MsTiara’s Thoughts

Out of the blue, his wife did a very bad thing to him and we were discussing it. Why had she done it? How could she? I said maybe there’s something you missed or forgot; some word or significant event you overlooked that triggered her selfish, cruel act. He shook his head and snapped at me, ‘No, I’m not doing that this time. I’m not going to try and search for some logical, acceptable reason because there isn’t any. What she did was wrong, that’s all: flat-out, black and white wrong. We’re always trying to find reasons to rationalize others’ awful behavior. Well, sometimes it isn’t justifiable—it’s only *bad*, pure and simple. Sometimes people are just 100% shitty and their actions prove it.’

Jonathan Carroll

From Jonathan Carroll’s blog:

An excerpt from a letter. Friends and family were discussing an extraordinary woman who, for some mysterious reason, has had only medium luck in love. Someone who knows her very well said this:

“She wants what very few people know how to give. She wants all the simple things. Not many people know how to do simple anymore. She wants grilled cheese sandwiches at home dipped in ketchup served on a paper plate, not dinner at an expensive restaurant. She wants to sit on the beach at sunset, not some far away exotic vacation. She wants a handwritten note that says I care about you, not some piece of jewelry that was financed over three years. She wants you to brush her hair, not send her to some spa for a day.

“And she wants things even simpler than that. Simple things that it seems like we have all forgotten. She wants you to hold her hand while you’re watching re-runs together on the couch. She wants you to look at her when you talk to her. So many guys have it all wrong. You think it is about where you take her and what you buy her for her birthday and for Christmas and you think it is about figuring out how her mind works. You think it is about being the best lover she ever had and you think it is about what she thinks of your career and your friends and your families and you think it is about all kinds of things that would never matter to her.

“As far as she’s concerned, you can go out with the guys as often as you like. She *wants* you to have fun and enjoy yourself. You can have a job that keeps you and calls you away from home. She wants you to be happy with your work and she wants you to succeed. You can be so-so in bed. She wants to learn your body and have you learn hers. You can be greedy and selfish and demanding from time to time. She wants to work things through with you. You can see her once a week or once a month. She just wants to make the most of the time you get together.

“What does she want? That’s what someone asked. All she wants is to be loved, simply. Just like she loves everything in her life. There is no complex formula to the way she lives. Everything for her is simple and easy because everything comes from her heart. She wants to be loved from your heart. And no one in her life has done that yet because people spend way too much time over-thinking things and over-analyzing things and doing stupid or manipulative things and finding reasons not to just love from the heart. ”

And then he got up and left. And no one said another word.

Take a moment and change perspective…

from Jonathan Carroll’s blog

“The broken guys, the sleazy creeps, the lost, the haunted, the aimless. The ones who lived like you and me once upon a time but for a million reasons left Planet Normal and now exist in an almost-touching parallel universe with its own gravity and color spectrum. Have you got a dollar, a dime, a cigarette, a light, a heart to help me–they ask, plead, demand. A hat in their lap, some of them stare at you with an extraordinary mixture of hatred and help-me in their eyes. The ones on the sidewalk or in a corner of the bustling railroad station. crouched with a hand out and their heads down, unable or unwilling to look at the world. Shakily handwritten cardboard signs on the ground in front of them. “My heart is broken. I am homeless. Will work for food.” You glance at them for a moment, maybe two. Sometimes you reach into a pocket for spare change. If they look scary or dangerous, you pick up your pace. Now and then it’s a woman. Often overweight and strangely sexless, sometimes it takes a moment to even realize it *is* a woman. Alone, these people look sullen, despondent, or dead but with a pulse. Yet when a bunch of them are standing together they are often happy and exuberant. Their mood is festive. Some of them are drunk but some not. They just seem happy being part of a group. For the moment they are among people who listen to them, people who look at them without disapproval and distrust. There is often a confidence in their eyes then. They look at you like who’s the fool now– me or you?”

Now you can go back to the world as you saw it before.

A woman sits at the table alone eating her lunch while reading. She seems separated from the noise of the world around her, quiet, unconcerned, inside herself. A man approaches her and she seems to pull in and assess at the same time as a welcoming smile crosses her face. The man says something and whatever he said seems to touch something in her as her whole being changes and she opens up and the smile now comes from her entire being rather than just a façade. They talk a couple of minutes and then the man leaves. But the woman, as she continues to eat her lunch is different; she seems to now be shining and everyone who sees her feels a bit brighter.