Being nice can reduce everyday friction with people who are acting in good faith but it does nothing against someone whose real problem is that you bring awareness to the things they would rather avoid. You can be calm, careful, generous, precise, and compassionate, and they will still not like it if the truth threatens their self-image, control, convenience, or access. Then thoughtfulness gives them more room to cloud […]
fieldwork
5 posts
They hid themselves in the language of goodness while letting cruelty and othering happen. They mishandled things that should have been basic integrity. They had the language of regulation, mindfulness, accountability, nonjudgment, effectiveness… then they behaved in ways that were mindless, ego-protective, invalidating, and harmful. They doled out harm while claiming to be the kind of people or system that should know better, while using values-language to protect them, […]
We keep thinking our current view of things is the structure of reality and the universe itself and how things just are. We get taught and come up with myths, categories, labels, and certainty because they help us orient but then we get arrogant and start forcing those views as the final, absolute truth instead of just temporary and provisional. Then when some new point of view comes along […]
Sometimes there’s a deep, very old craving for someone’s love, approval, and understanding. There can also be a long history of getting little hits of love that was mixed with manipulation and invalidation. Then it trained a body and mind that remembers the high and the crash that even today still sometimes wonders if one more hit will finally be the good one. When we crave their love but […]
Suffering doesn’t disappear when you avoid itit just moves. It gets handed to whoever has the least power to refuse itor the most integrity to hold it. Then everyone calls that person the problem. That is scapegoating.