jennieliang - Tumblr blog

[jennieliang]

Kerry Washington in Unprisoned, the best show I’ve seen in a while.

[jennieliang]

My language, which likes to prove I am not alone, wants to talk to me again today. It’s telling me, Don’t forget: you want to be less like Homer and not at all like Milton, but more like your dog. Your dog, my language says, knows things are there, doesn’t want blindness to see a world, only a nose to know what’s knocking now, who’s on her way home. There’s no yesterday. Your dog, if he could talk, my language tells me, would, every day, like a radio, catch an air wave and say, “Today. ... ”

[Dog Is a Way of Thinking], Magdalena Zurawski

[jennieliang]

Coffee, Hip Hop, Mental Health 

Big, big fan of this organization. Dedicated to normalizing therapy for communities of color through its welcoming environment and community mental health services. And spotlighting the healing power of hip hop!

Can’t wait to visit the next time I’m in Chicago.

[jennieliang]

Amazing work by Styles 4 Kidz. 

[jennieliang]

The good life for man is the life spent in seeking for the good life for man, and the virtues necessary for the seeking are those which will enable us to understand what more and what else the good life for man is.

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue

[jennieliang]

The Evolution of the American Census

Found this gem of data visualization that maps out how the Census has evolved since its inception in 1790. Really cool way to see how the questions and categories changed over time and with cultural norms. And it’s amazing to see some of the earliest handwritten questions.

Hats off to the design firm, 2n for all their great work. 

[jennieliang]

If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.

Emerson M. Pugh, physicist

[jennieliang]

So.. this is concerning. 

[jennieliang]

Watched the Fred Rogers documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, and realizing what a special person Mr. Rogers was. Spent 50 years espousing love and dignity for the kids.

Here was his reaction video to 9/11:

[jennieliang]

Okay, this is hilarious. Great show!

[jennieliang]

Can We Live?

It has been a painful few weeks. There have been way too many lives lost, disproportionately folks of color. Even in just this past week - Ma’Khia Bryant. Adam Toledo. Daunte Wright. Andrew Brown Jr. DMX. Black Rob. 

My heart breaks for each of these individuals. RIP.

--

We know that the Ma’Khia, Adam, Daunte, and Andrew died at the hands of police. And justice should be served swiftly and accordingly.

But what happened to DMX and Black Rob? What happened to them that shaped their lives and led to their early deaths? We know they struggled because that’s what made them talented rappers. 

But what haunted them? So much so that they turned to addictions to soothe their souls But those addictions ended up damaging their bodies Hope they can find peace now.

But seriously - their traumas are our traumas. Their traumas were brought on by a system of hate that still exists today And continues to haunt society’s most vulnerable. DMX and Black Rob just helped give them a voice.

We all need to do something about it.

--

“If I don’t live, nobody live” - Black Rob

[jennieliang]

Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.

Paulo Freire

[jennieliang]

Mr. de Botton dropping some gems about love.

[jennieliang]

Aza Raskin

Stumbled on this dude tonight. He caught my eye when I was looking into the history of my favorite music platform: Songza, which had playlists curated based on emotions and activities. The platform was acquired by Google and eventually turned into what is now Google Play Music. 

One of the Songza founders, Aza Raskin is also a co-founder of another org I’ve been following heavy: The Center of Humane Tech. AKA the creators of The Social Dilemma. 

But wait, there’s more. Aza Raskin is also the son of Jef Raskin, the founder of the MacIntosh computer at Apple. Whoa.

Here is a TEDx talk from 2012 where Aza talks about what he learned from his dad about design: “Design is the beauty of using constraints as advantages.”

So it makes sense that the rest of his career highlights read like this:

- Design at Mozilla Labs and Firefox 

- Founded a consumer tech company acquired by Jawbone

- Currently trying to decode animal communication using machine learning

It’s interesting to following the path that his mind has been on. Open source internet, digital concierge services, health technology, humane tech, environment. 

Am I fan-girling? Maybe just a little bit.

[jennieliang]

Excerpts from this comic, which illustrates all the potential lifetimes one can have.

Reminds me of one of the best pieces of life advice I’ve ever received: Change your life every 10 years. 

[jennieliang]

A few weeks ago, I attended a talk from UCLA called “What is Kindness?” featuring three speakers: an anthropologist, a psychologist, and an artist. The artist, Kristy Edmunds spoke about how kindness happens when people gather together in public and wondered what happens to kindness in a quarantined, socially distant society. How insightful.

According to social psychology, one of the ways humans learn helpful and cooperative behaviors (aka prosocial behavior) is through seeing someone else model those behaviors. Studies on modeling show that when people see someone else being helpful or charitable, they are more likely to follow suit. On the other hand, modeling behaviors that cause harm to others (aka antisocial behavior) is also contagious. And since most of our social interactions are now virtual, what type of behaviors are we seeing being modeled online, and how is that impacting us?

We know on social media, outrage thrives. Of all the emotions, outrage fuels viral content the fastest and drives the most engagement on social media. So it’s not shocking to learn that since the onset of Covid-19, online hate speech and toxicity have proliferated. One study estimates there has been a 70% increase in hate between children and teens during online chats, as well as an increase in racist sentiments. This increase in hate impacts the mental health of everyone involved including those creating the hate, those who receive it, and those who observe it. When people are exposed to hate, they are more likely to replace empathy with contempt, intergroup relationships are more likely to deteriorate, and hateful language and attitudes become normalized. 

By only interacting with others from behind a screen, we are more likely to be exposed to antisocial behavior and less likely to see prosocial behavior. So if the world seems like a less kind place since the pandemic hit, it’s probably true. By social distancing, we are missing the full human experience and being robbed of those spontaneous moments of interaction, joy, and learning prosocial behavior. But let’s not forget about how rich life can be and let’s not mistake our current reality to be the only one. I can’t wait to see everyone on the other side. 

[jennieliang]

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye