Killing with kindness

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2014/06/25/the-kindness-that-will-kill-your-church/

This is one of the truest, most applicable things I have read in a while that I need to constantly remind myself about.

There are many times, especially with some MBS topics, where I really do lean towards the "live and let live" mentality.

Imposing morality or my viewpoint is always a tricky thing to say.
Of course, the counterargument is that "tolerance" has become a viewpoint that is imposed on everyone else nowadays. And if you disagree with anything that isn't considered p.c. and tolerant, you are sorta shunned as well. It's the idea that no one can live without some sort of faith. Even atheists believe in something.
(super rough condensations of various philosophy).

How many times do I guard my tongue in fear of offending? Many, probably. 

-interlude thought-

But I wonder about the extent of law and imposition on a larger scale. It is one thing to speak truth to a friend and another to make a law based on morals. 

After all, if the law were to ban Christian practice, there is no way we could just meekly agree and stop.

So how can we stop something like gay marriage in terms of law? Doesn't mean we agree with it, doesn't mean we think it's necessarily right, but in terms of freedom of religion and such, is it right that we stop it? 

required ted talk

"And shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection: Is there something about me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection? The things I can tell you about it: it's universal; we all have it. The only people who don't experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection. No one wants to talk about it, and the less you talk about it the more you have it.  

What underpinned this shame, this "I'm not good enough," -- which we all know that feeling: "I'm not blank enough. I'm not thin enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, promoted enough." The thing that underpinned this was excruciating vulnerability, this idea of, in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen."

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability/transcript#t-482000    

- Brené Brown
  

Posted for later thinking. 

I listened read the transcript of this ted talk and some of it rang true through the first read. Stuff about people with the least amount of shame had a correlation with the ability to be courageous enough to be vulnerable and be imperfect. 
  
It's a little curious when I measure it up to people who I know and myself. 

life update

- started school again: they eased us in by having a sex talk. My class is exceedingly immature and couldn't stop giggling about pictures and fetishes. But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure the professor was tailoring his talk around getting those giggles. So there's that. Yay to first day of MS2

- anxiously waiting for news about an important person. it's tough when i can't really do anything but wait and and hope for the best.

- resettling into SA. It's okay I guess. The apt is considerably homier, which is a little ironic considering gender roles, lol.

- current obsession: skin care. It's mildly a combination of a friend dragging me to HMart to look at korean skin care products (bb cream, toners, oil control, etc). And also that I had to go to the dermatologist again over the break. Ugh I thought I was done with skin problems. Regardless, I've been trawling through blogs and product recommendations and have been unhappily convinced of the necessity of daily sunscreen. (I hate stuff that sits on your face).

- Panera. Finally got my little card thing to panera!

- been having a touch of trouble with eating. it's definitely a mental thing, but still...

- got my fifth wedding invite today. so many weddings....

- the weekend. !!!!!!! so excited!

passing thought

sometimes you need friends to remind you of your strengths and your weaknesses.

 Because sometimes you forget who you are (or who you can be) since you're embroiled in the environment around you and you can only see yourself as the person responding to the situation at the current time.

People are not elements.

ohmygosh

my mom is the funniest person in the world.

texting...

Mom: do you know if D- is at home?
Me: no, i'll call though
Mom: I am going to drive to her house.
Me: wait, no she's at the airport. she just landed. she said 30 more min. hello? mom?
Mom: There's no one in the house.
Me: I know!!! you didn't pick up your phone!!!
Mom: bark and bark
Me: oh mom

Password hint: funishment game

skin

drawn taut across bones,
it was enough for me.
but we all outgrow
who we once were.

deja vu

it's interesting when roles reverse and you actually do get to step in the other person's shoes and experience what they did.

perhaps it is also the reason that history repeats itself a little. you do the same thing that was done to you.

Haha

Went to the Chinese supermarket with my family. Man, childhood memories. 

Poking the live crabs. 

Stacking/hiding behind the rice bags. 

It was pretty fun watching the kids at the store do the same things I did fifteen years ago. D:

Author

I just found out that my (pretty much) favorite author became Christian in the past year. 

And she describes coming to prayer as sitting-space becoming prayer-space, where the silence becomes being in God's presence. And that even sitting silently is like gathering wisps of prayer-space. 

Omo, that's beautiful. 

this

"Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day
trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is
no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice
we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing
some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be
it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or
some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything
else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if
they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have
enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body
and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time
and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally
grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified
as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great
story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will
need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear.
Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid,
a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing
about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that
they're unconscious. They are default settings.

They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day,
getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure
value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. 
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on
your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money
and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration
and craving and worship of self."

-David Foster Wallace

unhappy

ughhh i just want to shake him and say "do you not see what i see?!" 

i knowww everyone has different writing styles, but gracious, it doesn't even make sense.

in the end, people just get too attached to their writing (myself included). but it makes it hard to cut anything to edit anything.

i could never be an editor.

ughhh but i am too critical.  

Books

Fell in love with a book today. 

And then read an interview of the author on the books and discovered four different authors that I've never seen before that I desperately want to read. I love that feeling of realizing there's so much more out there.

 Before this, I've been pretty hmmm arrogant perhaps is the word, that I've known most of the important books out there that I want to read and should be on my to read list. It's been a while since I've discovered entire caches of authors. 

It just goes to show that limiting oneself to only the current news and current books is like wearing blinders to beautiful things in the past. 

People

There are people who are meant to be leaders.

And there are people who are not.

In this time where every single freaking program wants you to prove you're a leader, it sucks.