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I'm going to cross-post my <user name=ownhands> newsletter here. By the way, my silence on DW since January is not for lack of wanting to post; it's just lack of time. My hope is when I'm done with my degrowth thesis defense, I'll have a small quantity of breathing room to post fun stuff... Maybe...

You can view my nice HTML newsletter here or read the text below...

Forward!

I see a silver lining to the United State's current situation: it's grave enough to inspire change. If the USDA is too understaffed to ensure food safety, maybe it's time to pivot to CSA's, farmer's markets, and gardening ahead of supply chain breakdown due to climate change. If the ACA is on the chopping block, maybe switch to a direct primary care provider and/or CostPlusDrugs. Frightened by Amazon's, Facebook's, and X's swings to the right? It's a great time to buy from Bookshop.org and local stores and check out BlueSky or Diaspora. Disclaimer: None of these options, especially the healthcare ones, are flawless; proceed at your own risk. With that disclaimer ringing in your ears, yes, it's a frightening time and risky as heck, but it's also an invitation to seek out new harmonies.

OwnHands Fiction Search Update: It's Not Quite Dead...

It feels much better. Monty Python jokes aside, Glenn and I just met to discuss our progress so far. He's facing a challenge in trying to build this project with open source tools. Because this will be a digital commons, but it's longer and harder. For that reason, we're fishing for others with programming experience to come on board and help us out, especially with back-end work. If you or someone you know is interested, please reach out to me. It's a labor of love for now, but once we have a proof of concept, we'll be applying for grants.

Whatever Happened to Being Cut?

Life is ironic. After talking up my book on relationship cutoff, I've decided not to release it widely. Too many people have misinterpreted me as saying that it’s fine to ignore boundaries. That’s not what I said. Yet this misreading raises the possibility that some might use my book as an excuse to harm others. I don’t want to be responsible for that.

I have also had favorable responses, some "every therapist should read this" types of response, and I believe this book can help some people in some circumstances. I will, therefore, continue to offer it on a limited basis (e-formats free) to some people I interact with personally. If you are interested in learning more or receiving a copy, please contact me.


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Read the latest updates on the Own Hands Story Search tool for finding fiction. We're narrowing down the categories we'll focus on for our first proof-of-concept search.

In other news, if anyone wants to be a first reader/reviewer for my non-fiction book on relationship cutoff, please PM me for a free ebook/PDF.
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My non-fiction book Being Cut on relationship cutoff (severing contact) officially launches in ebook format today!

Cover of Being Cut by Arwen Spicer, white and red letters on black.

Blurb:

Chances are you have cut someone out of your life or someone has cut you out. Cutoff—severing all contact—is a common way to manage troubled relationships, yet it remains virtually unstudied and semi-taboo to discuss. We have the right to cut people off. Nonetheless, being cut off is often traumatic in ways our culture fails to recognize. Being Cut is a first-of-its-kind exploration of our society’s attitudes toward cutoff and a call for a cultural transformation that respects cutoff while being mindful of the harm it can do.

So if you haven't already heard me maunder enough about cutoff, you can now read more now!

In all seriousness, I owe many thanks to all the folks on DW who responded to my posts on cutoff over the years. From those who offered sympathy when I was in the throes of grief over being cut off by a dear friend to those who shared their views extensively and are quoted (under aliases) in this book, you have been a large part of this journey. Thank you.
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[EDIT: Skinintheway observes below that I likely misread the statement I'm responding to. I think she's right, and I'm going to keep the original post/thread below to show the whole thought progression.]

As I gear up to release Being Cut, my book on relationship cutoff, I want to discuss some interesting statements people shared with me, which did not end up in the book. I'll keep it all anonymous.

My interlocuter said,

I like thinking about the world where cutoff does not exist. In that it would have to be either no deep connections with others or every time we make a deep connection with another it is a lifetime commitment. Commitment is such a rare and honored thing in our culture. Would it mean less if there were no choice to cut off?

The first type of society (no deep connections) reminds me of Brave New World. Indeed, cutoff (ex. I'm going to ignore you, not return calls) is probably fairly rare there. And when it happens, it probably packs little punch. (And if it does pack a punch, one can always escape into through gram of soma.)

