The Monsters Were Never Under My Bed. Because The Monsters Were Inside My Head. I Fear No Monsters, For

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

In her essay Less TikTok, More Screaming, Persinette writes that these e-therapists have turned healing into “a religion, a lifestyle, and above all, a brand” while promoting a culture of isolation and individual optimization. In this ecosystem, “...therapy has become a litmus test for social belonging and inherent goodness, a sign that one is aware of and has adapted to the newest standards of how to behave.”  The social standard this culture offers is one of controlled, placated solitude. Its narrative often insists that you’re surrounded by toxic people who are trying to hurt you, and the only way to ever become the person you’re meant to be is to cut them all off, retreat into a high-gloss cocoon of talk therapy and Notion templates, and emerge a non-emotive butterfly who will surely attract the relationships you’ve always deserved — relationships with other “healed” people, who don’t hurt you or depend on you or force you to feel difficult, taxing emotions. And finally, your life will be as frictionless and shiny as you, alone, have always deserved for it to be.

Rayne Fisher-Quann, no good alone

"Thats the wrong question, there is no failure.

Its steps to success..."

-Giannis

İyi ki doğdun kalbimi aşkla dolduran biricik sevgilim.. bu seninle geçireceğimiz 3. Doğum günün. Yıllar çok çabuk geçiyor seninle 🥹 seni çok ama çok seviyorum biriciğim iyi ki hayatımdasın sana ne kadar @constantinlevine teşekkür etsem az civcivim ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Aynı şekilde, dahice eserler üreten kişiler, en seçkin çevrede yaşayan, en parlak konuşma biçimine, en geniş kültüre sahip kişiler değil, birdenbire kendileri için yaşamayı keserek kişiliklerini bir aynaya, sosyal ve hatta bir bakıma zihinsel açıdan sıradan bir hayat da olsa, hayatlarını yansıtacak bir aynaya dönüştürecek güce sahip olanlardır; çünkü deha yansıtılan görünümün özündeki değere değil, yansıtma gücüne bağlıdır.

Biz beraber mi doğduk? Her şeye ne tepki vereceğimizi kestiremiyoruz, ama zamanla öğreneceğiz. Zamanla kavrayacağız, birlikteliğin ne olduğunu.

If my life is like a dust, that hides the glow of a rose, then what good am I, heaven only knows...

Integrity means that what you thought, what you said, and what you did, are all the same.

The fall of the damned. Sometimes we are the damned, unfortunately, we are human. And so damned...