#despite the petulance it carries with it the bitterness of age

[parzivval]

There is no fucking way you had strangers coming up to you more than once a week in public to compliment your face(? lol), zero chance, why the fuck are you lying on a tumblr poll.

the fan behavior…. people are nice to pretty teenage girls, idk what to tell you

[handlewcaare]

Reverence became irrelevant with each battle won. The triumph of an unparalleled blade could easily be usurped with another breezy battle. However, Kamikaze could never promise the fights he endured would be without injury. At least, not in the first few years of his training.

“AND STAY THE HELL OUT!” The lone disciple of Daisuke howled at the retreating members of the Fushikawa Dojo. His sanguine seeped through his red cloak and there was an evident flourish of a lavender bruise under his eye. Despite his injuries, he managed to petrify one of them by cutting through their ragged blade with his own.

Even as the Fushikawa Tigers barked back worse insults, Kamikaze was deaf to the fools by the time he closed the door.

“You’re hurt again,” a tired tone simmered from the far corridor of the dojo. From the corner of Kamikaze’s eye did he find his medic simply stare at him. The boy was five years his junior, yet dabbled in medicine as much as he dabbled in bladework. A devestating combination if the boy was ever in the midst of battle. The twelve year old continued, “d’ya need my help?”

“No,” The seventeen-year-old Kamikaze retorted. What lethargic melody he would conjure later in his prime had not fully developed. To master his swordsmanship required his utmost reverence, even if it was at the cost of a sliced shoulder.

Regardless of his protest, the little medic retrieved his first aid kit, “I’m gon’ help you.”

“Seriously, Yedo, I—!” The instant the boy tried to inspect his wound, he suppressed the urge to grunt out in pain. The odor of copper was as pungent as the harangue of his foolhardy onslaught.

“You’re gonna need stitches prolly.”

“Gee, I wouldn’t have figured that one out.”

“You wanna do this yourself?”

“Sure, just give me the needle,” as soon as Yedo actually provided it, Kamikaze couldn’t get a decent glimpse toward the gash over his trapezium. His brows furrowed at the smug look the medic provided him until he surrendered his attempt.

His pride was always a bitter pill to swallow, so much so that even his Sensei in his prime had noticed. What fervent yearning to blaze through his opponents had been questioned by the placid and composed Daisuke.

A powerful man, Daisuke was, underneath the masquerade of a humble and jovial elderly man. The aroma of lavender and honey tea simmered between Kamikaze and his Sensei as they played Shogi. Yedo slept soundlessly upstairs after a long day of bickering with Kamikaze.

“You seem disgruntled,” Daisuke noted without looking up at Kamikaze. His fingers tapped the piece along the shogi. It was often a beckon for him to pop open the lid of his emotions.

“I should have finished them,” them being a reference to the bastards who dared to insult Daisuke’s techniques. Albeit they were quick to hush under the heat of his temper. It wasn’t a flawless victory, but it was one that prompted the idiots to flee with their tails between their legs.

“Knowing your opponent is as good as knowing your own weaknesses,” Daisuke reminisced as he watched Kamikaze make a hasty mistake with his shogi piece. His forgiveness came in the form of a stalling move, “you should know better than waste your techniques in a fruitless battle, Kami.”

“They disrespected you,” the adolescent snarled as he snapped a piece.

“But they did not disrespect you,” his Sensei said, “you are as great as the villains you face.”

Those words would be what Kamikaze would carry heavy along his shoulders for the rest of his life. A word of precaution he would offer in times of his disciples’ ill-tempers. Blatant disrespect would not be forgiven if it was directed toward one’s own achievements.

He hadn’t known the weight of those words then.

Once, he, Bushidrill and Yedo were tasked to run small errands at the village had everything changed. It always is just a singular occurrence, but that breadth had sculpt him into the very man he needed to be.

Both he and Drill were just a little over 23 and Yedo had just grown into an 18 year old. Oftentimes would the errands be as minuet as getting groceries for an elderly woman or fending off a wild dog near the Tori gates.

“ ‘m just saying, the alphabet cities would be a nice place to live in,” Yedo shrugged as he carried the pails of water for the well near their dojo.

“What, and deal with the pollution? The expensive cheap garbage you can just make here?” Kamikaze quipped as he hauled the wheelbarrow.

“Maybe I want to be considered as a real doctor, ever thought of that?”

“You’re a real one,” Bushidrill assured, the strain of lifting a large stack of hay was hardly enough to make him sweat, “you tend to Kami’s shit all the time.”

“Aye-!”

Both the medic and the practical brick house spared shit-eating grins toward the petulant samurai. It never gave him an eery sensation that something was amiss. There was no poetic declaration, no shift in the ambiance near the trees.

The only omen was the destroyed paper walls. The wooden floors stained with sanguine petals and the furniture had been completely split in half. Only one man knew how to make a clean cut like that.

“...Sensei??”

Kamikaze dropped the handles of the wheelbarrow and rushed inside. The closer he got to the main room, the more trauma he witnessed. The two others also made as much haste as he had. The kois laid limp in a pond tarnished in poison, the branches of the neighboring tree caved into the side of the rooftop, even the deck had cautioned the three of them to keep such a memory of Daisuke alive.

Perhaps they should have, but Kamikaze’s vanity refused to keep him ignorant.

In a throne of destroyed furniture laid the crumpled king. Daisuke’s head bowed as his breathing had been interjected by the blade through his diaphragm. Each breath was but a whistle of a wheeze from his dying lips.

Yedo’s eyes widened as he cupped his mouth. Bushidrill could only watch in horror as Kamikaze practically scrambled to run toward his dying Sensei. The splinters were unfelt underneath the soles of his feet and even as he tripped over the disembodied table leg, he continued to hastily hold Daisuke’s body.

“Yedo,” His baritone quivered at the name, his brows twitched as he suppressed the urge to weep, “you... you gotta...”

No medical expertise could have healed the wounds Daisuke was currently enduring. Even as Yedo’s lips quivered and fat dewdrops of tears stained his supple cheeks, he could only muster a quiet shake of his head.

“C-C’mon!” He barked as he stubbornly refused to acknowledge that this was the end; that Daisuke’s final moments had already passed. It was over the moment they got there, but he didn’t want to let go of his Sensei just yet. “g-get your medical supplies an’ ... and...”

By the time Bushidrill’s hand rested atop of Kamikaze’s shoulder, he finally choked up his pride and wept. He couldn’t afford to let the others witness him in fragments, to stare down at the pride he couldn’t absorb and scatter along the limp body that he held upright.

Such remorse of untimely endings wrought grief. With such grief came furor at the familiar blade. The ones who disrespected his Sensei all those years ago, the ones who he challenged and chased off, held a similar weapon of this one’s caliber. The end of the hilt was accented with a insignia: a snarling tiger.

Kamikaze was fervent and peckish for a thrilling encounter at times, but he was no fool.

When he bid his farewells to his peers, he would have assumed it was the final one.

That evening hall marked him as the fastest samurai. The evening in which the Fushikawa clan celebrated the assassination of Daisuke at their respective dojo was when Kamikaze had fully rejuvenated a hellish speed. No demon—cybernetic or phantasmic—could have paralleled to the speed he utilized when he faced them in their entirety.

Even as their own blades punctured through his shoulder, he continued to persist. Even as he winced when the jagged edge of one’s dagger pierced through his side, he continued to persist. The aroma of salt and copper blended into a nauseating cologne he adorned for the event. Yet, with each injury only prompted him to accelerate his thrashing onslaught. To be extra spiteful, he diced through the flesh, muscle and bone as one would cleave the meat of a fresh kill.

The head of the Fushikawa clan offered a wistful smile toward his furor, as if expectant of it. “You know he wouldn’t have wanted you to do this.”

He didn’t care.

“Daisuke was always quite weak.”

I don’t care, Kamikaze thought as he unsheathed his blade.

“You must know, I—!”

“I don’t care.”

It wasn’t until the four samurai that stood to guard the headmaster had suddenly been sliced apart with but a thread of scarlet.

Nothing else quite sobered him up like the relentless glare Kamikaze spared him. He hadn’t even the time to hastily retrieve his blade when he felt his arm go numb by the bite of something unbecoming. When he realized his arm had been disembodied, he was already dead by the hand of an angered man.

By the end of the final blow, Kamikaze panted and attempted to return to his ruined home. His hair curtained over his shoulder and his sweat and blood felt like ice when he began to trudge through the greetings from winter. His feet felt numb as he carried himself through the thick penumbra of snow, only barely catching himself along his knees.

He didn’t know if the apparition of a figure through the blizzard was Daisuke or if it was someone else. He had only heard a minuscule of a shout before he fully collapsed into the snow. There was comfort in the cold, gelid embrace; something he found within as he let his consciousness seep from his fingers.

Every now and then, Kamikaze thinks back to when he was younger. He wouldn’t say he had aged that much, but Yedo’s relentless teases about it would provoke a guttural ‘can it’. The bastard has a PhD and still is a snarky little shit.

Yedo deliberately threaded the needle within pallid skin that surrounded the brutal gash. “Kama really did a number on ya, huh?” Kamikaze murmured to himself as he watched the doctor stitch up the quiet boy who made not a sound as the injury was tended to.

“Maybe he should have been faster~!” The dimpled girl chirped jovially as she twirled her deadly weapon along the edge of her hand. Truly, Kamikaze’s arrogance spread like a disease.

The pale boy made not a sound, but he did quietly exhale in frustration, “give me another chance,” he said with as much composite as he could muster.

“I think your both done for the day,” the samurai retorted as he folded his arms across his chest. Albeit, Yedo had finished, Iaian could not shelter his flustered demeanor.

“I-I can keep going!” Iaian protested.

“Iai—“

“I wanna prove myself and be—!”

“Iai.”

Immediately did the disciple hush and bow his head. His apology was completely unnecessary, but Kamikaze could only offer a soft chuckle as he rested his hand atop of the boy’s crown.

“You’re as great as the villains you face,” Kamikaze stated, “prove yourself when you’re physically able to.”

It was only after Iaian complied with a nod that he allowed the two youngest disciples retreat to meditate or idly play shogi with Drill.

Yedo couldn’t help but offer a quiet laugh when the two of them saw Iaian practice with a training dummy, knowing fully well he might pop a fresh stitch, “he’s just like you, Y’know that?”

To acknowledge the strong was to also be aware of their potential. Kamikaze only sufficed to provide a simper, “he is.”

[lustandlordsrp]

The Peeress | Margaret “Maggie”

Twenty-Four | The Right Honble. The Countess of Roseberry Earldom of Roseberry

Formally or Informally Announced: The Right Honble. The Countess of Roseberry

Formal Correspondence Salutation: “Madame,”

Informal Correspondence Salutation: "Dear Lady Roseberry,”

Addressed in Speech: "Lady Roseberry" the first time in conversation, followed by    "my lady."

Referred to in Speech: “ (The) Lady Roseberry” or, more familiarly, "Margaret Roseberry"

Social Correspondence Signature: “Margaret Roseberry”

Biography

tw: parental death, miscarriage

Caroline and Gregory had longed for a child. In the early months of their marriage, they would wander long hours on the grounds of Dalmeny House in excited discussion, as in love as they were the evening they met; wondering aloud if their son would learn to hunt like his father, if their daughter would have her mother’s eyes. Gregory wanted a child in order to see who they could become in the world. Part of it was a sense of duty, too, but more of him was excited to love another person completely. Caroline felt born to be a great lady, and being a mother was a natural part of that – a sign of her success.  A wealthy baron’s eldest daughter from the north of England, she had secured a more than agreeable match with the Scottish earl. She was rich, and beautiful, and young, and had the world – and the earl – at her beck and call. This was a way to secure her position in his heart, and in his home.

However, their early years of trying were tainted by heartbreak, which led to a division between them that never fully repaired as the years grew longer and they remained without. Five losses, one near-term, and by then Caroline was cresting thirty, and she was tired. Gregory began to see faults in her spurred by his own anguish at the losses, the embarrassment of not being able to carry on his family line, and the worry that the earldom may instead someday pass to one of his siblings. Caroline became externally cold, while internally fearing that Gregory would leave her for someone who could provide him his heir. But then, finally. Maggie.

Maggie came into the world screaming, which is not unusual for babies. Despite her early elation at the healthy pregnancy and birth of her daughter, Caroline did not find herself easily taking to the act of mothering. Their enormous estate had rooms upon rooms, and more servants than were necessary for the family of three, and she would often sequester herself in her quarters claiming headaches while nannies fussed over the babe. Gregory, when he wasn’t away (which was rather often), doted on Maggie. However, he also became increasingly protective, and paranoid, as it became apparent that she was to be his only heir. He couldn’t leave Caroline and try for a son, he still loved her too much for that, despite their separate quarters and the few words that passed between them without bitterness. So he played with Maggie, read to her, and sang to her, but kept her inside, away from other children and animals and anything sharp. She was safe, spoiled in some ways and starved in others. Most of all, she was frequently lonely.

