O Peso do Mundo

Simoningate

Poderia libertar-me do peso do mundo nos teus braços; 

poderia tirá-lo de cima de mim, atirá-lo para o outro lado 

da casa, para algum canto escondido; e poderia 

ficar contigo, na leveza do teu corpo, ouvindo 

o cair do tempo nalgum relógio invisível. 

O mundo, no entanto, insiste comigo. Está ali, 

no fundo da casa, com o seu peso. Espera que alguém 

pegue nele, e volte a descer a escada, curvado, como 

se tudo o que tivéssemos de fazer fosse carregá-lo 

para baixo e para cima, nestas escadas sem elevador. 

E eu, contigo, ao abraçar-te, espero que o mundo 

não se mexa no seu canto, no fundo da casa. Abraço-te 

como se o teu corpo me libertasse desse peso, como 

se ele nao estivesse à minha espera, para que o desça 

e suba por estas escadas de um prédio sem elevador. 

Mas o amor também tem o peso do mundo. E as 

palavras com que nos despedimos, antes que eu pegue nele 

e te deixe entregue à tua leveza, trazem o eco das coisas 

que atirei para o fundo da casa, onde não quero que vás, 

para que não tenhas de carregar, também tu, o peso do mundo.

Nuno Júdice

Nothing Is Promised

Ivan Ryabokon

 Work collapses 

not because it is difficult, 

but because it refuses to 

reward us on schedule, and 

most people were never prepared 

to give without being paid.

People rarely give up on work because it fails.

They give up when it doesn’t pay off right away. When effort doesn’t quickly lead to progress, recognition, or relief, excuses appear. We blame circumstances, use timing as an excuse, and call the world unfair.

But under every excuse is a simpler truth: the work was never done freely.

It always came with an expectation of reward.

Expectation quietly undermines most efforts. It often looks like motivation, ambition, or planning, but it’s really a deal we try to make with reality: I’ll give my time and effort if I get progress, recognition, or relief in return.

When reality doesn’t deliver, our effort falls apart.

Instead of reflecting, we feel resentful. The work feels unfriendly, resistance feels personal, and difficulty seems like a sign we’re on the wrong path.

That’s why most people quit.

It’s not a lack of talent that makes people stop. They just can’t stand working without immediate results or feedback. They struggle to keep going when their effort doesn’t pay off right away.

So, people start to think goals are the problem. They say goals cause pressure, disappointment, and burnout. They decide to work without goals, telling themselves they’ll create freely and explore without direction. This sounds good, even wise, but it’s not the whole story.

Getting rid of goals doesn’t make you stronger. It just takes away structure.

Working without expectations  

isn’t the same as working without demands. 

The world will still expect things from you. Time still passes, your body still gets tired, money still matters, and people will still interrupt or doubt you. Changing your mindset doesn’t make these things go away. It just shows whether you can handle them.

Many people mistake enjoyment for strength. They believe that if work entertains the soul, it will sustain itself. This is a comforting illusion. Enjoyment is a side effect, not a foundation. It appears when energy is abundant and disappears the moment resistance sharpens. 

The work that survives only when it feels good 

was never rooted deeply enough to survive reality.

Your soul isn’t something that needs constant entertainment. It either grows or weakens, depending on what you do.

Meaningful work asks for courage before it gives you pleasure. 

It asks for sacrifice before it gives you meaning. 

It asks for persistence before things become clear. 

Anyone who says otherwise isn’t being honest.

The world is not designed to accommodate your inner life. It is designed to test it.

Every serious effort runs into the same wall. Fatigue. Doubt. Isolation. The sense that you are giving more than you are receiving. This is the moment when people begin negotiating with themselves. They soften their standards. They delay. They distract. They rationalize retreat as wisdom. They say they are choosing balance, self-care, or alignment. In reality, they are choosing relief.

Relief is the enemy of becoming.

1. If you only work when conditions are favorable, you are not disciplined. You are compliant. 
2. If you only continue when progress is visible, you are not committed. You are dependent. 
3. If you only persist when the work feels meaningful, you are not strong. You are entertained.

Creation does not ask whether you feel ready. It asks whether you are willing to be strained.

There is a popular fantasy that meaningful work flows naturally from passion. 

That once you find the right thing, effort becomes light. 

This fantasy has destroyed more potential than failure ever could. 

It teaches people to abandon work the moment it becomes heavy. It trains them to interpret resistance as a sign to stop rather than a signal to deepen.

Resistance is not an error in the process. It is the process.

The individual who continues despite resistance does not do so because they are optimistic. 

They do so because stopping would be a form of self-betrayal. 

Their work is not a hobby. It is not therapy. It is not an expression of personality. 

It is a battlefield on which they test their capacity to endure.

This is where most readers grow uncomfortable. Because this way of working offers no consolation. It does not promise happiness. It does not guarantee success. It does not care about your mental narratives. It demands that you stand upright under pressure without applause.

The modern obsession with purpose misses this entirely. 

People want a reason that makes suffering acceptable. 

They want meaning to justify endurance. 

But meaning is not a prerequisite for work. 

Meaning is something that appears afterward, if at all. 

Those who wait for it in advance rarely begin.

You do not need a reason to work. You need a spine.

The work that shapes you will not align neatly with your preferences.

• It will offend parts of you.

• It will expose weaknesses you would rather keep hidden.

• It will force you to confront limits you hoped were temporary.

If your philosophy cannot survive this confrontation, it was decorative, not structural.

There is no safe version of devotion.

To continue working when the world demands something from you is not a matter of necessity. You can always quit. You can always choose something easier. Most people do. 

