Psychoanalyzing Myself

[soos_mite_ah]

3/26 10pm: Reflections After Day 16 (3/26)

•  Today like yesterday wasn’t too bad. The only challenge I did have today was that I had somewhat of an upset stomach. I had a really bad stomach ache in the morning. And then for the rest of the day, my stomach didn’t hurt but it just felt a little weird and bloated. Normally in this situation, eating like a slice of bread helps because I think my stomach does weird things when I’m not eating enough and it’s been empty for too long. I think I did make a good decision in eating a little something in the morning for breakfast though.
•  I felt very at peace and present today. I think I’ve come a long way in terms of embracing me being low energy and more reserved rather than bubbly.

[soos_mite_ah]

3/27 7pm: Reflections after Day 17 (3/27) 

• I woke up pissed at 5 am because of my water drinking ritual. I kept thinking to myself how I can't wait to take a break from fasting just so I don't have to wake up at 5. Then I woke up pissed at 7. Normally I wake up later on Wednesdays because my work day starts at 9 but I woke up earlier to finish packing and clean my apartment because I know that coming back to a messy apartment after being away would annoy me and I wanted to do something nice for my future self. 
• This day was just busy and I think because fasting has been easier and because I was distracted by all the stuff I needed to do, I wasn't paying attention to the hunger. 
• I was mainly preoccupied with packing for my weekend trip and for getting ready for my flight the next day. I was also excited to not have to wake up at 5 tomorrow. 

[soos_mite_ah]

4/5 2:15 am: Reflections after Day 18(3/28) through Day 24 (4/4)

• From 3/28 to 3/31 I was travelling to Washington D.C. to see the cherry blossoms and to spend time with some friends. While travelling over 100km can exempt one from the fast, I decided to not fast on these days since I planned this trip a couple months in advance, well before my decision to fast. My friend and I also planned for me to come over during this time because she knew that she was going to be on her period on these days and that she will get a break from fasting, thus giving her the time and energy to spend time with me.
  • I was a little sad on Thursday. I didn’t like breaking my fast and part of me thought that I could still fast for Thursday and Sunday if I really wanted to. But just because I could, that doesn’t mean that I should. Later in this trip I realized that fasting would have been unsustainable for me and why travelling is one of the exceptions for breaking the fast. I was walking a lot in D.C. and I was really active during my stay there. Fasting would not have been physically sustainable for me in the slightest. Upon this realization, I believe that the reason why travelling is an exception to fasting is because of the way that travelling can take you out of your routine and how that can impact how sustainable and healthy the fast is. Ideally, you would want to sustain the fast or avoid travelling in Ramadan altogether to focus on your spirituality, but if you must travel for whatever reason, it’s understandable to take a break during that time.
    • I think that the 100km requirement for travel in order to make breaking the fast valid is a bit of an arbitrary number. I think the point is that it needs to be far enough away to disrupt your routine (or perhaps even cause complications with time zones). Like you can’t just go to your friend’s house across the street and say that you’re breaking your fast because of “travelling” for example.
• From 4/1 to 4/3 I was on my period. I was a little annoyed at the fact that I couldn’t fast because I already missed 4 days in a row due to the trip and now I am going to miss another 3 days. I’m not looking forward to prolonging the fasting by having to make up a ton of days in the end. I’d rather just get it done right once and for all. But I mean, I just reminded myself that I’m skipping days for valid reasons. I would have had to skip 3 days for my period regardless and I didn’t know I was going to be fasting when I was planning this trip. I also only broke my fast once this entire time with no valid reason. So, if we’re only counting that one day that I just couldn’t make it, I think it’s safe to say that I’m doing pretty well for my first time fasting and that I’m making an honest effort in this practice. And the fact that I’m willing to make up these days, even if I don’t really want to, also goes to show my dedication for this practice.

[soos_mite_ah]

4/5 2:40 am: Reflections from Day 25 (4/4)

• This is my first day fasting since my little break. Today was hard. I think my body just has to adjust again to the fasting though I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as the first 5 days of Ramadan. Today was hard because I caught a little bit of a cold from Austin. I was a little sniffly, had a scratchy throat, and a headache for much of the day. I also couldn’t focus on work to save my life. I also threw up a little because my stomach was acting up since nothing was in it. Lets just say I couldn’t wait for dinner to come back to life.
• I had dinner and I felt alive again. I also had some cough syrup and as I’m writing this I’m feeling much better. I pulled an all nighter of sorts because I had a lot of work to catch up on (because basically, I was doing the bare minimum at my job today and I don’t want things to pile up on a Friday). This was mainly work for my job but I also had some personal matters to tend to such as finishing The Power of Now, and writing my journal posts. Tonight I was really just trying to work with my irregular energy levels instead of against them. I’m not looking forward to the work day though. I’m just gonna hope that the caffeine I had in the middle of the night and a nap during my lunch break will help me out.  
  • I was really productive tonight and honestly it felt worth it. I had enough fuel to focus and also working in the middle of the night almost helps me be more present (and as a result focus on whatever I’m doing) because time feels fake and like the void.
    • I also felt nostalgic pulling an all-nighter. It brought me back to college and the times where I was really focused and determined to get things done. It has been nice getting into that flow state.
    • I broke my promise to avoid caffeine during Ramadan. Granted my original thought process is doing this so that I don’t become reliant on it so the purpose of this goal has been achieved. I think it’s alright if I do drink caffeine so long as I’m not using at as a crutch to get through fasting.
• I also caught myself feeling a little guilty about my eating habits from the day before. I wouldn’t say that I ate a lot but I will say that I felt like I lacked the self control that I was building during Ramadan. It felt like the exercise of fasting was all for nothing. Then I reframed this situation by telling myself that it’s natural that my body is trying to compensate for the days where I was probably not eating enough. That isn’t me “lacking in self control”, that’s my body trying to make sure that I’m properly fueled and nourished. I shouldn’t shame myself for wanting to entertain my whims to eat a little snack here and there in the same way I wouldn’t shame or call someone who ran a marathon the day but spent the whole day today sleeping lazy. I think if I’m going to see the long term effects of fasting, the first few days won’t necessarily be the best representation in the same way that if you ran a marathon, chances are you’ll be too sore to do much the following days and the way you perform on your work outs wouldn’t be the best representation on the progress you made running and training for a marathon.

[soos_mite_ah]

4/6 6:40 pm: Reflections from Day 26 (4/5) and Day 27 (4/6)

• Day 26 (4/5) was easier than the day before because my throat wasn’t really sore. However, the lack of sleep was messing me up. I slept from 5:30 am to 9:00 am and then took a nap sometime in the evening. I felt a sense of nervous energy midday similar to how I would feel during exam season in college. I’m sure it’s the combination of lack of food, sleep, and the drive to be productive. Normally, in these situations, eating something high in protein and fat can help calm down physiological symptoms of anxiety (don’t know the exact science but I know it’s a thing and that it does work for me) but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do that. I took a nap instead after work and I felt dead as usual in the 2 hours leading up to dinner.
• Day 27 (4/6) has been the epitome of a bed rot day. Part of it is that I feel sick and the other part of it was because I was so productive yesterday that I basically just needed a day to chill. Today it was hard to wake up at 5 and drink water because my body just wanted to sleep so bad. Also, while I don’t have a sore throat or a fever like the last couple days, my sinuses have been KILLING ME!!! The night before I felt an intense sinus pressure on my teeth (it’s honestly the worst feeling) and it took me forever to fall asleep. I also had to be a mouth breather for most of the night. And because I was breathing from my mouth and the air is coming inside me via my mouth an throat, my throat has been feeling really dry and when I drank water at 5 am, it didn’t feel like it helped much. This morning was the morning that tested me the most.
  • I really thought that I had to break my fast today because of my throat issues. But then after going to sleep at like 5:30 and waking up at noon and then waiting another 2 hours, my sinuses calmed down just a bit to where I was no longer had to breathe through my mouth. I think that helped significantly. So I decided that I was indeed going to fast today. Today was easier in the sense that normally when I’m sick I don’t really get hungry. It’s like an hour before dinner and I haven’t really felt hungry all day. I wouldn’t say I felt thirsty either but in the times when my nose would clog up and I had to breathe from my mouth, I just felt really dry.
  • I was thinking of running to Walmart to get some medication for this sinus infection. But then I found some medicine in the bathroom AND IT WASN’T EXPIRED. I thanked god and then decided that I don’t need to go to Walmart. Honestly, I’m not even excited to eat food during Iftar, I just want to take my sinus medication lol.
  • I really had no energy today due to me working super hard yesterday with a lack of sleep, me being sick, and me not eating. Literally my whole day has just been me in bed, sometimes sleeping or when I’m not sleeping, watching videos on YouTube.
  • I know that I’m not supposed to be fasting when I’m sick. Granted, I don’t think I feel sick enough to where fasting would be a detriment, but I will be honest, as someone who has like 8 days she needs to make up, I’m really don’t want to add more makeup days, especially since I have gotten to day 27 and have 3 days left. Honestly, I really want to power through these 3 days and then worry about tackling the remaining 8 in a pace that is more sustainable for me.