Gregory died in a hunting accident when Maggie was eight. And suddenly, she was Countess. Heirs-general succession was more common among Scottish nobility, and her mother felt gratitude that her house and lifestyle were not to be snatched away by one of her husband’s siblings, but her sense of security was still rocked. A dormant part of her mourned deeply for her husband, though she mourned more for herself, knowing that rumors of her past losses and her advancing age would prevent her from being seen as prime marriage material. Her best bet was to rely on being taken care of someday by “her dear Margaret,” the inheritor of her husband’s titles and land. So, even with Maggie being as young as she was, Caroline devoted herself to overseeing her upbringing, this time with a heavy hand.

Maggie, however, had a stronger will than Caroline expected. Though her heart ached for a while at the sudden influx of her mother’s “affection,” she wasn’t altogether enchanted by her and willing to abide her every order. After her father’s death, she began sneaking away to exploring more of her family’s grounds and mixing with villagers and those from other estates. She grew from a headstrong and sometimes petulant child, to a cunning and ambitious adult. She knew that she held the real power in the relationship with her mother, as a peeress of her own, as much as Caroline pushed and prodded at her. She took to art, and the pianoforte, and took dancing lessons with the other noble girls, and visited England and her mother’s family, and all the while imagined ways to actually escape it all, at least for a while. She just hadn’t thought the haut ton would be the escape she needed. She delayed going for several years, finding the idea of being tied to one mediocre man only after her wealth and title repulsive. But when she realized that she had a choice – and a chance for adventure – in going on her own (with the addition of The Companion) and without her mother’s meddling – she finally prepared to make the trip south.

Maggie’s intentions at the ton are to find a match that she finds suitable. She expects that it will most likely be the highest-ranking eligible bachelor who she doesn’t find completely odious. A part of her…a part of her desires love, but she knows that love doesn’t always last. Sometimes it isn’t strong enough to overcome obstacles. And so, maybe she will find someone tolerable to marry who will turn a blind eye (or never find out) regarding any dalliances she wishes to have in the future. Most of all, she cherishes her agency, though it may be limited compared to the agency of a man. Her power is greater than most women of her day can hope to achieve, and she intends to wield it well.

[irinapaleolog]

As we head toward the conclusion of the Skywalker saga with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s Dec. 20 release, one of the big unresolved questions is the fate of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Will he, like his grandfather before him, redeem himself and resume his former identity as Ben Solo? Or will he, mask newly reformed, remain on the Dark Side to be defeated by Rey (Daisy Ridley) and the rest of the Resistance?

For such a major character in the series, Kylo remains somewhat mysterious, masked or not. When his parentage was first revealed in The Force Awakens, the biggest question was how exactly did Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford), our heroes of the Rebellion, wind up with this petulant mini-Vader as a son? We saw that Kylo idolized his grandfather but had none of his cool-tempered menace, hacking away at ship consoles with such abandon that you wondered if the First Order had a permanent Kylo Ren repair line in the budget. At first, his brattiness seemed almost comical until he killed his father in a mistaken attempt to drown the light in himself. For anyone who ever thought Leia and Han would be cool parents — and that certainly includes the parentally neglected Rey — Kylo’s presence was a bit of a head-scratcher. How exactly did the former Ben Solo turn into this destructive and emotionally turbocharged Dark Sider?

The Last Jedi went a bit further in explaining Ben’s turn to Ren as his uncle, the legendary Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), revealed that one fateful night a terrifying Force vision got the best of him and sent his nephew hurtling down toward the Dark Side. It was this betrayal that haunted Kylo and left him both vulnerable and achingly lonely as his Force bond with Rey revealed. And despite the murder of his father, he still remained conflicted and couldn’t do the same to his mother when he had the chance, her love for him staying his hand. Even though he refused to rejoin Rey on the Light Side, Kylo turned out to be far more complicated than he initially seemed when he descended as the masked and hooded villain in The Force Awakens.

While the films have sketched the broad outlines of Ben’s fall and Driver has done fantastic work in suggesting the turmoil roiling under Kylo’s mask, there is a lot more we’ve learned about Ben Solo/Kylo Ren’s past from the various novels and comic books that make up the current Star Wars canon. If you are not familiar with them, read ahead to get a fuller picture of the character and what his past may portend for his future.

In Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy, which takes place in the year after the Battle of Endor, we discover that not only are Han and Leia now married, but that Leia is already pregnant with Ben. While we saw that Leia definitely had Force powers in The Last Jedi, it’s during her pregnancy that she really starts to explore her abilities. She can feel Ben’s Force presence in the womb, and that it’s mostly light but shot through with veins of darkness. She worries about that darkness but takes comfort when Luke tells her all people have that. It’s poignant to think how the darkness eventually overwhelmed that child, but the fact that there was so much light to start with shows he can turn back to it if he wants and that the Dark Side was not his destiny, but a choice he made. While the Empire is in its last gasps during Leia’s pregnancy, Ben is born on Chandrila the same day that the Empire formally surrenders and the war ends. In fact, his mother is already in labor as the peace treaty is being signed. Because of his family’s fame, his birth was accompanied by a flood of rumors, everything from being born with a full head of black hair, to a full set of teeth, to Luke attending the birth himself. For a child with so many expectations placed on his tiny shoulders, Ben just seems to be a normal, if somewhat fussy, baby, though one his mother seems much more comfortable tending to than his father.

On that note, Aftermath: Empire’s End, the final book in the trilogy, establishes the difficulty Han has adjusting to fatherhood and how that foreshadows the gap that will grow between father and son despite Han’s deep love for the boy and the boy’s deep love for his father. Han’s usual cocksure confidence is shaken by the helpless baby before him and he feels insecure that he doesn’t have the same Force connection to Ben that Leia has, thinking that’s the only way his son can be soothed. Leia, to her credit, thinks that their son just needs to feel his father’s presence to feel comforted.

But Han’s insecurity continues in Last Shot, by Daniel José Older. While the book is mostly about an adventure between Han and Lando in the early years of Han and Leia’s marriage, Ben makes an appearance as a 2-year-old toddler, one that Han is still a little baffled by. Here we see how Han’s restless spirit will eventually cause a problem in his relationship with his son. Ben idolizes his father and “Wanwo” (fingers crossed someone gives Kylo and Uncle Lando a scene in the new movie) and misses his father terribly when he’s gone on his mission. While his mother works to build the New Republic, Ben is in the care of droids and in what might be a key moment for a person with a lifelong abandonment complex, a malfunctioning kitchen droid almost kills him. Ben survives, but Han continues to struggle with being a parent and the responsibilities that come with it.

There isn’t a ton of information about Ben’s late childhood and teenage years, but The Last Jedi novel details that Ben’s epic temper tantrums and growing Force powers left many objects in the Organa-Solo household destroyed. Kylo recalls with bitterness an incident overhearing his frightened parents talk about him as if he was a monster and it’s obvious that his anger became such an issue that Leia felt it necessary to send him to Luke in the hopes that training to be a Jedi would help tame his darker instincts. Neither his parents nor his uncle realized that Snoke had gotten his claws into Ben at some point during this time. As the films and comics like Star Wars: Age of Resistance — Supreme Leader Snoke #1 make clear, Snoke abused and manipulated Kylo for years, twisting the young man’s feelings toward his family and nurturing those resentments until Kylo finally took his revenge upon his Master in the throne room.

We get a little more information about Ben before his fall from the novel Bloodline, by Claudia Gray, which moves the story forward to six years before the events of The Force Awakens. There are no direct scenes with Ben, who is about 23 years old in the book, but he is often on his mother’s mind as she works as a senator living on the not-yet-destroyed Hosnian Prime while Han is off sponsoring various racing championships across the galaxy and running a shipping company. Ben is traveling around the galaxy with Luke, still training to be a Jedi. Han and Leia seem to have a warm marriage but one that is marked by long absences from each other as Leia understands that Han’s restlessness would make him a miserable Senate husband and Leia’s duty to the faltering New Republic comes before even her personal preference to be with her family. The book suggests that Han and Ben have a strained relationship at this point, in that Han does not understand his son and that Ben’s Force abilities have created a wedge between them. Frustrated by not being able to parent their son, both Han and Leia mentor many of the young people in the orbit, a desire we see reflected in the films as Han mentors Rey and Finn (John Boyega) and Leia treats Poe (Oscar Isaac) as almost a surrogate son, the three seeming more like their spiritual children than their actual son.

Though Ben does not appear in the novel, the book contains a key event that dramatically shapes his life to come. Over the course of the novel, we learn that no one outside of Leia, Luke, and Han ever learned that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker and also the true birth father of Luke and Leia. While Luke had witnessed Anakin’s redemption personally, Leia did not, and to her, Vader remained the monster that tortured her and helped destroy her beloved Alderaan. She had kept the secret that Vader was her father for decades and was still coming to terms with her true parentage, never finding the right time to tell Ben who his grandfather really was. Unfortunately, the knowledge fell into the hands of a political rival who outed her to the whole Senate before she had time to tell Ben first. We don’t learn what Ben’s immediate reaction to this news was, but considering he must have learned this information shortly before his turn to the Dark Side, it must have cracked the already shaky trust in his family that Snoke had help splinter, a trust that would be completely shattered by that fateful night with Luke in his hut.

Looking over these parts of his past, Kylo just didn’t inherit great Force power and Leia’s fabulous hair from his powerful bloodline but everything else that went with it, good and bad. That meant Han and Leia’s mutual hotheadness, Luke’s impulsiveness, Anakin’s brattiness, and Padme’s penchant for falling for the wrong people — though that last one might wind up saving him in the end depending on how his complicated relationship with Rey works out.

As we move closer to The Rise of Skywalker, we will be getting a few more missing pieces to the puzzle when the first issue of The Rise of Kylo Ren, by Charles Soule, is released Dec. 18. Though the project has been mostly kept under wraps, one tantalizing cover revealed that Ben Solo and Luke Skywalker actually battled the Knights of Ren at some point, so Ben Solo’s past might be even more complex than we expected.

All this leads back to what will become of the Skywalker heir? Will the Bendemption, as some fans have taken to calling it, actually happen? Will Rey’s vision of Ben’s future, that solid and clear picture that convinced her he would turn back to the light, finally come to pass? And if he does turn back, what will be the trigger? Repentance? His mother’s love? His own? Although it would be quite bold to leave Kylo on the Dark Side, it does seem unlikely that a saga that deals so much about redemption would end on a sour note and leave the once and maybe future Ben Solo unredeemed. Let’s hope the Skywalker saga gets a happier ending than that and that this tortured figure finally turns back to the light.

[figr0llmouse]

The Real Poor Unfortunate Soul

Note: I came up with this while at work and I felt like I had to write it down before I lost the motivation to do so. This is my first attempt at writing “fanfic” in a long time, so please keep that in mind when offering constructive criticism.

Synopsis: More or less the same story as the 1989 film The Little Mermaid, except that it is from Ursula’s POV(mostly); and it is just an attempt at filling in the blanks where I thought was needed. I hope to write more entries in the future. Until then, enjoy!

Fanfiction.net URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/13276408/

Part 1: Pre-Poor Unfortunate Souls

Hidden within her bed chamber, Ursula sat deep in thought, as she waited for her eel henchmen Flotsam & Jetsam to bring Princess Ariel to her lair for an unscheduled appointment. Just a few minutes earlier, she had witnessed an explosive argument between Ariel and her father King Triton, which was transmitted to her crystal ball via F & J witnessing the situation in real time, and which resulted in destroyed objects and the princess collapsing onto the ground in tears. At first seeing Ariel and her father argue over his human prejudices filled Ursula with malicious glee. This was turning out to be so perfect! While she held deep resentment for the entire Atlantican Royal Family, Ursula’s real grudge was with King Triton who had permanently banished the sea witch from the kingdom for the crime of usurping the throne; or so the official story goes. In reality Triton was growing jealous of Ursula’s talents in witchcraft and magic, which won her praise and acclaim amongst the merfolk who sought her services and advice; and he feared that along with her bared ambition, she would seek to challenge his rule over Atlantica by staging a coup. So it was not long until vicious rumours about her started spreading all over the kingdom, magical abnormalities started cropping up which were blamed solely on her and her witchcraft business suffered as a result. Living in Atlantica became so unbearable that Ursula had no choice but to pack up her belongings and leave the kingdom for good. The only customers she can currently get consist of the curious merfolk who had heard the stories of the “evil sea witch”, and wanted to seek her out for themselves and the desperate. And Ursula in her simmering rage and bitterness over her predicament which has never abated all these years, went out of her way to make her deals with her customers as difficult for them to fulfill as possible, to ensure she could survive another day. So when she became aware of the fact that Triton and his youngest daughter’s relationship was strained over her desire for the human world, Ursula finally saw an opportunity to enact revenge on the king. She had no genuine hard feelings for Ariel; she just saw her as the crucial key to Triton’s undoing. By the end of their argument, Ursula’s mood of sadistic triumph had vanished, and seeing Ariel huddled on the ground surrounded by broken objects evoked feelings of…..anger. At Triton for behaving like his typical petulant bastard self. The violent nature of his loss of temper alone brought to light painful memories of her past Ursula thought she had buried and forgotten. And compassion. For Ariel. The latter made Ursula want to slap herself. Was she going soft in her old age? She was The Sea Witch; she had a reputation to uphold! Ever since she started sending F & J to spy on Ariel, Ursula’s feelings toward her developed from mutual curiosity, to lustful attraction, to full-blown obsession. Something about that fiery red hair and vibrant youthfulness awakened a deep longing and new-found passion that Ursula had not felt for a long time. She saw in Ariel an adventurous spirit which could not be confined to the depths of the ocean and which could prove detrimental to her father’s plans for her future. A young woman who despite her high status was an outsider. Just like her.

