I was looking for quotes related to “work” and found this lovely series of quotes from Agnostic Zetetic, whom I had never heard of.   I saw this one first and it just made me laugh.

“There is a certain loveliness, I think, to performing deep cleaning in one’s underwear on a beautiful summer day.” 
― Agnostic Zetetic

And then this:

“I was not merely cleaning an oven; I was improving the world.” 

I thought, “that’s got to be a submissive person, I can’t imagine who else would feel that way!!”

The next one

“No one has the right to demand that your body be something other than what it is.” 

made me think of FFF, and I had to remind myself that for most of us, the demand to change our bodies is internal, not from someone outside ourselves.  At the same time , I thought about Bleue, and what she wrote about her post-baby body.  How much of our desire to change is really about health, and how much is external pressure?  Only each of us can know.

And then this:

“We’re not broken. We’re not in the wrong bodies. We’re not inadequate. We’re not lesser. We’re not unwanted. We’re not fraudulent. We’re not undesirable. That’s all just a set of lies we tell to soothe the experience of the prisons we put ourselves in.” 

I wondered if Agnostic Zetetic was trans, but the quote speaks to me too.  It’s about trying to manage the dialectic – that we are all perfectly fine just the way we are – and we can all be healthier, thinner, more flexible, more of whatever we aspire to.  Both of those things are true.

Then the quotes move away from bodies and into who we are on a different level:

“Even with the very best of intentions, even with the ambition of making the world a better place, when we cast judgment upon people whose lifestyles, beliefs, or predilections we dislike, we add to the emotional filth of hostility and make the world feel a little less safe for the folks we’re genuinely trying to help.” 

I find myself thinking something like this every time I see someone on FB attacking someone’s appearance or laughing at their weight – even when it’s someone I don’t respect or hold in high regard.

“May we each find in ourselves the courage we forgot we have, to see the beauty we forgot is inside us, while battling the demons we forgot we can slay, on a battlefield we forgot we can win.” 

I think i want that one on a wall hanging, or somewhere i can see it everyday.  And i want this one for so many of my clients:

“If you’re lying to everyone you know, including yourself, at every possible turn, is a little upheaval really the worst that could happen to your life right now?” 

But THIS one speaks to me directly.

“If it’s convenient to love you, you’re lying to someone about who you are or what you need.” 

I have to sit with this one for awhile.  I think there might be some home truths for me here.  I can still here MP commenting to me casually that he appreciated that I made his life so easy.  Some might think that means I’m a good submissive, but I don’t think so, not in this case.  I think it is more about the lies Agnostic Zeretic calls out here.

There are more quotes i liked but I will save them for another time.

Agnostic Zetetic does indeed appears to be a slave, and probably trans.  They once had a blog, but it’s password protected and apparently hasn’t been used since February 2015.  They’ve written one book:  Pinocchio’s First Time, which bills itself as Trans Erotica.  I can find very little about them – and am using the gender neutral “they/them” just because I don’t know what pronouns they preferred.

But the quotes don’t come from the book, which is the shortest one I’ve seen on Amazon.  So I don’t know where the quotes come from – you can find them on Goodreads quotes, but they’re not attributed to anything.  The book does have at least one quote – the last one I’ll share here.  It’s in the first few paragraphs of the book, where’s it’s quickly established that they’re tied up and being played with by someone who is “gorgeous, slender, nuanced.”  Someone who “made my brain shudder and my body follow suit.”  Then this:

“It’s for your own good, boy. Take the pain, and grow with it. You can’t be any better than you are now without some growing pains.” His voice was gentle, as though he actually had some semblance of mercy deep down inside of him. 

The promise of those words is so powerful for me.