#self-absorption

[7pleiades7]

Echo and Narcissus, (detail), (1903), by John William Waterhouse RA (English, 1849–1917), oil on canvas, 109.2 × 189.2 cm, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

[onewomancitadel]

Whether an author chooses to use chapter titles is at their discretion. Given the opportunity, I would go totally ham and it would get old, so I decided to omit them and also it’s neater and I consider the title the biggest deal. Here are some draft chapter titles for Skimming Eye:

How to Not Make Eye-contact Shirtless With Your Nemesis Appearing To You By Magic

So: A Fall Maiden is Hiding in Your Room. What Next?

Now You've Gone and Blown It: How To Talk About Attempted Murder with Your Wife Bondmate

The only person whom they amuse is me.

[themotherofrevelation]

The commitment-phobe is unconcerned with the detrimental impact of his aloofness/chaotic confusion on others. Self-consumption rules the coward.

[dk-thrive]

To what purpose all this self-absorption?

Ayad Akhtar, Homeland Elegies: A Novel (Little, Brown and Company, September 15, 2020) 

[fredmalm]

We all feel like that

[pippapassed]

Take care of yourself first Delicious “I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.” Colette…

[mooneyedandglowing]

there are few things i detest more than being bothered on my lunch hour. it is one of my “thinking hours.” quite the good mood today. regular meals. all sailing smooth. i had the thought earlier with how vaguely i write, wondering how many assume it is about them + what it says about them if they do assume so much or even if they think that i have even half of my mind on for them to be able to make any good guess of its thoughts when i am spitting out words after midnight on the internet. you will know what i think when i tell you. in private. it is really the only way. everything else is just a swinging of the legs. gape. gape. gape.  i did deftly deactivate two possible conflicts though. although all of it gives me cause for concern. one concern being how much of this maturity in communication + the skills i flex are just another way i can evade discomfort (like, say, intimacy + vulnerability by a refusal to take offense or be pushed toward any strong emotion even if it be merely the strong emotion of objection) + another that is asking what is the point of any conflict that isn’t about unmet needs. i can do something about an unmet need. i can’t do anything with a difference of opinion. i hate debate. i’d rather write scathing papers back + forth than debate something in real time. i only want to share ideas.  i don’t know. i don’t know. if anything were to meet me like one thing once did. ah, there is no reason to mull over it. if only others would stop trying to preempt me (as i have learned to accept that i cannot preempt them), i think i’d feel more free.  i look at myself in judgment far more than i ever look at you in it. everything a deeper dive into the self. everything a floating thought of meaning. 

[a-few-good-books]

How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.

G. K. Chesterton