Relationships

Your milieu is not the same as your sister’s. It is an ever-shifting, individual configuration of information flows. The Twitter feed you have curated is a milieu. Your friend group (which is not the same as the friend groups of the other people in that group!) is a milieu.

It is by changing your milieu that you change yourself.

social theory: the best way to make new friends is to invite people to do an activity that will occupy enough of their brain capacity such that their defenses will be down and they’ll be a more open version of themselves

“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”

—James Baldwin

Instead of asking "Are you the one," ask two questions of each of you. Do I accept my partner despite their shortcomings? Do I commit to nurture them to achieve what is important to them? And likewise, do they accept me and do they commit to me? All you need is four yeses.

“Do not be absent for too long, then come and ask about how I am, details die with time and stories change.”

―

Mahmoud Darwish

"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new."

(Ursula K. Le Guin)

The question in relationships is not just 'what is true' (an infinite number of things are true, more than we will ever have time to share), it's also 'how do I want to shape the shared reality we are creating together through the truths I choose to focus on & communicate.'