couldnt-be - Tumblr blog

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Kinda explains why Malaysians are currently so into nostalgia. As Malaysians fight to recover or re-find (if we ever had one) our identity as a Malaysian/ as a nation, we let capitalism and brands define what it means to be Malaysian. Increasingly we see videos (TikTok’s, reels, commercials, vlogs, etc.) all feature similar stylised versions of what it means to be Malaysian.

We see the multiculturalism aspect, the food, the dying/ aging culture of hawker food/ kopitiams, the sleepy towns, the bustling city centre… I don’t know if these are markers of Malaysian identity, but the more these items show up in videos/ media, the more we reinforce it and accept it as “Malaysian identity.”

Thus, we become obsessed with nostalgia. Shops and cafes pop up all over with concepts of “old” Malaysia, when we had the “identity” of Malaysia.

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I'm wondering if I do the same thing for you...

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Nobuyoshi Akari: Kyonen (2002)

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fucking hate it when the stuff everybody says "actually works" does actually work.

hate exercising and realizing i've let go of a lot of anxiety and anger because i've overturned my fight-or-flight response.

hate eating right and eating enough and eating 3 times a day and realizing i'm less anxious and i have more energy

hate journaling in my stupid notebook with my stupid bic ballpoint and realizing that i've actually started healing about something once i'm able to externalize it

hate forgiving myself hate complimenting myself more often hate treating myself with kindness hate taking a gratitude inventory hate having patience hate talking to myself gently

hate turning my little face up to the sun and taking deep breaths and looking at nature and grounding myself and realizing that i feel less burdened and more hopeful, more actually-here, that i am able to see the good sides of myself more clearly, that i am able to see not only how far i have to grow - but also how much growth i have already done & how much of my life i truly fill with light and laughter and love

horrible horrible horrible. hate it but i'm gonna do it tho

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lisa cuddy should’ve shot house in the head

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HANIF ABDURRAQIB

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All Along You Were Blooming: Thoughts for Boundless Living ~ Morgan Harper Nichols

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tumblr isn't a social media it's actually my bed and u all are my plushies watching me talk to myself

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[shaking myself by the shoulders] i will get better. i will continue. i have no goddamn choice

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sometimes I wonder how we all survive and then I look at my best friends and I go “oh, I survive because I don’t want to leave you yet” and it makes sense. life is so hard a lot of the time, but I want one more bowl of pasta with you.

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I don't have to punish myself for my feelings

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You’d love me if I was gentle, right? If I wasn’t so bitter at my mother. If I wasn’t so loud, so blunt, so damaged from my past. You’d love me if I was smaller, right?

My whole life I have been trying to make myself smaller. To live a life without an echo, without a shadow. I keep my curtains closed, my head down and use my inside voice just like I’m told.

I am just a girl, occupying the space I was given when I was 5, too afraid to ask for more.

I am confined to the smallest room, in a large, empty house. I know what I am and what I could’ve been. While they are discovering the ocean, I am still trying to unlock the door. And if all that lies on the other side of the door is settled dust, please find me a comfortable place to rest. I promise I will never ask for more.

I have seen what emptiness has done to my mother and the door never unlocks. The wound never closes.

— Hannah Green, ‘As The Dust Settles’.

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i like to pretend i already died and asked god to send me back to earth so i can swim in lakes again and see mountains and get my heart broken and love my friends and cry so hard in the bathroom and go grocery shopping 1,000 more times. and that i promised i would never forget the miracle of being here

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starting a collection

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“Fishing, too, is depleting the oceans of wildlife. Look at the sharks killed for their fins or cartilage or for sport. Look at the grouper and snapper and tuna caught and sold to consumers. My goodness. For humans, tuna is an acquired taste. A hundred years ago few people ate tuna. Bluefin-tuna populations in the Pacific have been reduced to 2.7 percent of what they were in 1980. There are still some adult tuna out there, but they’re smaller than before and less common. The price goes up as the supply goes down, however, so it remains profitable to catch bluefin tuna.

In the Atlantic the numbers are a little stronger. In 1990, when I was the chief scientist at NOAA, 90 percent of the North Atlantic adult-tuna population had already been extracted. When you’re down to 10 percent, isn’t it time to stop? Just stop, unless your goal is to exterminate them. If we really want to have an ocean without bluefin tuna, then we should keep killing them at the current rate, because there isn’t any way for nature to keep up with that level of extraction.

We kill tuna because there’s a market for the fish. We kill them because of that wonderful human characteristic called greed. We just can’t resist. The only hope is for people who care to say, I will never eat tuna again. We don’t need to eat it. For those for whom it is necessary sustenance, I say, OK. Native people who catch and consume the fish locally to feed their families — that’s different. That is not likely to deplete the ocean of wildlife. But when you catch fish to send to market on the other side of the world because you are going to get a hundred thousand dollars for one fish, that’s not sustenance; that’s a luxury. We are fostering the extinction of creatures that belong somewhere other than on our plates.“​

-Sylvia Earle, Oceanographer and Wildlife Biologist

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one day you think: I want to die. and then you think, very quietly: actually. actually. I think I want a coffee. a nap. a sandwich. a book. and I want to die turns day by day into want to go home, I want to walk in the woods, I want to see my friend, I want to sit in the sun, I want a cleaner kitchen, I want a better job, I want to live somewhere else. I want to live.

- via duckbunny