i finished this book the same day my grandma died.

i bumped into her a fortnight ago at the gardens, and my cousin had said grandma hadn't seen my mum in two years because they'd had an argument. he said that grandma was sick and lonely and really wanted to see my mum.

i told my dad what had happened and that i wanted to have a family dinner again, but he replied that my cousin shouldn't have dragged me into the family dispute. i don't think he relayed the message to my mum.

a week passed and my cousin asked if dinner was happening. i said my dad had said no, but that i wanted to come. my cousin urged me to convince my parents to come, if not this weekend, then the next.

i talked to my dad again and he told me to fwd my cousin's texts to him so that the responsibility to reply would be on him rather than me. this was not what i wanted. i wanted to be part of the decision making process, but i thought, fine, whatever, he can do his paternalistic bullshit if it makes him feel better. i doubt he brought any of these developments to my mum.

my grandma died the next day. i cried on a bench outside campus, because the last time i'd seen her i was in a rush and i hadn't been as affectionate and i wished i'd be. i cried because i'd promised myself that i'd start seeing her every month. i cried because my mum would now never hear what grandma had wanted to say to her.

when my dad arrived on campus he didn't ask how i was or if i needed anything, he just told me what had happened the day grandma died, and reassured me that she had lived a long life and looked peaceful in death. i felt disgusted and angry with him, because neither the longevity of my grandma's life, nor her expression in death, were on my mind. i was thinking about the unresolved agony my grandma and mum had shared over two years of their lives that i hadn't known about because i'd been too busy trying to sort out the shit in my own life. i was crying because i finally understood the unfairness of death, and i was angry, so fucking angry, because this was my dad, a self-absorbed emotionally-bankrupt patriarch who hadn't tried once in his life to understand where i was before spouting out life fucking hacks from where he'd been.

i should probably word this differently. in the language of nonviolent communication (nvc), all forms of blame, whether directed at the self (through shame) or the other (through guilt), are replaced with statements composed of 1) observations, 2) feelings, 3) needs, and 4) requests. as with buddhist or nietszchean philosophies, causation is understood as a false belief or retroactive signification. what causes anger in me is not my dad's actions, but my beliefs about my dad's actions (as inadequate, callous, unempathetic, and hollow); these beliefs stem from my unmet needs (to feel supported, to be heard, to be vulnerable); and these unmet needs can be addressed through requests. this produces a statement like this: "when you offered me reassurances about my grandma's death, i felt disgusted, angry, and hurt, because what i needed was an open space to mourn, not move on, as well as a space to speak and be heard. could you please ask me why i'm feeling distressed next time, and repeat that back to me so i can confirm you've heard me, and never give me unsolicited advice ever again, because it's not been helpful once in my fucking life--

ok whatever.

the point of all this is to try to bridge the other to your subjectivity, or, conversely, for you to bridge to theirs (by the same nonviolent principles: guiding them to state concrete observations, express the feelings associated with such observations, locate the needs that generate such feelings, then formulate requests so that such needs may be met). if all works out, this is a way to free us from guilt, shame, resentment, fear, and rage, as well as create open, honest, and consensual relationships.

i really appreciate the patience and compassion that nvc teaches. however, i detest its bifurcation of feeling and thinking into a rigid binary, wherein thinking must be disavowed for feeling to emerge. this bifurcation is a phenomenological violence that privileges feelings above thinking, as if they were separate ontologically beings. but feelings are never pure of the objects, values, or politics that they are constituted through. we are relational assemblages. it's my firm belief that there's value to be gained from both humanism's validation of spiritual and emotional experiences of the singular individual beyond mass-induced instrumental rationality (buber, fromm, heidegger, levinas, rosenberg) and antihumanism's investigation of experiences (emotions and rationalities) as constituted through hegemonic blocs, ideological apparatuses, and discursive enactments that precede and engender the forms that the singular and the individual may take (gramsci, althusser, foucault).

fuck whatever i don't care don't let your dumb dad ruin everyone's life. make him l read this book. fuck ontology.

i'm, of course, being facetious and unfair to my dad here in a postironic kierkegaardian attempt to show how condescending cruel nvc can be on the person attempting to follow its strictures. it's a sisyphian task to be empathetic towards people who have, seemingly, never tried to be empathetic back. but in fixating on my dad's actions i've bypassed multiple other moments where nvc could have helped. i could have stopped at the gardens when i bumped into my grandma, reflected back the hurt in my cousin's voice along with his need for resolution, and my grandma's own happy and surprised cry when she spotted me, which bespoke far more after i was told how lonely she'd been for the past few years. if i'd done this i would have realised the immensity of what'd been said to me. when my dad told me he'd deal with it, i could have said, that was not what i wanted from him. that his ways of omitting truths from our family members may protect us from short term pains, but also render us unprepared for later consequences. that i understood his need for 'supporting' his family, but that his paternalism was disrespectful, manipulative, and controlling.

nvc would omit much of the latter part of the paragraph above because it sees critique as a form of violence. i disagree, because i believe resiliency and response-ability to the other is a vital life and activist skill, and that it's a form of linguistic violence to excise all negative value judgements from language, and conform it to ego-centric needs-based psychology. i don't think shame, guilt, or rage are necessarily crippling, and that these emotions are just as important to process, transform, and integrate as positive ones. i think my dad deserves my blame, but no, i don't want his repentance. i wan't him to change because he both realises the cruelty of his actions, and desires a less domineering life. i want a dialectic of negative and positive feelings, as well as personal feelings and critical thoughts.

i'm gonna go cry now.