I’ve been telling friends lately that the three most lucrative things you can be obsessed with are people, technology and money. You can be interested in all three, but you can really only be truly obsessed with one. For me, it’s always been people. When I was a kid I could barely talk to anyone else, so I spent all my time reading. But looking back I think my love of books stemmed not from a love of language (though I do love language), but from an interest in other people’s interiority. I wanted to know what other people experienced, and what they felt, and how they thought. And fiction was—still is, in my opinion—the best way to investigate that.
'The way I used to relate to people was so much about completion, about craving. I didn’t understand that you can never get enough of something you don’t really need. If you’re blind to the wholeness that’s already present, you’ll never find it in other people. When you see it you’ll see it in everyone.'
Never been able to articulate it so succinctly before so thankyou, coming to this realisation was such a significant psychological transition for me, probably the biggest turning point in my life.
Beautiful. Especially resonate with the struggle to reconcile my individualism with the fact that I am connected to and dependent on others. I'm imagining the process as a dance where the magic emerges and is only possible in the tension and energy between the dancers, the feeling of wholeness a property of the interacting collective, a shared consciousness that is more than the sum of its parts.
I marvel at how you reach these conclusions through personal study and reflection instead of learning from group osmosis as I did. The shift came from spiritual conversion in my case but the destination has been the same. I heard someone else describe it as going up the same hill carried by different donkeys.
wow. my friend introduced me to your writing and i'm so glad she did. these sentiments move and show me there is still so much heart left in the world.
Ava, I just finished reading Leo Buscaglia’s book, “Love.” Though I don’t know if you’ll get any new ideas from it, it’s a gorgeous, simple, tactile distillation of much of what you talked about. Thanks for writing this piece!
The top answers were things like 'Lie there for hours and feel like shit in the morning. Occasionally take a shower.' and 'I simply wallow in misery. Thank you for asking.' and 'I lay there annoyed that I'm not asleep and then start thinking about all my personal failings until I fall back asleep half an hour before the alarm.'
And it was so immensely comforting to realize just how many other people out there are like me, struggling to get back to sleep at 4am
I think if every problem you've faced can be solved with a very general solution, then you haven't faced a real problem.
The difference between a person and a piece of art is that people are significantly non-deterministic subjects, not deterministic objects. If you aren't noticing what is subjectively unique about a person, then you aren't really noticing that person in particular at all.
'I feel more and more that if you’re trying to get something from another person, you’re already fucking up. What people offer, in and of themselves, is the chance to get out of your own skin. Their existence is both a consolation and a source of hope.' Yes, yes, yes 💗
I loved this. It relates to two ideas I have found very helpful. First is the Kristin Neff self-compassion move of turning to a sense of common humanity as a move against isolation. We like other people and we like ourselves more every time a thought like "Why am I such a fuck up for snoozing through the alarm when I was supposed to workout?" turns to "I am just like all these other people who sleep through their alarm, there are so many of us that there's even a verb for it - snoozing. This experience I had makes me just like other people."
Second, it reminds me of Emerson, who believed the focused and intentional attention to one's own experience opened the door to the connectedness with other people. "Of the universal mind each individual man is one more incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Each new fact in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done, and the crises of his life refer to national crises. Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era. Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age. The fact narrated must correspond to something in me to be credible or intelligible. We as we read must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner, must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly. What befell Asdrubal or Caesar Borgia is as much an illustration of the mind's powers and depravations as what has befallen us. Each new law and political movement has meaning for you."
'The way I used to relate to people was so much about completion, about craving. I didn’t understand that you can never get enough of something you don’t really need. If you’re blind to the wholeness that’s already present, you’ll never find it in other people. When you see it you’ll see it in everyone.'
Never been able to articulate it so succinctly before so thankyou, coming to this realisation was such a significant psychological transition for me, probably the biggest turning point in my life.
so beautiful ava 😭 thank you
Beautiful. Especially resonate with the struggle to reconcile my individualism with the fact that I am connected to and dependent on others. I'm imagining the process as a dance where the magic emerges and is only possible in the tension and energy between the dancers, the feeling of wholeness a property of the interacting collective, a shared consciousness that is more than the sum of its parts.
I marvel at how you reach these conclusions through personal study and reflection instead of learning from group osmosis as I did. The shift came from spiritual conversion in my case but the destination has been the same. I heard someone else describe it as going up the same hill carried by different donkeys.
wow. my friend introduced me to your writing and i'm so glad she did. these sentiments move and show me there is still so much heart left in the world.
Ava, I just finished reading Leo Buscaglia’s book, “Love.” Though I don’t know if you’ll get any new ideas from it, it’s a gorgeous, simple, tactile distillation of much of what you talked about. Thanks for writing this piece!
I haven't read fiction in a long time, but indeed, it is a window into connectedness and a path to grow in empathy. I appreciate your post.
I've been struggling with waking up too early and not being able to get back to sleep and feel rested. So it was immensely comforting to find this Reddit thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/m433n1/insomniacs_and_troubled_sleepers_of_reddit_when/ - Insomniacs and troubled sleepers of Reddit, when you wake up at 3am and can’t fall back asleep, what do you do??
The top answers were things like 'Lie there for hours and feel like shit in the morning. Occasionally take a shower.' and 'I simply wallow in misery. Thank you for asking.' and 'I lay there annoyed that I'm not asleep and then start thinking about all my personal failings until I fall back asleep half an hour before the alarm.'
And it was so immensely comforting to realize just how many other people out there are like me, struggling to get back to sleep at 4am
I think if every problem you've faced can be solved with a very general solution, then you haven't faced a real problem.
The difference between a person and a piece of art is that people are significantly non-deterministic subjects, not deterministic objects. If you aren't noticing what is subjectively unique about a person, then you aren't really noticing that person in particular at all.
you are a brilliant writer
I so needed to hear all of this today. Thank you 💙
'I feel more and more that if you’re trying to get something from another person, you’re already fucking up. What people offer, in and of themselves, is the chance to get out of your own skin. Their existence is both a consolation and a source of hope.' Yes, yes, yes 💗
I loved this. It relates to two ideas I have found very helpful. First is the Kristin Neff self-compassion move of turning to a sense of common humanity as a move against isolation. We like other people and we like ourselves more every time a thought like "Why am I such a fuck up for snoozing through the alarm when I was supposed to workout?" turns to "I am just like all these other people who sleep through their alarm, there are so many of us that there's even a verb for it - snoozing. This experience I had makes me just like other people."
Second, it reminds me of Emerson, who believed the focused and intentional attention to one's own experience opened the door to the connectedness with other people. "Of the universal mind each individual man is one more incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Each new fact in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done, and the crises of his life refer to national crises. Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era. Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age. The fact narrated must correspond to something in me to be credible or intelligible. We as we read must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner, must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly. What befell Asdrubal or Caesar Borgia is as much an illustration of the mind's powers and depravations as what has befallen us. Each new law and political movement has meaning for you."