7/12/20
Just thought of something that sounds really simple/simplistic, but…I feel like is really important:
What if…babies and very young kids look perfect BECAUSE inside, their soul is perfect. That’s like their gift from God. All their perfect chubby skin and cuteness and sparkle and flawless sparkling everything. The sweet baby head smell. And then, what if the REASON we start to look uglier as we grow older– what if the ugliness is a result of NOT FIGHTING BACK against the hate, inequality, injustice, racism, everyday bad crimes or things that need to be fixed both within you and outside of you—which includes rejecting wrong things that you were taught when innocent—because now with an adult mind, you are no longer innocent—what if THE TASK OF LIFE is to correct/address/combat these things. Like THE MAIN WORK of a good life is the now fully (sometimes painfully) conscious, step-by-step reclamation of innocence. Like it’s not your fault you’ve been taught evil things, but it’s your responsibility to now locate and shake off any evil that currently clings to you. And the tangible result is if you do not do this work on a personal level – on such a personal level that it affects the world around you—reaches INTO the world around you –then THIS is the reason for aging badly, and nothing else. Nothing else. Just a thought. But weirdly, as soon as I had this thought, I believed it with all my being.
7/15/20
“The best allies are willing to make mistakes and keep trying.”
– https://www.themuse.com/advice/what-is-an-ally-7-examples
7/16/20
I’ve been watching Unorthodox on Netflix. I almost cry at some parts –
**spoiler warning**
The parts usually have to do with sex. Like before Esty gets married and she doesn’t even know she has two holes in her private part area (seems like she just thought she had one?) and a woman had to tell her, and then tell her to go to the bathroom and check for herself right then. And then after Esty’s married, because both she and Yanky have been cut off from any sexual education, they don’t know how to do anything (Yanky doesn’t know how to touch her, and she doesn’t know how to relax and gets more and more scared with every failed and painful attempt). I was thinking…I didn’t realize…how much of a freedom it is, sex. Like, to have knowledge of it. Yes, physical did-it-yourself knowledge. But…not just that- maybe that’s not the most important part? The most important part might be: to grow up in a culture and a community where…open discussion and sexual experimentation are ALLOWED and encouraged. Like…I think I always took this for granted, living in America (and in a community where I was never as badly restricted as Esty). I was thinking, it’s a really nice blessing and freedom to have had experience before I got married. Like…I feel like BECAUSE of my pre-marital experiences, I could choose who I really wanted based on a kind of evidence. I could pull up different files in my head and compare them and base some of my decision on real-life events. So that I wouldn’t be wondering or wishing anything was different while inside the marriage, when it’s time to focus on one person. So I think pre-marital sex really helps in this way. Like I don’t regret my choice of spouse because I had other experiences to compare him to. I could decide with a certainty and a confidence that I don’t think I could have decided with had I never had sex before married. I do have ghosts and things that sometimes haunt me from pre-marital partners. But…I think ghosts, which you can work on banishing, are ultimately a small price to pay for the confidence that comes with knowledge.
Marriage Journal 