What distinguishes the few who persist is not obligation but affirmation.

They choose the burden and then refuse to complain about its weight.

They do not ask whether the sacrifice is worth it. 

They have already decided that not sacrificing would be worse.

This is where self-deception ends. 

You discover whether your work was an escape or a commitment. 

Whether it existed to soothe you or to transform you. 

Whether you were seeking comfort disguised as creativity or discipline disguised as freedom.

There is no purity in avoiding struggle. There is only stagnation.

Those who endure do not do so because they believe the world will reward them. They do not believe effort guarantees outcomes. They do not cling to hope as fuel. Hope is unreliable. It fluctuates. It depends on circumstances. Discipline does not.

What carries them forward is something colder and stronger. 

A refusal to shrink. 

A refusal to abandon what demands growth. 

A refusal to lie to themselves about the cost of becoming something more than they are.

This kind of work is not romantic. It does not produce inspirational quotes. It does not feel like self-expression. It feels like pressure applied over time. It feels like returning to the same task after the excitement has died and before any reward has arrived. It feels like solitude.

Most people are not prepared for solitude. 

They crave feedback. They want reassurance. 

They want signs. 

But solitude is where strength consolidates. 

Without witnesses. Without validation. 

Without the comfort of being understood.

If your work cannot survive neglect, it cannot survive reality.

The world does not owe your work attention. It does not owe its success. It does not owe it fairness. Waiting for these things is another form of expectation. 

And expectation, as always, corrodes effort.

The strongest individuals do not ask whether the world supports them. 

They ask whether they can continue regardless of the world.

This is not about grit as a personality trait. It is about orientation. About whether you measure your life by ease or by expansion. About whether you want to be comfortable or formidable.

Pleasure will come and go. 

Motivation will fade. 

Clarity will dissolve. 

What remains is the question you cannot avoid.

Can you endure the consequences of choosing what demands the most from you?

If the answer is no, then stop pretending you were ever serious. Choose something lighter. There is no shame in it. But do not dress retreat as enlightenment.

If the answer is yes, then understand what you are accepting. 

You are accepting friction. You are accepting sacrifice. You are accepting that the work will cost you more than it gives for long stretches of time. You are accepting that no philosophy will save you from fatigue.

And you are accepting this without guarantees.

This is the point where shallow interpretations collapse. Where slogans about flow, balance, and joy fail. Where only strength remains.

Work is not a means to happiness. 

It is a means of self-confrontation.

Through it, you discover what breaks you and what does not. 

Through it, you learn whether your values are aesthetic or embodied. 

Through it, you either harden or hollow.

The question is not whether the work will succeed. 

The question is whether you will survive it without diminishing yourself.

Those who do are changed. Not made gentler. Made sharper. Less dependent on outcomes. Less impressed by comfort. Less eager for approval. 

They move differently. They work differently. They stop asking for permission from the world.

They do not need goals to threaten them into action. They do not need pleasure to seduce them into continuation. They do not need meaning to console them.

They work because this is how they remain intact.

Everything else is noise.

And most people will hate this. Because it offers no shortcuts. Because it exposes how much of their thinking is designed to protect them from effort. Because it refuses to reassure them that they are fine as they are.

That is precisely why it matters.

If something in you resists this, pay attention. 

Resistance is honest. It tells you exactly where the work begins.

in, Nietzsche Wisdoms

Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong

Alexandra Saper

 

Ocean, don’t be afraid.

The end of the road is so far ahead

it is already behind us.

Don’t worry. Your father is only your father

until one of you forgets. Like how the spine

won’t remember its wings

no matter how many times our knees

kiss the pavement. Ocean,

are you listening? The most beautiful part

of your body is wherever

your mother's shadow falls.

Here's the house with childhood

whittled down to a single red trip wire.

Don't worry. Just call it horizon

& you'll never reach it.

Here's today. Jump. I promise it's not

a lifeboat. Here's the man

whose arms are wide enough to gather

your leaving. & here the moment,

just after the lights go out, when you can still see

the faint torch between his legs.

How you use it again & again

to find your own hands.

You asked for a second chance

& are given a mouth to empty out of.

Don't be afraid, the gunfire

is only the sound of people

trying to live a little longer

& failing. Ocean. Ocean —

get up. The most beautiful part of your body

is where it's headed. & remember,

loneliness is still time spent

with the world. Here's

the room with everyone in it.

Your dead friends passing

through you like wind

through a wind chime. Here's a desk

with the gimp leg & a brick

to make it last. Yes, here's a room

so warm & blood-close,

I swear, you will wake —

& mistake these walls

for skin.

Ocean Vuong 

in, Night Sky With Exit Wounds 

Dive In

In this tender poem of healing, care and remembrance, Ocean Vuong reaches out to his younger self.

1. The poet uses his own name several times, addressing his younger self. What effect does this repetition have on your reading of the poem? How do you think the poem would be different if it were written in the first person “I” voice?

2. What do you think it means for a poem to be “embodied?” What about a memory? Pause for a moment and close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Inhale deeply, in through your nose and out through your mouth. If you had to draw a map of emotions over your body, where in your body would you locate loneliness, envy, joy, sadness, anger? Write a line for each of those feelings without naming them. Instead, focusing on the sensations and place in your body where you feel them. See if your partner or other classmates can identify which feeling you were trying to convey. Remember, there is no right or wrong answer!

3. Which images in the poem do you find most stimulating, surprising, evocative, memorable, touching, meaningful? What are your personal associations with those images?

