how to write the great american novel, abridged.

[hollyslowly]

In the interests of uncluttering my desktop, a collection of quotes that I have saved in a thousand various .rtf files.

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

I think what I love about this is that no matter what you find in the centre of the pearl of repression is never going to live up to what you were afraid it was.

[formanymiles.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and it's a weird thing to learn irl, as I found out a couple years ago. Like, "Oh, this is who ruined my life? Really?"

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

God me too, it kind of left me feeling a little put out until I realised that shit like this is usually cumulative, like Prior and the eyeball. You THINK it's this one event that you're shielding yourself from because it's traumatic beyond belief, but that event has just become emblematic of everything and it gets the repression and the memory loss and everything else just gets dulled down to "unimportant, not really that bad" until you talk to other people and they go "no, all of those things are actually fucking terrible".

... Which is especially the case when your family's idea of dealing with anything is to tell you to leave it behind / do the Christian thing and forgive / not poison yourself with dwelling.

[formanymiles.livejournal.com]

... Which is especially the case when your family's idea of dealing with anything is to tell you to leave it behind / do the Christian thing and forgive / not poison yourself with dwelling.

AHAHA YES. Fuck that. I don't dwell, but I know how to keep a list of fuckers who have wronged me.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Yeah I only *just* realised this in a conversation with redshira: she was asking me if my grandmother actually knew about "the fuckery your mother has been responsible for in your life" and I said it didn't matter either way because I'd be expected to do the Christian thing and forgive her despite not being a Christian and my lack of forgiveness would be considered far worse - is considered far worse - than anything that might have caused it. Which is fucked up, but there we go, that is what my family operate under, you are not allowed to be angry except in a very specific way and in therapy sessions and then you have to BE OVER IT.

>:( And I am angry all the time. So that goes well.

[/accidental feelings-vomit]

[formanymiles.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think that is a Christians-in-general thing, though? At least that's how it seems. My aunt's husband cheated on her for years, and when he apologized there was all this incredible pressure for her to forgive him because he'd done the right thing and been honest and blah blah barfcakes. I mean, their relationship is their business, I don't care, and I get that it's some kind of Jesus thing - the seventy times seven thing - but. What the hell.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

And I really despise this because all that ever results from it is that the wronged party ends up feeling like the least important person in the equation. It's like "Oh, yes, person X did something terrible to you, but time has passed and they've made some gesture about possibly being sorry in which they accept none of the blame, so you should forgive them" and because I DON'T DO FORGIVE I'm terrible. Not the people who DID the terrible thing. Ugh Christianity and victim-blaming funtimes.

[formanymiles.livejournal.com]

And I've known some people who "forgive" for the sake of having something to hold over your head. People are the worst.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Lawrence said something uncomplimentary about complex men who know how sacrifice lifts up the redeemer and casts down the bought; I think the same is true of forgiveness. A former friend of mine used to call it "bigger-manning" someone, when you are deliberately "more mature" rather than giving in to the more natural urge to kick someone in the shin and call them a fuckhole, so that anyone watching will know that you are the better person.