Ashleigh

“She had come to understand that American parenting was a juggling of anxieties, and that it came with having too much food: a sated belly gave Americans time to worry that their child might have a rare disease that they had just read about, made them think that they had the right to protect their child from disappointment and want and failure. A sated belly gave Americans the luxury of praising themselves for being good parents, as if caring for one’s child were the exception rather than the rule.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing Around Your Neck

“They needed the numbers, so they directed their creativity and resourcefulness toward getting those numbers, rather than toward effective performance.”
― Edward L. Deci, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation

“Our longing for community and purpose is so powerful that it can drive us to join groups, relationships, or systems of belief that, to our diminished or divided self, give the false impression of belonging. But places of false belonging grant us conditional membership, requiring us to cut parts of ourselves off in order to fit in. While false belonging can be useful and instructive for a time, the soul becomes restless when it reaches a glass ceiling, a restriction that prevents us from advancing. We may shrink back from this limitation for a time, but as we grow into our truth, the invisible boundary closes in on us and our devotion to the groupmind weakens. Your rebellion is a sign of health. It is the way of nature to shatter and reconstitute. Anything or anyone who denies your impulse to grow must either be revolutionised or relinquished.”
― Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home

“Ohhh. Humanity, I Love You. You never cease to amaze me. This has been amusing, little ghost, and that was not something I expected. But every playtime must come to an end. This dream is over.
- "Playing House" From THE SANDMAN #12”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman N.12