allisonb

It didn't register for me until today that the process of ego maturity for women is fraught with all kinds of challenges that men don't have true analogues for. Not in the maiden-mother-matriarch sense, but more in the difficulty facing shadow without hate. I think it's much harder for women to build a strong, self-critical ego structure that sees the weaknesses of their own sex without toppling over into individual self-hatred or culturally organized misogyny. This is partly because the maturity of femininity partially requires more contact with the social and superegoic than the maturity of masculinity, at least at some stages. And this is partly because there really just is a huge well of misogyny in culture - from both men and women - that is unique as a phenomenon. Misandry exists but it's not a true analog - that's a chimera of different resentments, envies and projections aimed at different groups of males, more differentiated by status. Misogyny has deep roots in the psyche via our relationship to our mothers at extremely young, primitive years. There is also an attachment component that is irreducible within our earliest, inner conception of "woman." It's an awful thing to have been insufficiently fathered but it's crippling to have been insufficiently mothered. Combine that with the natural prejudices of the animal brain toward strength and size, and misogyny simply has a much larger surface area in the collective consciousness. That makes it uniquely hazardous to try and avoid while coming to grips with a hard, realistic picture of maleness and femaleness as they actually are, not as we would like them to be. Of course men have our own unique struggles, but the path to a mature femininity seems to have many more psychological "near enemies" and emotional landmines that I hadn't considered until now. And the tendency to frame misogyny in moralizing terms that always victimizes women, rather than seeing women as full moral agents and patients who carry fully half of it in the collective unconscious, means you almost never see a realistic treatment of the issue written down anywhere. It's giving me a new appreciation for the difficulty of personal work and ego development that women face. Would love to hear from friends about their own observations here, on true differences between genders in the process of maturity.

Anyone else have the ability to walk into an establishment that’s dead empty, with you as literally the only patron And within 10 minutes it’s full? Noor (Nūr) Look into it

The winter solstice is when darkness reaches maximum power and immediately begins losing, which means the only way light ever wins is by letting darkness go all the way first

In our new episode we explore Mars-Uranus conjunctions in Gemini in US history, and how they've coincided with some of the most pivotal turning points during the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and World War II, providing insight into the upcoming conjunctions from 2026-2032.

𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗗𝗠𝗧 works. And what they found suggests your sense of self is basically a controlled hallucination your brain can just... turn off. The world as we know it might be about to change 🧵

When I was small, freedom came in two forms: the bicycle and the book. One gave me escape in motion, the other in silence. With one, I could vanish down dusty roads, with the other, between dog-eared pages and dusk-lit paragraphs. I never needed permission. Just a little light left in the day. My bike rattled like it had secrets; my book creased like it remembered me. No audience, no outcome, just movement and magic. I rode sticky-fingered, joy uncontained, a jelly smear on one hand. A chocolate milk mustache softening with the breeze. Freedom tasted sweet and careless then. The kind you sip, smear, and wear. There was always a book in the basket. Spine soft. Pages curled from afternoons half-lived. I didn’t choose between motion and story. I carried them together. They were both a kind of tender rebellion. Against stillness, against noise, against growing up too fast. The road didn’t ask questions. The story didn’t judge. They just let me leave. My bike didn’t care where I went. My book didn’t mind who I was. Back then, even the wind seemed to know my name. Freedom used to sound like pedals clicking and pages turning. I miss the kind of quiet that came with wandering. I return to the things that never asked me to be impressive. And I believed in them. Believed that a hill could be a beginning, and a sentence could be a door. Believed that if I pedaled hard enough or read slow enough, the world might hold me without asking me to explain. I return to that faith sometimes. When the screen glares too loudly, when the day presses its weight into my ribs. I remember that all I ever needed was something that moved me and something that understood me. And now, older and a little more frayed, I’ve returned to them. The bicycle and the book. They still carry me, just slower now, and with more to forgive. I ride again. I read again. And freedom feels like remembering. And I miss it like a promise I forgot I made. I’m not trying to be timeless. I’m trying to be true. Let the world rush. I’ll be the one pedaling.