ohkaleidoscope - Tumblr blog

[ohkaleidoscope]

(via A migrant worker room in Singapore was redesigned to feel like home. Could this be the future for dormitories? - CNA)

[ohkaleidoscope]

To be a kid requires difficult /  detective work.  You have to piece /  together the entire universe from /  scratch

Karen Russell, “The Ghost Birds”

[ohkaleidoscope]

"I’ve photographed over a hundred NYC City Hall weddings in my career, and I will never be over the diversity of the people that are there every day: all ages, races, dozens of languages, boys marrying boys, girls marrying girls, entire families, couples who are alone and need to grab someone waiting nearby to serve as a witness… 141 Worth Street is MAGIC."

[ohkaleidoscope]

Sometimes I think that all that love is, at its core, is a willingness to do the work. When people say “love is not enough” they mean “the emotion of love is not enough to sustain a relationship”, and of course it isn’t. The emotion cannot lift you in and out of the bathtub when you injure yourself, drive across the country with you for the sake of your dream, wrestle with hex wrenches to put together flatpack furniture for the umpteenth time. Which isn’t at all to discount the emotion: the emotion is what makes the work joyful when it’s easy and bearable when it’s hard, what makes mishaps feel like adventure and sacrifices feel like gifts. It’s even what recognizes when letting go is the better choice. But the fuel that powers the emotion after its initial ignition is the work of showing up. Love, too, is an inkblot test, and I’m sure this definition of love tells you much more about me than I intend it to. I’ve been told that defining love by its precondition of work is bleak, but I don’t actually think it is. What better thing is there to put your work into if not love? Unyoking your love from your job—fundamentally an economic transaction—frees you up to put work into your relationships and your community, inside the workplace and out. It also, crucially, frees you up to put work into loving and caring for yourself, and pursuing the things that make you more of who you are. The reward for this work won’t show up in a payroll ledger or get counted in the GDP, but the reciprocity of a family or a community or a planet that loves one another, and that is willing to show up to do the work, is sustaining in a way money alone cannot be. This kind of work is nothing less than an expression of optimism that what you love can and will flourish. My generation and the next, allegedly, do not dream of labour. But labour was never the problem. The problem has always been the alienation and exploitation of labourers, the unequal burdens we are asked to carry for scraps. And while I understand, truly and deeply, the appeal of withdrawing your labour entirely in the face of this injustice, let that withdrawal be purposeful and targeted rather than nihilistic. After all, successful strikes take an enormous amount of work to organize.

[ohkaleidoscope]

"Life group is a different kind of insurance. People talk a lot about medical insurance and life insurance when you get sick. But relational insurance is far more important. I didn’t need my dad’s money, but I could have used some of his friends."

[ohkaleidoscope]

On our wedding day, my mother said to me “this is it, this is forever.” But at our highest and lowest moments, Shara and I remind each other – this was never meant to be a trap. There’s always a way out, and we’ll both be okay regardless. While we’re speaking of mother-wisdom, Shara’s said to us once in Tamil, “you have to do whatever it takes to get your boat to the shore.” Whatever it takes. Us, we don’t want to chip away at parts of ourselves in order to make anything work with ease. We’re okay with sitting with the complexity of our dynamic partnership and choosing independent courses of action. That’s the kind of people we are. We don’t hold on too tightly to anything.

Updates on a 7-year experiment — Lily Khin

[ohkaleidoscope]

Adults often forget that growing up is a never-ending process that happens every day, every hour, every second. We peg children's development to milestones, exams, and presentations, but some of the most important mistakes, discoveries and relationships that lead to personal growth actually happen in daily life. So whatever we are doing at TTCK - playing, making, chatting - the key is in the '-ing', a continuous presence that can create a much happier and safer environment for our children and youth.

Tak Takut Kids club: Holding (Safe) Space

[ohkaleidoscope]

(via Liz, will you marry me? | by Ning | Medium)

[ohkaleidoscope]

“When a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born—and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.”

anne lamott

[ohkaleidoscope]

(via NITCH)

[ohkaleidoscope]

I know it’s true, and when I look at him, I can see his future with someone very lucky, which is why I don’t want to flip this one just yet. Maybe, this time, that very lucky person will be me.

Some People Flip Real Estate. I Flip Men. - The New York Times