Part I: Things In Nature Merely Grow

1. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this is Yiyun Li’s remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son James.

2. This book has created a lot of discourse around suicide, I think partly because Li lost both her sons to suicide, six years apart. Compelled by her radical honesty, I bought this book on a whim. I finished it today and can only note the following:

   1. although not the centre of the narrative, I deeply enjoyed reading about the relationship her sons shared - Vincent, a vibrant child with big feelings, and James, a quiet child who leant towards logicality and thought, were close brothers who brought out the best in each other. Unfortunately, this is displayed in its greatest saturation (in Li’s eyes) after Vincent’s death. The brief moments when Li would sidetrack and give a little anecdote of the brothers touched my heart and I find myself searching for more of such anecdotes in the book. Their very close bond reminded of my sister’s and mine - both sharing an interdependent and mutually reliant relationship. Such bonds are forged for life and I could not, for a moment, fathom James’s grief mourning Vincent’s death.

      “James did not give me permission to take a picture of him as a freshman, though he did allow me to take one picture of him at high school graduation, standing in front of an arch made of blue and white balloons. It was one of the few pictures I had of him after Vincent’s death - before that they seemed to be always smiling and laughing and making faces for my phone camera. “

      “I had dreaded for six years and prepared myself for six years before Vincent’s death. It occurred to me that during those six years when I was not preparing for James’s death, he must have contemplated suicide, first, Vincent’s, then at some point, as an option for himself.”

      “James was a private person, but he was extremely private about his sorrow over Vincent. The only external sign: Vincent, flamboyantly handsome, used to wear his hair long, and in the six years and four months since Vincent died, James had not once cut his hair.”

   2. There is so much negative discourse and speculation about Li’s method of parenting - i.e. exposing her sons to philosophy too early in their life contributed to the eventual outcome of their lives. People also talked about her evasion of admitting that her sons suffered from depression. But as I neared the end of the book, I think Li was too smart not to have foreseen such discourse (afterall, she was writing about her experience losing both her sons to suicide, surely she would have asked herself a million questions, or tried a million ways to connect the dots). What I think many readers were missing was what she was trying to express: her approach to grief. It did not matter the quality of her parenting, or any flaws her parenting may have had (note: there is no perfect parenting and no written manual on how to parent right), she has to stand face-to-face with the the reality of her sons’ death, a persistent, inexorable truth of her life. What was the point of this discourse?

   3. On top of that, how many of us can say we lost both our children to suicide? Her narrative was never meant to be normal, or fitting - the same way people expect mothers to be reflective and corrective about their parenting (even in the face of the insane situation of one losing both her sons to suicide). Her reality itself is preposterous, and no words, no amount of reflection or correction would make it any less different. I think many people missed the point here. Therefore, I found it incredibly disheartening to read reviews of people dictating that Li should have exposed her children to less literature, and some even cited her as a "narcissist parent” who enabled their suicide, only further emphasising our collective lack of empathy for a mother’s grief and the many assumptions made to come to such a conclusion is abhorrent. After all, mothers are supposed to take this critique seriously isn’t it - listen to me, I know better than you, do this, don’t do that, you could’ve been better in this way, tried more, do more - as if parenting and mothering isn’t nuanced enough; the lines between good, great, terrible, bad, poor all up to subjective interpretation. For that, I admire Li’s unapologetic stance on grieving the way she knows how and calling out the people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

      “It seemed to me that to honor the sensitivity and peculiarity of my children—so that each could have as much space as possible to grow into his individual self—was the best I could do as a mother. Yes, I loved them, and I still love them, but more important than loving is understanding and respecting them, and this includes, more than anything else, understanding and respecting their choices to end their lives.”

      “I don’t want an end point to my sorrow. The death of a child is not a heat wave or a snowstorm, nor an obstacle race to rush through and win, nor an acute or chronic illness to recover from. What is grief but a word, a shortcut, a simplification of something much larger than that word?”

      “A mother can do all things humanly possible for children and yet cannot keep them alive.”

   4. Also, I wanted to say I thoroughly enjoyed her radical acceptance and honesty. Her reflections remind a lot of Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking - both women writing through grief and loss. We may never find out what happens after death, but we can learn through others the emotions death brings the living and how we can stand face-to-face with the resounding and unmistakeable void it creates. Fortunately, I am not the only one who saw the parallels - read Jenessa Abram’s review here.

Part II: A personal note on life so far

I haven’t found the right words or the right feelings to pen down anything but it has been almost half a year being home. The last time I wrote on here, I was freshly broken up with and could not string the sentences together. I hadn’t lived very much then either. Time does heal everything.

