From the archives: Attitude-shamtitude

From the archives: Attitude-shamtitude

This week’s post is ‘from the archives.’ Julia writes about positive thinking, something I’ve been thinking a lot about, again, since going through breast cancer treatments this fall. This post is angry, smart, so funny and just the kind of thing I needed to read. You can find the original post and comments here.

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Loved

Loved

It feels incredibly unsatisfying that it takes but a minute to list the essential facts and stats about him. I remember saying—to the first shrink that we saw after—that he was perfect, but he was dead. I think I want, I need that ‘but’. I don’t want A being dead to count as a part of who he is. Isn’t that why people have such a hard time talking to us about our children, because they intuitively see their deadness as their essence?

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At least

At least

“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.” Signing up for my seminar, students don’t exactly expect to be discussing the inherent dignity and value of every human life. In that discussion, and in coming back to the quote throughout the semester, I hope to help my students develop some immunity against the very human desire to redeem the uncomfortable stories.

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