Today, the internet is increasingly used by public authorities as a tool for the online consultation of citizens and organizations, including outside the circle of the ‘usual suspects’. Democracy, however, is not defined only by one’s capacity to express one’s preferences, but primarily by an equal capacity to participate in converting social inputs into political outputs and thus to contribute to decision-making. Online and more general public consultations are valued by citizens, but the question remains whether there is actually ‘anybody listening’ (Coleman and Blumler, 2009: 189).

(Yannis Papadopoulos "Democracy in Crisis?")

Under such conditions of supply, there is no reason to think that those who prefer infotainment to politically relevant information will behave differently on the internet. Even if more politically relevant information or data is available, the problem remains on the demand side: frequently, the good that is most scarce is not information, but attention. (..)
But perhaps the most important reason why we should not have too-high expectations of the positive impact of the internet on democracy is that although the internet may indeed change the style of political communication as well as pressure strategies to influence office-holders, most developments on the internet have no formal connection to political decision-making. The internet may affect how we discuss politics and how we try to have an impact on decisions that affect us, and it will also increasingly influence how organizations or individuals are consulted, but it does not fundamentally alter the structures of policy-making.

(Yannis Papadopoulos "Democracy in Crisis?")

Do you remember that story about that young man who almost beat me up? It was a very funny story. It was very funny, I made a lot of people laugh about his ignorance, and the reason I could do that is because I’m very good at this job. I actually am pretty good at controlling the tension. And I know how to balance that to get the laugh at the right place. But in order to balance the tension in the room with that story, I couldn’t tell that story as it actually happened. Because I couldn’t tell the part of the story where that man realized his mistake. And he came back. And he said, “Oh, no, I get it. You’re a lady faggot. I’m allowed to beat the shit out of you,” and he did! He beat the shit out of me and nobody stopped him. And I didn’t… report that to the police, and I did not take myself to hospital, and I should have. And you know why I didn’t? It’s because I thought that was all I was worth. And that is what happens when you soak one child in shame and give permission to another to hate. And that was not homophobia, pure and simple, people. That was gendered. If I’d been feminine, that would not have happened. I am incorrectly female. I am incorrect, and that is a punishable offense. And this tension, it’s yours. I am not helping you anymore. You need to learn what this feels like because this… this tension is what not-normals carry inside of them all of the time because it is dangerous to be different! To the men… to the men in the room, I speak to you now, particularly the white men, especially the straight white men. Pull your fucking socks up! How humiliating! Fashion advice from a lesbian. That is your last joke.

All my life, I’ve been told that I’m a man-hater. I don’t hate men, I honestly do not. I don’t hate men. But… there’s a problem. See, I don’t even believe that women are better than men. I believe women are just as corruptible by power as men, because you know what, fellas, you don’t have a monopoly on the human condition, you arrogant fucks. But the story is as you have told it. Power belongs to you. And if you can’t handle criticism, take a joke, or deal with your own tension without violence, you have to wonder if you are up to the task of being in charge.

(Hannah Gadsby "Nanette")

I pressed my lips against his ear and whispered again, It's not your fault. Perhaps this was really the only thing I had ever wanted to say to anyone, and be told.

(Miranda July "The Shared Patio")

All of your questions will be answered, said the Oracle, or already have been, or won't be. Those are the three possibilities.

(Joseph Fink "Alice Isn't Dead")

Chance had cast me on his island, chance had thrown me in his arms. In a world of chance, is there a better and a worse? We yield to a stranger's embrace or give ourselves to the waves; for the blink of an eyelid our vigilance relaxes; we are asleep; and when we awake, we have lost the direction of our lives. What are these blinks of an eyelid, against which the only defense is an eternal and inhuman wakefulness? Might they not be the cracks and chinks through which another voice, other voices, speak in our lives? By what right do we close our ears to them? The questions echoed in my head without answer.

(J. M. Coetzee "Foe")

Chinua Achebe was born on 16 November 1930, in Ogidi, Eastern Nigeria. His great uncle, who brought up Achebe’s father, had taken the ‘highest-but-one title’ in the clan, and was considered to be of such importance that when in the late nineteenth century Anglican missionaries came to Ogidi, and sought support for their work, they were shown to his compound. ‘For a short while he allowed them to operate from his compound,’ Achebe says in an essay written nearly a century later, ‘but after a few days he sent them packing again.’ Not because he found their theology offensive, but because he found their music alarming. ‘Your music is too sad to come from a man’s house,’ Achebe’s great uncle told the missionaries, ‘my neighbors might think it was my funeral dirge.’