On the whole, though, I think this reasoning displays a fallacy of cutoff culture: all or nothing, lifetime deep commitment or 0 contact. I don’t advocate for a world without cutoff, but in such a world, there would be many ways to break or lessen deep commitments: divorce, breaking up with a partner, explicitly breaking off a friendship, ceasing to share personal information, emancipation from parents, moving away (literally or in terms of time/energy allocation), etc. I suppose not having the social option of cutoff implies some required commitment--ex. an expectation of gritting one's teeth and saying "hi" at a party--but I don't think that's the kind of "rare and honored" commitment the speaker means here.
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I've been considering posting an open letter to the person who cut me off in 2014. I'll write more about that in the future, but for now, I sent a draft to my mother for her input, and I thought I'd share part of her response with some of my own thoughts.

My mom wrote:

You don’t need to seek anyone else’s input about this gesture towards communication (including mine). As you noted yourself, all your thinking and feeling is your own responsibility.

Looking at my own miscalculations over the years, I think I really do need to seek input. That's part of my being responsible.

I have suspected that [the person who cut you off] acted on poor advice from someone else when she rejected all communication with you.

I suspect this too.

But no one knows the “directing mind,” as Marcus [Aurelius]’s translator calls it, the way that one knows their own. (I have made my own misjudgements about my decisions, which reminds me that one can feel embarrassed or inadequate without feeling guilty.)

This last line I find absolutely fascinating. It makes me reflect that I very rarely feel embarrassed without feeling guilty. (I more often feel inadequate without feeling guilty.) But embarrassment and guilt are closely linked for me. For example, last term I felt embarrassed by some of my clumsy white teacher moves that failed to help one student trying to discuss racial justice; I also felt (mildly) guilty for it--only mildly because I knew I was really doing my 100% best, but still, well, chagrined. I will have to think more about this link and what it means in my life.

I love my mom!
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Happy Downfall of Sauron Day! In the LOTR-verse in my head, this is anniversary 44 if I do my math aright.

In universe I actually inhabit, I’m in the home stretch of completing my book on relationship cutoff, Being Cut. In honor of ramping up for publication, I’m going to use this DS Day post to address a question that comes up repeatedly in this book, the question of friendship. Warning for references to relationship cutoff. Also spoilers for LOTR.

We have a strong cultural belief that friend cutoff isn’t a big deal, because friendship isn’t a big deal. I can’t count the times I’ve heard variations of “What’s the big deal? Most friendships end,” “Friendship isn’t a commitment,” “Friendship isn’t a serious relationship,” “Friendship is just based on whether it’s working for each person.”

Some friendships are like that, yes. We often use the word to mean “person I share a hobby with” or “amicable coworker I don’t really talk to outside of work” or “kid I played with twenty years ago.” But my book focuses on serious relationships, and capital “F” Friendship is serious.

Whenever I hear friendship dismissed in this way, the first place my mind goes is The Lord of the Rings. That book understands Friendship. For example (note: I’m vacation without my LOTR so I’m going to para-quote from memory), as Merry remarks to Frodo, “You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin to the bitter end, but you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone and go off without a word. We’re your friends...” Two of them are his cousins, too, but they are with him because they’re his friends. When Frodo calls Sam, “friend of friends,” he’s talking about going off to die together.

Or consider when Frodo tells Faramir and crew that Boromir was his friend. Now, he’s with people who are not necessarily his allies and is having to be strategic in what he says, but there’s strategic and then there’s lying, and that is not a lie, even though his last experience of Boromir is being physically attacked by him. Our pop-psychology today would probably call that a toxic relationship and dismiss Boromir as a “garbage person” who deserves nothing but dismissal and avoidance. And Frodo is avoiding him, yes, but within a very particular context that Frodo, as Ringbearer, understands perfectly well. Boromir was still his friend, and had he lived, I do not doubt they would have fairly quickly mended their fences. That doesn’t mean that no scar would remain, but there’s a difference between a scarred relationship and a destroyed one. Their friendship was not and would not have been destroyed. That is what true friendship is.

I don’t say that no serious friendship should ever end, just as I’d never say that no couple should ever get divorced. I don’t mean cutoff is never the best answer. I do mean that real friendship matters, like marriage matters. It is committed and loyal and willing to endure some hard times. It is at least as selfless as it is selfish; it does not stop at a facile assessment of “what’s working,” and, as a concept, it deserves much better than our current society gives it.

Happy DS Day! May your friends stick to you through thick and thin.
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I'm seeking beta readers for my book on relationship cutoff, which focuses on permanently severing contact with people one has had a close interpersonal relationship with (~88,000 words). If anyone is interested in reading it and giving me your impressions, please feel free to reply here or PM me.

