Quite like the title suggests, here's some pretty interesting stuff I've come accross online in the past few weeks. If this week's reading were to have a theme, it would be 'Good God, Aren't Your Twenties Bloody Awkward, Eh?'
I'm not in any way adverse to the idea of love, being in a relationship and all that jazz that comes with it - it fact I admire it. Yes, from the concrete grey walls of my icy tower on my desert island population one (me) I can admit to being mushy at times. But there's nothing more annyoing than the condescending coos of coupled-up folk and their 'you'll find the one soon babe'-ing ringing around your ears. This article reminds me how fun being single is. It is. I swear.
"Being single is a gift because it means you can do really annoying things, like put a dirty plate just outside your door so you tread on it when you go to toilet in the middle of the night. It means you can block the drain with your hair, or put a tampon in in your bedroom. You can be as disgusting as you like in your own space because someone whose idea of womanhood stems from his home counties mum isn't sharing it with you."
I've always been a lover of the arts, even before I knew what the Arts were. Reading, writing, acting in plays and the like were all elements of my childhood I loved to indulge in. Now, in my adult years, I feel as though I'm simultaneous viewing and taking part in the shift towards more representation in the art. Being of Nigerian extraction and identifying as a Londoner through and through, conversations surrounding race, identity and culture are not just welcome but necessary.
"Being very deliberate in the documentation of our lives and art helps us to make better sense of ourselves and how we navigate the world and all of its systems. We’re rooted in our identities but in no way are we restricted by it."
If it looks like an adult, smells like an adult and sounds like an adult, it must be an adult, right? Wrong. A very pathetic generation of people have weasled our way into popular society and are living a perpetual lie. For we are not adults, we are Todults (a mix of toddler and adult I literally just made up on the spot, go me) who bear resemblance to adults but in reality are no better than adolescents with unrestricted access to money, booze and recreational drugs. Wonderful.
"If you are 30-plus and have more than two friends who you’ve known for more than 15 years, then you’re doing pretty fucking good. Don’t blow it with those gems, and don’t worry about making any more close friends because between work, trying to have sex sometimes and squeezing out time to read books and catch up on YouTube clips, who has the goddamn time? Plus – and this cannot be overemphasised – the older you get, the more you realise how many people deserve to be disappeared and possibly vapourised."
By now, it's pretty clear that white men kind of get the best start in life. So what happens when you're 'the Other' or in my case one of the Otherests - black and female, yay intersectionality! Well, you have a pretty different view of the world. This lovely write up challenges the Feminists Are Witches crowd to a re-think.
"As a white man, I’m lucky enough to be in a position where it has literally never crossed my mind that a woman may one day abuse, assault or kill me because of my gender. Yet according to Women’s Aid, an average of two women a week are killed by a current or former male partner in the UK. And according to the Office for National Statistics, approximately 85,000 women are raped on average in England and Wales every year.
Being white, I’m also in a position where it's unlikely a Police officer will end up killing me after they've taken me into custody. For some reason, I have a better chance of being employed. And if, by chance, I was to get into a biker gang brawl, riot, or go on a racist shooting spree, it’s much less likely that the media will dissect my whiteness and its sociological significance, or call me a terrorist or "thug"."
Contrary to the Friday mood, I felt like dressing up for Weekend Eve. Normally by this time of the week, I'd have ditched the boots for trainers and the tailored trousers for ripped jeans but y'know I just felt like not looking like one avocado short of a (hipster) brunch.