4. Find three examples in the poem of short lines in the imperative voice (i.e., telling someone what to do: “Stand up. Sit down.”). How does the mix of short and long lines affect your reading of the poem when you read it out loud? Which lines cause you to speed up and which ones force you to slow down? Why do you think the poet chose this effect?

5. Who are the other people in the poem? What does the poem suggest about the speaker’s relationships to them, and possibly about different aspects of his own identity (race, class, gender, sexuality)?

6. What does the poem suggest about the younger Ocean’s community and home environment? What sensory images (colours, smells, sounds, textures, tastes) bring them to life without actually telling us?

7. Imagine yourself at a younger age. Make some notes about your life at that time. What fears did you have? What personal challenges did you face, external (at home, at school) or internal (emotionally, personally)? What brought you joy and excitement? What did you struggle with? What do you think you were learning? Now, write a love poem to your younger self, offering them kindness, compassion and reassurance. Put your own name in the poem, and repeat it a few times in your poem, as you would if you were addressing a younger child. Make sure to include varying sentence lengths, including short imperatives (e.g. “Don’t worry,” or “Take your time.”). Title the poem, “Someday I’ll Love ________ (your name)”

 

O Imperador da Alegria

Numa noite chuvosa de fim de verão, Hai, um jovem imigrante vietnamita de 19 anos, está numa ponte em East Gladness, uma cidadezinha fictícia esquecida no interior de Connecticut, prestes a saltar. 

Do outro lado do rio, porém, ouve alguém a gritar do outro lado do rio, o que o impede de saltar — é Grazina Vitkus, uma refugiada lituana da Segunda Guerra Mundial, com 80 anos. 

Grazina oferece alojamento a Hai em troca da sua ajuda a lembrar-se de tomar a medicação, e a amizade sincera entre ambos ilumina o mundo cru e árido que habitam. 

Sem rumo e sem opções, eHai torna-se seu cuidador e, ao longo de um ano, esse laço passa a ser uma conexão improvável entre duas pessoas à deriva, e que dá início a uma relação que se transforma num frágil pacto de sobrevivência mútua. e que tem o poder de mudar a relação de Hai consigo próprio, com a família e com uma comunidade à beira do colapso.

Hai e Grazina revivem frequentemente a guerra através de encenações de batalhas que se aproximam de cenas de violência real, mas que são “tão parecidas com o inferno que parecem falsas”, como “gemidos de sangue coagulado enquanto ela ri e sopra fumo do dedo torto erguido…” 

Este livro é uma história sobre aqueles que vivem à margem da sociedade — jovens, velhos, imigrantes, pobres, viciados —, descartados pelo sonho americano e relegados aos bastidores do progresso. Ocean Vuong transforma esses esquecidos em protagonistas de beleza pungente, capturando momentos de conexão humana no meio do colapso económico, da rotina esmagadora do trabalho, das minúsculas perdas diárias e da insistência em, apesar de tudo, continuar a viver.

Vuong revela como a dor compartilhada pode abrir espaço para a ternura e o pertencimento, mesmo entre aqueles que o mundo insiste em esquecer. Aqui, não há idealizações, apenas a verdade crua e bela do que significa seguir em frente. Uma história sobre segundas oportunidades — não como milagres, mas como mínimos atos de coragem diária, que capta as esperanças e desilusões das pessoas que vivem na América contemporânea.

É um livro impressionante... 

Seguindo os ciclos da história, da memória e do tempo, O Imperador da Alegria revela as formas profundas como o amor, o trabalho e a solidão constituem a base da vida. 

No seu centro está uma corajosa epopeia sobre o que significa existir nas margens da sociedade e confrontar as feridas que se abrem na nossa alma coletiva.

É uma história de perda e esperança, sem sentimentalismos, sobre a dificuldade que temos para alcançar uma das misericórdias mais fugazes da vida: uma segunda oportunidade. 

Neste romance, sente-se intensamente a dureza de uma sociedade capitalista. O dinheiro – ou, mais precisamente, a necessidade crescente dele para sobreviver – é um motivo recorrente. 

Quando Hai começa a trabalhar na HomeMarket — uma popular cadeia de fast food — faz um turno experimental de cerca de quatro horas, mas quase não é remunerado, porque Sony, primo de Hai, diz a brincar que se esqueceu de registar a sua presença. 

Sony finge que o pai, que combateu no exército do Vietname do Sul, ainda está vivo. 

Hai e Grazina lutam para enterrar os respetivos passados traumáticos: Grazina sofre de demência, mas por vezes recorda as atrocidades da guerra na Lituânia, como o momento em que implorou aos soldados para pouparem a sua família, e por vezes dorme com uma nota de dólar pendurada sobre a cama. A decisão de narrar o pós-guerra, particularmente através das vidas fragmentadas dos imigrantes, é um ato de resistência contra a indiferença política.

The Emperor of Gladness não é uma história onde os sonhos se realizam. 

Antes, trata-se da honestidade e generosidade que estas personagens conseguem oferecer, e da sua capacidade de se manterem firmes apesar das pressões de uma sociedade implacável, repleta de divisões raciais e políticas. 

Em última análise, a vitória não está em mudanças concretas, mas no modo como constroem uma família escolhida onde são compreendidos por aquilo que realmente são.

A HomeMarket funciona tanto como espaço físico como metafórico — um local onde a vida laboral e o consumo quotidiano se repetem, alimentando a sociedade com comida industrializada e artificial, ao mesmo tempo que o slogan publicitário promete “Dia de Ação de Graças todos os dias do ano.” 

