#then they started being more independent and my parents got a gambling addiction so like...

[yuna-writes]

Complex childhood

I realize the more time goes by and the longer I live independently as an adult, I'm starting to be more of aware of the complexity in my childhood. Most of my early adulthood, I didn't think too much into it, because I've lived with the lifestyle for so long to the point where I normalized it and didn't see it as a problem. It's the feeling you didn't know you were in a pretty bad situation until you experienced the good. Then you go back and realize your past life was pretty shitty.

I wouldn't say my childhood was downright a horror show. I've seen so many stories of people sharing how they were abused and grew up with family members who got into addiction. It was nothing like this fortunately. I grew up with parents who were pretty responsible. They worked hard, brought food to the table, and they were very practical and realistic people. The downside to this is that they were strict, but not very emotionally available. I remember they wouldn't ask me about my feelings or how I'm doing in an emotional standpoint, they would always make sure the basic necessities were covered such as food, shelter and safety. Therefore, they would only ask me if I ate lunch or did my homework, or got home safely. That's about it for parenting, but of course, there's more to parenting then just being practical.

I think it's important for parents to help kids regulate their emotions as they are going through many stages of their life. I suppose that was the weakest part for my parents. But the situation isn't so black and white to claim my parents were cold either. It's probably because they haven't been raised in an environment where their emotional needs were met either. It's not an excuse to conduct poor behavior, but people aren't perfect. It definitely impacted me and I started exhibiting similar behavior toward friends that might have felt as if I have been dismissive of their emotions. I started to realize other kids didn't really come from the same upbringings. Maybe they had parents who were more emotionally connected and loving so they grew to expect this in their friendships. It's not that I don't value or don't appreciate the experiences or emotions they are sharing, but sometimes I don't know how to reciprocate them because I wasn't taught how to regulate other people's emotions by my parents.

I don't think this topic is really to paint my parents as bad people. Flawed people, but they did the best they could while being parents. At least they weren't irresponsible and didn't get into gambling, addiction or other reckless activities. They could be emotionally loving as much as they want, but when they don't provide basic necessities to their kids, it's also pretty irresponsible and traumatizing for their children who always felt a lack of security in food, shelter and safety. Love is a really complex emotion. My parents thought providing necessities is the most loving and compassionate thing to do for a child. It technically can be loving, because I know not having those basics can also be stressful. Some of the positives about being with my parents was that they taught me how to be a hard worker, practical, loyal and responsible. My parents are smart people, but not the most empathetic people on the planet.

[sardonicsergeant]

God I have been.... not wanting to be alive lately, to the point where I started hitting myself again and like.... fuck man I was doing so much better and like.... My parents want me to call them the day after my brothers storage unit had an attempted break in and I just know it's going to be for money bc I tried to take my dad out to eat for his bday and like over the holidays they barely even tried to talk and its so fucked like I had to borrow 5 dollars for the ticket to see Jackass and like... damn idk what to do bc my mother got a restraining order against my brothers bc they were intervening in her abuse and she wouldn't just say she would stop hitting me so they could stop restraining her and not have to do it again and the cops were already called and just... I shoulda moved out when she was choking me but I knew she wouldn't kill me in front of 3 other people and she has a well known history of trying to kill my dad so I just stayed for months and tried to make sure nothing happened and now I can't even have my brother around to protect me if she's around and I don't even have anyone to talk to about all of this bc I've already overloaded my mentor from high school w trauma(typically right after it happens when I don't realize it's trauma) so like I don't know I don't know who could handle all the information it would take for informed advice and I just want to fucking.... move and never talk to anyone again.

[faedawayyy]

DALLAS JACKSON.

my forever obsession. i feel like his story and margo’s story go hand in hand and when they’re put together, it makes so much sense why they are the way they are. 

TW: DRUGS, ALCOHOL, VERBAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE 

CHILDHOOD (0 - 11) 

dallas is the youngest of two. he was born in april and from the moment he was born, he became the centre of his mum’s universe. he never did anything to be that way; she always told him that he came at just the right time. he never really knew what that meant but it’d end up being the main thing that sent so many other things spiralling in the wrong direction as he grew up. 

anywhere his mother went, dallas would be taken too. their parents couldn’t go on dinner dates without dallas coming along in his pushchair while margo stayed with her nanny. he’d go to lunch dates with friends and parties he was too young to be at. his mother was incredibly attached but to him, it felt like love and what child doesn’t want that? she’d suffered with postpartum after margo and dallas was her chance to redo motherhood the “right” way. 

dallas never saw much of his dad growing up and when he did, it was during the late hours of the nigh when he’d come home in his suit looking tired. around the same time dallas would go to bed. they were fine though and had a better relationship than margo did with her parents. 

dallas spent very little time with anybody his own age. he was desperate to be close to margo but jealousy pushed them away. he’d spend most of his time going to events with his parents and being around other adults.  

he loved school because it gave him independence. he was free from his mother’s attachment and he got to make friends with kids his own age. he loved maths, sports and music the most; he was a member of many sports teams and also took part in any school concert that came his way. he was best on the drums and didn’t start singing until much later. 

spending a lot of time at home meant that he got to see his dad’s career grow and has more happy memories of his childhood and his parent’s marriage than margo does. however, his mother’s obsession with him did used to make him feel like his dad resented him in a weird way, though. it never showed in huge ways and he came to the conclusion it was just in his head. he was only 11, after all.

