Nancy's Musings

It's my instinct to be deeply hurt and totally dismissive of what used to be called "fair-weather" friends. By that, I mean friends that hang around as long as you're fun and independent, but who disappear or back out when it gets difficult. Look, I can't even describe them without getting all judgy. How is being a Fair Weather Friend different than distancing yourself from toxic people? I know a lot of people who don't know the difference at all - who think they just want to surround themselves with positive people, when what they're doing is moving on as soon as (or when) the friendship asks for more than you're used to, or more than you're comfortable with. How often do depression sufferers hear that they're just too depressing to be around? I think every person has the right to choose who they spend time with, or give friendship to. For any reason at all. Nobody has to justify their decisions to anybody else. In a flash of gratifying irony,...

Antoine de St. Exupery was an amazing soul, and he wrote the most beautiful book in the universe called  The Little Prince . I have read it in three languages, but it's best in the original French. The most fascinating passage to me is the chapter where the little prince meets the fox, and the fox asks the little prince to tame him. "My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Thin...

Have you ever scrolled down your Facebook feed and run into one of  those posts. . . you know, the click-bait "articles" titled things like "10 things totally awesome people do" or "15 thoughts awesome people never have" in the style of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People ? They aren't written by psychologists, and they aren't backed up by anything other than photos of attractive celebrities. They seem like harmless motivational advice, like the kind you get on free calendars, or you find framed in black and hanging on every wall in that call center where you work. These articles make a serious transgression, and I would encourage anyone reading this to mitigate the damage by not re-posting. Not all of the articles transgress in this way, but if you can't read critically with this idea in mind, remember that somebody will, and your carelessness can hurt them.  So, uh, Happy Galentine's Day. I'll talk more about the context I think ...

I have been seriously considering recently if (and if so, when) it is ever okay to consider one's self above or before others. It seems like a stupid question, but I work on the assumption that the universe is logical, if complex, and that rules exist in a hierarchy. The most obedient person is one who has the rules appropriately prioritized. By this amusingly simplistic rubric, getting into heaven begins with designing and running an algorithm. After that, it's a hardware problem. Well, why not? But what about selfishness. Is it ever okay to think of myself first? Contemporary thought would suggest that we dress and accoutre ourselves for ourselves as a thinking and creative subject, rather than thinking of ourselves as objects of a critical gaze. That is, we decide how to clothe or make up ourselves because of how it makes us feel, rather than what other people (either for arousal or judgment) think/feel. But isn't that selfish? If we were selfless, wouldn't we care t...

This is a follow-up post to Dreaming Lonely , which I wrote last week. It hasn't been very long since I started practicing seeing myself as removed from dating, but some really interesting things have happened in my brain since then. In just a week I realized how many of my opinions and decisions were giving in to an external pressure. When I thought I would have to marry one of them, I started seeing all men as either suitable or unsuitable and adjusting my standards by prospects. Whether shallow or not, all men were measured by some standard as either a match or mismatch to myself. This man was too stupid, that one too callous, and all of them more or less masculine, which seemed to be the biggest problem. And each man was put in the yes, no, or maybe bin until such a mythical day as he should choose to raise his hand and politely ask permission to excuse himself. There are two logical problems with my bins. Firstly, I am judging men by women's standards, and it just isn'...

I feel like I have blogged about this before. But as it is a recurring theme in my head, it might as well recur here. I was meditating peacefully in one of the holiest places on earth when it occurred to me again (because my brain has to be trained and slowly stroked into peacefulness, and it doesn't always work just before a new semester) that if I had managed to have a similar life back then, I would absolutely 100% have been burned as a witch in the middle ages. Frankly, it didn't take much. Unprotected women were the easiest targets (though as far as I can tell, men were also targeted). That meant poor widows, older single adults, the literate, and basically anyone who could inspire suspicion, fear, jealousy, or dislike. That's me all over the place. I'm not procreating, and therefore serve no useful purpose in the community. It's not that I'm grumpy, necessarily. Even married women get grumpy. It's that I don't have a gift for allaying suspicion. It...

I function best when I have something to look towards - some kind of ideal that nudges my actions. It's like that story that someone told in General Conference about the farmer with the really straight furrows, and his neighbor asks him how he gets them so straight, and he says "well, I look down the row, and I see something, and I keep my eye on that thing while I plough." So his neighbor thinks this is a fabulous idea, but next day, the farmer comes out and sees that his neighbor's rows are atrocious. He asks "didn't you take my suggestion?" and the neighbor says "yeah, but the cow kept moving." Well, my cow is moving. Since giving up on men just over a week ago, I have decided that because marriage isn't something I can dream of anymore, I need to have a single dream. I need to have a vision of what I can make my life without a significant other, partner, or family situation. So last night in my head as I was trying to sleep, I calculate...