I did consider never writing on here again and completely deleting this because it did contain traces of the relationship. But that wouldn’t be a very me thing to do - I had also written a lot about my own struggles with unemployment and solo travelling.

Being home has given me more resounding courage: I am able to live out what I initially felt before leaving London - a wild horse running free. This newfound freedom has allowed me to meet people from all walks of life, hear their stories, and experience them from a place that’s less subjective and tainted by my own experiences. Life becomes so tenable - you could go out there and do anything you want. For someone who used to fear big pools of water and drowning, I can now swim on my own without floating devices. My relationship with water is still growing but I can choose to nurture the part of me that wants to experience rather than cowering in fear. I look back at how possible life becomes - a year ago I had only started gaining confidence riding a bike around the presence of other people, and three months back, I had learned to ride with cleats. Everything feels very buoyant and plausible, all I had to do was make the jump.

For someone who grew up not doing many sports or activities, this built a confidence I dreamed of having earlier on. I learn that fear is merely a thought, and the thoughts you attribute energy to become reality.

I have also gathered a calmness like no other. Self-trust, an emphatic amount of it, brings a quietness that allows me to leap further and higher than I ever thought possible. I spent all my teenage years doubting my own actions, morals, thoughts, feelings and everything in-between. But I also knew very well what I liked and disliked and though I doubted those many a-time, they form the foundation of my Self. I wish I could go back and tell teenage me that I always had an inkling of who I was, I just never believed in it enough. An exponential decrease in self-doubt gave me time and energy to be present and grateful, while managing next steps and never feeling out of reach of my dreams.

I had to leave the UK to realise all of this. Five years of fighting unrelentingly in foreign land set a lot of firm ground to walk on, but it was also a lot of pain and tears. I couldn’t definitively say coming home any earlier would have eased the pain or provide the panacea that would help me arrive to this spot today, but I quote Florence + The Machine, the dog days are indeed over.

On a side-note, I finally found the cause of my (debilitating) fatigue: it was my tight neck and shoulders. A massage session has relieved so much of that tension now I have bountiful energy and I feel eighteen again. A lot of light, buoyancy, youth, optimism, hope, and joy.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope you’re well.

But wherever I am, or have since become, I know now that slipperiness isn’t all of it. I know now that a studied evasiveness has its own limitations, its own ways of inhibiting certain forms of happiness and pleasure. The pleasure of abiding. The pleasure of insistence, of persistence. The pleasure of obligation, the pleasure of dependency. The pleasures of ordinary devotion. The pleasure of recognizing that one may have to undergo the same realizations, write the same notes in the margin, return to the same themes in one’s work, relearn the same emotional truths, write the same book over and over again—not because one is stupid or obstinate or incapable of change, but because such revisitations constitute a life.

4. But now I borrow Matt Haig’s words too:

We don’t have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don’t have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music. We don’t have to have tried every variety of grape from every vineyard to know the pleasure of wine. Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies.

We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays. We are as completely and utterly alive as we are in any other life and have access to the same emotional spectrum.

We only need to be one person.

5. Being in my twenties only meant that I was living in constant uncertainty. The upside is the freedom that comes with not being tied to any liability. The downside is that nothing feels stable enough; the ground underneath shifts constantly, even if it is millimeter by millimeter, and I find myself spending all my time gaining footing. Could that possibly be a good thing as well? F and I were talking about this recently - the conundrum of being in a stable role, financially rich but unfulfilled, what then? There are so much space and capacity for endless possibilities, yet I struggle to envision the rest of my life in this way, knowing that I am content with one thing right now but not of its entirety or its lifespan. Even if I would be, I wouldn’t be able to tell. I want to consider for a moment maybe it is just in my personality to ruminate and perhaps the people who are content spend their time fully absorbed in the present. Or that they’re capable of embodying and balancing both the positives and negatives.

6. Maggie Nelson and Matt Haig could say all they want, I still think they must have penned those words from a place of age, maturity, and peace. They would have been at a different stage in life. When will I learn?

7. Recently I finished Laurie Colwin’s ‘Family Happiness’, a book I picked up at Ink@84, near where I used to live at in London. They had a small section of Colwin’s books, and I loved the blurb of every single title they had. ‘Family Happiness’ drew me in the most amongst them for its complexity. It is a story about love, family and happiness but weaved inside these themes was an adulterous relationship. I don’t think it’s easy to explore such a controversial topic when the majority opinion is the same: whilst not illegal in most parts of the world, infidelity possesses negative moral undertones. Anyway, here, Polly, the main character, is a selfless, loving and warm wife, daughter, mother, sister and friend. She has a family she loves, a stable and loving marriage, and she is extremely close to her parents and brothers. To the outside eye, she has the perfect life except that she meets a painter that she falls deeply in love with and starts a relationship outside her marriage. It is a story of love, growth, and the inner Self.