[soos_mite_ah]

4/8 4:45pm: Reflections from Day 28 (4/7)

• Today was another bed rot day. I still felt sick during this day and my sleep schedule has been messed up. The only thing that got me to get up and be a functioning person was that I was going to meet up with a friend later that day and we were going to break our fast together. I got to try some new food and that was nice. And I felt significantly better after eating, as usual.
• I really don’t want to fast anymore. That’s all that I was thinking during this day. And it wasn’t even because I was hungry (I don’t have an appetite since I’m sick), thirsty, or even low energy rather it was more so that I got sick and while this would have been a minor thing in a normal circumstance, it feels like it’s lingering. I know it’s a thing that when you cut your calories too low that your immune system gets weaker. The main reason why I am going to keep going until the 30 days are up is because I want to stay true to my word, I don’t want to add to the makeup days, and because I’m already so so close to the end. I just kept telling myself that it’s just today and two more days and then I’ll be back to normal.
• I think before I do my makeup days I’m going to give myself a few days before I start fasting again. Especially since I got sick, I think my body just needs a few days to recover. I’m not sure how I’m going to do the makeup days but I do know that makeup day 1 isn’t going to be 4/10.

[soos_mite_ah]

4/8 11:00pm Reflections from Day 29 (4/8)

• I really didn’t want to fast or go to work today. I woke up feeling like ASS. I woke up at 5, drank my water, and soon after I normally am able to fall back asleep but for whatever reason I was not able to. I laid there in bed until it was 9 and I had to go to work. I kept thinking of calling out of work at around 8 but considering the amount of sick time I have left, I don’t want to spend it all early in the year. God I hate the concept of sick days. Why can’t we be like France where if you’re sick, your sick, you don’t have to have a doctors’ note nor do you have a specific number of days you’re allowed to be sick. And because I’m not feeling well, I didn’t want to fast either. In the morning, my throat was dry and scratchy. By the time 9 am rolled around, it got significantly better. I told myself that if I didn’t feel better by 10ish that I would break my fast for health reasons. If I did feel better, I will continue fasting. And even though the later ended up being true and I kept my promise to fast, I was still salty the entire time I was fasting. But I guess in the end of the day, my desire to do this practice correctly and honestly and stick to it to the end of Ramadan (which is not that far away) outweighed my desire to skip fasting. I already have 8 days I need to make up. I don’t want that number to extend into 9 or 10. 
  • Despite starting work at 9 am, I decided to take my lunch break at 11. I needed that early lunch / nap break and I think that helped my body recuperate a little to where I was a little bit more functioning throughout the day.  
    • Also, because I’m sick, I found myself reflecting on my health and the way that fasting has done a number on me physically. I miss being able to function normally. There were many moments throughout the day that I honestly wanted to cry because I was exhausted by the practice. But I didn’t. I stuck to it. And I have completed the fast for today and most of my responsibilities. Here are some aspects of my physical health that I miss and cannot wait to get back to:
      • A stable sleep schedule: I’m so tired of waking up at 5 am and having a ton of energy at like 12.  As much as I am naturally a night owl, I do miss the structure I had and my ability to function throughout the day.
      • Stable energy throughout the day: Similar to the last point, I hate having a burst of energy at the end of the day when I need to wind down. I miss being able to do things in a timely manner. I feel like I waste so much time in the afternoon just rotting in bed before Iftar that I could be using more efficiently.
      • PCOS /hormone regulation: I feel like my hunger cues are all over the place and that my PCOS symptoms that are typically controlled by my  birth control is getting so strong that it like seeps through the birth control. I’m breaking out. I’m growing hair where I normally don’t and I barely got my period this month. Normally, my period is pretty light when restrict food due to my toxic diet culture habits, but this month it was bad because I’m just not eating enough.  
      • Immune system: This is like the 3rd time I got sick this month. Granted, I wasn’t like full on ill to where I couldn’t fast but I feel like my immune system has really been compromised because I’m simply not eating enough.
      • I miss the energy I had to work out and enjoy my body. The bed rot hours are affecting me mentally.
      • I miss the time and energy I had to be sociable. I normally don’t get the energy to do much until like 8:30 pm and before that I really don’t want to talk to people. I also feel bad about isolating myself.
      • Ability to focus: I miss being able to focus at work and get what I need to get done in a timely manner. I’m still getting what I need to get done but often times, I need to work outside of work hours. For example, instead of being able to work consistently from 9am to 6 pm, I can only focus til about 3 pm. I still stay online just in case anyone calls me but I know damn well that I’m not getting anything done until after I eat so then I wind up finishing up my work from like 10 pm to 12 am.
•  In conclusion, while fasting itself wasn’t hard today, I very much felt frustrated, antsy, and impatient because I’m just over it regarding how fasting has been fucking with my body.  

[soos_mite_ah]

4/9 4:30 pm: Reflections from Day 30 (4/9)

• Today is the last day of Ramadan and I feel proud of being able to get this far. I wasn’t as salty about fasting as I was yesterday because I’m going to be “done” today. I put done in quotations because while Ramadan is over, I still have makeup days to do so I’m not completely done yet. Gonna be honest, I’m still not thrilled about finishing fasting. But today, I guess I wanted to be present, acknowledge how far I’ve come, and celebrate that I’ve gotten to the end of this.
  • But there is still that little thing in my head that tells me that I don’t have the right to celebrate since I’m not done and because I had to take breaks. I’m not faulting myself for my period, but this is more so about how I took 4 days off regarding travel, the 1 day I had to break my fast, and how I have  a total of 8 days left. And in my mind, 22/30 is like 75% which isn’t great. I’m glad I got through it, but it’s not like I did a great job.
    • However, if we take out the travel (which I planned prior to deciding to / committing to / prioritizing fasting) and my period (which is a valid reason to not fast), I only missed 1 day. And I think if I look at it like that, I did a pretty damn good job as someone who is not Muslim and who is fasting for the first time ever. Out of the 8 days I broke my fast, 7 of those days was because fasting would not have been reasonable for me or my spiritual practice. My period is not something that I can really control and if I knew I was going to fast prior to booking this trip, I would have planned this differently or not have gone (even though I really wanted to go on this trip) and I think that is a testament to how seriously I took this.
      • This reminds me of something my friend said while I was travelling. She told me that I am doing a lot but I am doing it sustainably, but I was in an environment previously where I was surrounded by people who were doing things unsustainably and who were getting rewarded for that. That goes for both travel and work. But I do think that this extends to how I view discipline itself on a subconscious level. I’m living in a world where unsustainable practices and results are what gets rewarded. You have click baity videos online depicting wild things as if they are common because that is what is rewarded by the algorithm, and unsustainable business practices that burn people out because that is what is rewarded by shareholders. You have gorgeous people pushed on you by the media whose full time job is to look good whether it be getting filler and botox, working out 3 times a day, having the best hair, makeup, and fashion experts, and are living off of chicken and lettuce. Because tips from that lifestyle is what gets people’s attention, not something that is more sustainable and realistic. You have people who have extreme diets and exercise routines with dramatic before and afters that do not apply to people who are trying to live a normal, healthy/ active life and who are already doing what they need to do and don’t need to nitpick at their diet. Because you can’t sell things to those people and get them on a treadmill of constantly feeling like they aren’t doing enough in a program that is not sustainable in the first place when what they’re doing is already great. That 5 am morning routine video is going to get more attention and more praise compared to the morning routine where a person wakes up at  but is still just as productive as the person with the 5 am morning routine.
      • I don’t have to be working constantly to where I’m doing 12-18 hour days in order to be productive, hardworking, disciplined, and care about my career. I don’t have to constantly move around and act like I’m on coke while travelling to do and see everything I want or feel like I’m making good use of my time. I don’t have to fast 30 days straight if for whatever reason it does not make sense to me. I don’t have to overwork myself and be overly perfectionistic in high school and college just to get into some prestigious institution in order to be well educated/ get the most out of my education, be considered disciplined, and be as smart as or prioritize my education as the people who do attend these institutions. I don’t have to work out 7 days a week and eat a gluten free, nut free, sugar free, oil free, vegan diet in order to have good health. I don’t need a 20 step skincare routine that costs hundreds of dollars in order to take care of my skin. Also, the fact that during my fast I’ve had days where I was sick but I can recognize that I wasn’t sick enough to break my fast and I was able to push through despite not wanting to fast shows how disciplined I was with this practice, how seriously I took this, and how, as another friend put it, I’m standing on business.

