if you expect lit to “teach” you, beware it will more likely be reinforcing your preexisting or ingroup priors you’ll see what you’re looking for did you know you were looking for it? not necessarily anything wrong with that but ... maybe just ... be aware 2025-12-01 how do i feel (ok for now) what did i do (some of my work) what was the weather (cold as fuck) 2025-12-02 ok so you have some kind of feeling about am lit bc nr is basically doing it all and your whole thing that you made is basically trashed and you could make your own copies of those hideous slide decks but then you’re back to playing parity catch up if you want to keep up with any changes she might make to hers though you could keep her version as a hidden item in class to compare but the point is you feel like baggage just riding her coat tails while she makes the whole fucking thing but you’ve had the opportunity to work on it with her but you really didn’t take it so why? if you didn’t care enough to step up and participate in the process more than the little bit you did (designing the answer sheet basically) then why do you care now about feeling like you don’t have any input or control over it? again, you can have as much control as you want. so what’s really going on here? it feels like i don’t have time or energy for anything except cw — and two people per semester even bother looking at any of that stuff. so yeah. and remember when i used to contribute to the live classes? my slide decks? now it’s just all her stuff all the time, those fucking padlets istfg. yeah theoretically i could add to them. maybe the point is I FEEL BURNED OUT AND UNMOTIVATED BUT ALSO TRAPPED AND CONSTANTLY UTTERLY FUCKING EXHAUSTED. like what am i supposed to do, start a whole new career? i’m fucking old and have NO EXCESS ENERGY WHATSOEVER. meanwhile i owe thousands upon thousands of dollars with no way to get ahead. I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO GIVE A SHIT WHETHER ANYONE IS USING AI FOR THEIR FUCKING HOMEWORK OR NOT. I DON’T FUCKING CARE BECAUSE I DON’T CARE ABOUT THIS HOMEWORK ANY MORE THAN THEY DO. I WANT TO READ AND WRITE AND DISCUSS INTERESTING THINGS, surprising things, things that are connected to the present moment while still being informed about the past and future. high school literature classes are pointless. i don’t fucking care. “if it’s pointless make it smaller”???? I could probably make my cw live classes better that way if nothing else. then what about everything else? you gotta do what you gotta do. work is still just “picking something up and putting it down somewhere else because you have to,” after all. regret and disappointment are inevitable, so have a cup of coffee and get on with it. You know, NR might actually appreciate if i offered to do something in class, either live or with curriculum prep, like actually showed up with something and offered to lead sometimes, instead of sitting here waiting for her to ask me and then being resentful when she doesn’t. because she’s a grownup, she’s going to do the thing if i’m not, because she’s professionally unwilling to not have the thing done. in 2023 she said she was learning from me. (of course then the series of lib’s hospitalizations started. but still —) when did i go back to being so comfortable with my own inadequacy that i got content to let her do everything? idolize the strong woman, pretend it’s respect to cover up the laziness or avoidance, that’s the old pattern, right mat?? December 3, 2025 i feel parts of my body i’m not supposed to feel, and it doesn’t feel good. fever roars on fever beaver over fever falls in a barrel shut up 2025-12-05 I think it’s fair to say i haven’t what you would call “been” what you would call “happy” for any what you would call sustained amount of time, for quite some time. 2025-12-05 You look back at it perhaps years later, and you think, “It’s good,” and perhaps it is, AND — it doesn’t matter. Both can be true. And that’s OK. Stop writing. Fulfill your purpose. Continue. 2025-12-08 ugiiggkkvkvvkkvkvkvkvjvjvt fhidcgjjxgchhcchfhdgdthfj h. hj jvgigjchj. jjvjchc hjc. fuck phones. duckysjfnxhfxW 2025-12-18 passed (and passing) generations have a job: to leave clues you can explain what you’re talking about by talking about it 2025-12-22 Do you have a purpose? Can you give it a name? Can you articulate it? Does it serve other people? Is it about people? What could the definition of purpose be, if not about people? Is it something you felt or something you decided? Do you doubt it? Forget it? Must you resolve to adhere to it, or does it come naturally? Does it change, evolve? Has it stayed the same? When did you become aware of it? Did it come first and then your awareness, or the other way around? Do you try to persuade yourself it exists? Is it an ideal or a compulsion? Do you want to have an answer to the question, *do you have a purpose?