Chris Duffy

And we are back.

You say in the book that grief does not happen on the clock of capitalism, that that's not how it works.

You're talking about how grief does not work.

And you say that.

So just to read it, many languages have a middle voice, which is less concerned with agency in the middle.

The subject does not do or have something done to them.

Neither can they simply opt out from or reverse the action of which they are a part.

They undergo change while engaged in interactive processes from which they cannot simply withdraw.

They are not and cannot be exterior to the process.

And then you say, you are grieving, but grieving is also doing you.

That really hit me in the gut.

It is both you doing it and it doing you.

And it is active and passive and both.

That messiness of grief, I think, is what a lot of people really struggle with.

And that struggle with not being able to articulate.

I want to read two quotes from the book that are from really different parts.

This first one is from towards the end.

This is why I think I cannot stomach the grief platitudes industry.

Grief is not joyful or peaceful.

It is a war inside me.