Heather Havrilesky’s writing in her newsletter Ask Molly is always great — it often reminds me of Helena Fitzgerald, who unfortunately put her great newsletter Griefbacon on hiatus awhile back (griefbacon is the literal translation of the German term for stress eating). This one from Heather was especially good:
Every now and then, I get comments on my advice column on social media, from people who say things should be easy, and if things get difficult, the problem is probably you. You need to look at yourself. You need to self-reflect. Ask yourself if you’re the problem. Ask yourself if things would be way easier if you were different — more easygoing, less difficult, less direct, less challenging to others, less vulnerable, less honest. But it never stops there, does it? It’s not just about shaping yourself into a more pleasing form, it’s also about powering down your unique urges and odd desires, noticing less, saying less, doing less, engaging less, sanding off your edges, getting by on less.
You know who I mean: those queen bees who rule with an iron fist but make it look chill, who keep it super fucking simple, who turn on you whenever you take your time to make a point, whenever you’re honest, whenever you’re vulnerable, whenever you admit your flaws. You know who I mean: those helper bees who feed the queen at all costs, helpful helpers with helpful suggestions on how to say less, how to smooth and brighten and lift and bleach, how to disappear in plain sight, how to ignore your soul and become a whisper-quiet appliance.
You know who I fucking mean. The chill dudes who respond to each tiny conflict or issue or bump in the road with the same “calm down and do it my way,” and then you realize that their perfectly engineered road-smoothing hydraulic system is just a consistent denial of difference, an erasure of the slightest aberration, an ignorance of tiny anomalies of elevation, of texture, of tone, of temperature, of color, of experience, no gravel in the road, no nails, no grit, no tire shreds, no potholes, no bad days, no sadness, no rage.
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