Morales' Morale Moral: Ask Your Friends What They Like About You

I sent:

I've just been to my second Mental Health meeting - the woman I see, Leena M0rales (pure visigoth if you ask me, blonde, gray-blue eyes) told me that I automatically discount my good qualities when they're told me and can't see them myself, and she has encouraged me to ask my friends to list what they think are my good qualities (NOT my bad), and what they like about me. 
 
 
I feel embarrassed to do so but I said I would ask.

From Ian:

Am suitably half-cut and ready to maybe tell you what a cunt you are - I mean how wonderful you are. First I'm off to the fridge for some more ale...it's nearly midnight an i have work in the morning...

not to mention am in the fucking throes of a nervous breakdown..

OK, so you want me to tell you what is good about you...

You're incredibly intelligent.
you're the perfect sounding board, because you're very honest with your opinions on things people do.
you're forever young - your eyes, your voice, your soul.
you also have a timeless quality, which complements the forever youngishness.
You are post-everything. You're ahead of the curve and waiting for the rest to catch up.
As such you are very bored.
and confused, but your confusion translates into an open-hearted quest for happiness and satisfaction.
You're very funny.
you're witty enough to virtually always cite a source for something you say that is funny/witty, and even sometimes cite sources of things you derived from such sources. That's rare and could get you shagged often, if you could but see.
you're versatile and adaptable (from fine art to maths to libraries)
you have a vast scope of reference and you can go into detail on it, unlike 99.99% of people.
you have a cheerful face. not in a "fat" sense but in a kindly wise sense.
you're capable of insightful and logical thought on a par with so-called brilliant writers and philosophers.

i'll do more tomorrow - it's 1:00 am and i'm pissed and have to get up for work in the morning.



From Bernadette:

How spooky
 
I've said a few things to you before rob when you've tried to convince me you're autistic

lol Harry asked why i was laughing and when i told him he didn't get it.
 

ok here we go not sure lists are the way to go
 

in no particular order
 

good friend - what more can a person ask for but think that you make a good friend do i need to quote any more qualities
 
so what makes a good friend the qualities that you share with the good friend stereotype
 
you listen -  a quality that shouldn't be underrated
 
you try to help - again another quality that shouldn't be underrated
 
you are thoughtful about your friends and act on it
 
you are interesting and have lots of topics of conversation to draw on
 
you're good at sharing in that in a group you won't hog the limelight 
 
you don't get involved in gossip which is good  (sub text to that is at the moment the new people in the office seem to be a bit on the malicious side you would never criticise someone without good reason

 
The way you looked after your mother tells a lot about your character and your father.
 
I hope now you realise you can't be autistic at least because  i'm not the only one who thinks you are a good friend.
 
More to the point what did Heather put?
I'm working on the friendship bit especially with one of my friends whose mother died a year ago and at the time i think i could have been more supportive.  
 
Just by the by i ended up enjoying the Rossetti biog but now want a Holman Hunt biog as he's the religious one.  
 
will think about the rest  
 
but like i say can't think of a better compliment than to say you are a good friend tell that to the spooky shrink but let me know how it goes as i can't help being curious about the process



From Melanie

Hi Bob

Good qualities as follows


Intelligent

Loyal friend

Very caring son

Well read

Politically astute - usually ahead of the rest of us !

Good at finding out about stuff


Few bad habits , no drinking or smoking or drug taking

Very independent - doesn't ask for help.


That will have to suffice for now Bob - if I think of anything else -
will email you !

Lots of love

Mel

PS I heard you had a driving lesson - how did it go ?!


From Heather:

honesty
a good listener
interested in other people
caring
kind
no affectations
excellent facility with language and writing
tallented and able artist
can spontaniously see humour and laugh without self conciousness
can see the humerous side to things because you have the ability to look at things askance
you take my ideas and views seriously
intelligent and reflective
know a lot about many things, an auto didact
you keep trying, you keep persevering dispite depression and ill health
you get up and do something every day dispite feeling shit


H
x

Love seeketh not Itself to please

The myth of the love-vow had a lasting influence on Western culture. [...] Other societies have viewed love, desire and marriage in other terms, and the idea of marriage as rooted in a personal choice is as foreign to oriental traditions as the love of counterpoint, the belief in the Incarnation or a taste for confit d'oie.

It is hard to disagree with all that. Yet there is something that it overlooks, something which is at the heart of the medieval conception of the love vow, and of the marital practices that it has been used to authorize. This thing is the peculiar intentionality of human sexual emotion. Sexual desire is not a desire for sensations. It is a desire for a person: and I mean a person, not his or her body, conceived as an object in the physical world, but the person conceived as an incarnate subject, in whom the light of self-consciousness shines and who confronts me eye to eye, and I to I. True desire is a kind of petition: it demands reciprocity, mutuality and a shared surrender. It is, therefore, compromising, and also threatening. No pursuit of a mere sensation could be compromising or threatening in this way.

These are not claims about culture, nor are they claims about the way in which desire has been rationalised, idealized or constrained by institutions. They are claims about a particular state of mind, one that only rational beings can experience, and which, nevertheless, has its roots in our embodiment as members of the human species.

Roger Scruton "The Meaning of Marriage" 2006


Love is a matter of desiring the persona of the loved one as it is. It is most emphatically not a matter of selfishly manipulating the persona of the other to match one's demands, needs and preconceptions; that is merely a subtle kind of rape.

Roberta Holzmann "A Sceptical Feminism" 1987

It's Time

It's time to be selfish.