I’m rereading this unbelievable article that our cousin/niece Emily Lackey wrote: Who Do You Belong To? What resonated with me the most about this piece (and damn, am I amazed by her writing and so proud that she is a cousin!) were the questions she learned to ask herself: Why do I want this? Why do I not want this?
At first, I thought: isn’t that essentially the same question? But upon reflection, I can see that the answers to these questions define the space that is the space we choose to live in. The first is the > and the second is the <.
Emily teases out the differences as she evaluates her options, clear-headed about who she is and what she wants. “I asked myself, Why would I want this? and the answers were the same as they had always been: It would be easy, it would be convenient, it was all right here ready for me. The question Why do I not want this? was harder to answer.”
Side note: I think it’s time for a Forth family reunion.
Go Forth 