* Are you worried that you might be bullshitting? Do you think if you pretend long enough, it will become real? Why do you want one, if you want one — to serve others, or to give the appearance of serving others, so that you can accomplish, what, an ulterior purpose? Do we get to choose what our purposes are? Fuck it, I’m gonna set my camera to jpeg only, and live my fucking life. I literally do not have time to be an expert in everything, in all the dumb shit I let The Hype convince me I needed to pretend to be an expert in. Time is running out. If I do have a purpose, at this rate I’m gonna die before I get to fulfill it for more than a moment or two. Are you dreaming? Look at your hands. Well, anyway. Ulysses is still annoying, but every now and then I start fucking around with it anyway because it’s also kind of cool. But it’s always, always, always just a little more annoying than cool, and 100% always will be. There will never be an update or a “contact us” that will ever change this, not ever. The product exists to be a thing that is inherently annoying to me. It breaks so many long-standing understandings of how text on a computer works, there’s no way it could ever be reconciled. They don’t understand someone wanting Applescript capabilities. They’re simultaneously less and more opinionated than the smug bastards at iA. You either have to accept and enjoy it for what it is, or don’t fucking use it. Either way: ***IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER.*** Live your life and shoot jpegs and don’t smoke *any* cigars, let alone cheap ones. Nobody fucking cares and you don’t have to let people know that you know how page up and down is supposed to work. If it annoys you, don’t use it. If it turns out you don’t really care, fine. If sometimes one and sometimes the other, fine. You’re still getting old and you still have spots on your hands and you still don’t really know what your purpose is. Or maybe you do know, you are just afraid to acknowledge it because you aren’t sure if you’re up to the task of fulfilling it. You don’t want to disappoint anyone (else) and so you sit here and agonize over the inconsistencies between Mac writing programs until you’re too tired to piss. Haha, you’re funny. No, no, that’s not quite it either. That’s too easy. There’s still something else going on here. What is it? 2025-12-23 Perhaps we could use a distinction between “purpose” and “function.” If I feel as though my purpose, just as a hypothetical or a joke you know, is to write page 192 of a random book every day, and it feels purposeful because it is appealing, intriguing, accomplishable, and somehow improves at least my world, and I can extrapolate from my world to a greater likelihood of improving the lives of those in my circle of influence, it could be that what I *do* in this case is my *function;* that’s the part I can see, name, quanitify, describe. Whereas the *purpose,* or why my ridiculous aging little body feels “called upon” to perform this function, that remains a mystery. Perhaps that’s how purpose works, and why a simple question such as “what is your purpose” engenders, for me at least, a seemingly neverending string of related yet increasingly orthogonal additional questions. Or maybe that’s just me not having a clue, and stalling. Vamping. Pretending again. 2025-12-24 *The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards.* Ok, fine! (picks up all cards, throws them in the trash) the moment in reading the book where it is as the wetted finger circling the rim of the glass, finally firming down and letting go in precisely the right effortless proportion, making the crystal sing— this is the moment the reading has been straining towards, the intrinsic impulse for the book to become “about” more than “just” the book. when and where it happens has nothing in particular to do with when and where we start or finish “reading” the book ourselves(?) the parts i didn’t say but WHY do you feel embarrassed? might that be trying to tell you something? is avoiding guilt or embarrassment always a good idea? what trying to make an effort to plan things are you talking about beyond vaguely saying we should do something. oh, i have a car so that makes it so easy for me. lol. just fucking lol. of course you don’t remember any of the times i drove back and forth to chicago for you “when we’re all communicative in advance” THE FUCK YOU THINK I WAS TRYING TO DO WHEN YOU FREAKED THE FUCK OUT AND STARTED COMING UP WITH EXCUSES NOT TO GO TO MO FOR XMAS? oh you hate making it about money WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD. GET A BETTER FUCKING JOB IF WHAT YOU’RE DOING NOW ISN’T CUTTING IT. THAT’S WHAT EVERYONE ELSE HAS TO DO PRINCESS sorry there’s literally no way i just said “it’s not a good time” when she was freaking out about nick. SHE CHANGES PEOPLE’S WORDS, she hears things people didn’t say, i’ve seen this before, it’s like she twists things to suit her inner victim monologue like what the actual fuck? you think i haven’t helped you pay for train tickets and shit? what fucking world do you live in? driving to carbondale in the middle of the fucking night, that doesn’t count either i guess? entitled, ungrateful you said how i raised you wasnt related but it is related in the sense that i felt attacked like there was no way i could live up to your expectations. i was defending my self worth you said “i always text or call you first. since i moved out.” — ok not 100% true looking all the way back but recently, yeah that’s fair —— we were talking about more things than i realized we were talking about i wasn’t fully there for her during a specific time when she needed me to be from shortly after covid started till about november 2024 was kind of a low period for me i still feel overwhelmed and exhausted and lonely i’m not always good at reaching out i’m gonna try but i’m apprehensive — don’t want to end up bashing my face into a wall that won’t be moved — but why do i suspect that could be the case? tend to assume admitting guilt will lead to being taken advantage of by someone not operating in good faith. ie i don’t trust the people who are or “should be” closest to me yea i took a lot of your list items as accusations. didn’t realize