Generation X and millennials are at an increased risk of developing certain cancers compared with older generations, a shift that is probably due to generational changes in diet, lifestyle and environmental exposures, a large new study suggests.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/07/31/cancer-rates-younger-generations/

Italian Olympian Gymnast Giorgia Villa Poses with her Parmesan Sponsor

 

The delusional world of the scapegoating family system

 ARTICLE by Tereza Pultarova

family scapegoating abuse

Being a family scapegoat: Is acceptance and healing possible?

The journey to acceptance for victims of family scapegoating is long and complicated. The journey to healing, I dare to say, is even more challenging.

There are several hurdles the victim has to overcome to reach full acceptance. All these hurdles have to do with hope that some form of reconciliation might be possible, that reparations can be made, that the scapegoating family members could realize how they wronged the scapegoat and that they have the capacity to regret their behaviour. In short, these hurdles have to do with the hope that despite all that has passed, the scapegoating family members somehow do care.

Letting go of a part of your life is tough

It is not a small ask to expect a person to just let go of all familial connections, of the environment that shaped them and formed the backdrop of their formative years, no matter how dysfunctional. For a child or a young person, that family was all they had, it had been their entire world. And in most dysfunctional families, the bad would be interspersed with some good.

Intermittent reinforcement

This sprinkling of good memories among the bad makes the process of letting go even harder. It functions like that proverbial breadcrumbing frequently utilized by narcissistic abusers. It binds the scapegoat to the scapegoater through that wicked mechanism of intermittent reinforcement. (I’m sure you’ve heard about those experiments with rats in a cage.)

And so, the recovering scapegoat will be going through phases of genuine longing for those lost good moments.

When we are dealing with family scapegoating, we are dealing with serious mental health issues on the side of the scapegoaters that might not be obvious to external observers. The scapegoat’s confusion and complicated emotions towards the scapegoaters are an imprint of those scapegoating family members’ mental reality. It is them who created that confusion, often deliberately, with their unpredictable actions and gaslighting. The inconsistency of love and care creates a powerful bond, which, even though suppressed by the victim in recovery, keeps pulling the victim back.

Grieving what should have been

This is where patience and self-compassion must be practiced. Our cognitive selves are way ahead of our emotional selves in processing information about our loved ones. The emotional self needs time, support and compassion to come to terms with realities that are in such a stark contrast to what we had believed was real. The emotional self can’t just let go. It must be heard and given time to grieve.

Through therapy and self-education, a victim of family scapegoating gradually develops his or her understanding of what a family should be, how they should have been treated as children and young people, how caring, love and kindness actually look like.

As this understanding grows, so does the resentment, disgust and anger of the scapegoat towards the abusive family members. With a delay, the victim is finally comprehending the harm done to them.

As this understanding grows, the grief expands beyond the time, love and relationships lost. The scapegoat must fully comprehend the hole the family dysfunction created in their lives and the effects it still has on them in the present. This hole is real and lasting. There is no warm encouragement, no concern over the scapegoat’s wellbeing. There is silence, there is talking about the scapegoat behind the scapegoat’s back. Patching up this hole in adulthood is the most difficult aspect of the healing process, the one many of us keep stumbling over and over again (more on this later).

False promises

Occasionally, the hope that prevents the scapegoat from accepting reality receives fuel in the form of occasional communication attempts from members of the scapegoating family systems. Some of these attempts may seem, on the surface level, motivated by an actual interest to reconnect with the scapegoat. Very quickly, however, the scapegoat realizes that the only reason for the communication attempt is to bring the scapegoat back into line. That bringing into line requires the scapegoat to accept the dominant narrative of the scapegoating family. The victim is under pressure to accept that there have never been any problems and that all has been just in the scapegoat’s head. If there were problems, they were the responsibility of the scapegoat, not the scapegoating family system.

This is an impossible situation for the awakened scapegoat, who has begun to speak up against the abusive, toxic and dysfunctional behaviour they had been subject to growing up in the toxic family system.

The toxic family can never look at itself. Instead, it sees the scapegoat’s protestations as evidence of his or her faultiness or difficult nature.

The delusional world of the scapegoating family system

There are no real conversations in the toxic family system. There is either silence or pretending. There is control through overt and covert forms of oppression. There is no interest ever to hear and acknowledge the validity of the scapegoat’s reality. Whatever the scapegoat has to say can’t be real, they must be making it up, they must be crazy, too sensitive. The scapegoating family is perfect and will not entertain any information to the contrary.

Members of the scapegoating family who control the narrative either truly believe the story they spin or are deliberately using manipulation. The mechanism of projective identification is powerful in narcissistic personalities. It serves as a self-protecting mechanism, not allowing the disordered family member to ever face his or her own imperfection, shame and guilt. The guilt and shame need to be projected onto the scapegoat. If the scapegoat protests against the disordered family member’s behaviour, this protestation will be deemed the problem by the disordered family system rather than the behaviour that provoked the protestation.

The narrative about the scapegoat’s faultiness has a firm hold on the family and is accepted by the entire system, even by people who otherwise spent very little time with the scapegoat to be able to form their own opinion.

