#positive obsession

[lulacarson]

Shyness is shit. It isn’t cute or feminine or appealing. It’s torment, and it’s shit. I spent a lot of my childhood and adolescence staring at the ground. It’s a wonder I didn’t become a geologist.

Octavia Butler, Positive Obsession

[stonedsoul]

Lee and Ed are so pathetic and cringefail I'm obsessed with them

[horizontalbreaking]

"Prodigy is, at its essence, adaptability and persistent, positive obsession. Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all." -- Lauren Oya Olamina

[broughtyoubooks]

Currently powering through Butler's first quartet. I'm aiming to read through all her work in order and already loving it. Reading Positive Obsession earlier in the year set me on this track and as heavy as her works are I'm enjoying every book.

[living400lbs]

From Positive Obsession: The Life & Times of Octavia Butler by Susana M. Morris.

"Philadelphia, Mississippi, was more than a sleepy hamlet that reflected the rural everyday American Reagan was courting. The county was infamous for being the site where three civil rights activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, had been murdered in 1964.

So when Reagan arrived in Neshoba County just sixteen years later, championing “states’ rights,” the subtext was clear to Octavia. She understood the phrase “states’ rights” as a euphemism conservatives used for when they wanted to allow individual states to roll back civil liberties based on their state’s so-called specific needs. Advocating for states’ rights at the site of a lynching was a not-so-subtle declaration of how Reagan sought to govern. She feared for the nation under his rule. Octavia wrote in her journal on November 13, 1979: “Ron Reagan could win. I desparate[ly] [sic] want him not to. He is indifferent to just about all the causes important to me.”"

"Where some saw the promise of personal dignity and rugged individualism in Reagan’s message, Octavia saw a laissez-faire free-for-all that discounted community and the least among us."

Morris also points out Reagan's slogan: "Let's Make America Great Again".

[why-birds]

[benedictusantonius]

[2026|029] Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler (2025) written by Susana M. Morris

[nicolewoolaston]

My Review of Positive Obsession

Have you ever read the story of someone else’s life, and found yourself thinking, “Wow, we have a lot in common!” That’s how I felt while reading this book. There were moments, especially in the beginning, where I felt as though I was reading about myself. Even the author’s own history, which was woven into the introduction, felt familiar. Octavia E. Butler, Susana M. Morris (the author) and…

My Review of Positive Obsession