TEEN YEARS (12-18) 

high school started out weird for dallas. knowing who he is now, people would expect him to have been popular from the get go but he actually really struggled to make friends. spending most of his childhood with adults over 30, he struggled to connect with teenagers - and especially boys - his own age. 

he did get in with a group of guys but he was very clearly the weakest link or the one they’d bully and pick on just because they could. he’d shrug it off as a joke but it made him hate school. a lot. it was in the 12 - 14 year old range that he stopped doing sports or putting a lot of effort into school. it didn’t effect his grades because he’s naturally gifted in academics, but he lost his love for learning and school in general. 

dallas spent most of his younger teen years not being invited out and watching his friends have fun without him. he still went to events with his parents just to get out of the house. agreeing to sing at a christmas party led him to signing a contract with charles hamilton’s music label. over a summer, he made his debut EP and released a single. 

he blew up. almost instantly. the song ‘one time’ was a hit and he was almost certain that this would earn him respect at school. it turned out to be the reverse; he was mocked. people would play his songs ironically and he was called every name you could think of. he even got beat up a few times because of it. it made him miserable and he begged charles to terminate his contract. that never happened but he never, ever wanted to make music. 

studying and working on his first full length album, dallas met ruby at school at around 13 and she was the first friend he had that didn’t insist on making a joke of him. he learnt she was adopted by edwin carmichael which made her a family friend; she was the person he mainly started hanging out with and he gradually got to know her friends which opened him up to a new circle too. 

separating from his first friendship group was positive, he started to love sports and music again and school became somewhere he could tolerate. he posted music online and ended up releasing ‘baby’ - another song that absolutely blew up and sent him into stardom way too early.  

his mum became his manager and helped him balance school and all of his new career success, something else that earned him a string of horrible texts and comments from margo. at this point, he never saw her and she despised him for taking everything she wanted. 

he didn’t have much time to think about it. the older dallas got, the more financially successful he became and by the time he hit 15, he was the highest earner in his family. at around he same time, cracks in his parents marriage was showing at home. 

his dad never tried to hide the fact that he hated dallas for earning more than him and for a good few years, his father had control over his money. anything he earned went straight to mr jackson. dallas never saw a penny...and because his dad had a gambling addiction, a lot of it went down the drain.

by the time dallas reached 18, he had multiple offers from talent academies and academic universities. he originally chose to go to yale and study physics. he’d had a taste of fame and the music industry and didn’t want it. 

dallas’s father had put money aside for him when he was 18 for college. so, he used that to pay his tuition fees. however, after only one term, the account was drained and he didn’t have the money to stay. he worked jobs at bars and shops to pay his way but one job payed more than most and that was drug dealing. not hard to come by on a campus of over privileged kids. however, he was quickly caught and asked to leave. 

dallas came home to a completely different environment. his family were bankrupt and his dad had sold the law firm. they were living on loans and their parent’s marriage became massively toxic. he saw his dad beat his mum, multiple times, and when he rushed to defend her - which he would every time - he’d get the same treatment. 

he felt like he didn’t have the option to move away like margo, who would take care of their mum? that’s what drove his decision to stay local and go to st judes. but, he hated margo to leave him to deal with his dad’s mess and find a way...on his own...to get them money. suddenly, he was trying to find a way to pay rent, his sister’s rehab bills AND tuition for st judes so it was back to dealing.

YOUNG ADULT (18 - 23) 

easily the hardest years of his life. his young adult years have been stress, after stress, after stress, but he’s also not one to ask for help. still being massively successful in music, he threw himself into his rising fame with his albums ‘BELIEVE’ and ‘PURPOSE.’ 

any chance he got to act like a kid and forget about the responsibility he has, he takes it. whether that’s getting into petty fights, dating around, getting too drunk or acting impulsively. 

pressure from both being a big name at the academy and from his family has driven him to darker places. he’s struggled - multiple times - to have healthy romantic connections because he’s used to people being dependant on him; starting with his own mother. the minute somebody gets too attached or asks too much of him, he’ll lash out. on the flip side though, he likes to be needed. 

mental pressure is mainly what led his last relationship to become abusive and after that, he hit rock bottom. believe it or not, it’s definitely learnt behaviour and the last position he wanted to find himself in. 

dallas’s mental health has taken the biggest blow. after a handful of seriously failed relationships and having no home life anymore, he was diagnosed with depression mid-2020. something else he rejects intensely. he refuses to have the same diagnosis as his dad and refuses to speak of it or tell anyone or ask for help. 

TW: SUICIDE 

2020 and early 2021 had him make two separate suicide attempts that were recorded in the press as drug overdoses. the truth of the matter is that he isn’t an addict. he takes drugs but isn’t a slave to them. he doesn’t want to ruin his life or become numb to it; just end it. 

END OF TW

in more recent months, dallas has picked up on his music career again and is STILL trying his best to support his parents and pay margo’s withstanding rehab bills. after being in hospital, the academy have forced him to go to therapy, something he does privately and this accounts for him slowly improving in his behaviour again but he’s definitely forever on thin ice with how his life’s going.

[colleenhieber]

What if your problems aren’t personal?

Think of your biggest personal challenge. What if it's not actually personal and the meaning you've given it is wrong?

You have an incredible mind. And one of the things it does so well is spin complicated personalized stories around every internal and external event you experience. We, as a collective of humans, have a real drive to create meaning in our lives. But often the so-called meaningful story is not only untrue but it becomes a point of personal anguish that much of our time and money is spent “figuring out”. One of the perils of our privilege is that we have the resources to flood these pain points with our time and attention. But what the world needs, and what we also dimly but chronically sense, is that the world needs us to do so much more than this. What if we’ve been wasting our time personalizing our issues and creating emotional tidal waves of distraction that prevent us from doing our best work in the world? What if the thing you struggle with isn’t personal at all? Meaning, what if it is an objective process, wholly independent from the unique experiences of your life?

Here’s an example: I have always struggled with addiction. When I was very young, maybe around 7 years old, I first remember using food in a strange way. Like sneaking into the kitchen to take a piece of white Wonder Bread, pouring Hershey’s syrup all over it, and eating it ducked beneath the kitchen cabinets so my parents couldn’t see me. As a teenager, I continued pleasure-seeking and wound up addicted to drugs and smoking, as a young adult I felt “addicted” to abusive relationships, and still the food piece has continued to be an unrelenting interloper. In my late 20’s, a therapist asked me to interrupt the drive to eat compulsively by simply grabbing a journal and writing down my feelings. I only did it once, but it was so aggravating that my journaling came out as oversized frantic chicken scratches. I was totally incensed that I was being held back from the refrigerator - even for that brief moment. I couldn’t even tell you what I was feeling. I only felt rage that I was being detained through the journaling exercise. That was an illuminating moment. Whatever the cause of my compulsive overeating was, it was deep and powerful. Unstoppable. Just like all the episodes in my life that seemed to have been concerned with the addictive part of my brain.

