the CIA was on the phone

signing off, bang bang kiss kiss

A man can, because of his agitation or hatred, approach a woman with violence. But this very aggression betrays the grip she has over him. A woman is physically smaller and weaker, hence traditionally called the “weaker sex” yet what is truly stronger should never feel threatened by what is objectively weaker. A child cannot threaten me regardless of its actions. But a woman is not child nor is she innocent, and she is certainly far from harmless; men intuitively grasp this truth more readily than women do. The very force that can annihilate his entire identity is precisely what draws him to her.

Our negative experiences imprint upon us. But since they are negative they are meant to be dissolved and digested (like my dream!). They are not something we should be devoted to in a sense of bowing down to them. And we should never build our identities upon them. Communing and interacting with them does not mean we bow down to them. We simply enter an alchemical process. They are still a psychic material. In fact, the negative, traumatic load is the material that carries a tremendous amount of power. But this power is something we have to redeem, thus we commune with it to redeem it, not to worship it in its negative state.

Articles no. 35

I mainly paint sex workers because my family is from the singing and dancing tradition. My mother and sister were prostitutes. I was the only son and my sister had four kids. Their fathers had all gone away so I adopted them. I needed to make money to support them.

got enough guilt to start my own religion

Or, I don’t know, have an iced coffee at 7pm, dressed way too hot for the cafe, and let whatever happens between you and your words/art/music/journal/sketchbook/drafts folder/notes app that night happen. That’s my version of “let’s get fucked up.”

Articles no. 34

Because she was vulnerable, she reminded me that we choose how to deal with someone who needs us—we can be kind and loving or we can be merciless and cold. We can resent love or we can adore it.

He often stormed out of restaurants, threw tantrums and left me alone in strange cities and gave me the silent treatment for days.

 I think also, for me, their sort of strange and not strange came from feeling very much like I was growing up in a popular culture landscape that pitted women against each other, and you were either the sort of, like, cool, alternative person or you were the more traditional feminine person. And there was no space to have aspects of both or no space to be both. It felt like you had to pick a side. And hopefully, I feel like it's not like that as much anymore.

Men are rarely called ‘mysterious’ because their thoughts and their opinions have for so long been the subject of all culture; women, frequently pegged as unknowable, remain so because it is easier for the consumer to devour them without the tiresome inconvenience of seeing them as people, flawed and needy and desirous.

The other reason they don’t like talking about it is because it drives home the uncomfortable truth: the PTI isn’t really a party. The party is Imran. The ideology is Imran. People joined for Imran. People voted for Imran. The military banked on Imran. It always was Imran and will remain Imran, until there is no Imran. He is its life, and also its sunset clause.