The behind the back nature of family scapegoating abuse

This firm hold is established by the disordered family member’s need to constantly retell their version of the story. In a toxic family, people don’t talk to each other about problems they have with each other in order to solve those problems. They talk about each other behind each other’s back. This tactic is mostly employed by the controlling family member. Sometimes, the scapegoat attempts to set the record straight but is usually not believed and dismissed.

The toxic story-telling continues even after the scapegoat physically leaves the family system and will intensify if the scapegoat speaks up and seeks support outside the family system. It always has to be someone else, not the family, that is wrong. Either the scapegoat, their therapist or the scapegoat’s friends must be spinning a false narrative.

With this mindset, there is no chance for reconciliation. The scapegoating family is not interested in reconciliation and repair. They are only interested in maintaining their dominance and control over the narrative.

It’s important to note that scapegoating families have patterns of behaviour that lead to the accumulation of skeletons in the family closets. The scapegoating family members are psychologically not strong or evolved enough to process these inconvenient truths and learn from them.

Difficult emotions

Coming to terms with the whole truth about the scapegoating family system is a long journey, full of ups and downs and some very difficult emotions. The more the scapegoat speaks up, the more the system rejects them. The more the system rejects them, the more they hurt. It is their own family, their flesh and blood that over and over is showing to the scapegoat that they mean nothing. The family’s dysfunction is dearer to the system than the scapegoat. There will be anger, there will be rage, there will be resentment.

The scapegoat is asked to achieve some nearly divine level of forgiveness and understanding. They are asked to take full responsibility for themselves and their emotions, their safety in the world and their basic human need for connection. The family will fulfill none of that and the scapegoat must cease being bitter, somehow, eventually.

It’s hard. It’s hard because life is hard and in the scapegoat’s life there is a hole and there is meanness and darkness where there should have been love, support and nurturing. Of course, the scapegoat is bitter. Of course, the scapegoat is resentful. Thanks to all their education and psychotherapy work, they now understand what life should have been, what family connections should have provided, what life should have been like. But accepting fully that none of those needs will be fulfilled by the family and directing all energies towards finding ways how to plug those holes and build a more secure and full existence is the only way forward.

But there are challenges.

What is healing and how can it be achieved?

True healing doesn’t happen when reading books and sitting in a psychotherapist’s office. That’s only the research and study part of the recovery process. The actual healing happens in the real world by the scapegoat creating a different, better, more connected, fuller life experience.

The main hurdles to healing

But that is not easy either. The scapegoat is programmed to be drawn towards dysfunctional people. He or she most likely has co-dependent tendencies and subconsciously tends to connect with people to whom he or she can be useful, whom he or she can rescue. They may also be prone to falling for narcissistic personalities who present as an answer to all the scapegoat’s prayers. The scapegoat is stumbling through the world, learning from one painful, interpersonal experience after another, losing hope, getting more distrustful with every disappointment.

So, is there hope?

It appears to me that the scapegoat needs to accept that their approach to meeting their complex and difficult emotional needs has to be multi-faceted. On one hand, we do need others who can relate to our experience. We need others like us. But on the other hand, connecting with other ‘damaged’ people is a risky business. Triggers flare up, communication skills are not yet developed to repair ruptures and more trauma ensues.

The scapegoat’s survival depends on their ability to keep going. To learn from every failure and approach the next situation with a bit more caution, bit more wisdom, accepting fully that interpersonal relationships are a mine-field, but having faith that with patience and constant work, it can be done.

I have previously written about the tricky business of 12-step fellowships, such as Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families. But the truth is that one dysfunctional meeting should not put the scapegoat off such support groups forever. They need this type of a connection, but they need to work on other types of connection as well.

The scapegoat also needs to work on their self-esteem and confidence through their professional endeavours, building further networks of connections and carving a space in life for themselves where their family of origin had none for them.

I am not there yet, I still have a long journey ahead of me, but it appears to me that achieving radical acceptance and a full understanding of the family situation as well as the wider context of the problem, is the first solid step in the right direction. There will be no magic bullets, no sudden filling of all the holes and voids through one single person, one single group. A lot is asked from us, and unless we accept that it all has some sort of a higher meaning, it is hard to accept why.

But I do believe that scapegoats do have a sort of special power. They know the society’s dark truth. They are the ones that were silenced, marginalized, erased. They know. They know too much. But they might be able to use it to create change. And since change always must start on a small scale, I would like to hope that a connecting and collective healing of scapegoats could bring something into the world that has been missing to the detriment of everyone.

tereza.pultarova@gmail.com

more articles here...

Great content you might have missed on Tereza's Health Blog

• Covert narcissist: how he makes you look like the crazy person
• Being a family scapegoat: Is acceptance and healing possible?
• The narcissist's false reality and how he traps you in it

Long Sleeved Rash Guard for outdoor Cold Water Swims

I swam outdoors tonight under the clouds while the pool was filling. I wore my long sleeved rash guard so I wouldn't swim fast to compensate for the cold water. I love cold water but I have to practice swimming slow to prevent TFL injuries. As a daily swimmer I have to protect myself from injuries.

Too many children are drowning. These changes can help.

