My theory: As with inflated fears of car jacking & home invasion, most suburban paranoia scenarios are actually fantasies ("the bad other wants what I have"). Once stripped of defensive distortions, this fantasy looks to me like narcissism: "I am desired / we are desirable."

https://twitter.com/LauraRbnsn/status/1680192427569577985

everyone- I mean everyone- wants to feel that their life could be envied by some imaginary onlooker; our self-worth is rooted in this interpersonal network. The fantasy of "the person who wants what I have" is fundamentally pleasurable- it says "I'm worth something" to someone.

I am stunned & saddened to learn that Patricia “Dean” Robertson, my beloved English teacher at St. Francis High School in Louisville, Kentucky has just passed away. Her obituary is below; this will be a memorial thread about Dean's effect on her students. legacy.com/us/obituaries/… Dean’s impact struck a bell in my mind that is still ringing. To take her “Hebrew Bible as Literature” class was to be plunged into an ancient past, activated to its contrary forces, awakened to the compression and beauty and complexity of scripture.