(Biyi Bandele, Introduction to "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe)

(..) This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.

(Carlos Castaneda "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge")

P. S. Mrs Maugery lent me a book last week. It’s called The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892-1935. They let a man named Yeats make the choosings. They shouldn’t have. Who is he—and what does he know about verse?
I hunted all through that book for poems by Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon. There weren’t any—not one, And do you know why not? Because this Mr Yeats said—he said, ‘I deliberately chose NOT to include any poems from World War 1. I have a distaste for them. Passive suffering is not a theme for poetry.’
Passive Suffering? Passive Suffering! I could have hit him. What ailed the man? Lieutenant Owen, he wrote a line, ‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.’ What’s passive about that, I’d like to know? That’s exactly how they do die. I saw it with my own eyes, and I say to hell with Mr Yeats.

(Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society")

When In-hye laid the food she’d brought out on the table, Yeong-hye said, ‘Sister. You don’t have to bring that stuff now.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t need to eat any more.’
‘What are you talking about?’ In-hye stared at her sister as though she were possessed. It was a long time since she’d seen Yeong-hye’s face shining like this; no, in fact, it was the first time. ‘What on earth were you doing just now?’ she asked.
Yeong-hye met her question with another. ‘Sister, did you know?’
‘Know what?’
‘I didn’t, you see. I thought trees stood up straight …I only found out just now. They actually stand with both arms in the earth, all of them. Look, look over there, aren’t you surprised?’ Yeong-hye sprang up and pointed to the window. ‘All of them, they’re all standing on their heads.’ Yeong-hye laughed frantically. In-hye remembered moments from their childhood when Yeong-hye’s face had worn the same expression as it did now. Those moments when her sister’s single-lidded eyes would narrow and turn completely dark, when that innocent laughter would come rushing out of her mouth. ‘Do you know how I found out? Well, I was in a dream, and I was standing on my head …leaves were growing from my body, and roots were sprouting from my hands …so I dug down into the earth. On and on …I wanted flowers to bloom from my crotch so I spread my legs; I spread them wide …’
Bewildered, In-hye looked across at Yeong-hye’s feverish eyes. ‘I need to water my body. I don’t need this kind of food, sister. I need water.’ 

(Han Kang "The Vegetarian")

The whole situation was undeniably bizarre, yet she displayed an almost total lack of curiosity, and indeed it seemed that this was what enabled her to maintain her composure no matter what she was faced with. She made no move to investigate the unfamiliar space, and showed none of the emotions that one might expect. It seemed enough for her to just deal with whatever it was that came her way, calmly and without fuss. Or perhaps it was simply that things were happening inside her, terrible things, which no one else could even guess at, and thus it was impossible for her to engage with everyday life at the same time. If so, she would naturally have no energy left, not just for curiosity or interest but indeed for any meaningful response to all the humdrum minutiae that went on on the surface. What suggested to him that this might be the case was that, on occasion, her eyes would seem to reflect a kind of violence that could not simply be dismissed as passivity or idiocy or indifference, and which she would appear to be struggling to suppress.

(Han Kang "The Vegetarian")

We’re looking for a fern that blooms,” said Pärtel, although I was nudging him with my elbow, because I’d started to believe that Uncle Vootele and Ints were right—that the fern really did bloom only in legends. So it was embarrassing to admit that we’d been wandering so far all night for the wrong reason.
As I feared, Meeme fell to jeering at us, until he was choked by the wine catching in his throat.
“A fern that blooms!” he crowed, spluttering with laughter. “Weren't you looking for a green fox? I hear that such an animal has been seen in these woods.”
“We’ve heard there’s a key in the blooming fern,” explained Pärtel, taking no notice of my nudging—or maybe not understanding it and thinking that I was simply twitching from tiredness. And he told Meeme everything.
Meeme was no longer laughing, but merely snorting scornfully.
“We simply wanted to try,” I said then, apologetically. “Of course it was silly. Obviously there isn’t really a key at all.”
“That’s not what I said,” replied Meeme with unexpected abruptness. “The blooming fern doesn’t exist.”
“But there’s a key?” I asked.
“So they say,” answered Meeme, in his former drunken tone again. “But there’s no sense in looking for it. The key will come into the right person’s hands when the time is right.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“That’s what my blind grandmother told me,” replied Meeme, starting to laugh and cough again. “She also said that you can walk along a rainbow to the moon, and that if you eat a handful of earth, you change into a cuckoo. My blind half-wit of a grandmother told me all sorts of things. Go and figure out whether they’re true or not. Anyway, I haven’t eaten soil, because I don’t want to become a cuckoo. Cuckoos don’t drink wine; they have to lay eggs in other birds’nests, but what I want to do is drink. Your health, boys! I assure you wine tastes a lot better than fly agaric!

