soos_mite_ah

I don't think more rest = more laziness rather it more so has to do with a sense of inertia where it's easiest to do whatever you were doing immediately before. I think it also has to do with being attuned to your own needs and being aligned with what you really want rather than what will numb you. I have days every now and then where I'm tired and I want to watch YouTube videos all day and I don't find myself feel incredibly tired or drained afterwards because on some level that's exactly what I needed as a way to take a break from my otherwise busy life. Maybe as of right now, watching TV is something that you have exhausted and that's why it feels draining, because it's no longer authentic to you. And instead, being really active is what is aligning with you more at the moment.

That's interesting, I'll definitely have to check it out. I know some people who have the whole aversion to being an older parent thing and honestly, that aversion seems like a lot to bear when you're young because it feels like you're always in a rush to settle down. I see this much more often with people who have younger parents since that is what is normalized to them. If anything, the idea having a kid young sets off my inner alarm bells. And worst case scenario, you would have to freeze your eggs. As for adoption, I know what I think of it but I find it difficult to discern exactly how I feel about it. Again, might be the whole biology thing idk.

@Salvijus I guess it would depend on what time you go to sleep. Personally, I naturally go to sleep between 12 and 1 (or if my sleep schedule if fucked up between 2 and 3) so for me waking up at 6 would mean I'm getting less than 6 hours of sleep which is simply not sustainable for me to keep up. I find that 8/9 works best for me but then again, I do have a lot of flexibility in my schedule regarding mornings since I am a college student who lives a short walking distance from my classes. Also, I know a lot of people talk about sleeping too much and how that can fuck with how energized they feel. Honestly, I have never felt that lol.

Thankfully, this doesn't affect my productivity much, granted I don't beat myself for not waking up earlier. I have this thing where if I wake up late, I try to reframe the situation from *oh no I woke up at noon and wasted half of my day* to *ok this my first waking hour, what would I do then considering my time frame going forward (like what would I do if I woke up at 7 am and it was 8 now)* I found that helped immensely in terms of productivity. I also noticed how much I sleep is much more important than what time I fell asleep and what time I woke up. I've tried the whole placing my alarm across the room and fixing my diet. I have noticed however that when I'm depressed, this hour turns into 2 hours or so because I can't get out of bed. So maybe the whole "garbage in my mind" might be applicable. I've never tried pranayam though so that might be something I could look into. I suppose this could fall into the territory of min maxing since again, this "issue" isn't affecting my productivity and ability to function in life. I guess this is coming from this sort of ideal of what a functioning person looks like and how pretty much every self improvement person is like *I waKe uP aT thE CRacK Of DAwn*. And next thing you know you associate having to wake up at 5 am as a prerequisite to getting your life together.

