Tuesday, September 05, 2017

thoughts / anecdotes from tonight / today:

  • (cleaning the kitchen while listening to Shaykh Hamza:) apparently, ibn Abbas r.a. related: The only similarity between this world and paradise are the names of things. Paradise must be truly unimaginable and I hope (it must be, of course!) wonderfully, wonderfully so.
  • I seriously need to start working with time, instead of against it. come on, S, you need to stop being in denial about the nature of time. It's like I'll have actually a gazillion things to do and I leave it all to after work or after dinner, which means inevitably, I will stretch it beyond midnight -- because obviously my brain conveniently does not think what having to plan 4 sessions of therapy and also completing 10 freaking reports actually entail, and therefore how much time is needed. There must be a better way to live life, S, so that you can actually achieve your intended lifestyle goals.
  • yes, I'm 30, and as a woman you start thinking you'll never be beautiful ever again -- not that I ever considered myself as much to begin with -- but I occasionally look at myself, and I think, hey, come on, S, if you make yourself even that little bit slimmer, you'll be gorgeous. oh dear, I crack up at my own optimism sometimes because where the heck is it coming from, right! I've been harbouring a burning flame to make myself gorgeous; I just need to sustain this outward vanity long enough to actually make things happen. (I just know I will totally regret this entire bullet point tomorrow when my coffee-high from tonight fades; yes, I drank coffee tonight to tide through the work, someone please save me from myself.)
  • I've been catching up on John Oliver's Last Week Tonight on YouTube -- and every time, I keep thinking how awesome it is! and how I wish we have this as a necessary (independent) adjunct to all mass media in all democracies of the world. And while I also love Jon Stewart's and now Trevor Noah's The Daily Show, it doesn't quite do what John Oliver does on his show. What John Oliver does is break down the news for you -- which is honestly, confusing as crap most if not all the time -- into understandable, essential bits. Of course, the humour is an added bonus, but I would still watch for his content even if it was delivered in a monotone! Because despite the sometimes over-the-top crude jokes that appear, the content is so good. You see, being a crazy busy person in this crazy capitalist world, you do not have the luxury to sit down and read every single news on the planet, much less analyse them deeply to get past all the crap to the core of things. John Oliver however, does it for you -- he summarises the news for the week in as layman terms as possible, defining words and acronyms bandied about by news pundits, and eventually, ends his segment with a So What Do We Do From Here? Which is essentially what the rest of us want to know! Not all of us are political scientists. And that's why I feel news media in general feels disingenuous most of the time because they tell us things but I get the sense they're not telling us things really, and if you're just not smart enough or don't think enough, you're really going to be duped! And essentially that's how positions of power control the masses in supposedly democractic societies, isn't it.
Here's an example of how John Oliver 
tries to break down a week of chaos in the US 
with some basic questions, haha:
(i) What the f* is going on?
(ii) How big a deal is this?
(iii) Where do we go from here?
(iv) Is this Real Life?


  • Last but certainly not least, BTS just dropped this trailer for their upcoming album. I must be super-biased because I'm starting to almost love these boys unconditionally or something -- but how is this not just heart-thuddingly sweet? Look at the visual aesthetics and the symbolism, and the meaning of the lyrics! I just--

💜

No comments: