Hi Epona,

I have, in the meantime, sent you a private message.

Much love

Michelle

Hi Lisa,

Thank you sincerely for both your messages - thank you for your kindness. The first one I will reply to when I again manage to put sentences together! Please do know how much your second message means to me - there was no ‘need’ or ‘obligation’ for you to send that one.

What does “sit well with me” are people like yourself that speak their thoughts - a sharing of the audible articulation of our individual experiences of life that may, or even so may not, resonate with the other . This sharing being that which makes up part of the beauty of the breathing ‘vocation‘ of sincere, ’outer’, human connection (so too does there exist ‘internal’ sharing between our very own thoughts - thoughts of reason versus ‘thoughts’ of emotions).

There is a ‘dance’ between the sharing of thoughts between individuals. This dance, the rhythmic movement of ideas swayed passionately by unique experience, is of a beauty too often denied awareness. Thoughts are the expression of ‘motion’ in being-in-this-world; of ‘gesturing’ experience; the sound of courage to think and to speak…to brave the instances of ‘tripping over the other’ and of the ’stumbling over self’. ce that has given to ‘steps’ towards our thoughts; our thoughts, the ‘movement’ of the growing of understanding - the understanding of self and other. The music accompanying the dance of sharing thoughts

My choice of words entitling my post…definitions used loosely. The inverted commas that contain the word compossibility are not simply used for emphasis as such - not emphasis on the philosophical concept thereof ; rather the signalling of unusual usage. That is, I am aware that compossibility is a philosophical concept from Leibniz but chose to remove it from its usual context, warping it even further I guess. My simple (silly) meaning thereof - the (rare!) possibility of/in coexistence with something/one else (of someone such as myself and someone like him).

I do agree with you that we often need to pause and consider the question “does, and if so, how does this belief/behaviour serve me - what function does it serve“. I do not though believe that “experiences come to us” as such. For my own sake I am going to ‘deny’ the complexity of all that goes with my ‘view’ of this and rather cling onto the simplistic, stripped one. It is within experience/circumstances that we can (and should for a certain conscious growing of self) pause and stand still to ’feel’ the swirl of the outer world that affected and effected our internal world and set into motion belief/s manifesting into the behaviour thereof. Experiences/circumstances do challenge us, our beliefs, behaviour, relations with others etc. Again stripping complexity, I would rather choose to describe, to split the meaning of the words ’experience and circumstance’; to not use them synonymously. To me the connotations of these two words are dissimilar - this though is not to say that they are (more often than not) connected to one another. Circumstances can be described, or as I understand them to be, as what we find ourselves in without, necessarily, having created/influenced them; the existence of certain circumstances we that cannot in fact control or influence into a change in any possible way. The simplest example, the circumstances that we are born into - this though is not to say that as we get older there is always good reason why, eventually, we cannot change the circumstances and thus the experience and beliefs. Too again take a word out of context, to remove the existentialist understandings/ theories thereof; my personal usage of ‘circumstantial facility’. A simple example of this, of ‘circumstantial facticity’ as I use it - the circumstances of life that we are born into, or find ourselves first growing up. As we get older, as we grow into young adult, it is here within factual circumstances where we bring our individual experiences and beliefs thereof - this instead of saying that experiences ‘come’ to us. It is from circumstances that we ‘bring on’ our subjective/individual internal responses/experiences that influence us and our belief systems.

Concerning your words of interpretation -that of my ‘identity crisis’ -I will, (because I want to!)- respond to you when I am able to again…

Kindest regards

Michelle

Hi Lisa,

Hope you are well?

Foremost I must apologise for the terribly long post! - either I cannot speak or I speak too much!