                               "She’s waiting.“

F & J’s slow drawling announcement woke Ursula up from her daydream and she sat up straight, while still keeping herself hidden in anticipation for Ariel’s entrance. She finally appeared; she swam forth from behind the wall of the entrance, her posture bent low, like she wanted to disappear into thin air that very second. Her large eyes darted around the room in fear, her face woebegone and tearful. Ursula was taken aback by such an open display of raw vulnerability.  It was hard to believe that this pitiful creature standing inside her humble lair, was the young Princess in Waiting of Atlantica. All Ursula wanted to do at that moment was take Ariel into her arms, comfort her and lay down with her and never let her go. For one brief moment, Ursula almost re-considered proceeding forward with her plan. Alas her golden opportunity was here now and she had to take advantage of it before she lost it for good. Maybe when this whole ordeal was over, provided that it went her way of course, Ursula could persuade Ariel to start a new life with her, where she could be her own personal magical muse. There would be no need for her to end up being yet another sea polyp like the rest of her “customers”, no. Ursula was prepared to make the end result as painless as possible for Ariel.  Ensure that she will grow to enjoy her new surroundings. Heaven knows how lonely Ursula has felt so many nights, with nobody but her henchmen and a garden of moaning polys keeping her company. It would be a nice change to have a relationship with someone who had such a love for learning and an appreciation for the finer things in life. Now was the time to act, before Ariel got cold fins and swam back out again.

                               "Come in, come in my child.“

Ursula’s deep seductive voice echoed all around the room. Ariel froze, not knowing where to look and how to react.

                               "We mustn’t lurk in doorways, it’s rude.”

Suddenly the sea witch materialised right behind the mermaid, two of her tentacles wrapping around Ariel’s waist while she pulled her closer to her bosom in a type of embrace; taking Ariel’s small petite hands and clasping them into her own. Ariel reacted to all of this with surprise, this was not what she expected.  After her confrontation with her father, Ariel had decided to turn to Ursula for help as a last resort, her head filled with the stories of “that dangerous sea witch” who had nothing but contempt for all that is pure and good. But feeling the witch’s tentacles messaging her hips and her warm, tender embrace sent a shock wave through her system. It was all she could do to not burst into tears again, even if they were of relief. Slowly Ariel started to feel her resolve strengthen.

               "One might question your…..(here Ursula turns Ariel around slowly so that they were now face to face, one tentacle cupping Ariel’s chin so that they finally made eye-contact, their lips almost touching)…upbringing!” the witch said with a wide, toothy smile.

With a voluptuous chuckle, Ursula carried Ariel into her spell room where she gently untangled her while she swam towards her boudoir. Peering at the reflection in her mirror, the witch was pleased to see that Ariel, while still appearing to be nervous, seemed much more relaxed and her miserable countenance had evaporated. It would not do much good to do business with a customer who did not feel wanted or special; Ursula was determined to use all that was in her skill-set to exploit Ariel’s weaknesses and make her receptive to whatever she had in store for her. It is better to attract bees with honey, instead of vinegar or however that silly human-created phrase went. 

“So…..you decided to come to me because you have a forbidden interest in the world above. Most especially a human prince to be precise. And Daddy doesn’t like that, does he?” She says as she reapplies her lipstick and fixes her hair.

Ariel shakes her head.

“Well then, it seems such a personal problem of this magnitude requires an even more radical solution.”

With her elbows on the dressing table, her chin resting on her downward-turned hands, Ursula made eye-contact with Ariel through the mirror.

“The only way you can get what you want is by becoming human yourself. And I will help you do just that.”

Hearing this, Ariel’s face lit up with awe; a new-found hope.

“You will do that for me?”

Ariel’s response sent shivers of euphoric pleasure through Ursula’s body; it took a lot of restraint just so she didn’t end up grinning like an absolute fool. She had the mermaid’s full attention now, which guaranteed that her deal with her will go swimmingly. But what really touched her in Ariel’s question to her was its childlike innocence, a willingness to trust her with her fate and its tone revealed respect and admiration. It was more than Ursula hoped for.

“Of course, my sweet child.” Getting up from her seat, Ursula swam towards Ariel, her hands reaching out to cup her face; this time Ariel did not tense up. Rather she let the witch lead her into a sort of strange circular dance with both of them enveloped in the kind of physical space only two souls sharing a common desire could be. Ursula could not tell whether it was real or a part of her fevered imagination…..but she thought she detected a tiny smile spread across Ariel’s lips for a brief moment before being replaced with shy politeness again. 

“What kind of witch would I be, if I didn’t seek to help someone in such distress?” she said while cradling Ariel’s head and stroking her hair. “It broke my heart to see you in tears and alone, who else could possibly understand your plight?

While this was part of Ursula’s strategy for sweet-talking her customers into letting their guards down, all the same the emotion behind her words was real. Which in turn sought to make this double game she was playing a painful one. Giving Ariel’s shoulders one last squeeze, the witch started to prepare for the grand magical spell she was about to perform. With a snap of her fingers, she activated her custom-made cauldron, a mixture of smoke and bubbles emanating from its surface. Peering at Ariel through the pink haze, Ursula’s expression suddenly turned serious.

“You may have heard some…rather sordid stories about me. I am here to tell you that none of them are true.”

She let these words hang in the air between them, the only sounds that could be heard in the silence was the hissing and bubbling erupting from the cauldron. Ariel took this opportunity to confront the sea-witch directly with her misgivings.

“According to my father and all those loyal to my family, you were seeking to overthrow him because you weren’t satisfied enough with his offer that you can run your witchcraft business however you pleased as long as you did not interfere in royal affairs. Apparently you think you can rule better than he can. Is that true?”

“ My only crime, Ursula said, throwing and mixing various ingredients into the cauldron. “was that I was the only person with close relations to your dear dad who was not afraid to speak my mind and tell him when he does something wrong. You see…..I know you love him dearly but your daddy is an egotistical control freak; I am sure you would agree with me on this?” Ariel’s response was to roll her eyes and turn her face away slightly, the stormy confrontation with her father still fresh on her mind. Smirking, Ursula continued:

“As it turned out I was blessed with the privilege of interacting with the common merfolk who sought my services. Dozens and dozens of them would come to me, with such wretched tales of woe you could not even imagine!” Ursula bit back a sneer. But the one complaint they all shared in common was how unhappy they were living under your father’s rule. That it was not just that he would throw endless lavish parties for his friends while they struggled daily to get by. Naturally this was all very positive for my business, I am not a free therapist you know, and eventually he started to notice. So I may have offered some criticisms here and there over how he should prioritise the well-being of the merfolk instead of looking to feed his ego all the time, and I naively thought he would take my advice as me being helpful. But to overthrow him? Absolutely not!.” At those last words, Ursula had grabbed a bottle full of some gooey business from a nearby shelf and flung it into the cauldron with a little too much force, resulting in a mini explosion of violent red and yellow sparks. “Your father couldn’t stand the fact that I was more popular with the public than he was, so he and his loyal goons conspired to turn them against me and ruined my reputation for good! He put me through hell!” It took her a few moments to realise that she was breathing heavily and her eyes were wild with suppressed rage, and Ariel was staring at her with shock.

“I…..I had no idea..”

 Ursula quickly composed herself and laughed reassuringly: “Oh why would you, you are the baby of the family. Am I correct in assuming you just heard what I said for the first time?”

“Yes.”

 “Thought so. Now I admit that I am rather ambitious, but not SO ambitious that I would even think about overthrowing anyone, no matter how terrible they are. But enough about Daddy dearest and his dull desires. We are here to fullfill your desires my dear. You need not fear suffering punishment for his sins.” Here Ursula motioned to Ariel to swim near the cauldron, beckoning her with one crimson nailed finger. She dropped her voice to just barely above a whisper.

“Come closer, child.”

The two of them were now leaning forwards over the cauldron, facing each other on opposite sides. The bubbling substance was now emitting a yellowish orange glow and it felt really warm and pleasant on Ariel’s skin. To Ursula, Ariel with her hair floating like a fiery halo, large blue-grey eyes and and her full lips parted slightly appeared to be like a creature more otherworldly than a mermaid, as if she were goddess from a legendary myth. The light emanating from the cauldron only served to further enhance her beauty which seemed unfairly impossible. Her face was only a few inches away from hers…..what should she give to just kiss those luscious lips…..but alas….focus! For now Ursula had to contend with keeping Ariel in as close to her physical proximity as possible. 

“What I am about to tell you is very important. I am making you a potion that will give you a human form for three days. Three. No more, no less. If you decide to stay as a human indefinitely, you must find your prince, get him to fall in love in you and seal that love with a kiss.”

“And if I fail?”

“Then you turn back into a mermaid and……Ursula leans back biting her lower lip. “You are mine.”

“What???”

“Oh don’t look so alarmed girl, this is quite a generous arrangement that I am offering you. When I say you become mine I mean that you pay your debt to me by visiting me on an agreed number of days and offering whatever services I ask of you. Sort of an employed muse of some sort.”

It was during this moment that Ariel happened to notice the miserable-looking polyps hidden in the furthest corner of the room.

“What are those supposed to be?”

“Oh those are mostly spies sent from the royal palace to expose my hideout. I had to teach them a lesson. Pay no attention to them!” Ursula waved at them dismissively. To her relief, Ariel seemed satisfied enough with her answer and did not ask further questions. 

“So about the deal?….”

Ariel signalled to the sea-witch that she wanted to think it over and closed her eyes, her head bent over the cauldron, her hands gripping its opening. Outwardly she appeared calm, serene but inside she was bursting with adrenaline and conflicting emotions. Ariel was still very furious with her father for barging into her private grotto and destroying the “human” collection she had worked so hard to build, and finding a way to escape the ocean by going to his biggest nemesis for help seemed like the perfect way to get back at him. He had another thing coming if he thought she was going to swim back to him right on time for dinner and give him the satisfaction of thinking that he managed to shatter her human-world dreams into pieces. Oh how she will make him sorry that he ever lashed out at her like that, and for what? For saving a human being from drowning underwater instead of letting him die like he would have. Recalling the horrible cruel words Triton used to describe humans in general made it easier for Ariel to believe Ursula’s side of the story, her body language and facial expressions alone read as genuine. Speaking of the sea-witch, Ariel found herself getting drawn towards the older woman. Her charisma and charm was incredibly infectious, her flirtatious bordering on erotic behaviour also did not go unnoticed by the mermaid and she happened to have a magical spell for her that will give her at least a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience true happiness. It was all very exciting. Almost too good to be true. And yet…Ariel still sensed that there was something off about her. That underneath the warm, heavy comfortable aura that was currently enveloping her, she was in dangerous and threatening waters. Nevertheless she was being offered a choice to finally take charge of her own destiny and she had to make a decision now. There was no going back. After all she had to admit the deal Ursula was offering to her was quite fair. Being in servitude to the sea-witch in case she failed the challenge of achieving her permanent human forum did not sound that bad. Ariel was startled awake by a slippery tentacle encircling her waist and she felt a hand brush her hair away from her face and a sensual voice whisper in her ear.

“So what will it be child?” 

Ariel turned to see Ursula looking down at her with a tender expression on her face. She could not help but feel a little smitten.

“If I am to remain human forever….like you said….I will never see my family again.”

“That’s right.” Ursula replied with a dramatic flair. “but you will finally be happy. If your father really loved and cared about you he would want that for you. Wouldn’t he?” Here she shoots a sharp, side-ways glance at Ariel.

“ I guess.”

“Oh I almost forgot. We haven’t discussed the subject of payment.”

Ariel clapped her hands over her face with sudden dismay.

“Oh no I didn’t bring anything with me. If I had known-”

“No need to fret dear. I am quite flexible when it comes to payment methods.” Ursula stroked Ariel’s cheek, letting her fingers trace downwards towards her throat. Her facial expression suddenly turned carnal.

“You can repay me with…your voice.”

“My voice??? But if I gave away my voice how will I communicate with Eric? With other humans?”

