Delicious LiveJournal Links for 28-4-2008

[innerbrat]

• 
  The Seven Deadly Sins of a Relationship | Zen Habits
  
  From Mat - Simple, obvious, but sage advice and worth reading.
  
  (tags: blog sexuality)
  
• 
  The year rock found the power to unite | Rock | guardian.co.uk Music
  
  I did want today's linkspam to be more than \"here's what Mat's linked to that I like\", but it's really not going to be.
  
  (tags:

Comments

[sumerianhaze]

If only doing it was as easy as reading it...

[innerbrat]

Reading and taking on board what you read is the first step.

[sumerianhaze]

I'm good at that step. Strong emotion + misplaced pride invariably fucks up the second step. Then there follows guilt and frustration at getting it wrong again. Rinse and repeat. Unlike most learning processes, repetition isn't guaranteed to improve things - at least, not always noticeably. I suspect it's a long, long journey.

This reminds me: someone told me, a couple of weeks ago, to follow the yellow brick road. I can see it now, winding off through the poppy fields and over the distant hills.

[innerbrat]

Well then - forgive me for being obvious, but step 1.5 is recognising how you're fucking up step 2, and step 2.0 is letting go of that emotion & misplaced pride.

And I have no idea which link you're reading.

[sumerianhaze]

It is obvious isn't it. Recognition is easy - although sometimes hard to admit to myself - as I'm constantly self-analysing, on another layer, even in the grip of emotion. That's when the misplaced pride cuts in with "fuck it, why shouldn't I feel xxxxx". Then I analyse that and know it's wrong, but I'm weak, and the bad shit wins the day again. I also find it hard sometimes to know when it's healthy to admit and express an emotion and when it's just destructive.

(Mostly link 1 with an important smattering of link 3: I've been horribly guilty of the "sorry if" thing, and never thought before how shitty it is. I haven't yet fucked up Britain's race relations, as far as I'm aware.)

Despite being useless at actually doing it, I know pretty well what needs to be done: although it's easy to lose sight and wander off, so sometimes it's good to receive a helping hand back onto those yellow bricks. So thankyou for posting those links.

[innerbrat]

Ah, see- my take on it, is that you're always allowed to feel xxxxx. But it's what you do with it that counts. For me, the target is to feel it, get everything I can out of the experience of feeling it, and then let go of it if I think it's going to colour my actions too much.

Admitting and expressing emotions, even anger, are different from acting out of spite and bitterness in a way that harms yourself.

Anyway, you're welcome.

[sumerianhaze]

And, more importantly, thankyou for these comments!