 Washington Post

Opinion

Too many children are drowning. These changes can help.

Drowning is the No. 1 cause of death among young kids. This is a travesty — and a fixable problem.

By Leana S. Wen

July 30, 2024 at 7:15 a.m. EDT

Drowning is the No. 1 cause of death among young kids, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported. In 2022, the latest data available, 461 children ages 1 to 4 drowned, an increase of 28 percent from 2019.

The disturbing report also documented significant racial disparities. This is consistent with a 2023 analysis from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which found that 21 percent of all drowning deaths were among African American children. Among 5- to 14-year-olds, African Americans made up 45 percent of deaths.

These numbers tell a grim story of tragedy and inequity. Here are three policy changes that can help save lives:

1. Increase supervised community swimming spaces.

The CPSC report shows that 80 percent of child drownings occurred in residential settings. That means most kids died in their own home or that of a neighbor, family member or friend. Of these drownings, 91 percent were kids younger than 5.

There are several reasons residential settings can be especially hazardous. In many instances, the kids were playing without adequate supervision, or they were supervised by older children or adults who don’t know how to swim.

Increased access to community swimming spaces, such as lifeguarded pools and beaches, can improve safety. It can also help reduce inequities. The CDC study included survey data that showed 67 percent of Black adults spent no time at a swimming pool in the past six months, compared with 44 percent of White adults. Communities should invest in recreation centers with year-round pools as well as efforts to make more natural bodies of water swimmable.

2. Ensure there are enough lifeguards.

Last year, a third of the country’s 309,000 public swimming pools were closed or opened only sporadically because of a growing lifeguard shortage, the American Lifeguard Association reported. This is a travesty — and a fixable problem.

Solutions include making lifeguard training free, incorporating that education into high school and university curriculums, and increasing pay and offering more flexible hours to attract more employees.

There should also be more opportunities for people to make lifeguarding their profession. Traditionally, many lifeguards are teenagers who see the work as a one-time rite of passage. To ensure an adequate workforce year-round, there should be a career path for those who choose to lifeguard full-time. Such a career could be integrated with other public safety roles. For instance, emergency medical technicians could work shifts on ambulances as well as at the pool.

3. Teach kids — and adults — how to swim.

It should come as no surprise that teaching kids water safety reduces their risk of drowning. A study in JAMA Pediatrics concluded that participation in formal swim lessons reduced the risk of drowning by 88 percent.

In Australia, most states and territories have compulsory swimming programs for school-age children. In England, all public schools are required to provide swimming lessons and water safety education. By the time British kids finish primary school, they have to swim the length of a pool unaided.

Contrast this to the United States, where more than half of American adults say they have never taken a swim lesson. The numbers are even more stark among minority groups: Nearly 2 out of 3 Black adults and 3 out of 4 Hispanic adults have never taken a swim class.

Implementing mandates may not be feasible for many schools in the United States that lack access to a pool, but much more can be done to encourage swim instruction. That includes providing free classes and offering school credit for learning to swim.

There should also be options for adults who want to learn basic water safety. Growing up, I was terrified of the water. So were my parents, who didn’t swim themselves. I never took classes or intended to, but one day, my then-1-year-old daughter fell into a pool, and I realized I couldn’t save her. I was motivated to finally learn, but I couldn’t find a beginner class for adults. It took a lot of persistence to find an instructor who was willing to start from zero.

Adults who don’t know how to swim are much more likely to have children who don’t either. As I can attest, it’s really hard to overcome your fears at a later age. Making swim lessons more accessible to adults would help them with water safety — and, by extension, would help their children and grandchildren, too.

None of these policy solutions will work in isolation. A core tenet of water safety is to layer multiple interventions, since they can work together to reduce risk. The key message underlying all of them is that drownings are preventable, and far more must be done to help everyone safely enjoy water activities.

Elaine at Plumber's Supply

Elaine had perpetually startled blue eyes that bulged slightly. I figured it was a thyroid condition and perhaps it was. We saw her a few days ago working behind the counter at the plumbing supply counter and when we returned to the car my husband mentioned her eyes were no longer startled or bulging. "Maybe she got married, maybe she got treatment," I ventured. "Who knows but you're right." She looked a lot calmer.

To make your own work and take pride in it.

“I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”

― Joan Didion

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves--there lies the great, singular power of self-respect. Joan Didion

You have to pick the places you don't walk away from. Joan Didion

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Joan Didion, The White Album

We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience. ― Joan Didion, The White Album

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

write it down

See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passage back to the world out there.

JOAN DIDION

...people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love too, only more so.

― Edna O'Brien, Girls in Their Married Bliss 

That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.

 ― Edna O'Brien, Country Girl   

Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world.

― Edna O'Brien 

We all leave one another. We die, we change - it's mostly change - we outgrow our best friends; but even if I do leave you, I will have passed on to you something of myself; you will be a different person because of knowing me; it's inescapable...

― Edna O'Brien, Girl with Green Eyes

Cold Water Outdoor Swim on a Cloudy Day

The outdoor pool was refilling when I arrived. The water was COLD. I loved it but I was unable to swim SLOWLY. I had the heat on in the car driving home. Now I am heating up soup and baking crinkle cut fries and sipping HOT TEA to warm up.

