https://wist.info Wish I'd Said That! Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:11:20 +0000 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://wist.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/little-w-little-box-60x60.jpg https://wist.info 32 32 43606282 https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/58012/ https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/58012/#respond Mon, 02 Jan 2023 19:07:19 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=58012 Moral compromises don’t stop happening even when everyone involved is trying to do the right thing.

Elizabeth Bear (b. 1971) American author [pseud. for Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky]
Ancestral Night (2009)
    (Source) ]]> https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/58012/feed/ 0 58012 https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/56735/ https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/56735/#respond Wed, 19 Oct 2022 21:18:27 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=56735 Impatience and cutting corners: it’s the primate way. It got us down out of the trees and up to the top of the evolutionary heap as a species, which is a lot more like a slippery, mud-slick game of King of the Hill with stabbing encouraged than any kind of tidy Victorian great chain of being or ladder of creation.

Elizabeth Bear (b. 1971) American author [pseud. for Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky]
Ancestral Night (2019)
    (Source) ]]> https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/56735/feed/ 0 56735 https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57192/ https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57192/#respond Tue, 15 Nov 2022 16:28:16 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=57192 Anyway, one of the first things you learn in space is not to thrash. If you have nothing constructive to do, the most constructive thing you can do is often nothing at all. In a mindful sense, I mean. Thrashing is the thing that gets people killed. Not sitting still.

Elizabeth Bear (b. 1971) American author [pseud. for Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky]
Ancestral Night (2019)
    (Source) ]]> https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57192/feed/ 0 57192 https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57424/ https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57424/#respond Tue, 29 Nov 2022 23:40:56 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=57424 Maybe all obligate carnivores are essentially the same. Can I eat that? Is it going to eat me? Is it a toy?

Elizabeth Bear (b. 1971) American author [pseud. for Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky]
Ancestral Night (2019)
    (Source) ]]> https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57424/feed/ 0 57424 https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57540/ https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57540/#respond Tue, 06 Dec 2022 18:25:41 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=57540 We think of forgiveness as a thing. An incident. A choice. But forgiveness is a process. A long, exhausting process. A series of choices that we have to make over, and over, and over again. Because the anger at having been wronged — the rage, the fury, the desire to lash out and cut back — doesn’t just vanish because you say to someone, “I forgive you.” Rather, forgiveness is an obligation you take on not to act punitively on your anger. To interrogate it when it arises, and accept that you have made the choice to be constructive rather than destructive. Not that you have made the choice never to be angry again.

Elizabeth Bear (b. 1971) American author [pseud. for Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky]
Ancestral Night (2019)
    (Source) ]]> https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57540/feed/ 0 57540 https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57635/ https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57635/#respond Mon, 12 Dec 2022 14:58:00 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=57635 Anger is an inoculant. It gets your immune system working against bullshit. But anger can also make you sick, if you’re exposed to it for too long. That same caustic anger that can inspire you to action, to defend yourself, to make powerful and risky choices … can eat away at you. Consume your self, vulnerabilities, flesh, heart, future if you stay under the drip for too long. The anger itself can become your reason for living, and feeding it can be your only goal. In the end, you’ll feed yourself to it to keep the flame alive, along with everyone around you. Anger is selfish, like any flame. And so, like any flame, it must be shielded, contained, husbanded while it is useful and banked or extinguished when it is not. But flames don’t want to die, and they are crafty — an ember hidden here, a hot spot unexpectedly lurking over there. Sure, you can turn the feelings off, and I had done that before. But turning off the anger doesn’t lead to dealing with the problems that caused the anger.

Elizabeth Bear (b. 1971) American author [pseud. for Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky]
Ancestral Night (2019)
    (Source) ]]> https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57635/feed/ 0 57635 https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57912/ https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57912/#respond Mon, 26 Dec 2022 18:29:26 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=57912 Forgiveness is not easy. Forgiveness is a train with many stops, and it takes forever to get where you are going. And you cover a lot of territory along the way, not necessarily by the most direct route, either. That’s why forgiveness is a process, and as much a blessing for the person who was wronged as for the person who did the wronging. And it’s hardest when the person you most need to forgive is yourself.

Elizabeth Bear (b. 1971) American author [pseud. for Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky]
Ancestral Night (2019)
    (Source) ]]> https://wist.info/bear-elizabeth/57912/feed/ 0 57912