Thoughts on Motherhood I catch myself thinking about becoming a parent and what that would entail at random times throughout the week for like years now and I wanted to jot down my thoughts not only to get things out of my system but also to make sense of things as well. Thought #1: Would I Even Make a Good Parent? I have my doubts tbh especially given my history with difficult family dynamics. Sometimes I feel like I'm too traumatized to have a kid and raise them in a way that won't traumatize them (generational trauma is real). I feel like for people who grew up in difficult home environments that some of them grow up being really aware on all of the things that goes into being a parent and how much things like sorting through your own shit psychologically, having more than enough money to be financially stable, and having your priorities straight plays a role. And it's like... there are so many ways you can fuck up your kid if you didn't figure your life out before having them. There is a part of me that just doesn't understand how people can say that they want X amount of kids when they grow up because there is just so many things to consider practically and emotionally. But then again, the fact that I am questioning this, that I'm thinking critically, and that I'm taking into consideration all of the things I would need to sort out before hand is a really good sign. Also, the odds of someone growing up in an abusive home environment and then going on to abuse their kids in the same way is pretty slim (most people who have been abused don't grow up to be abusers while most abusers do have histories of abuse growing up). On top of that, it isn't like I'm about to have a kid now. If I do decide to have any, I'll probably be in my mid 30s tbh so I have roughly 10-15 years to figure things out. And I'm putting in the work by going to therapy and doing what I can to heal from my past and not incur any additional trauma that could fuck up my development. Finally, similar to getting into relationships, you don't have to be at a 100% in order to see yourself as worthy and capable of a relationship. I'm bringing this up because I see the parallels on how I used to have a very perfectionistic attitude towards my platonic and romantic relationships where I essentially felt like I needed to go into hermit mode and work on myself instead of letting myself grow and heal through healthy relationships. Granted that is sometimes necessary but there comes to a point where it isn't sustainable anymore. Similarly with parenthood, I think it's important to be cognizant of your short comings and work with them instead of entirely shutting yourself off from the experience as a whole. Thought #2: Kids are Draining There have been instances where I have been left in charge of dealing with children between the ages of 4 and 12 for hours on end. While I had no problems with dealing with them, after 3 hours of keeping them occupied constantly, I was done. I feel like that is my limit as far as dealing with children goes. Anything more than that is overwhelming to me. As a result, the idea of being a mom is pretty daunting. The idea of having work and then maintaining the household/ raising the kids seems like a recipe of becoming one of the many adults who are tired constantly and barely have room to breathe. Don't get me wrong, my husband would be sharing the responsibility but even then it's this idea of being on all the time. Then again, my priorities and the ways that I would want to spend my energy may shift over time. I'm mainly talking about this from my perspective at the moment as someone who wants to get ahead in their career, have somewhat of a social life where they have close knit friendships, have time to travel and self-actualize, and also have time to rest, relax, and take care of myself. Maybe there will be a point where I feel content with these areas of my life and therefore I won't feel as compelled to pour as much energy and resources there because I already have a solid foundation and it's taking care of itself. And then I would move onto a different phase in my life where I would have more time and energy freed up to have a family on my own and it wouldn't feel like this daunting task because I'll finally be in a place in my life where I feel ready and I genuinely/ wholeheartedly would want to have kids Thought #3: Loving Your Kids but Hating Motherhood Similar to the way that kids can be pretty draining, there are a lot of people who genuinely love their kids and who their kids grew up to be but they hated motherhood. On top of this being a huge energy sink, especially for women, a lot of women forget who they were before having kids because they no longer have the time to themselves or hobbies that make them feel fulfilled. Not only that, but often times when a woman becomes a mother, society only sees her as such and then suddenly literally everything in your life becomes about being a mom and people only focus on that one aspect of you. And I feel like if you take the path of least resistance and have things like your marriage and kids take over your life, it's bound to turn into a cesspool of resentment, dysfunction, and inner turmoil unless you carve out time to prioritize yourself and take care of your own needs amidst all of this (even when everyone else sees you as being selfish for doing so). From what I see, there is a very fine balance that you need to take with all aspects of your life because if one thing topples, so does everything else since it all rests on each other and interconnects with one another. Bottom line: I'm pretty sure if I had kids I would love them but I can't imagine raising kids being an experience that I would readily say yes to because of the various challenges that are involved. Thought #4: Birthing the Kid vs Adopting Pregnancy is some sci fi shit and I'm pretty sure if I was a man that the decision to have kids would be so much easier. I know people who have had seizures, heart attacks, and life long health issues to varying degrees after giving birth. Also, babies kind of freak me out because of the hypervigilance that is involved in taking care of them. Not only that but professionally having to take time off to take care of the kid for a couple years really fucks with your career trajectory and earning potential (not to mention the biases people have at work when it comes to women who have kids) and is one of the factors that creates the whole gender pay gap and glass ceiling. Like especially in the U.S., all of the doctor's visits, the money just to give birth, the lack of maternity and paternity leave makes having a kid really daunting. I feel like the easy solution to all of this is adopting. I can just adopt a 5 year old (or older) and have them start going to school and I won't have to ever change a diaper in my life, I won't have to sacrifice my career in the process, I won't have to deal with the horrors of pregnancy, and I'll be giving a better life to a kid who would have had issues with getting adopted (often times kids have much lower chances of getting adopted compared to babies and it's even worse for teenagers). But even though this seems like the most logical possibility, there is this weird thing in my head that's like *you need to have your own kids.* Idk, maybe it's the biological programing Thought #5: Unconventional Maternal Energy Speaking of biological programming, I know there are a lot of people who look at babies and have their baby fever get activated. To say the least, that just never made sense to me. Sure I look at babies and I think their cute and I want to play with them but the thought of having one of my own in the moment just doesn't cross my head. I feel like I have that lack of maternal instincts and I feel like that could impact the way I parent and potentially even my quality of parenting because I don't have this biological kneejerk reaction to have kids. But then again, perhaps I have a different kind of maternal energy. Even thought the thought of having kids is a big **IF**, I often catch myself thinking about long term goals I have and how they relate to me setting the foundation for having a family. For instance, I have been working on my mental health for quite some time now and I have been working on myself in general and even though I am doing this for myself and for my own quality of life, there is this thought that comes to mind where there is a part of me that is doing this for my future husband and kids. If I am well adjusted and create a very solid life for myself internally and externally, I'm more likely to have a healthy and loving relationship with a future partner and then we can raise a functional, healthy, and happy family together. Not to be cliche but there is a thing in a lot of spiritual/self help circles when discussing generational trauma where when a person heals from that trauma, they heal everyone that comes after them and they pave the way. And I genuinely feel that if