I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead.
― Margaret Atwood, CAT'S EYE. 

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

 Margaret Atwood

A word after a word after a word is power.

― Margaret Atwood 

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

― Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg 

Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

 Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

― Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye 

a painting

“—if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don’t think, ‘oh, I love this picture because it’s universal.’ ‘I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.’ That’s not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It’s a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you.”

― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

'When you feel homesick,' he said, 'just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.' Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.

 André Gide

Why do we tell each other our stories? Because our stories become our lives.

George Bilgere

Age Seven

The seven year old girl is surrounded by a tornado called alcoholism. I see her standing with her hands clasped together, posing, wearing a pink dress. Her face has the "don't hit me" expression causing a wrinkle at her brow between her brown eyes. She is now 65 and I still see her as the seven year old because she hasn't grown up she has only aged.

Incantation

 

Disguise

 

Reading all night

 Last night I started reading at 5PM and read until after midnight. I love to read.

Hair

 

Prevent swimming injuries SLOW DOWN!

After my injury from the overuse TFL I am learning that deliberately swimming slower prevents aggravating the hip and shoulder joints. It's hard work to swim slower but I don't mind. It's wonderful not having the post swim joint pain. AMEN!

 https://www.childrenshospital.org/sports-injury-prevention/swimming

It's the birthday of writer Aldous Huxley, born in Surrey, England (1894). As a boy, he wanted to be a scientist like his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley. But when he was 17 years old, he contracted an eye disease that rendered him nearly blind, so he decided to become a writer. His first successful novel was Point Counter Point (1928), which was an extremely ambitious book, with numerous characters and a complex interweaving plot. Huxley decided that his next book would be something light. He had been reading some H.G. Wells and thought it would be interesting to try to write something about what the future might be like.

The result was Brave New World (1932), about a future in which most human beings are born in test-tube factories, genetically engineered to belong in one of five castes: Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. There are no families; people have sex all the time and never fall in love, and they keep themselves happy by taking a drug called "soma." Brave New World was one of the first novels to predict the future existence of genetic engineering, anti-depression medication, as well as virtual reality. When George Orwell's 1984 came out a few years later, many critics compared the two novels, trying to decide which one was more likely to come true. Huxley argued that his imagined future was more likely, because it would be easier to control people by keeping them happy than it would be by threatening them with violence.  Writer's Almanac

The hand of fate had dipped into the ragbag of humanity. Jean Shepherd

A man today never feels so alive as when he is hurtling from one point to another on the azimuth. Jean Shepherd

Instant Italian Supper

After swimming outdoors in cold water tonight I knew what to make for supper. I placed 6 hot Italian  frozen sausages (separated), a 1 pound package of frozen spinach, 2 large cans of crushed tomatoes, a few glugs of jug Chianti, a pound of small pasta shells, and some water in the INSTANT POT and cooked it all for 5 minutes and let it stand for 5 more minutes before opening. Then I  stirred it and taste tested it. I added Asiago (grating it coarsely on the box grater) and olive oil, some dried granulated garlic and dried oregano, fresh basil, and 2 cups of leftover cooked red lentils. Fabulous!

Czesław Miłosz, Czeslaw Milosz

 

And Yet the Books

by Czeslaw Milosz, 1986, translated by Robert Haas

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,

That appeared once, still wet

As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,

 

And, touched, coddled, began to live

In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,

Tribes on the march, planets in motion.

 

“We are,” they said, even as their pages

Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame

Licked away their letters. So much more durable

Than we are, whose frail warmth

Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.

 

I imagine the earth when I am no more:

Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,

Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.

 

Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,

Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

 

From The Collected Poems 1931–1987 by Czeslaw Milosz, Ecco Press, 1988.

Meditation is listening and prayer is asking. it's been a spiritual awakening for me to realize things are better when I listen than when I ask.

Anonymous

He draws asparagus and cabbages, but he's obsessed with artichokes. He draws them more than any other vegetable. Why artichokes?" George drained his glass. "The artichoke is a sexy beast. Thorns to cut you, leaves to peel, lighter and lighter as you strip away the outer layers, until you reach the soft heart's core. Allegra Goodman, The Cookbook Collector

 The creative artist can change the world. A true writer opens people's ears and eyes, not merely playing to the public, but changing minds and lives. This is sacred work.

Allegra Goodman

Melody Moezzi: choosing to surround yourself with people who know what matters most to you and will push you to honor that, whatever it happens to be.

Choosing your family — and by extension, your community — is an intensely powerful act of self-care. No matter how much we may want to, we simply cannot promote and maintain health — or prevent disease and cope with (mental) health conditions and disability — alone.

We need family, and we need community. And it’s no secret that there is no such thing as a perfect family or community, so it’s up to us to fill the gaps and build the families and communities we need — and deserve.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t do this unless we’re severely persecuted by our families of origin — which may partly explain why the LGBTQ+ community is way ahead of the curve here. That said, we can all benefit from building strong and diverse chosen families. Being faithful to who we are is the best way to do it.