[soos_mite_ah]

[Yimpa]

@soos_mite_ah Nice picture of the moon! What do the words mean?

[soos_mite_ah]

@Yimpa It's a thing that people say during Eid, the celebration of the end of Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It's along the lines of Happy Eid.  

[soos_mite_ah]

The Limitations of Leftist Policies

Leo wrote this on his blog a couple weeks back. I also rewatched his video on When the Left Goes Too far. I reflected on this for a couple days and I finally got the chance to journal about it.  I bolded the items in his list and I elaborated on them with my own thoughts in blue 

Quote

 

If you are on the left, it's important to acknowledge that leftist and liberal policies can be very harmful.

Since liberals are usually more developed than conservatives, it's especially easy to lose site of the reality that just because a policy is left-wing does not automatically make it harmless. This is especially a trap for leftists because leftists are usually coming from good intentions and empathy, a desire to make society more fair, open, and kind. However, those intentions can easily backfire in catastrophic ways if you underestimate human nature and the realities of survival. Collective survival is a lot more challenging than any of your ideals and utopian fantasies. If you over-estimate human goodness, kindness, selflessness, consciousness, and level of development, you end up proposing policies that devolve into chaos and create much suffering. And, counter-intuitively, this devolution could kill more people than white supremacist neo-Nazism. In general, what I see is that the left is so busy fighting against the depravity of the right that they take no time to seriously self-reflect on the harms that could be caused by overly-liberal policy decisions.

Here's a brief list of left-wing policies which could be very harmful:

• Socialism, Communism, Marxism: Agree, I feel like this is the reason why I prefer to call myself an anti-capitalist rather than a socialist, communist, or marxist. While I do see the very valid critiques on capitalism, I think it's better to approach the issue with policy rather than getting wrapped up in the theory and ideology especially since getting ideological doesn't usually lead to great places. 
• Defunding the police: While there are some leftist who want to full on defund the police, I feel like most people, including myself don't want to defund the police to it's entirely but cut the budget so it isn't too inflated and so that the money goes towards other things that the community needs. I feel like the phrase "defund the police" is just bad marketing and optics and it honestly feels like pulling teeth when you are trying to explain what it actually means because some people assume that it means getting rid of the police, which is definitely not something we should do. 
• Drug legalization: I'm not in favor for everything being legalized but I do think that everything getting decriminalized is a good idea. By definition decriminalization means it would remain illegal, but the legal system would not prosecute a person for the act. The penalties would range from no penalties at all to a civil fine. This can be contrasted with legalization which is the process of removing all legal prohibitions against the act. I think more common place drugs like alcohol, weed, and psychedelics can be legalized but harder drugs like cocaine, meth, etc. need to be decriminalized. Legalizing hard drugs imo is not a good idea due to the hazards it would cause to public safety but I think decriminalization would be smart so that people can get the help they need without the fear of being thrown behind bars. Portugal has been seen as the model for this and drug deaths have dropped as a result, However, in recent days it is becoming stressful for rehabilitation centers and the police is getting tired of writing people up. So I wouldn't say that decriminalization is the thing that will solve the drug issue but I think it is a step forward and that we need more systemic policies that affect the reason why people start abusing drugs in the first place and take a more preventative approach to public health. I think there is merit in legalizing and decriminalizing drugs but I think you need to consider how to go about it with each substance and the timing of implementing these policies so it doesn't stress out other sectors of society and backfire. 
• Open boarders, unlimited immigration, unlimited multiculturalism: Yeah, I don't think that open borders is the best idea in every circumstance and unlimitted immigration can create a security risk. In the context of the U.S., I think it makes sense for the U.S. to have stricter border protections with Mexico compared to Canada and that isn't like inherently racist. I don't think it will be like this forever or that Mexico is inherently like this but certain parts of Mexico along the border doesn't have the best law and order and can give way to things such as trafficking and drugs. My thing with immigration is that I think there needs to be some reform since most people who are undocumented / "illegal" are because of visa-overstays, not because of doing something sketchy to come here without going through security. I also think we can do better in regards to people getting trafficked on the border. Contrary to popular belief, most trafficking is labor trafficking and I'm sure there is a better way to go about dealing with people in desparate situations trying to make money in the U.S.  than to view them as criminals. I'm not an expert on public policy or trafficking but I'm sure there is some more substantial ways that we can improve this rather than preaching open borders and unlimitted immigration.
  As for unlimitted multiculturalism, I think there are some cons where if one isn't using their critical thinking skills, they can fall into the stage green trap of false equivalency between cultures. Don't get me wrong, I do think that all cultures are equal in the sense that they all deserve respect, have something valuable to offer, and no culture is more supreme than the other. At the same time, to say that all cultures are developed to the same degree is inaccurate to say the least and there are some cultures that are better at handling certain social issues than others. I think the problem can come up when we conflate social issues to a culture and see the social issue as part of the culture rather than seeing it as a temporary thing that cultures can grow out of. I feel like I see this with South Asian culture a lot where people think that our culture is inherently  conservative and partiarchial wheras, South Asian culture can still exist outside of the issues that plague our community. But I think if you take the false equivalency approach, I think people are likely to  see the social issue as just a part of the culture and that can cause stagnancy or worse, people writing off awful things as "oh that's just culture we need to respect it no matter what" which can enable the unhealthy manifestations of the earlier stages.   
• Unlimited globalism, unrestricted free-trade and job automation and outsourcing: Idk, I always heard these talking points come from more right wing / neo liberal sources rather than leftist sources. But all of these things can further enable cheap labor and exploitation in other countries with more lax labor laws but at the same time, not having enough of these can cause production issues which in turn can cause problems with the economy since we are in a globalized supply chain at this point. I think with job automation, as it becomes more and more common, we need to have the proper regulations to ensure that people can still provide for themselves in a work setting and also have policies that encourage educational attainment whether that means strenghthing the K-12 system, lowering the cost of college / trade schools etc. Because as more things become automated, more people need to have the skills to do more highly skilled labor so that people can still contribute to society when the lower skilled jobs get taken over my automation. Basically, there is a balance that needs to be taken into consideration and we need to strengthen our education system and legal systems to cope with the changing world.  
• Sacrificing economic growth for climate change action: Economic growth is important but when it comes to the topic of climate change, some countries have more responsibility than others due to their economic development. While India and China for example contribute a lot to climate change issues, it would be unfair to assume that they have most of the responsibilities because 1. their economies still need to develop and industrialize so that the people per capita have a better standard of living 2. you need to consider that they each have a billion + people and that that affects their carbon emissions per capita and that going after countries that have higher carbon emissions per capita (like the U.S.) makes more sense to more evenly distribute the responsibility (and no, eco facism is not the answer), 3. you also need to look at the capabilities for developing countries to execute climate change actions in a sustainable way. Countries like the U.S., countries in the EU, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand are in a much better place economically to implement these changes because their economies are already developed to a base line degree of quality of life. For these countries, wealth generation isn't going to solve their problems, rather they need to focus on better distribution and using their wiggle room to deal with climate change while other countries are still in their wealth generation phase. 
• Pushing for green energy even when green energy yet capable enough: I can't say much since I'm not an expert on green technology but I can see the problem with implementing solutions that are half baked and that could fuck with things systemically more than help. 
• Over-taxing and over-regulating business to the point where business packs up and leaves: Like I said in my points about unlimitted globalism and free trade, there is a balance that needs to be taken into consideration to lessen the degree of exploitation. I think that labor rights and laws needs to have a degree of global cooperation because if one country starts regulating more, there is a chance that companies will simply go to countries that are more lax and then exploit more people just in a different country. And that's if regulations make sense. I can also see instances that if the regulations don't make sense or are too stifling why it would make more sense for businesses to move. And that can be detrimental for local economies. 
• Printing too much money, spending too much money, going into debt: Yeah.. again, comes down to balance and doing things at a sustainable pace. These things aren't inherently bad or good but there is a time and place to implement these measures. The key here is the too much. 
• Pacifism, demilitarization: Do I think that the U.S. needs to spend more on their military than the next like 10 countries combined? Absolutely not! A lot of the money is better spent elsewhere. And honestly, maybe I would feel better about my taxes if there was a larger percent going to NASA or to health care as opposed to the military. That said, I do think having a good military is important and that while it's good to not want to be authoriarian, being pacifistic can cause people to walk all over you and create security risks. It's what we're seeing with Japan who has had a very small military and pacificistic leanings since World War 2. The war was so bad to where most of the civilians are basically anti-military and wants to rely on the U.S. for support and saying otherwise is like an ultra-right wing position. While the public opinion makes sense, I think when it comes to foreign policy, as North Korea keeps testing missiles in Japan's backyard and as China keeps getting into disagreements with naval borders, it would be smart for Japan to have a more robust defense system. So then this puts the U.S. in a difficult position with both China and North Korea because of the way Japan is reliant on them. Also, militaristic power is not inherently bad and I think it can be good in the face of actual defensive interests (I say actual because sometimes countries want to play victim or savior and stick their business where it doesn't belong). Like I don't think that Ukraine should back down and that them defending themselves is important. 
• Removing religion and faith from peoples lives: I haven't had reddit atheist tendencies since middle school lol. I'm by no means anti-religion and I think that there can be healthy manifestations of faith. If relgion gives people structure, guidance, and hope, who am I to rip that away from people and just be a dick lol . 
• Being overly-liberal and permissive with sex : not sure what exactly leo means here, need elaboration. 
• Confusing children with gender fluidity and queer gender ideology: again, not sure what exactly leo means here, need elaboration. 
• Calls for revolution, calls for collectivizing private property: I know there is a tendency for leftists to idealize revolution. I found myself in that tendency when I was a teenager. But I think it ultimately comes down to a lot of lefties in developed countries not know wtf they're talking about because they don't know the often bloody realities of revolutions. I get wanting to have swift change in awful times but change it's not going to look like a YA dystopian novel. You and your friends aren't Katniss, nor should you want to be (hell Katniss didn't want to be Katniss because of the realities of the PTSD she encountered through the entire book series). As for collectivizing private property, gonna be honest, I don't know enough about it to comment on it. 
• Nationalizing certain industries and businesses: Yeah, that can get exploitative in the hands of an unconscious government where there isn't adequete social protection. There is a difference between how China and Soviet Union functioned vs how the Nordic countries function. Plus, if the government controlled all of the major industries and money, there is a chance that this can devolve into the government taking those resources and not doing anything to help it's citizens because why would they have the incentive to do so? That's the problem that a lot of countries in Africa are dealing with because the governemnt controls most of the wealth and natural resouces and as a result, they don't have a reason to pour back into their citizens and you get wealth hoarding and bad infrastructure. I think government regulation is important, especially for industries that are vital for a population and that shouldn't be completely profit motivated (like health care, education, water, electricity etc.) but full on nationalization is probably not a good idea. I'm more in favor of a market socialism kind of approach. 
• Heavy top-down regulation: While we're in a position right now in the U.S. where there isn't enough regulation on businesses for example, top-down regulation isn't the end all be all solution to everything. Having more of it during a time where there isn't enough like right now makes sense. But there are situations where I can see this becoming stifling or at worst, authoritarian. Again, it's about balance. 
• Suppression of speech, anti "hate speech" policies, excessive political correctness: I think U.S. free speech laws make sense. It has to do with the government's ability to control speech rather than your peers keeping you accountible. If you say something dumb, the governemnt shouldn't shut you down but your peers and your work place can take action. Also, free speech doesn't include incitement, defamation, fraud, obscenity, child pornography, fighting words, and threats. I can also see the issues with restricting free speech and how notions of hate speech and political correctness can be weaponized. My family who lives in Dubai has encountered this and has explained how this has affected their social lives and them being on guard on what they say and who they say things around. It can cause communities to be more insular and isolated from each other because people are more likely to stick to in groups and echochambers that won't rat them out than to take the risk and associate with people who are different from them. And that yields to the exact opposite of what left leaning people are trying to achieve. 
• Affirmative action, evaluating hires based on diversity vs merit: While I do think that affirmative action does have some merits as of right now, I do think that the policy as a whole is just a band aid fix to the broader inequalities that plague society. I don't think it's nothing, a band aid is still better than nothing. It is a way to address the symptoms of systemic inequality but it doesn't address the inequality as a whole. But we need to focus on alleviating the root issues that are causing the inequalities in the first place so that things like diversity comes more organically rather than from an affirmative action process. 
• Unlimited technological advancement, unlimited scientific innovation: I think that technological advancement can only do so much to address the ills of society. While it's good at addressing our material problems, it's not great at addressing social problems or psychological problems. And while it's great that we have various tech companies coming up with material solutions, we need to match the rate of expansion by expanding regulations so that these companies don't exploit people (like take Uber and contract work for example). It kind of reminds me of the boomer attitude of how the kids have it easier because we have DoorDash and Netflix, when in reality, the advancement/ quality of life increase that comes with these things don't really match up to, idk, a functioning economy where most people can buy a house and raise a family and still be financially stable. 
• Accelerationism: I had to google this but basically, according to wikipedia "Accelerationism is a range of revolutionary and reactionary ideas in left-wing and right-wing ideologies that call for the drastic intensification of capitalist growth, technological change, infrastructure sabotage and other processes of social change to destabilize existing systems and create radical social transformations, otherwise referred to as 'acceleration'." As much as I would love to snap my fingers and arrive at a stage green/yellow society, I can recognize that this is ego to a certain extent and that doing too much too soon can cause really bad ego backlashes. Move fast and break things might be a great motto for Facebook, but for society as a whole with multiple systems being intertwined logistically and socially, its not a sustainable approach. I feel like working in any HR role can give you a good idea on how things like this can backfire because often times, for HR, if a company grows to fast in the form of mergers, hiring a lot of people, or making a shit ton at once, it can cause administrative issues a lot of chaose and disorganziation if it is not handled properly. I'm sure that this is ten fold for systems that are much larger than a single company or corporation. 
• Eroding the notion of objective truth, too much relativism: Not sure how this would manifest on a policy level but I know some people on this forum can be kind of annoying and out of touch when it comes to dealing with absolute/ relative truth. I think this needs more elaboration in order for me to comment on it. 
• Pushing democracy and other liberal values on less developed parts of the world: Yeah... I think we can look at the last 2 decades of foreign policy to figure out why this isn't a good idea and how governments can co-opt liberal values to get people to support the selfish interests of the government. And plus, sticking your nose where it doesn't belong can cause much more harm than good even if you do have good intentions. There is a time, place, and specific way that you need to implement peace keeping efforts to support other countries. 