I were to have kids, it would be an expression of the fruits of my labor in the past and my long term thinking from when I was like 15. Like when I think of having kids, I don't think of creating a legacy in material terms rather it's more along the lines of passing down a certain level of consciousness to my kids by the way that I raise them and have them go on their own self actualization journey to grow as individuals so that they can go much further than I did. I just think it's crazy considering how my grandparents grew up in a stage red/blue environment during things like Partition and the 1971 liberation war as well as norms such as child marriage and a lack of educational opportunities and agency for women being common place. Both of my grandmothers were married off in their teens with little education. Then you have my parents' generation who is in a significantly better place because they grew up in more stable political times but they have a lot of inner turmoil and problematic beliefs they had to sort through (let's just say they aren't the most functional and well adjusted people). On top of that, even though they grew up in a better place, they still decided to go the extra mile and immigrate to a foreign country for an even better quality of life (I'd say my mom is solidly blue, my dad is mainly at blue/orange, and the environment they moved to was a stable orange/green with little security and financial concerns). Then you have me and I know that I'm emotionally going to be in a significantly different place from my parents because of the privileges I have been granted in a first world country and it's just crazy especially in the South Asian American community regarding the generational differences and healing over time. I think as a consequence of seeing the big picture regarding how my future generations will grow up given the foundation I'm laying for myself and the way I see the evolution of consciousness as a very practical thing that I have don't have the typical feminine maternal energy. It isn't something that is rooted in this intuitive urge to have a child rather it is part of the way that my long term goals will manifest itself in the future. Long term goals such as working on myself and healing generational trauma, having a very solid career and life purpose, and creating a healthy network of support platonically and romantically are all big goals that takes years to fully build but it's also so small compared to the goal of having a healthy and happy family. The long term goals I listed are the foundation and are the small pieces of a much larger puzzle in my opinion. And while achieving those long term goals is satisfying in of itself and I won't regret putting in the work even if I eventually decide to not have kids, there is a maternal part of me that gets activated when I look at the larger vision of my goals. I suppose that I have a very masculine maternal energy and sometimes that doesn't resonate with the feminine maternal energy that is often talked about and represented when discussing maternal energy (nothing wrong with masculine or feminine maternal energy, they are just different and manifest as such). Thought #6: The Moving Parts of Being a Good Mother Similar to the point above on how different big goals play as small puzzle pieces to motherhood and similar to the point on how there is a lot that goes into parenting, I have observed many moving parts when I see healthy/functional families. I'm going to do my best to concisely summarize my thoughts: Have a good career and be aligned to your life purpose. Gives you an identity outside of being a mother and an additional outlet for fulfillment. Mitigates societal pressures and lets you have a life outside of the family. Helps you provide for your family and gives you agency in your marriage so you have an equal partnership with your spouse and if things go south and there is an event of a divorce you will have something to fall back on. Models healthy forms of achievement for your kids and gives you valuable life experiences that you can use to teach/raise your kids Work on yourself internally (therapy, journaling, healing generational trauma cycles, working on attachment styles. reflecting, raising your consciousness etc.) Helps you have better discernment when picking a spouse which is arguably one of the most important decisions you can make in addition to choosing a career path Will make you raise your kids better because you are using parenting techniques that are healthy for the kid rather than projecting your own trauma Will help in creating a strong marriage and will take a preventative approach to marital issues if both people are already whole and actualized people who can communicate, emotionally self regulate, set boundaries, have their own lives etc. A strong and healthy marriage is really the backbone to giving your kids a good childhood imo Also you want to model what a healthy relationship looks like and what a well adjusted person is so that your kids have a good example of what is healthy and good for them, thus saving them a lot of issues when they grow up and are on their own Finally, you want to check your biases and come from an informed place when presenting different world views so your kids grow up learning how to have good discernment and critical thinking skills Make sure you take care of your health Keep up with the kids and any other demands you may be having Stay around longer to watch them grow up and have lives of their own. Mentally and physically take care of yourself so you can be the best version of yourself with your kids. Have time for yourself. Have a good support system of conscious friends and relatives Helps in socializing the kid Gives you people to lean on and get help from when things become a little too much or you need a break (having people baby sit, give advice, etc.) Takes pressure off of your spouse since he isn't the only person you are getting help from and that will further help the marriage Gives you a life outside of the family so again, you don't grow resentful and like you lost your identity All of these are huge and I feel like there are more things that I'm missing but these are my general thoughts and how they interconnect and work with one another. Thought #7: The Chaos of the World Then again, will any of this matter if climate change takes over and we start having wars over water? Do I want to raise my kids in a late capitalist dystopia where they will likely deal with worse circumstances than what I grew up in. Even if I give my kids a good life, there is only so much I can do as an individual if systemically we're all fucked. While I have detailed how you need a stable life before having kids, to get to that stable life can be an uphill battle. For instance, I have talked about the cost of health care in the U.S. and the lack of things like maternity and paternity leave. However, there is no telling what the world is going to look like in 10-15 years. I can only hope that things will get better or that I will go to a place where things are better. Thought #8: The Finality of Having Kids There is this finality of having kids that I feel that people don't take seriously enough (similar to how people often times don't see getting married as one of the most significant legal decisions you will ever make). You never stop being a parent. So many other things in life, even the things that look permanent on the surface, aren't permanent in the same way as having kids. Life changing trauma can be healed from. Having career issues can be dealt with. If you have a bad marriage, there are ways you can try to get out of it. If you flunk out of school, you can get back in and improve your grades. If you don't like where you are living, you can move. Of course, each of these things have varying degrees of ease depending on situation and privilege's but there is always something you can do. But having a child.... you can't just undo something like that. It's not like you can yeet the kid out of existence and move on like nothing happened. Basically, even with planned pregnancies I feel like a lot of people don't think enough about having kids before they have them. One of my fears with having kids is that what if I wake up one day 6 years after having a kid and realize that having kids isn't for me. Tf am I supposed to do then???? Closing thoughts: Ultimately, I don't know if I want to have kids or how many (most likely 1, 2 feels like a stretch). That is a decision for 30 year old soos_mite_ah who will hopefully have a more stable and secure life by then and would have achieved a lot of the long term goals she has at this point in time. I wouldn't be surprised if I get to the point where I want to have a kid or if I realize that I'll never get there and that it isn't for me. As of right now, I'm kind of neutral on whether I have kids or I don't in the future. The way my life pans out in the next 10-15 years would give me a better idea.