soon enough that we were talking about something we werent talking about i got fixated on the specifics of the examples, and how i remembered some of them differently. maybe part of that’s not for no reason? sometimes your version of things has been markedly different from mine or your sisters’, and that’s been a source of conflict and confusion before. but the part i missed is that the specifics of the examples wasn’t (at least not right now) the point. what you were trying to talk about was underneath them, and i couldn’t hear it, and you felt like you weren’t being listened to and yea i do think youve had a tendency to forget the good and inflate the bad when youre in a bad place or feeling, but, again, theres reasons for that but like you can send an itemized list of grievances but if i have a different take your reaponse is rage — i was supposed to know that what you meant was this is the list but ignore the list and only respond to the subtext?? i have a hard time when i realize i havent done a good job at this thing i think of myself as being good at. my first reaction is to withdraw but that’s counter to my purpose so i have to learn something else i need to build up the support and resources i need in order to fulfill my purpose, and i’m not going to be able to do that alone or by thinking or being smart or whatever my lack of trust and everything else that stops me — it’s not special, it’s just real same for thinking losing weight was gonna fix everything, and then thinking getting sober was gonna fix everything all the normal stuff humans experience — instead of hey wow look! i’m a human too! i resist it. like real isn’t good enough, if it’s not special. like i can’t possibly be one of y’all. why? you can’t say “i’m sorry i let you down” so fervently that you make yourself the victim. cuz then you’re not sorry, you just don’t want to feel bad shit, maybe I’m the borderline one? wtf, am i gaslighting myself? i do sometimes tend to suspect people of being good or evil, purely noble or nefarious, including (especially) myself I also feel a history of pain, regret, loss, separation, guilt in my relationship with megan, going back years. Out of all of them, she’s the one I most regularly feel i’ve failed, or i’ve lost, or i’ve wronged, or i need to repair things with — why does this keep happening? I think this is why I am afraid that even if she agrees to talk to me now, and even if i manage to improve my consistency of keeping in touch with her now, somehow it’s never going to be enough. I could be wrong though. That could just be me not wanting to face something. note the tendency to want to swing it one way or another: either she’s not being fully honest or i’m not. either she’s the one distorting things or i am. what if it’s not all one or the other? how do you deal with that? looking at 2017 journals by chance — she was already pissed off at me then. before all the rest of the fucked up shit. not saying — but — if you’re committing to a “trauma-informed” outlook or receptivity or whatever, i don’t think you can do it halfway though. that seems like a recipe for fanning the flames ultimately, i want her to still love me. when she hearted my “i’ll just add this and then let you be for now” comment, it took a weight off my chest how does this ring: It doesn’t matter if it’s your fault or not, if there’s something you can do about it how about this: you get jealous of your kid(s) sometimes if they’re the amazing, different, voyaging, — if you don’t get to be the amazing main character but they do — even if it’s in a horrible way, defined by pain and trauma!?. but it’s not your turn all the time, your whole life. it never needed to be. if your purpose isn’t that, it isn’t necessary. do your thing. it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t matter. and yeah… heres whats making this not simple for me: even if i was fixating on the wrong details at the wrong time in a way that wasnt going to lead to the outcome i was hoping for in that conversation, SOME OF THOSE DETAILS ARE STILL SIGNIFICANT. Like the difference between “being told it wasnt a good time” and “im on a bike ride and cant get down there right away” So yeah, me saying “youre remembering it wrong” in the midst of a text convo that was charged to sn unmeasurable degree was not the way to dig into that. nevertheless, its still a thing. trauma informed care doesnt mean always defer to the traumatized persons worldview! just because someone is full of rage doesn’t mean you should do whatever they want or discard your integrity. it doesnt mean i’m a horrible person whose only role in subsequent conversations is to be abject. it means i need to practice listening, work on my own shit (avoidance, etc) — but also megan has her own very real shit to work on too, and i hope to have a role in that as well, but it’s a role with boundaries. she’s not a horrible person either but she’s also not literally the angel girl who can only be a victim and can do no wrong. but just like you can’t always charge a battery right up at 50 amps without damaging it, you can’t always lead with HERE’s how your perceptions are distorted! either do we sometimes “go back” to our trauma, kind of deploy it a little bit, when feeling threatened? vicious circle—more likely to feel threatened in the first place because of it—but still it can be tempting to bring out the big guns, the thing nobody could possibly blame you for and must sympathize with. doesnt mean the thing is invalid or that you havent been hurt or that you dont need love and support. but