The Way To Get Rid Of Someone, Is To Let Them Have What They Want

When Arnold told me that tragedy and comedy are but two aspects of what is real, and whether we see the tragic or the humorous is a matter of perspective , I suddenly remembered what Brandon told me some years back.

He postulated that because we do not know when we will die, we tend to think of life as an inexhaustable well.

According to him ,everything happens a finite number of times, and in very small quantities.

As he puts it ----

"How many more times will you remember a certain friend from your childhood, a friend so deeply a part of your being then that you could not imagine life without him or her then ? 5 or 6 times more ,perhaps not even that.

How many times more times will you watch the sun set by a beach or see a full moon rise over the horizon? Perhaps 10 maybe 20 .

Yet life and all in it seems so limitless."

Arnold contantly reminds me that change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not. Change does not take place through a coercive attempt by the individual or by another person to change him, but it does take place if one takes the time and effort to be what he is ---

-- to be fully invested in his current positions.

On Death And Dying And The Shit That Happens When Your Lover Leaves You

When thanatologist Elisabeth Kübler Ross wrote the classic “On Death and Dying”, little did she know that it would still be required reading in many academic settings, including medical and nursing schools, seminaries and psychology courses.

She introduced the world to her seminal "stages of dying" or "stages of grief" model which is still widely quoted.

According to her model, there are five stages that a dying person goes through when they are told that they have a terminal illness.

The stages are:

• Denial - The initial stage.: "It can't be happening."

• Anger .: "How dare you do this to me?!" (either referring to God, the deceased, or oneself)

• Bargaining .: "Just let me live to see my son graduate."

• Depression .: "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"

• Acceptance .: "I know my son will be in a better place"

Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to any form of personal loss, such as the death of a loved one, divorce, job loss, end of a relationship even a motor accident.

She also claimed these steps do not necessarily come in order, nor are they all experienced by everyone , though she stated a person will always experience at least two.

What that means is that a change of circumstance of any kind (a change from one state to another) produces a loss of some kind (the stage changed from) which will produce a grief reaction.

The intensity of the grief reaction is a function of how the change-produced loss is perceived. If the loss is not perceived as significant, the grief reaction will be minimal or barely felt.

Significant grief responses which go unresolved can lead to mental, physical, and sociological problems and contribute to family dysfunction across generations.