Why is pragmatism associated with yang/masculine energy while emotions are associated with yin/feminine?

I feel like love languages are independent from masculinity and femininity. The whole love languages thing can be limitted as @mandyjw said but imo it can be a good starting point for understanding what makes you and your partner feel cared about. I don't know what words of affirmation and quality time have to do with femininity but I know that there are men and women who consider themselves to lean more masculine who have those two as their main love languages. I always saw the love languages as gender independent lol.

So I used to have doomer depression spirals earlier this year regarding climate change, capitalism, the pandemic, and just the over all state of the world. I haven't been having them lately (in the last few months) but I feel that it's because I'm more focused on completing day to day activities in school and in trying to figure out my career. One one hand you could say that the doomer spirals are just laying dormant because I'm being preoccupied by working on other areas of my life. On the other hand I guess you could make the case that trying to be more present in my life by focusing on the smaller things rather than working myself into a state of anxiety by worrying about big picture issues has helped me resolve this issue with my doomer spirals. I know like everyone I do carry a certain degree of self bias and while there is a part of me that wants to think I'm over the doomer spirals since I haven't had one in more than 3 months but then again it might be due to the fact that I'm distracted from it. I would like some input because idk what's going on lol.

I mean, there are multiple reasons as to why a woman might have issues with finishing that doesn't have to do with repression or body image issues. For instance, I know birth control and hormonal fluctuations can play a role as well. But yeah, ask her about what her goals and needs are sexually and what kind of dynamics she's into and go from there.

What does she have to say about this?

Knowledge, Experience, and Compatibility So I was studying for my up coming exams with a friend. This friend then gets a phone call from another friend and starts talking to this person (for simplicity's sake I'm going to refer my fried as R and her friend she's talking to as H. I'm just doing my work but I over hear bits and pieces of the conversation, not to the point where I understand what's happening but just enough to get a sense of a wtf factor that would lead me to a sense of curiosity as to what as being discussed. After my friend gets off the phone call I'm like "I'm really curious as to what yall are talking about because it sounded funny but I also get that if it's really personal and you don't want to tell me" as I started laughing about the bits and pieces I heard. My friend tells me that the her friend H is having trouble finishing with her boyfriend. It's becoming a whole situation and her boyfriend is upset that he can't satisfy her sexually and she's upset because her body isn't doing what she wants it to do. H is beginning to wonder if this is a result of sexual incompatibility, if her birth control is to blame, of if there is something wrong with her and she is really upset because she doesn't want to break up with the guy since she really like him and their over all relationship is really healthy. I then ask R whether this issue that H is having when she started dating her boyfriend or if this is an on going thing. R tells me that H was a virgin before she was dating her boyfriend. I then ask R if she knows if H has tried masturbating and doing things sexually herself to figure out what she likes to which the answer was no. Then I told R that maybe this isn't a issue with sexual incompatibility rather the case might be that H doesn't know what she likes and as a result is having trouble communicating that to her boyfriend and she should try to figure out what she likes physically on her own for a little bit and see if that helps. And it's also important to be patient with this as well since it can take a while to get used to all of the sensations to where it's actually pleasurable. R think's this is good advice and texts H about this to which H agrees to try to give it a shot. I keep talking to R and she was like "that's good advice, I told this girl to fake orgasms instead." Granted R is a virgin and probably didn't know better. I then explained to R why faking orgasms is generally bad advice and how that can create a lot of miscommunication and dissatisfaction in the long run because women are misrepresenting her needs, not exerting herself, and basically lying to the guy telling him that's he's doing a good job when he actually isn't. Then I started contemplating on what it actually means to be sexually compatible with someone and how knowledge and experience plays into everything which brings me into writing this post. I know that there are parts earlier in this journal where I have talked about feeling like I don't know what I'm talking about when I write in this journal due to my lack of experience: I feel that after the interaction I had above that maybe I know more than I give myself credit for. While I am a virgin, I have still made the effort to figure out what I like physically, unpack the limiting beliefs I might have around sex, and what my sexual needs are both through journaling as well as with my hands literally. While I don't have as much experience as other people, that doesn't discount the validity of the knowledge that I do have. And it also made me think about how different people have different ideas as to what makes someone experienced. One of the funnier examples I can think of off the top of my head is how some pick up people apparently keep track of the 100 one night stands that they had with people and how often times they still suck in bed because there is only so much you can experience when you have a one night stand. Basically, body count =/= how experienced and good you are in bed. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can have done things and not know what you're going and vice versa even though knowledge and experience do tend to go hand in hand (but they aren't mutually inclusive). As far as sexual compatibility goes, I feel like there are multiple factors that one could look at. I'm going to do another post on that a little later because this post is getting a little long and I have other things to do.

