Jose's sort of loosely (un)structured thoughts that are longer and more relevant than a single tweet

  I've been feeling a lot more love than usual. Not sure what is causing this, but deep down I am caring for those around me and becoming genuinely happier to be in their presence than I normally do. This is not love of the romantic kind, but rather some other form of love that I perhaps had never truly felt before. This kind of love is grounding, light weight, all-encompassing, cheerful, patient, funny, and silly. I've felt it with friends, family, professional connections, and myself. Don't have much to add here other than the fact that I've felt it and recognised its existence, which means I will not be able to spot it in the wild and hopefully suffer some Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. (of course I had to google how to spell that) Will continue to explore this. Relevant tweet: https://twitter.com/jose_goncalves_/status/1577085472647839744

  Up until this point - perhaps until a pivotal moment happened ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nqv9lmWuklFzTVFWtDlh6KC24bPQUqMF-fnORR2GPIA/edit?usp=sharing ) - I would need to like the things people do in order to like them as beings. I am now decoupling the two and it feels amazing. Tangibly, this is what needing to like what people do looks like: X does something I don't like -> I don't like X X does something I find stupid -> X is stupid Inversely: Y does things I like -> I like Y Y does things I find great -> Y is great Decoupling the things people do from who they are might seem trivial, but it has been a real challenge for me, seemingly because so much of my identity has been tied to the things I do for so long. In a way I was only doing the "fair" thing and using the same criteria I used on myself with others. Lately, with the process of letting go of identities, I've apparently also freed those around me from their identities as "so...