Nida Khafiyya

Had a great day inside the bowels of a printing plant from press checks, printing, threading, casing and hand assembly. I learned so much under the kind mentorship of Weiping and Vanessa. Can’t wait to see the finished product!

Another exciting day at work! Press checks at our printing plant in JB for ‘Heute bin Ich’

ruineshumaines:

Daisy by Ben Torode.

conflictingheart:

Hush now

It is quite possible to fall in love again and again with the same person. Perhaps in all these instances, there isn’t enough words to truly capture the nuanced differences in the different types of love that could exist between two people.

First, we fall in love with the idea of falling together. We don’t know where this may lead us. We don’t really quite know each other very well. But we are in love with the idea of falling together.

Second, we fall in love for the ideal image of the other. Seeing each other’s strengths and goodness, we admire and marvel.

Third, we fall in love with being together. It’s the chemical reaction: the sum of our habits, our likes, our pet peeves, our hopes, our dreams, our past, our heuristics. It’s falling in love with being an ‘us’ and creating something that is entirely new.

Fourth, we fall in love for the real other. Friction will inevitably arise from two unique individuals who are different souls with different histories, vices and habits, inhabiting each other’s space. That is when you truly fall in love for the entire design of the other: accepting every facet of differences and sameness that makes the other perfectly unique and very different from you.

Fifth, we fall in love with ‘us’. We fall in love with the ‘team’, supporting one another to achieve each other’s goals, through torrential storms of gigantic proportions. TIme to time when we take a step back, we marvel at how lucky we are to have come across someone brave enough to be together, come what may.

And the rest?
To be written someday soon, who knows when.
Come what may.

nevver: Rumi

It’s been a really long week, albeit a very productive one.

It almost feels as if Friday is a few days away from now. 

I managed to complete a lot of things this week and making a lot of progress on several projects at once.

Good. All good. One day at a time is good.

There are large mountains looming ahead, an uphill climb that follows another: professionally and personally.

Perhaps a mountain range is a more fitting metaphor. The issues ahead are really quite as large as mountains: foreign and momentous forged by tectonic shifts. As miraculous as childbirth. As ethically complex too.

I’m scared. Really scared. It’s okay to be scared. This is one of our biggest test to date.

We all have the option of either living in anticipation of fear or to live simply. I am enjoying each day, one day at a time.

There is much to learn and I hope through this process, we will be a better family.

Amin.

All in all, it’s pretty good.
All in all, it is better to be calm and simplified.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

nevver:

1. All beliefs in whatever realm are theories at some level. (Stephen Schneider)
2. Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. (Dandemis)
3. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. (Francis Bacon)
4. Never fall in love with your hypothesis. (Peter Medawar)
5. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts. (Arthur Conan Doyle)
6. A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong. (Francis Crick)
7. The thing that doesn’t fit is the thing that is most interesting. (Richard Feynman)
8. To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact. (Charles Darwin)
9. It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. (Mark Twain)
10. Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong. (Thomas Jefferson)
11. All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second, it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident. (Arthur Schopenhauer)

More

explore-blog:

Young Albert Einstein, 1882

explore-blog:

Famous authors as teenagers, the best thing since Einstein as a toddler. Pictured here: Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, Mary Karr, Neil Gaiman, Mark Twain.

They missed 14-year-old Susan Sontag.

nevver:

Peanuts

You never quite notice it When It All Began. At first it might be a medium-sized Thing - big enough to take the wind out of you. Before you can recover, a series of small Little Things rain down. When the Final Blow hits you square in the face, you’ve already anticipated it. It doesn’t come as a surprise. But the magnitude, beating against weary limbs and tired heart, wears you down more than you thought you could handle and you wouldn’t admit it to yourself that you need help.

There you are.

Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. Tired.

We all have ways to cope with Things. When I was younger, it was a mixture of cynicism, workaholism and escapism.

When my parents were divorced, I read books voraciously to find a voice I could relate to, finding a way to escape and sublimate my anger into hours of being alone. When my father died a month before my final exams, I read my books, studied hard and aced my exams. Get your grades right, don’t let them see you weak. Only when it’s over do I allow the emotions simmer over like lava. Cynicism protected me from disappointment by allowing a safe distance between myself and people. It allowed me room to assess and filter those who would be perceived as a threat to my own peace and those who would leave me be.

These methods worked in my adolescent years. It’s okay to be full of angst. It’s okay to have a vague sense of misplaced misanthrope. It’s okay to be full of strange teenage hormones. Everyone is just like you. It seemed perfectly alright to pour it all into a Livejournal and allow the debris to settle among people who were dealing with Things in the same way.

But it doesn’t work when you’re 24. Escapism loses its charm when you have responsibilities. Cynicism poisons you when you have close relationships. It poisons them too. Workaholism tires you so much more when you no longer have the stamina of a 14 year old. Frankly, the thought of being quietly angry for the next 5-10 years is really, really tiring.

I have been dealing with Big Personal Things. I admit I’m not very good at it but I’m learning to be better. The magnitude that I face is smaller in comparison which helps puts perspective on things: all in all, I’m in a better position to help than to make things worse.

Thank you misplaced misanthrope, workaholism and escapism. You’ve served me well in the past. For now, I need to be healthier, even if it means my road to panacea is much longer journey.

#1 - Grateful

I am thankful I have a job that enables me with flexibility and empowerment to make my own decisions.

#2 - Affirmation

Everyday I do something new to feel better, to do things better and to be a better person.

#3 - Challenge the Negatives

I don’t usually get it right the first time but I tend to do better the second, third and fourth time. I just have to learn to trust my judgement.

Alright. Goodnight.

Be kind to yourself!

It is the kind of imprisonment where you take your mind as hostage, in exchange for some unmet need.

These needs include: trust, security, support, reliability, acceptance.

Sometimes the thing that takes these things away are big, life changing events that cannot be reversed or undone, as resolute as tearing a Polaroid or cracking glass.

The only way to replace it would be to take a new picture. Or burn it into fire to forge some other glass.

But it is not a neat fit. It may not ‘fix’ things. But it is New.

And maybe then we’ll find our way out of our own prisons.

Chelsea is magic.

Chelsea makes a flower