From there on out, I was in search of the magic therapy that would release me from the binds of addictions. I was looking for meaning. Why was I like this? What did this behavior say about me and my character? Maybe I needed more talk therapy or reiki or ancestral healing or acupuncture or a sound bath or whatever was new and woo in the world of alternative healing. Or maybe I just needed to eat more vegetables, get my hormones checked, or freaking lighten up! Throughout the myriad healing modalities, I began to weave a story that became the explanation for my behavior - that gave my behavior meaning. I was sexually abused as a child and never grieved that moment, then my parents got divorced and when I tried to get clarity from the adults they dismissed my ability to understand the situation and I began to distrust my intuition, all that led to having a low sense of self-worth, and when I wound up as a teenager who was smart, sensitive, and talented but never held accountable to live up to my potential I started to get used to playing small…. Feeling very much alone, I sought the safety of the comforting experience of pleasure. I said things like, “I need the grounding effects of food - it feels like a hug from the inside.” And besides, my Dad had an addictive personality and everyone, including myself, said I was just like him.

The meaning I gave my addictive patterns was personal - I had emotional problems related to the traumas in my life. Hereditary, ancestral, environmental.

And now I realized, partly from Susan Peirce Thompson and partly from Sam Harris  - is that it could just be my brain.

What a relief to think that it’s simply the workings of almost any human brain - especially the 30% of the population that is more susceptible to being addicted. It's not my personality, it's not something I consciously cultivated. It's the reactions in my brain that make me act the way that I have. If I have an addictive brain, and I am more susceptible to addictive foods, drugs, technology, etc, and I continually seek those pleasurable, dopamine-releasing, receptor down-regulating experiences (so now I need more dopamine to feel good) that precede a state of addiction, it doesn’t mean anything other than I am having a very common experience. I have simply shaded it in my own personal shame colors because that is also just what the brain does - weaves a story, makes you feel separate, maybe even unique or misunderstood or as if you have it harder than other people - which makes it easier to continue the isolating behavior.

Same goes for you.

So what if - what if - there is just one other explanation for the reason you are “the way you are”? Just one. There could be many other reasons. Just imagine one.

After listening to Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson talk about her intense addictions to drugs and food (read her book Bright Line Eating or watch her Youtube videos to understand the science behind our brain and the addictive qualities of food), overcome them, and coach other people without any meaning-making - I sat up straight and realized that making it about anything other than biological processes is a choice. And that makes me think of all the other ways that we make meaning in our life. Think of your own shortcomings, how they have such meaning attached to them and therefore shame or guilt because you're not operating in the world the way you want to.

What if there was just another meaning? Just one other meaning that your issue could have?  What if it’s due to a benign tumor? What if it’s because of the weather? If my food situation was just biology, what else in our experience might just be a biological or environmental process? What if it’s just a habit that is so well-entrenched it doesn’t even feel like there’s room for you to make a choice to do something different? This is incredibly possible in light of how little we are actually aware of in reality and the neuroanatomy of our negativity bias.

I used to say that I was an emotional eater, but I don’t say that anymore because all humans are hard-wired to avoid pain - physical or emotional. So we all self-soothe or escape the pain however we learn how to. If you learn how to soothe with a substance that delivers pleasure instead of simply contentedness or happiness (especially if you have an easily addicted brain), you’ll have a harder time stopping that behavior. You can let go of the emotional burden that swells the situation when you misunderstand the biological process and think that if you just had a stronger character you could overcome it - it isn’t about you. It’s objectively about the brain and the qualities of the substance - be it food, drugs, sex, gambling, shopping, etc.

Whenever I notice that I’m having repetitive thoughts about the size of my body, I recognize that as a cue that I am distracted from what’s important. Immediately. I encourage you to do the same when you notice that you’re spending energy creating a negative emotional state around your stubborn issues. Save your mental anguish energy for literally anything else that you need energy for. And you might as well think big - the world needs your help. What important work are you avoiding? Put your energy there.

I take a group of women through a year of personal transformation. Interested in joining us? Apply here.

[donaldresslerfanfic]

Interrogation.

Rating: M

Warnings: Strong Language (little bit)

Word Count: 2871

Donald Ressler X OC Maggie Waters.

Chapter: Six.

Chapter Index

Story on Wattpad

Maggie.

Our little road trip had to be postponed sadly, Gina and I were heads up with work, and the weather forecast wasn’t ideal. It all gave me more time to work on Mr Reddington’s basement plans.

I had been having meetings with him almost everyday, since the project was going to be taking place next week.

“I’ve got you an exact model of the basement door with soundproof included, you can probably kill someone in here and no one would know.”

“That sounds perfect Maggie” he said looking down at the print of how the basement would look finished. Though it was supposed to look the exact way it looked now.

“Though the only thing you should be killing is your friend’s addiction, Raymond. That would be infinitely cheaper” he laughed at the joke while I rolled the prints to put them away in a plastic cilinder to prevent them from breaking.

“Well, I guess we’re done. Gina will work with you from this point on to make the changes”

“Oh Maggie I’m afraid this is just the beginning” he said.

My phone vibrated on the desk behind us. I gave Raymond an apologetic look and walked to it

“I have to take this” I said after seeing Don’s number on my screen “it’ll be two seconds” I said picking walking to the door

“Take your time Maggie” Raymond replied as he sat down at one of the chairs in my office.

“Donald” I said picking up

“Maggie, where are you?”

“At work, with a client”

“It’s Friday” I sighed and exited the office, closing the door behind me

“I know it’s Friday, but this client could only meet today at this hour, I’m in a tight schedule Don”

“I see. I was just… Worried. I’ll talk to you later then, maybe we can pick up some lunch”

I smiled and looked down at my feet

“OK sure. Gotta go, bye” I said and quickly hung up.

Opening the door of the office again I looked at Raymond

“So, in what way are we not done?”

“That was only the first project. The second one is far more complex but I don’t think it will oppose a challenge for you Maggie”

“OK” I walked to the other side of the desk, sitting in front of Raymond and pulling out a pad to write “I’m listening.”

“I need a cabin looking safe house, it has to be bullet proof, security system for a 10 mile radius. Independent generator”

“How many bedrooms?”

“4, it’s for me and a couple of associates”

“Two story?”