I might have a couple thoughts here and there but I'm not spiraling. But it could be the fact that when I'm not doing school/career/social things that I'm usually lying around being exhausted. Maybe I'm too tired to go on spirals but then again people tend to spiral whether they are tired or not so maybe me not spiraling is significant lol So what I'm getting is that what I'm doing is a healthy way of coping if I'm not mistaken

@LastThursday That's good to know. Very reassuring. I appreciate it

I'm currently feeling this huge wave of irritability wash over me because I'm exhausted and I have no motivation to finish this semester but I still have shit to do. Honestly, I just want to fight my professors and start biting people. My inner child is just throwing the biggest tantrum right now.

I found a video on AI, how it reflects society's current biases, and how it can come with it's own set of problems

@LastThursday So what I'm getting is that I'm coping effectively in the face of problems that I don't have much control over instead of fueling my neurotic thought spirals. Would that be accurate?

ooooofffffffff mood....

Acknowledging that this Semester was Rough for Me I'm mainly writing this post down as a way of reassuring myself and validating my emotions and experiences since recently I haven't been doing a good job at that. I have gotten through this semester in a very slow, consistent, sustainable way. I feel like it's because of this pace that now I just feel tired all the time. I have about a week left in the semester and honestly......I just don't want to do anything. I got a taste of break a week ago during Thanksgiving and that is distracting me from finishing up this semester tbh. I feel like I already utilized most of my energy at this point. I have gotten a lot done emotionally speaking but as usual, emotional labor isn't recognized as much because it is less tangible. I often feel like I can't talk about the stuff I wrote about above and I find myself invalidating this exhaustion I feel. A lot of my friends are taking 18 credit hours, balancing a job/internship, and are involved on campus by joining different clubs or taking on work on campus. By comparison, I'm doing the bare minimum of 12 credit hours. It's like I don't have the right to really complain tbh. But that's if you take all of the emotional labor out of the equation. And while I do empathize and listen to the experiences these people have, I feel like there is only so much I can say about my situation (especially since I'm making new friends and I don't want to trauma dump on them early on) and because there is only so much I can relate to about their stress of having to juggle multiple things at once. Again, I know that I'm doing a lot and I'm putting in a lot of effort. But only so much of it manifests externally and is tangible. That doesn't make it less real but it does make it harder to point to and talk about. As a result, I'm often left feeling like I'm not doing enough or that I'm not capable of doing things especially when it comes to academic and professional matters. It makes me feel weak and stupid because here I am getting tired over taking 4 classes this semester but there are people taking 6 and balancing additional responsibilities. This semester was difficult because of the way that I had to readjust to the culture of this school and the way they decided to handle the pandemic. It was difficult because this semester is the first semester I have come back since this mess first started and since I had taken time off for my physical and emotional health. I've been dealing with this readjustment and I have been dealing with trying to get back to being a more or less functioning person. I've also been dealing with both the collective trauma but also the trauma of living with my parents for a year an a half while dealing with medical issues. Also, while I haven't been taking a heavy course load, I have been taking classes that required a good deal of emotional labor. Sure I'm finishing this semester with straight A's but I did have to deal with the occasional anxiety attacks due to my course work (most of my work this semester was dealing with the chaos of other people and doing presentations constantly). I've also been reorienting my values and the way that I spend my time. I've been transitioning out of being a hermit and actually putting in effort to make friends. And I have somewhat of a social life now surprisingly. I've been figuring out plans after college and getting things straightened around the hang ups I have around starting my career. And not only that, but I have had to deal with October and everything that month comes with and I have done so proactively. But yeah... I'm doing a lot and I'm doing it well even if it might not look like it from the outside.

huh....... *sits in American confusion* Ok, I'm sorry if I'm getting annoying but I need to have a breakdown of how these bills are adding up because this feels like such a stretch. Right! At first I read that comment by @TheAlchemist $1000 per week instead of per month