Em termos mais amplos, há muito por explorar em East Gladness enquanto metáfora espacial e tudo o que diz sobre as pessoas comuns enquanto cidadãos entre a esperança e a desilusão: 

“Se procurares a Felicidade e falhares, nos encontrarás. Pois chamam-nos East Gladness, uma terra rebatizada em honra de um rapaz que voltou da Grande Guerra sem pernas e se tornou herói — prova de que se pode perder quase tudo neste país e ainda assim ganhar uma cidade inteira.”

Hai foi criado pela mãe, avó e tia Kim, “mulheres iliteradas poupadas pela guerra no corpo, mas não na mente.” A mãe trabalha num salão de beleza e, segundo Hai, está “presa no nível treze” do Tetris “há mais de um ano.” Ele abandona a universidade e torna-se dependente de drogas. Impulsionado pelas suas ambições frustradas, Hai decide sair de casa, mentindo à mãe ao dizer que foi aceite numa faculdade de medicina em Boston, mentira que a enche de orgulho.

TUDO ISTO É AUTO-BIOGRÁFICO, e aconteceu na vida de Ocean Vuong.

Nasceu Vương Quốc Vinh em 1988, na Cidade de Hồ Chí Minh no Vietname.

É filho de uma mulher vietnamita que não sabe ler nem escrever, nem vietnamita nem inglês, e de um pai norte-americano. 

A avó materna cresceu no interior do Vietname e o avô era um soldado branco da Marinha americana, originário do Michigan. Seus avós conheceram-se durante a Guerra do Vietname, casaram-se e tiveram três filhos, incluindo a mãe de Vuong. 

O avô voltou para visitar a família nos Estados Unidos, mas não pôde retornar quando Saigon caiu nas mãos das forças comunistas. Foi então que a avó separou a sua mãe e tias em orfanatos, preocupada com a sobrevivência delas. 

Fugiram do Vietname depois de um agente da polícia suspeitar que a sua mãe era de ascendência mista, deixando-a propensa à discriminação pelas políticas laborais do regime da época.

Foi com dois anos de idade para um Campo de Refugiados nas Filipinas, com a mãe e as tias, até conseguirem asilo nos EUA, na cidade de Hartford no Connecticut, com seis parentes. 

Vuong, que suspeita que a dislexia é hereditária, foi o primeiro na sua família a aprender a ler e a escrever, aos onze anos. Aos 15 anos, Vuong trabalhava ilegalmente numa fazenda de tabaco e, mais tarde descreveria as suas experiências na fazenda, no seu primeiro romance On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.

Estudou no Manchester Community College no Connecticut, e depois foi para a Universidade Pace, em Nova Iorque, para estudar marketing. Ficou lá apenas algumas semanas antes que ele entendesse que "não era para ele" e foi viver como sem abrigo para a estação de comboios por vergonha de voltar para casa sem a licenciatura, o que ia desapontar demasiado a sua mãe. 

Na estação dos comboios, com 19 anos, encontrou um antigo colega da Universidade Pace, que era refugiado como ele, e contou-lhe a verdade e ele disse-lhe que tinha uma avó com demência e que precisava de alguém para ir viver com ela para a ajudar com a medicação e as compras para a casa. 

Vuong foi viver com a avó desse rapaz refugiado lituano, com quem mais tarde se casou, e matriculou-se no Brooklyn College, da Universidade da Cidade de Nova Iorque, onde estudou literatura inglesa do século XIX com o poeta e romancista Ben Lerner, e recebeu o seu M.B.A. em inglês, e recebeu o seu M.F.A. em poesia pela Universidade de Nova Iorque.

Vuong descreve-se como tendo sido criado por mulheres. 

Durante uma conversa com uma cliente da sua mãe, que era manicure num salão de cabeleireiro, manifestou vontade de ir à praia, e pronunciou a palavra “beach” como “bitch”. A cliente sugeriu que ele usasse a palavra “ocean” em vez de “beach”. A Mãe, depois de aprender a definição da palavra "ocean" - o corpo de água classificado mais massivo, como o Oceano Pacífico, que liga os Estados Unidos e o Vietname - passou a tratar o filho por Ocean.

O pai de Vuong, soldado norte-americano, abandonou a mãe quando ele nasceu.

Quando a mãe estava com cancro em fase terminal, Vuong telefonou ao Pai, que vivia em Los Angeles, e ele foi de imediato para se despedir dela ainda em vida. Foi nesse dia que Vuong conheceu o pai, e depois da mãe morrer em 2019, passaram a estar em contacto. 

Vuong escreveu vários poemas dedicados ao Pai.

O poema “DetoNation” é emblemático da contradição que encerra a identidade de Ocean Vuong. O título do poema em si já pode ser traduzido com pouco prejuízo para “DetoNação”. O título funciona como um retrato dos EUA à época da ocupação no Vietname. Uma “Nação” que se identifica facilmente com “Detonação” – “DetoNação”. O primeiro dístico anuncia: “Tem uma piada que acaba com – ãhn?/ É a bomba dizendo aqui está o seu pai”. O pai e a “DetoNação” são associadas e são realmente a pátria do poeta. Tratam-se de dois versos que já nos levam num passeio por uma gama de narrativas no eixo pai-pátria-guerra.

A figura do pai aparece ainda noutros poemas, como em “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” (“Na Terra Somos Brevemente Deslumbrantes”), título também usado para o seu primeiro romance. Uma estrofe do poema parece retratar violência doméstica e faz mais uma associação com a figura paterna.

Comparado com o primeiro romance de Vuong, On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, The Emperor of Gladness foca-se mais no presente do que no passado, privilegiando as personagens em detrimento de uma única subjetividade narrativa, conduzindo-nos de volta à humanidade através da resiliência e da esperança dos protagonistas.

