Category Archives: 100 words or less

De gustibus

The young musician often played for her father and was always dismayed at his lack of reaction.  He showed no pleasure, no appreciation, nothing.   He sat, politely, and never said anything afterwards.

Many years later, as he was dying, he said to his daughter “I’m sorry, I just never liked music.  Any music.”  

She blinked at him, and he added “it wasn’t you, it was me.”  

A light went on in the room, a glow of important insight illuminated the death chamber for a moment.  In another wink, the old man was gone.

A Way With Words

You have a way with words.  

Away with words!   Speak little, do much.  

Nicely said, Ned!  

I’ll pretend you didn’t say that, Fred.  

Now, why you want to be like that, Ed? I was trying to tender you a kind word.  

Yet you rendered me a mind turd, dittn’t you, Ted?

I just said you have your way with words.  

You sayin’ I don’t respect ’em, just have my way with ’em, is that what you’re saying, Zed?  

I’m not saying that.  I’m not saying anything.  

You sure have a funny way of not saying anything, Red.  

You said it.

Deleted insight

this had to wind up on the cutting room floor:

We learn as adults that even people who love us can do us great harm. It’s not strictly their fault. Humans are the product of their genes and how they were handled when they were young. The research is in about the harm of adverse childhood experiences, even the DNA and immune systems are changed by abuse and neglect. Certain things are impossible to truly recover from, though the human capacity for healing is also remarkable.

Yesterday was beautiful

Even I realized this, as I strode crosstown cursing Gandhi after the penultimate wasted session with the bright, sympathetic but inexperienced student therapist.  Atmospherically the day was about perfect, cool but no need for a sweater.   The sky over NYC was the perfect eternal blue backdrop for a gorgeous technicolor post card, or a painting by Dali at the peak of his powers.

For Sekhnet’s part, she was dodging leaping kittens as she puttered contentedly in the garden, a lush natural world far from her troubles and worries, and my worries, and my troubles. 

Meaningful versus “Sisyphic” work

Interesting talk by a well-spoken and insightful guy.   He talks about the demoralizing effect of seeing no effect from your work.  He describes his experiments designed to show how important a sense of meaning and progress is to continuing to do good work.

The good news: it takes little conscious planning, and little effort, to motivate good work.  The bad news: it takes far less consciousness or planning, and no effort whatsoever, to demotivate.

Twenty minutes, interestingly spent.

Fucking Moods

The mood is a slippery mother.  Wrote in my “therapy notebook” the other day:
 
Wrestling with demonically limber moods,
you cannot count on their sportsmanship, 
they grapple by their own rules, 
if any, 
as the frequent knees and elbows to the groin 
will keep reminding you.
 
Hah!

WTF– have to get out of this rabbit hole!

from Wikipedia — and I love the editorial touch starting sentence two, though, of course, I have to get off the damned internets now:

Legal troubles [edit]

Bowe was convicted of the February 1998 kidnapping of his estranged wife Judy, and their five children.[18] Thinking it would reconcile his marriage, Bowe went to his wife’s Cornelius, North Carolina home and threatened her with a knife, handcuffs, duct tape and pepper spray. He forced her and their children into a vehicle and set out for his Fort Washington, Maryland home. During the kidnapping, Bowe stabbed his wife in the chest.[18] Police captured Bowe in South Hill, Virginia, freeing his family.[18] Bowe agreed to a plea bargain of guilty to ‘interstate domestic violence’, and was sentenced to 18 to 24 months in prison.[18] Despite the agreed sentence, on February 29, 2000, the judge sentenced Bowe to only 30 days, due to a claim of brain damage by Bowe’s defense.[19][20] This sentence, counter to the plea agreement, was later overturned. Bowe served 17 months in Federal prison.[21] On February 8, 2001, Bowe was arrested in Long Island after a domestic dispute with his new wife.[18] Bowe allegedly dragged his wife and left her with cuts on her knees and elbows.[20]

Another Perspective

“Did it occur to you that this person you refer to as a ‘goat’ may have performed a great act of friendship by calling to say he wouldn’t be an obstacle to your spending a day with two old friends at the beach?   Do you get that maybe it was hard for him to do, that he was trying to be considerate and not irritating?  Isn’t it possible that you are the merciless, passive aggressive bastard and not him?”

“Yeah,” I said, leaving every muscle in my face exactly where it was before the question.