I think saying tumblr is the origins of these aesthetics is a large over simplification especially in the way that cultural factors play a large role as to what people tend to gravitate towards. it's just that whenever I see people make breakdowns of different aesthetics, tumblr somehow always comes into the picture. I guess because of how niche tumblr can be, as a result it has also given a platform to more niche aesthetics. It's often the place (and now that place is tiktok) that people first encounter these aesthetics. Yes I have. I never actually got around to watching it since I'm not really a Netflix binger but I have heard mixed opinions about it ranging from being excited about getting representation and a character they find relatable to feeling stereotyped an boxed into a certain experience to having mixed feelings because somethings resonate while other things feel over exaggerated. I think a lot of the mixed opinions likely have to do with the limited number of content like this to where there is more pressure for one show to fit everyone if that makes sense. I did go through a phase where I really enjoyed watching coming of age shows I guess because it felt like a more dramatic, interesting, and deeper version of my own boring life in a way. I mostly couldn't relate to the stuff that would typically happen in these shows/ movies because of the way I was stressed about school, getting into college, and family issues and because of the way I had a relatively drama free friend group and a nonexistent romantic life (that's not to mention how white people centered a lot of this genre is). But I could often relate to the emotions and the messages that were involved in this type of media to a certain extent. One of my favorites from this genre is Blinded by the Light which is a movie about a teenage boy in London who is trying to deal with his family and deal with the conservative politics back when Margret Thatcher was in power in the 1980s while using Bruce Springsteen's music to cope. I remember watching this and actually feeling represented for the first time. I felt like all I had to do is replace Springsteen with Green Day and replace the setting with Texas in 2017 right after Trump became president and you basically had my teenage experience in a nutshell.

I mean pretty much. Honestly, I wasn't on tumblr a lot either. I'd mainly log on when I was either angry about current events or having some kind of existential crisis. I'm somewhat familiar with different sides of tumblr though. Those would include: fandom tumblr which consisted of people talking about their favorite books, shows, manga/anime, actors, music etc. SJW tumblr gay tumblr which I never got into but I hear a lot about especially from people who were in conservative areas growing up and didn't feel comfortable being out but nevertheless wanted an outlet and community for their identity porn tumblr (wasn't on here, just stumbled upon it accidentally a couple times) which consisted of a concerning number of minors talking about ddlg kinks (I mean, you're allowed to like what you like but there is something that is uncomfortable about a 15 year old talking about their kinks into detail. Also, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of explicit things were wiped clean from tumblr in the last couple years) mental illness tumblr where a lot of people would talk about creating more awareness around mental health as well as sharing experiences but there was a segment who would also romanticize things and make it into an aesthetic which was pretty messed up Aesthetic tumblr (basically the origins of things like cottagecore and dark academia but also the main place where you would get inspiration for pastel goth outfits) I remember growing up I would watch Lily Singh's content back in her iisuperwomanii. She an a lot of brown creators would make a bunch of skits poking fun at some of the strict and dysfunctional parenting trends that are in the community in a way that was relatable. I remember using that content to try to see my situation in a more lighthearted way so I won't become too depressed. But at the same time, there are quite a few instances where I would try to google how to deal with my issues only to at most find a couple of blog posts. Things are changing though. I know a lot of people on tiktok who really talk about their observations and analysis of different issues as well as unpacking their own experiences. There are a lot of instagram accounts as well, one of the large ones being browngirltherapy and sahajkholi (she's more active on twitter though based on the fact that I keep seeing screenshots of her tweets on instagram). Also, just in general, I have been observing more brown people go into mental health related fields as well. I discovered Healthygamergg's content a couple months ago. I know he touches on a few issues in the south asian community when his experiences come up in his streams. But I don't think I encountered any videos specifically about this though. I think it would be valuable and interesting for me to look into the origins of this trope more tbh. For some reason it feels like it's everywhere in the teen drama/ coming of age type media. I also really enjoyed reading about what you wrote on Lady Bird as well.

This video was strangely comforting. I would link a shorter video of Natalie saying "nothing matters" but I couldn't mind one. But then again this feels like one of those meditation music sounds you can find on youtube that's like 3 hours long.

