Madi > Recent Status Updates

Maybe I’m projecting now, all these years later, but she was the kind of person who wore sadness and a type of vulnerability that did not translate into her being a pushover. Far from it. She’d battled and battled hard. But if she wasn’t broken yet, she would be, as the world breaks us all.

Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

Why don't we listen? Our egos are always getting in the way, saying, "Me, me first—don't worry about the other guy." We have to realize that we must be responsible to and for each other. That is the most loving act we can perform.

“Don't wait until you're on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live. To quote Stephen Levine, "Love is the only rational act." The Beatles said it: "Love is all you need." W. H. Auden said it: "Love each other or die." Many others, including Jesus, have said it, but we don't listen.

You can gain distance and perspective by writing down what you are going through. When I write about my experiences, they seem to take a place outside of me on the paper. When I'm reading about them, it is as if the events were happening to someone else, and I can look at that "someone else" more objectively.

For your own sake, don't make your life any more difficult than it has to be.

Chapter 2 - Handling Frustration
“Expect things to be inaccessible, unattainable, unreachable. When they are, don't get too frustrated or angry.

If you do, let it be short-lived.”

There are healthier and more pleasing ways to spend your efforts and energy.

We have a sense that we should be like the mythical cowboy. Free, easy, able to do anything, able to take on and conquer anything and live in the world without the need for other people. The Lone Ranger type.

That's an image a lot of men, especially, carry around. They don't allow themselves to develop a sense of their interpersonal needs. I think it's very unfortunate. For we need each other more than we know.

“Learn how to live," Morrie wrote, "and you'll know how to die; learn how to die, and you'll know how to live." Morrie's message was not only for the sick and those close to them, but for the healthy as well.”

Habits like “read more” or “eat better” are worthy causes, but these goals do not provide instruction on how and when to act. Be specific and clear: After I close the door. After I brush my teeth. After I sit down at the table. The specificity is important. The more tightly bound your new habit is to a specific cue, the better the odds are that you will notice when the time comes to act.

Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.

“Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”

Meanwhile, improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable—sometimes it isn’t even noticeable—but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. The difference a tiny improvement can make over time is astounding.

Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, writing a book, winning a championship, or achieving any other goal, we put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.

[…] Otto felt deeply wanted in a way he’d never felt. Needed. Truly necessary to the survival of some species. If not forever, then for now.

Mama says she would like to go, too, but we need a break from each other. I agree silently in my head. Agreeing out loud would be disrespectful. In my world older folks can say any damn thing that takes you apart, but a kid has to swallow the truth until you grow up.

At this moment Maud Potter entered the room. Jean quickly bent over and whispered to Nancy, “Don’t forget! Watch out for that trouble-maker.”

Nancy did not know what to think. She disliked Maud, but felt it was unfair to accept Jean’s claim without proof. “Don’t trust an informer too far,” her father had once said.

“And nothing more happens. More nothing happens.”

In fact, the people who were kidnapped, loaded onto ships, transported across the ocean, and forced into a lifetime of human bondage were not slaves—they were doctors, priests, children, wives, and warriors who were coerced into this racialized forced labor system through violence [...]. That they survived this legal, state-sanctioned act of collective terrorism is a testament to their unextinguishable strength.

“For, she reasoned, what was there, what had there been, to show that she was even half correct in her tormenting notion? Nothing. She had seen nothing, heard nothing. She had no facts or proofs. She was only making herself unutterably wretched by an unfounded suspicion. It had been a case of looking for trouble and finding it in good measure. Merely that.”

STANLEY:

Stell-lahhhhh!

How does it feel to be a stealer of men?
Or is that the way of the world?

“Here, in the folds and creases of the tale of pilfered people, is where America truly lies. That other mythical history that is shared in schools is as real to me as is Atlantis or Oz. It is a gargantuanly tall tale, refined from years of incessant yarn-spinning that has been sugarcoated and stuffed down throats.”

" There’s a word for doing something over and over again and expecting different results:
American. "

“I want to say that Earth, Wind & Fire is the greatest band in history, but there might be white people reading this book, and I wouldn’t want to cause any Beatles fans to have a conniption.”

In fact, the only difference between the Black AF version of history and the way America’s story is customarily recounted is that whiteness is not the center of the universe around which everything else revolves.

History can never be objective or unbiased because, no matter how hard the storytellers may try, the perception of reality prejudices all stories. The academic field of history is dominated by white men handicapped by the inability to see whiteness’s impact on America’s biography.