- To the millions of climate activists who made the climate bill possible. Onwards towards all we can save !
- To our puppy. Best life decision & infinite joy.
- Visited my sister this month. She is an instant happiness drug. I forgot all of my troubles and got a fresh lease on life, from this one visit.
- Deleted instagram from my phone for two weeks. My attention gradually expanded to read more long form content.
- Got a library card and started borrowing ridiculous number of coffee table books. Leisure feels luxurious pouring over pages and pondering about beauty.
Reading
On nurturing urban forests in our cities.
Immigrant guilt on abandoning our cultural aesthetic.
The psychology of inspiring everyday climate action.
Sarah Lazarovic writing about her climate work.
Is it classist to be against fast fashion ?
Love that article about abandoning cultural aesthetics for minimalism. I never thought about that way because my parents (who migrated to Singapore from Malaysia and Taiwan), didn’t really think about aesthetics the way we do…but now I can think of a few things that are part of my visual memory – the tiled flooring to keep cool in the weather, exposed wiring and ceilings because that’s how flats are built in Singapore, the wrought iron window grills (for safety when living in high-rises with children), the Goddess of Mercy on an altar with the red lampshades, the tiled kitchen walls….
Anyway, I have not embraced minimalism or the aesthetics of my childhood homes, but in my new home I have held on to a love for little lucky charms that I like to scatter around the house. I hate clutter but I attach a talismanic value to some things and now in a foreign country they feel a lot more precious. I am glad I held on to them when I moved!
Do you think you’ll delete instagram or take another break from it? Or was the break a means of resetting your attention span?
I also really enjoyed the cultural aesthetic article. I ended up clicking down a rabbit hole and from that article, reading about “cluttercore”, which I found resonated with how I grew up. I still love it, but know I could never go back to that… entirely. I don’t think I’m very minimalist at all even though I’ve entertained the idea before and decluttered a lot. I think I’ve always been more on the organized or aesthetically pleasing cluttercore end of the spectrum.
To answer your first question: YES. It’s been brutally hot this summer and the entire yard is dead. I’m ready for cool days to throw on old jeans and dig up all the plants to make way for a better garden next year – barring another extreme heatwave.
Quite dont know what the point of instagram is anymore. I dont feel the need to post outfits. I dont feel the need to “show” sustainable actions. When I do post something, I wonder if instagram is using my content to sell ads and steal attention of people. I have aged out of social media maybe ?
The minimalist interiors of the 2015 are not my style either. I think I like warm lived in spaces. Useless things and clutter ofcoruse aint ideal, but cold sterile spaces dont make a home for me.
We are also being battered by heat waves and terrible air quality. I need to go dig up my dead lawn to prep it for spring planting. But cant work outside without breathing in the harm.
The only reason I’m on instagram anymore is for a few friend accounts, some shops I follow and because my husband and I share funny cat videos we find with each other. And that’s pretty much it. I don’t post very often and even if I get the desire to, I tend to forget about it entirely.
I hear you about breathing in the harm. It’s been way too hot to do anything outside this year without feeling like crap afterwards.
I have so many sources in my feed that I dont see content made by people anymore. Its mostly organizations and their content that comes up. I have to do a massive re-org to figure out how I can use the tool and not let the tool use me.
Instagram has become my source of home interior inspiration. I dont want to live in a white box anymore. Years of not paying attention to design has me lost on what a non-white home can look like. Scrolling is my education for now.