Journal – 16th Feb
“Your true self can be known only by systematic experimentation, and controlled only by being known.” – Francis Bacon
Discovered Caitlin Moran’s ‘How to be a Woman’ in a charity shop, been laughing and learning all day! 😀
Good conversation is like peering through a stranger’s curtains.
(Bad conversation is like listing every item in your living room without pause)
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I like to keep a constant half-smile on my face, feel like it’s my public duty.
Sure, I look like a lunatic fleeing a crime scene, but the funny side of this isn’t lost on me. Sometimes the absurdity makes me burst into laughter! Although that probably doesn’t help…
Maybe the whole idea is a bit misguided. I thought I was spreading smiles, but all people see is a strange man laughing hysterically to himself as he stands in the queue at Costa.
(Meant to be a joke!)
11th
Sick and thinking about vulnerability. The Japanese have the concept of “amaeru” behaviour — part of this is to act in a vulnerable way, so that you can depend on someone — but is there a word for the comfort of loving, mutual vulnerability? A kind of soft dependence?
The kind that lets you disregard your protective mechanisms and explore the more sensitive parts of your self, with someone who wants to help, and is doing the same?
Plenty of people embrace this concept already. If there was a word for it, would even more people be open to being vulnerable, giving themselves a chance to find greater happiness and meaning in life — as well as develop deeper, more meaningful relationships with others?
What are the dangers of vulnerability — can you simultaneously defend and embrace? Present actions aside, perhaps previous vulnerability has been too painful for many people — how, then, do you become vulnerable without a flood of negative emotions poisoning your interactions?
10th
“Transfusion of ideas” — You need to get back what you give out.
1st March
- Idea of going to cinema tonight, didn’t work out, so threw whole idea out — Instead, try re-uysing parts of the idea, i.e., going to the cinema on a different night