365 Day Meme - Days 5 & 6
Jan. 16th, 2017 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aearwen2As long as I'm posting to LJ, I should go ahead and get my day's questions out of the way so I don't forget. So, that said...
#5: Can people change?
Boy, howdy, can they!!!
This past election cycle in the US was SO toxic that I'm sure I'm not the only one who saw a life-long friendship go up in flames because of disagreement over which candidate to vote for. Mine fell apart in Facebook.
Someone who was my best friend in high school over 50 yrs ago - who lives in a Deep Red state and votes solid blue, and who essentially went into hysterics the moment the results started to come in - announced that "if you voted for anybody but [nope, not gonna say] you might as well unfriend me now." This person used to be level-headed and compassionate, and this election turned them into reactionary and quite hateful. I miss my friend, but I am most sad that it was she who kicked me to the curb because I didn't vote the way she wanted - and yet she very vociferously defends the "democratic process." Can we say cognitive dissonance?
On the other hand, sometimes the person who changes is ME.
Another person I know was one with whom I had a very difficult time connecting. Something was just "off", ya know? Well, I don't know when or how it happened, because I don't feel that I changed myself all that much and certainly this other friend didn't change at all; but suddenly I have no problem whatsoever smiling at this person, greeting them whenever I run across them, and holding long and deep conversations with them.
So yeah. People change. Including me. I think it's called "Life™" what does it, too.
#6: What made you smile today?
Snuggling with my kitty Sadie.
Mind, she's fallen deeply in love with the Sherpa blanket a friend gave me for New Years, so she sleeps with me whenever I'm covered up with it. This morning, however, I was late waking; and she came up for her morning snuggles and was a little more loving than usual. She loves to have her belly kneaded (ala a cat's "making bread" gesture) and will settle down on me for as long as I'm willing to sit there. Today, she snuggled herself so close, she went from being a "boob cat" to being a "shoulder cat", purring up a storm the whole time.
Yup. Can't resist that, and had to smile. Great way to wake up, to be honest.
That's it for today. See 'ya all mañana.
#5: Can people change?
Boy, howdy, can they!!!
This past election cycle in the US was SO toxic that I'm sure I'm not the only one who saw a life-long friendship go up in flames because of disagreement over which candidate to vote for. Mine fell apart in Facebook.
Someone who was my best friend in high school over 50 yrs ago - who lives in a Deep Red state and votes solid blue, and who essentially went into hysterics the moment the results started to come in - announced that "if you voted for anybody but [nope, not gonna say] you might as well unfriend me now." This person used to be level-headed and compassionate, and this election turned them into reactionary and quite hateful. I miss my friend, but I am most sad that it was she who kicked me to the curb because I didn't vote the way she wanted - and yet she very vociferously defends the "democratic process." Can we say cognitive dissonance?
On the other hand, sometimes the person who changes is ME.
Another person I know was one with whom I had a very difficult time connecting. Something was just "off", ya know? Well, I don't know when or how it happened, because I don't feel that I changed myself all that much and certainly this other friend didn't change at all; but suddenly I have no problem whatsoever smiling at this person, greeting them whenever I run across them, and holding long and deep conversations with them.
So yeah. People change. Including me. I think it's called "Life™" what does it, too.
#6: What made you smile today?
Snuggling with my kitty Sadie.
Mind, she's fallen deeply in love with the Sherpa blanket a friend gave me for New Years, so she sleeps with me whenever I'm covered up with it. This morning, however, I was late waking; and she came up for her morning snuggles and was a little more loving than usual. She loves to have her belly kneaded (ala a cat's "making bread" gesture) and will settle down on me for as long as I'm willing to sit there. Today, she snuggled herself so close, she went from being a "boob cat" to being a "shoulder cat", purring up a storm the whole time.
Yup. Can't resist that, and had to smile. Great way to wake up, to be honest.
That's it for today. See 'ya all mañana.
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no subject
Date: 2017-01-17 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-17 07:10 pm (UTC)Sadie is the first kitty I've had that wants to snuggle and/or be a lap/boob kitty a large part of the time. I have to admit that she's really spoiling me. When the time comes when she's not with us anymore - a long time away may it yet be!!! - I'll be debating whether or not to get another Bengal, or see what else the Universe wants to put in my path. One way or the other, however, I will have another cat. I can't concieve of life without one.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-17 05:26 pm (UTC)I do understand where people are coming from with this. Sometimes politicians are so outlandish, you can't imagine anyone supporting them without devaluing the kind of person you are. So it is hard to respect that choice. But that's lack of imagination, lack of empathy, lack of truly listening to what our friends are saying most of the time. It's hard, but not impossible, and "hard" doesn't let us off the hook for being supposed to do it. (Plus as a friend I want them to see how their politicians' policies actually hurt me, I want them to see the consequences of their position, and vice versa - that's how we grow as people, I think, by challenging each other in love.)
no subject
Date: 2017-01-17 07:18 pm (UTC)On the one hand, I can appreciate her hysteria. She lives where the "other side" not only is ruling the roost, but undoing a good many of the GOOD things that have come about in the last two or three decades - and doing so with a malicious glee that is downright horrifying. I suppose my ex-friend feels pretty isolated and even threatened - perhaps even personally - by the need to earn money forcing residency in such a place.
To that, I say, "Move back to California if you can't take the politics of Illinois/S. Carolina/Wherever." I'm proud of my state already standing up to the Federales regarding a lot of Progressive stuff we depend on here in California. I wouldn't live anywhere else in the US nowadays.
But still, for her to so very deliberately not even bother to listen to what I had to say, despite my very patiently listening to her, hurt. I had already unfollowed my ex-friend to the end of the election because of the toxic and indiscriminate bashing s/he was indulging in as November drew nigh. But what I saw the day after was downright sickening.
What is it about Religion and Politics - other than the fact that so many people identify so closely with either their denomination's label or their partisan party (right or wrong) that very real human relationships end up as nothing but cannon fodder?
Silly humans. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2017-01-22 04:20 pm (UTC)His press manager was bitching how he had more people at the inauguration than Obama, opposing the actual FACTS. Laughable and scary.