“You’re a smart girl, I’m sure you will find a way to make your feelings known. Take it from a woman who knows. Men whether they are on sea or land are rather simple creatures. A lady who talks to much confuses them, enrages them even. In fact they prefer that she does not talk at all. So she must rely on her looks and her body to get her man; and you my dear are blessed in that department!” Here Ursula made a playful attempt at grabbing Ariel’s seashell bra which elicited an embarrassed giggle from the mermaid.

Suddenly the cauldron started to erupt, signalling that the potion was nearing completion. Ursula reached inside it to pull out a a golden shimmering piece of parchment, flinging it open to Ariel. She handed her a fish-bone for a pen.

“All you have to do is sign. Make your choice.”

Ariel hesitated but only for a moment. Whatever consequences occurred as a result of her actions today, she will face them when the time came. She was sick and tired of denying her dreams and desires out of fear of punishment from her father. Whatever it cost she was going to experience the world of the humans above. To finally meet Eric properly.

“I’ll do it.”

 With a quick cursory glance at the parchment’s contents Ariel signed her name at the bottom. The contract disappeared into a puff of smoke by a flicker of Ursula’s hand who now appeared to be in a state of manic joy.

What happened afterwards seemed to be all a blur in Ariel’s mind. Smoke and lightening everywhere. The room filled with an electric blue light, then sickly green. Ursula shouting at her from the other side to sing something, anything. She does. Two long, ghost-like claws travelling down her throat and feeling her vocal chords go numb. Suddenly a small volcanic force covers her entire tail and she is being propelled upwards towards the surface in a burst of speed. While all of this was happening maniacal laughter was ringing in her ears.

The sea witch let herself go into a state of euphoric mirth as she watched her spell do its work and Ariel spinning to the top out of her sight. Today has turned out to be the best day of her life. The first phase of her plan went flawlessly; she knew that she made the right decision in trusting her intuition and seeing it through without hesitation. Once she was in a state of calm and was sure enough time had passed for Ariel to have reached the surface, she turned to Flotsam and Jetsam who floated to her side.

“Go after her boys, make sure she never receives that true love’s kiss.”

Sneering the eels dashed out of her lair leaving Ursula alone. She caught her reflection in her mirror and indulged in her vanity, her hands travelling across her breasts down to the area where her stomach and tentacles met. She may not be the young sprightly thing that she used to be, but she had curves in all the right places and the power to seduce anyone who crossed her path. Including Ariel. She recalled the few moments she made physical contact with the mermaid. A little touch here, a little embrace there…she swore she did not imagine this…but she was sure Ariel understood what she was doing. Not once did she utter a word of protest or show any revulsion towards her advances much to her delight. Still Ursula hoped that she did not intimidate her with her less than subtle gestures. Once Triton’s precious daughter was finally hers, she intended to be very very gentle with her; that insipid human prince Ariel latched on to was nothing compared to the lover the sea witch was capable of being. There was no chance that the mermaid and human could fall in love in three days hence why she dictated so in the contract. One way or another she was going to make Ariel love her. All she had to do now was wait.

Next chapter: Part 2 Post-Kiss The Girl 

SPLASH! The little rowing boat Ariel and Eric were riding tipped over, catching them both by surprise. Flotsam and Jetsam emerged out of the water, checking to see that the couple failed in their attempt to secure their true love’s kiss. Confirming their success, they snickered and beamed their vision back to their mistress; who was watching everything through her crystal ball several feet below the ocean.

“That was so close…..TOO close!” 

Ursula sat in her lair fuming a toxic mixture of panic and rage. Pity the fool who was unlucky to approach the sea witch in her current state. Had the eels not acted right on time, her plan would have completely fallen apart. This was not supposed to happen this soon! How did that wretched mermaid manage to seduce her boy toy in only two days? Were human couples really able to get intimate that quickly? Even though Ursula realised deep down that it was irrational for her to feel this way, she viewed Ariel’s almost kiss with Eric as a betrayal. No, not just a betrayal, a cruel rejection. Apparently the deal she had offered wasn’t good enough for the ungrateful little brat. The first few hours after the deal was struck were nerve-racking. How she waited on tenterhooks for something….or nothing to happen….that would signal to her that there was still time. The first night passed she breathed a sigh of relief. She recalled their meeting the previous two nights….Ariel’s face inches away from hers….her torso pressed against her own…the witch grimaced with longing. That palatable chemistry between them was no magic trickery, it was real. She was sure of it. And Ursula had managed to convince herself that Ariel felt the same way about her, at least a little. Just the thought of the mermaid giving away her heart to that bland human fop was enough to make her blood boil. How dare she? Ursula watched Ariel huddle close to Eric as they walked out of the beach soaking wet. She had to think fast. A malevolent smile slowly formed on her face as she suddenly thought of an idea. Oh you’re not getting away from me that easily princess. A demented chuckle caught in her throat as she rushed towards her potion cabinet, grabbing the items that she needed and tossing them into her cauldron. As the mixture formed, the sea witch stroked the sea-shell pendant hanging from her neck. Ariel may have gotten within a hair’s reach of securing her permanent human form but she was missing her most important asset: her voice. It was very clever foresight on Ursula’s part that she never specified what she will do with her vocals regardless of the deal’s outcome, which gave her the freedom to use them as she pleased. A blinding orange beam of light shot out of the cauldron and the sea witch swam into it. Ariel belonged solely to her and nobody, not even Triton had the power to stop her from getting her way. Now she was at war with both of them. As she felt her octopus form transform and the light of the spell permeating every nerve and muscle in her body, she let out a demonic laugh that could only mean that her already fragile sanity was slipping at a dangerous rate. 

 Chapter 3 (?) Post-Sham Wedding

 The third day is almost over; dusk is fast approaching. Ariel had gotten her voice back but had missed the deadline to permanently become human and has reverted back to her mermaid form. Ursula had grabbed her off Eric’s ship and was currently dragging her down to the bottom of the ocean.

“It’s no use struggling.” she said in a mocking tone to Ariel who was desperately trying to free her arm from the witch’s steely grasp. 

“You cheated!” Ariel shouted angrily.

“I did no such thing, child. Since I am the original negotiator of our little deal, I have the authority to intervene and subvert any situations that might threaten to break it. It is all in the contract. You should know, since you read it in my presence.”

“That isn’t fair!”

“Life isn’t fair princess. Better get used to it.”

Somehow or other, Ariel managed to stop in her tracks, causing Ursula to also pause right next to her. They had managed to reach the sea floor by this point.

“That incident with the boat….that was your doing wasn’t it?”

The sea-witch flashed a taunting smile. “I might have had some…..indirect influence in that….OUCH STOP THAT!!!”

Ariel had let out a scream of rage and started pummelling Ursula with her free arm as well as trying to kick her with her tail. It did not take Ursula long however to defend herself and stop Ariel’s attacks by grabbing both of her arms and pinning her down.

“Why can’t you see that I did this for your own good? Those humans you are so enamoured with….they are a mediocre, primitive, ignorant lot. Do not think for one second they would not destroy you if they discovered what you really are. You will never belong with them. And that includes your precious prince. That boy has nothing to offer you.”

“You’re wrong. Eric is in love with me. I can feel it.”

“BAH!!! You foolish girl. He is not in love with you, only with the idea of you as I demonstrated when I used your voice to trap him just now. Tell me dear, if he really is in love with you, why hasn’t he come to your rescue?”

Ariel turned her gaze upwards towards the ocean’s surface, where she could see the faint reflection of the moon rising against the violet-hued sky. The bottom of the wedding ship hovered like a giant bird in mid-air casting shadows on the sea-bed. Even from where they were floating, Ariel could sense that there was chaos above the deck due to the surreal event that had just occurred. Humans had just seen an actual mermaid and a half woman half octopus with their own eyes for the first time. Things will never be the same from this point on.

“He will come for me.”

Ursula rolled her eyes in frustration. “You know…..even though you broke my heart pretty badly these past few days, I am willing to forgive you for your transgressions.”

“What are you even talking about?” Ariel asked, incredulously.

“I must admit I had my eye on you for quite some time. And I say that you and I have more in common than just ideological disagreement with your father. We could make a powerful partnership together.”

 Ursula picked Ariel up from the floor, albeit holding her hands and tail tight with her tentacles so she wouldn’t start physically attacking her again.

“I am being honest when I say I have no real quarrel with you. In fact the only reason I involved myself in your little family drama is so I can get close to you. Why throw your mortality away for those inferior creatures up there when you can become the greatest, most splendid mermaid this kingdom has ever known, with my assistance? I can show you wonders and knowledge any human with his vast riches could only dream of possessing.”

Ursula pulled Ariel closer to her, wrapping her arms around her waist. “You might not know it, she said lustfully. “but you are an especially bright woman, as well as beautiful. It would give me great pleasure if you actually considered my offer. Forget your father, forget the prince, start a new life with me. What do you say?“

Alternate ending 1

Ariel turned her head once more towards the ocean's surface. The evening dusk had completely turned to night so the wedding ship was just a barely visible outline. She could no longer hear the shouts and cries from the humans aboard; it became eerily quiet. In her desperation, Ariel waited, hoping that Eric would somehow release her from her predicament. But he never came. Why would he? She remembered the last time she looked at his face as he saw her mermaid form. His reaction was strange, was it shock? Definitely. Confusion, disappointment, disgust? He did not seem able to reach down and comfort her before Ursula grabbed her from him and threw her overboard. He probably thought that she had deceived him these past three days but what choice did she have? If she had tried to communicate the truth to him, he would have thought she was crazy and laughed at her. Minutes passed. Nothing. When it dawned on her that her waiting for Eric was futile, she let out a heavy sigh and her head dropped. Her journey to the human world was wonderful and she will never forget it, but it was over now. She had metaphorically sold her soul to get what she wanted and now she must pay the price. At least in the midst of the commotion on the ship, she had gotten her voice back, albeit accidentally. As Ariel slowly accepted her fate, Ursula wrapped one tentacle around her shoulders, nestling her closer. “I will make it worth your while.” she said in a velvety whisper before planting a soft kiss on Ariel’s forehead. This time, the mermaid did not flinch, or protest.

Alternate Ending 2 coming soon :)

[strangerkingdom]

Diary of a Whiny Girl

I keep starting these things with, “So I know I haven’t written in a while....”

I’m tired, ya know? I’ve been tired for what feels like 15 years. There used to be certain kind of romantic magic about being crossed in love as much I have in my life. Now I’m getting older and relationships are nothing more than a distraction, which, in actuality is the true heart break here. Maybe it has nothing to do with my age but the amount of times I have poured my soul into a person and it not being reciprocated that has made me bitter.

I will share this little tid-bit of wisdom I have come to find out on my own; getting married at a young age is a mistake. Rarely do people stay the same people they were when they were 17-21 years old when they decided to marry “the love of their life.” You’ll both change and grow apart most likely. Bitterness between the two is inevitable and it is three-fold of you have children with each other. 

I used to say that after 25 is a good age to get married but now I’m even doubting that in the present time. A lot of the time people will start to settle down around that age, hit their rock bottoms or just kinda stop discovering themselves. I used to think, that if you can manage to be the kind of person you enjoy being it stick with it and then find a like-minded person to share it with, then great! However, there is a new discovery I am just now learning now that I am in my 30′s. Many people are already taken. You would think that would stop you from finding someone to have a conversation with but surprisingly enough, even though those people are taken and have been in a serious relationship with their current “person” they still want to have sex with someone else. I can’t count the amount of times exes, past love interests or just male friends from the past have contacted me over the years to get *clears throat* re-acquainted with me. It just happened less than a week ago! But they flirt, they get a little carried away with the details of what they would like to do to me. The get a little carried away with what we have already done in the past, and while I may get some kind of flattery out of it on the other end of the text message, I’m also shaking my head and whispering, “you’re such a pig...”

Cause that’s what it is! They tell someone else how much they are in love with them and how they always want to be with them, blah blah blah and then they go hide in the bathroom to text someone like me. I’ve had it happen to me as well, and it sucks. So what the hell, guys? Why can’t you keep it in your pants for one woman, eh? Is this what being in your 30′s is as far as relationships go? You realize you settled on the wrong person when you were younger so you figure you’re too deep to actually leave the relationship but then you have to do one of the most disgusting things (in my opinion)? Flat out betrayal. That’s what it is. Selfish, cowardly betrayal. And what makes me even more angry is that you try to use me as a tool for your betrayal! As if I have nothing better to do than to feed your ego and perverse appetite for something new and different. Do you think I’m just over here hanging on a hook waiting for the day that you’ll finally come back to me? Yeah, no! 

The one that has happened most recently, I wont lie, I have been so head over heels for him in the past, and even to this day, him talking to me, has sent my heart a-flutter. I asked him about his current relationship and he said something along the lines of, “She always travels for work so it’s not really working out with us. She’s out of the picture.” Not his exact words but it was something like that.  Of course, I took it to mean that they weren’t together anymore. That was dumb. For a few days we texted each other We flirted, sent some sexy pictures, the works. One night, though, he let it “slip” that he was starting to feel guilty about doing this to his girlfriend.....

........what.......