I'm not saying any of these policies are necessarily bad or harmful, but as a leftist I want you to contemplate their potential harms. If you have convinced yourself that these policies cannot harm millions of people, then you're fooling yourself. Fundamentally, what the mature leftist needs to come to realize is that being too liberal, too loose, with how you run society can lead to the deaths of millions of people. If you don't understand that, you are so naive that you're dangerous.

 

 

[soos_mite_ah]

A Wealth of Experiences

After watching Leo's video on When the Left Goes too Far, I caught myself contemplating about the part where he talks about how it's a privilege to be left leaning because of the life experiences you've had and that you have enough material comforts to not be focused on brute survival, which is why you can focus on higher ideals like equality, gay rights, freedom of speech, mental health etc. And while I, as a child of immigrants who has parents who lived through much harsher life circumstances, I am very much aware of the later as I have to manage my ideals and sense of authenticity and autonomy with that of my stage blue/orange parents who have had very different life  experiences, values, and opinions due to their upbringing and survival circumstances. I've had to learn, understand, and balance a lot of these types things and see how their upbrining contributes to their world views, and how they're not just simply crazy or dumb. 

However, while I'm aware of my privelege in survival as well as how being born in an upper middle class family in a major U.S. city  plays a role in my experiences, I wanted to explore the wealth I have, not only from privilege, but from my life experiences. I have thought about this in the past prior to me thinking about it in this context. There have been many times over the past few months where I have really taken a moment to appreciate all of the places I've been and what I did there. My parents have screwed up a lot in my upbringing, but one thing they really got right was the emphasis they put on education, travel, and learning how to assimilate into different communities (side note: When I talk about assimilation, I'm not just talking about assimillating into White culture as a lot of children of immigrants feel pressure to in the U.S. Assimilation also means learning to adjust to things I encountered abroad with my family as well as the different communities I have encountered over the years). 

