Cover artwork by Anton Biletskyi-Volokh, from an unpublished reusable sketchbook in progress.
A thematic selection of translated notebook fragments.
We want to rescue those we have no faith in.
Envy combines wanting to possess with not wanting to act.
Giving up a desire as a way of avoiding the frustration of refusal.
Drama disguises the real problem and the unmet need.
Wanting to take over somebody else's story gets in the way of noticing and discovering your own.
Falling for troubled people means going against nature in the pursuit of drama.
Sometimes the determination and staying power behind the wish to remain in an unbearable situation are astonishing.
Suffering is a way of distracting yourself from the real problem. A pepper plaster over the actual need.
The desire to win, whine, buy or force love out of someone who is indifferent to you, at any cost, often underlies deeply destructive stories.
Unrequited love is a kind of complaint against its object: we poor unfortunates know better who that person ought to choose.
An excellent way of not getting what you want is not saying what you need.
Wanting a partner who will solve every problem for you is an unmet need for an ideal parent.
Giving up your desires creates permanent discontent. If you do not know what you want, how can you know what to be happy about?
The desire for constant euphoria conceals the desire to distract yourself from pain. Constant euphoria is practically a kind of pain in itself.
When choosing, it is important to understand not only what will be better, but also what will be easier to let go of.
An important sign of mental well-being is being able to sit quietly with yourself without wanting to occupy, distract or entertain yourself.
The role of the family's disaster, fool or poor unfortunate falls to whoever is chosen as the family system's donor. Do not become somebody: be the family's food.
The longer you avoid making a decision so as to remain good in everybody's eyes, the greater the risk that you will end up bad in everybody's eyes.
Constantly looking for confrontation in 'Well, I disagree' mode is often about wanting to be noticed somehow rather than searching for the truth.
Euphoria is given to us to begin recovering after solving a difficult task. If it arrives before the task is solved, less strength remains for solving it.