(Andrus Kivirahk "The Man Who Spoke Snakish")

In situations of conflict, they are less likely to refer to an adult to act as an adjudicator, and are liable to
‘take the law into their own hands’. These children may also learn that acts of aggression can repel other children, ensuring uninterrupted solitude. Conflict and confrontation with adults can be made worse by non-compliance, negativism, and a difficulty in perceiving the differences in social status or hierarchy, resulting in a failure to respect authority or maturity.

(Tony Atwood "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome")

We know that young children with Asperger’s syndrome are prone to develop mood disorders (Attwood 2003a), and some children seem to be almost constantly anxious, which might indicate a Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). One of the problems faced by children with Asperger’s syndrome who use their intellect rather than intuition to succeed in some social situations is that they may be in an almost constant state of alertness and anxiety, leading to a risk of mental and physical exhaustion. The child may have developed compensatory mechanisms to avoid anxiety-provoking situations such as school, by refusing to go to school or being mute at school (Kopp and Gillberg 1997). There may be intense anxiety or a phobic reaction to certain social situations, or to sensory experiences such as a dog barking, or to a change in expectations such as an alteration to the daily school routine. A referral to a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist or mental health service for children with a mood disorder may lead to a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome when a detailed and comprehensive developmental history is completed (Towbin et al. 2005).
Some children with Asperger’s syndrome can become clinically depressed as a reaction to their realization of having considerable difficulties with social integration. The depressive reaction can be internalized, leading to self-criticism and even thoughts of suicide; or externalized, resulting in criticism of others and an expression of frustration or anger, especially when the child has difficulty understanding a social situation. Blame is directed at oneself: ‘I am stupid’; or others: ‘It’s your fault.’ The signs of a clinical depression or problems with anger management could be the first indicators of a developmental disorder such as Asperger’s syndrome.

(Tony Atwood "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome")

Performativity is a process that implies being acted on in ways we do not always fully understand, and of acting, in politically consequential ways. Performativity has everything to do with “who” can become produced as a recognizable subject, a subject who is living, whose life is worth sheltering and whose life, when lost, would be worthy of mourning. Precarious life characterizes such lives who do not qualify as recognizable, readable, or grievable. And in this way, precariety is rubric that brings together women, queers, transgender people, the poor, and the stateless. It is worth remembering that one of the main questions that queer theory posed in light of the AIDS crisis was this: how does one live with the notion that one’s love is not considered love, and one’s loss is not considered loss? How does one live an unrecognizable life? If what and how you love is already a kind of nothing or nonexistence, how can you possibly explain the loss of this non-thing, and how would it ever become publicly grievable? Something similar happens when the loss or disappearance of whole populations becomes unmentionable or when the law itself prohibits an investigation of those who committed such atrocities. For the queer movement, this was emphatically the case with AIDS, and remains the situation on the African continent and for all those populations throughout the globe who have no access to new drugs or no way to pay for them. These are but a few of the ways in which the differential distribution of grievability takes place, and when it does not actually lead to the annihilation of those who are already socially lost or socially dead, it ties them in knots without hope of ever becoming undone.

