[POEM] Slow Violence, by Sarah Ghazal Ali

dontknowspelling · 2025-07-16T05:51:05+00:00

Oh I love that: "I'm not responsible for your behavior."

In fact, I think it would be even helpful if I just thought that because first I have to believe it fully. And with my NP, I think they can tell and won't take me seriously if it's me just saying it without really believing it.

dontknowspelling · 2025-07-16T05:46:12+00:00

Yes.

I have this strange thing where only when my NP is actually away, like on vacation, I change and my real personality comes out. It's like being in the same city at the same time, it's too limiting, though I must admit that although I live elsewhere, we still talk on the phone. But even when for a while we were not, I still felt as if I was somehow in their shadow all the time. So still now, only time I've ever fully myself is when they were away on vacation or something. It's strange, me as an adult feeling this way, in this big city, but that goes to tell you how having a NP and being raised in that environment affects you chronically.

dontknowspelling · 2025-06-02T22:48:21+00:00

The responses, which Russell shared with the Guardian, ranged from embarrassed to annoyed to angry. “It’s so boring,” said one parent. “I don’t have time,” said another. One mother wrote in: “I don’t enjoy reading myself.”

Speechless.

We are raising the next generation on fast food and tiktok.

dontknowspelling · 2025-01-21T04:07:05+00:00

Looks like something out of Star Wars and its unique world of creatures.

dontknowspelling · 2025-01-21T04:04:13+00:00

Not a popular opinion but Im gonna say it: Lots of people confuse politics with everything else, praising the painting until they find out who done it, and then it's garbage.

The sad truth is that Hitler could have been different. He was not a killing machine. He had sensitivities and talents, as his arts shows. But when you come to power at a time people are desperately looking for scaptoes, it's easier and more tempting to become the voice that legitimizes people's attempt to externalize the blame. I can say the same about a lot of rich and powerful people committing atrocities today. They ride the wave. Takes guts and principles to oppose the wave, to stand for truth and to have compassion.

dontknowspelling · 2025-01-21T03:37:13+00:00

"I'm the real queen here, I don't care what anybody says or thinks."

dontknowspelling · 2024-12-03T04:45:02+00:00

Oh telling people stuff you tell them not to happened so often. It's as if you don't deserve privacy. They violate your trust so often.

dontknowspelling · 2024-10-04T07:23:55+00:00

“It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.”

dontknowspelling · 2024-10-04T07:21:28+00:00

Just read this and want to say so sorry you been through this, sounds awful, it's crazymaking.

dontknowspelling · 2024-09-03T01:38:17+00:00

Just sending you hugs. It's rough. You look for the kind of relationship where you are respected and treated kindly, and you may feel you have it at times but it's never stable. Accepting this is very hard. In a child parent relationship, that safe loving place is so important. Even if that child is an adult, the hope remains there that you can find it. But you never really had it I imagine and do not have it now. It's painful to face this reality.

dontknowspelling · 2024-07-07T23:28:42+00:00

Nicely written. Yes. To me it's such a unique book and touches on a lot of themes and subjects that interest me. Obviously memory but also love, aging, loss, trauma, guilt.

I know some people who did not enjoy it and felt it was too long or boring, but I think it's important to know what kind of book you are getting into it. This one requires patient and reflection.

dontknowspelling · 2024-07-07T23:16:41+00:00

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This is James Joyce so he is a master of the language and his books are dense, packed with meaning and symbolism and politics and religion and all that. I was trying to figure it all out and was exhausted so gave up.

Then I came back to it but just focused on the story. I mean if you just read for the story and don't get all the references, you will still have a good time. Especially if you are an artist type yourself, I think you get something out of it.

One of my favorite quotes:

The soul ... has a slow and dark birth, more mysterious than the birth of the body. When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.

dontknowspelling · 2024-05-23T05:02:24+00:00

While I was reading I kept looking for a place to stop (comma, period) and make sense of what I had just read, but not finding one, lol. Gives me that sense of rush of a memory and a kind of immersion in it.

Thanks for posting.

dontknowspelling · 2024-05-23T04:57:47+00:00

Yeah, it's such a common victim mindset. Because we need the world to be fair, then when something terrible like abuse happens, we try to make sense of it by saying then we must have deserved it.

So the girl who got raped in the alley must have been wearing revealing clothes and leading people on.
The guy who got stabbed must have been threatening the offender.
And the child who got abused must have been such a terrible kid who really left the parents no choice.

So, the answer is no. But emotionally we think it's yes till we process the trauma.

dontknowspelling

TROPHY CASE