no. 23: once more, with feeling🧣
finding joy, pain au chocolat, and a case for messiness
Hi friends,
The words just seemed to come easily this week. Maybe it’s the arrival of fall and colder weather that has us turning inwards, physically and emotionally. We hope this week feels like wearing your favorite sweater :’)
J:
please excuse the mess
In Singapore, there is no concept of four seasons. There are only two: sunny, and rainy. There are even days when it is both, simultaneously. It’s an oddly beautiful scene to watch: the way rays of light bounce off the droplets of water, as if you’re seeing rain clearly for the first time.
I’ve been feeling a lot like this indecisive weather forecast. That is to say, I’ve been feeling many things all at once. They come, tangled and impossible to tease apart. The other day, my lola turned 90: I spent my morning scrolling through pictures of her and her very Filipino birthday cake. Waves of joy, jabs of homesickness - both arrived at the same time. Weekends produce the same kind of effect: I am at once excited to walk around the city, and quietly overwhelmed with apprehension.
Besides the chaotic state of My Mind™, this week’s reflections were also inspired by a previous issue of the Girl’s Night In newsletter. It was this line in particular that hit:
“The duality of my feelings reminds me of my humanness.”
It feels almost silly to say, but we are not machines. I’m compelled to write this, because sometimes I forget that we don’t have to process life serially - as one by one, either / or. We have a tendency to compartmentalize, and have gotten increasingly good at doing so - maybe, even, to a fault. For me at least, I started to realize that I’ve conflated identification with isolation: trying to name the many emotions I’m feeling, then forcing myself to yield to just one.
Instead of choosing, I’m doing my best to make space for both: fear and hope, loss and gratitude. In the realm of emotions, maybe it’s okay to be a maximalist. To keep not only the things that spark joy (sorry, Marie), but the entire spectrum of emotions, contradictions and all. I think this time, I’ll permit the mess.
N:
Unspecified Energy
This week, I saw a bird’s nest in this tree. A bird flew into it and nested there, chirping quietly. All around me people were shifting and passing by, like sand in an hourglass, as I stood there and watched. It was after a great downpour of rain, one that felt like it could fill a thousand empty swimming pools to the brim. And yet, this symbol of life and rebirth remained unaffected. A feeling rose within me. I would like to say it was joy, or peace.
In Lisa Feldman Barrett’s brilliant book, How Emotions are Made, she argues that feelings are not emotions. Feelings are experiences that are categorized as intense, mild, pleasant and unpleasant. It is your brain that registers and categorizes that valence and intensity based on prior experiences into an ‘emotion’. The emphasis you place on certain parts of your life guides your experience of the world.
“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind.” (Marcus Aurelius)
I’ll be the first to admit, it is not easy to be the architect of your own experience when you are building with no blueprint, in the dark. When more things are going wrong than right. When you feel anxious, like a failure, like you are hearing laughter from every room that is not yours.
But I’m a big believer that positivity is something you work at, not something that is defined for you. It is active, rather than passive. A romance with life that is just as important as any other relationship. It is our only job in life that is constant: finding joy. We’d like to think that external accolades will bring us happiness, but in truth, it is our internal thoughts that need to be nourished and brought to the surface, close to the light.
For the longest time, I thought my sadness and inner struggles were the source of my creativity. But I’ve come to understand that positivity is what makes me share my version of the world through writing, and encourages me that I deserve to be read, and understood. That if at least one person finds solace in my writing, that it is enough for me. It is something I actively choose. So here I am, after the rain, leaning into the world with open arms.
J:
to celebrate the turning of the season: song as sweaters
the one you thrifted - ultimate painting, ultimate painting
the one you don’t really wear, but can’t get rid of - real estate, adam melchor
the hoodie you stole from that guy - lose, NIKI
N:
This is possibly my favorite piano song: Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No.1
J:
moments that made me chuckle
I tried to learn (key word: tried) the WAP dance. Very bad outcome, but very solid laughs.
The inability to determine if deriving joy from cleaning kitchen counters is a good or bad sign
On a similar note - realizing my WFH aesthetic is really just “old Asian uncle”
Being reminded of the former, but then seeing the latter:
N:
This tweet hit HARD and I’m here for it:
J:
“If the world were only pain and logic,
who would want it?
Of course, it isn’t.
Neither do I mean anything miraculous,
but only
the light that can shine out of a life.”
- Mary Oliver, House of Light
N:
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” – Albert Camus
J:
life imitates art / art imitates life?
N:
This WINS photo of the week, Kopi Fam!
Hugs,
J & N