r-e-s-p-e-c-t
find out what that means to me

'He now understood what his father had meant. If he hit the man he would be making an exhibition of his suffering. He would be begging for Elaine's pity. He might be demanding love but all he could hope to receive was pity and pity would inexorably turn to contempt. Elaine would not respect him and he could no longer respect himself... ... He must conquer his own weakness, his parasitic need to structure his life on Elaine's. Only if he became stronger within himself could he safely seek love again'
- Philip Jeyaretnam, "Evening under Frangipani"


Hell yeah.
as my old roomie has taught me time and time again, respect yourself, because if you don't, how do you expect others to respect you?

i think we live in subconscious or maybe conscious complementarities. when someone presents, sets up him/herself as a big powerful force, dominant, assured, vision in mind and direction in hand, we let ourselves grow small, dwarfed by the other, but maybe necessarily so, for two gigantic forces might just bumble along and bump each other off the road. rather if one is big, the other is necessarily small, not insignificant though, but to complement, to guide, to support the other.
the problem that comes in, is when we stop being complements and seriously become parasitic. you no longer play a part of your own, but you rely on being an appendage of the other.

and that's such a fine line.

if we want to love freely, if we want to walk together with someone, we have to value that person in the appropriate context. sometimes that might just mean walking away, til you can understand your own value first, and give to the relationship as well.



on a more banal note,
i'm starting to appreciate my south east literature classes more than my economics ones :(