fenist

[fenist]

elliot r. wolfson

[fenist]

the ''you need more communication'' hypothesis is a scam, it is a lie, dont fall for it. no amount of ''communication'' will make somebody who doesn't fundamentally respect you as a person treat you any differently. this is just another bone i have to pick with the collective scam of the ''therapeutic'' approach to human relationships. more communication more communication. if something is wrong that just means you didn't ''communicate'' correctly. then if you do communicate exactly like they instructed you to you're left with nothing but embarrassment. and they'll be like yeah so basically you have to repeat that ''communication'' that you just did again. and again and again. until the other person complies out of straight up being tired of hearing your voice. it has nothing to do with actual mutual understanding 99% of the time. they literally just get tired of you complaining so they agree to do it your way but they actually resent you. i see people falling for this all the time

[fenist]

my friend from Gaza, who is really like a brother to me - though I would hesitate to characterise the relationship as such given all the complex power dynamics of him being someone I regularly send money to, and us never having met in person - offered to help me with my arabic of his own accord. I told him that it absolutely wasn't necessary and he doesn't owe me anything. but he insisted, so I figured he was wanting the distraction, something to cheer him up amidst the hunger and bombs. he was one month into his university education when it was cut short by the launching of the genocide.

anyway, he just sent a 5 minute video of himself so I can see how he pronounces the words, with the caption "don't focus on my face, it's not very beautiful these days."

I was really shocked. his face has changed dramatically in just a few months. it looks like the face of someone in a concentration camp. which is what Gaza is, really. such a handsome young man who now looks like a skeleton.

I can't stop crying

[fenist]

I neither like nor trust most doctors. racketeering and humiliation every time

[fenist]

life as a poor PhD student is so atomised and stressful that it's very hard to carve out time and communities to meet people you'd want to date. i think even the idea of looking for something is probably flawed though certainly human nature: looking as based on a lack. which is strange considering i have such beautiful friends. I'm very tired of this scenario where you meet up with someone from online you think you could be into, and they think they could be into you, and both of you are looking for something: looking for sex, for intimacy, validation, love, for a relationship, or whatever. it's like trying to create something or find something in this bubble so detached from your life - it's just so inorganic and unambiguous, and it's very hard to create any tension around it. I'd much rather meet someone in person, get to know them as a friend, and have a very slow, drawn-out seduction.

[fenist]

I can't articulate it properly, but I am genuinely finding it exhausting and maddening hearing people caveat every critique of the israeli/american/eu war on Iran with "but we don't support the islamic republic of course!" i don't think it is on any of us to speak over Iran and Iranian issues...they should be self-determined. but for any self-determination to be possible, the principle enemy of western imperialism in the region must be overthrown. that is where the focus should remain.

[fenist]

when I got permanently banned from hinge for writing "death to America" on my bio in Arabic, this should have been the pic I uploaded for my appeal

[fenist]

🇮🇷 Tehran, Iran - A man restores a well-known mural depicting the US flag with bombs and skulls, and the phrase “Down with the USA.”

[fenist]

meanwhile, there's a Tunisian guy who appears, at this early stage, to be extremely earnest, emotionally open, and genuinely interested in getting to know me. he's also very hot but his eagerness makes him less desirable (yes, I am the problem). I'm trying to undo a lifetime of romantic patterns by giving him a chance, bc I know the attraction to aloof men is because they externalise or validate the negative image I have of myself.

[fenist]

I just don't really do casual, I guess, in the sense that I always want to know about the other person, I'm always curious...even if we meet up once or twice only and never speak again, it doesn't matter.

[fenist]

anyway you should always remember that all those foreigners you see dying on the news are just as real people as you are who have just as much interiority as you do. there is nothing about you that makes you more important and it is by pure chance that you are not in their position. in fact, this holds for all of history. every person, no matter the horror of the fate that befell them, had just as much interiority as you do. i feel like some people haven't fully internalized this.