I thought you said your girlfriend wasn’t in the picture anymore. Either I misunderstood or you knew how to word what you told me so it sounded like you weren’t. 

I was mad. Not only did my rich fantasies come crashing down but he made me that tool. Furthermore, if I ever wanted to have a relationship with him again it would just be shrouded in that doubt of, “Will he do the same thing to me?”

How dare he! He knew how much I was in love with him years ago and he just took advantage of it because he hasn’t put his dick in something in a while. 

Let my venting by a cautionary tale to you, ladies. As much as I hate to say it, because I believe there is good in everyone and everyone deserves a chance despite what someone may have done to you in your past.... but men are pigs. Men are manipulative, selfish, petulant children. 

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON NEON’S MAIN DANCE KIM MICHA...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 22 DEBUT AGE: N/A TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 15 COMPANY: Midas SECONDARY SKILL: N/A

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): cha cha (due to her passion for dance and always being on the move), 미카추 (mikachu, originates from her likeness to the pokemon “pikachu” when she attempts aegyo), 미친 (michin, used as a term of endearment, in honor of her somewhat reckless and mischievous behavior) INSPIRATION: the women in mi cha’s family have always served as her greatest inspiration. it’s hard to not want to succeed with such talented family members preceding her. she has fond memories of watching her mother defy gravity on stage in performance halls as a child and remembers wondering what it’d feel like to fly. SPECIAL TALENTS:

freestyle dance

“cola pouring” impression (x)

“human jukebox” / good at guessing song names within the first second of hearing them (x)

NOTABLE FACTS:

fluent in english

proficient in arcade rhythm games (DDR and guitar hero)

her grandmother owns a children’s dance studio in daegu

performed in a K-PAP showcase in middle school

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

her main priority as of late is a well-received debut that will, all stars aligned, snowball into a successful idol career. she anticipates management steering her in a direction that makes her image easier to manage as far as personal activities go.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

she’s ultimately determined to one day become a choreographer along the lines of lia kim and bae yoon jung and choreograph for her group, and other groups as she gains seniority. she’d also like to moonlight as a radio personality or a fixed variety cast member as a metaphorical “fuck you” to the silencing of women’s voices.

IDOL IMAGE

she’s trouble, she’s fun and sexy, reckless and unfiltered - the classic party girl type, the near embodiment of neon’s concept and she nearly doesn’t make the cut. a long list of demerits and reasons to keep her locked in the proverbial basement follow her like the train on a gown, but she’s chosen in spite of it. her deviance becomes her and her talent in dance is too good to let rot away with the less-thans. her ultimatum is this: keep your hands clean or you’re out. it’s: no scandals if you know what’s good for you and please, make them like you. it’s: remember you’re replaceable, mi cha. replaceable, they say, like there’s any chance of neon going anywhere without a girl like her.

she doesn’t care. the way she sees it, they need her more than she needs them. she knows business and she knows that cookie cutter can only take a group so far in 2019. times are changing and as far as she’s concerned, her charm precedes her.

they take the things that make her, her and decide to dial it back several notches to make her easier to swallow.

kim mi cha: family-friendly and cool. she doesn’t swear, she doesn’t party, she’s never dated but, boy, if she isn’t fun. the high school mean girl with a heart of gold all grown up and better for it. who says bad girls can’t be marketable? she’s opinionated and progressive, upbeat and fun, charming and powerful in her sexiness and her quick wit. kim mi cha: sharp and strong, a woman that girls can look up to - scratch that, kim mi cha: a woman that girls can compare themselves to, a woman that girls miles below her will want to be. she’s got that something.

listen to neon and maybe you can pretend you’ve got it, too.

IDOL HISTORY

her mother is a dancer(, and her mother’s mother and her mother, too). she’s born with rhythm in her bones and a legacy to uphold; a silver spoon between her lips and not a worry in the world thanks to her father’s fat pockets and his foot in the door of every restaurant in seoul. she wouldn’t call him a thug but, then again, if you asked where all the money came from, she’d tell you to mind your business. mi cha doesn’t pay much attention to the money anyway, it’s the only thing she knows - comfort and the inborn privilege of never having to want for anything. the trouble comes in her abilities.

she’d like to pretend that she came out of the womb with the basics down but truth be told, she struggles. as a child, she’s clumsy and nearly incapable of moving with any fluency when a song comes on. her limbs don’t cooperate despite her desire to soar and her mother nearly declares her a lost cause, enrolling her into a performing arts school as a last ditch effort to polish her jagged stone of a daughter into a gem. they sand down all of her wayward edges into something easier to build on, a flat platform of good enough to pass as decent with the reach goal of being something great. she’s not the prodigy they want her to be but she’s not a disgrace to the family line of contemporary excellency either.

and mi cha, she loves it. as much of a pain it is to learn the basics until she’s gotten good enough to tackle more, she thrives in the act of dancing. she shies away from how cliche it is to be two times the daughter of the daughter of a dancer and want to dance herself but shines when she finds her footing on the dance floor, when the squeak of her sneakers on the wax coated flooring of the dance studio she’s taught in becomes like sweet, sweet music to her ears. she gets good enough that it’s not a joke for her to make a career out of it.

initially, she auditions at midas just to be a dancer, uninterested in becoming an idol, sufficiently turned off by the diet horror stories and the dating bans that she’s already sufficiently made a mockery out of at the ripe age of fifteen, already familiar with the ins and outs of dating and sneaking out and older boys. she gets in because they see potential and to this day, she tells her friends its the worst decision they ever made.

two years into her tenure, she’s offered the opportunity to train as an idol could-be. by now already having experience doing work as a back-up dancer for company seniors like JiNX and Su.Grr, she’s a lot more confident in her abilities, a force to be reckoned with in the realm of dance but her voice leaves something to be desired. so, she’s an idol trainee - a girl group hopeful, now. she needs to be able to carry a tune, determined not to be another cliche dance only member that doesn’t contribute to the overall sound of the group. she’d be damned if she got boxed into a trap of perpetual oohs and ahs with the sometimes-promise of a dance break.

she works hard but her focus dwindles when she falls into something like love but more like infatuation with a boy, a man, really, but he’s forbidden nonetheless. she’s eighteen and stupid so she finds herself spending late nights out at clubs and bars, gay clubs per the influence of her other freer dancer friends, and she finds her spice in stolen moments in alleyways and in the tiny seoul apartment that her dad is paying for. it’s a whirlwind of sex and bad decisions and sleep drunk mornings on the subway to get to midas, to train. she’s dead on her feet in vocal lessons, inattentive and petulant to the point that her progress is plateauing. her bubble bursts when she gets caught out during a routine trainee phone check, glass shatters when one of the other trainees she’d considered a friend rats her out for partying.

they break up. (see: her training sessions and schedules are packed so intensely that she’s barely even got the time to sleep, see also: they take her phone and lock it away and swear on everything that she’ll never see him again, read: she’s put on probation and locked up in a tower like rapunzel, escorted home and back by a low-ranking manager so she’s not lulled into the illusion that she can get away with it again. kim mi cha: delinquent.) he doesn’t put up a fight. she moves on.

she can’t help the bitter feeling that settles into her stomach when aurora debuts and she’s forced to face the reality of the time she’s wasted. they’re only one girl group of many in the industry but it doesn’t matter anymore, not when she’s playing catch up with other trainees who’ve been waiting just as long for something, anything.

years pass and she’s got nothing better to do but improve and stay on her best behavior in the hopes that the strict grip will give. (it doesn’t.)

and then, by some miracle, she’s called in as a member for project n. (read: JiNX jr.) her first thought is: party. the second: a passing wish that her members aren’t a bunch of stick-in-ass prudes. mostly she’s just glad that she’ll finally get to be on stage, as the main event this time. kim mi cha: idol dancer. kim mi cha: star. she finds it a little unfair how hawk-eyed they are on her behavior like she’s the only fuck up to ever exist under their management, fat fingers pointing heavily at the dating ban and staring her down behind thin wire-framed glasses. it’s a subtle reminder for her to not fuck this one up, to behave herself because she’s not the only life on the line here.

she’ll think about it. (she tries.)

[twinflamable]

Light Through the Cracks

Niqmepa - (from my Duskwight prompts)

She remembered, years ago, when her grandfather and great aunt were teaching her to read omens. Her parents had said she needed to learn, because her brother had no talent for it, and they’d be damned if they let the art die with their generation. “I’ll be damned,” Megiddo had said, not just words; her father had promised himself to hell. So now it fell to her to listen to her elders and try to learn about omens.

Niqmepa flinched at the light in the augury every time her grandfather lifted his old hand to gesture to it. This was the highest cavern in their home. The surface was right there, just beyond the cracks in the ceiling, and the light flashed green and white through the cracks as the Shroud shivered in the wind above. Niqmepa sat with her knees close and her arms fastened around her legs, squinting up. She didn’t like being this close to the surface. The air was different here, and the light hurt. She’d never come up here if they hadn’t made her.

Her sister was here. Abd looked more like their grandfather, like their father, just younger and female. Not as young as she should’ve looked, though. She had their brown-blond hair and gray eyes, but also some of their wrinkles. From that, Niqmepa had learned that wrinkles come from bitterness more than age. Abd came bitter from birth, like a bad crop on the vine. This was the kind of omen Niqmepa could read easily: Abd watched and listened with intent to retort and defy. She wouldn’t care about their father’s promise to hell.

“Light’s supposed to be a good omen.” Abd spoke with pride in her petulance. “But there’s light all over in here, so it’s all good omens. The augury cavern’s useless.”

Their grandfather pointed to where darkness moved among the light. “Signs change when you go to the surface. We’re close enough that the light speaks differently. Watch the shadows here. Can you tell if that’s a swaying tree, or the passage of a bird? Do you know what birds mean?”

Abd looked away unhappily. Niqmepa muttered, “Depends on the bird.” She wondered if watching the shadows was like seeing the lines on Abd’s prematurely-wizened face. Squinting up at the ceiling was painful, but she looked down when her grandfather’s attention fell on her. As he talked about birds, Niqmepa noticed that she could see the light on her gray skin, see the shadows as black smudges spilling over her knees and her arms. She watched them shift.

A cold sensation, like a breath, tickled her cheek. Hackles raising, Niqmepa straightened and cast her gaze to the side. As she did, the shadows in the room spilled over the corner where her mother stood, watching her from the pathway that lead deeper into the earth. Ugarit stood there with her silver-purple hair like a cap of frost on the dark stalk of her head, shadowed alcoves of eye sockets concealing her expression but for smiling black lips. Then, all at once, the shadows bent away and the light poured over her face, and Ugarit’s eyes reflected an unnatural whiteness, a glow that stung like the light from above.

Niqmepa looked down at her toes, curling them against the black stone floor. She heard her grandfather saying, “Light is not always a good omen, especially on the surface. Shadows are sometimes kinder. Learning to tell the difference will… Ah, come in.” He’d spotted her mother. “I’ve been talking too long again. Here I’m just getting started, and I’m already out of time.”

“I can stay,” Niqmepa said quickly. “I like it here. I want to keep learning.” She couldn’t lift her eyes to her grandfather, to see her mother coming toward her. She couldn’t say what she really meant: don’t make me go with her.

Of course, as an adult looking back, Niqmepa knew that she should’ve told someone how afraid she was of her mother. But also, as an adult looking back, she knew it wouldn’t have changed anything. They were all dead now. No child’s warning, no child’s fears, could have stopped anything that had happened. These days, though she was alone, Niqmepa could augur anywhere.

She could augur here, sitting in the the Carline Canopy, with a glass of tea in her hand, surrounded by warmth and only the softest of shadows. Shadows that she could see through, that were merely gray or brown and never truly black. She could sit back in her chair and let her hair fall away from her face, and cast her gaze to the stained glass windows where the refracted outlines of leaves moved. She could watch the shadow of a bird pass by. She could tell it was a crow: not a bad omen, despite Gridanian poetry.

It got her on her feet and moving outside. Crows were omens of protection and safe passage, but they carried messages that bore a bit more investigation, further seeking. Where was it going? Where would it land? With crows, one needed to look carefully into the darkness of their wings and see the light captured between their feathers.

[topmixtrends]

CALL ME A KILLJOY but I am sick to death of hearing about Karl Marx. I am sick of his name, his -isms, his undoubted genius, and his “philosophy.” I am sick of him “having reason,” as the French say, or “being right.” But most of all I am sick of his “relevance.”

As someone whose parents were born and grew up in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and who missed the same fate by the skin of her teeth, I know perfectly well what Marx’s relevance amounts to. Marx gave it a name, even if for him it meant something else than it did for the people of Yugoslavia. I am talking about the oft-quoted and seldom understood “religion of everyday life.”

In post–World War II Yugoslavia, Marx’s “relevance” was to be a member of the ruling communist party. Outside of that supra-religious institution no substantial share in the social wealth was possible. “[T]he life-process of society,” as Marx observes in what turned out to be a weird prediction, “which is based on the process of material production, does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan.”

