draft_1
misplaced notes and thoughts
sept 21, 2025
as i dive into the world of substack, i caught myself reeling from another potential source of information overload - what is this great literary world of thinkers that i have been missing out on for so long? there’s a part of me that still feels compelled to accumulate and read as much as possible, but what for? the performativeness of it all?
what i have consumed
cleared a bit of my substack reading list, these are from the articles i’ve saved while watching anna howard’s videos on digital gardening -
poser ethics - rayne fisher-quann
couldn’t finish this article unfortunately, it was a paid one. but it got me kinda frustrated on the discourse surrounding performative and aestheticised reading. I wish it wasn’t just “endless discourse”, and it feels like a cop-out to be honest. to say that in our current age of technology where you have the opportunity to be hyper-perceived, to present yourself a certain way, that people reading to supposedly appear intellectual is inevitable and “at least people are reading”. have you seen those white booktok influencers reading fictional books about revolution and class struggle and then coming out as right-wing sympathisers of charlie kirk’s death?! not to be pedantic or to try and police people for their reading habits, that’s not the point, that never was the point. shouldn’t we engage in deeper conversations about how ‘poser ethics’ influences the way people read, the narratives they adopt and how they interpret it, why they even read in the first place? shouldn’t we be concerned about the simultaneous rise in intellectualism aligned to the upper class, and anti-intellectualism aligned to everybody else, and how ‘poser ethics’ is a direct manifestation of this class issue? shouldn’t we address how the performative-ness of reading might directly facilitate a method of reading that isn’t deep and reflective, instead favouring speed and superficial intake? which links very well to the second article i read ⬇️
the end of deep reading and what it costs to us - carl hendrick
I loved this article, i think it’s an essential read for anyone who’s looking to reflect on their relationship with reading. the theory of negative capability struck me the most, which posits that a great thinker is one that is capable of uncertainties, able to bury their self-consciousness and dwell in a state of openness to all experience, all of which are more important than the quest for objective fact. before being trained to be a scientist (and conditioned to think capitalistically), i felt so much more capable of doing that, and reading felt a lot more frictionless. now i can’t deal with uncertainty - i strayed away from science fiction because they brought in a fictional world of uncertainties that i supposedly didn’t have the time to entertain. I delivered valid critiques about the epistemics of philosophy, but dismissed deep examination of the content on the very grounds of this critique, but more so because I didn’t understand what the hell this white man with a beard was saying. sometimes i still fall victim to the temptation of wanting everything condensed and spoonfed into my brain, because surely i have better things to get to, more of the limitless universe to absorb. why am i treating my brain like an algorithmic aggregate rather than a thinker that is drawn to her own unique interests?
on a wider societal level, i do wonder if our increasing indifference to meaning makes us easier to manipulate - narratives more amenable and and mouldable.
so so many more thoughts on this. it’s on my to-do list to give this a more thorough review.
if we burn - vincent bevins (chapter 1)
i finally completed the first chapter, but i wasn’t in a good headspace when i did it so quite a lot’s lost on me! there was a lot of historical context covered that i’m not familiar with, so i plan on doing more in-depth historical research. so this is parked for the timebeing.
(and yeah, i had my meltdown and sobbed my eyes out after reading this chapter)
the cass report - cass
this is a hugeeee reason why i miss the old web. a life update newsletter my lovely friend has been doing, which has honestly been a huge inspiration for me to continue working on this website. the fact that i was such a notoriously quiet kid (selectively mute at one point) but still felt pretty content and fulfilled with my social life was always a mystery to me. can’t believe i forgot how huge of an influence the internet and online communities were to me, how much it helped me feel connected to others.
stuff i’ve done for this website
sept 24, 2025
I have created a memory vault! I’m not sure how feasible this idea is in the long run, but i had a lot of fun putting together my 2015 highlights, looking back at what i did, and surprisingly having such great memory! honestly, without photos, i have the worst and most patchy memory. the only concern i have is that i have zero idea how much this website can take in terms of memory. I’m on netlify’s free plan, and i’m sure i can check how much storage I have left, but the kicker is - i can’t seem to login! it has been a year since i’ve properly worked on this website, so i’ve forgotten how i connected all my different accounts. I might’ve connected my netlify to my github, which uses a nearly decade-old student email (shh… i was trying to exploit the fact that i haven’t been locked out of it for years to get discounts) that i finally, no longer have access to. so i can’t even click ‘forgot password’. I’m kinda trapped… whatever. I’ll figure it out.
life updates
sept 24, 2025
i don’t even have the energy to go in great detail about this, and honestly it is not worth my energy. but tldr, an engineer’s probably (i say probably because i have noise-cancelling headphones on and playing pink noise; i physically and mentally cannot deal with this anymore) outside my room fixing the heating and hot water as I’m writing this, and their failure to show up for several days in a row while we’ve had to deal with cold showers in under 10-degree weather has sent me into a bit of a meltdown. I feel burnt out even though I’ve barely done activities that most able-bodied people would think would burn you out, I feel extremely mentally drained. I’m not even joking when i say that routine disruptions are my worst nightmare. I have so many stuff i want to get to doing but i can’t even will myself to push these to-dos into my mental headspace. so i’ve opted to work on easy website stuff to pass the time. it’s helping, and i’ll be okay soon. had a proper sob about this and had my housemate unleash all her rage and fury, yeah, it’s pretty intense.