[fenist]

one of my worst traits is that i really like aloof men. i went on a date with a tourist from Bolzano who was, by far, the most emotionally unavailable man I’ve ever met in my life (and I’ve met a lot of them). the date was only fun because i made it so with my warmth, openness, and inquisitiveness, whilst he on the other hand asked me almost no questions (I swear his first question was after 30 minutes together, and there were plenty of silences earlier that he could have filled). but nor did he reveal much about himself, either — like someone completely comfortable in himself and his own charm and good looks, not even needing to prove anything by puffing himself up, completely disaffected. an only child, very controlling mother, emotionally underdeveloped, a self-described Peter Pan floating through another city. at one point, he called me a “general” for saying I needed to get the next bus, which i wryly noted was the same word he’d earlier used to describe his mother :D at the end I said he was cute and asked him if he thought I was too (which I regret) and he said “yes” whilst instinctively shrugging his shoulders lmao. he asked to kiss me and it was extremely hot, the man knows what he’s doing… but alas he’s so cheap that he won’t bother to pay for a hotel (I’m staying with my mum whilst visiting sydney, he’s in a hostel) and has since ghosted me, probably once it became clear this would require more effort and logistics than the sex he’s used to. i think he leaves Sydney tomorrow…sigh

[fenist]

I wonder if I am the kind of person who would only consider monogamy for the purposes of raising a family one day, if that…I enjoy dating a little too much. and i love everyone

[fenist]

nightmare first date is spending the whole time sitting across from someone eating a meal or having a drink. it’s so rigid, and too much talking, too much question and answer! my ideal is walking for hours somewhere in a large, crowded part of the city; running errands, trying on ridiculous-looking clothes in thrift shops, and interacting with people around you: both strangers and old friends you recognise. it’s fun and dynamic and you get a much fuller (those of course, not entire, never entire) sense of a person.

[fenist]

“We experience the gaze of others as an evil eye not when it wants to penetrate our secrets and make them transparent (such a penetrating gaze is rather flattering and exciting)—but when it denies that we have any secrets, when it reduces us to what it sees and registers.”

— Boris Groys, ‘Art Workers Between Utopia and the Archive’ (via frnchrllo)

[fenist]

I have a lot of sympathy for the people living in Muslim majority countries where the rule of religion is imposed on all form of life, I especially feel for secular individuals and religious minority communities who are mistreated by the religious legal systems and social norms imposed on them (I literally used to live in Saudi).

That being said I really don't think it's productive or constructive to have conversations about this form of oppression in English on a platform whose userbase consists at like 90% of Westerners. You're speaking to an audience belonging to a society that has a vicious hatred for Islam, one that is used to the detriment of those of us living within the West (and even those who aren't) Feel free to critique whatever you like, these are important conversations to be had and I don't feel like tone policing anyone. But if you're amassing the sights of Westerners over the people these conversations would actually benefit? I recommend using your native language.

I just don't think it's the time to be complaining about how oppressive Iran's religious rule is when hospitals in the country are being bombed under the guise of a rejection of anything Islamic or percieved as adjacent to Arabism. The same way we don't criticize Hamas and their Islamist politics in front of Westerners but we do amongst each other.

Also please don't forget the privileges of Muslims or 'Arabs' are not universal accross the SWANA region. I've said this plenty of times but Muslim Lebanese were slaughtered by the Christo-fascist rulers just a couple decades ago? Every Lebanese Muslim was at risk of extermination just a couple of decades ago. For being 'too Arab' by virtue of being Muslim. My friend NOW in 2025 in Lebanon and many other Muslim families struggled to find safe locations and apartments for evacuation because property is disproportionately owned by Christians who shut their doors in their faces saying "We don't take hijabis". Speak about your experience and the systemic issues that brought it about without stepping over someone else's to make your point.

[fenist]

kinda random, but as someone who has serious existential slash depressive meltdowns more frequently than i’d like, i’ve been trying to find my way out of these thought mazes for years, and i’ve come to the conclusion that trying to combat it by going a few levels even more abstract in the philosophical meter - which is what i personally thought had to be the answer for a long time - is, in a lot of cases, counterproductive 

what i mean by that is that i’m (still slowly) beginning to realize that the only remedy for those particular types of crisis is not isolating yourself even more radically from tangible human experiences and trying to find the answer in your own head, but to fully immerse yourself in daily life as much as possible, and allow yourself to be really, truly part of the world you live in - a kind of poiesis of being, if we’re trying to be poetic, that’s about reinventing yourself with each second you remain open to the reality that is existing in the present moment. that won’t magically sort shit out for you, but i get the feeling it helps paint a different mental picture in which your thoughts can roam in, and maybe find different, new and hopefully better paths of thinking/being

having a rich inner life is possibly the most valuable part of existing as someone capable of cognizant thought, but if your brain goes at 100mph on the daily, it can reach exhaustion levels in the blink of an eye and start almost cannibalizing itself with anxiety and circular thought patterns. the beginning of it is: take a moment to stop. check out that building, the cobblestones in this street, that person selling their artwork on the sidewalk. this is the city you live in. these are the people you’re in the world with. there’s life outside of yourself