21 Comments
Jul 3Liked by Michael Marshall Smith

I don't think my body has a great survival instinct. When I'm grieving, my body refuses to take in food, and my mind has to take over and trick it into eating via consuming liquids.

The way #2 and #3 are related 😢

Re #4: More infuriating are the people who, instead of owning their actions, deny they did something, and then proceed to explain exactly why they did the thing they claim they didn't do, as if the thing being fully justifiable in their mind nullifies the reality that they did it.

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The people you describe in #4 sound TRULY astoundingly infuriating!

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I see it everywhere. It's the surprisingly common blindness that comes with needing to only see a situation through your own framing of it so that you can continue to perceive yourself as the good guy. The lack of maliciousness in it almost makes it more infuriating!

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Jul 3Liked by Michael Marshall Smith

That person I should be, almost am but not quite. Oh I have so many things like that. Love this.

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Maybe it's what keeps us trying :-)

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I think maybe it does - keeps the potential open.

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Jul 3Liked by Michael Marshall Smith

The body can sustain in extremes. It also keeps the score when you experience fear and don't find social safety.

https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score

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Looks interesting - thank you!

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It certainly is.

The work I have been putting in for Complex PTSD has helped me understand why I felt most safe when reading the horror genre, to the exclusion of the unsafe social space I was in. I found people (authors) that were sharing their own fears and horrors, exposing their vulnerabilities showing extraordinary courage.

The novels gave me safe social connection.

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Jul 4Liked by Michael Marshall Smith

Objects as hope of transformation made physical….. so true. Story there for sure! Please commence to write. Potential to go in all sorts of strange directions. ☺️

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You're right - I must :-)

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Jul 4Liked by Michael Marshall Smith

After the events of the past week, I’m really trying to find outlets to rise above this crazy world. I feel like I’m in survival mode. Not a good place to be.

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Feel exactly the same. The usual sources just being panic. Time for us all to take a breath.

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*bring

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Jul 4Liked by Michael Marshall Smith

Do you remember where the Goethe quote is from? I was trying to find the German original words, but couldn't (at least not with a quick google search). Thank you!

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Hey there... I found it in his MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS, which I read in the Penguin Classics edition, in English. I *assume* the same book maybe exists in German? There's a lot of great stuff in it...

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Jul 4·edited Jul 4Liked by Michael Marshall Smith

I am, perhaps, peculiarly lucky (considering my age) that I've never really experienced grief with the reactions you mention. The deaths most personal to me have been expected, so the knowing of it helps with the catharsis. Although I think the reality is that I'm way too self-absorbed to be affected in the ways you describe😇

Nice Goethe quote💗

I went and had a look in my shed after reading these recollections and saw my Chinese calligraphy set, my punch bag, wooden dummy and skipping ropes, a massive collection of antique maps and corkscrews, lots of unfinished Lichtenberg wood art and note books of the children's stories I was writing 25yrs ago. I found myself sorry I hadn't finished what I'd started but determined to get round to them still😋

I'm sorry that I don't apologise properly, but it's only because you are wrong.

You say the words rhyme in French? Not the way I speak it...

I know it's not in the remit of this substack but I wanted to share something with you that I saw posted by a friend of mine on LinkedIn. She's an SEO content writer and this was the start of her sales pitch in a post

"I'd love to get a hold of your web content and beat that bastard about - really give it a good seeing-to and iconoclastically smash its back doors in"

I thought you'd appreciate it and I bloody laughed my elbows off when I read it😂

Halfway through Blood of Angels. You're pretty good at this writing malarkey😘

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Thank you :-) And I like that quote from your friend!

The one grief I experienced strongly that way was my mother, who died just after we'd exhaustedly ordered some Chinese... so it sat there in the kitchen, until we realized we were all hungry — it'd been a long time since we ate — and so... we ate, with her in the other room. Very odd.

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Jul 4Liked by Michael Marshall Smith

Wow, sorry mate, that must of been surreal!

My mum died in a hospice after a long illness and I managed to get over to Ireland just before she died and read her some Kahlil Gibran. You'll know that the Irish do a whole wake thing so we then had to watch the funeral people put make up on her then had the unedifying experience of watching them wield a coffin through her tiny house, with her in it, crashing into door frames and seeming to spin the coffin like those guys twirling advertising boards in the US!

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Good lord. That sounds like a bizarre experience - especially in the circumstances!

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Jul 4Liked by Michael Marshall Smith

My brother is a PHD lecturer in journalism and a bolshy bugger but we just ended up looking at each other like we were in a candid camera skit!

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