Valentina > Recent Status Updates

There's a quote I occasionally see ricochet around social media. "When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." There's truth to this line, but it cuts both ways. To the extent that it's true that a loss of privilege _feels_ like oppression, that feeling needs to be taken seriously, both because it's real, and because, left to fester, it can be weaponized by demagogues and reactionaries.

"The simplest way to activate someone's identity is to threaten it, to tell them they don't deserve what they have, to make them consider that it might be taken away. The experience of losing status - and being told your loss of status is part of society's march to justice - is itself radicalizing."

"Forget what you are escaping from. Reserve your anxiety for what you are escaping to"

„...какво ще стане, ако това го няма? Ако изведнъж този комплекс от желания и цели се размие?

А на какво толкова омерзително прилича всичко това? На какво именно от миналия живот? Аха, да - на несполучила любов, когато тя бавно отпуска менгемето, а човек се страхува да не загуби с нея вече не надеждата, не чувството, а уютното, до болка познато запълване на вакуума“

„...било достатъчно да си припомни как жена му казвала, че тялото му е нощва, а сърцето меко тесто.“

Overcoming that urge is our greatest challenge and our greatest promise. It will take courage and insight, because the people we push to the margins are the ones who trigger in us the feelings we are afraid of. Isolating others to ease our fears is a deep urge inside all of us. How do we turn it around?

If you can't bear the pain of your neighbor's suffering, then in one way or another you are going to push that person to the margins. Every society says that the outsiders are the problem. But the outsiders are not the problem. The urge to create outsiders is the problem.

"...Killian says: 'To be known without being loved is terrifying. To be loved without being known has no power to change us. But to be deeply known and deeply loved transforms us. Trying to help others while keeping them at a safe distance cannot truly help them or heal us. We have to open up to others. We have to give up the need to be separate and superior. Then we can help.'"

The anger of men is a powerful enough tide to swing an election. The anger of women? That has no place in the government. So it has to flood the streets.

So every Tuesday I sit with a course of angry women. Together we learn our brash harmonies. Angry women fight. Angry women care. Angry women speak and yell and sob their truths.

Понякога влизаш в непозната книжарница в търсене на определена книга, но попадаш на друга, която те поглъща :))

Чуден Нийл Геймън, чета го бавно, но с огромно удоволствие.