My ‘Identity crisis of sort’…substantially stilled since my initial post. Your interpretation did not forsake my intended meaning…my ( then mistaken) labelling of a "extraordinarily deep connection between two human beings" as being a belief/statement imbued with sentimentality . The identity disturbance so strongly felt at the time was of induced nausea from the sensation of swaying sentimentality. The sickening swaying of sentimentality; a motion of an ’ill’ emotion resulting from visual confusion of reality; the confusion of viewing reality - or the refection I perceive when glancing into the mirror of identity. After your first post in response to my crisis of sort - your words: “trying to balance the imbalance” and the silent screaming of my insecurity “are these words really for me…am I an alien in a foreign land here?” gave me the shove to consider it without, or at the least, consider it with less fear - fear that it may be true, and that I would have to come to terms with owning sentimentality as part of the narration of who I am. I consciously stood ‘balancing’ the motion of emotion of disturbing sense of swaying sentimentality - I stood still -stood on ‘unmoving ground’ of reason- this despite the continuing, sense of being swayed by the ‘imbalance’ of emotional spinning; an emotional vertigo; the spinning although the swaying motion has been ‘disembarked’. I stood fast. I stood until the dizziness of confusion passed and I could again consider and find a truth of understanding, a familiarity of the ‘balanced’ knowing of my identity (as much a we can ’know’ about self!). Through your giving of your words of interpretation, I truly believe I would not have shifted so quickly from the swaying of nauseating sentimentality onto the land of conscious reflection. After the sense of vertigo passed the stilled dizziness allowed clear thought. I could again truthfully make my claim - one that is of great value to me. I am not sentimental. This is not to disavow that I do become incredibly emotional in that which I find deeply meaningful. This being something that I never want to lose as long as I am breathing in the vocation of living. In reflecting upon my nauseating experience of the idea of sentimentality’ that I believed I had to now, in honesty, own as a ’trait’ making up part of my identity. I started by attempting to ‘define’ my understanding of the word ‘sentimentality’. And if it be that this description is in fact a part of who I am, why the insistent denial of owning it. In this process of reflection I considered, what, if I claim to experience emotional meaningfulness, is the difference between the two. How do I understand, and thus separate ‘sentimentality’ from ‘experiencing the emotional meaningful‘ to such a great extent?

Attempting to answer my own questions, mostly why the idea of sentimentality feels so deeply inauthentic to who I am, I considered my overriding attitude…my usual, rather fierce attitude of… “Oh f*#% you Life, the absurdity that defines you! Bring it the F#*% on! I will take on whatever it be that you violently throw at me...and, getting up, I will thank you for giving experience to that which gives to the beauty of who we are…that gives to the beauty of our evolving ‘I’s’”. With this came, what I see to be the distinct separation between being sentimental and being emotionally moved by the meaningful. (I am not speaking, or simply seeking the antonym of the word sentimentality). Without a dictionary to answer my questioning I used my Muse named Life…Life’s offering of experiences allows for ‘ breathing creative’ rumination.

And so (finally! - mostly for your sake)… My understanding of sentimentality, or more accurately the connotations thereof. This, my personal understanding, revealing the reason why ‘it is not me’…and in turn relieving the nausea!

Sentimentality denies - denies the entirety of reality’s undisputable truth - the entirety of that which is life. Sentimentality is partial - it repudiates truths of life. Sentimentality has a shadow that blinds…blinds, disallows the ’seeing’ the inclusion of the ‘bad’ that makes up a necessary and inevitable part of life. The shadow cast hides the whole truth - that there exists ‘good and bad’. How does this then separate from the connotations, my own, of being emotionally moved by the meaningful? - this being of a greater difficulty to explain. If I may…as silly as I feeling daring to! - I am giving to you words that, to me, feel to be an example of the emotionally meaningful rather than the sentimental - words that to me have been spelled with the entirety of reality. The words are not my own - they were given to me (okay I am awfully embarrassed right now but I cannot express what I mean to explain better than the next words can!)... “When I left home this morning and leaning forward, carefully placing a kiss upon your right cheek, I smiled to myself because, as much as I see you as an earthbound angel, I love you because you are human, a person, an individual, a perpetually and continually emerging Self with both abundant beauty and human frailty. This is that which serves to make me love you more, to Live Loving you, to risk revealing myself and to revel in another self’s revelations- it is not that you are not like other people that you have been entrusted with my heart, but because your unique constellation of humanness, in its ‘good and bad’ parts, with all the glory and glorious mistakes and uncertainties, makes you The Person I want to stand by and watch grow and change through her unique life, and share my own with you”

Shutting-up now!

Much love

Michelle