#dent

To seek Truth is automatically a calling for the innate dissident and the subversive; how many are willing to give up safety and security for the perilous life of the spiritual revolutionary? How many are willing to truly learn that their own cherished concepts are wrong? Striking provocative or mysterious poses in the safety of Internet [social media] is far easier than taking the risks involved in the hard work of genuine initiation. ↗

— Zeena Schreck

#dissidents #outcasts #revolutionary-spirit #self-examination #spiritual-transformation

Were the stars out when I left the house last evening? All I could remember was the couple in the Skyline listening to Duran Duran. Stars? Who remembers stars? Come to think of it, had I even looked up at the sky recently? Had the stars been wiped out of the sky three months ago, I wouldn't have known. The only things I noticed were silver bracelets on women's wrists and popsicle sticks in potted rubber plants. There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night. No car, no car stereo, no silver bracelets, no shuffling, no dark blue tweed suits. My world foreshortened, flattening into a credit card. Seen head on, things seemed merely skewed, but from the side the view was virtually meaningless—a one-dimensional wafer. Everything about me may have been crammed in there, but it was only plastic. Indecipherable except to some machine. My first circuit must have been wearing thin. My real memories were receding into planar projection, the screen of consciousness losing all identity. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#identity #stars #life

Chronic trauma (according to the meaning I propose) that occurs early in life has profound effects on personality development and can lead to the development of dissociative identity disorder (DID), other dissociative disorders personality disorders, psychotic thinking, and a host of symptoms such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and substance abuse. In my view, DID is simply an extreme version of the dissociative structure of the psyche that characterizes us all. ↗

— Elizabeth F. Howell

#child-abuse #chronic-trauma #depression #development #dissociation

Oh Harry," [Gwen] said. "I wish I were a different kind of person." What kind of person, he wanted to know. "Someone," she said slowly, "who truly loves life." He was still looking at her, still cradling his glasses in his left hand. He said, "You're the kind of person who never stops trying. ↗

— Elizabeth Hay

#life #life

and yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had love and been loved back. she was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. a mother. a person of consequence at last. ↗

— Khaled Hosseini

#love

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written. ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#love

But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better. ↗

— Betty Smith

#love #parenting #love

We Are Only As Good As Our Last Decision ↗

— Dawn Derringer Artist

#betrayal #chronicles #decisions #disrespect #humour

Love isn’t stackable and interlocking, like boxes or Legos. Love is like a one-legged man standing on a three-legged chair that is placed on top of a two-legged piano. I should know, because I’m the guy trying to tune that piano, fix that chair, and affix a prosthetic leg to that guy—who happens to be my piano teacher. Mr. Balloonky, you get down from there now!
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#fix #furniture #interlocking #lego #legos

Every human character appears only once in the history of human beings. And so does every event of love. ↗

— Isaac Bashevis Singer

#identity #love #love