False obligations are all the kind of things that, if you could do them, would make you abnormally wonderful, outstanding, quite a lot better and more sensitive-looking than other people with abilities and opportunities similar to yours. Our ordinary obligations—like cleaning house, gardening, repairing things, being faithful to friends, and doing our fair share of the work in family life—don’t make us look us especially wonderful or exceptional. People who are burdened with a lot of false obligations invariably fall down on what most of us consider to be normal obligations. They tend not to help others with anything. They make promises and then break them without giving it a second thought. They tell you they’ll be at your party or meet you on a certain afternoon, and nine times out of ten they’ll back out the last minute with a very unconvincing excuse. Even though they are constantly getting after themselves for not loving and being kind to everybody, they have almost no sense of obligation to other people and are completely inconsiderate most of the time. They rarely notice or feel guilty about the everyday obligations they could be living up to. But they feel terribly guilty and miserable about the false obligations they can’t live up to.
Who is God? Who Am I? Who Are You?
Dee Pennock
-
-
“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.”
-
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.
…
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.
-
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
-
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.
…
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
-
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.
…
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
SO GOOD QUOTES 