It struck me that some user experience designer at Facebook is … making those decisions,” she says.
… psychologists and philosophers such as Professor Pawelski say that if you do choose to slow down — to find a piece of art that speaks to you and observe it for minutes rather than seconds — you are more likely to connect with the art, the person with whom you’re touring the galleries, maybe even yourself, he said. Why, you just might emerge feeling refreshed and inspired rather than depleted.
The Art of Slowing Down In a Museum. How true - which is why I always allow myself an entire day in a museum, walking around, taking pictures and writing notes.
come closer.
come into this. come closer.
you are quite the beauty. if no one has ever told you that before know that
now. you are quite the beauty. there is joy in how your mouth dances with
your teeth. your mouth is a sign of how sacred your life truly is. come into
this. true of heart come into this. you are true of heart. come closer. come
closer. know that whatever God prays to He asked it to help Him make
something of worth. He woke from His dreams scraped the soil form the spaces
inside Himself made you and was happy. you make the Lord happy.
come into this.
come closer.
know that something softer than us but just as holy planted the pieces of
Himself into our feet that we might one day find our way back to Him. you
are almost home.
come closer come into this. there are birds beating their wings beneath your
breastplate gentle sparrows aching to sing come aching hearts come soldiers
of joy doormen of truth come true of heart come into this.
my heart was too big for my body so I let it go and most days this world has
thinned me to where I am just another cloud forgetting another flock of
swans but believe me when I tell you my soul has squeezed into narrow
spaces. place your hand beneath your head when you sleep tonight and you may
find it there making beauty as we sleep as we dream as we turn over when I
turn over in the ground may the ghosts that I have asked answers of do the
turning kneading me into crumbs of light and into this thing love thing
called life. come into it!
come you wooden museums
you gentle tigers
negro farces in two broken scenes.
come rusting giants!
I see teacups in your smiles upside down glowing. your hands are like my
heart. on some days how it trembles. let us hold them together. I am like
you. I too at times am filled with fear. but like a hallway must find the
strength to walk through it. walk through this with me. walk through this
with me. through this church birthed of blood and muscle where every move
our arms take every breath we swallow is worship.
bend with me. there are bones in our throats. if we choke it is only on
songs.
"It’s so full of contrasts, and as a designer, I’m really interested in dichotomy. There’s a combination of old and new, beautiful and ugly, Asian and European, Muslim and secular. You name it. It’s very clean and very dirty; very organized and incredibly chaotic. But most of all, it’s incredibly beautiful. Istanbul sits on seven hills and on two sides of the Bosphorus. You’re in Europe one moment and in Asia the other. Centuries-old architecture is intermixed with modern architecture. And it’s full of surprises—even for people who have lived in Istanbul forever." - Ayse Birsel, on Istanbul’s best design secret.
![Malaysia: Transgender People Under Threat
In research in four Malaysian states and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, Human Rights Watch found that state Religious Department officials and police regularly arrest transgender women and subject them to various abuses, including assault, extortion, and violations of their privacy rights. Religious Department officials have physically and sexually assaulted transgender women during arrest or in custody, and humiliated them by parading them before the media.
Victoria, a transgender woman in the state of Negeri Sembilan, said she was arrested in 2011 by Religious Department officials, who stripped and sexually assaulted her: “They were rough. One of them squeezed my breasts. I was completely humiliated. …They stripped me completely naked. One of them took a police baton and poked at my genitals. Everyone was looking – the men [Religious Department officials], as well as the women. They took photos of my naked body.”Many transgender women who are arrested are fined and forced into “counselling” sessions, where officials from the state Islamic Religious Department lecture them on “being a man.” Because the national government’s Registration Department routinely rejects transgender women’s applications to legally change their gender, Muslim transgender women are vulnerable to repeated arrests. One transgender woman told Human Rights Watch she had been arrested over 20 times.
Photo: Transgender people face discrimination and abuse from state officials and agents, including from public sector health workers, teachers, and local government administrators. © 2014 Javad Tizmaghz for Human Rights Watch](http://38.media.tumblr.com/ac63873460285932fe4e99ca501ed650/tumblr_nd8v2xfAP51qdwgdto1_500.jpg)
Malaysia: Transgender People Under Threat
In research in four Malaysian states and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, Human Rights Watch found that state Religious Department officials and police regularly arrest transgender women and subject them to various abuses, including assault, extortion, and violations of their privacy rights. Religious Department officials have physically and sexually assaulted transgender women during arrest or in custody, and humiliated them by parading them before the media.
Victoria, a transgender woman in the state of Negeri Sembilan, said she was arrested in 2011 by Religious Department officials, who stripped and sexually assaulted her: “They were rough. One of them squeezed my breasts. I was completely humiliated. …They stripped me completely naked. One of them took a police baton and poked at my genitals. Everyone was looking – the men [Religious Department officials], as well as the women. They took photos of my naked body.”
Many transgender women who are arrested are fined and forced into “counselling” sessions, where officials from the state Islamic Religious Department lecture them on “being a man.” Because the national government’s Registration Department routinely rejects transgender women’s applications to legally change their gender, Muslim transgender women are vulnerable to repeated arrests. One transgender woman told Human Rights Watch she had been arrested over 20 times.
Photo: Transgender people face discrimination and abuse from state officials and agents, including from public sector health workers, teachers, and local government administrators. © 2014 Javad Tizmaghz for Human Rights Watch
Sometimes this song plays in my chest. Sometimes it plays loud and I want it to play louder. Sometimes I want it so loud my ears bleed. Sometime I want it playing through all of us––skin peeled back, chest pulled open, a mighty chorus of our hearts singing so loud the bones leave the body, the body becomes only atoms, the wind becomes something solid and thunderously moving on the earth.
Anis Mojgani, of course. For me, it’s this song.
Ah the sight and sounds of Turkiye. I can almost smell the gözleme about to be ready - its dough making a crackling sound on a hot dry cast iron griddle pan.
Somehow, while our design processes celebrate iteration and throwing things away, our culture scorns switching and quitting. We don’t celebrate stopping things, changing our paths, or our minds. Just the opposite. We celebrate finishing things.
Like Liz, I am also an expert at quitting projects. I have quit German language (temporarily - although I still could understand a couple of phrases), cooking lesson, yoga, programming - but unlike Liz, who has the ability to recognise the need to quickly jettison a project, an idea, a thing, and move on - I just, quit.
But like Liz as well, I am always eager to start something new all over. Here’s to something new, in her words, “thus begins another new possibility for uncertainty, for quitting, and for happiness.”
"Shout out to any women who would have been considered the town witch centuries ago." - @christinawilder