The constitution that enshrined this religion in law and etched it in the consciousness of Yugoslavs did not survive the county’s horrific civil war, which lasted from 1991 to 2001, resulting in the deaths of 150,000 and the displacement of 4,000,000 people; in all, more than one sixth of its total population. And yet remarkably its “religion” survived, despite the fact that today it’s the “freely associated men” — or the freemasonic cabals that rule over the remnants of Yugoslavia like buzzards circling a herd of listless cattle — whose mystical veil is in urgent need of being torn to shreds.

Imagine if Marx had been a theater producer. That was surely far more his style. He certainly knew how to flatter egos, as he did when Ferdinand Lassalle asked him to appraise the manuscript of his dud of a play Franz von Sickingen. “I must applaud both composition and action,” Marx lied, “and that’s more than one can say of any other modern German play.” It might have been his true vocation, putting on dramas and musical comedies at London’s Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, the street where the German Workers Educational Society held its meetings, and where its members could partake of recreational activities, from poetry to fencing. I wonder if Marx ever lamented during those irreproachable sessions the fact that all the world’s a stage, and that he was overseeing the wrong one.

I can’t resist citing that hilarious Mel Brooks film The Producers, starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, in which a washed-up theater producer’s accountant persuades his client to deliberately stage a Broadway flop in order to avoid a hefty tax bill. When Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden becomes an unexpected and inexplicable hit, Mostel’s livid reaction is worthy of Marx himself (Karl, not Groucho) for its topsy-turvy contrariety: “I was so careful,” bemoans the producer. “I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast — where did I go right?”

Is it too outlandish to speculate that in Marx’s case the critique of political economy had been the stand-in for a juvenile passion? Poetry was Marx’s Thing (das Ding an sich), the Real that a combination of his father’s bitter chastisement and his encounter with Hegel’s “craggy melody” managed to cure him of during his Berlin student days. The prospect of earning a living to provide for his future wife, the Baron von Westphalen’s daughter, no doubt helped to tear the veil of his metaphysical illusions. Like a restless artist, Marx’s lifelong fanaticism might thus be read as a nostalgic yearning for an irreplaceable fetish-object, “the sensibly super-sensible” (sinnlich übersinnlich) as he calls it in Capital. Nothing could ever compete with art, no amount of critical veil-tearing could ever substitute for Marx’s love of lyrical poetry. And so he took the only career path left open to him. He became a producer instead; an impresario in the art of critique.

We are living in a culture that sees tragedy everywhere: that fetishizes it. It’s something of a neurotic obsession. In mid-19th-century England, around 60,000 people, including many children, would die each year of tuberculosis. When Charles Darwin’s daughter Annie died of the disease in 1851 he wrote in his diary: “We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age. […] Oh that she could now know how deeply, how tenderly we do still & and shall ever love her dear joyous face.” Another child, Mary, died in early infancy. But people don’t refer to Darwin’s life as tragic.

High birth rates were normal for Victorian families irrespective of class. Marx’s wife Jenny gave birth to seven children, only three of whom survived to adulthood; the Darwins had 10. There is nothing tragic about this high mortality rate. Indeed, Darwin accounts for it himself in On the Origin of Species, noting that the number of individuals of a given species is governed by natural selection, which determines how each individual’s inherited characteristics aid and abet it in the “struggle for existence.” Only a culture profoundly anesthetised to the causes of human suffering would dare mention tragedy in relation to infant mortality, given that it’s derived from the Greek word for “goat” (tragos), whose blood sacrifice would have been lamented in song at the Theatre of Dionysus in fifth-century Athens. For all their apparent lunacy the producers were clearly carrying on a long tradition.

Although Marx’s favorite poet was the Greek tragedian Aeschylus, his was certainly not a tragic life, at least according to the historical definition of tragedy handed down to us from Aristotle. It was sad. And of course it was defined by struggle. But it was not tragic, since the mere fact of being born, becoming ill, then dying, sooner or later, is a biological fact. In order to be a tragic figure the deaths in question would need to be attributable to an act of hubris on the protagonist’s part. But there is no evidence to suggest Marx committed any such act in the case of any of his four deceased children.

It was arguably Charles Dickens — like Darwin, Marx’s contemporary — who was largely responsible for this perversion of the idea of the tragic or sacrificial death, which he memorialized through his depictions of children and their poor unfortunate souls, to such an extent that the plight of almost any Victorian child is today thought of as “tragic.” But this Dickensian propensity for melodrama is more worthy of a satyr play. As Oscar Wilde put it: “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”

To be honest, one knows why Marx is so often portrayed as a tragic hero. It is to humanize him, thus attenuating any controversial aspect of his thought. By depicting Marx as a “19th-century life,” to borrow the title of Jonathan Sperber’s wholly unconvincing biography, one relativizes the man and his ideas. One quarantines it, much like the dangerous animals one locks inside cages at the zoo, so much the better to prod and gawp at the exotic creatures, in clear ignorance of the social context that facilitates such saccharine objectification.

Marx is not a tragic specimen, and I for one am not prepared to let him off the hook so easily. To say that his was a 19th-century life is to forget that his name and ideas only entered into common currency in the 20th. If the specter of communism makes any sense today then it’s because the thing itself was barely stirring when Marx and Engels prophesized it in 1848. It would be another hundred years before Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and their supporting cast succeeded in turning one third of the global population red.

But! his devoted fans insist, Marx cannot be blamed for the crimes carried out by the inheritors of his political legacy! Which is like saying that the makers of gunpowder cannot be blamed for its misuse. That is perfectly true — assuming we can agree on what might constitute “misuse.” Gunpowder isn’t intended for washing the dishes. It’s made for the express purpose of blowing things up.

Let us remind ourselves that Marx was the inventor of historical materialism. And this “science of history” advances the following basic principle: “men” make history in unforeseen circumstances. History takes us for a ride. We are all subject to its petulant whims; slave to its organic rhythms (something akin to being battered by a wave and thrown head over heels — you might say one “adapts” to the experience). Those fortunate enough to gain a foothold on the train of history must hang on as best they can. But ultimately the “natural laws of capitalist production” work with “iron necessity toward inevitable results,” meaning woe betide anyone stupid enough to get in the way, for they shall be steamrolled. Like the Slavs who Marx describes as being “incapable of progress and civilization,” and Engels as “residual fragments of peoples” whose “whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution.” Despite being “destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm” the Slavs might at least take heart from knowing that their brute existence served some purpose in the long march toward civilization. But then Marxists have been feeding the same message to the Slavs for the last century and a half.

I have a suggestion to make. Given the un-tragic wrongness of Marx’s thought, why not make a case for the great man’s contemporary irrelevance? After all, is there today anything more incongruous, perverse, and patently absurd than the call by self-styled communist philosophers like Slavoj Žižek for a Marxist-communist renaissance or “idea of communism,” which looks suspiciously like the idealism or “German ideology” that Marx spent his youth meticulously taking to pieces?

Experience shows that there are two sides to every contradiction. And one would be stupendously naïve to think that anti-Marxism hasn’t for some years now been an article of faith as robust as the genuine article. “I am not a Marxist,” Marx was alleged to have told his son-in-law Paul Lafargue, when the latter brought news from Paris of French “Marxists.” But there is no reason to believe him. Marx was no less vain and insecure in respect of his own intellectual legacy than most of his rivals and opponents, which explains why so many of the letters people sent him went missing, no doubt destroyed by their correspondent. It is difficult to believe that Marx would have been indifferent to the propagation of his own mythology, and to claim that he wasn’t a Marxist is about as convincing and self-critical as Groucho Marx’s hilarious assertion that he wouldn’t wish to join any club that would have him as a member.

Not quite an irrelevant legacy, then. But without doubt patently absurd. Whenever I watch The Producers I can’t help thinking of Marx, and like Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom I wonder to myself how he could possibly have gone right.

¤

Ana Stankovic graduated with a master’s degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts Belgrade in 2013. She is a practicing painter whose work has been exhibited in Serbia and Switzerland. She is currently undertaking research at Kyung Hee University in the Department of British and American Language and Culture.

The post I Am Not a Marxist appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2GzCoxg

[robbiemeadow]

Erring in the Direction of Kindness: An Interview with George Saunders

In 2013, bestselling author George Saunders delivered the commencement address at Syracuse University, in which he encouraged graduates to “err in the direction of kindness.” The speech was soon published in the New York Times, which spurred a national discussion on the virtue of kindness, and it became a short book titled “Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness.” The speech itself complements The Gottman Institute’s belief that “all individuals are capable of and deserve compassion” and that “compassion must begin with ourselves.”

When you gave your speech, did you anticipate the amount of attention it received, and do you hope that by engaging in small acts of kindness toward one another, we can foster a greater capacity for empathy within “the human family”?

The response that day was, to say the least, muted. I found myself pathetically wandering the reception crowd, fishing for compliments. The best I got was, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who gave that speech?” And then I said yes, and he sort of nodded in this noncommittal way and walked off to the snack table. Then the speech went on The New York Times website and seemed to really hit a nerve.

My belief is that, actually, this whole mess down here on earth only holds together via small acts of decency and kindness. We tend to overlook or minimize the effect of the small things, but that is really what a culture is – that collection of thousands of small, habitual, decent moves that collectively make life somewhat predictable and “normal.”

The small acts of kindness can be a sort of ritual self-reminding of what we are and what we’re meant to do down here. Although, of course, like any moral belief, this approach can also evolve into something automatic and irritating and reductive. I think “kindness,” properly understood, might, at times, be quite fierce. It would be “whatever produces positive results.”

Do you view kindness as an intentional behavior, and do you believe that it could similarly counteract negative interactions (which you term as “failures of kindness” in your speech) between not just romantic partners, but also between individuals and communities?

I think “kindness” can be understood in all sorts of ways. For me, the most useful thing is to try to remember to start each day saying: “The whole point of this gift of time I’ve been given is to try to be more loving and then act accordingly.” Of course, most days I forget to even have that thought and just get up and start running around servicing my ego and my anxiety and knocking things over and getting all irritated about how damn easy things are to knock over these days because of the big faceless corporations.

But I’ve found that if I can remember to have that intention, everything is more interesting. Because kindness is really a sort of “gateway virtue” – you start out with that intention, but then find yourself running into problems. It’s all well and good to say “be kind” but what is the kind choice if, say, you encounter a barista who, it seems, has been weeping? Comfort her? Inquire as to why? Just be quiet and leave her alone? Hard to know, in the abstract.

So, right away, we are into a different moral/ethical question, that might have to do with, say, awareness – being maximally data-receptive, so we know the right thing to do, for this person, at this moment. And that’s not something one could “phone in,” or prep for, by just saying to oneself, “Be kind.”

Your speech mentions that “your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving,” which implies that once an individual commits to being kinder and more loving, that will result in even more kindness as they age. Do you believe that, when kindness “snowballs” and begins to envelop a romantic relationship, that such kindness could transcend that relationship and radiate into non-romantic relationships?

Well, that’s a bit beyond my area of expertise, but I do think that trying to increase one’s loving nature can have a beautifully simplifying effect on one’s life. Again, I’m only rarely able to get there, but on the few occasions on which I’ve blundered into this state, it felt like I’d acquired a kind of superpower: all questions answered more easily, the world a simpler place.

I’ve also noticed that when a person is in a genuine, happy, confident, kindness-enabled place, people feel it, and react to him in a different and more open way – which, in turn, expands the range of outcomes possible from that interaction.

Toward the end of your speech, you offer a prediction for the audience in the form of a “heartfelt wish:” “[A]s you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment. You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit.” Could you explain this process of “self-diminishment” from your experience as a father?

This is the one part of the speech about which I often catch grief: “If you think people get kinder as they get older, you should meet my father-in-law, ha ha!” I suppose this was a bit of wishful thinking on my part. It seems, actually, that people get to a crossroads of sorts. As age begins to take its toll, some people get bitter and others…not. And I suppose that has to do with both disposition and luck.

My observation about myself has been that, as a person gets older and the body starts to fall apart/slow down/get less wonderful, it starts to sink in: “Ah, even I am not permanent.” And that gives a person a different and (potentially) fonder view of the whole thing. We’re just very briefly passing through, despite what our ego believes.

Likewise, having kids: once you’re entrusted with another life, you become newly aware of your usual self-absorption. You might start to see self-absorption as the freakish, Darwinian, appendage that it is. And you feel your fondness for this little kid trump your self-fondness – and what a liberation that can be. You vanish a little. Or, as we used to say in a Catholic hymn: “We must diminish, and Christ increase.”

We also encourage parents to prioritize maintaining their relationship, as Drs. John and Julie Gottman claim that “the greatest gift you can give your baby is a happy and strong relationship between the two of you.” Do you think that the process of “self-diminishment” also includes expressing more kindness and empathy for your spouse, which will model a healthy relationship for children?

Yes, for sure. Although kindness toward the people closest to us can be the biggest challenge. They know us, and we might have habits together that are hard to break free of. Easy to be kind in the abstract, but harder in the midst of a familiar fight, when you are completely sure of your rightness and good intentions, whereas that other person, etc., etc.