I’ve been writing and speaking openly about my experiences with bipolar disorder for more than a decade now, and as a result of being faithful to who I am by refusing to be quiet about what matters to me, I now have a remarkable extended chosen family of other mental health advocates and survivors.

Keeping their company helps keep me well, which makes them a vital part of my self-care strategy. And they assure me this isn’t a one-way street, as they insist that keeping my company helps keep them well, too.

Together, we’ve found our people — those who “get” us — and every day our patient presence reminds us that there’s nothing selfish about self-care.

Authenticity: the Ultimate Self-Care by Melody Moezzi

Cultivate Islands

Kay Jamison describes “islands” as things you love and feel passionate about, things that add value to your life.

“Seek out the things you love and put them in front of you — even when you are depressed,” she says.

She recommends using imagination and tapping into the arts to create your own islands that no one else can infiltrate source

I’m reminded also of the three rules we came up with, rules to live by. And I’m just going to tell you what they are because they come in really handy. Because things happen so fast, it’s always good to have a few, like, watchwords to fall back on. And the first one is: One. Don’t be afraid of anyone. Now, can you imagine living your life afraid of no one? Two. Get a really good bullshit detector. And three. Three is be really, really tender. And with those three things, you don’t need anything else.

Laurie Anderson & Lou Reed

Tuna Salad with a boost!

We make this tuna salad with hard boiled eggs added and eat it with pickles and red onion. It's delicious. I even add nonfat cottage cheese!

https://whatgreatgrandmaate.com/tuna-egg-salad/

Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get.

 “Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.”
― Ray Bradbury

“Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.”

― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

You must write every single day of your life... You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads... may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world. Ray Bradbury

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. Ray Bradbury

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't "try" to do things. You simply "must" do things.

 ― Ray Bradbury

The Thinking

Writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn’t the writing; it’s the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?”

WILLIAM ZINSSER

Kale and White Bean Soup

 I was feeling guilty for not using the kale after a few days. I had 6 bunches in the fridge. The forecast was rain so I thought, let's make soup. So I rinsed the kale and chopped the leaves and stems and added them to my instant pot. I had just presoaked Great Northern beans for an hour after boiling for a few minutes. I didn't realize the white beans cook fast without this step. Then I chopped a whole bunch of celery. I added two trays of frozen spicy Italian sausages and 3 cubes of bullion and water and cooked it all for 20 minutes in the instant pot. Then I added olive oil and Adobo and Chianti and it was perfect. I had to use ice water in a sink of water to rapidly cool the vat of soup so I could safely refrigerate it.

Barlow Adams

A friend went to the funeral of an ER doctor. In addition to photos of the doctor and his family, there was an interactive table displaying various objects the surgeon had pulled out of people’s asses over the years. My friend said it was the best funeral he had ever attended. Barlow Adams

The Opposite of Addiction is Not Sobriety – It is Human Connection

What really causes a person to become addicted to drugs? Is the chemical in the drug strong enough to cause people to continuously crave more? If that were the case, how is it that many medical drug users do not become addicts?

What is really driving the war on drugs? Have we been believing something for so long that is flawed in its essence?

In an increasingly popular TED Talk, Johann Hari famously concludes that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it is human connection.

The rat park experiment

One of the ways this understanding of addiction evolved was the famous study in the 1980s of rats in a cage. Given a choice between water laced with drugs, or pure water, most often, the rats chose the drugs. They eventually became addicted, consuming the drugs repeatedly until they died.

Bruce Alexander, a professor of Psychology in Vancouver, noted that perhaps the rats resorted to the drug because they are all alone in the cage with no stimulation. He put the rats in cages with other rats, toys, tunnels, and food, and noted that rats in a social situation will react differently. Some of these rats tried both types of water, but they didn’t become heavy users of the drug-laced water. And none of them died.

Alexander carried out additional studies with rats and discovered that if he took solitary, drug-addicted rats and placed them in a cage with other rats and social stimulation, they no longer heavily used the drug-laced water.

Human connection

Human beings crave connection, bonding, and love. When meaningful connection is missing from our lives, an addiction may begin to fill the void. The good news is that this is something that can be overcome.

When you view the war on drugs in this light, trying to eliminate the drugs—the addictive chemicals—will never end addiction completely because it avoids a deeper problem in society—a lack of connection. There is an alternative. You can build a system that is designed to help drug addicts to reconnect with the world—and so leave behind their addictions.

–Johann Hari 

ADHD can power addiction. Click here to learn more. source

Home made frozen yogurt

I had NINE frozen overly ripe bananas in my freezer. We finally made good use of them by making frozen banana yogurt ice milk.

We used frozen ripe bananas sweetened condensed milk whole milk yogurt homemade vanilla salt whole milk and a little bit of light cream. 

More info here & here.

Yes or No?

My husband and I were driving to the North End to walk our dog when my car suddenly sounded like a police radio burbling and then asked Yes or No? 

What is that? Did you hear that? 

Yes, I did.

This car talks!

No! I shouted at the car and the voice shut off.

We have a talking car!

You wouldn't have believed me had you not been in the car with me. 

True!

