A new study found that the decrease in neuroticism had faded by 2021-2022, as normalcy seeped back into our lives. Now, though, there were small but significant declines in extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. But not for everyone.
Someone had called him a caretaker, which sounded admirable, but he hinted the role was lonely. I thought he probably had no affection or tenderness in his life, and maybe worse, no one ever stepped up to say, “I will take care of you.”
When you are the one doing the work, trying to fix or make or create, false endings cease to be fun. Instead, they are dangerous, because they hold out false hope.
Naming our flaws is a cruel and sinister practice. Women with soft cheeks were fine until they were told they had large buccal fat compartments. I was fine having pink cheeks until a dermatologist called it rosacea and offered me a prescription. Actually, I am still fine; I turned down the drug so I could save money on blusher.
As I have struggled occasionally in a time of disease, conflict, division, heartbreak, and financial precariousness, I have tried to understand what is necessary, what is still good.
Back in 1976, Le Monde hailed “Jeanne Dielman” as “the first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of cinema.” Today, that seems a little wry. Three hours and twenty-one minutes of housework, a little invisible sex work, and a surprising, violent ending comprise our first masterpiece? Yet it is one.
Somewhere between cottagecore and the hardcore expectations of the work world, there is an invisible fulcrum on which we wobble. Why is it our fault that softness automatically equates to fluttered-lashes femininity?
If I am searching for meaning, I am less likely to tumble into hedonism or overvalue stuff and money or use people for my own ends.
I make my festive announcement. And then I hear myself. Holy days. What they were supposed to be in the first place. And with that, everything clicks into place.
Those who do not have the most basic shelter and sustenance remind us how easily we could lose our own comfort. They remind us that mental illness and addiction can scramble the brains we rely on to succeed. They remind us that existence is precarious at its core.