F-allure

Notes on Self-respect

It was a matter of misplaced self-respect.

I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honour, and the love of a good man (preferably a cross between Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca and one of the Murchisons in a proxy fight); lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale.

The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others—who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation—which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O'Hara, is something that people with courage can do without.

There is a common superstition that "self-respect" is a kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some unblighted Eden, out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general. It does not at all. It has nothing to do with the face of things, but concerns instead a separate peace, a private reconciliation.

In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues.

Nonetheless, character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.

Again, it is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has its price.

To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference.

We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gift for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give.

It is the phenomenon sometimes called alienation from self. In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the spectre of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that one's sanity becomes an object of speculation among one's acquaintances. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.

by JOAN DIDION

Horóscopo Negro

La verdad es que no creo mucho en estas cosas, pero este *Horóscopo Negro* le da en el clavo con muchas cosas y me está re cabiendo.
Promete mucho para octubre, así que lo voy a dejar por escrito.
Después vemos qué onda.
Querida bitácora:

Vermiforme

Amo cuando las cagadas de la vida logran plasmarse de forma poética.

De todo lo que está bien

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

- Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

Acierto azaroso

Boludeces que uno lee cuando està al pedo pero que sorprendentemente te dan una cachetada de asombro: no sólo te describe de pies a cabeza, sino que le da una connotación positiva. Tremendo. Lo voy a imprimir y colgar en la heladera.

Don’t date an alpha female who travels, unless you are a guy who can inspire her to dream big and wander with her. She knows she is destined for greatness and she won’t tone it down if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Let her have her own vision and aspirations. Don’t try to make her change her ways. She won’t follow you. But she won’t lead or try to control you either. She will expect you to do great things with her while traveling and sharing experiences.

An alpha woman who travels won’t chill with you on a beach. She is always working on something important and she wants a partner who understands and supports that. Lying on a beach and doing nothing for hours can ruin her mood as she won’t feel like spending her time in a meaningful way. She can relate to Elon Musk on that one – “The idea of lying on a beach as my main thing just sounds like the worst. It sounds horrible to me. I would go bonkers. I would have to be on serious drugs. I’d be super-duper bored. I like high intensity.”

She seeks a different kind of strong. Paying for dinner, helping her with her heavy suitcase, buying her presents is flattering. A true alpha will appreciate and let you do all these gestures for her but her expectations of you as her man will be set way higher. She will expect you to be her mentor, coach, pusher, be there for her in her struggle, help her with her business, believe in her when she doesn’t, comfort her when she needs to cry.

She burns, burns, burns and you better cancel that date if you’re bored or boring. Or as Matthew Hussey puts it, you have to know how to give great brainal – “the act of penetrating deep subjects of intellectual curiosity with a partner resulting in mental stimulation, and often, physical emotional attraction.” She will listen and try to connect with everything you say, even if she doesn’t agree with you. If there is no passion in you she will sense it and lose interest in seeing you again.

You won’t be able to figure her out. There is no stereotype or check box that can define her. She is tough on the inside but hot and feminine on the outside. She might wear a backless tight dress and become the center of attention at a fancy cocktail and then switch personalities, slipping into a baggy T-shirt and jeans to hitchhike across countries. An alpha female who travels doesn’t follow trends or social rules. She doesn’t need to “get a stable job, get married, get a mortgage, have kids, be a good mom and take care of the home” to feel like a fulfilled woman.

It will be impossible to make her jealous. Tell her that you are crashing a bachelorette party and she will hug you and wish you to have fun. Not being jealous might make you question if she likes you enough. She probably does. But she also knows that hanging out with other women will make you appreciate her more. And since she travels, she is not the type to get attached. If you meet someone else then she will let go and move on. She has plenty of options texting her from around the world anyway.

She is too much. Too smart, too independent, too giving, too well-traveled, too loving, too passionate, too ambitious, too curious, too funny, too spontaneous, too mad to live. At least this is what most average guys will see in her.

She will ruin you. Dating an alpha woman who travels will fill your life with adventure. Skinny dipping in natural pools, skydiving, getting a tattoo, booking a trip to North Korea, turning a Netflix & chill evening into a cake fight, climbing mountains, going on a safari. You won’t impress her by taking her out on Friday night, although she won’t mind if you do. But she appreciates creativity. Her influence can make you quit jobs and move to a different country. Her way of living life might give you a heart attack at times. But it will be the best heart attack you’ll ever have.

Don’t date an alpha female who travels because she belongs to the world. Belong to the world with her or admire her from a distance

Dear Me

Viste que por algo

El chino es el último pueblo del mundo que aún fabrica escupideras, orinales, máquinas de coser a pedal, calentadores de camas, martillos de oreja, plumillas (con plumín de acero, para mojar y escribir) yugos de madera para bueyes, arados de hierro, bicicletas de más de una plaza y locomotoras de vapor.
Aún fabrican relojes de caja. Ese mecanismo de cadena que hace tic-tac y bang. (...) Los chinos fueron los primeros en producir hierro colado y poco después inventaron el arado de hierro. Los metalúrgicos chinos fueron los primeros en fabricar acero ("gran hierro"). En el siglo IV a.C. los chinos inventaron la ballesta y en 1895 seguían utilizándola. Fueron los primeros en observar que los copos de nieve eran hexagonales. Inventaron el paraguas, el sismógrafo, la pintura fosforescente, la rueca, el compás de corredera, la porcelana, la linterna mágica y la bomba fétida (una receta incluía siete kilos y medio de mierda humana, así como arsénico, acónito y cantáridas). En el siglo I d.C inventaron la noria de cangilones y aun la utilizan. Fabricaron la primera cometa dos mil años antes de que la hicieran volar en Europa. Inventaron los tipos móviles y diseñaron el primer libro impreso: el texto budista Sutra del diamante, en el año 868 de nuestra era. En el siglo XI ya tenían prensas y hay pruebas inequívocas de que Gutenberg asimiló la tecnología de los portugueses que, a su vez, la habían aprendido de los chinos. Construyeron el primer puente colgante y el primero escarzano (éste, erigido en el 610, aún está en uso). Inventaron los naipes, los carretes de pescar y el whisky.
Corría el año 1192 cuando un chino se lanzó en paracaídas desde un minarete de Guangzhou, aunque hay que reconocer que experimentaban con paracaídas desde el siglo II a.C. Los chinos fueron los primeros navegantes del mundo que utilizaron el timón (...) inventaron el papel monedo, los fuegos de artificio y la laca. Además, fue el primer pueblo del mundo en emplear papel pintado (en el siglo XV, los misioneros franceses trasladaron de China a Europa la idea del papel pintado). El papel siempre volvió locos a los chinos. (...) Crearon las primeras carretillas y algunos de los mejores diseños chinos de carretillas aún no se han estrenado en Occidente. Y hay muchas cosas más.
[...]

Whose-day?

En busca del tiempo perdido, III (p. 277)

Aguante usted el ser calificada de nerviosa. Pertenece usted a esa familia magnífica y lamentable que es la sal de la tierra. Todo lo grande que conocemos nos viene de los nerviosos. Ellos y no otros son quienes han fundado las religiones y han compuesto las obras maestras. Jamás sabrá el mundo todo lo que se les debe, y sobre todo lo que han sufrido ellos para dárselo. 

Marcel Proust

All I want for Christmas is youth

Sí, otra Navidad del orto. Muy del orto.
Cambio y fuera.

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