Out with P, watching homeless folks shivering in the morning chill, thinking about the inadequacies of our responses to madness. Given the state of our knowledge, it tends to present a forced choice between various forms of neglect.

Also thinking, relatedly, about my efforts to attribute rationality to somebody who wasn't acting in a very rational-seeming way. I think, pretty much, that she had simply decided that she absolutely couldn't hurt another person anymore and all the incoherence flowed from trying to adjust things to that. As I'm pretty sure she caused the other person a great deal more long-term hurt by doing that, by creating a situation where he's never going to be able to get over his hurt, it's just another example of why one should never adopt absolute priorities. Really, complex situations are complex for a lot of reasons, simplifying them violently makes a horrible mess.

Been caused horrible damage by this myself, as has she, I'm sure. I have vastly better developed and more effective coping mechanisms than either of them, unfortunately.

OK, so rich inner life is intruding, unwelcome guest, doing my best to make it feel welcome anyway.

Hands are very cold.