Done yesterday (20111128 Mo)

[mdlbear]

Gleep. I woke up to beautiful, soft, gentle fog, and had a moderately productive day at work. Good talk in the morning by Ed Schlesinger, head of the department of electrical and computer engineering at CMU, about technology and how it empowers individuals as opposed to institutions. Notable quote: "When institutions don't like it, you're probably on the right track."

I spent most of the evening composing an email to (former bandmate) C. It was hard, and I was really taken aback by the intensity of my emotions while writing it. (I don't know what they were -- I couldn't sort them out. That probably doesn't matter.)

It had some of my more impassioned writing in it; I haven't written anything that intense since the comments leading up to the Agamemnon verse in QV. Maybe not ever. I found out this morning that it wasn't well received, though. I miss my friend; I hope she comes back some day.

Somebody needs to tell her that nobody is judging her, only her actions. She won't listen to me, though; I guess that bridge was already on fire from her end when I tried to reach across it.

1128 Mo
  * up 6:25; W=195.8; drugs, nose, teeth, dishes, laundry, exercise, light
  : beautiful, soft fog
  @ Anti-Brownback tweet goes viral - Tim Mak - POLITICO.com
  ! Set mood to excited.  Don't know whether that's right; may be closer to
    "optimistic" or "hopeful".  But it felt right.
  @ Hackers Target IPv6 CIO.com @snipeyhead
  * 10:30 talk in Menlo
    my MAC addr hasn't been added to the local WAP; fortuately one of the 
    other tenants has an open guest network.  (cut+paste error--my bad)
    technology undermines institutions.  Should empower individuals, not
    burden them.  When institutions don't like it, you're probably on the
    right track.
  " me:  I should go home now.  I'm clearly not at work.
    (got a laugh from Naomi)
  * buy: pantsu
  * email to C.  That was hard.
    (17:33:31) me@aim: I'm a little taken aback by the intensity of my
     emotions while and after writing that.  They're not all sorted out, and it
     really isn't necessary to do so.  Gleep.

Comments

[kyrielle]

"Somebody needs to tell her that nobody is judging her, only her actions."

This sounds to me a lot like "love the sinner hate the sin" - a concept I've never been able to wrap my mind around. It seems to me to rely on a separation of logic and emotion that I, at least, am not good at. I'm going to go on about me, and I don't know if C is at all like me in this or not, and the "you" here is generic:

If I've done something that I knew was wrong at the time, or that I later saw a better course of action, then if you judge that action I can agree with you wholeheartedly.

But if I haven't seen a better path or alternative (whether because there wasn't one, because I'm wrong and stuck in being wrong, or because I am too hurt / scared / hurting to path through my actions), then I can't agree with you or be comfortable. I will be hurt by it, likely in direct proportion to how close I am to you. If you are someone that I normally lean on or expect friendship or help from, then I am getting told I was wrong (when I have not reached that conclusion myself) or did a bad thing when what I expected/wanted/needed was comfort and healing.

It is not unlike providing a solution when what I needed was a bit of sympathy until I could find a solution, when I needed the control that finding my own solution would give me, except worse by an order of magnitude because - if I haven't yet concluded there is a problem - then I am not even looking for a solution yet.

Sometimes, if you don't address the wound first, all the conversation in the world about how the wound came to be, how it could have been avoided, even whether it was in fact entirely my own fault, will only add emotional pain and distance atop the wound. Whether the wounding is physical or emotional, whether it was my fault or someone else's or shared fault, I first need to stop the bleeding.

That said, there is no obligation on the part of others wounded by my actions to provide the salve and bandages for the injury I took - and no obligation for their friends to tend to me instead of them - only that I would hope they would not be surprised if I am more focused on my continuing bleeding / pain than on telling me why I shouldn't have done what led to it.

But, regardless of the truth of things, the fault of things, expecting me to be able to handle it is a different matter from believing it is fair or right to dish it out. It may well be fair, right, and accurate - but that doesn't mean I will be in a head-space to appreciate it even if it is. It may, in fact, make it likely that I'll take longer achieve that head-space, if I do at all, by adding a layer of related pain that makes me shy away from the thoughts and information that could lead me there.

[mdlbear]

Thanks -- this helps a lot to explain her reaction. Whether she'll come around to the point of trying to understand her own problems is an open question, but I guess I'm out of that loop now.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

*hug*

I find my emotions very stirred up myself. A lot of old stuff that I had been successfully not brooding on got stirred up again and it makes it hard for me to consider things fairly and in an evenhanded way.

I feel like I'm juggling Shrodinger's Box, with several possible states and an uncollapsed probability function. And I can't actually observe what's inside and realistically will never be able to, but the human mind is much better at solid narratives than superimposed probabilities, so the wave form keeps trying to collapse when my back is turned.

It is eating up a remarkable amount of my attention and energy and must be even worse for people who have more skin in the game.

[phoenixpdx.livejournal.com]

Thank you for putting into words what I've been feeling. I probably will never hear both sides' versions of reality, and it is hard not to just create my own narrative and leave it at that. And it eats a fair number of cycles working to keep the wave functions uncollapsed for now.

[mdlbear]

Good way of looking at it; I'm afraid the effort was too much for me, and my wave-function is now an untidy heap on the floor.