Filho de mãe vietnamita e pai americano, Ocean Vuong carrega consigo duas grandes heranças. 

A sua poesia revela a contradição de identificar-se com o povo asiático, entender muito de suas tradições e, simultaneamente, ver-se como um homem americano e, mais do que isso, esforçar-se para a sua literatura entrar no rol de obras da tradição americana. A Guerra do Vietname não pode deixar de marcar a narrativa pessoal e a obra do autor e, os seus poemas apresentam estes traços.

Vuong mora em Northampton, Massachusetts, com o seu marido, Peter Bienkowski.

EXCERTOS DO LIVRO:

"The hardest thing in the world is to live only once.

But it’s beautiful here, even the ghosts agree. 

Mornings, when the light rinses this place the shade of oatmeal, they rise as mist over the rye across the tracks and stumble toward the black-spired pines searching for their names, names that no longer live in any living thing’s mouth. Our town is raised up from a scab of land along a river in New England. When the prehistoric glaciers melted, the valley became a world-sized lake, and when that dried up it left a silvery trickle along the basin called the Connecticut: Algonquin for “long tidal river.” The sediment here is rich with every particle welcoming to life. As you approach, you’ll be flanked by wide stretches of thumb-sized buds shooting lucent through April mud. Within months these saplings will stand as packed rows of broadleaf tobacco and silver queen corn. Beyond the graveyard whose stones have lost their names to years, there’s a covered bridge laid over a dried-up brook whose memory of water never reached this century. Cross that and you’ll find us. Turn right at Conway’s Sugar Shack, gutted and shuttered, with windows blown out and the wooden sign that reads WE SWEETEN SOON AS THE CROCUS BLOOM, rubbed to braille by wind. In spring the cherry blossoms foam across the county from every patch of green unclaimed by farms or strip malls. They came to us from centuries of shit, dropped over this place by geese whenever summer beckons their hollow bones north."

“Because to remember is to fill the present with the past, which meant that the cost of remembering anything, anything at all, is life itself. We murder ourselves, he thought, by remembering. The idea made him sick. And without knowledge of his own legs moving beneath him, he crossed the hall to his bedroom, fished the contact lens case from his jacket pocket, and, having been sober for forty-seven days, tossed the Perc and codeines back in one gulp, then returned to where Grazina lay slumped in the jeep. “Good night,” he said, but then saw her lips moving. “What’s that?” He crouched down. “I said…” She swallowed and blinked. “We made it.” “We made it?” he asked.”

“Okay.” Hai nodded, but his mind was somewhere else. “Hey. Do you think a life you can’t remember is still a good life?” The question sounded almost silly aloud. “I mean, like—” “Yes,” said Sony. “Why’s that?” “Because someone else will remember it.”

“To be alive and try to be a decent person, and not turn into anything big or grand, that's the hardest thing of all. You think being president is hard? Ha. Don't you see that every president becomes a millionaire after he leaves office? If you can be nobody, and stand on your own two feet for as long as I have, that's enough. Look at my girl, all that talent and for what, just to drown in Bud Light?" [...] "People don't know what's enough, Labas. That's their problem. They think they suffer, but they're really just bored. They don't eat enough carrots.”

“You see, carrots become bright orange because it’s so dark in the ground. They make their own light because the sun never reaches that far—like those fish in the ocean who glow from nothing? So when you eat it, you take in the carrot’s will to go upward. To heaven.”

“How strange to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found in here of all places, at the end of a road of ruined houses by a toxic river. That among a pile of salvaged trash, he would come closest to all he ever wanted to be: a consciousness sitting under a light-bulb reading his days away, warm and alone, alone and yet, somehow, still somebody's son.”

“The prisons and madhouses have locked them up, so you think you’re the only one out there losing your mind when in fact there are many like you, trapped in this supposedly free world of work and sleep and endless fucking cakes.”

“What good is beauty, any beauty, if nobody wins?”

“Words cast spells. You should know this as a writer. That's why it's called spelling, Labas.”

“But where was she going? She was going to a place where freedom is promised yet made possible only by a contained egalitarian space fashioned with walls and locks, where measured nourishment is delivered each day through long corridors by staff born from a never-ending elsewhere who forgo watching their own children grow up in order to watch strangers grow old, all this to keep you alive so they can suck up money from your bank account while you’re warm, immobilized by tranquilizers, and satiated and numb, a body ripe for harvest even beyond ripening. She was heading to America after all. The truest version of it. The one where everyone pays to be here.”

“You say I'm so smart, right? Cause I went to college and all that? Then listen to me." He put both hands on Sony's shoulders. "Most people are soft and scared. They're fucking mushy. We are a mushy species. You talk to anybody for more than half an hour and you realize everything they do is a sham to keep themselves from falling apart. From prison guards to teachers, to managers, psychiatrists, even fathers, anybody - even your stupid generals. People put on this facade of strength. They act like they have a purpose and a mission and their whole life is supposed to lead to this grand fucking thesis of who they are.”

“He wanted too much of one feeling—and I guess his heart gave out because of it. I don’t think we’re made to hold too much of any one thing.”

“Somebody goes ahead and dies and all of a sudden you become a box for them, he thought, you store these things that no one has ever seen and you go on living like that, your head a coffin to keep memories of the dead alive. But what do you do with that kind of box? Where do you put it down?”

“It was one of those friendships that came on quick, like the heat on a July day, and long after midnight you could still feel its sticky film on your skin as you lie awake in your room, the fan blowing in what remained of the scorched hours, and realize for the first time in your peep of a life that no one is ever truly alone.”

