we are not born to die!! what are you talking about!! do you think a book begins just to finish? do you think a song opens with a beautiful chord just for it to end? you don’t read the book to finish it, you read the book to eat up the excitement and the emotions it evokes!! to learn and to digest and to fall in love and be heartbroken!! you listen to the song to dance and dance and sing your throat raw!!! to cry and smile and swell with the harmonies!! yes, we are born with the inevitable fate of death, we are mortal after all, but that is merely the finale of the play!! the final act, the closing of the curtains – we are not born to take a bow and exit stage left!! we are born to love and be joyous and yell and move and learn and cry and feelfeelfeel!!! we are not born to die, silly, we’re born to live!!!
Hey, reminder that one of the reasons humanity has been able to flourish is because we formed societies and helped support each other. Complete independence and self reliance is a myth to try to get you to buy more things. Please reach out. Please connect yourself. There is no reason you have to do things alone.
This photoshoot is dedicated to all the South Asian women out there who are often underrepresented in media simply because the color of their skin doesn’t fit South Asia’s unreasonable, fair&lovely, eurocentric beauty standards. As we all know, colorism is huge in India and Pakistan. Our society has come to the point where people talk about fighting oppression and uplifting women, but no one actually does anything about it. In this photoshoot I wanted to help represent darker skinned girls in the media, and address an issue through fashion photography.
Little girls grow up with their mothers bantering them about their skin color and how a man would never want them because they’re too dark. This does not help a girl’s self confidence, and it’s important to teach them from a young age that they’re beautiful and worthy in order to prevent them from being a self conscious teen. It’s also important to teach other girls that are lighter skinned to support these girls. In high school, a South Asian boy my friend had a crush on said that she was “too dark” and basically implied that’s the reason why he wouldn’t want a relationship with her. Comments like these are what destroy girl’s self confidence, especially when they’re young, vulnerable and lost. Support and help your sisters!
With the rise of young South Asians taking their pride in jewelry and colorful clothes to Instagram, it’s important not to romanticize the culture. Every culture has it’s good and bad, and although it’s totally fine to appreciate and be grateful for the good, we shouldn’t be silent about the bad especially if we are privileged. While our own South Asians are constantly romanticizing our culture, but not acknowledging it’s dirty laundry they are also promoting social marginalization. Women are treated horribly, LGBTQ isn’t a thing (especially in Pakistan), and more of our afro-south asian brothers and sisters are murdered on the streets the longer we stay silent. Instead of bringing light to these issues, our culture keeps quiet.
Stop vilifying adults that live with their parents.
We’re still deep in one of the worst economic recessions of modern times. For many of us its not a choice but a requirement in order to survive. For many of us we have disabilities that make finding accommodation that suit our needs a lot harder and a lot more expensive.
Many of us pay into the household. Many of us are trapped in abusive households because we don’t have the means to leave. We aren’t moochers or afraid to leave the nest. The world simply isn’t built to support us anymore.
This is actually an incredibly western (and specifically American) thing. In a lot of other countries and cultures it’s NOT AT ALL uncommon for an adult to still live with their parents. As a second generation immigrant, it’s BEWILDERING to me. My cousin still lives with our grandmother; it’s important. She needs someone to watch after her, and she has the space… why wouldn’t he?
This obsession with “adults” being “fully independent” of their parents is a fully American, bizarrely capitalist notion and it needs to be stomped into the ground.
A gentle reminder that the “last lynchings” were between 1981-1991, so
it’s less than 40. The CRA act was passed 54 years ago. Not enough
people want to hear or remember that.
y’all should remember that lynching is the extralegal murder for an alleged offense without a legal trial. Of course these cases of people dying at the hands of police is a lynching.
During the most poor and homeless period of my life, I had a lot of people get angry with me because I spent $25 on Bath and Body Works candles during a sale. They couldn’t comprehend why the hell I would do that when I had been fighting for months to try and get us on our feet, afford food, and have an apartment to live in.
Those candles were placed beside wherever I slept that night. In the morning, I would move them and set them wherever I’d have to hang out. At one point I carried one around in my purse – one of those big honking 3-wick candles. I never lit them, but I’d open them and smell them a lot.
I credit that purchase with a lot of my drive that got me to where I am today. I had been working tirelessly, 15+ hour days with barely any reward, constantly on the phone or trying to deal with organizations and associations to “get help at”. It’d gone on for almost a year by the end of it, and I was so burnt out, to the point that I would shake 24/7. But I could get a bit of relief from my 3-wick “upper middle class lifestyle” candles. They represented my future goals, my home I wanted to decorate, and how I would one day not be in this mess anymore.
When we moved into the apartment, and our financial status improved, I burned those candles every single day. When they were empty, I cleaned them out, stuck labels on them, and they became the starting point of my really cute organization system I had ALWAYS planned to have.
So whenever I hear about someone very poor getting themselves a treat – maybe it’s Starbucks, maybe it’s a home deco item, maybe it’s a video game… I don’t judge them. I get it. I get that you can’t go without anything for that long without it making you go crazy. You need to pull some joy, inspiration, and motivation from somewhere.
i’m tired of wanting to be pretty. always wondering if people think i’m pretty. curating a social media existence so everyone thinks i’m constantly pretty. i’m still not gonna post ugly selfies but y’all get my point
There is no reason not to love your writing. You did it. You spent time on it. Of course you should talk about it. No. It’s not boasting, nor are you self obsessed. It’s yours. You spent time on it. Not them. Post about your art. Share with everyone. Because it is amazing.
When heading to the beach this summer, remember that Aphrodite encourages you to love yourself when you’re visiting her sacred birth place. Do not feel ashamed of your body, it mirrors the gods.
i’m mentally ill too but fucking listen to me here. you need to take responsibility for your actions regardless of whether or not they’re a product of your mental illness. you don’t get to manipulate, gaslight, take advantage of, or straight up abuse people because you’re mentally ill! you don’t! what the fuck! why are some of you still thinking it’s okay to say things like “manipulation is okay because i have _____ and need attention from my significant other” oh my god. Don’t fucking do that
shealwaysreads 