The Sad White Girl Trope Oh lord I'm falling down a rabbit hole of connecting with a past version of myself aren't I? After looking through my old journal posts, I decided it was going to be a good idea to go through my tumblr blog from 2016-2017. Apart from the memes and feminist posts that I re-blogged because I was feeling angry and upset about Trump coming into office, I came across a bunch of quotes that I thought was the most insightful thing in the world when I was 16 (not to say that these things aren't insightful or that there is anything wrong with their content, it's just that I'm not absolutely mesmerized by it as I used to be). I then decided that I should log onto my tumblr and find the different accounts I was following that gave me inspiration for my writings and contemplations. I'll just note down a couple of examples so y'all get the picture of the types of things I was gravitating towards at the time. I think these kinds of posts were what shaped my concept of insightfulness and good writing in my mind. Given the content I was surrounding myself with, it's not surprising that there was a part of me that wanted to emulate this way of writing because of the ways that it resonated with me, even though this is not a way of writing that is particularly authentic to me personally. Then I remembered Savannah Brown and I remembered how she was probably one of the main youtubers in my late teens that really resonated with me and I binged her content. (also, before going any further I want to give some credit to @modmyth who reminded me of Savannah's content a couple months back and who had a lot of interesting things to say about the whole sad white girl phenomenon) Her content feels like the embodiment of the side of tumblr that I frequented at and as a result, a side to my personality from some point in the past. It was this side of myself that was tucked away between the hours of 1 am and 4 am back in 2016 that was only captured by my writing at the time and the handful of conversations I would occasionally have with people where we would finally have the courage to be vulnerable because it was crack head hours and we were on a sleep deprivation high. I would characterize this side of myself as insightful but somewhat fake deep (mainly because of the way I filtered my writing to achieve a certain poetic and flowery sound), melancholic and somewhat self deprecating, pensive and somewhat confused, and overall drowning in an existential crisis while trying to make it somewhat metaphorical and beautiful. Alternative to what tumblr will have people believe due to lack of representation aesthetically, being angsty isn't a white people thing. While I can't speak for other communities, I can say that being angsty is a pretty common phenomenon with South Asian people due to things like generational trauma. In a nut shell, I feel like a lot of south asian familes who immigrated to the U.S. and either had kids here or brought their children over when they were really young so as a result most of the kids grew up in the U.S. face a very large gap generationally as far as consciousness goes. Basically, you have a lot of the parents who are mainly blue (or blue/orange if you're lucky) and then you have most of the kids who are orange/green or straight up green. And that results in a lot of conflict and difficulty that can be pretty messy to figure out growing up. I feel like the relationship that the desi community has to angstiness is very different from your standard sad white girl who is having an existential crisis. White people angst is wrapped in poetry and philosophical thought around existentialism and nihilism (and don't get me started on how Eurocentric a lot of academia and philosophy is). There is this sense of romanticism that also occurs, often unintentionally but sometimes intentionally (dark academia anyone?) and next thing you know you have whole aesthetics built around certain distinct flavors of angst. With brown people however, I remember there was a chunk of time in my teens where I seldom found serious conversations in the South Asian American community regarding things like generational trauma. Instead, when topics like this would come up, I would often find them in the context of memes. I feel like there is a tendency of us laughing and relating to each other as a way to cope. However, I would say that in the last 4 years or so I have encountered a lot of pages where desi people unpack and discuss the issues in our communities in podcasts or desi people who work in mental health creating posts about how to deal with our specific issues. There is this analytical and sometimes clinical way of going about it. And, that isn't really surprising because a lot of the people having these conversations in a serious light are in their late 20s and older and as a result have little resemblance to say... the 17 year old theater kid who thinks they have the answers to all of life's questions because they read Hegel. The only example I could think of where a brown person has made their pain into something poetic is Rupi Kaur. And it wasn't that long until people started making memes from her content either (most of these weren't malicious or racially motivated rather they were pretty lighthearted and actually funny in some cases). The other thing that doesn't make sense to me when it comes to white angst is the whole concept of the rebel without a cause. Isn't that just acting out because you need help for whatever reason but you aren't getting said help because the adults would rather invalidate your experiences and write off your neurosis to *crazy hormones*? Or more simply put, isn't it just searching for trouble by often doing dumb and reckless things because of unresolved issues? The angstiest people of color I knew who were outspoken about their emotions and felt the need to rebel had a cause, multiple causes even. I don't understand how some people can be a rebel without a cause when there is so much out there that needs to be fought for. I suppose that when there is so much to be fought for that you don't have the time or energy to beautifully poetic, and delicately vulnerable in your pain. I think the most blatant example of this is the strong black woman trope. And when it comes to poor and marginalized communities, especially when it comes to people of color in developing countries, you don't have the time or luxury to sit down, contemplate, and make something beautiful with how you philosophize your struggle. You're lucky if your voice gets heard at all due to the way we prioritize narratives. You don't get the trope of the sexy rebel or the bad boy/girl either because people of color are already criminalized and because we simply don't have the same margin of error to act out without a cause. Then you have Lana Del Rey, basically the og queen of sad white girls. I did talk about how and why I was drawn to her music despite often not relating to the subject matter she sings about and I think it's relevant to this post as well: And speaking of having the time, the energy, and the lee way, there is this part of me that is incredibly straight laced and careful even when I'm angsty and done with life. I have so much generational trauma that I would rather sit down and really think through my actions before making a move than accidentally do something stupid which would result in more trauma for me to clean up later. I already have the problems my ancestors passed on, I don't need to go out and search for any more problems either by doing something reckless or mindfucking myself into oblivion by trying to decipher the unintelligible words of some old white man who had way too much time on his hands a 150+ years ago. It reminds me of this quote from Contrapoints:

@Illusory Self I don't see anything wrong with doing them for a short term basis with therapy because a lot of people really do hit some difficult times. In many cases, adding medication can be beneficial to the therapeautic process because it can help you calm down and settle your thoughts down so you can work through things more efficiently. Sometimes, not taking meds during therapy can be the equivalent of a nurse trying to heal someone in a battlefield. It makes more sense to take that person to a calm, safe place to effectively treat them in this analogy and it's a similar case to introducing meds vs helping someone when they are all over the place without meds. However, I also think that it's important to not get dependent on them because it takes a while to wean off of them and because it's important to know how to self regulate and address any underlying issue instead of using a pill for a quick fix. Medication is a temporary thing to get you started on the path of addressing your issues imo.