But: if a kid sees someone behaving lovingly towards someone they love, that gets into their bodies and they will emulate that behavior without even knowing they are doing it. I’ve noticed that in myself – my parents have some very good habits of mutual support, that I found myself trying to enact in my own marriage. And I also have seen how my wife’s patience with, and equanimity towards, me, has informed the way our daughters handle their relationships, with men and with friends and at work, etc.

In the title story of your recent short story collection, Tenth of December, the protagonist, after a near-death experience, finds himself deeply appreciating his relationship with his wife as he remembers a moment from whey they were newlyweds:

“Somehow: Molly.

He heard her in the entryway. Mol, Molly, oh, boy. When they were first married they used to fight. Say the most insane things. Afterward, sometimes there would be tears. Tears in bed? Somewhere. And then they would—Molly pressing her hot wet face against his hot wet face. They were sorry, they were saying with their bodies, they were accepting each other back, and that feeling, that feeling of being accepted back again and again, of someone’s affection for you always expanding to encompass whatever new flawed thing had just manifested in you, that was the deepest, dearest thing he’d ever—”

You once told me that this may be the most truthful thing you’ve written about love. Where specifically do you find the deep truth of love within this passage, and how did you come to realize its power and accuracy in describing a crucial moment within a marriage?

This was a big moment for me as a writer, simply because, at a moment when I needed this man to have a deep and sincere feeling about his wife of many years, instead of inventing something, I just turned to my own experience.

My wife and I have been married thirty years and have been through so many things together, and I know she has seen me at my worst – petulant, defensive, broken, pissy, etc. – and yet she’s always had my back, which is an incredibly powerful thing. Easy enough to have a good relationship when you partner is an attractive, in-control, nice guy, but what about those (more numerous) other times? The person on the receiving end of that sort of love gets quite a gift.

We always carry around an ideal vision of ourselves (the US we like) but we are also bothered by the existence and periodic appearance of that other US (the one we see as an unlikeable aberration). That sort of love basically says: “No, those are both you and both are acceptable.” Which, in turn, empowers you to really see and understand and improve the parts of yourself you’re not crazy about.

According to Dr. Gottman’s research, married couples who are happy can easily recall positive stories from their past, such as how and when they first met, while unhappy couples tend to remember more negative memories. In your speech, you ask the audience, “Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth? Those who were kindest to you, I bet.” Why do you think that kindness has such a powerful capacity to help us form and recall meaningful memories?

That’s really interesting. And makes perfect sense. Someone who feels, “This relationship is awful” will tend to interpret past events in that light. It makes me think that we are always “novelizing” – narrating the past to inform the present moment and enable the future.

So, I think we have to walk a fine line there. To tell a happy story about an unhappy incident in the past might be to falsify /propagandize. For me the most productive thing is to try and tell a true story about the past – one that doesn’t deny or cloak any negative or complicated elements, but allows them in…makes them part of the actual, and hopefully positive, present moment. I suppose the trick is to be bitterness-free, if possible. That is, to see any negativity from the past to have been, ultimately, instructive of useful to the present, positive, state of things.

In your speech, you encourage us to “[do] those things that incline you toward the big questions.” Recently, Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman raise some “big questions” in her TEDx talk that focused on how we can create world peace by beginning at home with creating positive and empathetic familial relationships, which could then push us to be more empathetic with others in the world. Do you see kindness as a potential force for good in the world, a force that could push humanity toward being more peaceful and cooperative?

I know that, in Buddhist practice, this focusing of intention is very important – to say, essentially, “I pray that whatever I accomplish here goes out to benefit all beings, and not just me.”

Small acts of sanity ensure that the world in one’s immediate area is…sane. I once heard the writer Tom McGuane say something along these lines – that a system of interconnected small sanity zones builds out and makes a sane world. And that has the benefit of being a workable approach – one knows how to start, at least. If nothing else, working towards sanity and kindness in one’s own world (one’s own mind) means that, when insanity occurs “out there,” we will have a sane outlook on it – might be able to avoid making things worse, via our agitated reaction.

But having said that (and believing all of that), I also like to remind myself to be a little cautious about the need to justify kindness by claiming it could have some big overarching effect on the world. I mean, I think it does – I know it does – but I also feel that, for me, sometimes those grand intentions can serve as a sort of place on which to solidify ego, as I mentioned above. (I recall that quote from Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts:” “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.”) When I was touring for the book, I found that a lot of people were all for Kindness but not that always that great at kindness, if you see what I mean. (One guy on a radio interview sort of snarled, “I’ve always believed in kindness! But people don’t GET it!”).

I guess that’s the trick of any sort of moral stance toward the world – we have to stay off of autopilot.

For those who are having difficulties within their marriages and may feel lonely or disconnected, what sort of advice could you offer to them based on your experiences as a writer and reader of fiction, as a teacher, as a father, and as a husband?

The one analogy that comes to mind from writing is simply that, at this point in my career, it’s more interesting to assume that every story is workable, and send renewed energy at a story when it hits a snag – assume the best of it, in a sense. And often, with patience, that story will come alive again and rise to the (expanded) occasion. Which is always a happy outcome.

If you want to build a deeply meaningful relationship full of trust and intimacy, then subscribe below to receive our blog posts directly to your inbox:

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Erring in the Direction of Kindness: An Interview with George Saunders

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Erring in the Direction of Kindness: An Interview with George Saunders

In 2013, bestselling author George Saunders delivered the commencement address at Syracuse University, in which he encouraged graduates to “err in the direction of kindness.” The speech was soon published in the New York Times, which spurred a national discussion on the virtue of kindness, and it became a short book titled “Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness.” The speech itself complements The Gottman Institute’s belief that “all individuals are capable of and deserve compassion” and that “compassion must begin with ourselves.”

When you gave your speech, did you anticipate the amount of attention it received, and do you hope that by engaging in small acts of kindness toward one another, we can foster a greater capacity for empathy within “the human family”?

The response that day was, to say the least, muted. I found myself pathetically wandering the reception crowd, fishing for compliments. The best I got was, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who gave that speech?” And then I said yes, and he sort of nodded in this noncommittal way and walked off to the snack table. Then the speech went on The New York Times website and seemed to really hit a nerve.

My belief is that, actually, this whole mess down here on earth only holds together via small acts of decency and kindness. We tend to overlook or minimize the effect of the small things, but that is really what a culture is – that collection of thousands of small, habitual, decent moves that collectively make life somewhat predictable and “normal.”

The small acts of kindness can be a sort of ritual self-reminding of what we are and what we’re meant to do down here. Although, of course, like any moral belief, this approach can also evolve into something automatic and irritating and reductive. I think “kindness,” properly understood, might, at times, be quite fierce. It would be “whatever produces positive results.”

Do you view kindness as an intentional behavior, and do you believe that it could similarly counteract negative interactions (which you term as “failures of kindness” in your speech) between not just romantic partners, but also between individuals and communities?

I think “kindness” can be understood in all sorts of ways. For me, the most useful thing is to try to remember to start each day saying: “The whole point of this gift of time I’ve been given is to try to be more loving and then act accordingly.” Of course, most days I forget to even have that thought and just get up and start running around servicing my ego and my anxiety and knocking things over and getting all irritated about how damn easy things are to knock over these days because of the big faceless corporations.

But I’ve found that if I can remember to have that intention, everything is more interesting. Because kindness is really a sort of “gateway virtue” – you start out with that intention, but then find yourself running into problems. It’s all well and good to say “be kind” but what is the kind choice if, say, you encounter a barista who, it seems, has been weeping? Comfort her? Inquire as to why? Just be quiet and leave her alone? Hard to know, in the abstract.

So, right away, we are into a different moral/ethical question, that might have to do with, say, awareness – being maximally data-receptive, so we know the right thing to do, for this person, at this moment. And that’s not something one could “phone in,” or prep for, by just saying to oneself, “Be kind.”

Your speech mentions that “your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving,” which implies that once an individual commits to being kinder and more loving, that will result in even more kindness as they age. Do you believe that, when kindness “snowballs” and begins to envelop a romantic relationship, that such kindness could transcend that relationship and radiate into non-romantic relationships?

Well, that’s a bit beyond my area of expertise, but I do think that trying to increase one’s loving nature can have a beautifully simplifying effect on one’s life. Again, I’m only rarely able to get there, but on the few occasions on which I’ve blundered into this state, it felt like I’d acquired a kind of superpower: all questions answered more easily, the world a simpler place.

I’ve also noticed that when a person is in a genuine, happy, confident, kindness-enabled place, people feel it, and react to him in a different and more open way – which, in turn, expands the range of outcomes possible from that interaction.

Toward the end of your speech, you offer a prediction for the audience in the form of a “heartfelt wish:” “[A]s you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment. You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit.” Could you explain this process of “self-diminishment” from your experience as a father?

This is the one part of the speech about which I often catch grief: “If you think people get kinder as they get older, you should meet my father-in-law, ha ha!” I suppose this was a bit of wishful thinking on my part. It seems, actually, that people get to a crossroads of sorts. As age begins to take its toll, some people get bitter and others…not. And I suppose that has to do with both disposition and luck.

My observation about myself has been that, as a person gets older and the body starts to fall apart/slow down/get less wonderful, it starts to sink in: “Ah, even I am not permanent.” And that gives a person a different and (potentially) fonder view of the whole thing. We’re just very briefly passing through, despite what our ego believes.

Likewise, having kids: once you’re entrusted with another life, you become newly aware of your usual self-absorption. You might start to see self-absorption as the freakish, Darwinian, appendage that it is. And you feel your fondness for this little kid trump your self-fondness – and what a liberation that can be. You vanish a little. Or, as we used to say in a Catholic hymn: “We must diminish, and Christ increase.”

We also encourage parents to prioritize maintaining their relationship, as Drs. John and Julie Gottman claim that “the greatest gift you can give your baby is a happy and strong relationship between the two of you.” Do you think that the process of “self-diminishment” also includes expressing more kindness and empathy for your spouse, which will model a healthy relationship for children?

Yes, for sure. Although kindness toward the people closest to us can be the biggest challenge. They know us, and we might have habits together that are hard to break free of. Easy to be kind in the abstract, but harder in the midst of a familiar fight, when you are completely sure of your rightness and good intentions, whereas that other person, etc., etc.

But: if a kid sees someone behaving lovingly towards someone they love, that gets into their bodies and they will emulate that behavior without even knowing they are doing it. I’ve noticed that in myself – my parents have some very good habits of mutual support, that I found myself trying to enact in my own marriage. And I also have seen how my wife’s patience with, and equanimity towards, me, has informed the way our daughters handle their relationships, with men and with friends and at work, etc.

In the title story of your recent short story collection, Tenth of December, the protagonist, after a near-death experience, finds himself deeply appreciating his relationship with his wife as he remembers a moment from whey they were newlyweds:

“Somehow: Molly.

He heard her in the entryway. Mol, Molly, oh, boy. When they were first married they used to fight. Say the most insane things. Afterward, sometimes there would be tears. Tears in bed? Somewhere. And then they would—Molly pressing her hot wet face against his hot wet face. They were sorry, they were saying with their bodies, they were accepting each other back, and that feeling, that feeling of being accepted back again and again, of someone’s affection for you always expanding to encompass whatever new flawed thing had just manifested in you, that was the deepest, dearest thing he’d ever—”

You once told me that this may be the most truthful thing you’ve written about love. Where specifically do you find the deep truth of love within this passage, and how did you come to realize its power and accuracy in describing a crucial moment within a marriage?

This was a big moment for me as a writer, simply because, at a moment when I needed this man to have a deep and sincere feeling about his wife of many years, instead of inventing something, I just turned to my own experience.

My wife and I have been married thirty years and have been through so many things together, and I know she has seen me at my worst – petulant, defensive, broken, pissy, etc. – and yet she’s always had my back, which is an incredibly powerful thing. Easy enough to have a good relationship when you partner is an attractive, in-control, nice guy, but what about those (more numerous) other times? The person on the receiving end of that sort of love gets quite a gift.

We always carry around an ideal vision of ourselves (the US we like) but we are also bothered by the existence and periodic appearance of that other US (the one we see as an unlikeable aberration). That sort of love basically says: “No, those are both you and both are acceptable.” Which, in turn, empowers you to really see and understand and improve the parts of yourself you’re not crazy about.

According to Dr. Gottman’s research, married couples who are happy can easily recall positive stories from their past, such as how and when they first met, while unhappy couples tend to remember more negative memories. In your speech, you ask the audience, “Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth? Those who were kindest to you, I bet.” Why do you think that kindness has such a powerful capacity to help us form and recall meaningful memories?

That’s really interesting. And makes perfect sense. Someone who feels, “This relationship is awful” will tend to interpret past events in that light. It makes me think that we are always “novelizing” – narrating the past to inform the present moment and enable the future.

