My life-long journey

[CaringWhisper]

Thank you for posting your work. It is so beautiful. You have a keen eye.

I don't know if you can get it, but I use Paint.net (not Paint). It is free, with no ads or anything. It is great for editing photos, like cropping and resizing. The resize feature decreases the file size, too, which makes it suitable for web posts or email.

I'm glad to see you, my friend. We'll be fine, don't worry about us. I use GIMP. What do you think, is it better or worse?

You know I love you, Whisper, but again I'm going to have to disagree with you.

Become helpless like a child, Lauren. Because weakness is great, and strength is insignificant. When a person is born, she is weak and flexible, and when she dies, she is strong and hard. When a tree grows, it is tender and flexible, and when it is dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are companions of death. Weakness and flexibility express the freshness of being. Therefore, what has hardened will not prevail. The flexible and tender will triumph over the rigid and harsh. Your brother sought strength because society instilled a false ideal in his mind. Relax your mind, find peace, as in the first dark night of the soul. I was also a drug addict, I also went through withdrawal, but I don't think that makes me worthy of respect. If I remember this incident in order to fuel my inner strength, I will feel that this indicator of strength will be nothing more than a false mask. This philosophy was taught to me by Orthodox Christians. And they certainly understood something about this life.

[Lori Dee ✅]

I'm glad to see you, my friend. We'll be fine, don't worry about us. I use GIMP. What do you think, is it better or worse?

Many people like GIMP. They have the same features. I find Paint.net easier to work with. Since you already have GIMP, you should be able to resize the same way.

Hugs!

[Sephirah]

Become helpless like a child, Lauren. Because weakness is great, and strength is insignificant. When a person is born, she is weak and flexible, and when she dies, she is strong and hard. When a tree grows, it is tender and flexible, and when it is dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are companions of death. Weakness and flexibility express the freshness of being. Therefore, what has hardened will not prevail. The flexible and tender will triumph over the rigid and harsh. Your brother sought strength because society instilled a false ideal in his mind. Relax your mind, find peace, as in the first dark night of the soul. I was also a drug addict, I also went through withdrawal, but I don't think that makes me worthy of respect. If I remember this incident in order to fuel my inner strength, I will feel that this indicator of strength will be nothing more than a false mask. This philosophy was taught to me by Orthodox Christians. And they certainly understood something about this life.

Hardness doesn't mean strength, Whisper. Flexibility doesn't mean weakness. In many cases it's the entire opposite. When something hardens, it becomes brittle. Structurally weak. Look at trees during a hurricane. The supple, flexible trees survive, because they can bend and not break. The hard, rigid ones don't. Because the force is too much for them and they snap. People are strongest when they become flexible. Able to bend under life's issues, but not break. Strength isn't necessarily how much force you can withstand. Rather it's how much force you can adapt to.

You might not think it makes you worthy of respect, Whisper. What you've been through. But then we never do for ourselves. I think it makes you massively worthy of respect, knowing who you are now and what you've achieved... and want to achieve. I think that makes you massively worthy of respect. And since beauty is in the eye of the beholder... you can't really argue. <3

[CaringWhisper]

Hardness doesn't mean strength, Whisper. Flexibility doesn't mean weakness. In many cases it's the entire opposite. When something hardens, it becomes brittle. Structurally weak. Look at trees during a hurricane. The supple, flexible trees survive

These are beautiful words about flexibility. The reality is that difficulties make you tougher, your previous worries seem insignificant and unnecessary, and your feelings become dulled. Flexibility is primarily expressed in decision-making, but more often than not, you have no choice, you can only decide how to take the blow, as running away is useless. I don't know what your brother did, but I burned everything that was, everything that made me strong. No matter what I went through, I forgot about it in order to preserve myself. I stopped posting photos of my daughter so that they wouldn't remind me of life's difficulties unnecessarily, focusing instead on my inner world. I'm not strong, I'm noone.

[Sephirah]

I'm not strong, I'm noone.

You are wrong, Whisper. Everyone is someone. To those that matter to you, and to those whom you matter to, you are their everything. You don't have to think of it in terms of your contribution to the whole world, only in terms of how you affect your own world. To your little girl, you are everything. She loves you to bits. I know that for a fact. You also know what I think about you, Whisper. You are not no-one. And you can't convince me you are not strong.

We always have a choice, Whisper. Even if the choice is to do something or do nothing. It's the main thing that separates us from a chimpanzee. Even things that seem like we don't choose... we do. The weight of the choice is sometimes more skewed at one time than another, but we always get to decide what to do.

Difficulties can make you tougher, yes. They can also make you kinder. More understanding. More flexible in how you approach the world. They did for me. I tried being tougher and it didn't work. Hardening your heart can make you forget what it is to have one. It just isolates you from things that matter.

Like you. You matter. You are not no-one, okay? <3

*gentle hugs*

I will always believe in you.

[CaringWhisper]

is someone.
We always have a choice
Difficulties can make
can also make
More
More
They did for me.

I understand your train of thought, but you cling to vivid images. My past sufferings do not complete my personality. Everyone thinks that once upon a time, they were weaker and more naive, but then the hour of reckoning came, forging something more resilient, flexible, complete (you can insert any adjectives here) in the crucible of trials. But what if this is the greatest deception we have ever faced? I feel that I don't need the experience of surviving trials; I was originally complete, strong, if you like that word, and I don't need my life experience to be myself. These memories are just pain, a louse in our armor that will weaken us over time. In this world, being a nobody does not mean not being a bright personality, and being someone does not mean being someone; only an immortal being can voluntarily go to the death, and only a complete personality can call him/herself a nobody. I don't care about anyone's recognition and the race for mirages; I am Diogenes in a barrel, and I am fine. Imagine the human soul as an egg on a spoon, and you are holding that spoon in your mouth. The whole trick is to carry that egg all the way without breaking it. Never suffer for the sake of a future reward, and everything you have now was with you from the beginning. Often we have no choice of path, and the choice to drop an egg from a spoon is not so much a choice as a failure. You are all here because this is your only way to be yourselves, and choosing to suffer, split apart, and wither away is not a choice but a life of deception.

[CaringWhisper]

Today I fainted and woke up in the hospital. I lay in the ward for half a day, and only regained consciousness after an IV drip. A dear person to me suffering from cancer. My heart is breaking with grief. I feel her pain as if it were my own.

I am becoming more and more convinced that I am not a weapon tempered in fire. I am still the same little weak girl who carried fire in her palms through time. Everyday worries, stuff, entertainment, all of this is dust of time that has flown by.

Perhaps this is where true strength lies, in remaining unchanged in the face of the horrors of this world...