Mulling over a list of attitudes that can be considered “magical thinking.”
Remember the book that Joan Didion wrote, several years back, called The Year of Magical Thinking? Ying was reading it in the apartment in Tel Aviv when self visited her, just a few months before she succumbed, at 37, to leukemia. Ying told self it was a very good book.
Honestly, self does not know how Ying managed to read a book like that when she herself was struggling for her life. But that’s how Ying was. She was compassionate and loving, but also remarkably clear-eyed and unsentimental. She was brave. The last thing Ying told self, shortly before she left Tel Aviv was, “I don’t think I’m going to make it.”
Today, self flipped open one of her journals and the first thing her eyes landed on was this list:
EXAMPLES OF MAGICAL THINKING:
- My “stuff” will save me.
- My writing will save me.
- Being good will save me.
- My degrees will save me.
- My 260-thread-count bed linens will save me.
- Other people will save me.
Denial is the most dangerous form of coping mechanism.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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