“Not ideally but if we don’t have a choice”

“There’s always a choice Raymond” I said writing down the last details “I can have a partial layout and specifications for tomorrow. Do we have a deadline on this?”

“Less than 3 months. And by the way, shouldn’t we consider the climate variable?”

“Should we?” I asked

“We should” he gave me a nod

“Then we will” I said with a smile as I finished with my notes. “Extreme cold I take it?”

He gave me a smile to let me know I was right. After that I stood up and walked to him

“I’ll have you everything for tomorrow, I’ll tell Gina to contact you to start on Monday”

He stood up and embraced me, kissing my cheek

“It’s always a pleasure to see you Maggie”

“Likewise Raymond” I walked him out the building, since nobody was here yet

There wasn’t a point on me leaving, since the usual shift started in one hour.

I picked my phone and dialed Don.

“Hey, you still in the street?” I said walking back to my office

“Are you done with your client?”

“Yeah and I could use something to drink right now”

“I’ll bring you a coffee”

“Thanks Don, you’re a sweetheart” I hung up and waited near the door for Don.

He arrived 10 minutes later, I let him in and guided him to my office

“So, the road trip got canceled” he said, I took a sip of my coffee

“Mmmm, is this pumpkin spice?”

“Yeah, Dana was out of cinnamon”

“Delicious. Yes, the weather forecast said it was going to pour rain, and we were thinking on hiking, and with all the mud it was going to be difficult. So I had time to work on this next thing”

“What are you working on now?” He walked towards a sketching table I had on the far corner.

“It’s a soundproof basement, and the next thing is a reinforced cabin”

Ressler.

I don’t remember the last time the smallest trace of panic had invaded me. I was looking at a raw drawing of some print, and on the up right corner it was written Raymond R.

I think it’s too much a coincidence that Maggie helped me with Reddington’s safe and now one of her clients was named that.

I looked at Maggie, who was sitting at her office desk going through some notes.

“And what does this guy do? Why does he need a soundproof basement”

“It’s for his friend, he has a gambling addiction and his wife will divorce him if she hears him place another bet. He’s a bad gambler” she rolled her eyes “and Raymond, I don’t know what he does exactly, he just said business.”

“Mmm” I nodded and sat down in front of her “how long have you been working for him?”

“About a week” she maintained her gaze to mine and took another sip of her drink.

“Do you have an address?”

“Ah, I’m afraid that’s classified information agent Ressler” she gave me a smirk “you’ll have to get my boss a warrant”

I smiled and stood up

“I have to go back. Be careful Mags, there’s been criminal activity in the area, wouldn’t want anything to happen to you” I buttoned up my suit jacket and she gave me another smile.

“Of course” she stood up and walked with me outside.

“A week you said?” I asked when I was already on the street

“A week” she gave me a nod and a wave before closing the door.

Instantly I pulled out my phone and began walking to my car, I dialed Director Cooper and waited for him to pick up.

“Cooper” he said, I opened my car and started it while closing the door, my phone being pressed to my ear with my shoulder.

“This is Ressler. Sir I need a warrant to check CCTV cameras from two locations, I think Reddington is onto something, I’ll explain when I get there”

By the time I arrived at the post office, Reddington had given Keen another name. Still, I headed up to talk to Cooper.

“Sir” I said after knocking on the door. He allowed me in, I remained standing while he took a paper from a stack.

“This is the warrant, now what is going on?”

“I need CCTV cameras from all 7 days of last week. I have a friend who’s a catastrophe architect, everything about her is in file RR 30256. I can retrieve it for you to check out. ”

“Is your friend in danger?”

“She’s working for Reddington and doesn’t know, so yes. After you read the file you’ll realize she’s in a lot of danger.”

“I’ll check the file and ask Aram for the footage you need. In the meantime, Reddington has another case, solve it”

Resolving “The Freelancer” case took us the whole weekend. In between of some arguments with Keen and my reasons to distrust Reddington, we pulled it through.

It was Monday morning when I could finally go back to Maggie’s case. Aram had brought the footage to me, which I instantly took to AD Cooper.

He wanted me to brief the team about Maggie and decide if we would have to bring her in for questioning.

I was halfway explaining Maggie’s file when Keen interrupted

“How do you know her again?”

“She paid forward my coffee and I paid back on a Friday. She sit in this particular table in the Sweet Tooth café every Friday from 8 to 10:30. The footage shows Reddington on the far corner here” I pointed a few tabled ahead “so he’s been looking at her for a month”

“Why is he interested in her?”

“She helped with a covert op, she opened a vault we found hidden in one of Reddington’s safe houses. Inside was the body of Marcus Preston. We’re still trying to link him to Reddington. I take it he knows it was her and he’s trying to get info on who she is and what she does. That’s why 10 days ago he presented himself in her workplace” I pulled out another picture that showed Reddington entering Maggie’s workplace “he was there for an hour, he’s gone to her work two more times that week, and then spent 3 hours and 20 minutes with her in the café on Friday that week.”

“So Reddington is using her to make her build something and then what, he’ll tell her he know it’s her who opened his vault and he’s going to kill her?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. But it seems like he wants her knowledge. Maggie is an expert in her field. She’s worked with banks, politics, she might have even worked with criminals like Red and been oblivious to it”

“What’s she working on now?”

“Classified” I smirked “if I’ve taught her something is to use well that word”

“Bring her in” Cooper said “I want to know what she knows, I’ll get that warrant for the info the firm has on Reddington”

I moved to walk to the elevator, but Cooper stopped me with a gesture of his hand

“Keen and Malik will take this, Keen will conduct the interrogatorie but you’re more than welcome to watch” he motioned at me to the interrogation room. It had a standard one way glass in which Aram and I sat. He didn’t need to be here, but I guess he was just curious to know Maggie. Copper joined us when he greeted Maggie, leaving all the files we needed to interrogate her about what she knew.

I saw keen open the door and let Maggie in, who had a smirk she couldn’t conceal.

“Take a seat, I’ll be right back”

Maggie gave the room a look. The door of the back room opened and Keen gave me an amused smile, she retrieved the files and walked back to the interrogation room. Maggie only sat down when Keen left the files on the table.

