Warm Recollections #46
More from the Bitz Files
As introduced here, these Warm Recollections are random cullings from thirty years of notes files…
As per the ones last Wednesday, these just happen to be the ones that fell today, and don’t relate specifically to it being January 1st. So whether you’re full of vim today and grabbing the year with both hands, or wretchedly lying face-down on the carpet and calling for the banning of alcohol… Happy New Year.
Theory: if a loved one gives you a hard time in a dream, or is mean to you, it’s your mind putting the voice of your own conscience into an external figure who matters to you, so that you’ll listen harder to its message.
When a couple breaks up, the person left behind will change and develop far more quickly than the person who left, especially if they departed for someone else: because they’re likely just swapping the “old” for a very similar “new”.
Looking around the world, and given the nature of human existence, it would make a lot of sense if those signs saying BEWARE OF DOG turned out to be a typo.
Any society, any community, is only as safe as the life of the unsafest person within it. This is not politics. I don’t care who you vote for. This is humanity.
Nothing you ever do will fundamentally change your sibling’s views about you — no act of kindness, no sacrifice, nothing. Those views are rooted in how they felt about you when they were 6 or 10 or 14 — and you can’t change that.
As always, if you can think of anyone who might enjoy this Substack, please spread the word.
Profound set. Number #4 is so true. We all do better when everyone feels safe. And the last one about siblings sounds familiar, especially if they're closely aged. Parent-child relationships are forced to change. You're constantly readjusting to your child, who's changing faster than you are. But sibling relationships feel fixed in a parallel place set early on. It's interesting watching people revert to their younger selves when they're around a sibling. It's sometimes fun (and sometimes not) when you feel yourself doing it.
Uh, not sure about the last one about siblings. I mean yes, I can still sometimes feel the mild, unaware condescension when I talk with my older sister (I'm 53, she's 61, for Pete's sake), but it seems to me that my own daughters have managed to develop from "yay, new baby to play with, Imma take care of her" via "ugh the little nettle needs to stay out of my room" to genuine best friends who see eye to eye, enjoy each other's company, and see each other as adults, while being very much aware of the dynamics and subconscious attempts at reverting to big sis-lil sis ... And that makes me wonder how it is with parents and kids, cause again, my own mom tended to make me feel like a child all the way until she passed - and I strive not to do the same with mine. We now laugh about how we first fall into our "roles" when we get together, and then proceed to try and be on the same level. It needs awareness, certainly.