I can't sleep…
#13.
How do we forgive ourselves
for all of the things
we did not become?
~ David “Doc” Luben
Notes:
Think of one of those Chuck Close self-portraits. The face takes up the entire image. You can see every pore. Some people try to introspect like that. But others see themselves in broader landscapes, in the context of longer narratives about forgiveness, or redemption or setback and ascent. Maturity is moving from the close-up to the landscape, focusing less on your own supposed strengths and weaknesses and more on the sea of empathy in which you swim, which is the medium necessary for understanding others, one’s self, and survival.
~ David Brooks, Introspective or Narcissistic?
Notes:
In conversation things can be metabolized and digested through somebody else — I say something to you and you can give it back to me in different forms — whereas you’ll notice that your own mind is very often extremely repetitive. It is very difficult to surprise oneself in one’s own mind. The vocabulary of one’s self-criticism is so impoverished and clichéd. We are at our most stupid in our self-hatred.
~ Adam Phillips, The Poetics of the Psyche
Adam Phillips, 59, is Britain’s most celebrated psychoanalytical writer. He explores in his wide-ranging views in a conversation with Paul Holdengräber as part of The Paris Review’s legendary interview series.
Sources: Quote – Brainpickings. Photograph: Thank you Carol.
Not just the body but all natural things, when left undisturbed, move naturally toward beauty and wholeness. If you don’t keep repaving it every few years, an ugly parking lot will crack, grass will come up, and after 100 years or so you’ll probably have a beautiful forest. Your body is the same way. Stop “paving it over” with artificial ways of being, stop trying to be other than what you are, and it will move towards its natural state of health and beauty. It happens sooner than you think. Why else is rest so healing? Have you ever noticed how beautiful a sleeping person looks?
Credits: Quote – Psychodellomellojello via Karen’s Korner. Photograph: untitled by Marcin Grüner on Flickr.
Your body
is not
a battlefield.
It’s time
to put down
your weapons.
~ Olivia
Quote Source: Sun For Her Soul via Your Eyes Blaze Out. Portrait Credit: Thierry DeHove