it’s best to wait for the rain to let up, and run later. Who are you kidding? Get your a** out the door.

I’m out the door. I run. With Me (M), and me (m).

M: What’s with the mood?

m: I don’t want to get into it.

M: Blog title? Anger management? Angry about what? 

m: Hard of hearing? Pick a topic. I’ll find an angle.

M: Root cause? Continue reading “Running. With *$!# Management.” →