“Do not ask for love from your neighbor. For if you ask and he does not respond, you will be troubled. Instead, show your love for your neighbor and you will be at rest, and so will bring your neighbor to love.”
—St. Dorotheos of Gaza
Category: LONELINESS & SOLITUDE
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“The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.“ Yes, provided that you are a good, tranquil, and self-restrained man; otherwise, you had better withdraw into a crowd in order to get away from your self. Alone, you are too close to a rascal.
—Seneca, Letters from a Stoic -
“To live alone is the fate of all great souls.”
—Arthur Schopenhauer -
“The people that are hurting the most have no one.”
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I interpreted the entire movie as documenting his pathetic cope; a cope he was able to keep up as long as he had no significant social interaction and could keep repeating the cope to himself in his own head, day after day.
As soon as he’s reminded about how he has no children, his sister mogs him, his father hates him, and mortality is coming for him, he starts crying and spiraling out of control.
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To me, it’s actually a very sad (albeit beautiful) film. I saw a man hanging on by a thread, his routine and isolation being the only things keeping nightmares at bay.
Perfect Days (2023) – I don’t understand the top critic reviews of this film -
The truth is, he fled his life, his family, stopped fighting for a better future and isolated himself in his fantasy world. He built a false world in his mind to avoid unhappiness and sorrows.
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If someone seems like they’re doing just fine without support, it’s a lie — a lie that upholds the myth that if you just follow the rules, you, too, can ride a wave of self-reliance to happiness, and financial stability, to some understanding of a perfect life.
How to Show Up For Your Friends Without Kids — and How to Show Up For Kids and Their Parents
ANNE HELEN PETERSEN
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Parents feel like their friends without kids have left them behind and are flaky. Kid-free people feel like their parent friends only want to hang out with other parents and are also flaky. Parents feel like society is incredibly hostile to them; single people feel like society is incredibly hostile to them; partnered people without kids feel like society is incredibly hostile to them.
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This is where I say very clearly: parents, I know it feels like you live in a never-ending hurricane season. You need to talk to your friends without kids, and you need to figure out ways to be in their lives, even if you think their lives are easier and should naturally bend towards yours.
And people without kids, I know it feels like the world thinks we’re weirdos and parents don’t understand the very real struggles and fears that accompany our lives. We also need to be more understanding of our friends with kids, and figure out how to balance our own often more flexible lives with some of the more inflexible demands of their lives.
How to Show Up For Your Friends Without Kids — and How to Show Up For Kids and Their Parents
ANNE HELEN PETERSEN
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You have a lovely text threads with friends from your childhood or your 20s that pop off every few days.
But let’s be real: it’s just not enough. When you let yourself think about it, you feel incredibly isolated.
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But a whole lot of this ethos stems from a deep-seated belief in individualism. We think that just because we can “do it ourselves” (and by “it,” I mean raising kids, performing domestic labor, caring for others, finding economic security, living life) that we should do it ourselves….and our ability to do so evinces innate moral fortitude. We’re better people, in other words, because we did it alone.
The Dark Heart of Individualism
ANNE HELEN PETERSEN -
Our continual mistake is that we do not concentrate upon the present day, the actual hour, of our life; we live in the past or the future; we are continually expecting the coming of some special moment when our life will unfold itself in its full significance. And we do not notice that life is flowing like water through our fingers, sifting like precious grain from a loosely fastened bag.
Constantly, each day, each hour, God is sending us people, circumstances, tasks, which should mark the beginning of our renewal; yet we pay them no attention, and thus continually we resist God’s will for us. Indeed, how can God help us? Only by sending us in our daily life certain people, and certain coincidences of circumstance. If we accepted every hour of our life as the hour of God’s will for us, as the decisive, most important, unique hour of our life – what sources of joy, love, strength, as yet hidden from us, would spring from the depth of our soul!
Let us then be serious in our attitude towards each person we meet in our life, towards every opportunity of performing a good deed; be sure that you will then fulfill God’s will for you in these very circumstances, on that very day, in that very hour.
—Alexander Elchaninov, The Diary of a Russian Priest
There are zero coincidences, right? If I understand the whole universe is operating under God’s provision, then actually, there are literally no coincidences. So that’s why, actually, even from an Orthodox perspective, how should I look at things? There are really no coincidences. Things are, you know, planned, or things are, at least, are happening, if not with God’s, you know, explicit desire and will, but with his permission.
Every encounter is an encounter in God and in his sight. We are sent everyone we meet on our way, either to give or to receive, sometimes without even knowing it. It is for us to be Christʼs presence on earth, sometimes victorious and sometimes crucified. We must be able to be quiet and meditative, look calmly at all the things that puzzle us, for we will not be able to understand everything until we see Godʼs whole plan… Human wisdom must give way to the capacity to contemplate the mystery before us, to try and discern the invisible hand of God whose wisdom is so different from human wisdom. But his wisdom is in the human heart…. We must learn to wait till we understand. We must try and discern Godʼs plan by attentive prayer and silent meditation….
—Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, Courage to Pray
“Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.”
“Every person you meet, God has sent your way for your spiritual benefit — if you realise how you can benefit from them. The righteous man offers you a good example and a blessing, and from the evil man you can benefit endurance, patience and forgiveness of others.”
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III
SO GOOD QUOTES 