assorted thoughts, theories, and dreams

dear readers, 

    another short post today. i feel shrouded by many fragmented thoughts and interests. instead of one cohesive blog post, i thought i would share some of my recent musings, sorted into categories for easier navigation but kept messy and intact. 

    my blog feels like a message in a bottle to someone in the future, who stumbles upon my url and can explore my life and my brain through my writings. i want to cut through time and share my devotion with spirits, my future self, and strangers in the past or future. i hope you can imagine these thoughts as various pieces of paper and objects on my messy desk, and that you are in my home, sorting through and exploring. the photos are all from the san jose museum of quilts (highly recommend, might post more photos soon). i hope you enjoy.

moments and thoughts from my notes app:

1. the recent trend of people favoring and romanticizing “rot" over leisure. everyone wants time to "bed rot", to "brain rot”, whatever. No one wants time for leisure. No one seeks out of leisure as much as they just want to be left to their bed to “rot. I think it is indicative societies drive for productivity and the shame that comes from rest. with the ideas of “bed rot”, people maintain the negative connotation that’s associated with rest, instead of pursuing relaxed and peaceful leisure- that in many cases, makes us feel more healed and replenished.
2. thinking about how funny it is that we learn things like applause from our parents. like we’re not quite adults yet but we all know how and when to clap, the whole etiquette. we learn from experiencing it, from being told by teachers when to clap in the school auditoriums, and i just think it’s quite whimsical.
3. If I'm so committed to being a cool old person who does a lot of interesting creative things in old age, I have to be a lot less concerned about getting all of the cool things I want to do done while I'm still young
4. my spanish teacher explaining catholicscm better than i’ve ever heard it on april 27, 4:52pm. Someone had asked about the book we’re reading, where a child named panchito dreams that santo niño de atoche heals his sick baby brother. Our professor explained the idea of many saints or spirits, manifested through different people. To paraphrase, he said they’re “human expressions of the divine, the baby saint is a representation of the helping hand of god. At some point in time, a miracle happened around a certain baby and people believed god manifested through the baby. It’s not that it’s many different people, but communities see divine power through different images that make sense in their context.”
5. closing prayer from art in oceania class - "Our ancestors want to find us as much as we want to find them. Let us fly free of our restrictions, our knowledge baskets are stored safely away” (blog post on tattooing and oceanic cosmologies to come)

overheard

1. at the airport at 5am: "just the longest piece of super sticky tape early in the morning, what could go wrong?”
2. "it was weird how everything was predetermined”

future amateur research projects/things i want to learn more about

1. i would be interested to do a study of race indicators online. i’ve been thinking about how it seems very trendy a few years ago for everyone, particularly white people to put their ethnicities and flags in their instagram bios. i also wonder about the thumbs up and other hand emojis, as well as slang and use of aave and more. White people often use the yellow “default” skin tone while in my experience, most poc use whichever skin tone is most accurate to them. i think it is often considered normal for white people to use the “default” emoji color because of the way whiteness is normalized as the “default” on our society. but then some white people (usually older) use medium dark skin tones in their emojis either because they inaccurately estimate their skin tone, or are trying to show some weird solidarity? so perhaps emoji skin color use is based less on people wanting to represent themselves as individuals of a certain racial group, and more a “neutral” signal? there is a lot of race signaling happening and wondering what the consequences or results of race indicating are online because of anonymity or other factors?
2. study of how people sit on the bus (which seats are most frequented), and what this says about human nature
3. wanting to study the culture and sociological dynamics of erotica, fetish, kink, sexuality. also queer theory, grime and it’s connection to whiteness, leaky and “dysfunctional” bodies (pregnancy, birth, chronic illness and disability), theories around intersex, fatness, etc. want to continue my studies of DEVOTION, but also DESIRE
4. paraphrased from an instagram reel: "the public (space) is conceived of being complimentary to the private (space and ruling class)” —> study how this shows up in santa cruz/california with high rise condos, third spaces, spaces of unhoused community
5. want to understand Kairos better. described to me as referring to the immeasurable moments of experience and transformation—recorded as sentiments and narratives. measured by interactions, moments, intimacies, transitions, and transformations.
6. want to write and blog about Izumi Suzuki, Issy Wood, more about Jon
7. in addition to my WIP zine about religion, i want to understand how people rationalize their existence, regarding souls and spirits, linguistic understanding (how does our language shape the way we see ourselves and the world), the idea of internal monologues (perhaps an interview between me and axelle as we exemplify the two sides of the internal monologue spectrum), and the possibilities for connection between people

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in love and messy compiled thoughts,

- ek