Comments on: Revenge of the Unintentional Guest Post

By: unreliable narrator

unreliable narrator — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:09:55 +0000

Sorry, I whinged too soon–my comment was not eated.

By: unreliable narrator

unreliable narrator — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:09:20 +0000

I got no serenities. Zip, zilch, bupkis. Mainly because it’s five a.m., maybe, and I’m freaking the fuck out. But just wanted to say, I love you bundles and bundles.

PS I love: “trying to change some situation that it turns out you can only accept, from trying to accept some situation you really need to change….”

Very often I have prayed/translated it as:

serenity to accept the things I cannot change = other people
courage to change the things I can = me
wisdom to know the difference = where I stop and they start!

And that last bit is NOT always easy for me, at all…someone recently compared it to a hula hoop. Anything inside the hula hoop is your business. Anything outside the hula hoop is not. (I’ve also heard putting your finger on the end of your nose. Anything closer to you than the end of your nose = your business. Etc. It’s all quite tiresome and self-congratulatory, really, if you’re not the one struggling for wisdom to know the difference, and thinking, “But noises invade my hula hoop!”)

By: unreliable narrator

unreliable narrator — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:08:35 +0000

My comment was ated.

By: Melinda

Melinda — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:32:46 +0000

I have always loved the serenity prayer…thanks for sharing your thoughts on it! It was a nice reminder for me today too..

By: sarah gilbert

sarah gilbert — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:07:15 +0000

so my reference for this post will have to come from Truman’s oeuvre. the best-loved book from this week’s ‘Raising a Reader’ bookbag is ‘Zomo the Rabbit: A trickster tale from West Africa.’ Zomo the rabbit seeks wisdom! and Sky God asks him to do three impossible things, which result in him really pissing off some large, vicious animals (one of which is Wild Cow, a woman cow, love). he brings his prizes, proof of his having risked rather everything, to Sky God.

‘Three things are worth having. Courage, good sense, and caution. Zomo, you have lots of courage, a bit of sense, and no caution! Now, next time you see Big Fish, Wild Cow, and Leopard…. better run fast!’

we’ve talked a lot this week about wisdom, courage, caution, and cleverness, and how sometimes you have to do something really incautious+courageous in order to gain wisdom. hopefully, it’s not quite as damaging as Zomo’s behavior.

I think it’s interesting that this West African legend has a lot of the serenity prayer in it, but serenity/acceptance is replaced with caution. and proof that risk-averseness is not always a bad thing (although, if you’re impatient like Zomo, you’ll want wisdom badly enough to risk anything).

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:39:45 +0000

Synchronistically? No, for you see, I too was talking to the Unreliable Narrator who, despite having proclaimed her blog over, lives on!

By: Repat

Repat — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:50:39 +0000

Thank you for this. It is so lovely; and I really needed it today. I don’t think I ever become okay with risk–but I do it anyway. I sit down to write most days, and I’m terrified. I don’t really know what I’m afraid of (that it’ll suck, mostly), but I am. But I guess I’m old enough to know that it would be worse if I didn’t do it, if I listened to that fear. And then, as per DBT’s Radical Acceptance, I just have to accept that this is the way it’s going to be: that it is not comfortable. But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep going.

Thank you.