Before being concerned with what others think of me, I want to follow through with my own being.

© ATRIA Books

The Courage to Be Disliked
By Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

In my time spent being still this winter, I've been deeply reflecting on my beliefs, habits, flaws, traumas. I've been working on courage, and on unlearning some of the internalized beliefs about myself and my capabilities that have prevented me from being more courageous in my life. I've done really well for myself and yet my instinct to appease, avoid confrontation, and be liked have been pretty limiting in ways that may not be obvious from the outside. Now that I'm aware of these patterns, sometimes I find I'm a little too close to the other end of the spectrum so I'm being mindful about finding the balance, and remaining compassionate and patient towards others in the process.

It's not easy but I feel the urgency of mastering self-love, self-forgiveness, and independence of others' expectations and needs.

Reminder: one can't be good for the world (community feeling), unless one can be good to oneself—and that requires setting boundaries, speaking up, limiting comparison, and being brave.


"Philosopher: But if you change your lifestyle—the way of giving meaning to the world and yourself—then both your way of interacting with the world and your behavior will have to change as well. Do not forget this point: One will have to change. You, just as you are, have to choose your lifestyle." (p. 38)

"Philosopher: Admitting is a good attitude. But don't forget, it's basically impossible to not get hurt in your relations with other people. When you enter into interpersonal relationships, it is inevitable that to a greater or lesser extent you will get hurt, and you will hurt someone, too. Adler says, "To get rid of one's problems, all one can do is live in the universe all alone." But one can't do such a thing." (p. 51)

"Philosopher: Think about it this way. When we refer to the pursuit of superiority, there's a tendency to think of it as the desire to try to be superior to other people; to climb higher, even if it means kicking others down—you know, the image of ascending a stairway and pushing people out of the way to get to the top. Adler does not uphold such attitudes, of course. Rather, he's saying that on the same level playing field, there are people who are moving forward, and there are people who are moving forward behind them. Keep that image in mind. Though the distance covered and the speed of walking differ, everyone is walking equally in the same flat place. The pursuit of superiority is the mind-set of taking a single step forward on one's own feet, not the mind-set of competition of the sort that necessitates aiming to be greater than other people." (pp. 72-3)

"Philosopher: Does one choose recognition from others, or does one choose a path of freedom without recognition? It's an important question—let's think about it together. To live one's life trying to gauge other people's feelings and being worried about how they look at you. To live in such a way that others' wishes are granted. There may indeed be signposts to guide you this way, but it is a very unfree way to live. Now, why are you choosing such an unfree way to live? You are using the term "desire for recognition," but what you are really saying is that you don't want to be disliked by anyone." (p. 140)

"Philosopher: One neither prepares to be self-righteous nor becomes defiant. One just separates tasks. There may be a person who does not think well of you, but that is not your task. And again, thinking things like He should like me or I've done all this, so it's strange that he doesn't like me, is the reward-oriented way of thinking of having intervened in another person's tasks. One moves forward without fearing the possibility of being disliked. One does not live as if one were rolling downhill, but instead climbs the slope that lies ahead. That is freedom for a human being. Suppose that I had two choices in front of me—a life in which all people like me, and a life in which there are people who dislike me—and I was told to choose one. I would choose the latter without a second thought. Before being concerned with what others think of me, I want to follow through with my own being. That is to say, I want to live in freedom." (p. 145)

"Philosopher: When we speak of interpersonal relationships, it always seems to be two-person relationships and one's relationship to a large group that come to mind, but first it is oneself. When one is tied to the desire for recognition, the interpersonal relationship cards will always stay in the hands of other people. Does one entrust the cards of life to another person, or hold onto them oneself?" (p. 150)

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Wild Geese
By Mary Oliver

Just because. It is a gift to feel at home with yourself. Requires hard-earned, trying, self-consuming work. Over and over. Strongly believe having read (and heard) these words along the way made a difference.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver, Dec. 2018 in Market Square Park (Houston)

The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver

Stumbled upon "The Summer Day" on the ground in downtown Houston last month, only a few feet from a moving memorial for a woman who died on 9/11. I was so surprised to see the barely legible poem, delighted even; it was so easy to miss. It delivered a hopeful message for the somber moment. A month before, during an empowering women's summit hosted by Glamour Magazine, Ann Dowd followed her speech about success and self-worth by reciting "Wild Geese" to the audience. Another moment of pleasant surprise. Reading Mary's words in recent years have provided comfort, understanding, and perspective in times of of both joy and sadness. And when overcome by nature's beauty and unable to find the words, I refer to hers. I've only read Upstream, and intended to seek more of her works, so maybe I'll do that this long weekend: treat myself to quiet time and Mary's poetry and prose.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

What we do, in English, and in the humanities more broadly, what we teach, what we celebrate and investigate, is human particularity.

Death of an English Major
By Gary Taylor

This piece devastated me.

(Not unlike the feeling of heartbreak I felt after reading this piece commemorating the life of a boy killed in the Newtown mass shooting.)

So, SO, beautifully written and unique to the author and his (and the victim's) experience.