(Judith Butler "Performativity, Precariety and Sexual Politics")

Emptiness and loss of meaning are expressions of the threat of nonbeing to the spiritual life. This threat is implied in man's finitude and actualized by man's estrangement. It can be described in terms of doubt, its creative and its destructive function in man's spiritual life. Man is able to ask because he is separated from, while participating in, what he is asking about. In every question an element of doubt, the awareness of not having, is implied. In systematic questioning systematic doubt is effective; e.g. of the Cartesian type. This element of doubt is a condition of all spiritual life. The threat to spiritual life is not doubt as an element but the total doubt. If the awareness of not having has swallowed the awareness of having, doubt has ceased to be methodological asking and has become existential despair. On the way to this situation the spiritual life tries to maintain itself as long as possible by clinging to affirmations which are not yet undercut, be they traditions, autonomous convictions, or emotional preferences. And if it is impossible to remove the doubt, one courageously accepts it without surrendering one's convictions. One takes the risk of going astray and the anxiety of this risk upon oneself. In this way one avoids the extreme situation till it becomes unavoidable and the despair of truth becomes complete.
Then man tries another way out: Doubt is based on man's separation from the whole of reality, on his lack of universal participation, on the isolation of his individual self. So he tries to break out of this situation, to identify himself with something transindividual, to surrender his separation and self-relatedness. He flees from his freedom of asking and answering for himself to a situation in which no further questions can be asked and the answers to previous questions are imposed on him authoritatively. In order to avoid the risk of asking and doubting he surrenders the right to ask and to doubt. He surrenders himself in order to save his spiritual life. He "escapes from his freedom" (Fromm) in order to escape the anxiety of meaninglessness. Now he is no longer lonely, not in existential doubt, not in despair. He "participates" and affirms by participation the contents of his spiritual life. Meaning is saved, but the self is sacrificed. And since the conquest of doubt was a matter of sacrifice, the sacrifice of the freedom of the self, it leaves a mark on the regained certitude: a fanatical self-assertiveness. Fanaticism is the correlate to spiritual self-surrender: it shows the anxiety which it was supposed to conquer, by attacking with disproportionate violence those who disagree and who demonstrate by their disagreement elements in the spiritual life of the fanatic which he must suppress in himself. Because he must suppress them in himself he must suppress them in others. His anxiety forces him to persecute dissenters. The weakness of the fanatic is that those whom he fights have a secret hold upon him; and to this weakness he and his group finally succumb.

(Paul Tillich "The Courage to Be")

"Why is he here all alone?"

The difference between depression and sadness is...Sadness is just from happenstance, whatever happened or didn't happen for you. Or, you know, grief or whatever it is. And depression is your body saying - fuck you, I don't want to be this character anymore, I don't want to hold up this avatar that you have created in the world, it's too much for me!

(Jim Carrey)

Love, after all, is the ingredient that separates a sacrifice from ordinary, everyday butchery.

(Arundhati Roy "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness")

“D’you know why God made Hijras?” she asked Aftab one afternoon while she flipped through a dog-eared 1967 issue of Vogue, lingering over the blonde ladies with bare legs who so enthralled her.

“I only mean I wouldn’t be in the danger you would be in.”
“No.” But he’d be in another kind of danger. A place like this would endanger him in a way I didn’t want to talk to him about. If he was stranded here for years, some part of this place would rub off on him. No large part, I knew. But if he survived here, it would be because he managed to tolerate the life here. He wouldn’t have to take part in it, but he would have to keep quiet about it. Free speech and press hadn’t done too well in the ante bellum South. Kevin wouldn’t do too well either. The place, the time would either kill him outright or mark him somehow. I didn’t like either possibility.

(Octavia E. Butler "Kindred")

Sazagāmies malku un devāmies pie Sarmītes griezt šķīvīti. Gari ilgi nenāca, bet beigās atnāca Austra Skujiņa un uz visiem jautājumiem izlika mūsu vārdus un uzvārdus. Sarmīte, noguruma un vīna mākta, aizmiga, sveces apdzisa, un tad tas notika. Tur jau var pārņirgties, brīnos, kā Maija noturējās. Pirmie skūpsti ir tik smieklīgi! Tas, kurš pirmoreiz skūpstās, kaut ko tur veido, bet otrs, kas jau māk, nesaprot, kā uz to reaģēt, un arī sāk veidot pakaļ.

(Rihards Bargais "Plikie rukši")

"The ways we survive can harm us – and harm those around us. It’s a hard truth to face, in part because it’s so complex. When abusers deny us our reality, it’s gaslighting. When we enact that denial on ourselves, it’s equal parts survival skill and self-harm.

