Feels cosmic that I read this today - been really struggling with my own gaps between “knowing” and “doing.” It becomes easiest to live with cognitive dissonance until it’s extremely hard! This really inspired me, thank you :)
I sat in my bed yesterday evening scrolling on tiktok. The sunset was beautiful from my window and the air in New Orleans has just become bearable, so I sat on the balcony scrolling on tiktok. My roommate's cat, George, enjoys swatting at mosquitos, so i took a video of him for tik tok. I'm constantly renegotiating this tug between the reality of digital when i know digital is not reality... your line "But it’s hard to feel crushed by an inner knowing that something is wrong. It’s hard to disagree with yourself over and over again." struck me. Today, i will swat mosquitos too.
this contains so much of what i’ve been contemplating recently & having it laid out so eloquently yet directly was a blessing. thank you for this piece <3
“it alleviated the gap between knowing and doing, stopped the incessant whirr of my mind which, in its discomfort, created other obstacles for me to confront in lieu of the one I was avoiding”
You put words to something I’ve been trying and failing to articulate for a good long while.
I feel like this piece came at the perfect time for me--I constantly struggle with the fight between what is "easy" and what is "right" and it's so illuminating to see someone write about it with such tact and clarity. Thanks Eliza.
love this! i'm rereading the Argonauts and i've been thinking about this passage all morning:
"Perhaps this is why psychologist D. W. Winnicott's notion of "feeling real" is so moving to me. One can aspire to feel real, one can help others to feel real, and one can oneself feel real-а feeling Winnicott describes as the collected, primary sensation of aliveness, "the aliveness of the body tissues and working of body-functions, including the heart's action and breathing," which makes spontaneous gesture possible. For Winnicott, feeling real is not reactive to external stimuli, nor is it an identity. It is a sensation-a sensation that spreads. Among other things, it makes one want to live."
the more I lie to myself and avoid what I know in my heart to be true, the more i permit the flooding of my own being/awareness zone with false/distorted/distracted/junk, the less real i feel -- and feeling real is what it's all about, and our birthright: because we are real, we are here and now.
big love to you, thank you for writing and sharing.
This piece reads as somehow transcendent. I could shower you with more specific forms of praise, but I don’t want to add to the Falseness. Not that the praise would be False, but the propping up it would give to both of our egos might be.
So I’ll just say this; thank you for bringing this forward, you have illuminated something essential in me today.
this is one if the best things i’ve ever read. the way you talk about what’s ‘good’, and ‘bad, ‘easy’ and ‘hard’, is so so so interesting to me. such beautiful words.
I finished Foer’s novel literally last month, so reading this felt miraculous. Truthfully, painfully, whatever headspace you’ve been in lately mirrors my own. This piece is touching.
Feels cosmic that I read this today - been really struggling with my own gaps between “knowing” and “doing.” It becomes easiest to live with cognitive dissonance until it’s extremely hard! This really inspired me, thank you :)
Constantly telling myself everything is suffering and my only choice in the suffering is the sharp pain of change or the dull pain of staying the same
There is also joy.
it's all easy until it's hard. it's all hard until it's easy. and other tales
your best work in my opinion. seamless xx
I sat in my bed yesterday evening scrolling on tiktok. The sunset was beautiful from my window and the air in New Orleans has just become bearable, so I sat on the balcony scrolling on tiktok. My roommate's cat, George, enjoys swatting at mosquitos, so i took a video of him for tik tok. I'm constantly renegotiating this tug between the reality of digital when i know digital is not reality... your line "But it’s hard to feel crushed by an inner knowing that something is wrong. It’s hard to disagree with yourself over and over again." struck me. Today, i will swat mosquitos too.
this contains so much of what i’ve been contemplating recently & having it laid out so eloquently yet directly was a blessing. thank you for this piece <3
really into the exercising of labeling "real" and "false". I agree, somehow infidelity does feel real!
“it alleviated the gap between knowing and doing, stopped the incessant whirr of my mind which, in its discomfort, created other obstacles for me to confront in lieu of the one I was avoiding”
You put words to something I’ve been trying and failing to articulate for a good long while.
I’ve read a lot of you and this is the top of the pile, wow
I feel like this piece came at the perfect time for me--I constantly struggle with the fight between what is "easy" and what is "right" and it's so illuminating to see someone write about it with such tact and clarity. Thanks Eliza.
love this! i'm rereading the Argonauts and i've been thinking about this passage all morning:
"Perhaps this is why psychologist D. W. Winnicott's notion of "feeling real" is so moving to me. One can aspire to feel real, one can help others to feel real, and one can oneself feel real-а feeling Winnicott describes as the collected, primary sensation of aliveness, "the aliveness of the body tissues and working of body-functions, including the heart's action and breathing," which makes spontaneous gesture possible. For Winnicott, feeling real is not reactive to external stimuli, nor is it an identity. It is a sensation-a sensation that spreads. Among other things, it makes one want to live."
the more I lie to myself and avoid what I know in my heart to be true, the more i permit the flooding of my own being/awareness zone with false/distorted/distracted/junk, the less real i feel -- and feeling real is what it's all about, and our birthright: because we are real, we are here and now.
big love to you, thank you for writing and sharing.
Just what I needed to read today
Thought provoking and all so painfully true
Thanks E.M.
This piece reads as somehow transcendent. I could shower you with more specific forms of praise, but I don’t want to add to the Falseness. Not that the praise would be False, but the propping up it would give to both of our egos might be.
So I’ll just say this; thank you for bringing this forward, you have illuminated something essential in me today.
this is one if the best things i’ve ever read. the way you talk about what’s ‘good’, and ‘bad, ‘easy’ and ‘hard’, is so so so interesting to me. such beautiful words.
My advice as a 38 yr old woman who’s “been there…” metaphorically speaking. You should go live at a zen center!
I finished Foer’s novel literally last month, so reading this felt miraculous. Truthfully, painfully, whatever headspace you’ve been in lately mirrors my own. This piece is touching.
Damn that’s good storytelling.