MATA E LAUH O QALA'M

[soap-stones]

chelsea, what are your top tips for pulling yourself out of a Funk™️? i've been in such a weird/sad mood for the past few weeks and the tasks are piling up, but it's been so difficult to motivate myself to tidy or even work on hobbies. i would like to feel joy again!! and would love to benefit from a sliver of your wisdom

ugh anon i get you! i have an annoying answer, which is that i had friends over last weekend and we played three extremely heated rounds of uno right before they left and that sort of healed me. it's tough because when i'm in a Funk, usually the last thing i want to do is see people (or clean or work or do hobbies). but that is what consistently does work--seeing my friends and doing something that gets me out of my own brain for a while. it reminds me that there are other ways of existing in the world besides feeling Bad! and that there are people who make me feel happy and warm and loved and grateful to be here. humiliating.

runner-up is "doing something with your body" which u could interpret chaotically (hair dye. scissors.) or wholesomely (for me, right now, it's "dig in dirt" or "move rock." now that my back is FINALLY feeling better, i hope to return to "lift objects for an hour"). but again, something to get you Out of the brain and back into the world. a day trip! something a little scary or emotional or exciting!

and then the last one (which is admittedly kind of just avoidance but sometimes it works!!) is to find some media to hyperfixate on for a few days/weeks. everything else becomes less important than The Thing, and somehow that makes it easier to move through my normal life--doing the dishes is easy, course prep is easy, bc they're all just obstacles to me getting to sink back into The Thing. and when i'm in The Thing, i can't be in a funk! you can only be in one Thing at one time, that's the rule. the success of this one is really dependent on circumstances changing since you're not actually resolving any issues, you're just not looking at them for a while.

[scattredthoughts]

Will you explain "Aashiqui Sabr Talab Aur Tamanna Betaab; Dil Ka Kya Rang Karoon Khoon-e-Jigar Hone Tak!"

Umm the way I interpret it is this: First line depicts the nature of Ashiqui (or passion) which requires one to be very patient. However, it is difficult because our desires and longing act as rivalling forces, making us ever so restless. Second line has a rhetorical question where he uses the imagery of liver (because it’s often used as a symbol of courage and life in urdu) to describe his helplessness in this situation where he is torn between the demands of passion and counteracting forces of desire. So he wonders what color should he color his heart (or how should he control/console his heart) until khoon-e-jigaar (liver’s murder) i.e. until he himself or his passion ceases to be. 

Here’s Pritchett’s interpretation of the couplet if mine doesn’t satisfy you. 

[thoughtskeepmeawake]

Where u frm?

why should I be answering anons in 2024

[thirdity]

“And why don’t you write? Write! Writing is for you, you are for you; your body is yours, take it. I know why you haven’t written. (And why I didn’t write before the age of twenty-seven.) Because writing is at once too high, too great for you, it’s reserved for the great — that is for “great men”; and it’s “silly.” Besides, you’ve written a little, but in secret. And it wasn’t good, because it was in secret, and because you punished yourself for writing, because you didn’t go all the way, or because you wrote, irresistibly, as when we would masturbate in secret, not to go further, but to attenuate the tension a bit, just enough to take the edge off. And then as soon as we come, we go and make ourselves feel guilty — so as to be forgiven; or to forget, to bury it until the next time.”

— Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa”

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

7 Tips for Overcoming Feelings of Inadequacy

1. Remind yourself that you are not who other people think or say you are.

2. Remind yourself that everybody makes mistakes at times, has areas of weakness, and things they want to change.

3. Remind yourself of ways in which you’ve grown and changed with time. You’re not who you once were - so celebrate how far you’ve come.

4. Also, the ending isn’t written and the future isn’t fixed. You’re free to change your image, and an old identity.

5. Identify the lies you have believed about yourself – and work on changing them so they’re more accurate and true. Also, don’t reinforce those lies by acting like you think they’re true.

6. Remember that your feelings are not the same as facts. Don’t live based on your feelings as that will keep you trapped.

7. Hang out with those who see, and who appreciate, your worth. And take their words to heart, and let them help to build you up.

[anancientheart]

i believe you can always get back to yourself. you can always soften into being again. no matter how long you might be stuck in a pattern of unhappiness, of being jaded, of feeling guarded from the world in some way. there is always a path back. give yourself a chance to find it.

[sea-mists]

literally though if you feel like your life is slipping through your fingers and every day goes too fast… try doing hard things, not just taking the easy route, like reading and making art and exercising and cooking a meal from scratch and journaling, doing these things without distraction, without being absorbed on a screen… the time will stretch and you’ll be reminded that life is long and beautiful if you make it so.

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

Things that can Destroy your Motivation

1. Not having goals. You can’t reach your goals if you don’t know what they are.

2. Choosing goals that don’t inspire you. You won’t be able to keep on going if the prize at the end doesn’t really matter to you.

3. Expecting immediate results. Anything worthwhile is a battle and a struggle. It takes times and effort to bring about a change.

4. Lack of support. We all need someone to believe in us and to be our cheerleader when we start to feel discouraged.

5. Not believing in yourself. As Henry Ford so wisely said: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

6. Feeling bored. Most success involves a lot of humdrum work, and repeatedly doing the same kind of stuff. But each day brings you closer to achieving what you want.

