Happy Birthday, No Brow
From All Said And Done by Simone de Beauvoir (London: Penguin, 1977), pp. 39:
To begin with I was amorphous, but I was not manifold. On the contrary, what strikes me is the way the little girl of three lived on, grown calmer, in the child of ten, that child in the young woman of twenty, and so forward. Of course, circumstances have caused me to develop in many respects. But through all my changes I still see myself.
Celebrating a milestone: 1 year, 46 posts and No Brow is still going strong. Let me write a quick self-awarded acceptance speech. I giggled when I wrote that, but then again, it is what it is. First, I’d like to thank God, without whom your boy wouldn’t be here in the first place. I would also like to thank my mom – if she had decided otherwise, I am sure you get the rest of that gist. Just like Snoop Dogg, I thank myself for showing up even when 95% of the time, I am not in the mood to. I’d also like to thank all the friends who have served as editors, and a particular friend who has been like my drill sergeant. It really does take a village to raise a child. All in all, I feel blessed. In the beginning, I just wanted an outlet to write anything I felt like. So far, No Brow has turned into my public diary. I have a nagging sense that some of the things I write here might come back to bite me, but then again, no ‘sticks’ given. Like they say, we all carry the seeds of our own destruction, anyway. How you choose to water or ignore them is up to you. I never understood how certain French writers I admire could be so open about things. When I read their works, I would often think, ‘Are you even allowed to write that?’ English writers, on the other hand, are often more guarded in what they choose to share both publicly and sometimes even privately. You can even see the difference in their films. Interesting choice of word: ‘guarded.’ The question then arises: why are people guarded? Is it because there’s a fear that being open or vulnerable could leave one defenceless in the face of an attack? Interestingly, this has been the case in recent years. Tweets or comments from decades ago are dug up and weaponised against whoever wrote them. This is analogous to confiding your secrets in someone, who then uses those secrets against you during a conflict. I suspect that there’s a collective pleasure or a sense of moral superiority that we feel when we punish someone or a group of people. 🍭
We are becoming quite a vengeful generation. Perhaps we should take a moment to ask: What informs the thoughts that people hold? Why do they believe that? Anyway, more often than not, I find myself censoring myself when I write. There are many things that I want to write or talk about, but I tend to veer towards a kind of sanitised version of whatever that is. This kind of mental gymnastics is beginning to bore me. Public discourse seems a bit sterile too. Have you noticed that we all agree on the same things, at least in public? There are so many topics that have become undiscussable. Conversations are stuck on a surface level. We all seem liberal or progressive now, hesitant to express our real thoughts on many topics. If you belong to a particular social class or a certain level of education, you start to sound like everyone else in your class. Perhaps there’s a fear of alienating friends or having our economic opportunities cut off. Nowadays, it feels necessary to jump on every hashtag to show support for the latest cause. Perhaps, I too, am stuck in my own small echo chamber. When did dialogue become so problematic? Why don’t we create many ‘sandboxes’ for people to have dialogues, with an openness to listen? Because if we don’t, then a lot of things will go awry in the world going forward. I am also thinking that one reason for punishing people for comments they made years ago is that we think thoughts are permanent, and that people don’t change their minds. I can understand why we would think that way: It’s probably because you are supposed to subscribe to a bouquet of philosophies or ideas and stick with them until you die. That kind of thinking is slowly becoming irrelevant because no single philosophy or worldview is robust enough to either explain the world or your place in it – It’s also part of the problematics of being human. Ideas or philosophies are only useful in particular contexts. Those same ideas might fall short in others contexts. Your worldview works until it’s put against something it can’t deal with. When that happens, you either modify your worldview or abandon it altogether. 🍓
In the last few years, I have been gradually living by the mantra that 10,000 warriors cannot denude a person who is already naked. I am sure that posture will change in the future based on circumstances that arise, but until then, I’ll keep having fun like my role model, Bugs Bunny. To celebrate No Brow, I treated myself to a large piece of vanilla cake. As I write this, I am slowly eating the remainder with a glass of milk. I also bought flowers, but there wasn’t anything particularly new about that; these days, I buy those for myself anyway. But the cake was a welcome addition because I am not really a huge fan of cake. In the past, when I was sad, I’d order a cake and just go at it. Just seeing how silly I looked would make me smile and slowly pull me out of whatever valley I was in. As the years went by, I abandoned that ritual, perhaps because it stopped working. I had tied cake to sadness, but fortunately, now it has been tied to something else, thereby changing its context. As with most things, context matters. A piece of wood is just a piece of wood, but when it’s in an art gallery, it becomes a piece of art. I wanted to use the analogy of how a rain boot makes sense on a farm and not at a state dinner, but then I remembered that rain boots have been taken out of their usual context and have become a fashion item. Now, you can wear them to most places if you like. I, for one, won’t be seen in a rain boot unless I am on a farm or somewhere rustic. I'll sit that one out. Anyway, entrepreneurs and artists of all kinds thrive on taking something from one context and placing it into another. However, sometimes entrepreneurs don’t get it right. The ‘move fast and break things’ style of Facebook should not be attempted in medicine/healthcare or on mission-critical projects. If you do, you might end up with another Theranos on your hands. That’s why worldviews are also context-dependent. Take them out of their familiar contexts, and they might not hold up. 🍰
People should have the humility to realize that their worldview is just one amongst many. While writing this post, three albums were on repeat: Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar by Yngwie Malmsteen, La Différence by Mama Béa and Floodland by Sisters of Mercy (No! It’s not a gospel record). Once again, Happy birthday, No Brow! Many more returns. 🤪
Thanks for reading. If there's anything you'd like to chat about, or if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email. I'd love to hear from you. 🍿