Category Archives: I’ve been thinking

The way we build friendships (though we may not realize it)

In talking through my ideas in my previous post about criteria for Good Friends, a friend and I were talking about what it looks like when two people are mismatched in terms of either capacity, interest, and availability. Friendships are different from the donor-fundraiser relationship in a fundamental way: in friendships, both parties have something…More

How looking for donors changed how I look for friends

I’ve been thinking about friendships lately. (I think this is one of my perennial wonderings, it turns out. Friendships are weird.) I had a couple hard situations where I felt really let down, and I started to question what I was looking for in friendships and why I was investing in friendships that were ultimately…More

Emotions: intuitions that something, somewhere, is important

Intuitions are awesome; as a very intuitive person, I find intuitions to be incredibly exciting but also infuriating. Infuriating because while I get intuitions all the time, I can’t fully rely on them. Before I can follow an intuition, I need to understand what’s going on underneath it, to examine the basis of it, to…More

Does empathy translate?

Since I started my post on what I do to forgive myself, empathy has been big on my mind. Part of this has been self-centered — I have always been seen as (and consider myself to be) deeply empathic. I believe the ability to empathize is twofold, being both a natural capacity and an action.…More

How I am forgiving myself

As I was thinking through a particularly painful, fraught interpersonal issue the other day (the one that sparked my post on emotions and needs), I found myself getting fairly amped up and frustrated at myself for having let the situation go on as long as I did. Why didn’t I see it all earlier?! Why…More

We can do big things

I am on my way to being fully vaccinated! I got my first shot a couple weeks ago and have my appointment for shot #2 coming up. While my first impression was a deep sense of relief at being able to protect myself and protect my community from the spread of COVID, I came away…More

Emotions as needs

Nearing 40, I am learning things I wish I had learned a long time ago. I’ve long been able to identify my emotions; I may not have had full emotional intelligence per se, but I had a grasp on what I was feeling and why. I have always found emotions to be philosophically rich, a…More

Listen to me

Lately I feel like so many men in my life refuse to hear me. I am so tired of having things I say immediately – IMMEDIATELY – contradicted, without the other party even taking the time to consider and think through and ask questions about what I said. The arrogance and dismissiveness are astounding and…More

When we have to lie to ourselves

Chris and I were talking this past weekend about how so strange and incredibly disorienting it is to think — to really sit and think — about the fact that everything is determined. As in, when you look at the macro world with its natural laws and causal connections forming each moment in its completion,…More