“So, Margaret”

“Maggie” she quickly corrected

“I have your file here” she said opening it. “It says you moved to Washington 7 months ago, single, parents deceased, sister living in Rhode Island. You work for Bronton Security, architect graduate from MIT. Is that all correct?”

“Is this an interrogation agent Keen?” She folded her hands on the table

“I’m afraid it is”

“Yes, that’s all true” she gave her a nod, her expression changed to seriousness.

“How do you know agent Ressler?”

She frowned

“From a coffee shop downtown, I paid him a coffee and then he paid me one back. We talked and became friend, I didn’t know his as "Agent Ressler”, it was just Donald"

“Until he picked you up for a job” Keen pulled out the file with the covert op and extended Maggie a picture of the safe house. “He took you to this safe house of one case he was following. And what did you do there?”

“I gave Don my word I wouldn’t speak about this, so unless he tells me otherwise I can’t talk. You know how this is agent” she smiled “classified information I can’t really talk about it”

Keen stood up and walked around the table

“I’ll go ask agent Ressler for his clearance then”

Maggie smiled and I saw Keen give her a funny look, she probably couldn’t believe this woman knew how to deflect giving information so smoothly. She had willing left the files on the table, a little test of curiousity. But Maggie just put the photo back and closed the file.

She sighed and looked away while Keen entered the back room

“Am I cleared agent Ressler?” She asked with a funny tone

“I told you she was good”

She smiled and left the room again, entering the interrogation.

“It seems I am cleared. Agent Ressler told me you can confide the information with me, we’re on the same side here Maggie.”

Maggie looked at Keen and smiled

“It was an Epston, model IU-645. IU stands for Impenetrable Unit. It’s an mixture between steel and titanium. Breaking through it with a power drill, explosives or even thermite or metal corrosive could take up days. 72 hours at most. Impenetrable yes. But, the inner mechanism has an easy way to go around it. It had a padlock, a lever to unlock the inner bolts. It’s a very uninteresting process. But I just needed to know the components and was able to active the mechanism from inside, making a cut in the door.”

“What was behind it?”

“Agent Ressler said he needed to know who the guy was and what was he doing there, so I take it it was a body”

“You didn’t see anything else?”

“I had a full blown anxiety attack, so no”

I leaned and talked to the mic that sent audio to Keen’s earpiece.

“Tell her about Reddington, just drop the bomb on her”

Keen took out another folder and opened it

“Raymond Reddington”

We didn’t need another confirmation that it was indeed Reddington who was working with Maggie, her shoulders squared up at the name and her eyebrow furrowed.

“Heard of him?”

“Yeah” she nodded and I could see her nervously swallow “I work with him, well my firm does”

“Raymond Reddington is a fugitive of the law. He’s been the source of uncountable information leaving US soil and sold to the highest bidder. He’s a criminal, Maggie”

“That can’t be. Our firm double crosses information with the DC police department. He didn’t sh-” she stopped herself and crossed her arms “he’s got money right? Like a lot, of money. That must be it then.”

“I’m not following”

“The only thing my boss loves more than his own family are zeros in his bank account. He’s been in some trouble for that already”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know. I’m too busy trying to wrap my head around my being an accessory to a fugitive wanted by every and all law enforcement agencies.”

“Let me make something clear. There’s no way yout could’ve known this.”

Maggie was looking away, denying with her head, angry frown. Angry at herself.

“He’s the owner of the vault isn’t it? And he’s doing this whole thing to get close to me, to make this vendetta more meaningful, to have me trust him things like I have and then just completely sweep me over my feet.” She sighed “does Donald know about this? Because if he knows that I’ve been working with a person he’s been trying to catch for years he’ll kill me, or worse he’ll look at me like I’m…” She let out another sigh and looked down.

“Agent Ressler is trying to protect you. He knows that none of this is your fault.”

Maggie continued looking down, an angry frown on her face that turned into a frown of sadness.

“He’s going to call. At 12:30, I said I would be taking his call and it’ll be oddly suspicious if I didn’t. I can get you information, anything you need to know”

“I’ll talk to my superior, and see if it would be convenient for you to take the call, we still have one hour”

Maggie nodded, and Keen left the interrogation room. I felt bad for Maggie, I wanted to get in there and hold her, tell her that by any means I felt betrayed by her.

Keen entered the back room and looked at Cooper.

“What do we do about the call, is it convenient for her to take it? And what will happen when Reddington finds out she spoke to us, divulge the work she’s doing for him?”

My eyes remained on Maggie while the conversation flowed behind me. She looked defeated, the rug had been pulled under her feet.

“He’s not going to kill her.” I said “whether we like it or not, she’s now his associate. They have a connection, a bond. Otherwise he wouldn’t have spent 3 hours talking to her. Even if those interactions weren’t true, Red now feels compelled to her. Maggie has that thing, she gets under your skin”

“So you’re saying that we have to let her continue working with Reddington?”

“We should, find out the purpose of this new shelter, the basement, any other secret locations. She can be our inside woman”

“We’re putting her at risk by doing so” Cooper spoke up “if she wants to help by all means, but it has to be her decision to be our informant”

“OK” I nodded “let’s make her answer that phone call”.

[squaleboy]

Success as a Fragile Construction

For I have a single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions.

The Ancient Greeks’ main definition of success was to have had a heroic death. But as we live in a less martial world, even in Lebanon, we can adapt our definition of success as having taken a heroic route for the benefits of the collective, as narrowly or broadly defined collective as you wish. So long as all you do is not all for you: secret societies used to have a rule for uomo d’onore: you do something for yourself and something for other members. And virtue is inseparable from courage. Like the courage to do something unpopular. Take risks for the benefit of others; it doesn’t have to be humanity, it can be helping say Beirut Madinati or the local municipality. The more micro, the less abstract, the better.

Success requires absence of fragility. I’ve seen billionaires terrified of journalists, wealthy people who felt crushed because their brother in law got very rich, academics with Nobel who were scared of comments on the web. The higher you go, the worse the fall. For almost all people I’ve met, external success came with increased fragility and a heightened state of insecurity. The worst are those “former something” types with 4 page CVs who, after leaving office, and addicted to the attention of servile bureaucrats, find themselves discarded: as if you went home one evening to discover that someone suddenly emptied your house of all its furniture.

