đż
this quote from Jessica DeFino, beauty reporter and more importantly, critic, on the one person from her past that most influenced who she is today (and I really must agree):
"I am going to take the phrase âwho you are todayâ very literally and go with Harry Dean Stanton â specifically, Harry Dean Stanton in conversation with David Lynch; that famous interaction where David Lynch says âHow would you describe yourself?â and Harry Dean Stanton says, âAs nothing. There is no self,â and they laugh.Â
Iâve been thinking a lot about the concept of the self today for an article Iâm writing on beauty as so-called âself-careâ and âself-expression.â I bristle when people use these terms because in order for beauty products to be a tool for self-expression, you first must have a self to express, and I get the overwhelming sense that most people saying this donât know who they are outside of what they buy and apply. Beauty products are more often used to create an image of a self than express an existing self. I donât know. Iâm taking a class on existentialism and Simone de Beauvoir, so that has something to do with it. But the more I think and read about the self, the more Iâm convinced there is no essential self, not in any way that matters, and pursuing solidarity with the collective is a more interesting and liberating project than defining the self anyway? So yeah, today, specifically, I am luxuriating in the nothingness of being with Harry Dean Stanton (and Buddha before him)."
Related Recs
@mothersuperior post on latex and the yearndemic reminded me of this essay that I read a few years ago about the commodification and fetishization of the body and how itâs been paralleled with a lack of chemistry and sexuality that we used to see on screen. The title is your tldr: everyone is hot and no one is horny. The sterilization of sexuality and sex is everywhere, past even film. Itâs a response to the acceleration of capitalism, war and colonial extraction of the earth. It has crept into the ways we view ourselves, our experience and our bodies.
One thing I took away from this essay is that to align yourself with traditional beauty standards will make you too tired to fuck. Similarly, the whole « working on yourself » grind that I heard on first dates all the time is this strange, individualistic perspective that makes you too exhausted and distracted for the holistic chemistry we desire. We flatten our lives to marketable lines that make us appear attractive - Iâm working on myself, Iâve been going to therapy, I have a nice job and apartment. And while people are obviously horny, they donât know for what - forming our bodies to be  better, our minds fixed and correct, we canât pinpoint what the purpose is cause weâre too fucking exhausted to investigate further than that. Love, desire, and chemistry feel more and more elusive.
For us to morph ourselves into the image of sexiness according to western beauty standards, there is sacrifice (nutrients, your current corporeal form, the ability to be perceived as more than an object, working long hours for your grind) that doesnât align with sensuality (unless youâre into that). There is no room for the spectrum of sensations you body is capable of feeling. There is no room for desire when weâve given it all up the capitalist war machine. :p
3d ago
does it make you sick to your stomach that you are flesh and bones and hair and a heart that is too young to understand the extent to which it feels?
does it make you sick to your belly that you are going to die one day, or do you savor it?
i think thereâs novelty in mortality, and duh, no shit, youâre a 16 year old girl. of course you think thereâs novelty in anything bordering on deviation. but the question is really, what isnât a novelty?!
itâs defined as (đ€) the quality of being new, original, or unusual, and arguably everything is original unusual or new. you are new, you are not the woman you were twenty seconds ago deciding whether or not bath time was economic
today in my philosophy class, we, under the lens of Plato other Socratic philosophy, differentiated BEING versus BECOMING.
Being, being ( haha!!) the concepts rooted in an unchangeable context
Becoming, the tangible facets where in these concepts find their applications
FOOORR EXAMPLEE
beauty itself is BEING. while convention and subjectivity are aspects of beauty, they may only be expressed in beautyâs application, therefore BECOMING instead.
my beautiful beautiful girlfriend is an example of such a thing. she is becoming, and she is beautiful in all sorts of convention and subjectivity , but the concept of beauty as it pertains to her beauty here is rather an expression of the concept rather than a way it is changed in its foundation
does that make sense to you?
THE POINT IS
nothing is new, rather created under the conceptual framework of such that is BEING. But, nothing ever exists for a moment more than it is supposed to, and to remind you dear reader I am not the woman i was at the start of this post. I am rushing, jumbled, and once again deciding whether or not bath time is economic. All is connected by what is BEING, but we take actions which create NEW UNUSUAL and ORIGINAL applications of these beings.
novelty, as a result, is both impossible to achieve and ignore
every girl deserves bath time i think
Feb 6, 2025
1. Beet juice! Iâve been drinking it before coffee in the morning. I love a morning of slowness. Iâm finding that iâm in no rush to wake up, which is perhaps indicative of my current unemployment but feels more connected to my wish for intentionality in the beginning of my days. Even when my days are full of activity, i need the stillness of the morning. I've been practicing 30 minutes in the morning without technology, through which my beet juice is my companion. It is quite frightening how deeply ingrained technological dependency truly is. I want to wake up and be thinking about my beet juice and lose track of time instead of counting the minutes until i turn my phone on.
2. That picture of joe pesci at the 2009 vanity fair oscar party. Linked below. I've been thinking a lot about attractiveness, ie. who in a relationship has the right/perogative to be unattractive or act unattractively. I simultaneously deeply love this photo and wonder with skepticism about its implications. Although there is something to be said about the history of conventionally beautiful women with less than conventionally attractive men, i think there's something more interesting in terms of what this photo says about personhood and legibility under capitalism. This idea isn't fully formed in my brain but there's something there about the way men present/gender norms/boundaries of expression/who hollywood chooses to put on screen in positions of power.
3. Anthony bourdainâs no reservations. I looooove anthony bourdain. When i see him i experience a strange mixture of gender envy and sexual desire that happens often when i come across tall men with curly hair. I've been thinking a lot about the way he travels and the way he talks to other people and welcomes them in. I once tried to follow his lead and go to a bar alone and order a beer. I ended up experiences unwelcome advances and did not feel safe in that environment. I guess i just wonder what the gendered implications are for the kind of interaction he showed the world. I'm still figuring it out.
4. Music from my teenage years. It's so joyful to hear what i used to listen to when i was 15 and feel those emotions and entirely new ones. It feels like a way to connect with my soul. Because in some ways i am still 15, although i no longer look it. I am 5 and 11 and 15 and 22. I have yet to become 34 but that being lives inside me. I am not this body.
Oct 1, 2024
Top Recs from @pratibha
the comfort in the ebb and flow, the cyclical nature of it all
Mar 5, 2024
đ
i love that our seemingly high-tech phones still cannot do the job of capturing the moonâs ethereal essence. itâs so humbling and vulnerable to attempt to take a photo of her and have it come out all ugly and orb-like. itâs literally none of ur business to see what she looks like anytime apart from the present moment!
(and please donât tell me if samsung or google pixel have invented technology to do a better job of this. it wouldnât sit right with me⊠like trying to sneakily undress a woman without her consent when she has explicitly stated sheâd rather remain demurely clothed and mysterious)
Mar 17, 2024
Mar 6, 2024