Visited 27/50 of the U.S. states

• Went to the major cities in Texas (Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Galveston and you know damn well that I won’t forget the Alamo lol)
• Went to Vegas 
• Visiting various national parks like Yosemite, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Devils Tower
• Visited the Christmas towns in Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine and saw the Green Mountains (drove throughout Vermont)
• Went to California, saw LA, San Francisco, and drove on highway 1
•  Visited major cities such as NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, Baltimore
  • NYC: saw the empire state building, statue of liberty, mainly stayed in Queens and visited relatives there, visited a few universities I was considering, central park
  •  Boston: visited universities, the Kennedy presidential library, went to the Boston harbor and saw a little reenactment of the Boston Tea Party, enjoyed the public transportation system. 
  • Saw Gettysburg, various things in Philly
  • DC: went to the White House, Congress, Smithsonian, National Mall, the Smithsonian saw cherry blossom season
  • Baltimore: mainly went there for the Bengali cultural conference and also saw the harbor area and has some good seafood
• Went to the islands in Hawaii. Saw the volcanos and the beaches 
• Went to Disney world as a kid
•  Visited the forests of Arkansas and explored the caves (and saw too many confederate flags lol)
• Have gone to New Orleans a couple times, tried the food, and saw the French Quarters.
• Saw various places that preserved Native American History in New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma
• Went to Roswell New Mexico and saw the Area 51 alien museum and where they tested the atomic bombs
• Went skiing a couple times in New Mexico. 

India:

• Going to Bihar, staying in an ashram for 3 days, doing religious rituals with my parents for my grandparents, and seeing people keep hard copies of genealogical data
• Going to Kolkata every other year growing up + saw the Victoria Memorial, the Howrah Bridge, downtown Kolkata, and the Ganges River
• Saw the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, the entirety of Jaipur, Jantar Manter, and Delhi

UAE:

•  Visiting Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, went to the Dubai Mall, went to the beaches and the palm islands

Bangladesh:

• Went to Sylhet, Dhaka, my ancestral home in Mymensingh, visited my dad’s friends and relatives

Went to Costa Rica, and saw the rainforests + did a tour of San Juan

Europe:

• Went to the UK: studied Indian history there, stayed in Oxford and London, saw the British Museum, Tower of London, London Eye, Brick Lane, the William Morris House, the Roman baths, the birthplace of Winston Churchill, Windsor Castle, and Parliament  
• Went to France: Saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, Versailles, and Remy the rat along with his whole family in the Paris bus stop. I also went to the beach and spent some time in Bordeaux.
• Went to Amsterdam: went on a cycling tour, went to a boat tour, the Ann Frank House, and out door market, and a place that was mainly populated by middle eastern immigrants. I also went to the red light district and went to a sex show which was interesting.

Food Experiences:

•  I have a thing where I try the Mexican food wherever I go as an experiement of sorts
  •  Tex Mex
  •  California Mexican food
  •  Mexican food in DC, the UK, and Vermont
  •  Mexican food in places like New Mexico and Galveston
• Salvadorian food
• Brazilian food:
  •  Brazilian Steak House
  • Brazilian / Italian / Portuguese fusion food
•  Costa Rican food
  •  Lots of chicken and plantains
• South East Asian Cuisine
  • Thai: tried various noodle and curry dishes
  •  Malaysian: There is a restaurant that I really like in Dallas
  •  Vietnamese: I’m kinda basic but I’ve mainly tried Bahn Minh, Pho, and rice paper rolls
• East Asian Cuisine
  • Chinese Take out
  • Chinese Dim Sum
  • Sushi: ranges from sashimi, various roll styles, sushi in fancy restaurants, and grocery store sushi 
  • Hibachi
  • Ramen
  • Kimbap 
  • Korean fried cheese 
  • Various East Asian snacks: sweet sandwiches, boba, various chip flavors, Korean fried chicken, anything with matcha, various cookies, mochi
  • The French pastries in the bakeries next to the east asian grocery stores
• South Asian Cuisine
  • A whole lifetime of Bengali home cooked meals and lessons on how to eat elish maach
  • North Indian and South Indian food
  • Various snack and junk foods
  • Street food
  • Indo Chinese food
  • fusion foods including Korean+Indian and Mexican+Indian 
• Mediterranean Food:
  •  Went to Italian, Greek, Turkish, North African, Palestinian,and Syrian places
  • Had gyros, shawarmas, baba ganush, fatoush salad, tabouli salad, Greek salads, various lamb preparations
• Barbeque
  • Texas BBQ
  • North Carolina
  • Kansas
  • Australian
  • German
  • Korean
  • Brazillian
• French food: croissants, crepes, the pizzas there, beignets, various cheeses and breads
• Dutch: Pancakes, stroopwaffles, fish, croquettes
• UK: fish and chips, meat pastries, Shepard’s pie, beans on toast, full English breakfast
• Maine lobster + Crab cakes + crab and lobster rolls
• Tried a lot of seafood in general: fish, lobster, crab, shrimp, crawfish, calamari, squid, mussels, oysters, caviar, fish curries, raw fish, fried

The people I have met

• Grew up in an area of Dallas that is predominantly black and Hispanic with a good bit of African immigrants from the Caribbean, West Africa, and East Africa
• Would frequently go up to North Dallas where there is a lot of south, east, and south east Asian people
• Got exposed to a lot of Middle Eastern people through my friends and in college
• Know a few immigrants from Europe (mainly UK and Germany) as well as people who are connected to their Italian, Scottish, Irish, and English heritage  
• Met some Eastern European people growing up and in college  
• Met a few Jewish people as well as a couple Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, and Jains. And of course, I know a good deal of Christians, Muslims, and Hindus who are religious to various degrees and practice various forms of each religion (Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics, Sunni, Shia, Hindus from various castes in the north, south, and east India)
• Met exactly one person from Central Asia (he was from Kyrgyzstan)
• Political Ideology
  •  Liberals
    • Southern Liberals / Liberals from red states
    • East Coast Liberals
    •  Liberals from blue states
  • Conservatives
    • Rich conservatives
    • Poor conservatives
    • Southern conservatives (typically boomers and suburban Karens)
    • Rural conservatives from various parts of the country (ranging from rural Texas, Arkansas, to even rural Maine)
  • The occasional libertarian
  •  Leftists
    • Let’s just say that there is a big difference between leftists from red states, mainly from the south and from Appalachia, and the leftists from places like NYC, Boston, LA, and San Francisco, and online leftists
  •  Fascists
    • I met a full on Nazi once. I don’t know too many fascists but I do know people who have questionable views that connect to fascist talking points.
  • People who are all over the place due to war trauma
  • People who have survived a genocide, refugees, people who have been influenced by Hindu nationalism, Islamofascism, have a heavy negative bias towards a group like Jewish people or Pakistanis due to the war trauma that they or their family experienced.

[soos_mite_ah]

Travelling to Every Country

I have been binging on Drew Binksy's videos for the past 2 ish weeks now. I started with this 1 hour 45 min video about his travels in Iran and I've mainly been watching his longer form content. I guess two weeks into this, I caught myself thinking about my own biases and things that would freak me out. I consider myself a relatively open minded person but it takes a lot skill to go to all 197 countries and take in everything mentally and emotionally. 

My first thought tbh was how simply by being a woman of color, there are a lot of countries that would be a lot different for me to navigate compared to Drew. As beautiful as it was to watch this video on travelling to various parts of Iran as whimsical the whole experience felt as they explored the culture, I know that the rules would be very different for me especially considering the morality police and the Ayalltola. I'm not trying to make this a limitting belief since I know there are women who have travelled there and are fine but there are extra precautions I would have to take and extra social things for me to consider. Drew also did a similarly long video on travelling to Afghanistan which I have yet to watch but it take no mentioning that since the Taliban takeover, that going to Afghanistan is out of question for me. 

I have also watched another video about the time he got stranded in Yemen, almost got killed in Chad, and lying to get into Libya

I can't imagine having to go through something like that as a traveller and navigating through these high stress situations. I've had a couple of travel mishaps where I had to figure out something on the spot but nothing like this. I know travelling is a skill and that navigating through a 3rd world country is very different from navigating in a 1st world country from the language differences, safety, infrastructrual differences, logistical difficulties, etc. but dealing with dangerous situations face to face requires another level of bravery, street smarts, quick thinking, and more. I know most travel experiences aren't like this despite the fear mongering that you sometimes get from other people but shit does happen and it's important to be safe regardless of location. But I can't imagine going to places like Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, North Korea etc. willingly. 

Things that I think will leave me squeamish that I've seen on Drew's videos include the following: 

• Encountering cannibals 
• Going to really conservative countries even if they are considered safe, as a woman
• eating things like bugs (snails, crickets, larva, worms etc.), brains, animals I would consider pets, eyeballs, balut, intestines, sardines, anything with blood, organ meat, or things that look like snot. I also just generally speaking, am not too excited when it comes to mushy foods. 
• Global poverty to a certain extent: I have encountered a certain degree of that in India from when I was very little but even though I have some exposure, some things are still hard to stomach right then and there in the moment. I'm sure I haven't even seen the worst of it. 
• This isn't something I've seen in Drew's videos but I'm not sure to what extent I would be able to travel without some guide of some sort in a lot of poor, developing countries where I don't speak the language. Figuring out how to logistially plan for something like that feels anxiety inducing as someone who has never done something like that. Gonna be honest, this is a skill issue for me lol
• Anything involving an active war zone

I also found some interesting demographics about world travellers in https://nomadmania.com/people-who-visited-every-country/ . Granted, not everyone who has travelled to all the countries are recorded due to privacy reasons, not being on social media etc. But this is based on the records that are kept.

