I've taken the survey. Possibly my first activity here this year

Interested. Already have 2 kids. Live in Poland and would like to stay in Europe.

Room full of first year pedagogy students, lecturer puts a claim "marxism is not the philosophy of Marx." He explains how marxists distorted original Marx' thought and how the original claims are so great and describe the world and how they should be followed.

If I was generous, I would say he wanted the students to argue, he wanted them to think critically and disprove his weak argument, but he had experience with students and those were 18-year-olds, who would always try to shut down my questions for explanations "because we want to have this lecture finished". The way it worked, for next two weeks all girls in my group (exept for one other older student) were avid, bona fide marxists. And likely spread this ideology to their families.

3 is happening in real life.

This article made me realize how far I've gone in healing myself. My mother abused me. As a coping mechanism when I was about 15 years old I became disattached from pretty much everything I have/can have, in order to not feel much of a loss when it is taken from me. In order not to grieve.

And the fragment about two kinds of grief after a relationship ended made it even more clear. I never imagine the future. I tell myself I live so much in the present that it just doesn't occur to me, but the thing is that I learned not to. Because anything I imagine or want - can be taken away from me, and I would look stupid for being angry at the world/fate for taking away from me something that was not even yet mine. There are parts of my life where this seems a reasonable thing to do, for example my son has a diagnosis of a genetic disease that kills 90% of affected people in infancy. He's almost 7 years old, so he's already an outlier. Any day the disease can activate and the dying will start. Not planning a future for and with him feels reasonable. In autumn I finally visited local association of deaf people with a vague intention of giving him a community, in which he'll be able to feel compatible in the future, but that doesn't count as a plan. It's a vague intention. "I'll put him in one place with the people that are a bit more like him than me and he'll have a better chance of fitting in".

Last year, for the first time in my life I bought for Tadek and me a week-long holiday in Greece. And when it was close to the end, I started planning: I want to do that again, maybe a bit closer to the season than mid-May. And in two years I want to take the kids with us for this kind of holiday. I keep that thought, I return to it. It's very strange to me, I've never had one like this. I've never made plans for me or my family and here I am making them. Making it. One plan.

Recently another plan has shown up. About owning a flat, provided that my parents give me a lot of money once they sell their valuable house (one version of this plan has them not giving me money, but buying a flat and then renting it to me at no charge for a few years until we move out of the area). There is a proverb in Polish: nie dziel skóry na żywym niedźwiedziu (do not divide the skin of a live bear), warning against planning too far in the future or basing your plans on something that is not particularly likely to happen. This plan feels a lot like a live bear. Add to that my craving for emigrating caused by gaslighting politics of the new government (I've been gaslighted over half of my life and seeing it happen on this scale makes me quite anxious). But I keep it. I've even looked at some offers, to get the idea of prices. And just now I realized there is even a third and fourth plan.

So altoghether it seems that I'm finally allowing myself to care. I'm finally allowing myself to get attached and (at least to some extent) ignore the all-pervading fear of losing things and people.

I think the first step to this revelation was rephrasing the classic greek "panta rei". Earlier only temporal permanence could give things reason to exist (since nothing is permanent, nothing had the reason to exist and I was not entitled to "have" anything) and I managed to change that a few years ago. Everything passes. But you know what? For now, for this year and maybe next and maybe even some years more - this boy is mine. Everything passes and everything will be lost, but this is my home now, even if it will not be the last, final home of my life. Impermanency does not make it any less of a home than the final one. There was the thought "therefore I am allowed to attach myself to owning this car/having this child" but I never truly believed it. Until recently, that is.

lots of ways to not let myself succeed at anything.

That seems like a different problem...

And it is a different problem, but it throws shade at everything I do. Before I properly unlearn this, I need ways around.

I haven't thought of signposting, I'll try that!

I've tried it and it doesn't work, unless those are very basic and fast things, e.g. applying night cream, but not going for a run.

I've developed (as protective mechanisms against my mother) lots of ways to not let myself succeed at anything. I know now that I need to move very slowly to get anything done, so I'm mostly untangling my thoughts and aliefs about myself.

This is one of the few occasions when habitually seeing situations and problems from more than one side doean't help.

No actions yet. I tend to ignore any kind of actions that I plan; maybe the problem is the wrong way my brain thinks about it, so this is an attempt to change the brain before I really attemt to change the body.

To remind myself time and again, until my brain learns and understands it: without a change in diet (or lifestyle) there is no change in weight.

Today I cut my very first self-grown in a pot hokkaido pumpkin. It's 270g and I'm bursting with proud-ness (is this a word?).

That was also my first year of growing any kind of plants and I had some strawberries, nasturtium flowers, lettuce and sweet peas (those formally belonged to my daughter). I also had a tomato plant, but that didn't grow any fruit.

I had a realization today that does not grant a separate thread.

I'm reading RAZ and got to Mysterious Answers, specifically Explain/Worship/Ignore?

I have kids. Most people know that kids love the question "why?" (If you didn't know - now you do. My family of origin has a joke that the last question of a longest stretch was number 37: why is mummy chewing on the carpet?)

When my daughter asks "why", I give her some answers usually pondering how I can influence the direction of the questions and information that I give her*. But in light of Explain/Worship/Ignore I am doing the best thing - explaining, showing her that there are layers upon layers of the stuff in this world and that it's a good idea to investigate further and further.

This made me very proud in my parenting.

*e.g. when she asks "why is the bus going?", I can answer about engines or about the driver or about the route or about planning of communal transport etc.