We laughed and told our mechanic. We all agreed that this might've been a blue tooth connection trying to

connect. 

I must've hit a button somewhere. I said laughing shaking my head.

For most of human history, most societies sought wisdom from their oldest members.

For most of human history, most societies sought wisdom from their oldest members. We’re in an odd experiment in which we seek it from Google, and think of old age as a problem to be fixed, not a source of wisdom to be cherished. I’m delighted that in this dark year, the elders offer a message of resilience and happiness. John Leland

When a person identifies himself with a group, his reasoning faculties are diminished and his passions enhanced by a kind of emotive resonance or positive feedback. Arthur Koestler

Dr. Seuss Cartoons

More Dr. Seuss political cartoons

Dr. Seuss Political Cartoon

 

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend. Henry David Thoreau

How to Make Ice Cream without an Ice Cream Machine

Read

Drugs and Alcohol Exacerbating Anxiety in Family Systems

It saddens me to see people treating their social anxiety with drugs and alcohol, the very things that exacerbate it. Over time the chemical dependence becomes a vicious cycle of needing more to get the same result. This creates a downward spiral of mental and physical deterioration, as well as destroying trust, communication and family relationships. These issues when unsolved become multi-generational coping strategies destroying the family. Even when one person becomes clean and sober, a new phase of hard work has begun. The rest of the family has to relearn their roles.

Neon Sunset

 

The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination. Elizabeth Hardwick

“Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more.”

― Elizabeth Hardwick

“Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.”
― Elizabeth Hardwick 

 

“When you travel your first discovery is that you do not exist.”
― Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights  

How to Measure Remaining Daylight with your Hand

 

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wildflower Hold Infinity in the Palm of your hand And Eternity in an Hour

 William Blake

The only thing worth having is a skill to master.

Opinion

The life secret Jerry Seinfeld learned from Esquire

The only thing worth having is a skill to master.

By Trung Phan

July 16, 2024 at 6:45 a.m. EDT

Trung Phan is the co-founder of Bearly AI and writes the SatPost newsletter. This essay is adapted from the May 24 entry on SatPost.

During a recent interview with the New Yorker to mark his directorial debut with the film “Unfrosted,” Jerry Seinfeld was asked why, given his great financial success, he still works so much. His answer was glorious:

“Because the only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill,” he said. “Good skill is the greatest possession. The things that money buys are fine. They’re good. I like them. But having a skill [is the most important thing].”

This, he said, he learned long ago from reading an issue of Esquire magazine on “mastery.” “Pursue mastery that will fulfill your life,” Seinfeld continued. “You will feel good. … I work because if you don’t in standup comedy — if you don’t do it a lot — you stink.”

This sent me looking for the issue of Esquire that had made such a difference for him, and I’m pretty sure I found it. In May 1987, two years before “Seinfeld” premiered on NBC, Esquire published an issue titled “Mastery: The Secret of Ultimate Fitness.”

It does indeed offer provocative lessons in how to excel at any undertaking, lessons that stand up today and deserve to be resurfaced from 37-year-old magazine pages.

In recent decades, notable books have addressed this same topic, including Robert Greene’s “Mastery” (2012) and Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” (2008), which popularized the “10,000-hour rule” specifying how much practice it takes to master a skill.

But the Esquire issue is older than those books, and it contains gem insights all its own. (In fact, the magazine issue was so popular that it inspired George Leonard — who edited and compiled that issue — to write a book on the topic.)

Here are the six notable takeaways:

1. Anyone can pursue mastery — if they can first locate the path

In the issue’s main article, “Playing For Keeps: The Art of Mastery in Sports and Life,” Leonard explains: “The modern world can be viewed as a prodigious conspiracy against mastery. We are bombarded with promises of fast, temporary relief, immediate gratification, and instant success, all of which lead in exactly the wrong direction.”

This is, if anything, truer today than it was back then. TV, a growing distraction in the mid-1980s, was nothing compared with the smartphones in our pockets now.

2. Maintain a child’s mind-set

Starting on the path of mastery requires qualities more commonly found in children than in adults: curiosity, being present and lack of ego — specifically, not caring if you fail.

Many adults are unable to learn new skills, Leonard says, because they are “impatient for significant results” and unwilling to make mistakes.

3. Develop muscle memory

The best athletes in a sport usually make it look effortless — think of Roger Federer in tennis or Steph Curry in basketball. It looks effortless because the athlete has put in countless hours of practice. The physical movements become “muscle memory” and the actions are on “autopilot.”

There has been significantly more research on this topic since the mid-1980s, but it’s interesting to read what was understood almost four decades ago. Karl Priban, then a neuroscientist at Stanford University, explains to Leonard that humans possess a subconscious “habitual behavior system,” which involves a “reflex circuit in the spinal cord” connected to various parts of the brain.

“It makes it possible for you to do things — jump over a hurdle or return a scorching tennis serve — without worrying just how you do them,” Leonard says about Priban’s research. In the beginning, you have to learn new ways of moving and sensing, but once you reprogram the habitual system, you no longer have to stop and think about where to place your feet to leap over a hurdle or how to grip your racket.

