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.