thequietsoliloquy

[thequietsoliloquy]

random pretty things….

[thequietsoliloquy]

Gorgeous! 15 hours overnight in one of New Zealand's darkest towns.

(Cr: Connor Paton)

[thequietsoliloquy]

Full vs new! Love how chunky journals become as they get filled 💕

[thequietsoliloquy]

unsung benefit i think a lot of ppl are sleeping on with using the public library is that i think its a great replacement for the dopamine hit some ppl get from online shopping. it kind of fills that niche of reserving something that you then get to anticipate the arrival of and enjoy when it arrives, but without like, the waste and the money.

[thequietsoliloquy]

[thequietsoliloquy]

[thequietsoliloquy]

Stained glass by Constantine Woolnough, 1858 Church of St Mary, Dennington, Suffolk Photography by Simon Knott

[thequietsoliloquy]

Janelle Tan, from “Second Aubade for Singapore"

[thequietsoliloquy]

Galerie Sciarra by sylwia_szczerbetka.

[thequietsoliloquy]

Mieko Kawakami, Heaven // Langston Hughes, Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings // Madeline Miller, Circe // Bob Ross // Cameron Awkward-Rich, "Meditations in an Emergency" // Mary Oliver, "For Example" // @catadromously // J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers // Maria Hornbascher, Waiting // @catadromously

[thequietsoliloquy]

by kskurtveit

[thequietsoliloquy]

Snow Skin Mooncakes

[thequietsoliloquy]

@the-reverii

[thequietsoliloquy]

Poetry is such soothing medicine. Everything falls to a comforting hush, and I find myself listened to, understood, and softly spoken back to. I do not follow somebody else’s narrative. The words on the page are part of my own. 

[thequietsoliloquy]

Deleting parasocial brainrot

This is the beginning of week 3 of no fomo. I have learnt a lot of important things during this second week of not allowing myself to go on social medias. For once, I decided to try not going on Tumblr as well, blocking it on my computer at the very least. That didn’t last very long because Tumblr really does bring me joy and my time scrolling remains limited anyway. But I did end up limiting my posts about my no fomo experience to once a week because there’s only so much to write about it on the daily besides “didn’t go on social medias. Got bored. Did something else instead.”

I finished the book The Hazel Wood. Learnt it has a sequel and am definitely not interested in that but the actual fairy tales Melissa Albert wrote in Tales from the Hinterland look interesting so I’ll check it out at the library next time. The Hazel Wood started inconsistently, then the real mystery kicked in and it got fast paced until the characters arrived at the actual Hazel Wood. Then I found it boring and skimmed the rest of the book. I didn’t care enough about the main characters to care about the revelations about their lives nor their downfalls, but I think the author would be great at writing actual mysteries/thrillers because that part was really engaging. She also writes great, chilling short stories in the fairy tales she shared in The Hazel Wood, which is why I’m interested in reading Tales from the Hinterland. But this is gonna be for another library trip cause I borrowed Roshani Chokshi’s The Last Tale of the Flower Bride this time. Very much still in a gothic/fairy tales mood.

I played a LOT of Stardew Valley too. I started playing at the beginning of the week and I’m currently almost at the end of winter of year 1, reached level 70 in the mines (I’m a wimp when it comes to fighting so I'm impressed with myself I got this far). I got one cow and two chickens and a horse, and I keep my garden relatively small because I make most of my money from foraging and fishing anyway (also because I prefer wandering around rather than spending a lot of time on the farm most days). Clearly my no fomo is not about cutting screen time because this ain’t it but I’m enjoying myself and that is the main goal of it all.

I’ve come to realize this week that I’ve been wrong about something for a long time and it slapped me in the face quite violently. I used to think that parasocial relationships are formed with people we are a fan of as opposed to people we watch because we’re bored and have no real connection with. But truth is, the moment someone talks to us (or at us) is when a parasocial relationship is formed. Doesn’t matter if we agree with them or not, the moment we respond to them in our head is the moment that connection is formed. Hell, if you’re reading this still, we’re in a parasocial relationship. And I’ve come to discover this week that those parasocial relationships have replaced my need for other kind of connections for most of my adult life (since social media became a thing really). They never replaced my need for romantic relationships, but I’ve always had iffy connections with friends. Not to the point of in person neglect, but the moment there is distance and online is the only way to interact, that neglect makes itself painfully apparent. I always thought it might have been because I don’t feel the need for friendship as strongly since I do feel very comfortable with solitude in general and enjoy spending time with myself. But the truth is I got all the things I would get from friendships online, from people I don’t know and will never know me. Gossips, entertainment, advice, deep dives into topics of interest, I found it all online or, most often, it found me (thanks algorithm). And this week, that realization came with the most human feeling: I miss my friends. I miss talking with them, listening to them, having people in my life who knows me, whom I personally know too. People I can hug and can hug me back, people who laugh at my jokes as I laugh at theirs. True reciprocity. It’s a lot of touching grass together.

Relearning how to interact with my friends and open up to them will take some time, but my friendships are actually important to me and I’m willing to put in the work to invite them back in and create new connections as well. It’s not that making friends or maintaining friendships is hard as an adult, it’s that it’s hard to let go of parasocial relationships to make space for those friendships. Especially when the apps where we find those parasocial relationships are just at our fingertips and created to lure us back in at the earliest moment.

I won’t say that social medias cannot create real life friendships with people, because truth is a lot of people meet their best friends and romantic relationships online (hey, I met my wife here after all). But the key word here is reciprocity. Making friends sometimes is just about letting go of the people who will never reply to us in any meaningful way. They can’t even see us behind their own screens anyway.

#parasocial relationships #melissa albert #stardew valley #journaling #days of no fomo #writing #reading

[thequietsoliloquy]

Jacques Bergmans - Kalandeberg Ghent (1934)

[thequietsoliloquy]