4. Mastery is plateaus and brief spurts of progress

Leonard describes his own experience learning to play tennis. He wants instant results, but his instructor wants him to be patient. Leonard is told to avoid even playing against an opponent for six months. Instead, he should spend his training time perfecting his grip on the racket. The instructor is trying to impart two main lessons:

“Learning something new involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher than what preceded it.”

and

“You must be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere.”

Learning to tolerate plateaus is essential, because they are “where the deepest, most lasting learning takes place,” Leonard says. In time, he learns that every plateau leads eventually to a satisfying new spurt of progress.

Those who fail to appreciate this truth wind up as non-masters, of which there are three kinds. The first is the “dabbler,” the zealous beginner who “announces proudly to everyone he knows that he is going to take up tennis, golf, martial arts, bodybuilding, running, swimming, whatever. He loves the shiny new equipment [and] the spiffy training suits.” He has a spurt of progress, demonstrates his skill to family and friends, and can’t wait for the next lesson. But when the inevitable plateau arrives, he loses enthusiasm, starts missing lessons, and rationalizes that the sport was really never for him. He starts into something else, and the cycle continues.

The second type is the “obsessive,” who wants to get every skill down right off the bat. “He stays after class talking to the instructor. He asks what books and tapes he can buy to help him make progress faster. He leans toward the listener when he talks.” And he makes robust progress at first. But when he reaches the plateau, he can’t stand it. He tries harder, pushing himself until he quits, often with an injury.

The third kind of non-master is the “hacker,” the person who, after reaching the plateau, is willing to stay there. “If it is golf, he gets locked into an eccentric but adequate swing and is satisfied with it. If it is tennis, he develops a solid forehand and figures he can make do with his backhand. If it’s martial arts, he likes the power but not the endless discipline. … He’s a good guy to have around but he’s not on the journey of mastery.”

5. Mastery is a lifelong endeavor

As you get older, it is totally fine to “dabble” and “hack” (especially to avoid injury), but there should be at least one pursuit that you take seriously. As everything changes — work, family, social networks, locations — a lifelong pursuit grounds you in something constant.

“If you stay on it long enough, you’ll discover that the path is a vivid place, with its ups and downs, its challenges, comforts, its surprises, its disappointments, and unconditional joys,” Leonard writes. “You’ll take your share of bumps and bruises while travelling it — bruises of the body and of the ego. … It will give you plenty of exercise, a well-toned body, a feeling of self-confidence and an added charge of energy for your career and your good work. Eventually, it might well make you a winner in your chosen sport, if that’s what you’re looking for, and then people will refer to you as a master. But that’s not really the point: What is mastery? At the heart of it, mastery is staying on the path.”

6. Practitioners of mastery share four traits

The Esquire issue concludes with four commonalities among people who pursue mastery:

• Enthusiasm: “It works both ways,” says Leonard. “Having a great deal of experience at something worthwhile makes you enjoy working at it. Enjoying what you work at results in your wanting to get more experience.”
• Generosity: Noting that the word “generous” comes from the same root as “genius,” Leonard says. “Some of those known as geniuses might be selfish, vulgar, cruel, and generally obnoxious in other aspects of their life (witness the lives of some of our musical geniuses), but insofar as their own particular calling is concerned, they have a remarkable ability to give everything and hold nothing back.”
• Zonshin: This is a Japanese word meaning “unbroken concentration.” Leonard cites an example from the world of golf: “It was said of the legendary Ben Hogan that other golf pros learned a lot about the game just by studying the way he moved down the fairway between shots.”
• Playfulness: People in pursuit of mastery, Leonard says, “are willing to take chances and to play the fool.”

Whatever you think of Seinfeld’s comedy, his pursuit of the art offers a master class in mastery. By the time he read that issue of Esquire, he already understood the value of practice. To prepare for his first appearance on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” in 1981, he rehearsed his six-minute set about 100 times.

The next two decades — including his eponymous TV show — was one higher plateau after another. Since retiring from TV, Seinfeld’s work has been more mixed.

But because comedy has been, for him, a lifelong pursuit, the highs and lows wash away. He controls what he can control and trusts that putting in the work every day will yield results. And at age 70, he is still performing and trying to perfect the craft.

Doris Lessing Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.

We are all of us made by war, twisted and warped by war, but we seem to forget it.

Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.

There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth. (Under My Skin, 1994)

Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag — and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement.

Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.

With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one — but no one at all — can tell you what to read and when and how.

Doris Lessing quotes

I believe love opens people up. David Hare

I actually think love changes everything. I think it’s the only thing worth having. David Hare

I have a very, very good relationship with 10 percent of the audience. The only purpose of art is intimacy. That’s the only point. David Hare

Children always turn to the light. David Hare

To me, curiosity is 50 times as valuable as opinion. David Hare

Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides. David Hare

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

 David Hare

What politicians want and what creative writers want will always be profoundly different, because I’m afraid all politicians, of whatever hue, want propaganda, and writers want the truth, and they’re not compatible. David Hare

I love you, for God’s sake. I still love you. I loved you more than anyone on earth. But I’ll never trust you, after what happened. It’s what Alice said. You’ll never grow up. There is no peace in you. David Hare, Skylight

Find that balance, it stretches you, it stretches you as far as you’ll go.

