keywords: memetics, psychofauna, social contagion, social construction

Book Review: Crazy Like Us

improv is a kind of forgiveness meditation

improv without forgiveness is impossible

and vice versa

surrendering to unconditional acceptance of reality

some notes on first reformed:

• excellent sound design and pacing. my heart was racing in the last ten minutes. what people might call a "fever-pitch"
• watching this was like looking in a mirror. really helped me reorganise some existing feelings. really helped me see myself from a new angle (as one might see one's side profile for the first time in a changing room).
• still don't really know what i think
• superbly written. superb understanding of these things of christianity. feels very written by an insider. would be surprised if it wasn't.
• the thomas merton reference and its payoff was hard-hitting. again, feels very earned and as if it was carried out by someone with insider knowledge of a very specific kind of spiritual malaise.
• i want to be so grateful for my friends (sam recommended this movie as part of a 140-film letterboxed list they made for me what the heck!)

• most recently: god revealed to me that i was not wholeheartedly willing to live for him. not wholeheartedly willing to listen and obey him. i wanted him to be god but not my god. did i really want to hear his voice? no, because what if i had to obey? i was hoping to get away with a lot of things.
• i've learned a lot about experiencing god as an intimate personal presence in my life. definitely learned in 2024 that i experienced god as an object, and at worse, as an abstract idea for discussion. god (unfortunately, but happily) has intruded into my life and made his presence known. god sees me as "you." god pays attention to me. at every moment, i exist in god's attention.
• thank god for twitter, for h.l. griffin, and for the immanuel approach. really is filling in a lot of gaps in my understanding of prayer and connection with god
• i honestly can't handle shadow work. i hate looking at the ugly parts of myself. i hate feeling like i'm a fake, that i'm a fraud, that everything good about me is a lie covering something uglier. it makes me feel so hopeless. and yet it feels true. i hope i'm not so ugly. but i'm very lucky to learn a lot from IFS, from curious compassion, from heidi priebe, and from immanuel approach about not being afraid. don't be afraid. don't be afraid. god is in it. god is in it.