A quotation from Thomas Carlyle
Trust not the heart of that man for whom old clothes are not venerable.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Sartor Resartus, Book 3, ch. 6 (1834)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/carlyle-thomas/724/
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#attachment
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As a facilitator, working with both sides of an issue with a group can be hard. Doing so challenges me to practice non-attachment.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/facilitation/2023/03/working-with-both-sides
What is the relationship between connection and attachment when people come together at meetings? A painting by John Singer Sargent offers a clue.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/connection-2/2022/10/connection-attachment
Tonight in class we explored relational ethics, also known as caring ethics. I’m skipping over the lesson itself to focus on what came up for me.
There is an assumption in relational ethics that every one has access to multiple caring relationships beyond therapy. Therapy offers connection, others in a person's life are expected to provide emotional nourishment as well. Some people arrive without any safe relationships. Many carry histories of trauma, neglect, or isolation. In those situations, therapy becomes the one space offering presence and care. Rules and boundaries shape the work, the relationship often holds the entire emotional weight.
Helping others often gets presented as a response to loneliness. Service becomes a substitute for connection. Provide care, contribute meaningfully, fill time with acts of support. None of this addresses the core need. Loneliness demands recognition, conection and shared experience. External acts do not replace mutual relationships.
Another question arose around empathy. We were asked to think about when we first showed empathy. My answer surprised me. Therapy offered the first safe space where empathy emerged. Childhood lacked attunement, emotional safety, or reflective experience. In that environment, empathy could grow. Survival required internal distance.
During trauma work, a therapeutic relationship provided attuned presence. Over time, emotional empathy stirred. Later experience gave it permission to form and take root.
Some conversations treat empathy as universal or innate. This creates pressure, erasing different pathways toward growth. People raised without emotional safety often build these capacities during adulthood.
Just started listening to the audiobook for "healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors: overcoming internal self-alienation" by Janina Fisher.
I just started it but there's already a line I like: "what is it like to live in a body organized to expect annihilation or abandonment." 
Another part talks about "internal wars", which I very much relate to. I'm often filled with contradictory wants: want to learn x programming thing while deeply not wanting to, wanting to use and knowing that it's bad for me and I shouldn't, wanting to take care of an annoying thing and not wanting to do it, wanting to be more social and not wanting it, etc.
She uses internal parts analysis, which i definitely related to: the lazy part vs the mean parent part, the compulsive/addicted part, the evil self-hate/self-destructive part, the total collapse and given up part, etc.
The purpose of the book seems to be to help the trauma survivor have an integrated self with a compassionate inner part that can provide support when the person is having a hard time, and not react with shame/abuse directed towards the self. that sounds like it would be really nice!
I've built up a bit of a "nicer, more supportive, less impulsive, more reflective inner parent" this year (starting from having nothing on the inside that could provide that perspective. The only inner parent I ever had was a mean one by whose metric I was never doing enough and was always failing), but it's still hard and I still have struggles in this arena.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say.
It's Attachment by Annette Kussin, 2020
How do we make sense of our relationships—successes and failures, preferences and challenges, past and present. And after we make sense of them all—what do we do to increase the successes that we are striving to attain.
“At some time of their lives, I believe, most human beings desire to have children and desire also that their children should grow up to be healthy, happy, and self-reliant. For those who succeed the rewards are great; but for those who have children but fail to rear them to be healthy, happy, and self-reliant the penalties in anxiety, frustration, friction, and perhaps shame or guilt, may be severe. Engaging in parenthood therefore is playing for high stakes. Furthermore, because successful parenting is a principal key to the mental health of the next generation, we need to know all we can both about its nature and about the manifold social and psychological conditions that influence its development for better or worse. The theme is a huge one and all I can do in this contribution is to sketch the approach that I myself adopt in thinking about these issues.”
—John Bowlby, A Secure Base
#parenting #attachment
—John Bowlby, A Secure Base
#parenting #attachment
BDG feature: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Social Media Through Vipasyana
BDG feature: Finding Calm: Buddhist Insights on Managing Anxiety
Read more: https://tinyurl.com/4954zd5b
When we cling to our thoughts, desires, and opinions, we become detached from reality—not grounded in the present moment. True presence doesn’t mean ignoring thoughts—it means letting go of clinging so that your mind can meet each moment as it truly is.
#Zen #Mindfulness #LetGo #Attachment #Nonduality #Consciousness #Awareness #ClearMind #Presence #Now #Meditation #Reality #Dharma #Thoughts #SelfInquiry
How you can grow attachments to "useless" things.
So I have this old vinyl record player (Technics). It's about 40 years old, and I've had it for 20 years or so.
It's always had a broken dust cover. Bits were missing, and a couple of cracks.
Recently, I've bought a brand new replacement cover. The player really looks the part now.
But I can't quite get myself to throw away the old one. It's been sitting on my desk for about two months now.
[New issue]
"#Ageing in the #Mountains: Between #Loneliness, #Solidarity and #Attachment to Places"
"Mountains, with their slopes and climatic variations, make physical accessibility to more challenging places and landscapes. However, the mountains remain literally inhabited by their older residents, who carry their stories and experiences. Living in these places means benefiting from forms of community and family solidarity that make these lives possible, and even desirable for some."
What is the relationship between connection and attachment when people come together at meetings? A painting by John Singer Sargent offers a clue.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/connection-2/2022/10/connection-attachment
"The core problem here is designing for attachment. A recent study by researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute and Google DeepMind warned that as AI assistants become more integrated in people’s lives, they’ll become psychologically “irreplaceable.”
Humans will likely form stronger bonds, raising concerns about unhealthy ties and the potential for manipulation. Their recommendation? Technologists should design systems that actively discourage those kinds of outcomes.
Yet disturbingly, the rulebook is mostly empty. The European Union’s AI Act, hailed a landmark and comprehensive law governing AI usage, fails to address the addictive potential of these virtual companions. While it does ban manipulative tactics that could cause clear harm, it overlooks the slow-burn influence of a chatbot designed to be your best friend, lover or “confidante,” as Microsoft Corp.’s head of consumer AI has extolled. That loophole could leave users exposed to systems that are optimized for stickiness, much in the same way social media algorithms have been optimized to keep us scrolling.
“The problem remains these systems are by definition manipulative, because they’re supposed to make you feel like you’re talking to an actual person,” says Tomasz Hollanek, a technology ethics specialist at the University of Cambridge."
Bloomberg · AI Chatbots Are Becoming an Emotional Rabbit Hole
As a facilitator, working with both sides of an issue with a group can be hard. Doing so challenges me to practice non-attachment.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/facilitation/2023/03/working-with-both-sides
Why do our first loves feel so intense? Science has answers https://www.byteseu.com/832645/ #Addiction #Anthropology #attachment #dopamine #evolution #hormones #love #memory #neuroscience #oxytocin #Science
Band of Horses - The Funeral
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMFWFhTFohk
And to know you is hard, we wonder
To know you all wrong, we won
Make Your VR Controllers Handle Like Two-Handed Weapons - Wielding things like two-handed swords in VR can be awkward. There’s no sense of g... - https://hackaday.com/2025/01/22/make-your-vr-controllers-handle-like-two-handed-weapons/ #virtualreality #controllers #attachment #3dprinted #twohanded #sword #vr
Hackaday · Make Your VR Controllers Handle Like Two-Handed WeaponsWielding things like two-handed swords in VR can be awkward. There’s no sense of grasping a solid object. The controllers (and therefore one’s hands) feel floaty and disconnected from o…