Juni but like personal this time

-finding my way back to the hostel even if I was lost

-the matcha I had

-the nice conversation in the kitchen

And I want to stop that.

List of things I'm grateful for:

-things are changing (bittersweet)

-I want to make brown sugar Shaken espresso with oat milk

-I hope the bracelet I have in mind will look great

-I would love to find a French crossword book

-I started to make collages for my trips

I need to document what I make more!

I recently made a chickpea, potato and spinach curry with rice.

And today I made tuna rice salad!

As for what I found on the internet that I would love to make or taste :

This banana pecan caramel cake by Soohyun Lee

This white chocolate raspberry cake by @/in bloom bakery

Aaaand the blackberry almond cream cake by red current bakery (who also just posted a guide of things to try in copenhagen)

Also :

This roast dinner that I will do once I have my own home

And this recipe that I can actually try soon enough, by @/gillie

The caption reads :

"The ‘Grindification’ of Hobbies

I’ve said this before, but over the last couple decades… with tech and social media taking over… we’ve started putting a “grind” mentality behind everything.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not against hard work. I’ve posted 6 to 12 times a day on here for the past year straight. I get it. But I do think we need to stop applying that grindset to the everything we genuinely enjoy.

Maybe you play guitar. Maybe you take photos. Maybe you just like gaming. Chances are, someone’s already told you to find a way to make money from it. “You should stream.” “You should sell your prints.” “You should drop a song.”

And yeah, if you really love something, there’s usually a path to monetize it… but I’ve also seen how that can ruin it. Look at artists now. If you want to get seen, you often have to compromise a bit. That’s just how it is. But not everything has to be about making it big.

It’s completely okay to fish just for fun. To game without streaming. To go on a long hike and not think about your to-do list or your goals.

So this week, try carving out some time… even if it’s just a little… for the stuff that slows life down. The stuff that reminds you what fun feels like. Not everything needs to be productive. Sometimes it’s enough just to enjoy."

When I was younger and loved to write, a lot of people were telling me I should make it a job and make money off of it. But I never really saw it this way. A job could never fullfil me emotionally the way writing did. I started writing because I felt my brain was about to explode from how much I was imagining and didn't know what to do with all the characters I invented.

Same thing happened when I started braiding myself and it looked quite good. People thought I should monetize it. Beyond the fact that I see braiding as more than just braids and really appreciate the historical and cultural aspect of it, I can't monetize it, it's always been too special for me. Too personnal. Too intimate?"

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

The video by @/stphilomena is talking about the fact that a lot of video essays are becoming very boring.

I have noticed that sometimes, beyond my terrible attention span, the other problem I have is that I have the feeling I already know what I'm about to hear. Either an unrealistic expectation about what I should do or a conclusion I came up with a while ago (because I'm a genius obv) . A lot of the topic is and has become socially accepted to talk about and so is the conclusion (she explains it in the video), making the conclusion less provocative and not creating any form of debate or talk. Which is the goal of any reflection.

I didn’t find the conversation circle I went to as provocative as I wished it was, but it has opened me to a lot of concepts that we haven’t necessarily discussed and delved deeply enough. But it was just a couple of hours long for their defense.

Anyways. Growing up, I didn’t realize how comfortable I was and that I was part of a privileged group. My parents kept repeating it, but I think they went the wrong way about it. Explaining abstract concepts is difficult, even more so when explained to a child. I had a vague idea of what my parents meant, but I never fully understood it back then. Never realized it meant that people resorted to desperate measures such as drinking mud water and cactus fruit. That it meant people throwing their child in trash bins because they aren’t able to raise them, and couldn’t get an abortion because it’s illegal in Madagascar.

And in different circumstances, this would be a simple matter of social class. But it’s never that simple, mostly in a country where the decolonial process barely exists. How does one live comfortably in a country where around 80% of the population lives below the poverty line? How does this happen, mostly without being part of the population that benefited from colonisation? There is in my country a large minority of people thriving and enjoying the cracks created by the consequences of economic difficulties and political unrest. They stay among themselves and pass down the riches and the social status that they have accumulated since colonial times. They also belong to the same ethnic groups (the rivalry between ethnic groups got exacerbated by colonial times as well), and their wealth accumulates every generation. The concept is very close, if not almost the same, as the concept of the bourgeoisie, the only difference being the component added by the concept of colonization and the idea of a minority thriving despite, if not thanks to, the system imposed by an outside force. My goal is not to take away any of the blame that should be put on colonization and the consequences it has on language, culture, history, legacy, and economic development. But it is important to realize that the idea of a minority being able to thrive while a majority suffers to a great depth and for nothing to exist in between deserves to be thought of at the very least, and solved at best. The existence of native elites in ex-colonial territories is very often the consequence of colonial meddling. But it’s a relationship that also goes both ways. Those elites are the group that facilitates the grasp that the ruling class has on our societies and our economies. They are the bridge between the resources and the people who need to be exploited to maintain this system.

The existence and perpetuation of a native elite majorly belonging to the same ethnic, religious, and economic background shows the failure of the political and economic decisions made in my country. Those same people being in positions of power and belonging to circles that help keep the same system up results in its perpetuation and in the reproduction of this whole scheme. Power remains amongst the same group that remains closed to the rest of the population.

Readings :

Jordan Humphreys, (2023) “Beware of the Black Bourgeoisie”: The growing role of Indigenous elites in Australian capitalism.From Marxist Left Review website: https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/beware-of-the-black-bourgeoisie-the-growing-role-of-indigenous-elites-in-australian-capitalism/

Razafindrakoto, M., Roubaud, F., & Rua, L. (2021). Hyper-elites and network: Capturing the powerful upper tail in Madagascar. World Development, 147, 105655. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105655

Charlie. (2018, July 7). The Native Elite: A (Re)Introduction of Access & Power - Diné Aesthetics. Diné Aesthetics. https://dineaesthetics.com/native-elite-reintroduction/#:~:text=The%20central%20idea%20behind%20the,%2C%20sexism%2C%20and%20many%20more.

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Very sad that there was not more people from colonized countries and I wish there was more people from African countries as well

Drawing from @/jungle_cruisin on Twitter!!

Because I remember it being very late after diner time and after the news and the cable would just put a movie.

And it would either mean bedtime for me during the week or that it was the week end and I could stay and watch with my brother and cousins.

Very fond of that memory.