mika

virginia woolf's 1931 new years resolutions : "to have none. not to be tied. to be free & kindly with myself. sometimes to read, sometimes not to read. to go out, yes—but stay at home in spite of being asked. as for clothes, i think to buy good ones."

i highly recommend for women and girls to be intellectually curious and difficult to shame

thinking a lot about journaling & journaling systems. i’ve been rereading the collected journals of writers i love (susan sontag in particular) and texts on writing by other writers i love (joan didion and bell hooks im looking at you!) and wondering how the simple act of taking pen to paper has become so so complicated. perhaps it’s due to marketing and hyperconsumerism, but journaling has become an activity more about the stationery themselves rather than the act. and i absolutely love stationery, i love my fountain pens and the wonderful experiencing of writing on creamy midori md paper. but i have been so focused on the materials, of perfecting a journaling system with the perfect pens, notebooks, and accessories, rather than the actual action of journaling, of writing to know what i think, paraphrased from didion.

learning the hard way that super convoluted & complex journaling ecosystems do not work for me! i really only need two notebooks - one for reading notes and another for long form daily journaling. and a weekly journal for academic things. gotta keep it simple!

unlearn shame. then with all the new space in your brain you can learn something cool. like you can learn how to read braille. or you can learn how to make chocolate mousse. you can do anything really

If it’s meant to be I’ll see you later

when James Baldwin said I can’t be a pessimist because I’m alive

when James Baldwin said to be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter. So I am forced to be an optimist. I am forced to believe that we can survive whatever we must survive.