[Edit: It is a non-scholarly, non-fiction book that makes a cultural argument using research, interviews, and personal experience.]
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I need a hook for a chapter in my book on relationship cutoffs, and I'd like to use a story where ceasing contact (at least temporarily) with an ex after a romantic breakup was helpful for healing. All contributions will be anonymous, using aliases.

If you have such a story you'd like to share, please PM me here on Dreamwidth. Thanks!
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In my latest reread in Mirage of Blaze, some thoughts have gelled for me about a perennially troubling aspect of the story: it's about an abusive relationship, and I absolutely root for the core couple to be together. This goes against all our common wisdom. Leave abusive relationships; that is rule number one. I've spent years mentally shunting aside this issue, but I think I'm ready to dive deeper now and explain why I do think Kagetora and Naoe belong together and what that says about real life.

Vague Mirage spoilers follow…Read more... )
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Keeping up Appearances is a c. 1990 British comedy series about small-town society lady, Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced "Bouquet"), a vain, egotistical busybody who fancies herself the pillar of the community but is really the most dreaded person in town. The series explores her misadventures as she terrorizes her community while inevitably having her plans thwarted by some embarrassing intrusion by her working-class family members. I have come to deeply love this show because in its light, zany, sometimes tooth-gritting way, it exemplifies what a connected, supportive community looks like. It teaches that while people may be far from perfect, we need to be there for one another all the same.*

The show is oriented around Hyacinth and her three sisters, each with an appropriate flower name. There's Violet, who married a rich man, but who is not happy with him. (The running joke that her husband is a crossdresser may be the aspect of the show that's aged the worst.) Ostensibly the most fortunate sister but the least connected to the community, she's usually only present through phone calls. Then, there's Daisy, who married working class bum, Onslow, and lives in a shabby house, along with Rose, an aging debutante whose life is procession of ill-fated romances, and their Daddy, a frail fellow about ninety who has no lines, but whose dementia does not stop him from getting about town and into trouble, especially with the ladies. The core group is rounded out with Hyacinth's long-suffering and easy-going husband, Richard, and her terrified neighbors, Elizabeth and Emmett, and the young vicar, who does his best to run away when he spots her.

Hyacinth is an awful person to be around, and our current popular culture would probably say cut her off. (Yes, I am writing a book on cutoffs.) She's a toxic narcissist, social media would observe, and to tolerate her would be toxic codependency. If this were real life, they'd say, the family should shun her, Richard divorce her, and nobody give her any truck. And, yes, that would be one way to shut her up. It would also be deeply destructive and tragic, fracturing core, loving relationships. Her community has chosen a different approach, and by no means a perfect one: they have chosen to tolerate her. They have chosen, more or less, to accept her as a reality of the community's life.Read more... )
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Despite its moments of silliness and its video-gamery, Gungrave remains one of the best anime I know. If you like seinen anime, you should see it. NB: It is a story created by Yasuhiro Nightow, hence my comparisons below to Trigun, another work of his.

It must be at least eight years since I've watched all of Gungrave. This is the first time I've watched it since I was cut off by a loved one, and that matters because Gungrave was, for a while, explicitly a text I used to understand the breakup between my former friend and me. I used to tell myself we had fallen out like Brandon and Harry and, like them, would find our way back. It took me about 2-3 years to figure out that wasn't so. Our society has changed too since then. It's much less tolerant, much more judgmental. So with those changes in mind, here are some thoughts on how my experience of Gungrave has and has not changed.

On the whole, I still love it for all the same reasons. I love the core friendship between Harry and Brandon. I love the humanity of (almost) all the characters. I love its very Nightow-like refusal to condemn the people for their actions; that is to say, the actions can be obviously egregious and lead to terrible outcomes, including for their perpetrators, but that doesn't reduce the humanity of the perpetrators or eliminate their ability to change, to learn. That great universal love so present in Trigun is present here too in a softer light. I am still very impressed by the plotting, the tightness of the themes, the way the characters serve as foils for each other. I may even be more impressed with the pacing than I used to be.

And I appreciate even more than I used to that Gungrave sticks the landing. Its final episode may be its best. Even Shouwa Shinjuu, which is the best anime I have seen in a very long time, does not stick the landing; it's the series' one flaw. Even Trigun (both anime and manga), which is, on the whole, a greater work, fizzles in comparison in its final beats. And on the other side of Game of Thrones, I am deeply impressed by a serialized story that can follow through in that way to the perfect conclusion, exquisitely executed. And now for some more detailed perceptions (spoilers follow)… Read more... )

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