Thought it especially important to give it a lift given the terrible news lately—I'm feeling the gravity of the loss of life and of the indifference to the lives of black people and POC, of women and children. A whole, vast universe with all its potential is lost after each person is killed and it's a huge, ugly shame.

"But Maura, unlike the others, was an English major. She was many other things, too; she was a treasury of particulars and potentials." 

"What we do, in English, and in the humanities more broadly, what we teach, what we celebrate and investigate, is human particularity ... We grieve, now, the loss of all the “brave, bold and kind” particularities of Maura Binkley."

Happiness is possible only when you stop running and cherish the present moment and who you are.

© HarperOne

The Art of Power
By Thich Nhat Hanh

Per usual, I'm overwhelmed by all of my goals. And my obligations. I promised myself after the last big trip (to Peru) I'd take a few months off from traveling to be still. To reflect & reset. After a while, so much travel feels like running. It's been a great privilege and has opened me up to possibilities. Now I need to sit with them.

Good lessons imparted with good intentions in this read. At times repetitive but the solutions are so simple & I'll do my best to implement these teachings into my life.

“I take my time. I want to be myself. I don’t deny myself in the here and now. This is our practice—we call it aimlessness. We don’t put a goal in front of ourselves and run after it constantly. If we do, we’ll be running all our life and never be happy. Happiness is possible only when you stop running and cherish the present moment and who you are. Who you are is already a wonder; you don’t need to be someone else. You are a wonder of life.”

“To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. You can attain many insights by looking into the past. But you are still grounded in the present moment.”

She could only hope that when the moment came, she’d be wise enough to know it, and brave enough to act.

Lovecraft Country
By Matt Ruff

“A wanderer in darkness, she followed an eccentric orbit, each new disturbance angling her closer to some long-awaited rendezvous. She could only hope that when the moment came, she’d be wise enough to know it, and brave enough to act.”
(p. 186)

The richness of Latin America lies in being many things at once, so many that they make of it a microcosm in which almost all the races and cultures of the world coexist.

© Farrar Strauss & Giroux

Sabers and Utopias: Visions of Latin America
By Mario Vargas Llosa

Entire essay worth reading, but I can't find it anywhere (in English or Spanish).

"Observed in this way, without the deforming goggles of mythology and utopia, Latin America is neither paradise nor inferno, although for millions of its poor and marginalized it is closer to the latter than the former. It is, pure and simple, a continent that has still not overcome basic obstacles that impede development or deform it and that, in contrast to what is already luckily happening in all of North America, nearly all of Europe, and a good part of Asia and Oceania, has not yet accepted itself for what it is, preferring, in the manner of those who would still like to find in it the Seven Cities of Cibola, the Fountain of Youth, or the Paradise of Leon Pinelo, the visions of the marvelous real over simple reality.
Let's try to approach the reality of Latin America that lies beneath the phosphorescence of images, witches, or horrendousness with which ideology, religion, and literature have dressed Latin America, making an effort to be rational—and knowing that this is difficult, since we Latin Americans, whether we like it or not, are infected with mythology and utopianism.
Let's start with a very simple question that throughout our history has received contradictory answers. What does it mean to feel Latin American? Above all, it means feeling beyond national borders, like an active member of a transnational community. To be conscious that the territorial demarcations dividing our countries are artificial, arbitrarily imposed during the colonial years and that, instead of repairing them, the leaders of the emancipation and republican governments legitimized and sometimes aggravated them, dividing and isolating societies in which the common denominator went deeper than particular differences. The Balkanization of Latin America, as opposed to what happened in North America, where the thirteen colonies united and their union set the United States on its way, has been one of the conspicuous factors of our underdevelopment, since it stimulated nationalisms, wars, and conflicts in which Latin American countries have bled, wasting huge resources that could have served for their modernization and progress. Only in the field of culture has Latin American integration come to be something real, a product of experience and necessity—everyone who writes, composes, paints, or carries out any other creative task discovers that what unites them with other Latin Americans is more important than what separates them from other Latin Americans—while in other realms, politics, economics, and especially attempts to unify governing and market actions have always been restrained by nationalist reflexes, very deep-rooted in the continent: this is the reason for which all of the organisms conceived to unite the region have never prospered."

"The richness of Latin America lies in being many things at once, so many that they make of it a microcosm in which almost all the races and cultures of the world coexist. Five centuries after the arrival of the Europeans on its shores and mountain ranges and in its jungles, Latin Americans of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, African, Chinese, or Japanese origins are as much natives of the continent as those who have ancestors in the ancient Aztecs, Toltecs, Mayas, Quechuas, Aymaras, or Caribs. And the mark that Africans have left on the continent where they have also been for five centuries is present everywhere: in human beings, in ways of speaking, in music, in food, and even in certain ways of practicing religion. It is not an exaggeration to say that there is no tradition, culture, language, or race that has not contributed something to that vortex of mixtures and alliances that can be seen in all aspects of life in America. This amalgam is our best patrimony. To be a continent that lacks one identity because it has them all. And because, thanks to its creators, it keeps transforming, every day."

(pp. 177-9; 183 "Dreams And Reality in Latin America"; Mexico, April 2007)