• 85% of the people who travelled to all the countries are men, 15% are women
  • "More than half of the women achieving it in the past five years indicates a longer-term equalisation of gender."
• 87% are white, 8% are east or south east asian, 3% are south asian, 2% are black
• average age of completion is 53 years 
• "In terms of travel styles too, UN Masters appear to come in all guises. Some achieved the feat while travelling in groups or with agencies who took care of many details. Others are hardened individualists who attempt uncompromising solo adventures. Billionaires who fly on private jets, or those on meagre budgets who have succeeded through getting sponsored by large organisations – UN Masters come with wallets of different sizes too."
• I also found the LPI (Low Passport Index) section where they recorded people who did this feat despite travelling with less powerful passports. I found that section to be particularly inspiring regarding the drive and dedication these people have. It's already hard visiting every country in the world, it's another thing doing THAT on hard mode. 
• This isn't from the website, but the number of people who have visited every country is about 400-500 people. The number of people who have been to space is 681. And the number of billionaires is 2,781. 
• According to Pew Research "In the U.S., while roughly three-quarters have traveled to at least one other country, only 11% have been to 10 or more." And according to the graph, 15% have gone to 5-9. 
  • I have gone to the following: India, Bangladesh, UAE, Costa Rica, U.K., France, Netherlands (7). If you want to also count countries I passed through in a connecting flight, I could also add Germany and Qatar to that list too.  
  • https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/12/06/international-travel/#:~:text=In some countries%2C not only,traveled to 10 or more.

[soos_mite_ah]

Places I feel like I don't have the guts to go to 

• Mauritania: this was the last country to abolish slavery in the 80s but it's still practiced there and I've heard stories from women travelling there and then having trouble coming back home.
• Eritrea: heavily militarized, basically a military state 
• Djibuti: again, heavily militarized 
• Syria: war 
• Lebanon: not exactly war but now it's not a good idea to go considering what's happening in Syria and Palestine. I can see myself going in the future
• Jordan: same as Lebanon. But I feel like I could have gone about a year ago and it would have been fine. The country is pretty chill but the neighbors are kinda crazy. 
• Israel/ Palestine: war but also, even though Israel is relatively safe, I don't want my money going to apartheid and be a tourist while people are literally being genocided a few miles away. That's just fucked up. 
• Iran: not super great to women + Ayotollah and morality police
• Iraq: same as Iran 
• Afghanistan: it's under Taliban control 
• North Korea: I'm terrified of making the wrong move and ending up in jail where god knows what would happen
• Turkmenistan: high corruption, sketchy police, is basically North Korea lite 
• Sudan: there is a genocide happening 
• DRC: genocide 
• Azerbajan: genocide / war 
• Armenia: genocide/ war 
• Egypt: Not only have I heard of a lot of sketchy things happening, I've also had a friend get into a pretty dangerous situation there 
• Yemen: war/genocide 
• Somalia: very unstable 
• Russia: war 
• Ukraine: war
• Kazakstan: not really war but they're dealing with a lot of issues due to the war in Ukraine 
• Libya: closed off to travellers and journalists unless you try to do something sketchy to get in

Basically, a lot of the more unstable parts of Africa, the Middle East, and the area around the Ukraine war. I would have to do more research into other countries before I add them to the list but this is just the stuff I could think of off the top of my head. But yeah, I can't imagine having to travel to these places, much less living there. I have a lot of respect for the people who did complete the journey of travelling to every single country. 

As I was making this list, I was thinking about my limitations when it came to skill to get around, the degree of open mindedness I had, and how much I'm willing to risk. That list is just the list of countries I wouldn't go period. There is also a much larger list of places that I would be very hesitant to go unless I was a more experienced traveller or I spent a good amount of time preparing ahead of time. For example, I would be hesitant to go to most South Asian countries unless I was meeting with family or I was travelling with another person, preferrably a man. I probably wouldn't want to go to many South American countries, South East Asian countries, Eastern European countries, or Central Asian countries until I gained more solo travelling experience and got more comfortable with that. I'm actually planning a trip to North Vietnam later this year and I'm planning on doing a little tour group/ package since this is my first time travelling alone to a less developed country where I don't speak the language. Depending on how this trip goes and my comfort level after it, I feel like that could be an area where I could really gage where I'm at in a safe situation without diving into the deep end prematurely and then decide on future trips. 

I'm pretty comfortable with going to any first world country by myself, even if they don't speak English. I'm also planning a trip to South Korea and it's not freaking me out in the slightest. Part of it is that I've done this before in France and the Netherlands and I was fine. It was a little bit of a challenge to get around but I had google translate and reliable public transport so I was fine lol. Language barriers and cultural differences don't really freak me out. Like I can think of one country in each region that I would feel comfortable travelling to: Qatar for the Middle East, Japan for East Asia, India for South Asia (because I have family there), Fiji for Oceania, Chile for South America, Czech Republic in Eastern Europe, Mexico and Canda in North America, Uzbekistan in Central Asia, Nigeria in West Africa, Morrocco in North Africa, Kenya in East Africa, and Namibia in South Africa etc. So I don't think I have a bias in terms of region of a world or any negative ideas of the people inherently being a certain way in a certain place. Like despite the Islamophobia that I was raised with and the anti-Black seniments, predominantly Black or Muslim countries aren't inherently scary to me unless there is like an active conflict happening. Rather, I have a bias for my own sense of safety and peace of mind which I don't feel bad about in the slightest. But I will say, I do have a preference for places that aren't super hot since I grew up in Texas. Also, I have the obvious travel preference of not wanting it to be rainy. But generally speaking, I can plan around that (i.e. don't go to Qatar in August and instead wait for the winter so you don't cook in the sun and don't go to Thailand during rainy season).

As for fears, even if violent crime is out of question due to rarity, I'm also terrified of being in a foreign country and having my passport, wallet, and/or phone stolen or just being stranded somewhere (still unlikely but also very possible). Then there is the communication gap if there is a language barrier and also, wtf do I do if I need to call the authorities, or hell, if I'm in a place where the authorities are REALLY sketchy. That's another thing that is in the back of my mind, though I would say that if I'm planning on going to a first world country, I'm not as worried because I'm sure that instances like that are pretty rare. 

[soos_mite_ah]

I just felt really seen by this video

[soos_mite_ah]

A National Park Wedding 

For some reason, weddings are all that I could think about today. I don't know why. So I thought I'd journal about it. 

Ever since I found out that national park weddings were a thing, thing just clicked for me. I've never been the type of kid who fantasized about their wedding day. Weddings just seemed stressful to me, I don't like being in the center of attention like that, and I feel weird about grand romantic gestures or anything that can make an intimate relationship into a spectacle of sorts. And not to mention the cost of weddings. 

But instead of spending thousands of dollars on a venue, you're telling me that you could get something like this for $50-$200!!!!!

Like it feels like a no brainer. I think the whole concept of a micro wedding got popular during the pandemic since you couldn't have large gatherings. And I'm here for it. For as long as I can remember I wanted a small wedding or just a simple elopment where we sign some documents and call it day. And with national park weddings, I think there is like a 50 guest limit which just feels perfect for me. I really don't like large parties in general because I find them over stimulating and it's hard to spend quality time with people and I definitely don't want that for my wedding day. I also don't want to deal with the financial and emotional stress large weddings can bring. I know people who after their weddings were like *I'm so glad that it's over and done with because wedding planning is stressful and your stressed and anxious the whole day because you want it to be perfect.* And I think that is so tragic to feel that way leading up to your wedding and on the day of.

I want to spend time with people I really care about, enjoy myself, and be carefree. In the end of the day, I'm not going to remember the small details of the silverware or the invitation or how fancy the flowers were or the specific party favors all that much. But I will say, I can't think of anything more magical than getting married in a national park. Again, I've never been the type to fantasize about my wedding, but I can't help it when I see pictures from national park weddings. In a practical sense, you don't even have to stress about the details of decorating all that much because backdrop is already so magnificient. 

I also do want to do some more traditional things regarding my Bengali heritage. I do want to wear traditional desi clothes and do my makeup as such. I do want to do all of the traditional Hindu rituals as well. 

I love the makeup and the head piece in the first picture and I love the florals on the lehenga. I want to incorporate a lot of florals to the dress to go along with the naturey "venue" and have it be that classic red that you see in Desi weddings. 

