mattjugo.bsky.social
Psychiatrist/therapist | Health | Parenting | Music | Climate | he/him | feminist | Medical Humanities | Mastodon: @[email protected] | #BLM | 🏳️🌈
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18/ And to know that, of course,
Whyte's advice is exactly right - we will have to feel all our feelings.
Whatever they may happen to be, in any given moment.
We can't hide from the signals our body is trying to give us. Nor should we.
Without those signals, we won't know what to do next.
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17/ whatever the best decision is for us to make, right now-
if we accept that the anxiety can also just be understood as one of Nature's ways of helping us focus,
and that one of the most important questions we can clarify is:
What values will inform our next choice?
What's at stake, exactly?
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16/ that I've seen in recent memory is this recent video clip of Alex Honnold coaching Magnus Midtbø on approaching a free solo (ropeless) climb
youtube.com/clip/Ugkxv0V...
there's so much clarity in recognizing that all we have is the present moment,
yet we can still make
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15/ And finally - the invitation to (C)ommit to it.
Yes, that's what the the "C" in "ACT" refers to - the pathway through anxiety lies in reminding ourselves of what we are committed to, and following through.
Anxiety can be clarifying, too, if we allow it
One of the most amazing examples of this
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14/ a signal, that is, that we are coming into contact with something precious, valuable, and vulnerable within ourselves.
The question that anxiety asks of us (and it can always be turned into a question) is:
What, exactly, is at stake?
And then: What will we do about that?
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13/ of our own experience we can neither fully predict nor control.
Interestingly, this vibes with one of the most well known treatment protocols for anxiety - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
the basic thesis of ACT is that anxiety is a *signal.*
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12/ what's notable to me about this is that Whyte frames anxiety as kind of a luxury, a thing we might turn to because it could be preferable to the alternative.
the alternative, he suggests, might be facing something squarely; accepting things the way they are; knowing that there is some portion
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Similarly, the Trump-a-Lago top-secret files theft investigation was blocked by Eileen Cannon - a Trump appointee.
We gave him the power to do this in 2016.
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The Jan 6th prosecution was directly blocked by the Trump-appointed Supreme Court,
who made an absurd ruling requiring Jack Smith to establish that Trump wasn't just doing his duty as Executive - slowing the case to a snail's pace.
This supreme court exists, because of the 2016 election.
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11/ Let's move on. Whyte's second word is "Anxiety".
(he's more fun than a barrel of monkeys, isn't he? LOL -but don't be discouraged, not all his words have a negative tenor!)
Here is the summary:
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10/ perhaps moved by their gesture, Edward's wife Queen Philippa prevailed upon him to spare their lives.
Its said that she feared that their execution would be an ill omen for their unborn child - and so they lived.
Perhaps their anguish pointed her towards the possibility of a kinder world.
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9/ in the hope that King Edward would accept their lives in exchange for relieving the suffering of their city.
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8/ It was memorialized for all time by Auguste Rodin - that most physical of sculptors - in his "Burghers of Calais".
At the beginning of the 100 years war, in 1347, the elders of the besieged city of Calais, aware of the terrible suffering of their city, offered their lives to the English King,
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7/ The wisdom here is that very powerlessness - which is part of what makes anguish what it is - is also a beginning.
It is the first step - the step of integrating the knowledge of our own limits.
We integrate it in our body. This is no mere mental exercise. Anguish is a full body experience.
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6/ "Anguish is the first stop on the road to healing".
The path to wholeness necessarily leads us through powerlessness. If we love - a child, a pet, another person, a place, a flower, a garden, a world - that love will eventually render us powerless -
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5/n OK let's get started.
The first word David looks at, in C2, is "Anguish". (The words are presented in alphabetical order).
It turns out there is a whole philosophy to be discovered here...
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4/n it was there already, he seems to say - the truth + knowledge was already there, within the words themselves, if we just listen to them carefully enough.
His book now has a sequel (Consolations II, Many Rivers Press, Jan. 2025) - and I'll be doing a live read of it on this thread.
Stay tuned!
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3/n by finding NEW words (although yes, that is sometimes necessary)
instead, the entire project seems to tell us - look at the treasure we already have.
Look at what language ALREADY gives us.
And he takes on this journey one word at a time, holding each word up to the light like a gemstone;
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2/n the larger project is an exploration of the limits of language - how do we explore the spaces where language stops working?
What I love about Whyte is that he recognizes often the challenge is not to give in to the temptation to extend language further - by writing more + more, say - or
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can you confirm that it is AI?
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Palisades Charter High School, per Google (4th in this list)
Yes, this checks out with multiple news stories
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the credit for the pic seems to go to instagram user "Rileythree" -
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here's the link to the search results
lens.google.com/search?ep=cn...
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reverse image search on google is your friend -
click the little camera in the searchbar in Google;
upload the image;
... results are quite numerous for this one
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I think it's kind of like being a bad actor on a stage
People often pretend to emotions or states of mind that they don't have -
But those attempts always have their own distinct energy signature
Which is exactly why we both agree
that this is a Known Thing in the South
B/c it has a signature
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I suspect we're talking past each other because we're saying different things
You said kindness is often faked in the South
Sure
I don't disagree
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What leads you to assume I have not myself experienced "fake kindness" from a Southerner? (You mentioned "privilege", is this the privilege that you refer to?)
Where did I say you mis-spoke?
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maybe you completely disagree with what I just wrote!
that's fine, too -
but I offer it as a hypothesis worth considering.
peace to you.
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Let me suggest this a different way:
Yes, you have experienced people "faking kindness"-
But are your sure that what they are faking, is really kindness?
I don't have the answer
but I suspect kindness is deeper that what they're faking, + furthermore your lived experience shows that 2 be true
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I feel like Obi Wan Kenobi right now, lol!
Which part of what I wrote made you feel I was questioning your lived experience?
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Lol ... You have a point!
are you sure, though?
I mean, one develops a sense for it, after a while
Genuine kindness, I mean ...
I suspect what people are faking in the South is "civility"
But unkindness - in a wrapper of fake civility - is a whole other thing ...
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ok pal, let me show YOU what weird looks like *shows a clip of Kamala politely introducing herself to blind people*
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The tiny "is" is chef's kiss perfect
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A man came up to me the other day, big man, had tears in his eyes, "Sir," he said, choking back tears, "you're fucking weird, and there's rumors flying, that your running mate is even weirder than you are"