Madi > Recent Status Updates

Remembering that it all ends soon
isn’t a bad thing
it frees us
to live as we should
with lots of love
and little worry.

It’s better
to be brave
and vulnerable
than safe
and all alone.

The whole affair had lasted eleven months from beginning to end. Almost a year. Not quite. Just long enough to really love him, and have it cost her soul when he left.

She felt as though she had come home finally, to someone she was truly safe with. She knew that she could trust this man with her heart, and her life, without question.

“Once again, parents seem to have devised an amusing but probably psychologically scarring way of getting their kids to behave themselves!”

A great way to summarize this book as a whole so far haha.

A cute short story that takes place around Christmas time!

Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of it was so precarious.

Understanding your past and embarking on a new future can be a bittersweet process. Shining a light on what happened to you and how it affected your choices can stir up sadness about what you’ve lost or never had

That’s the way light is. It shines on everything, not just the things we want to see.

Emotionally immature people often have difficulty engaging in humor in ways that strengthen bonds [...] they push humor on others, even when others aren’t amused. They also tend to enjoy humor at someone else’s expense, [...]. For example, they may enjoy humor that involves tricking people or making them look foolish or inept. This trait is a good indicator of how they will eventually treat you.

Being a member of a family doesn’t give anybody free rein to treat people like crap.

As you get more objective about your emotionally immature parent, you can also reevaluate the voices in your head and begin to free yourself from their undue influence. Just as with your actual parent, you can make a point to observe how these internal voices talk to you. You can take what you hear with a grain of salt and make a rational decision about whether you want to keep listening to that inner critic.

Satisfying a child’s physical and financial needs is not the same as meeting that child’s emotional needs.

Throughout her childhood, Leah tried to be self-sufficient. She often wondered, How can I make myself enough? How can I feel secure? It didn’t occur to her that these weren’t questions for a child to answer. Only an emotionally attentive parent could have made her feel that being herself was enough.

No child can be good enough to evoke love from a highly self-involved parent.

Unfortunately, the healing fantasy is a child’s solution that comes from a child’s mind, so it often doesn’t fit adult realities.

But whatever the healing fantasy, it gives a child the optimism to get through a painful upbringing in hopes of a better future.

It can be hard to watch your parent give attention to a preferred sibling, making you wonder why your parent never showed that kind of interest in you. But obvious favoritism isn’t a sign of a close relationship; it’s a sign of enmeshment. It’s likely that the preferred sibling has a psychological maturity level similar to your parent’s (Bowen 1978).

Like children, emotionally immature people usually end up being the center of attention. In groups, the most emotionally immature person often dominates the group’s time and energy.
[...]
You may wonder whether these people are just being extroverted. They aren’t. [...] Extroverts do like to talk, but not with the purpose of shutting everyone else down.

Sometimes, I used to sit under the sky, on a clear night, and gaze at the stars, saying, in my croaky voice: ‘Lord, if you’re up there somewhere, and you aren’t too busy, come and say a few words to me, because I’m very lonely and it would make me so happy.’ Nothing happened. So I reckon that humanity – which I wonder whether I belong to – really had a very vivid imagination.

Even now, I like to look in the mirror. Over the years, I’ve followed the progress of the wrinkles furrowing my brow. My cheeks have grown thinner and my lips have become pale, but it’s all me and I feel a sort of fondness for the reflection in the mirror.

And underneath, a book.
[...]
I had in my hands the most precious of treasures, a spring from which to drink the knowledge of that world to which I would never have access.

Sometimes, you can use what you know, but that’s not what counts most. I want to know everything there is to know. Not because it’s any use, but purely for the pleasure of knowing, and now I demand that you teach me everything you know, even if I’ll never be able to use it.

Emotional intimacy is profoundly fulfilling, creating a sense of being seen for who you really are. It can only exist when the other person seeks to know you, not judge you.

The loneliness of feeling unseen by others is as fundamental a pain as physical injury, but it doesn’t show on the outside.

“I know you’ve suspected much of what you are about to read, and I’m here to tell you that you were right all along.”

What happens when these immature parents lack the emotional responsiveness necessary to meet their children’s emotional needs? The result is emotional neglect, a phenomenon as real as any physical deprivation.

There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:

Recklessness, which leads to destruction

cowardice, which leads to capture

a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults

a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame

over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble.

So, the student of war who is unversed in the art of varying his plans, […], will fail to make the best use of his men.

Hence in the wise leader’s plans, considerations of advantage and of disadvantage will be blended together.

Do not press a desperate foe too hard.
Such is the art of warfare.

Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.

Thinking too much is a form of madness. Better to stay busy and not think of such things at all.