For the guests, I would say they can wear what they would like so long as it's formal. It can be a formal dress you see in American weddings, something Desi, or something else formal from your own culture. Also, it's going to be a dry wedding since I don't drink and it's going to be child free because I don't want to deal with kids who get bored and might do something crazy out in a natural park. 

For the cake, I really like the naked cakes and cakes that are decorated with fruits and flowers. I feel like it scratched the cave man part of my brain and it just looks delicious. I can also just see myself taking the time to make a cake myself and with my groom since this is relatively simple to put together. Basically, something like this but smaller: 

I've also of course thought of the 25 people I would want to invite for my side of the wedding. I can fit my close friends and some family members in there. So the 50 guest limit thing seems very do able. I also made a little pinterest board and a playlist for all of my little thoughts. I hope I don't look back at this and cringe in like 10 years since it's kind of a trend now where people post about their cringy wedding or wedding pinterest boards from like 2008 to 2015. Tiktok is filled with videos like this lol. I saw a lot of coral and turquoise paired with chevron print.... Big oooofff. 

I also love the idea of having a live painter. I want to do the photography stuff with me and my husband in an earlier date so that we aren't caught up with it on the day of and just have the rest of the photos be taken by family and guests. 

 

Edited April 27 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

3 weeks Post Ramadan

I wanted to give myself time to recover health wise from fasting, deal with the ego backlash I was experienceing, and just letting my takeaways marinate for a little bit before journalling about how I feel like Ramadan has been affecting me. Here are some points I jotted down: 

• I feel calmer about the future. I think me taking a month where I was forced to be present and focus on myself helped me rewire somethings mentally. I remember before Ramadan I was going through my gloomer phase of sorts which I have previously wrote about. I still encounter like a gloomer mood with current events but it isn’t this constant thing in the back of my mind as it used to be. The gloominess comes from thinking of past bad events and the prediction of that continuing or getting worse in the future. It isn’t focusing on the now, being mindful, or letting yourself be. And I was aware of it back then to. But fasting helped me I guess emotionally integrate that notion.
• I like how fasting has made me more mindful of how I spend my energy. This is because I didn’t have much energy to begin with during Ramadan and as a result, I had to get real with my priorities. I only really had enough energy to do my job, do some basic chores, and call my friends here and there. This forced me to cut out a lot of extra stuff that I was doing day to day. When it comes to some of the extra stuff, it was things I realized that I didn’t care much about but for other things like working out and hanging out with others, it made me realize how valuable it was because it was something that I couldn’t wait to get back to.
• I think it was also nice to be intentional with one thing for a month and be really disciplined with it. It was nice to look at other areas of my life and think *hey, I can press pause on this for a little bit, it will still be here after a month* whether that be for career stuff, social things, hobbies or any other little goals I have and just focus on my sense of spirituality.
• I have a new found appreciation about my health. After getting out of fasting and giving my body the time it needs to bounce back, I just feel really grateful for the energy I have throughout the day and the energy I have to do things such as work out and spend time with my friends.
  • I also had a lot of issues with food and dieting over the years and even though it’s mostly handled prior to me fasting, I think fasting, in a weird way, helped have a better relationship with food. Going into it, I was skeptical about fasting because I was afraid it was going to trigger me but honestly, it helped me appreciate food as an energy source and as something that helps me get through my day instead of demonizing it. I also think that this greater sense of appreciation for my health has made me want to not diet in the future. It’s a bit counterintuitive but I think the way that my body reacting negatively to not eating enough during Ramadan and also how it took me about a week and a half for me to bounce back due to my hormones being out of whack because of the fasting (PCOS and restrictive diets with fasting does not fix well imo), made me think about the long-term damage I’m likely causing my having restrictive tendencies with food.
• I feel like I am more gentle with myself. I feel like I really had to be more gentle with myself during Ramadan due to my inability to focus at times, my low energy levels, and feeling like I'm stagnating in certain areas of my life. I am of the belief that gentleness and discipline have more in common with each other than not and I think for me at least, I tend to be more disciplined when I am gentle with myself. I think it's good that I got to work on my gentleness muscle more lately. 

[soos_mite_ah]

"So like as Sisyphus' task lacks any ultimate purpose or end, he argued that the same could be said about the human experience but rather than running away from the absurd, Camus tells us to confront it directly. We should revolt against our absurd condition by embracing life, creating our own meaning, and living authentically. There we can find happiness. Sisyphus has no concept of a better day or an afterlife. His experiences are tied to the here and now. Sisyphus embaraces the task and gives it his all., revolting against nihilism and despair. This allows him to be the master of his own story. He is free even in his punishment. Sisyphus is the hero in the story, a tragic hero at that. Camus imagines Sisyphus smiling as he goes down the mountain to start his task over again and gives us the picture that there's joy and contentment in embracing the struggles of life even though at the end of the day it's meaningless.

'How could we apply this in our own lives? We could just deny the unreasonable world.' This is the most common way to accept the world around us. Everyone makes up their own rules, their own goals. An example of this is religion, finding peace knowing there is an afterlife or monetary gain finding peace knowing that you'll have financial stability when you retire. But Camus rejected this idea of thinking one day we will be free. Instead, we should recognize that we're free at every moment, that heaven is on earth, rejecting the idea that one day we will understand the world, we will overcome death, or be happy one day. It's a lesson to remember. We must live our lives as much as possible rather than as good as possible because what is considered good is just another metric we humans made up. We don't chase after things for the heck of it. It's because of the experience of it in the same way that for Sisyphus, it's not about getting to the top, it's about the satisfaction of the task while you're doing it. Our lives are not far from similar to Sisyphus' punishment. If we're striving for money, when will it be enough? If we're striving for happiness, when will we be happy enough? What about power? It's never enough. It's just an endless race with no finish line but that's okay as long as you live in the moment." 

Edited May 19 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

May 2024 

I've been having an existential crisis for the last month/ month and a half and as a result I've been mildly depressed. I haven't been journalling about it here mainly because my offline journalling was so all over the place that it didn't feel cohesive enough for me to create a post in my journal. 

I’ve noticed that I have this tendency to base my worth on my ability to perform. I think this takes it’s root in my childhood where my mom would always tell me that if I’m not good in school that all of my friends will eventually leave me behind. I was fed this notion that if you didn’t get good grades, go to a good college, and have a lucrative job that you will be starving and homeless. I was told that I had to be competitive and the best academically and professionally. And while I pushed back against this notion as a child, I think I still ended up internalizing it on some level unintentionally and it’s bubbling up despite the fact that I’m in a relatively stable place in my job.

I feel like I need to perform in order to be loved and valued.

• As an employee, I have to do an amazing job in order to be valued at a company.
• As a friend, I have to be the one who is reaching out and I have to be interesting and engaging.
• As a girlfriend, I feel bad if I'm not performing well sexually which is a whole thing that I need to unpack tbh. 
• As a daughter, I have to care for my parents even if they treat me badly.
• As a student, I have to get good grades, do a bunch of extracurriculars to show how well rounded and good at multi tasking I am, and manage to keep down a job or two to support myself and show that I’m not a privileged spoiled brat.
• And finally, as a person, I need to be having some great impact on the world and be doing something that requires exceptional work ethic and talent or else I’m just wasting my life and being an NPC. 

I think I’m just dissatisfied with the type of work I’m doing right now and it all just feels very purposeless and that is manifesting as feelings of insecurity. I look at my job and I just think that it’s kind of a bullshit job because I don’t think it really contributes to society much and even though I have ways of advancing, I guess it feels dead end to me because the ways that I can advance does not interest me all that much. Then I got to thinking about all of the jobs that my head thinks is worth a damn and I came up with this Venn Diagram.

Upon further reflection and unpacking in therapy, I have come across the following conclusions.

Prestige: I think this factor impacts me because of the way that education is seen as a status thing to a certain extent in South Asian communities. This isn’t happening anymore but my mom has come up to me on various occasions being like *so when are you getting your masters, everyone else your age already got there’s* And I know that a masters degree doesn’t make sense for me right at this time but I guess there is a part of me that feels less than because I struggled in college and I don’t think I could get into law school or med school or an exclusive career like working in D.C. Like my friends are out here doing these big things with their lives and I’m stuck in a silly little office job because I don’t have what it takes to do more. My mom also in the past said things along the lines on how I lack discipline and a work ethic because I have yet to commit to a path. I also just can’t help but feel that everyone around me are going to be well established and be  successful within the next 5-10 years and I’m just going to be stuck in this type of role because I don’t feel like I’m working towards anything meaningful or that requires a lot of specialized skill. It is this notion of proving to myself that I am smart enough, capable enough, and remarkable enough to get a position like being a doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc. I feel like I just crave the feeling that I’m working towards something that feels worthwhile for me and that I wish I had the discipline that the other people in these careers have. Basically, I think amidst my self deprecation, I think there is this desire to master something and work towards it. I guess I didn't see the value of that as much as I do now.  And I guess that makes sense because another thing I found myself doing lately is watch videos about people working towards and acheiving goals that I personally don't find myself pursuing ranging from training for a marathon, visiting every single country, hiking on the Appalacian trail for 6 months, etc. with the awe of doing something for the long haul for the sake of mastering something you care about. 

