katerina, tuesday

"Radical softness is the idea that unapologetically sharing your emotions is a political move and a way to combat the societal idea that feelings are a sign of weakness."

It’s so easy to “add” on the internet, to put more things unthinkingly into a container — so it can be a thoughtful exercise to “subtract,” remembering which are our favorites, or why this collection even matters in the first place.

How nice would it feel for your mental, emotional, and spiritual health—after a shitty day at work where you maybe wanna kill your boss—to come out and just sexually bathe in all this. The beautiful and intricate chaos of the prairie.

Bad things can happen fast but almost all good things happen slowly

Seeing a lot of water like that every day is probably an important thing for human beings. For human beings might be a bit of a generalization—but I do know it’s important for one person: me. If I go for a time without seeing water, I feel like something’s slowly draining out of me. It’s probably like the feeling a music lover has when, for whatever reason, he’s separated from music for a long time. The fact that I was raised near the sea might have something to do with it.

| Haruki Murakami

"Worry is a misuse of imagination." Dan Zadra

Do non-doing, and
goodness will inform
all you do.

Each day, i ask myself for a plan. Not a rigid list of to-do’s, rather, a prompt to check-in with how i want to feel and use my energy.

This morning, during my practice, i asked:

“What is my truthiest truth?”

And i also asked:

“How can i express that today?”

Always keep some attention on your inner body - your rootedness. Do not give all your attention away to the mind and the external world

I used to think ugh, I can't focus on a book like I used to, is it the Internet's/attention economy's fault?? But when I watched an interview with Benjamin Labatut on the Louisiana Channel, he was like, most books today are trash. Yes I see the harshness in that, but he was basically saying that most modern books aren't that inspired, and I was like gasp that's it. Because over the last two years, as my personal preferences have evolved, I find myself less captivated by any random book, and I need a GREAT book (for me, and this looks different over time - sometimes it's a reference book about crows, or a paperback romp from the 80s, right?). There have been some books I just devoured and want to read again, so that's proof I still can focus and read a book, but also that my tastes have evolved, and I used to chalk it up to having "no more attention".

• says I, Chloe Bellefontaine on this 18th day of Aug. 2023

Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love.

Do not be sad, he said. You have begun your own journey, not into the world, like your friend, but into yourself and your memories. As they fall away, perhaps you will attain that enviable emptiness into which all things flow, like the empty cup in the Daodejing—

Everything is change, he said, and everything is connected. Also everything returns, but what returns is not what went away.

To resist in place is to make oneself into a shape that cannot be so easily be appropriated by a capitalist value system. To do this means refusing the frame of reference: in this case, the frame of reference in which value is determined by productivity, the strength of one’s career, and individual entrepreneurship. It means embracing and trying to inhabit somewhat fuzzier or blobbier ideas: of maintenance as productivity, of the importance of nonverbal communication, and of the mere experience of life as the highest goal. It means recognizing and celebrating a form of self that changes over time, exceeds algorithmic description, and whose identity doesn’t always stop at the boundary of the individual.

nonaction is what allows things to ferment

Do it now. The conditions are always impossible

—Doris Lessing

Arrange your mornings so that your body, not an alarm clock, says “time to get up”.

When stumped by a lifechoice, choose “enlargement” over happiness. I’m indebted to the Jungian therapist for the insight that major personal decisions should be made not by asking, “Will this make me happy?”, but “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?”

There will always be too much to do – and this realisation is liberating. The only viable solution is to make a shift: from a life spent trying not to neglect anything, to one spent proactively and consciously choosing what to neglect, in favour of what matters most.

Anytime you’re gonna grow, you’re gonna lose something. You’re losing what you’re hanging onto to keep safe. You’re losing habits that you’re comfortable with, you’re losing familiarity.

—James Hillman

dip. eat. repeat.

research is a way of life

it is an ongoing process that should be fun and led by curiosity and a desire to explore what is unknown to you

it goes beyond what formal education tells you research is— it should not feel like something you have to do. it should be something you love to do because research exists everywhere— research is looking up a recipe and modifying it to make it your own. it is learning about your favorite author’s life and why they wrote the book you’re reading. it is going down rabbit holes on topics you’ve just recently learned about.

but the core of research is the desire to learn and to share what you learn with others.

i think maybe a useful tool for working is; whenever i start believing things are impossible, i am simply tired and need rest. i can begin again when i have the energy to believe in possibilities. i am not a negative person, i am just exhausted.