Excavating ourselves out of denial, out of realities constructed of lies meant to harm us, is no small task. It requires grieving, letting go, and a whole lot more that I still hope to learn. Yet the challenge is worthwhile as this is necessary work for all of us who hope for a more supportive society. Once we start the process of undoing the hold gaslighting has on us, the work of self-accountability for our own healing process can begin.

I have repressed a lot of trauma. When awareness of my reality crept in, the shock was violent. Naming that truth spurred a year-long breakdown, which ultimately became a necessary breakthrough. I couldn't keep living under the weight of that denial. I was on that path originally because something in me said that avoiding the full truth (which for me involved going back in the closet) would be safer. Safety is contextual, not absolute. We know safety in relation to the least amount of safety we’ve ever felt. And those levels of “more safety” we rise to have an expiration date and quickly become not enough to continue forward. So I didn't have a choice but to move through that first very heavy layer of denial and start developing a new survival skill: honoring my truth.

I’m often afraid of falling back into the gaslight-formed realities of my past. But that fear comes from understanding how easy it is to get manipulated again, that the familiar, while knowingly harmful, can feel soothing and alluring. Nobody else can stop me from entering an abusive relationship, being codependent, or trying to play the model minority game (aka seeking false hope for equality by throwing everyone under the bus including myself). Those choices are on me, and even when I have little to rely on, I don’t need to solely rely on people or realities that harm me.

We live in an abusive society, and so realistically we’re never fully free from gaslighting, especially as marginalized people, but we do have the agency to name it and other forms of abuse. Sometimes we only have agency to name it in our thoughts, but that’s no small thing. Our thoughts are the most necessary battleground to recover. Holding ourselves accountable for denial is a series of tiny choices we make in our thoughts every day.

* * *

Taking accountability for our past choices is the freedom to make new ones. Once we can see where we’re contributing to feelings that weigh us down, it becomes possible to redirect and carry a little less stress. Simply not suffering isn’t an option on the table, but the choices we do have agency to make can help us suffer a little less.

Learning to recognize how we treat ourselves badly isn’t the end goal, but the process itself. It’s an ongoing commitment to love ourselves and others more fully, to spot harm as it’s happening, and to cultivate sustainability in our lives and communities. There’s no way to know exactly what good we’ll get out of self-accountability until we start."

(Dom Chatterjee https://www.restforresistance.com/zine/holding-ourselves-accountable-for-internalized-abuse)

Developing Black feminist thought also involves searching for its expression in alternative institutional locations and among women who are not commonly perceived as intellectuals. As defined in this volume, Black women intellectuals are neither all academics nor found primarily in the Black middle class. Instead, all U.S. Black women who somehow contribute to Black feminist thought as critical social theory are deemed to be “intellectuals.”They may be highly educated. Many are not. For example, nineteenth-century Black feminist activist Sojourner Truth is not typically seen as an intellectual.3 Because she could neither read nor write, much of what we know about her has been recorded by other people. One of her most famous speeches, that delivered at the 1851 women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, comes to us in a report written by a feminist abolitionist some time after the event itself (Painter 1993). We do not know what Truth actually said, only what the recorder claims that she said. Despite this limitation, in that speech Truth reportedly provides an incisive analysis of the definition of the term woman forwarded in the mid-1800s:
That man over there says women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? (Loewenberg and Bogin 1976, 235)
By using the contradictions between her life as an African-American woman and the qualities ascribed to women, Sojourner Truth exposes the concept of woman as being culturally constructed. Her life as a second-class citizen has been filled with hard physical labor, with no assistance from men. Her question, “and ain’t I a woman?” points to the contradictions inherent in blanket use of the term woman. For those who question Truth’s femininity, she invokes her status as a mother of thirteen children, all sold off into slavery, and asks again, “and ain’t I a woman?” Rather than accepting the existing assumptions about what a woman is and then trying to prove that she fit the standards, Truth challenged the very standards themselves. Her actions demonstrate the process of deconstruction— namely, exposing a concept as ideological or culturally constructed rather than as natural or a simple reflection of reality (Collins 1998a, 137–45). By deconstructing the concept woman, Truth proved herself to be a formidable intellectual. And yet Truth was a former slave who never learned to read or write.