“You give them an environment where they feel they can grow. But also make bloody sure you challenge them. You make sure they realise learning is hard. Because if you don’t, if you only make it a safe haven, if it’s all clap-happy, and ‘everything the kids do is great’, then what are you creating? Emotional toffees, who’ve actually learnt nothing, but who then have to go back and face the real world … Find that balance, it stretches you, it stretches you as far as you’ll go.”

― David Hare, Skylight

The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe. David Hare

Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it. David Hare

When the voice and the vision on the inside is more profound and more clear and loud than all opinions on the outside, you’ve begun to master your life. Dr. John Demartini

Suicide without Dying

Forty-six years ago I ran away to save my life. My mother was on the war path, wanting to eviscerate me under the guise of medical necessity. This was her MORPHING of reality. Nonetheless it cemented my role as SCAPEGOAT. 

Who is the fairest of them all? the Queen shouted into her mirror. 

Go after the smartest most talented and therefore most threatening child. Call her stubborn! EVISCERATE HER!!! TIE HER TO ME!! Bring me her intestines, hunter!

So whenever I would try again to reach out to the family they would hand me my script. I would kick it out of their hands and retreat. Decades flew by. Now my parents are dead. I try again. I am startled by the time warp. What I find is NO TIME has passed for my siblings and THEY STILL HAND ME THE SCRIPT. I kick it out of their hands. I have to walk away AGAIN. I swear I am not going to try again. Goodbye. Farewell.

per·so·na non gra·ta /pərˌsōnə ˌnän ˈɡrädə/ noun noun: persona non grata; plural noun: personae non gratae an unacceptable or unwelcome person. "he was persona non grata with the regime"

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change. Brené Brown

Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.

 Brené  Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

"You're No Good" is a song written by Clint Ballard Jr.

 "You're No Good" is a song written by Clint Ballard Jr., performed here by Linda Ronstadt in 1974, whose version was a number 1 hit in the United States. 

Here

What sort of person craves oversized emotions sung in foreign languages?

The Imaginary Operagoer: A Comment Memoir

---

by Dana Gioia

https://hudsonreview.com/2024/02/the-imaginary-operagoer-a-memoir

I was an only child for seven years, and my parents treated me as a young adult, especially after my brother Ted was born. I was a nocturnal child. My mother worked nights. She got home at 2 a.m. and slept till noon. I went to bed late and read until midnight. No one ever asked me to turn off the light. It was an illicit freedom no other child I knew enjoyed. When I remember the happiness of my childhood, much consists of the books I read at night. I can still recall the particular pleasures of The Time Machine, Gulliver’s Travels, The Martian Chronicles, or At the Earth’s Core.

If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family.

 Ram Dass

Ram Dass

“Each of us finds his unique vehicle for sharing with others his bit of wisdom.”

“Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.”

“Let’s trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let’s lay down our righteousness and just be together.”

“The next message you need is always right where you are.”

Pain is the mind. It’s the thoughts of the mind. Then I get rid of the thoughts, and I get in my witness, which is down in my spiritual heart. The witness that witnesses being. Then those particular thoughts that are painful – love them. I love them to death!

 Ram Dass

Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness. Ram Dass

My mom was beautiful; she was supposed to be the original Jane in the original Tarzan movie. They asked her to put her foot in the water and there was an alligator in there, and she wouldn't put her foot in the water. Dr. John

I been trying to clean up my act with my children for a long time. And I pretty much got them all talking to me now. And they accept me as a humanoid again. Dr. John

Stress is the inability to adapt to a changing environment. Dr. John

Rothko in the Spumoni

 

Everybody in my neighborhood in the ’40s, they played pianos. That’s how people partied. They didn’t try the TV, the radio was OK, records was cool, but when people wanted to party, they got around a piano. My mother played piano, my sister played. I’ve been around a lot of piano all my life. — Dr. John

The events which transpired five thousand years ago; Five years ago or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now; five years From now or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event. Dr. John

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about taking chances, and how it’s really just about overcoming your fears. Because the truth is, everytime you take a big risk in your life, no matter how it ends up, you’re always glad you took it. Dr. John

I’d rather have the whole world against me than my own soul. Dr. John

Children love to be alone because alone is where they know themselves and where they dream.

 ― Roger Rosenblatt 

Write and you are in the company of all who have written before you. Only when we have finished a piece of work do we know true shamus loneliness, realizing that the chase is over and that no one has been watching us but us.

 ― Roger Rosenblatt 

Do not keep company with people who speak of careers. Not only are such people uninteresting in themselves; they also have no interest in anything interesting. . . . Keep company with people who are interested in the world outside themselves. The one who never asks you what you are working on; who never inquires as to the success of your latest project; who never uses the word career as a noun -- he is your friend.

― Roger Rosenblatt

Gaslighting Gaslighting is a form of lying where the person being lied to is made to feel crazy, stupid, or damaged for believing what is actually true. Here are a few examples.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/gaslighting

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/my-side-of-the-couch/202405/effects-of-frequent-parental-gaslighting