But self-respect is robust –that’s the approach of the Stoic school, which incidentally was a Phoenician movement. (If someone wonders who are the Stoics I’d say Buddhists with an attitude problem, imagine someone both very Lebanese and Buddhist). I’ve seen robust people in my village Amioun who were proud of being local citizens involved in their tribe; they go to bed proud and wake up happy. Or Russian mathematicians who, during the difficult post-Soviet transition period, were proud of making $200 a month and do work that is appreciated by twenty people –and considered that showing one’s decorations –or accepting awards –were a sign of weakness and lack of confidence in one’s contributions. And, believe it or not, some wealthy people are robust –but you just don’t hear about them because they are not socialites, live next door, and drink Arak baladi not Veuve Cliquot.

Personal History

Now a bit of my own history. Don’t tell anyone, but all the stuff you think comes from deep philosophical reflection is dressed up: it all comes from an ineradicable gambling instinct –just imagine a compulsive gambler playing high priest. People don’t like to believe it: my education came from trading and risk taking with some help from school.

I was lucky to have a background closer to that of a classical Mediterranean or a Medieval European than a modern citizen. For I was born in a library –my parents had an account at Librarie Antoine in Bab Ed Driss and a big library. They bought more books than they could read so they were happy someone was reading the books for them. Also my father knew every erudite person in Lebanon, particularly historians. So we often had Jesuit priests at dinner and because of their multidisciplinary erudition they were the only role models for me: my idea of education is to have professors just to eat with them and ask them questions. So I valued erudition over intelligence –and still do. I initially wanted to be a writer and philosopher; one needs to read tons of books for that –you had no edge if your knowledge was limited to the Lebanese Baccalaureat program. So I skipped school most days and, starting at age 14, started reading voraciously. Later I discovered an inability to concentrate on subjects others imposed on me. I separated school for credentials and reading for one’s edification.

First Break

I drifted a bit, with no focus, and remained on page 8 of the Great Lebanese Novel until the age of 23 (my novel was advancing at a rate of one page per year). Then I got a break on the day when at Wharton I accidentally discovered probability theory and became obsessed with it. But, as I said it did not come from lofty philosophizing and scientific hunger, only from the thrills and hormonal flush one gets while taking risks in the markets. A friend had told me about complex financial derivatives and I decided to make a career in them. It was a combination of trading and complex mathematics. The field was new and uncharted. But they were very, very difficult mathematically.

Greed and fear are teachers. I was like people with addictions who have a below average intelligence but were capable of the most ingenious tricks to procure their drugs. When there was risk on the line, suddenly a second brain in me manifested itself and these theorems became interesting. When there is fire, you will run faster than in any competition. Then I became dumb again when there was no real action. Furthermore, as a trader the mathematics we used was adapted to our problem, like a glove, unlike academics with a theory looking for some application. Applying math to practical problems was another business altogether; it meant a deep understanding of the problem before putting the equations on it. So I found getting a doctorate after 12 years in quantitative finance much, much easier than getting simpler degrees.

I discovered along the way that the economists and social scientists were almost always applying the wrong math to the problems, what became later the theme of The Black Swan. Their statistical tools were not just wrong, they were outrageously wrong –they still are. Their methods underestimated “tail events”, those rare but consequential jumps. They were too arrogant to accept it. This discovery allowed me to achieve financial independence in my twenties, after the crash of 1987.

So I felt I had something to say in the way we used probability, and how we think about, and manage uncertainty. Probability is the logic of science and philosophy; it touches on many subjects: theology, philosophy, psychology, science, and the more mundane risk engineering –incidentally probability was born in the Levant in the 8th Century as 3elm el musadafat, used to decrypt messages. So the past thirty years for me have been flaneuring across subjects, bothering people along the way, pulling pranks on people who take themselves seriously. You take a medical paper and ask some scientist full of himself how he interprets the “p-value”; the author will be terrorized.

The International Association of Name Droppers

The second break came to me when the crisis of 2008 happened and felt vindicated and made another bundle putting my neck on the line. But fame came with the crisis and I discovered that I hated fame, famous people, caviar, champagne, complicated food, expensive wine and, mostly wine commentators. I like mezze with local Arak baladi, including squid in its ink (sabbidej), no less no more, and wealthy people tend to have their preferences dictated by a system meant to milk them. My own preferences became obvious to me when after a dinner in a Michelin 3 stars with stuffy and boring rich people, I stopped by Nick’s pizza for a $6.95 dish and I haven’t had a Michelin meal since, or anything with complex names. I am particularly allergic to people who like themselves to be surrounded by famous people, the IAND (International Association of Name Droppers). So, after about a year in the limelight I went back to the seclusion of my library (in Amioun or near NY), and started a new career as a researcher doing technical work. When I read my bio I always feel it is that of another person: it describes what I did not what I am doing and would like to do.

On Advice and Skin in the Game

I am just describing my life. I hesitate to give advice because every major single piece of advice I was given turned out to be wrong and I am glad I didn’t follow them. I was told to focus and I never did. I was told to never procrastinate and I waited 20 years for The Black Swan and it sold 3 million copies. I was told to avoid putting fictional characters in my books and I did put in Nero Tulip and Fat Tony because I got bored otherwise. I was told to not insult the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal; the more I insulted them the nicer they were to me and the more they solicited Op-Eds. I was told to avoid lifting weights for a back pain and became a weightlifter: never had a back problem since.

If I had to relive my life I would be even more stubborn and uncompromising than I have been.

One should never do anything without skin in the game. If you give advice, you need to be exposed to losses from it. It is an extension to the silver rule. So I will tell you what tricks I employ.

• Do not read the newspapers, or follow the news in any way or form. To be convinced, try reading last years’ newspaper. It doesn’t mean ignore the news; it means that you go from the events to the news, not the other way around.

• If something is nonsense, you say it and say it loud. You will be harmed a little but will be antifragile — in the long run people who need to trust you will trust you.

When I was still an obscure author, I walked out of a studio Bloomberg Radio during an interview because the interviewer was saying nonsense. Three years later Bloomberg Magazine did a cover story on me. Every economist on the planet hates me (except of course those of AUB).