Ok so I went even further back to my writing from when I was about 16-19. And I will say that there was some cringe for the most part I was pleasantly surprised. The Bad: When it comes to the cringe, I would say a lot of it came from a place of inauthenticity. There were things that I wrote during that time period that was clearly just me trying to be deep and trying to twist my words in a way that would be more desirable and artistic instead of settling for my natural voice in writing. There was also this one thing that I wrote which was a conversation me and this guy. He was an acquaintance of mine and we were talking about our views on love and relationships. At that time I thought this conversation was super deep and insightful so I wrote this down....... We were both some pretentious mf......... Absolutely insufferable Also to add to burn, in retrospect, while at the time it felt like a nuanced conversation, it didn't stand the test of time. This guy's point of view of relationships, though it sounded reasonable (a little cringe and cliche but still reasonable), didn't pan out that way and he has since went off the rails. Sure, my end of the conversation wasn't exactly a nuanced take and was short sided, but I didn't end up with a dumpster fire of a life by sticking to my instincts. The other cringe aspect that jumped out to me was what I generally found funny/entertaining. Maybe cringe isn't the right word but it was clear that I was a child when I wrote this stuff. A mature child sure, but a child nonetheless. The Good: Which brings me to why I was pleasantly surprised. I went into looking at my writing searching for things that were incredibly angsty and short sided. But instead, I found things that were pretty well thought out and actually made sense. Sure, some of my insights were a little half baked looking back, but that more so had to do with the lack of life experience I had at the time rather than a deficiency of critical thinking. Based on what I remember at the time I was writing those entries, I was writing a lot from contemplation and ideas I had throughout the day rather than things rooted in my experiences and the things that I have studied in school or independently. I was shocked as far as my quality of writing goes. The writing I did back then I would say required more effort for the same quality. For instance, me writing 3-4 pages for a personal entry would have taken me forever. Now, it takes me maybe an hour tops. I think it also goes to show how easily I connect to my emotions and how aware I am of my thoughts. I think back then, taking effort and time into account, I would essentially have to dig through more thoughts to bring up to the surface for an entry than I do now. Back then, these thoughts, feelings, and insights were much further below the surface and took longer to retrieve and express. I believe now it's easier because of the amount of contemplation and therapy I have done to heighten my self awareness. I was also much more succinct in my writing. I think a lot of it does have to do with again, not having as much to say because I have not digged inside my psyche as much. I would say that my writing now is much longer but is more detailed and is more thorough when I do cover a topic of my choice. I would say that it's clear that I come from a more informed place, both in terms of education and life experience. (also, I'm aware that me talking about *life experience* is still rather limited now but mind you there is normally a big jump between 16 and 22 as there should be). Finally, as far as angst goes, I wasn't really angsty back then. I was dealing with a lot with little resources and I had very valid problems that I had to work through (and that I did work through in time). I feel like this further reinforces the idea that I have on how it's important to treat children and teenagers like rational beings instead of invalidating their emotions and experiences either by saying that their issues are trivial and they are too young to understand, or to write off clear warning signs of mental health issues as being hormonal and crazy. The Weird: Because I have maintained a similar voice, style, and quality to my writing, there is a part of me that feels frozen in time in the way that a lot of things didn't fundamentally change rather they simply changed theoretically if that makes sense. I think this also mirrors my perception of my body image to a certain extent where I haven't changed much physically since I was 16. I feel like the main things that changed appearance wise for me between 16 and 22 is how I dress and do my hair. If you take that factor out and made me look at pictures from back then and now, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I know people who look back at old pictures from 7 ish years ago and it's like *aww I was such a cute kid and I was so squishy looking.* And honestly, I can't relate. I guess part of me understands why I used to get confused for someone older as a kid. Looking back at my old writing feels like the same phenomenon on a different medium. My writing very clearly feels like something I wrote as a kid because I knew the context for it but at the same time it presents the same as my writing right now. I guess the way that my writing feels parallels with how I used to dress back then while the way that my writing presents parallels with how I have nevertheless have looked the same all these years. Overall, whether I'm focusing on the bad, the good, or the weird, I find it satisfying to look back at my old writing to see exactly how my understanding of the world and myself has evolved. It feels like I'm watching the gradual progression of my frontal lobe forming. And I love that for me.