Oh, there you are.

Maybe this sounds odd, but as I get older, I've become more comfortable with not finishing books. It's still my preference to finish a book once I've started it, and normally I do, but I've also realized that I'm under no obligation to finish a book I find dull and/or distasteful. No one's keeping score, after all. (Plus, I've realized that "I've invested so much time in this book that I have to finish it" is a textbook example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy.)

4) if you actually are the worst person in the entire world, the scientific curiosity of this fact alone would make it worthwhile to continue

i think one of the reasons i dont vibe with a lot of modern "romantic" writing is that there's a notable lack of sweetness or tenderness written between the characters. the most popular tropes for intimacy negotiation between characters in modern romantic novels seem to be based around overcoming their own disdain, distrust, or resentment of the other character. an increasingly lazy, kneejerk "i hate how much i want them" approach to romantic and physical intimacy. true love requires doubt, they tell us. our desires can only be trusted when we douse them in cold hard rationality. no i'm not trying to come for the enemies rivals irritating workplace acquaintances to lovers trope that's so popular (although i'm also deeply bored by that). rather, i think it demonstrates a general jadedness in a genre that's otherwise supposed to be about "wish fulfillment HEA" yet struggles to conceive characters for whom tenderness and all-consuming desire is not a weakness. the irrationality that love can instill in a person is held at arm's length, a toxic impulse that must be adjusted in order to present a "healthy relationship." the overly-emotional lover has been relegated to "dark romance," or their behaviors channeled into specific genre-approved tropes which fit neatly into hetero-dominant relationship expectations. so much of it ends up reading pathos-less to me. in the hands of a talented writer, unhinged tenderness is the most excruciating possible thing to read. we used to have that, you know. we used to be a society.

The main curators of colonial memories are still white people in many parts of the world.

For example, you still have to go to The Netherlands to look up anything about precolonial Indonesia in their archives

Same with us, a lot of Malaysian history isn't being unstudied due to a lack of interest, but due to the archives and materials being under ownership of the British government or under private ownership of British individuals and their estates. Which you can only access by studying there or buying them. A lot of the present fields of studies we do have around these were built of the backs of programs given by the "grace" of the British government or researchers who could afford the costs. Even then, our generation and future researchers will forever be kneecapped by this limitation.

i think if your kid is precociously good at an adult hobby like cooking or sewing or whatever and you try to monetize it by turning them into a three-year-old influencer you should be locked in a funhouse until you change your mind

The exact translation is “ale killed us” which is somehow better