(Patricia Hill Collins "Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment")

Šim nejauši uzdūros fb. Par akadēmiju, bet ne tikai, manuprāt.

"It was curiosity, not stupidity that killed the Dodo. For too long, we have held to the unfair myth that the flightless Mauritian bird became extinct because it was too dumb to understand that it was being killed. But as Stefan Pociask points out in “What Happened to the Last Dodo Bird?”, the dodo was driven into extinction partly because of its desire to learn more about a new, taller, two-legged creature who disembarked onto the shores of its native habitat: “Fearless curiosity, rather than stupidity, is a more fitting description of their behavior.”

Curiosity does have a tendency to get you killed. The truly fearless don’t last long, and the birds who go out in search of new knowledge are inevitably the first ones to get plucked. It’s always safer to stay close to the nest.

Contrary to what capitalism’s mythologizers would have you believe, the contemporary world does not heap its rewards on those with the most creativity and courage. In fact, at every stage of life, those who venture beyond the safe boundaries of expectation are ruthlessly culled. If you’re a black kid who tends to talk back and call bullshit on your teachers, you will be sent to a special school. If you’re a transgender teenager like Leelah Alcorn in Ohio, and you unapologetically defy gender norms, they’ll make you so miserable that you kill yourself. If you’re Eric Garner, and you tell the police where they can stick their B.S. “loose cigarette” tax, they will promptly choke you to death. Conformists, on the other hand, usually do pretty well for themselves. Follow the rules, tell people what they want to hear, and you’ll come out just fine."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/04/the-dangerous-academic-is-an-extinct-species

- It's a side business. I make up these knapsacks for the Zombie Apocalypse. You know...In case the dead come back to life and world gets all "dog-eat-dog."
- It's already "dog-eat-dog," friend. Not sure what worse a bunch of zombies could do.

And then we zoomed out until we were hovering over an African savannah. Stuart said, “welcome to my playground”. We were watching a pack of 5 lions nap beside a herd of zebra. Neither group seemed bothered by the other. Stuart said, “Tell me why the animal kingdom does not suffer like man does.”
I observed the animals and replied “Because man is the only one with a socialization structure that teaches it to resist it’s own needs. The zebra that needs grass, goes to find grass and the lion that needs zebra goes to find zebra.”
“Yes” he said, “The zebra doesn’t waste his bloody time worrying about there being no grass and it doesn’t try to convince itself to learn how to grow grass itself or not need grass. So the zebra is not disempowered by it’s own need like the man is.”

So as to ingrain the concept further, Stuart then brought me to a watering hole in the savannah. It was dried up completely. The suggestion that water was there once was the only thing left; an imprint in the dried and cracked mud. We stood in silence looking at the absence of water. He asked me no questions this time. Instead he said to me “People keep waiting for the watering hole to fill up with water. When that doesn’t work, they keep trying to figure out how to get the watering hole to produce more water. When that doesn’t work, they keep trying to become water, so they can drink themselves. And when that doesn’t work, they decide they are not meant to have water. And so, for them, water is a need. Only the need for most people is intimate connection of companionship. And not once have they ever considered to leave the watering hole that has no water in search of one that does.”
(..)

Stuart took my hands and he said, “You have seen that it is empowering to learn that you are not powerless to other people either meeting or not meeting your needs by meeting your own needs. But now it’s time to see that there are needs that you cannot meet on your own, like the need for connection. But this need is only a need for those who think they can’t get connection. And if this is a need of yours, and you cannot meet the need yourself, the empowerment is in either manifesting someone who wants to meet the need for you or by doing as the zebra does and going to find grass.”

(Teal Swan "The Zebra and the Watering Hole")

London is the place where I found myself. In Afghanistan, the surroundings of a person are more important, and the behavior of somebody in relation to that environment, whereas in the UK, there is more freedom to find yourself, your true feelings, your needs and wants. In Afghanistan, life is easier in that sense because you are ignorant of yourself. I think that if I had lived all my life in Afghanistan, I would not have had the chance to find myself in the way that I have done here.