this dynamic surely can complicate things? like, ideally thered have been a better way for megan to say she was still upset about me not being there for her sufficiently when she was going through it. but we dont always plan these things out obviously sometimes feels like she deliberately went somewhere it was harder for me to support her and then resented me for not supporting her enough? thats probly not fair, is probly based on my own shame for not being rich enough to shelter them all. not that even being rich is enough — but it sure seems to help have and state boundaries be a safe space to communicate convey understanding (learn things that will help you genuinely understand) positive reinforcement SMALL MOMENTS BIG DIFFERENCE RECOGNIZE THEM take care of yourself (you’re not a monster) dont take reactivity personally (pretty hard when youre a character in it! but that character isnt the same thing as YOU in the preent real life moment) watch out for your own limiting beliefs (eg, its nevr gonna be good enough or shes just like her mom) adult child reactivity often stems from frustration, fear, or anxiety. This further suggests that if parents want their voices to resonate rather than dominate, they need to be calm, firm, and noncontrolling to bypass fruitless power struggles looks like it was oct 8 2021 right as i was leaving to sd to get the truck i think? did she tell me on the phone? did i know that while on the way back? because i dont remember knowing that then at all but i did go down there at least a couple times, she went to mo for tgvng, she went to new york, mil went down at halloween, she came to muskego a few times. i went down with the stereo and whatnot. she came up for med appts. i sent her money. i took her peach yogurt when she had strep. its not like i did nothing at all, we called and texted. but obvs she presently looking back feels like she was alone which im sure is for legit reasons but like the response isnt to try to prove her wrong. but also i hate the idea of her thinking im this complete asshole when maybe i wasnt, at least not completely. i know i could have done better but again. kinda going around in circles now tho i wouldnt have this whole page of notes if i hadnt reacted and responded to megan about what ambrose said she said in a group chat im not even in think about that the more i sit with it, waiting to see if ahe will deign to meet up with me, the more the whole thing feels treacherous. when is the last time i heard her say oh yeah that was my bad or take responsibility for any of it. obviously not the rape, thats not what i mean, but like “don’t have my real id so cant fly” ok but why didnt you get your real id if you said you could “100%” go to sd? again the point isnt each little thing, the point is everything is always our or my fault. if you hadnt moved to chi for example and you didnt have a good living situation you coulda come home. you could have anyway but you chose not to but somehow i was still supposed to be responsible for your living situation. if all you needed was to feel more loved ans supported and paid attention to and i wasnt doing enough of that, yeah i can see that. but it feels like theres more than one thread running thru all this, thats what makes it more complicated the other thing that worries me is how we remember certain things differently — main example being that she took “im on a bike ride and get to the place to pick you up in time” as “its not a good time to come home even though youre feeling suicidal” like i KNOW i wouldnt have been that callous Again not all or nothing but the parallax has to be s ignificant whatever the cause. look. if shit never works out and she thinks its always because of us, then the logical conclusion is because we dont love her enough. but i REALLY dont think thats true. matter of fact i KNOW that’s not ture. so there must be something else going on. now the polar opposite, she doesnt care about us or is just too fucking self centered isnt the right answer either. there can be multiple things going on. i wonder if she is willing to consider that. gil: the brain is a prediction machine. with certain settings or stimuli it starts predicting old patterns (family roles and dynamics for example), even if nothing bad is currently happening. then it starts seeking relief... (i’m thinking that not seeing the expected old patterns play out could be just as disruptive in its own way too...) she was disappointed — no, embittered — when she found out “you can do anything you want” was a lie — what she wanted was to fly, like a fairy, and she couldn’t do that. years later, in that horrific moment, i think she must have wanted me to help her, must have wanted me to save her, and i didn’t, couldn’t. but then i think she thought i wasn’t even trying. this part of the wound is her disappointment, disillusionment, with me. not just me, but when interacting with me, then me. i am not innocent. i could have tried harder. i am also not evil. the farther away the kid goes from the parent, the less the parent’s sphere of influence. unless they’re rich i guess. well, even then. also you get farther away just by growing up. she went to chicago. she made some choices. there is always a pattern of interwoven consequences, good luck, bad luck. so i think back to what is my purpose, and bottom line, i need to work out what i can and can’t try to do now, what’s in or out of my control, then try the things i can try and let the rest go. take first breath the rest will follow 2025-12-28 gratitude without action is hypocrisy