Living With The Truth

I've just finished a book called "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss. In it, there is a passage that describes so well how I feel now that I know the truth about my FOO.

"The War ended. Bit by bit, Litvinoff learned what had happened to his sister Miriam, and to his parents and to four of his other siblings (what had become of his oldest brother, Andre, he could only piece together from probabilities). He learned to live with the truth. Not to accept it, but to live with it. It was like living with an elephant. His room was tiny, and every morning he had to squeeze around the truth just to get to the bathroom. To reach the armoire to get a pair of underpants he had to crawl under the truth, praying it wouldn't choose that moment to sit on his face. At night, when he closed his eyes, he felt it looming above him."


Though, unlike Litvinoff, I don't think I have learned yet how to live with this truth. Working on it...

If You're Not Nice To The Waiter...

www.iliketoquote.com

        I had seen this quote in various places, but until this summer I had never met a person who was -literally- not nice to the waiter (not nice to other people, yes, but not nice to a waiter/waitress, never). The guy that I mentioned in previous posts -El Zorro- was absolutely horrendous to waiters/waitresses (or anybody in a position of service for that matter). It was not overt enough that you could pull him up on it, but appalling enough to make one cringe. I had never seen anything quite like it before, it was something I didn't think it existed anymore: he would treat them with an air of superiority, like they did in Victorian times, when people actually had servants, and with a horrible subtle snobbishness, arrogance, cruelty even... 

       To say that this guy had massive issues is an understatement: a psychiatrist would have a field day with him. Every evening he would have a two hour "mini-depression"; but I don't think it was real depression (people who are truly depressed don't go round advertising the fact to someone they've just met the day before), no, I think he was feeling bad about himself -and rightly so- because our bodies know the truth about ourselves, and if one is going around being so awful to some people -even thought they might be very charming to others- somehow it can't be entirely suppressed, at some point, it leaks out. 
     I felt really sorry for the guy -not in a compassionate way, but more in a "what a sad way to live" sort of way, because to live your life in that dimension, where it's all about looking good, making money, impressing people, and miss out on having true friendships, and kindness and love, is the worse life I can think of.       

A Bore or a Narcissist?

There is a page on FB called "The Fat Englishman" that I really like. It's mainly about food but every now and then he'll post an interest quote. Today he posted this: 

to which he added the caption: 

"and such is the sort of person one should never dine with"

I thoroughly agree.