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I've been thinking about Albert Ellis and "Rational-Emotive Therapy" (one of the things that went into the mix of what is now usually called Congnitive-Behaviorial Therapy.) I read his "How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable about Anything--yes, Anything!" a while back.

The idea is, thoughts drives feelings, and if you really dive into the sentences you're telling yourself about situations you have a hope of reprogramming yourself and resetting your mood.

I'd like to think that I'm pretty well positioned to apply this idea, because I tend to be gated and analytical. I can unpack why I get so anxious about stuff, the consequences I'm so afraid of, the assumptions of self worth implicit in it all.

The idea is to open a higher quality of life, and to paradoxically use logic to create more space for joy and love feelings. Here's hoping.

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For no matter how honestly and authentically you experience intense feelings, they don't prove holy

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Worry, believe it or not, has no magical quality of staving off bad luck.

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Admit, by all means, that you feel needlessly fearful; forthrightly tackle your silly worries; but don't waste a minute beating yourself over the head for making yourself anxious. You have much better things to do with your time and energies!

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Always remember, in this connection, that you remain mortal; that humans have innate limitations; that they don't completely overcome groundless fears and anxieties; and that life continues as a ceaseless battle against irrational worries. If you fight this battle intelligently and unremittingly, however, you can almost always feel free from almost all your needless concerns. What more can you ask?

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Accept the fact that your past significantly influences you in some ways. But accept, also, the fact that *your present constitutes your past of tomorrow.*

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What we usually call *loving* or feeling *in love*, as opposed to desiring to get loved, constitutes one of the main forms of vital absorption. In fact, the three main forms of vital absorption comprise: (a) loving, or feeling absorbed in other people; (b) creating, or getting absorbed in things; and (c) philosophizing, or remaining absorbed in ideas. Feeling inert, passive, or inhibited normally keeps you from getting absorbed in any of these three major ways-and hence from truly living. Living essentially means doing, acting, loving, creating, thinking. You negate it by prolonged goofing, loafing, or lazing.

Not sure I'm fully into the negativity on goofing loafing and lazing. I'm much more concerned with how it's negated via avoidance strategies such as doom scrolling.

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I like these two from 40 Vintage New Yorker Christmas Covers That Nailed The Holiday Spirit

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In case it isn't obvious, they are still hiding huge swaths of the Epstein files. Case in point, image 468, the one involving Trump... and entire documents - like 119 pages of grand jury testament, wiped out.