The else

September 6, 2026: 🗓 

What I’ve been up to lately: expressing what’s in me without suppressing myself, but also selectively choosing not to express certain things. But I don’t see that as suppressing myself. I was going to say it’s sort of like experimental discernment not based on logic or emotion, but that’s probably not it either. I don’t know what it is.

And it’s not that the things I express are expressions of myself either. Or maybe they are. I don’t know what they are. And there’s no consciously logical reason why I express one thing and not another thing. But the things I don’t express — a common thread is that I just don’t feel like it. But there are also times I don’t feel like it but do it anyway. So it’s not an IFF statement.

Sometimes I feel an almost physical pull in my mouth, as if some force is urging me to open my mouth and say the thing I was thinking. But I don’t say it. But sometimes I do say it. (I don’t necessarily believe the force is trying to get me to say something or even open my mouth, or even that there’s even a force. That’s just the interpretation my intrusive thoughts usually provide me with when that happens.)

This morning, I was talking out loud, telling myself something about “you stole my entire life, I’m done taking your scraps, this was supposed to be my life not yours bitch. Or bitch-o.” And I have no idea what I was even talking about. Or why I chose to express it instead of not express it.

Normally, my intrusive thoughts seem to inject interpretations based on whatever story of reality is being played involuntarily in the background of my perception. But if I’m remembering correctly, it wasn’t as intense this time. Like the background story and matching possible interpretations of why I said that were still there, but they took up less of my metaphorical range of vision.

But even if there’s an “inner child” or “higher self” or some other personification who interpreted what I said this morning as negative self-talk directed at them, or some other circumstance where I’m misunderstood, I just don’t worry about it anymore. And it’s not that I wouldn’t try to fix the misunderstanding if I found out it was actually real. It’s just, I don’t have that option right now. Or at least not that I’m aware of. How would someone even communicate with a metaphor?

With whatever it is that I trust and believe in (which I have no idea what that even is), I don’t worry about saying or doing or thinking wrong anymore. That doesn’t mean I believe I can’t make mistakes or can make mistakes. It’s just, regardless of whatever “reasons” things happen, the real reasons are — I don’t know. It’s just, there’s reasons, and there’s real reasons. Just because a reason is true or seems true according to whatever reality this is, that doesn’t mean it’s the real reason.

Also, there are so many other ideas about how I could perceive this world that haven’t occurred to me for whatever reason. And I don’t worry anymore about why they don’t occur to me. Not in an “everything happens for a reason” way. I don’t have to believe that either. I don’t believe in anything specific like that. I just trust what it is that I believe in (which I have no idea what that even is) 💖

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

September 9, 2026: 🗓 

I’m adding titles to my social media posts. “Too ugly to come back home” is a partial quote and title I chose for one of my posts from back in December. The full quote: “Freedom means making whole the parts of me that were exploited and manipulated into believing they’re too ugly now to come home.”

One thing I like about the title is the use of the words “come back home” (rather than “go back home”), which is typically said in at least two scenarios I can think of.

Scenario 1: The speaker is at home and is referring to someone who’s not at home. If the speaker isn’t at home, they might say “go back home” instead.

Scenario 2: The speaker isn’t at home, and they’re referring to themself. Even though “go back home” is I think more grammatically correct regardless of where the listener is, saying “come back home” can make sense if the speaker believes the listener is at home. It’s the phenomenon where people sometimes alter their words to align with the current state (actual location, in this case) of the person they’re speaking to.

I think it’s interesting because “Too ugly now to come home” doesn’t say a direct pronoun, but it does say “come” rather than “go.”

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

September 9, 2026: 🗓 

I saw a quote that was like, “would you hand something precious to someone flailing? Neither would the universe. Stay calm and carry on,” something like that. It seems like a commonly accepted idea even though it’s so spiritually abusive. And I can’t even think of a single time I’ve seen or heard anyone talking about this form of spiritual abuse.

I was going to say that the real universe knows who I¹ really am, but “universe” isn’t what I mean. I put “real” in front of a word when the word isn’t what I mean but neither is any other word I can think of.

I have a hypothesis that using “the else” as an alternative to “the real universe,” I wouldn’t have to be accosted by all the connotations I’ve accumulated with the word “universe” while trying to describe something that’s not the universe. It’s a language-limited alternative but an alternative.

Footnote:

1. I wrote "the real universe knows who people really are," then changed it to "the real universe knows who I really am." I don't have to believe anything specific about anything beyond my own experience of what it is that I trust in this reality that I don't understand