“So on summer evenings, when summer finally came, and the full moon lit the fields so silver, you could squint and it would still look just like it did after snowfall. On those nights, Noah and I would run together through the tobacco, like this. And there was this mighty clear sky full of stars that made you stop and look up, you head empty as a ladle as you tried to locate yourself inside an immeasurable universe. And no one knows where you are and you feel, for a tiny second, that you have no parents, that they never existed at all, which is impossible and shameful to love, but I did. I loved that feeling.”

“People aren’t so bad. They’re just wounded little kids trying to heal.

And that makes them tell each other stupid stories," he said softly.”

“The boys had this way of knowing what the other was thinking without ever using words. "Because it's like that when you're fourteen," he said. The superpower of being young is that you're closest to being nothing - which is also the same as being very old.”

“What you see might not always be what you feel. And what you feel may no longer be real.”

“Look, I have it too. It's just like the weather. Like clouds and rain and stuff. They go away. But some of us spend more time in London, you know? Or Seattle. You're just raining right now.”

“Listen here, this country," she lowered her voice, "was purposefully built on war. The reptilians shape-shift into politicians and celebrities, then use these puppets to start wars so they never run out of bad energy to consume. Don't you get it? War is fertilizer for their crops.”

“With money I earned by myself, I gave my daughter a room just so she can read in peace for a day. And I sat there and watched her read, sipping a scotch from the bar. And I cried like a baby. And Lina, my little Lina, she said, 'Mama, why are you crying?' And I said, ' I know how God feels now.”

“At one point Hai opened the window to let the spring in, and it seemed to lift everyone inside, their heads leaning back to relish the sweet-scented flourish. Only in springtime, it seemed, does gravity work backward here, the dandelion pollen rising in great squalls, the flower buds shooting up, further from the ground, as if pulled by the sky's sudden need for them, all of it under the crisp brilliance of April sunlight. Watching this, Hai felt himself displaced by a wild, untenable gratitude.”

“How is it that we have become so certain that the sight of years, the summation of decades, should inflict such violence on the viewer - including family - that we have built entire fortresses to keep such bodies out of sight?”

“Everything else, what I do, what I've done, the goals and the promises, they're all, like, ghosts. For most people, their ghost is inside them, waiting to float out when they die. But my ghost is in pieces." He pointed with his chin at the scattered trees. "It's all over the place, caught in all the spots where I snagged myself.”

“How strange to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found here of all places, at the end of a road of ruined house by a toxic river. That among a pile of salvaged trash, he would come closest to all he ever wanted to be: a consciousness sitting under a lightbulb reading his days away, warm and alone, alone and yet, somehow, still somebody's son.”

“No one in his life knew he had such a friend until now, until Sergeant Pepper told her. Somebody goes ahead and dies and all of a sudden you become a box for them, he thought, you store these things that no one has ever seen and you go on living like that, your head a coffin to keep memories of the dead alive. But what do you do with that kind of box? Where do you put it down?”

Modern Love

Thinkstock

 And what is love? It is a doll dress’d up

For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;

A thing of soft misnomers, so divine

That silly youth doth think to make itself

Divine by loving, and so goes on

Yawning and doting a whole summer long,

Till Miss’s comb is made a pearl tiara,

And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;

Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,

And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.

Fools! if some passions high have warm’d the world,

If Queens and Soldiers have play’d deep for hearts,

It is no reason why such agonies

Should be more common than the growth of weeds.

Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl

The Queen of Egypt melted, and I’ll say

That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

 John Keats

The Psychology of Dating Your Type and Why It Holds You Back

 

How to understand 

your relationship patterns and 

stop repeating them.

If dating your “type” worked, it would have worked by now.

You’d be in a relationship, or at least not stuck repeating the same pattern with a different partner.

Maybe you feel like you, 

1. “can’t fake chemistry,” 
2. “know what I like,” 
3. “only click with certain types of people,” 
4. “trust my gut,”  
5. “I’m just wired this way.”

I’ve heard them all from clients. 

Every single one is an excuse. 

They’re all ways to justify current behavior. All they’re saying is, 

“I like what I already know and am not willing to change.” Or more simply, “I have a ‘type’ and I’m sticking to it.”

How’s that working out for you? 

If it was going to land you in an amazing relationship (that actually lasted), shouldn’t it happened already?

And the most important question of all, that people should REALLY be asking, 

“Is dating your type really what’s best for you?”

At some point, “the heart wants what it wants” starts to sound a lot like the definition of insanity: 

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Here’s the harsh truth: 

Your nervous system isn’t optimized for long-term happiness. 

It’s optimized for what feels familiar (which feels safe). 

Sometimes, what’s familiar is actually toxic.

Focusing on your “type” can not only direct you to the exact wrong person, but it also makes it harder to notice the right person when they show up.

All of which leaves you stuck, alone, or both. 

• How your “type” quietly forms, and why it’s usually a comfort pattern, not real compatibility.

• The psychological reason chemistry and “sparks” can be a red flag rather than a green one.

• How your type narrows your dating pool and creates tunnel vision without you realizing it.

• Why surface-level traits create false positives and keep leading to the same disappointing outcomes.

1. Are You Choosing Partners or Repeating Patterns? 

The Toxic Familiarity Trap

A “type” is a preference, but ironically that people seem to believe they don’t have much choice about. Psychologically, it’s more accurate to call it a subconscious comfort zone.

Your “type” is familiar, predictable, and emotionally recognizable.

That doesn’t mean it’s helpful.

We often confuse familiarity with safety. 

