Be careful who you listen to, because you might end up feeling like them

They say you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and that applies to listening, too. Be careful who you listen to. Truth matters, and it's not the only thing that matters. It's not the same as wisdom. To

Integration plans; or, more notes on Models (2/N)

I recently reread large chunks of Models (previously), and what struck me is that (A) there are a lot of ideas worth trying, and (B) to make effective use of all that, I need some way to resurface those ideas over time. Realistically, there's no way to incorporate

I can't fix wretchedness, I can only be with it, and that sucks

Some people are hard to love in the sense that they do not believe or accept love when it is offered. I've known people like this and I know other people report similar experiences. They are (in Visa's sense) wretched, down bad, not forever but at

Bad moods are unnecessary, I shouldn't have them, and wish I didn't --- and that wish might be why I keep having them

There's a line early in Pema Chödron's Living Beautifully that stuck out to me where she says (citing a neuroscientist) that emotions naturally last only a few seconds — that (as I understood it) we prolong emotions by our own choice. That rings true to me. There

My life story hinges on reading one fanfiction when I was fourteen, and this feels strange, but I guess it's okay

It amazes me how much of my life is downstream of reading a Harry Potter fanfiction for the lulz on a whim when I was fourteen. 1. I had been decidedly Christian; I became an atheist because of that fanfiction, first briefly then lastingly. 2. I had been raised conservative,