Email, August 28, 2020
Aug 28, 2020 9:17:58 GMT -5
thegingerbarrister, parlortrick, and 1 more like this
Post by Todd on Aug 28, 2020 9:17:58 GMT -5
Happy Friday, friend!
Have you ever thought hard about what reassurance means to you? It’s not the same as comfort, which is much simpler; comfort doesn’t need words, it doesn’t need to communicate anything other than connection, it can be done with a nonsense phrase or a touch. Your cat, purring, can comfort you. Reassurance is a lot more complicated. We’re looking not just to be soothed, but to have the knowledge reinforced that everything is going to be alright.
I’m not sure why, but someone I’ve never met is looking for me on a podcast called Boring Crimes, and that's something I find reassuring.
On the other hand, The Librarian of Clarke’s Three Laws is very smart, and good at a great many things, but I wouldn't say he’s good at either reassurance or comfort, they’re just not his strong suits. After our conversation about the clocks and my own fevered research about time distortion in caves, I didn’t need more cold facts or illuminating arguments. I needed to feel a little bit better about the world around me. The more panicky I became, the more certain I was that I must be wrong, I must be overreacting, that somehow I was blowing things out of proportion. I didn’t turn back to Clarke’s Three Laws to set me straight. Instead, I went to the Librarian of the Unfathomable Mind.
The Librarian of the Unfathomable Mind is many things. She is patient and empathetic, and she listens extraordinarily well. She’s also fierce and can be very no-nonsense when called upon, and so she seemed like the person to both make me feel better and point out the flaws in my thinking. I sat down with her at a quiet moment and told her about all the trouble I had been having with time. By the end, I was feeling a little sheepish, really. Saying it all out loud made my fears about thirty-hour sleeps and falling out of sync with the outside world seem dreamy and foolish. But, I admitted it all anyway, and I told her that what I was most afraid of was being left behind, and that time must be either slowing down or, worse, speeding up in the world outside.
She smiled, wide and sweet, certain as the rotation of the planets. She took my hand, and I prepared myself to be reassured. “Alice,” she said, “you don’t have to be uncertain! Of course time is speeding up and slowing down out there without you.”
In that moment, I realized that sometimes reassurance comes at the price of being lied to. The Librarian of the Unfathomable Mind is many things, but a liar is not one of them.
Best,
Alice
Apprentice (of sorts)
Have you ever thought hard about what reassurance means to you? It’s not the same as comfort, which is much simpler; comfort doesn’t need words, it doesn’t need to communicate anything other than connection, it can be done with a nonsense phrase or a touch. Your cat, purring, can comfort you. Reassurance is a lot more complicated. We’re looking not just to be soothed, but to have the knowledge reinforced that everything is going to be alright.
I’m not sure why, but someone I’ve never met is looking for me on a podcast called Boring Crimes, and that's something I find reassuring.
On the other hand, The Librarian of Clarke’s Three Laws is very smart, and good at a great many things, but I wouldn't say he’s good at either reassurance or comfort, they’re just not his strong suits. After our conversation about the clocks and my own fevered research about time distortion in caves, I didn’t need more cold facts or illuminating arguments. I needed to feel a little bit better about the world around me. The more panicky I became, the more certain I was that I must be wrong, I must be overreacting, that somehow I was blowing things out of proportion. I didn’t turn back to Clarke’s Three Laws to set me straight. Instead, I went to the Librarian of the Unfathomable Mind.
The Librarian of the Unfathomable Mind is many things. She is patient and empathetic, and she listens extraordinarily well. She’s also fierce and can be very no-nonsense when called upon, and so she seemed like the person to both make me feel better and point out the flaws in my thinking. I sat down with her at a quiet moment and told her about all the trouble I had been having with time. By the end, I was feeling a little sheepish, really. Saying it all out loud made my fears about thirty-hour sleeps and falling out of sync with the outside world seem dreamy and foolish. But, I admitted it all anyway, and I told her that what I was most afraid of was being left behind, and that time must be either slowing down or, worse, speeding up in the world outside.
She smiled, wide and sweet, certain as the rotation of the planets. She took my hand, and I prepared myself to be reassured. “Alice,” she said, “you don’t have to be uncertain! Of course time is speeding up and slowing down out there without you.”
In that moment, I realized that sometimes reassurance comes at the price of being lied to. The Librarian of the Unfathomable Mind is many things, but a liar is not one of them.
Best,
Alice
Apprentice (of sorts)