But what feels familiar relies on your previous experiences, even when those experiences were unhealthy. When previous relationships were chaotic, distant, or unfulfilling, that’s what feels typical. That’s toxic familiarity, or the tendency to seek out or tolerate emotional patterns that feel normal, even when they hurt.

Dysfunction matches expectations, so it feels “right” and your nervous system feels comfortable. 

More than that, disruption feels like a necessary condition for sparks. What you call chemistry, butterflies, or “clicking” with someone may not be attraction at all, it may be your body registering uncertainty, fear, or emotional risk. That adrenaline rush doesn’t mean “they’re the one.” It often means “this feels familiar.”

2. What You’re Looking For Is Hiding What You Need

Focus is powerful determinant of your future. 

When you feel like you know what you want, you get hyper-focused on blocking out distractions.

“Life” isn’t one absolute or predetermined thing.

“Life” is where you focus your energy, your attention, and love.

In some contexts that’s helpful. 

But in dating, that focus has a downside: inattentional blindness. 

In a well-known psychology study, participants counted how many times a basketball was passed between players. Most people were so focused on the counting task that they completely miss a person in a gorilla suit walking through the scene. While that seems impossible, it demonstrates the power of focus.

Looking for one thing, forces you to not see something obvious. 

When you only look for one type of romantic partner, you miss everyone else.

Your tunnel vision lies to you by making other options invisible.

When you do notice them, the emotionally steady person feels boring. The kind person feels like there’s “no spark.” The secure person gives off “friend vibes.”

What you’re missing may be exactly what you need.

3. “I Know What I Like”: A Case Study in Self-Sabotage

There’s another, less romantic, way to look at your “type.”

A “type” is really just a rigid set rules. 

Worse, they’re a collection of “must-haves” that we’re not even sure leads to long-term relationship success.

Quick story…recently I met a single guy who is in his late 50’s and living in New Jersey. When he found out that I research relationships, he started telling me about his love life (this happens ALL THE TIME).

Really, what he wanted to do was complain. His main grievance was that there were “no good people left to date.”

Skeptical? You should be.

He explains that he has a type just like anyone. 

I asked him what his “type” was. 

Here’s what he said: between 5’8” and 5’11”, Italian looking, athletic (not too skinny or overweight), no kids, successful, family oriented, lots of free time to travel (he was retiring soon).

I could see his issue immediately. 

His “type” was a unicorn, fun to imagine, unlikely to exist.

Was he justified in wanting a partner to have any one of those qualities individually? Absolutely.

Each, by itself, was reasonable. But the combination was killing his chances of finding love. 

Finding someone who simultaneously is family oriented, but doesn’t have kids is hard. 

Similarly, successful people are often that way because they work a lot, making having a lot of free time difficult.

In other words, he was narrowing the field so much that connection becomes statistically rare or practically impossible. He was failing at dating not because of lack of options, but because he was filtering himself out of opportunities.

I authentically wanted to help this guy, so I said, 

“that all sounds great, but it’s a tough combo.” His response? 

“I know what I like and can’t fake chemistry. I’m not going to settle for someone who’s not my type.”

As an outsider, the solution is obvious….ditch the type.

4. The Problem With Your Type: It Optimizes for Attraction, Not Happiness

Take a quick look back at how that guy described his type. 

A LOT of it is actually pretty superficial.

You could chalk it up to men being kinda gross and obsessed about looks. But that’s not really fair (or accurate). Everyone cares about their romantic partner’s appearance and attractiveness. For some it’s about an athletic build or height, while for others it’s about facial hair, tattoos, piercings, a “bad boy” or “good girl” look. We also care about how much money someone makes, how successful or high-status they are, or what stuff they have (houses, cars, watches, shoes, number of followers on Instagram, etc.).

The big problem, is that most “my type” traits are surface-level, appearance-based, and dopamine-driven. Remember, dopamine isn’t actually about happiness, it’s about pursuit and anticipation (Are you a dopamine dater?).

Dopamine fuels wanting, not fulfillment.

Those “my type” qualities don’t have anything to do with long-term relationship fulfillment. 

Instead, “type” favors chemistry over authentic compatibility.

However, if you define your “type” as someone who is kind, caring, and supportive, while making you feel seen, heard, and understood, I’m fully endorse you using your “type” to direct all future relationship decisions. Unfortunately, that’s not how anyone defines their “type.”

5. Your “Type” is a Relic

There’s a reason why your “type” isn’t a collection of high character characteristics (and it’s something no one considers).

You established your type at the wrong time in your life.

You likely found your type early in your dating history. Back then, you didn’t know yourself very well (or at least not as well as you do now). You had limited experience. You didn’t know what when into a great relationship. You were more unsure of yourself, and unfortunately willing to accept less.

And sometimes, your type is a “fixer-upper” or “project partner” because at that time you needed something to do, someone to fix, chase, prove yourself to, or feel needed by. The emotionally unavailable partner. The mysterious one. The standoffish one. The one who needs work. Each type, takes the emphasis off of you and your issues. That worked back then, and may have served a purpose.

However, your needs have changed. 

Your values have shifted. 

Your boundaries have improved. 

Your standards in other areas of life have evolved.

 

So why should what you were drawn to back then still dictate your choices now?

Researchers refer to this as cognitive entrenchment, mental rigidity that makes it hard to update beliefs even when evidence suggests they’re no longer serving you (Dane, 2010). 

When you frame it that way, your type starts to look a lot less romantic, and a lot more stubbornly useless.

6. Your “Type” is a Convenient Default: Why Most People Aren’t Really Choosing at All

Finding a partner is hard. 

Sorting through the options, meeting people, having awkward conversations, and waiting to see if it was all worth it takes a lot of effort.