So, I think we have to walk a fine line there. To tell a happy story about an unhappy incident in the past might be to falsify /propagandize. For me the most productive thing is to try and tell a true story about the past – one that doesn’t deny or cloak any negative or complicated elements, but allows them in…makes them part of the actual, and hopefully positive, present moment. I suppose the trick is to be bitterness-free, if possible. That is, to see any negativity from the past to have been, ultimately, instructive of useful to the present, positive, state of things.

In your speech, you encourage us to “[do] those things that incline you toward the big questions.” Recently, Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman raise some “big questions” in her TEDx talk that focused on how we can create world peace by beginning at home with creating positive and empathetic familial relationships, which could then push us to be more empathetic with others in the world. Do you see kindness as a potential force for good in the world, a force that could push humanity toward being more peaceful and cooperative?

I know that, in Buddhist practice, this focusing of intention is very important – to say, essentially, “I pray that whatever I accomplish here goes out to benefit all beings, and not just me.”

Small acts of sanity ensure that the world in one’s immediate area is…sane. I once heard the writer Tom McGuane say something along these lines – that a system of interconnected small sanity zones builds out and makes a sane world. And that has the benefit of being a workable approach – one knows how to start, at least. If nothing else, working towards sanity and kindness in one’s own world (one’s own mind) means that, when insanity occurs “out there,” we will have a sane outlook on it – might be able to avoid making things worse, via our agitated reaction.

But having said that (and believing all of that), I also like to remind myself to be a little cautious about the need to justify kindness by claiming it could have some big overarching effect on the world. I mean, I think it does – I know it does – but I also feel that, for me, sometimes those grand intentions can serve as a sort of place on which to solidify ego, as I mentioned above. (I recall that quote from Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts:” “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.”) When I was touring for the book, I found that a lot of people were all for Kindness but not that always that great at kindness, if you see what I mean. (One guy on a radio interview sort of snarled, “I’ve always believed in kindness! But people don’t GET it!”).

I guess that’s the trick of any sort of moral stance toward the world – we have to stay off of autopilot.

For those who are having difficulties within their marriages and may feel lonely or disconnected, what sort of advice could you offer to them based on your experiences as a writer and reader of fiction, as a teacher, as a father, and as a husband?

The one analogy that comes to mind from writing is simply that, at this point in my career, it’s more interesting to assume that every story is workable, and send renewed energy at a story when it hits a snag – assume the best of it, in a sense. And often, with patience, that story will come alive again and rise to the (expanded) occasion. Which is always a happy outcome.

If you want to build a deeply meaningful relationship full of trust and intimacy, then subscribe below to receive our blog posts directly to your inbox:

Email*

Email

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

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Erring in the Direction of Kindness: An Interview with George Saunders

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/love/erring-in-the-direction-of-kindness-an-interview-with-george-saunders/

Erring in the Direction of Kindness: An Interview with George Saunders

In 2013, bestselling author George Saunders delivered the commencement address at Syracuse University, in which he encouraged graduates to “err in the direction of kindness.” The speech was soon published in the New York Times, which spurred a national discussion on the virtue of kindness, and it became a short book titled “Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness.” The speech itself complements The Gottman Institute’s belief that “all individuals are capable of and deserve compassion” and that “compassion must begin with ourselves.”

When you gave your speech, did you anticipate the amount of attention it received, and do you hope that by engaging in small acts of kindness toward one another, we can foster a greater capacity for empathy within “the human family”?

The response that day was, to say the least, muted. I found myself pathetically wandering the reception crowd, fishing for compliments. The best I got was, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who gave that speech?” And then I said yes, and he sort of nodded in this noncommittal way and walked off to the snack table. Then the speech went on The New York Times website and seemed to really hit a nerve.

My belief is that, actually, this whole mess down here on earth only holds together via small acts of decency and kindness. We tend to overlook or minimize the effect of the small things, but that is really what a culture is – that collection of thousands of small, habitual, decent moves that collectively make life somewhat predictable and “normal.”

The small acts of kindness can be a sort of ritual self-reminding of what we are and what we’re meant to do down here. Although, of course, like any moral belief, this approach can also evolve into something automatic and irritating and reductive. I think “kindness,” properly understood, might, at times, be quite fierce. It would be “whatever produces positive results.”

Do you view kindness as an intentional behavior, and do you believe that it could similarly counteract negative interactions (which you term as “failures of kindness” in your speech) between not just romantic partners, but also between individuals and communities?

I think “kindness” can be understood in all sorts of ways. For me, the most useful thing is to try to remember to start each day saying: “The whole point of this gift of time I’ve been given is to try to be more loving and then act accordingly.” Of course, most days I forget to even have that thought and just get up and start running around servicing my ego and my anxiety and knocking things over and getting all irritated about how damn easy things are to knock over these days because of the big faceless corporations.

But I’ve found that if I can remember to have that intention, everything is more interesting. Because kindness is really a sort of “gateway virtue” – you start out with that intention, but then find yourself running into problems. It’s all well and good to say “be kind” but what is the kind choice if, say, you encounter a barista who, it seems, has been weeping? Comfort her? Inquire as to why? Just be quiet and leave her alone? Hard to know, in the abstract.

So, right away, we are into a different moral/ethical question, that might have to do with, say, awareness – being maximally data-receptive, so we know the right thing to do, for this person, at this moment. And that’s not something one could “phone in,” or prep for, by just saying to oneself, “Be kind.”

Your speech mentions that “your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving,” which implies that once an individual commits to being kinder and more loving, that will result in even more kindness as they age. Do you believe that, when kindness “snowballs” and begins to envelop a romantic relationship, that such kindness could transcend that relationship and radiate into non-romantic relationships?

Well, that’s a bit beyond my area of expertise, but I do think that trying to increase one’s loving nature can have a beautifully simplifying effect on one’s life. Again, I’m only rarely able to get there, but on the few occasions on which I’ve blundered into this state, it felt like I’d acquired a kind of superpower: all questions answered more easily, the world a simpler place.

I’ve also noticed that when a person is in a genuine, happy, confident, kindness-enabled place, people feel it, and react to him in a different and more open way – which, in turn, expands the range of outcomes possible from that interaction.

Toward the end of your speech, you offer a prediction for the audience in the form of a “heartfelt wish:” “[A]s you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment. You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit.” Could you explain this process of “self-diminishment” from your experience as a father?

This is the one part of the speech about which I often catch grief: “If you think people get kinder as they get older, you should meet my father-in-law, ha ha!” I suppose this was a bit of wishful thinking on my part. It seems, actually, that people get to a crossroads of sorts. As age begins to take its toll, some people get bitter and others…not. And I suppose that has to do with both disposition and luck.

My observation about myself has been that, as a person gets older and the body starts to fall apart/slow down/get less wonderful, it starts to sink in: “Ah, even I am not permanent.” And that gives a person a different and (potentially) fonder view of the whole thing. We’re just very briefly passing through, despite what our ego believes.

Likewise, having kids: once you’re entrusted with another life, you become newly aware of your usual self-absorption. You might start to see self-absorption as the freakish, Darwinian, appendage that it is. And you feel your fondness for this little kid trump your self-fondness – and what a liberation that can be. You vanish a little. Or, as we used to say in a Catholic hymn: “We must diminish, and Christ increase.”

We also encourage parents to prioritize maintaining their relationship, as Drs. John and Julie Gottman claim that “the greatest gift you can give your baby is a happy and strong relationship between the two of you.” Do you think that the process of “self-diminishment” also includes expressing more kindness and empathy for your spouse, which will model a healthy relationship for children?

Yes, for sure. Although kindness toward the people closest to us can be the biggest challenge. They know us, and we might have habits together that are hard to break free of. Easy to be kind in the abstract, but harder in the midst of a familiar fight, when you are completely sure of your rightness and good intentions, whereas that other person, etc., etc.

But: if a kid sees someone behaving lovingly towards someone they love, that gets into their bodies and they will emulate that behavior without even knowing they are doing it. I’ve noticed that in myself – my parents have some very good habits of mutual support, that I found myself trying to enact in my own marriage. And I also have seen how my wife’s patience with, and equanimity towards, me, has informed the way our daughters handle their relationships, with men and with friends and at work, etc.

In the title story of your recent short story collection, Tenth of December, the protagonist, after a near-death experience, finds himself deeply appreciating his relationship with his wife as he remembers a moment from whey they were newlyweds:

“Somehow: Molly.

He heard her in the entryway. Mol, Molly, oh, boy. When they were first married they used to fight. Say the most insane things. Afterward, sometimes there would be tears. Tears in bed? Somewhere. And then they would—Molly pressing her hot wet face against his hot wet face. They were sorry, they were saying with their bodies, they were accepting each other back, and that feeling, that feeling of being accepted back again and again, of someone’s affection for you always expanding to encompass whatever new flawed thing had just manifested in you, that was the deepest, dearest thing he’d ever—”

You once told me that this may be the most truthful thing you’ve written about love. Where specifically do you find the deep truth of love within this passage, and how did you come to realize its power and accuracy in describing a crucial moment within a marriage?

This was a big moment for me as a writer, simply because, at a moment when I needed this man to have a deep and sincere feeling about his wife of many years, instead of inventing something, I just turned to my own experience.

My wife and I have been married thirty years and have been through so many things together, and I know she has seen me at my worst – petulant, defensive, broken, pissy, etc. – and yet she’s always had my back, which is an incredibly powerful thing. Easy enough to have a good relationship when you partner is an attractive, in-control, nice guy, but what about those (more numerous) other times? The person on the receiving end of that sort of love gets quite a gift.

We always carry around an ideal vision of ourselves (the US we like) but we are also bothered by the existence and periodic appearance of that other US (the one we see as an unlikeable aberration). That sort of love basically says: “No, those are both you and both are acceptable.” Which, in turn, empowers you to really see and understand and improve the parts of yourself you’re not crazy about.

According to Dr. Gottman’s research, married couples who are happy can easily recall positive stories from their past, such as how and when they first met, while unhappy couples tend to remember more negative memories. In your speech, you ask the audience, “Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth? Those who were kindest to you, I bet.” Why do you think that kindness has such a powerful capacity to help us form and recall meaningful memories?

That’s really interesting. And makes perfect sense. Someone who feels, “This relationship is awful” will tend to interpret past events in that light. It makes me think that we are always “novelizing” – narrating the past to inform the present moment and enable the future.

So, I think we have to walk a fine line there. To tell a happy story about an unhappy incident in the past might be to falsify /propagandize. For me the most productive thing is to try and tell a true story about the past – one that doesn’t deny or cloak any negative or complicated elements, but allows them in…makes them part of the actual, and hopefully positive, present moment. I suppose the trick is to be bitterness-free, if possible. That is, to see any negativity from the past to have been, ultimately, instructive of useful to the present, positive, state of things.

In your speech, you encourage us to “[do] those things that incline you toward the big questions.” Recently, Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman raise some “big questions” in her TEDx talk that focused on how we can create world peace by beginning at home with creating positive and empathetic familial relationships, which could then push us to be more empathetic with others in the world. Do you see kindness as a potential force for good in the world, a force that could push humanity toward being more peaceful and cooperative?

I know that, in Buddhist practice, this focusing of intention is very important – to say, essentially, “I pray that whatever I accomplish here goes out to benefit all beings, and not just me.”

Small acts of sanity ensure that the world in one’s immediate area is…sane. I once heard the writer Tom McGuane say something along these lines – that a system of interconnected small sanity zones builds out and makes a sane world. And that has the benefit of being a workable approach – one knows how to start, at least. If nothing else, working towards sanity and kindness in one’s own world (one’s own mind) means that, when insanity occurs “out there,” we will have a sane outlook on it – might be able to avoid making things worse, via our agitated reaction.

But having said that (and believing all of that), I also like to remind myself to be a little cautious about the need to justify kindness by claiming it could have some big overarching effect on the world. I mean, I think it does – I know it does – but I also feel that, for me, sometimes those grand intentions can serve as a sort of place on which to solidify ego, as I mentioned above. (I recall that quote from Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts:” “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.”) When I was touring for the book, I found that a lot of people were all for Kindness but not that always that great at kindness, if you see what I mean. (One guy on a radio interview sort of snarled, “I’ve always believed in kindness! But people don’t GET it!”).

I guess that’s the trick of any sort of moral stance toward the world – we have to stay off of autopilot.

For those who are having difficulties within their marriages and may feel lonely or disconnected, what sort of advice could you offer to them based on your experiences as a writer and reader of fiction, as a teacher, as a father, and as a husband?

The one analogy that comes to mind from writing is simply that, at this point in my career, it’s more interesting to assume that every story is workable, and send renewed energy at a story when it hits a snag – assume the best of it, in a sense. And often, with patience, that story will come alive again and rise to the (expanded) occasion. Which is always a happy outcome.

If you want to build a deeply meaningful relationship full of trust and intimacy, then subscribe below to receive our blog posts directly to your inbox:

Email*

Email

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

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The post Erring in the Direction of Kindness: An Interview with George Saunders appeared first on The Gottman Institute.