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Oct 28, 2020

i actually resonate with something like this.

has said several times that self-love doesn’t make any sense to her and it’s always tickled me in a way i was never able to articulate. but if i had to try...

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bosco

@selentelechia

· Oct 28, 2020

ok first pass at articulation: in some ways the idea of "self love" feels absurd to me bc some major part of me believes that love is a description of something that exists between me and someone/something that is not-me

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID

)

@QiaochuYuan

Oct 28, 2020

...i might say that people who talk about self-love seem to me to be conflating at least two things: 1) absence of self-hatred (already a big deal!) 2) reparenting child parts deprived of love

QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID

)

@QiaochuYuan

and i think the distinction between “absence of self-hatred” and “self-reparenting” matters because the former feels to me more like a steady state you can settle into long-term and the latter feels to me more “temporary” - it might take years but i think you can “finish”

8:08 PM · Oct 28, 2020Twitter for iPad

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID

Replying to

i think when everything is “flowing smoothly” the love goes where it’s needed and that might be primarily to you / your child parts for a long time but not forever. i think it’s possible to grow up child parts and move on to becoming a source of love for others

QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID

)

@QiaochuYuan

Oct 28, 2020

also i think this process can be very “non-monotonic” as

@meditationstuff

puts it, there’ll be phases where that’s easier or harder, etc. etc. and i def don’t think you have to “finish” loving yourself before loving others, the two synergize a lot

QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID

)

@QiaochuYuan

Oct 28, 2020

let me say it a totally different way: the sage on the mountain does not love himself, as with the fish in the pond, as with the bird in the sky; dancing with all things, where is the self?

Replying to

to me it just feels v different than either of those things but maybe it's just 2. At high arousal it feels like looking at a cute dog I want to just run up and play with. Low arousal kiiind of like cuddling? Totally might go away at some point, def no claims of permanence

Nick

@nickcammarata

Oct 28, 2020

it was also totally discrete and hasn't diminished (3 months?) Like one moment it wasn't there at all, now it's A Thing. I'm super afraid of making any claims because I don't know what it is other than what it feels like

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