echoes for our betterment

… shame requires actual communities to function. (New Yorker)

… the denigration of one’s pathological interests is thus tantamount to removing barriers to acting well. (aeon)

The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another. (James Baldwin)