7. Inaction and laziness. You have to work the plan before the plan will work … and dreams are only dream till you turn your thoughts to actions. Also, it’s crucially important that you manage your time well, and you don’t get distracted or procrastinate.

8. Being around negative people. There are plenty of people who only see the flaws, and whose eyes are on the problems, and the absence of solutions. If you hang out with them, you will lose your zest and passion, and your positive outlook will soon be undermined.

9. Comparing yourself to others. We each are individuals, and we start from different places; we all face our challenges, and work at different rates. Remember “it’s your journey”. Be patient with yourself.

10. Encountering setbacks. No matter how great your plans, or your level of commitment, you’re bound to face some setbacks and encounter obstacles. That’s a normal part of growth – just keep going when life’s tough.

[blessyourheartlittleone]

virginia woolf's 1931 new years resolutions : "to have none. not to be tied. to be free & kindly with myself. sometimes to read, sometimes not to read. to go out, yes—but stay at home in spite of being asked. as for clothes, i think to buy good ones."

[powerburial]

i love how theres no rules for pronouncing words in English, you literally just have to learn and hear someone say every single word

[3liza]

if anyone is wondering why this is, it's because they stopped teaching American children (and many British) the rules (which exist, and have been standardized and written down for centuries) sometime at the turn of the 21st century. if you are gen x or older, have English degree-holding parents, and/or had any really old teachers who were still teaching into the "fuck grammar" era of public schooling, you unlock a special level of English comprehension where you can pronounce 99% of words perfectly without ever hearing them at all, as well as the ability to code switch to a higher-"class" dialect of English at will, which is extremely important for any social interaction where you have to deal with people who are judging you for such a thing, which happens a lot more often than you're aware of unless someone has already told you about it. usually no one tells you about it unless they're teaching it.

there were a lot of reasons for the shift, most of them can be blamed on Reagan and Thatcher (like everything else). it was pushed through to school curriculums and popular culture as a "de-snobbification" of english education where everyone's regional and ethnic accents would be normalized and accepted, what actually happened is that language gaps between rich and poor kids was crowbarred farther apart as you could no longer learn to talk, write, or read fancy in a free public school, leaving only the wealthy kids who got tutors and private schools and educated parents with a formal English education able to choose to code switch or to struggle considerably less in college when professors usually start expecting you to know grammar and etymology already and don't think it's their job to fix your high school teacher's fuckups. (it is, but that's a different post)

this is why almost everyone on YouTube is speaking only approximate English (see the #youtube grammar tag) a lot of the time and one of the big reasons people with average hearing and reading and processing function have started needing subtitles a lot more in the past ten years, when they didn't before

this gets brought up on Tumblr a lot, see prior discourse about cursive not being taught anymore (not actually a good thing, prevents you from reading anything handwritten before 1990, bad for handwriting ergonomics especially for hypermobile people [see: why do so many hypermobile and autistic people get into fountain pens]) and the new yorker article about "vibes based literacy".

anyway the lesson here is every time the education establishment announces they are about to make education "less formal" and that this will benefit "everyone", because hooray we all thought learning cursive and sentence diagramming and Greek word roots was boring, right? what they are actually announcing is that you will still be judged for not being able to use those formal skills, but now only rich people will be able to learn them from tutors as basic education becomes increasingly privatized.

[bourtange]

specifically on the topic of pronouncing words, a conlang nerd sat down and brute-force compiled a numbered list of rules for correctly pronouncing english words that gets it right for nearly every word 23 years ago (the date explains why his phonetic transcription is so weird, sorry)

[iamnmbr3]

the good news is you can still learn the rules now

English is a phonetic language

there are rules

People learn to read as adults all the time. And if you are reading this now you already have a head start.

[synqra]

_hyemee

[petaltexturedskies]

Emily Brontë, from “Wuthering Heights”

[petaltexturedskies]

T.S. Eliot, from Poems & Plays: 1909-1950; "Murder in the Cathedral"

[paliwalls]

Murals and graffiti on the streets of Ireland in solidarity with the Palestinian people agaisnt settler-colonialism

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

Tips for Self-Acceptance

1. Recognize that there is no-one who is ‘normal’. Love who you are and accept your differences.

2. Don’t think of your differences as inferiorities. They are all part of the package that make you “you”. And the world would be boring if we all were just the same.

3. Refuse to give up on yourself or your dreams. The biggest mistake you could ever make is to not try something in case it goes wrong.

4. Respect your own opinions, your viewpoints and beliefs. If people don’t like then, they can just get over it! Trust your heart and intuition – don’t just listen to others.

5. Don’t be afraid to express, and be, yourself. Develop your own style and your own creative flair.

6. Don’t listen to anyone who puts you down. It’s likely that they’re suffering from low self-esteem – hence they’re trying to feel better by criticising you.

7. Hang out with people who love you just for “you” – and who know that they have failings and hang ups, too.

8. Smile and be happy – you deserve to enjoy life. And remember life’s a journey; it’s not a race.

[poemsfromthebeloved]

You live in beautiful circles  your hair is held  by a round pin  so responsibly

A costly chain  submits itself  to your neck

A watch that is never wrong  lies against your wrist

Keep reading

[dk-thrive]

“The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again. We’re drawn in — or out — and the windows of our perception are cleansed.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, Talking on the Water: Conversations about Nature and Creativity (Trinity University Press, October 11, 2016) (via Alive on All Channels)