(Marie Braakman and Angela Schlenkhoff "Between Two Worlds: Feelings of Belonging While in Exile and the Question of Return")

Despite the fact that we see the world with different clarity and from a different point of view and therefore that for each of us things have a different physical appearance – I might see one side of a car while you might see the other side – I assume that we end up with the same objective world (Husserl, 1998: 55–6; 1969: 233).6 For Husserl, this common world is an accomplishment that is made possible first of all by empathy (Einfühlung), understood as the primordial experience of participating in the actions and feeling of another being without becoming the other (Husserl, 1969: 233; Stein, 1989). This kind of empathetic (and hence non-rational, non-cognitive) understanding of Others comes out of our exposure to their bodies moving and acting in ways that we recognize as similar to the ways in which we would act under similar circumstances.

(Alessandro Duranti "Husserl, Intersubjectivity and Anthropology")

For Husserl, intersubjectivity means the condition whereby I maintain the assumption that the world as it presents itself to me is the same world as it presents itself to you, not because you can ‘read my mind’ but because I assume that if you were in my place you would see it the way I see it. This is captured by the notion of Platzwechsel, that is, ‘trading places’ or ‘place exchange’, which is made possible by empathy (see also De Bergoffen, 1996: 54; Depraz, 2001: 173; Schutz, 1962).4 (..) the idea is not that we simultaneously come to the same understanding of any given situation (although this can happen), but that we have, to start, the possibility of exchanging places, of seeing the world from the point of view of the Other. Intersubjectivity is thus an existential condition that can lead to a shared understanding – an important achievement in its own terms – rather than being itself such an understanding. This is made clear in the following passage where Husserl states that nature itself is an intersubjective reality. This does not mean that we have a mutual understanding of nature but that nature, by being something we share with other beings, can be one of the conditions for us to come to a shared understanding of the world at large (what he calls here ‘things and people’).
'Nature is an intersubjective reality and a reality not just for me and my companions of the moment but for us and for everyone who can come to a mutual understanding with us about things and about other people. There is always the possibility that new spirits enter into this nexus; but they must do so by means of their Bodies, which are represented through possible appearances in our consciousness and through corresponding ones in theirs.'(Husserl, 1989: 91)

(Alessandro Duranti "Husserl, Intersubjectivity and Anthropology")

Yet an increasing acknowledgement is emerging that the privileging of the past over the future is a widespread tendency in anthropology more broadly. Indeed, in my search for an anthropological toolbox to grapple with people’s engagements with futures, I found that anthropologists far more experienced and talented than I shared my sense that our discipline needs to try harder to understand people’s yearnings for possible futures and their relative capacity to create them (e.g. Appadurai 2004; Guyer 2007; Malkki 2001). While religious and magical dealings with futures have attracted considerable attention, more secular everyday forms of yearning and planning seem to remain understudied, particularly if they cannot be understood straightforwardly as part of cultural idioms.

(Stef Jansen "Hope and the State in Anthropology of Home: Preliminary Notes")

Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love-but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was thinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would think to the very bottom of Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up. At such moments I tried to elevate myself. I would touch the turban I had made with the remnants of my shirt and I would say aloud, "This is God's hat!" I would pat my pants and say aloud, "This is God's attire!" I would point to Richard Parker and say aloud "This is God's cat!" I would point to the lifeboat and say aloud, "This is God's ark!" I would spread my hands wide and say aloud, "These are God's wide acres!" I would point at the sky and say aloud, "This is God's ear!" And in this I would remind myself of creation and of my place in it. But God's hat was always unravelling. God's pants were falling apart. God's cat was a constant danger. God's ark was a jail. God's wide acres were slowly killing me. God's ear didn't seem to be listening. Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in our out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always past. A school of fish appeared around the net or a knot cried out to be reknotted. Or I thought of my family, of how they were spared this terrible agony. The blackness would stir and eventually go away, a God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.

(Yann Martel "Life of Pi")

Do not be afraid of losing yourself. Nothing has gone wrong. It's a spiritual truth, that you can't even find yourself, unless you lose yourself. When you look on feeling or being lost in this way, like it's a turning point, to find out who you are and who you want to be, the better off you will be. You are more closer to truly knowing yourself than most people, who think, they are not lost, but are. If you know, you are lost, you know, where you are. You are lost! This means, that your mission in life is to find yourself. And when you start looking for yourself, you will find yourself. Everything you do can add to your knowledge of yourself and your personal truth.

(Teal Swan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIC1wHAYRO0)