Just Some Thoughts 002

1. Adulthood isn't an achievement or milestone, it's a responsibility. To think beyond myself. To pay attention to the world around me, both locally and globally, and continue looking no matter what I see. It's accepting that my being here will have an effect for better or for worse so I should try my best to make it for better. To realise that I'm not just an individual in the world, but a part of what makes the world and it would be better if I were consciously connecting to others who are also making the world, but better.

Also I should learn how to drive.

2. For a long time I've felt a weird discomfort when reading stories about people who defied stereotypes by achieving things that are statistically unlikey for someone of their demographic. I didn't know exactly why but it just felt... off. It wasn't until I came across this quote one time on twitter that felt like the biggest eureka moment (except I have a feeling a eureka moment is supposed to be an idea I came up with lol). I pressed like, probably retweeted, but when I tried to find it again, I couldn't. I scrolled down my timeline, searching using keywords I tried to remember, but couldn't. I've been trying for over a year. But I found it again, reading an article on respectable politics:

Uplifting stories that leave out structural barriers, let alone the need for political struggle to correct those barriers, can gloss over the enormous challenges the poor face in an era marked by downward mobility. (Fredrick C. Harris, "The Rise of Respectability Politics", Dissent Magazine)

I think we (I don't who "we" are...) have to move beyond celebrating exceptional cases, and moving towards addressing, organising, and changing the systems that creating the norms that the privileged and brilliant few break through.

While also still celebrating important achievements and milestones of individual cases?

3. There's a minimalist on YouTube who I found, Youheum, and I love putting her videos on in the background as my white noise. That's pretty antithetical who her lifestyle as someone who is mindful and actively chooses silence over background noise but hey, I bet she wouldn't judge me for my choices (she said so in a video). I like the idea of minimalism, at least how she talks about it. You can find her at: Heal Your Living.

Just Some Thoughts 001

I think I'm a perfectionist. But I haven't done any thorough research so this isn't a claim I make with any certainty or authority.

I keep waiting for an ephipany, lightning to strike, or a burning bush.

But I can't wait any longer. I mustn't. I have to rub my own damp and crappy sticks together to make a small ember, then fan the shit out of whatever sparks into something that can bring light and warmth.

Here are some of my first strikes:

1. When a sad or scary situation happen, I'm... fine. I become a bit robotic and eerily calm and am able to just focus on problem solving. If it's not a situation that can be solved, I can sit there until the danger passes.

2. When I'm met with kindness and goodness and utter happiness, I cry. I want to cry when someone is gracious, forgiving, and understanding. I cry when someone shows me they love me more than I expected. I cry when good things. I never think good things should happen to me.

3. I spent so so SO much time and actual effort as a teenager trying to be DiFfErEnT. I loved to hear that I wasn't like other “girls”, “Samoans”, “people your age”, “people from South Auckland”, or any other identifier which I thought were lesser. It's only years later that I see that I had internalised so much sexism, racism, classism, and fatphobia (thanks internet cos no one in my real life taught me any of that lol). I loved to be complemented by being told that I surprise people, that I don't fit into the stereotypes someone had assumed of me. There's a term I've come across and would like to delve more into - respectability politics. Respectability politics is the expectation/social pressure put on individuals from marginalised groups* *(an idea I want to explore in another piece) to behave not only differently but better than the specific ways their group looks/behaves normally. Well that was an overly simply and perhaps inaccurate summation, and there are a lot of smarter analysis that political/social science/critical thinking writers have done that explore the wider social motivations behind this idea.

For me, I wanted white boys to fall in love with me.

4. I have a favourite ex that I like to talk about to anyone who wants to hear about my short-lived and not-at-all-whirlwind romance. Ours was a steady and sure love that I felt so safe and happy in. And when I talk about him to others, I begin to romanticise and miss him. Then I make a quick pro con list and force myself to remember that he was also flaky, kept big life secrets from me that affected our relationship, and he never really saw a future with me. That pops my What If bubble real quick and I'm able to land at a peaceful middle where I'm utterly grateful to have met and been in love with him, and glad that it ended when it did.