No one wants dating to feel like work, so they wing it. 

Most people don’t date with any strategy. They’re not intentional and instead leave it up to the other person, or to fate. That might sounds romantic, but it’s actually reckless.

That’s because your “type” determines your dating pool. 

You may think you’re a “bad picker” but if you consistently choose from the wrong pool, you’ll consistently get bad results.

A business can’t be successful if they hire from a terrible applicant pool. 

Dating works the same way.

That’s good news, because it’s one of the few parts of dating that’s actually under your control.

Conclusion

If what you’re doing worked, it would have worked by now. 

Breaking up with your type might be the most productive dating decision you ever make.

Dr. Gary W. Lewandowski Jr.

Prayer for an Invitation

 I pray for you, world

to come and find me,

to see me and recognize me

and beckon me out,

to call me

even when I lose

the ability to call on

you who have searched

so long for me.

I pray to understand

the stranger inside me

who will emerge in the end

to take your gift.

I pray for the world

to find me

in its own wise way.

I pray to be wanted

and needed

by those I have

learned to love

and those

I must learn to love.

I pray to be wanted

and needed

by those I cannot

recognize

in my self-imposed

aloneness.

And

I pray to be wanted

and needed

by those

I wish to be wanted by.

But I acknowledge

the power of your beautiful

disguise, and I ask

for the patient heart

of all things

to understand

the uncertain, abiding

and intimate invitation

in my fear of leaving,

in my fear of arriving,

in my fear of taking your hand

to follow

that hidden, difficult

and forever beckoning way.

David Whyte

in, The Bell and the Blackbird 

Jung’s Brutal Insight: If You Feel Lonely and “Unneeded,” It’s Not Because You Don’t Matter

Most people who feel lonely believe the same quiet lie.

“If I mattered more, someone would need me.”

They don’t say it out loud.

They don’t even fully admit it to themselves.

But it shows up everywhere:

• Over-giving in relationships

• Staying useful instead of being honest

• Saying yes when their body screams no

• Feeling invisible the moment they stop helping

Loneliness, in this form, isn’t loud.

It’s heavy.

It’s humiliating.

And it slowly convinces you that your existence only has value when it’s useful to others.

Carl Jung would say something chilling here:

This kind of loneliness is not caused by lack of importance—but by a fractured relationship with the Self.

And that changes everything.

The Lie That Keeps You Trapped

Modern culture teaches a seductive equation:

Being needed = being valuable

So you become indispensable.

The reliable one.

The emotional support.

The fixer.

The one who always replies fast.

The one who never asks for too much.

And yet—

the more needed you become, the lonelier you feel.

This is the first psychological paradox Jung warned about:

When your identity is built on being needed, you are never truly seen—only used.

Not maliciously.

Not intentionally.

But inevitably.

Because need is not intimacy.

And usefulness is not connection.

Jung’s Uncomfortable Diagnosis

Jung believed that the deepest loneliness doesn’t come from being alone.

It comes from living in a persona—a mask designed to secure belonging.

• The “good daughter.”
• The “strong friend.”
• The “low-maintenance partner.”
• The “always helpful colleague.”

You think this mask protects you from abandonment.

In reality, it guarantees it.

Because the world cannot need you

if it has never met you.

So when people drift away, you don’t just feel sad.

You feel erased.

And that’s where the panic begins.

A Case Jung Would Instantly Recognize

Let’s call her Emily.

Emily is admired. Trusted. Appreciated.

She’s the person everyone calls during a crisis.

The one who remembers birthdays.

The one who listens without interrupting.

But when Emily stopped initiating for a few weeks, something terrifying happened.

No one checked in.

She wasn’t abandoned.

She simply disappeared from the emotional map.

And her first thought wasn’t anger.

It was this:

“Maybe I was only useful. Maybe that’s all I am.”

Jung would call this a collapse of the false self.

Painful—but necessary.

The Brutal Insight Most People Resist

Here is Jung’s most disturbing truth:

Feeling “unneeded” is often the first sign that your soul is demanding a more authentic life.

Loneliness appears not to punish you—

but to interrupt a life built entirely around external validation.

When you stop being needed, the psyche forces a terrifying question:

If I am not useful… who am I?

Most people run from this question.

They rush to become helpful again.

Busy again.

Indispensable again.

And the loneliness deepens.

Why This Phase Feels So Anxious

This is where the fear spikes.

Because being needed gives you certainty.

Being authentic gives you nothing—at first.

No guarantees.

No applause.

No immediate belonging.

Jung called this stage the desert of individuation.

You are no longer who you pretended to be.

But you are not yet who you are becoming.

And the loneliness here is sharp.

But it is also honest.

The Cognitive Reversal That Changes Everything

Here is the reversal most people never reach:

You are not lonely because no one needs you.

You are lonely because you were never allowed to exist without being needed.

When you stop performing usefulness, something extraordinary happens—slowly.

The wrong connections fall silent.

The transactional relationships dissolve.

The emotional parasites lose interest.

And then—unexpectedly—

Someone stays.

Not because you help.

Not because you fix.

Not because you give.

But because you are.

That is real belonging.

And it cannot be rushed.

Jung’s Final Warning—and Promise

Jung warned that people who avoid this loneliness pay a higher price later:

• Chronic emptiness
• Resentment
• Emotional burnout
• A life that looks full but feels hollow

But he also offered hope:

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself.”

The moment you stop trying to be needed,

you begin the terrifying, liberating work of being known.

And that is when loneliness—finally—starts to loosen its grip.

Zenya

in, Light of Mindfulness