it does not know it is this not that

you are

Artist: SHINee (샤이니) Song: Hello (Glen Check Remix)

This remix by Glen Check has been making its rounds on the Internet as it is a great mix of Glen Check’s sound and the amazing upbeat love song by SHINee. You may think that the two would not mix, but both fit so perfectly together and it was made into this amazing mix. Glen Check always does a great job mixing songs, so it was no surprise that this was going to be amazing, and surely enough it pretty much is.

Ten Rules for Writers by Zadie Smith

1. When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

2. When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.

3. Don’t romanticise your “vocation”. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle”. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

4. Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.

5. Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.

6. Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.

7. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet.

8. Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

9. Don’t confuse honours with achievement.

10. Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.

Trigger warning: Talk of rape 

Background: So Kafila published a statement saying that the collective of people who signed the statement opposed the new sexual assault ordinance, that when the Justice Verma committee, gazillion panels on rape and sexual assault said we need gender sensitive laws, gender neutral is NOT what we meant. And most of my facebook feed is littered with “But Menon is so good! How *could* she endorse something that women cannot be perpetrators of violence”. So tumblr, you’re now up to speed. Let’s proceed with the RAGESMASH. 

QUICK FACT CHECK: 

1. India still has the marital rape exemption (like most Commonwealth countries). The new ordinance on sexual assault does *not* do away with it. Marital rape is still unacknowledged as assault in the eyes of the law. 

2. The new ordinance uses gender neutral language, assuming that the perpetrator can be of any gender or orientation. Which in and of itself isn’t a problem. 

3. HOWEVER. Keeping in view the marital rape exemption that the ordinance upholds, we now have a scenario, where potentially a man can charge his wife with sexual assault but she *can’t* do the same under any ordinance or legislation in the country. 

4. Given the overwhelming data and facts that rape and sexual assault are used as tools of humiliation, punishing and attacking minorities (from gender to cultural to religious), as a way to “teach them a lesson”, rape and sexual assault, more often than not, are not “gender neutral” acts of violence. We have women *participating* in the Gujarat 2002 riots, the Khairlanhjee incident where Priyanka Bhotmange was gangraped in public was done at the *insistence* of the matriarch of the defendants family. We understand that women are not helpless, that many of us are perpetrators of violence. This ordinance doesn’t overturn that with its “gender neutral” language. 

5. What the ordinance does is: give a pass to men to divorce their wives on the grounds of sexual assault, an easier way to dispose women who no are no longer useful, or who cannot produce male heirs (off the top of my head), *while* leaving no legal recourse to women. Or going to you know, reality, the ordinance can be used to uphold the impunity of AFSPA, stating that one can never be sure who assaulted whom. Because the rape and sexual assault rates in Kashmir and the North East need any further encouragement from the law. 

ETA: 

6. The statement does not identify the victim of sexual assault as any particular gender. Male victims of sexual assault and violence aren’t compromised in any way. Or any other gender identity for the matter. 

I am so angry right now, I’m having trouble seeing straight. 

people with money. only people with money (via daxsymbiont)

travelling the world, “dropping everything” and moving to another city/state/country, majoring in your liberal arts interest of choice, apply for your dream college, buying your dream house, working at your dream jobs, cultivating/building/guiding your own dreams, dreaming. living.

A life as a flower,

“How could I have expected that after a long life I would understand no more than to wake up at night and to repeat: strange, strange, strange, o how strange, how strange. O how funny and strange.”

-Czeslaw Milosz, Unattainable Earth

+

One day, I posted a picture of me (just a regular face shot — I’d probably gotten a haircut or whatever) on livejournal. Somebody paid me a complement. I did my usual humble-I-thought dismissal.

But then the person got really mad. And like, not because I was being down on myself. They got mad because I had disrespected them.

What they said to me was really important, and it was this: When I dismiss their compliment, I’m saying that I don’t respect their judgment. And by so quickly and casually dismissing it, I’m relegating my estimation of their judgment to the lowest of the low, worth far too little to even evaluate.

They didn’t put it exactly that way, but it drove a point home. I’ve always paid lip service to being a relativist. I believe strongly that different people are beautiful to different people, and that there’s no one objective standard of beauty. And like most of us, I was conscious that I apply that to other people but not equally or fairly to myself. But I dismissed this as behaviour that, while it would be healthy to overcome for my own mental wellness, harmed only me. Not so.

When I dismiss other people’s opinions, I’m devaluing them and devaluing their input. 

I was so focused inward when it came to the issue, I was thinking selfishly and not looking outward to see how it affected others.

Ultimately, it’s about respect, and about trust. I may not see what others see in me, and that’s not what I’m talking about here: I agree that it’s difficult or maybe impossible to just magically love yourself (and I don’t believe that you have to love yourself first before anybody else can love  you — in fact, that’s a trivially disproven myth). What I’m talking about is respecting other people’s judgment and trusting in them to make those decisions for themselves. If someone sees something attractive or beautiful in me, even if I don’t see it, I need to have the respect for that person to trust that they see it, for themselves, and that they’re an adult who can make that decision for themselves. 

If somebody thinks I’m attractive or beautiful, then that’s a decision they made for themselves based on their own perceptions of me, and that’s just as valid for them as my self-perceptions are for me, and imposing my opinions on them or thinking that they’ve had blinders on or once they see me naked they’ll think otherwise or any of those things is disrespecting their freedom and ability to make decisions for themselves, and it’s mean to them and wrong.

You don’t have to achieve great things by the time you’re 25

You have intrinsic value above and beyond your perceived utility to other people and society at large. 

You don’t have to have sex, or have sex in any way that you find uncomfortable or unpleasant, to keep anyone’s love or good opinion of you. They didn’t love you or think very well of you to start with if they demand it. 

You don’t have to stay with someone who isn’t meeting your emotional or sexual needs because they need you, or you’ve been with them for awhile, or you need to be in a relationship. You need you. Your time is your own and it is finite. 

It’s ok to work at a job you enjoy that doesn’t make you miserable even if it’s not a career and it won’t “lead to anything.” 

Your life is not a narrative. It is not leading to anything, there is no overarching thesis, it does not have themes beyond the usual shared cultural experiences of your time and place. This is ok. It does not mean that your life is without purpose or meaning. 

It’s ok not to like or get along with the vast majority of people you encounter, so long as you afford them the same respect, courtesy and dignity that they afford you. 

Expensive is not always better. 

Failure is temporary if you’re still alive. 

People are both much better and much worse than you’d suspect, but usually not all at once. 

Stop thinking of your future self as a different person and it will be easier to prevent money and health problems. 

Let people help you, lean on them when you need to, and be available to help, but don’t swing too far in either direction. Try to carry your half of the life basket as evenly as you can. 

Set boundaries, and do not be afraid to kick people out of your life who disregard them. You will not end up alone and unloved. People who love you will be ok with your boundaries. 

Your power does not come from money or beauty, but from seeing life steadily and wholly, from a curious and thoughtful mind, and from your ability to say no when you want to, and yes when you want to, and I don’t know when you don’t know. 

There will be bad times, maybe lots of bad times, but not only bad times. 

Love will not heal the wounds in your soul, but love can give you the impetus to begin the work of healing yourself. 

Life might be a long series of starting over, and that’s alright. 

You’re really cool, you’re really beautiful, you’re really special. Really. Not to everyone, but to a lot of someones sometimes. 

THE BOLDED