Empaths

art source: New York Times

“A lot of empaths became the good one, the easy one, the one that doesn’t cause trouble, the one who understands, and this is subtle, but it shapes your entire social life, because if your were rewarded for being low need you can grow into an adult who feels ashamed of having needs at all, so you become incredible at giving, you listen you support, you respond fast, you remember details, you make people feel seen and you might even feel proud of this because it’s a beautiful quality, but here’s the question that changes everything-

Can you receive? Can you let someone be there for you without feeling guilty? Can you say I’m not okay without adding immediately, But it’s fine don’t worry? Because if receiving feels unsafe friendship becomes one-sided. You become the emotional home for others while your own inner world stays locked. And then you get tired, not because you don’t love people, but because you keep abandoning yourself.”

Source: The Wound Beneath, YouTube

Movement

Moving through life

Moving through greed


Movement restricted

Movement freed


Let’s not pretend 

We don’t know the deal


We’re gluttons for stuff

Neglecting what’s real.


Moving through life

Your unique pace

Calling upon source

Eternal grace


Point your body

Towards a new plan


One less pent up

Tall you stand


Move with meaning

To the light of understanding


An easy pace

One less demanding


Making better choices

New motivation


Stimulate and inspire

Divine creation.

Tricia Schwaba, 2025
art source: Anon

EB White's Reply to a Distressed Man --- A Lesson For These Troubled Times

In 1973, more than two decades after a young woman wrote to Albert Einstein with a similar concern, one man sent a distressed letter to E.B. White (July 11, 1899–October 1, 1985), lamenting that he had lost faith in humanity. The beloved author, who was not only a masterful letter-writer but also a professional celebrator of the human condition and an unflinching proponent of the writer’s duty to uplift people, took it upon himself to boost the man’s sunken heart with a short but infinitely beautiful reply, found in Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (public library) — the wonderful collection based on Shaun Usher’s labor-of-love website, which also gave us young Hunter S. Thompson on how to live a meaningful life.

Dear Mr. Nadeau:

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.

Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.

Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

Sincerely,

E. B. White

From the Marginalian, Maria Popova