Helping people: When I think of careers that help people, the first jobs I think of are teachers, nurses, and service workers. And while I don’t want these exact careers, I do want to feel some sort of purpose at my job in regards to doing something worthwhile. Another thing I think of is how these jobs are also often overworked and as a result, my first thought is that I’m not built like that and I’m not capable of putting in those hours and dealing with that kind of bs. That’s the thing that makes me feel less than, the fact that I can’t put in long hours towards something that is selfless and worthwhile in society. It makes me feel like I’m not all that capable of making an impact and helping people at a larger scale because I don’t have the skills to work under pressure, to deal with difficult people, and do something that involves actual stakes. In my cushy corporate job, I have the privilege to say that so many of our work emergencies are fabricated because in the end of the day, it’s not like we’re saving lives. And while that gives me a sense of relief and perspective to not freak out over something insignificant in the moment, I think in the long run it can feed into this notion that my job is not important or worthwhile. And to be honest, it probably isn’t. If my position and company disappeared into thin air, the world would be fine. Maybe inconvenient for property managers and their financial statements, but generally speaking, they’re fine. The same cannot be said about doctors, grocery store workers, and postal workers.

Making Money: I think much of this has to do with my economic anxieties when I unpacked this in therapy. I think out of the 3 circles, this is the least impactful to me because I don’t look at investment bankers and think about how I wish I had their careers since the lifestyle associated with it seems so miserable. But I have this mean girl voice in my head that’s like *is it that you don’t want to do it or is it that you aren’t capable of doing it and you’re just hating from outside the club?* And I feel insecure about not being the type who can work like 60-80 hour weeks. I know this isn’t something to be glorified because it’s literally labor exploitation but I guess it’s easier to beat yourself up for not being able to meet certain expectations because some people do appear to carry the burden well than to criticize the system for overworking people. Like I feel inferior to investment bankers and consultants to an extent because there are times in my cushy office job that I feel tired from working 40 hours in a week. a lot to do with the hustle culture illusion that just because you’re making a lot of money from long hours that this somehow makes you more hard working and more important compared to others and that you’re somehow contributing more to society and your money is evidence of the market righteously rewarding you. And this sense of righteousness tied to your financial status is indicative of how we put a moral value on how much we work and make because ~~~***cApiTALism BaByyyyy***~~~Like the mean girl voice loves to tell me that I don’t have what it takes to be successful because of the ways that we associate success with working long hours or even have what it takes to get one of these types of jobs. And by having what it takes, I’m referring to how I didn’t do a million extra curriculars in college, how I had a mediocre GPA, and how even by the grace of god if I got an opportunity like that despite my stats, I wouldn’t last 2 months much less 2 years. A lot of my friends are working 60-80 hour weeks, even if they aren’t investment banks and consultants, and while I feel bad for them and I wish they had the same work life balance I have,  I also sometimes look at them and think how they are so much more stronger and more hard working than me,  that they can withstand it while I sometimes struggle with the workload of my standard 9-5. I guess sometimes I feel like the only way to be successful is to work an unsustainable number of hours and since I’m trying to do things sustainably, that I’m some how weak, or slow, or overly sensitive, or not ambitious enough. 

Conclusion: Besides these 3 Venn diagram circles, a common theme that you may be picking up that all of these careers have in common is that they require a lot of work and a lot of hours. And I suppose this is where my internalized sense of capitalism and ableism comes in because I’m basing my worth on how well I can perform and how much I can produce. And since I’m one of the few people in my friend group who isn’t working crazy hours, I can’t help but wonder if I’m going to be alright careerwise. I see my friends who are working towards law school or who are gaining a lot of valuable experiences (and money) in consulting, or who are working in D.C. with a ton of opportunities and I can see how that is setting them up for success. And I guess, my path seems more unclear and it sometimes lead me to feel like I’m going to be working a dead end job even though that isn’t even the case with my current role since I have promotion opportunities. I guess it also feels dead end because the promotion opportunities in question don’t seem exciting or interesting to me and in a way it seems nice to have a path like med school where you’re motivated towards an end goal that excites you (and imo you have to at least somewhat like it because that shit takes forever and the student debt ain’t a joke).

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I also feel like the middle class lifestyle that we grew up with is becoming more and more unattainable. It’s like the middle class of the past is basically the upper middle class today and that the upper middle class of the past is upper class now. I’ve also been feeling this constant state of instability for the past 10ish years due to the circus that has been politics. I also feel like Sisyphus because of how some things feel so unattainable. For boomers, they did have a mountain but they were able to roll the boulder up the hill and acheive things like homeownership and having kids. Meanwhile, Millenials and Gen Z it seems unlikely for most of us unless we had some sort of safety net or lived with our parents for a few years after getting a good job so here we are rolling up the boulder that is having a job or career without ever really reaching the top. And even if we do get close, there will be some sort of disaster or economic crisis that will cause it to roll back down. That's in the collective. On a more individual note, I feel this way about my corporate job because even though I like it and I like feeling productive and having a sort of structure to my day to day, in the end of the day, no matter how many calls I take and clients I help, there will always be more and that kind of leaves me feeling like *wtf is the point of this job and my role in it?!??!* I'm basically experiencing Alienation in a Marxist sense. 

Upon watching various videos about Sisyphus and Albert Camus’ whole thing about the absurd, I think the way that I hold careers that make a lot of money on a pedestal has to do with trying to have control in a meaningless and out of control world. And it makes sense right, with inflation, the pandemic, and the feeling I get with the constant instability around me where I encounter another uNPreSiDentED eVEnT. There’s this quote that I got from a youtube video that I posted earlier in this journal:

“'How could we apply this in our own lives? We could just deny the unreasonable world.' This is the most common way to accept the world around us. Everyone makes up their own rules, their own goals. An example of this is religion, finding peace knowing there is an afterlife or monetary gain finding peace knowing that you'll have financial stability when you retire. But Camus rejected this idea of thinking one day we will be free. Instead, we should recognize that we're free at every moment, that heaven is on earth, rejecting the idea that one day we will understand the world, we will overcome death, or be happy one day. It's a lesson to remember. We must live our lives as much as possible rather than as good as possible because what is considered good is just another metric we humans made up. We don't chase after things for the heck of it. It's because of the experience of it in the same way that for Sisyphus, it's not about getting to the top, it's about the satisfaction of the task while you're doing it. Our lives are not far from similar to Sisyphus' punishment. If we're striving for money, when will it be enough? If we're striving for happiness, when will we be happy enough? What about power? It's never enough. It's just an endless race with no finish line but that's okay as long as you live in the moment." 

And I also found myself engaging in mindless consumerism which isn't really typical of me but I think it comes from wanting to fill the void with something materialisitcally satisfying to aspire to in a weird way. I didn't do this but I found myself watching videos of people spending hundreds of dollars on Sephora and Target self-care purchases. I did take myself on a little, much more tame, shopping spree and I do think that scratched the itch and demystified the fetishization that comes with advertisers and commodification. I think there was a part of me that wanted to take part, even if it's a little part, in that feeling of upper middle class abundance as something to aspire to and find meaning in. 

I found myself thinking of Sisyphus a lot but more importantly Camus' notion that one must imagine Sisyphus happy rolling a boulder up a hill to not have it be a horrible tragedy of a story. And it got me thinking about what my “rolling a boulder up a hill is.” What would I like to do for the sake of it? What do I want to master, not for the success that it may bring, but for the sake of expressing a very natural, authentic state of being. What is something that I can see myself easily put 10,000 hours into not in a sense that I’m trying to rush those 10,000 hours and be world class as soon as possible but something that I want to build at over time and really enjoy my journey with.

I guess my main takeaways are the following:

1. You need to ask yourself what you want to master for the sake of it and create a situation where your inner Sisyphus is happy. You need to find long term goals that feel worthy of pursuing and that you’ll primarily enjoy the journey along the way.
2. You need to ask yourself how you want to help people and what feels like a worthy contribution
3. You need to address your internalized ableism about working long hours and doing something deemed important and perform in order to be worthy.
4. You need to pursue your sense of purpose in a financially sustainable way which can be difficult given the instability around you.