Weeknote #14 [W26.01] - Blocking people, moral questions, and coconut water coffee

Blocking someone as a question about who I want to be

I’ve lately been getting unprompted barrages of abusive messages from someone I used to (and still do) care about. I have no idea why they are doing this, nor do I know how to respond.

My friends advice me to block them.

The mechanics of blocking someone is simple. Open the options menu, tap on “block”, and you’re done. Two clicks.

But there is a different problem for me. I have never thought of myself as someone who gives up on people. For better or worse, that belief has become a part of how I see myself, even if I never consciously chose it.

The act of blocking itself is easy.

Asking whether this is who I am — or want to be — is less straightforward.

What do I owe myself vs. what do I owe others?

Finding an answer also makes me consider a broader moral question: what do I owe myself vs. what do I owe others — especially those I care about?

I am aware that I have a duty of care to myself. By choosing to not blocking them, I’m allowing myself to be repeatedly subjected to abusive language. I’m letting something beyond my control affect my mental health. Worse, I’m possibly enabling behavior that I simply find unacceptable.

And yet blocking them would mean withdrawing at a moment when they may be acting out of distress.

People rarely behave atrociously in a vacuum. There are circumstamces in which emotional self-regulation is physiologically impossible. These are times when kindness can help, and abandonment may make things worse than it is already.

I do not know which decision I’m more willing to live with. One option feels like a failure of care toward myself, the other is a failure of kindness toward someone I care about. There are no good choices.

PS: The only easy way out of this dilemma would be if I could convince myself that blocking them is, in fact, the kindest thing I could do for them at this moment. I’m not there yet.

Coconut water coffee

On a lighter, and far less existential, note…

A few weeks ago, I had briefly written about my recent troubles with coffee.

This prompted a short discussion on the topic with a friend who mentioned that their favourite way to prepare coffee was with coconut water (!?), something which I had never heard of before.

I tried making it this week, and it was… interesting. I can see the appeal. It has a pleasant mouthfeel. But, it feels strange because it doesn’t taste how you would expect coffee to taste.

It is the kind of thing I can see growing on me if I try it more often — which is precisely what I don’t want to do, since I want to give up coffee altogether.