I’ve suffered two smear campaigns, and encouraged by the most courageous Lebanese ever since Hannibal, Ralph Nader, I took reputational risks by exposing large evil corporations such as Monsanto, and suffered a smear campaign for it.

Treat the doorman with a bit more respect than the big boss.

If something is boring, avoid it –save taxes and visits to the mother in law. Why? Because your biology is the best nonsense detector; use it to navigate your life.

The No-Nos

There are a lot of such rules in my books, so for now let me finish with a few maxims. The following are no-nos:

Muscles without strength,

friendship without trust,

opinion without risk,

change without aesthetics,

age without values,

food without nourishment,

power without fairness,

facts without rigor,

degrees without erudition,

militarism without fortitude,

progress without civilization,

complication without depth,

fluency without content,

and, most of all, religion without tolerance.

[todaynewsstories]

The digital drug: Internet addiction spawns U.S. treatment programs

CINCINNATI (Reuters) – When Danny Reagan was 13, he began exhibiting signs of what doctors usually associate with drug addiction. He became agitated, secretive and withdrew from friends. He had quit baseball and Boy Scouts, and he stopped doing homework and showering.

Danny Reagan, a former patient of the Lindner Center of Hope’s “Reboot” program, the first of its kind to admit only children who suffer from compulsion or obsession with their use of technology, sits in a common room at the center in Mason, Ohio, U.S., January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Maddie McGarvey

But he was not using drugs. He was hooked on YouTube and video games, to the point where he could do nothing else. As doctors would confirm, he was addicted to his electronics.

“After I got my console, I kind of fell in love with it,” Danny, now 16 and a junior in a Cincinnati high school, said. “I liked being able to kind of shut everything out and just relax.”

Danny was different from typical plugged-in American teenagers. Psychiatrists say internet addiction, characterized by a loss of control over internet use and disregard for the consequences of it, affects up to 8 percent of Americans and is becoming more common around the world.

“We’re all mildly addicted. I think that’s obvious to see in our behavior,” said psychiatrist Kimberly Young, who has led the field of research since founding the Center for Internet Addiction in 1995. “It becomes a public health concern obviously as health is influenced by the behavior.”

Psychiatrists such as Young who have studied compulsive internet behavior for decades are now seeing more cases, prompting a wave of new treatment programs to open across the United States. Mental health centers in Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and other states are adding inpatient internet addiction treatment to their line of services.

Some skeptics view internet addiction as a false condition, contrived by teenagers who refuse to put away their smartphones, and the Reagans say they have had trouble explaining it to extended family.

Anthony Bean, a psychologist and author of a clinician’s guide to video game therapy, said that excessive gaming and internet use might indicate other mental illnesses but should not be labeled independent disorders.

“It’s kind of like pathologizing a behavior without actually understanding what’s going on,” he said.

‘REBOOT’

At first, Danny’s parents took him to doctors and made him sign contracts pledging to limit his internet use. Nothing worked, until they discovered a pioneering residential therapy center in Mason, Ohio, about 22 miles (35 km) south of Cincinnati.

The “Reboot” program at the Lindner Center for Hope offers inpatient treatment for 11 to 17-year-olds who, like Danny, have addictions including online gaming, gambling, social media, pornography and sexting, often to escape from symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.

Danny was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder at age 5 and Anxiety Disorder at 6, and doctors said he developed an internet addiction to cope with those disorders.

“Reboot” patients spend 28 days at a suburban facility equipped with 16 bedrooms, classrooms, a gym and a dining hall. They undergo diagnostic tests, psychotherapy, and learn to moderate their internet use.

Chris Tuell, clinical director of addiction services, started the program in December after seeing several cases, including Danny’s, where young people were using the internet to “self-medicate” instead of drugs and alcohol.

The internet, while not officially recognized as an addictive substance, similarly hijacks the brain’s reward system by triggering the release of pleasure-inducing chemicals and is accessible from an early age, Tuell said.

“The brain really doesn’t care what it is, whether I pour it down my throat or put it in my nose or see it with my eyes or do it with my hands,” Tuell said. “A lot of the same neurochemicals in the brain are occurring.”

Even so, recovering from internet addiction is different from other addictions because it is not about “getting sober,” Tuell said. The internet has become inevitable and essential in schools, at home and in the workplace.

“It’s always there,” Danny said, pulling out his smartphone. “I feel it in my pocket. But I’m better at ignoring it.”

IS IT A REAL DISORDER?

Medical experts have begun taking internet addiction more seriously.

Neither the World Health Organization (WHO) nor the American Psychiatric Association recognize internet addiction as a disorder. Last year, however, the WHO recognized the more specific Gaming Disorder following years of research in China, South Korea and Taiwan, where doctors have called it a public health crisis.

Some online games and console manufacturers have advised gamers against playing to excess. YouTube has created a time monitoring tool to nudge viewers to take breaks from their screens as part of its parent company Google’s “digital wellbeing” initiative.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said internet addiction is the subject of “intensive research” and consideration for future classification. The American Psychiatric Association has labeled gaming disorder a “condition for further study.”

“Whether it’s classified or not, people are presenting with these problems,” Tuell said.

Slideshow (11 Images)

Tuell recalled one person whose addiction was so severe that the patient would defecate on himself rather than leave his electronics to use the bathroom.

Research on internet addiction may soon produce empirical results to meet medical classification standards, Tuell said, as psychologists have found evidence of a brain adaptation in teens who compulsively play games and use the internet.

“It’s not a choice, it’s an actual disorder and a disease,” said Danny. “People who joke about it not being serious enough to be super official, it hurts me personally.”

Reporting by Gabriella Borter; editing by Grant McCool

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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[herecreepwretch]

...

<>

a vision:

<>

a praying mantis in an arid field whose camouflage is of being half- eaten, whose limbs are wild mercy to that latent calm of deception - and I? I was that mantis's terror adjacent an animal's nails, teeth. I was that terror indefinitely, un- fixed to the extent that peace was, if there, a concatenation of terror.     terrible, to be helmed by dust, to be lent to molt, to so unassumingly evaporate. however, I cannot judge my faculty of judgment - well, let's duly acknowledge a certain aporia; I promise it'll spiral into its own ends of import, like shipping lanes deliver the mechanisms of their own exponentiation and obsolesence - and I have no desire for sham attachments or the dragnets of pride and reckoning.     less is more: translation of every account pushed to the margins of the ledger until the discreteness of the vital and immobile were rendered a rounding error? your countenance just a floor for higher ballets, the start and filmic stop of some wave's demi-plié.

