Deeper Into My Bones  ## Metadata - Author: [[Anne McCarthy]] - Full Title: Deeper Into My Bones - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#quotes, #relationships, #truth, #AdrienneRich, #self-reflection, #love, #honesty] - #quotes - #relationships - #truth Author: CJ Eller Source: nomad.blog Reference: [Deeper Into My Bones, nomad.blog, 2025-01-20](https://nomad.blog/2025/01/20/deeper-into-my-bones/) date created: 2025-05-16 21:06 --- # Title: Refined Truths in Human Relationships – Adrienne Rich Reflections ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#📝-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#📖-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#🗒️-notes) - [📖 References](#📖-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#🗣️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#📰-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#✅-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#🧪-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#📊-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#❓-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#🔮-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#💡-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#🧠-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#📊-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#🌍-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#✅-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#🔍-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#🔍-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#🎯-conclusion) --- ## 📝 Summary: This reflection, centered around Adrienne Rich’s writings on love, honesty, and self-delusion, explores the significance of truth-telling in relationships. The author, CJ Eller, uses Rich’s powerful words to dive into the vulnerability and complexity required for “honourable human relationship[s],” recognizing both the rewards and rarity of such openness. The essay discusses how honesty combats isolation, strengthens connections, and supports personal growth. The author weaves personal context—such as their habit of collecting quotes and experiences with long-term friendships—into a meditation on what it means to really “go that hard way” with someone. --- ## 📖 Main Content: CJ Eller’s piece begins by highlighting the deep impact of a specific Adrienne Rich quote about the nature of honest, loving relationships. The author explains a lifelong fascination with collecting quotes and how this particular one—about the “process of refining the truths”—is both a guiding principle and a recurring source of reflection. The essay then expands to a fuller passage from Rich, in which she warns of the dangers of lying (to others and ourselves), and the risk of losing faith in our own lives through self-deception. Rich’s words emphasize that true love is not comfort but a continual, sometimes frightening process of mutual truth-telling—a journey with few companions willing to take it. Eller relates these themes to their own experiences, particularly around long relationships and the vulnerability it takes to ask someone to “bring me with you” when understanding falters. There’s a candid acknowledgment of how rare such open connections are, and a recognition of their immense value. ### 🗒️ Notes - *Adrienne Rich’s Perspective*: - Honorable love requires the difficult, ongoing process of mutual truth-telling. - Lying to others creates self-delusion and alienation. - Breaking through isolation demands courage and emotional risk. - *Truth in Relationships*: - Real love is not about knowing everything but being open to truth as it arises. - The process is “delicate, violent, often terrifying.” - The willingness to listen, to “go that hard way,” is rare and precious. - *Personal Reflection*: - Author has a long habit of collecting meaningful quotes, especially on Tumblr and in personal docs. - The desire to revisit and deepen understanding of Rich’s words, especially when relationships get complicated. - The phrase “bring me with you” is a plea for deeper understanding and a signal of willingness to do the hard emotional work. - Recognition that few people are willing to engage at this level, making those who do truly special. --- ## 📖 References: - Rich, Adrienne. *On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966–1978* (W. W. Norton, 1979) - Eller, CJ. ["Deeper Into My Bones"](https://nomad.blog/2025/01/20/deeper-into-my-bones/) - Tumblr, various quote archives --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. **Original:** “In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even in our own lives.” **Paraphrased:** When we aren’t honest with others, we begin deceiving ourselves—downplaying people or moments that matter, using some memories to block out others, and gradually losing trust in the story of our own lives. 2. **Original:** “It isn’t that to have an honourable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you. It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.” **Paraphrased:** Honest relationships don’t require us to know or say everything right away. What matters is the ongoing desire to share truth—even when it’s scary. It’s about being open to difficult conversations, strong enough to listen, and committed to expanding honesty together. --- ## 📰 Newsletter: 🌱 **WordPress, Community, and the Hard Way of Truth** This week’s reflection is a masterclass in what it means to build trust—in life, code, or community. Drawing on Adrienne Rich’s searing insight, CJ Eller reminds us that “an honourable human relationship” is an ongoing process, not a destination. Openness and vulnerability may be daunting, but they’re the foundation for real connection—whether you’re shipping code, starting a plugin, or navigating the messy world of human emotions. In WordPress and beyond, let’s celebrate the rare gift of those who “go that hard way” with us and make our community stronger for it. 🔗 [Read the full post](https://nomad.blog/2025/01/20/deeper-into-my-bones/) | #TruthTelling #Community #WordPress --- ## ✅ Action Items: - **Advocacy**: Encourage honest, vulnerable communication in all contributor relationships and WordPress communities. - **Education**: Integrate empathy and reflective listening exercises into onboarding, documentation, and workshops. - **Contributor Engagement**: Create safe spaces for contributors to “bring each other along” in dialogue—adopt the “bring me with you” approach. - **OSPO Vision**: Embed transparency, emotional safety, and truth-telling as foundational values for sustainable open-source leadership. - **Alignment**: This reflection affirms your professional focus on authentic, supportive, and transparent community-building. It models the kind of relationship-building critical to long-term open-source sustainability. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - H1: Emphasizing truth-telling and vulnerability in open-source communities strengthens trust and retention. - H2: Adopting “bring me with you” language in conflict mediation reduces misunderstandings and increases group cohesion. - H3: Integrating quote-based reflection prompts into onboarding increases new contributor empathy and engagement. ### 📊 Methodology: - **Surveys**: Measure changes in community trust and psychological safety before/after implementing honesty-focused training. - **Workshops**: Facilitate reflection sessions using quotes and personal storytelling, then track retention. - **Ethnographic Studies**: Observe interactions in teams that use “bring me with you” practices. ### ❓ Questions: - How can we encourage more “hard way” truth-telling in remote or asynchronous teams? - What tools can help contributors signal when they need understanding or accompaniment? - Where are the boundaries between transparency, privacy, and safety in open communities? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Longitudinal studies on the impact of vulnerability on contributor longevity. - Comparative research on the role of reflective quotes in different technical communities. - Analysis o - Summary: “An honourable human relationship—that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love”—is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process … - URL: https://nomad.blog/2025/01/20/deeper-into-my-bones/  > “An honourable human relationship—that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love”—is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.” > > Adrienne Rich I love quotes and have long collected them, with a few in particular left rumbling around in my head. It’s part of what first drew me to tumblr and left me spending hours upon hours finding quotes to copy and paste into a Word doc I maintained. I often return to the one above when thinking both about how important sharing truths are in relationships and in how few people can “go that hard way with us”. In pulling it up to share with a friend today, I stumbled upon a fuller version that has left me nearly reeling with insights. I want to read in twenty times over in hopes it’ll soak deeper into my bones. > “In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even in our own lives. An honourable human relationship—that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love”—is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us. It isn’t that to have an honourable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you. It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us. The possibility of life between us.” > > Adrienne Rich I keep wanting to pull out one specific line to verbally scream in joy about it but they each are so good that I must rely on the whole and demand you read it again. I’ve been thinking so much about this when faced with 10+ year relationships where I’m left confused or surprised in big or small ways. Many close to me will know the phrase “bring me with you” in those moments. It’s my way of saying “I’m not following but I want to go where you go or at least understand why you are going where you’re going”. It’s my way of wanting to go that hard way. I’m also learning very painfully how true the “so few people” reality is. What a gift it is to have others go with us and to *want* to go with us., Deeper Into My Bones, Anne McCarthy, 01jj20aj1q9zzr7kdea1eky8c8.