Wise Blood
By Steve Wasserman
Wise BloodMay 21, 2021
The Kings of Self-Help
After three decades of using various self-help strategies on myself, as well as suggesting them to others, I share five techniques that seem to work - for me - especially with regard to situations involving interpersonal conflict.
K = (Loving)Kindness - "May you be happy/healthy/free from suffering."
I = Intentionality
N = No More Suffering - This Too Shall Pass | גם זה יעבור
G = Gratitude
S = Something Else
Text Version of this piece: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/?p=5620&preview=true
Amor Fati
Accepting the mixed-bag Now of our lives. Hard.
--
THE THING IS
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
-Ellen Bass
--
Full text of this episode can be found here: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/amor-fati/
--
Audio used in episode (in order of occurence):
-Jon & the Nightriders - Rumble at Waikiki: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41YvSrk5paQ&t=81s
-Can't Stop The Feeling (Justin Timberlake) - Original Piano Arrangement by Maucoli: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MpOfn4rDcU
-ET: https://open.spotify.com/album/1Wcggztq9SspsBeXcrnHZo?highlight=spotify:track:3VVilIGlUJ6tIirr7GGCHs
-Night Flight - Say Yes (Elliot Smith Cover): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnQ0ac8A8hk
-A Day In The Life (Orchestra Overdub): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecybFp71bnc
-Reading of The Thing Is (Ellen Bass): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JONWgsZ6vm8
-Steven C. Hayes talking about Feeling & Experiential Avoidance: https://www.soundstrue.com/collections/authors-steven-c-hayes/products/acceptance-and-commitment-therapy
-Extract from Bernard Malamud's A New Life: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140186816/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=a+new+life+malamud&qid=1624180687&sr=8-1
-Jane Hirshfield reading her poem Amor Fati: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/92039/amor-fati
-Extract from The Gay Science: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Gay-Science-The-Joyful-Wisdom-Audiobook/B01EWAXDI4?qid=1624180836&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=c6e316b8-14da-418d-8f91-b3cad83c5183&pf_rd_r=ZN7BMAJ44S0DHR5PPNXE
-Susan Buffam reading her poem Amor Fati: https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/amor-fati-4435
-“Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye, A Poetry Film by Ana Pérez López: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFLQOOiAqxQ&t=15s
-Elliott Smith ~ Say Yes (Live in Stockholm): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOnHEApbjV0
-Itzhak Perlman plays Fiddler on the Roof (John Williams Los Angeles Philharmonic): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h745la-Lo1I
-Neil De Grasse Tyson giving an overview of our 65 million year-old hominid evolutionary history: https://samharris.org/podcasts/252-alone-universe/
-Can't Stop The Feeling by Justin Timberlake Live (Downbeat LA Cover): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGz7Nbaavgg&ab_channel=DownbeatDownbeat
-Hakeem Oluseyi waxing lyrical about astrophysics: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/a-quantum-life-with-hakeem-oluseyi/
Setbacks
What my friend Charlie taught me about having a "good" break-up (or any other painful setback in life).
Text version can be found here: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/4793-2/
Trauma
What I have learnt from my dog-child Max about trauma.
Text version of this piece: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/trauma/
What's Your Thread?
I've got my philosophy (keeps my feet on the ground). You?
Love Is A Losing Game
What my friends Jackie and Guy (circa 1987) taught me about Eros.