<>    

a man told me this was religion. yeah? I'm not so sure, submissives. any point on the curve is inferior to another, sans exception. even the infinite is stuck in its approach, clotted with exclusions as it recognizes now this, now that as the requisite excess of new limitations - has the beast a manner, a routine? yes? then it is a number washed by cascades of asymmetry, plucked ripe of worry over whatever isn't prime. here says MAMA: plainer demarcations result only in delay of when you'll be cut by your own keys; every lock sharpens in accordance with how the switch dulls. here says SISTER: I haven't been to the salt flats since the second divorce but in my dream I had no reflection - the horizon, indistinct - and so no way of analogizing my body with itself as I walked across plains I knew were level and yet never mine to ideally determine as such. I was a video game. not a character, the game entire. do you know that feeling, little brother?

<>  

no, I'm sorry. I have no clue what that's like. are you all right? "I wouldn't be ok in your situation" is a phrase I keep hearing more and more these days, as if our estrangement were negotiable in terms amenable to imagination, i.e. we were streams of information. it hurts to believe we're not, you know, but unfortunately the metaphysics doesn't work out. quodlibet est, aut non est - guarantees are absent as auguries. a mystic, too, dissimulates           in Empirical hope that the pasteboard mask is warped and misperceived flesh - and she's a comic, she is! I wouldn't neglect this.

<>

still, I recall his face. there's a kind of pain that deracinates secrets as you live the foundation of the other's life in explication of the injury of your own. their physiogonomy unspools before you - all aged tracts of skin known imprinted in synchrony with vain gambles of nerves. obsession is alchemized into blood, their disfigured blood into serpentine obsession. oh honey, I'll always be the one closest to the opaque subtleties of your affairs. parents, siblings, friend, spouse, child: they seek to exchange, to advance, to divide you in dividing you from you and themselves. our relationship obtains prior the possibility of a split, like the rules of architecture concern the integrity of buildings. we vary lest we both collapse.

<>  

and who is the rule? and who the structure? beats me, babe. I thought I had the answer once, and then once again, but I gave up after that. are you familiar with the late joke in the very, very first Simpsons animation, Homer's quasi-lullaby to Spinoza's idea of a cursed being, the developmentally frozen Bart? "What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind."? I have to notify you, audience. when I wrote the above verses, my memory was that Homer delivered those words to Maggie. it was a rapturous image, far more rapturous than it is currently. for Spinoza's idea of a monstrous entity is of an infant prized free of generative momentum. this, you'll agree, is a deprivation whose severity outpaces eternal adolescence by magnitudes. there's a sublime intensity in the original conception - an infant as a finality in nature. if you'd reject it with horror, why not reject the dignity of stalled humanity more generally? it's an open question. it inexorably is, mate. when I got the news about it being Bart, and not Maggie - when I brushed up on the truth with my phone - I was sitting by a ping-pong table as one person I supervise squared off against the other person I supervise. the baby of my most immediate boss stretched her arm out and ostensibly indicated the activity as, soon enough, one of hers same as it was ours. you can't dwell in the present.

<>

forget about it. The Simpsons is older than me by two or four years. my mother, influenced by my father, didn't let me watch it as kid.   something something ironic depictions of abuse unexcused by an exhausted Verfremdungseffekt. someting something the pseudo-therapeutic narcissism of generation X. the narcissism of the boomers was authentically therapeutic, he'd have said. fair's fair, dad. christen me in a century. regardless, depravity is found in glittering grass, if you teach yourself the methods of ascetics. and depravity has its uses. look, you're going to violate someone. best make it a pedagogical experience. a womb is a door, not a machine, and few knock (a bodhisattva, perhaps, with a knack for parable) despite the expression. an ancient fantasy and its contemporary bloom in an occulted mantra: women are rituals. heed the graven circle.

<>

I walked around this island with a girl who'd shaved her head. she clung to my shoulder, fearful of the dark. you fear it because it's alive to you, I ribbed - the night is a cyclops you dread you might wake and be seen by. yet there's no positivity in darkness. a shadow is refuge from polymeric chains of appearance - it'll never return your gaze because it's the blind and blinding recusal of every eye. sotto voce, i faux-stammered: it's that mirrored celestarium, sunk in light, that's the threat!

<>

I wish it'd happened like that. that's a lie; I spread lies to reliably scaffold their opposite as befits any post-Romantic clod and melancholy addict. what happened was simple, and mild, and meaningless like observing an insect move towards nourishment while sipping wine and listening to rain-sounds recorded in the Amazon in 1999 is simple, and mild, and meaningless. a girl I was fond of inhabited     her anxieties transparently and vulnerably and I offered her my path of abstract escape in intention   that manifest shelter would follow, or grow, or be produced. but I have come to agony in shades. and she, to trust the sun. there are strata of black like curdled densities of liquids. you must arrange them as ladders. they are what ladders purely are: apportioned voids, idle zones between distributions of skeletally-wedded purpose. madam, I did the math

<>

and we haven't been spared a remainder. hey, my gnostic youth, the alien engine of this slow abandonment of a buried conservation: death and aesthetics are one. lowest to the swallowing ground, they're aware of what is most foreign to any cycle or spill of broken lines. the contours of your visage, I'll see them differently. I saw them differently as I spoke to you today - angles you hid in profiles were managed wholly without context. it won't last, your confidence. it'll oscillate. it will not. and whatever the state of lost resolve you'll meditate on that world you left, are leaving, and ask what it was who you were, and of they, of who it was which it was and were to would be. fine. I love you. I love what I don't know about you, which is a definition of love when it isn't a declaration of moral psychosis. independent of sanity, it continues though to approximate the irreversible gift, the slack catalysis, of salvific attractions - the case study's assertions? he would accept nothing that could be named as real.       he would accept nothing that already prevailed as a lodestar of virtue.