8. I really struggled to close the pages at the end, wishing Colwin would just keep writing. She has written this gently without judgment, despite the subject matter’s complexity, rawness and the bittersweet feelings it elicits. I loved it because it opened my mind to something so completely different to what I know and appreciate about relationships; it forced me to think if a happy and warm family you’d created with someone you love is ever enough in this lifetime? Can monogamy be compromised, and should it? Is love a zero-sum game, and if not, how does monogamy fit in this concept?

9. To many monogamy is not an option, yet I was on Polly’s side the entire time. I empathised with her dwellings, her constant tug of war with herself, and her dialogues with her lover. It may have been wrong, but it felt right.

10. So then, what constitutes love, family and commitment? We think of it as an “end goal” without ever questioning why or if it was truly what we wanted. And just when you thought you had everything you wanted - the safety, comfort and joy - some time down the line, you end up meeting someone whom you cannot tear yourself away from and you realise all this time nothing was ever enough. What then?

11. The most impressive thing about Colwin is her ability to remain impartial in such morally complex situations. This story is a reminder that the human condition remains so complex, fragile and grey in every possible way. Sometimes the edges cross over, and we find ourselves standing on the border wondering why those lines were drawn in the first place, who drew them. It is such a beautiful exploration of our psyche and our needs and desires. I cannot wait to start on another book of hers!

12. The discomfort of living in liminality, or any matter of the mind, doesn’t subside or remedy with a big Life Change, whether that looks like moving to a new city or finding a new job. Time remains to be the panacea to everything, revealing answers and providing space. I have more to report back on life in Singapore having been away for almost five years, but I’ll leave that for another time. For now, it has been warm, humid and calm. And I think that’s enough.

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re well.

Too much has happened and I’m still waiting for the cold to thaw and for the sun to come out. Hope you’re well, thanks for reading.

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When I turned 24 last year, the world felt huge and uncertain. I don’t think life has become more certain in any way, and if anything, they remain murky and muddled. I’m still unsure where home is, or what home means to me. I struggle to hold the past in clear view. And at times, I find life to be challenging and insurmountable.

But some things feel surer and firmer, like the fact that this life is truly all mine to hold now.

I fell in love in September and learned that romantic relationships can persevere, come hell or high water, if you give it a chance. It is scary to think of the possibility of spending the rest of your life with one person, a huge certainty amongst a myriad of ever-changing circumstances. I’m learning to allow myself to lean on someone at different junctures, in between the good and bad, exposing my underbelly. Life is no longer a singular, selfish pursuit, but instead it has taken the form of a project. I’m no longer responsible for just myself, but am now part of a “greater good”, a partnership, shared lives, and in the future, a family. There are people witnessing my existence, rooting for my success. I can’t live solely on my own terms. Funnily, life is better shared. Everything is better shared.

I have also learned that friendships can stand the test of being earnest. Someone said, friendship is closing the gap of what you think and what you say. I am incredibly lucky to have gained friends like that, and to be honoured for my honesty. To be able to preserve such friendships despite everything else, busy schedules, and challenging times, has formed the tree canopy of which my continuance subsists under. Life is indeed better shared — with the ever running river of ponders.

In 2024, I wrote this on my birthday:

24 in a few minutes. If I was back home, I’d have been 8 hours ago. Time is nothing but perspective.

The ages 23 to 24 have given me the greatest growth spurt. It’s like life has sped up so quickly and I catch myself in situations completely outside of my control, and I’ve since learned to release the reins that hold me back.

I’m 24 soon and I’ve shed a few tears. It’s an amalgamation of gratitude and pure helplessness. I feel constantly lost, out of my depth, burnt out.

But I remember that life was not always a chugging train. I’ve had many, and countless, moments of rest and peace. And these moments of peace come at a depth I never had access to before. Lying on my back on my bed and life feels surmountable. Life feels worthy.

Every year that passes, I shed a layer of my teenage anger and frustration. I become filled with a deep affirming sense that everything will be alright. That each candle I blow out represents a step closer to the life I dreamed of living.

Now I live by the mantra, ‘What if everything works out? What then?’

Life, a meander between hopefulness and hopelessness - lines and pavements drawn so closely you can’t quite draw the boundaries right. A walking conundrum. A twisting contradiction.

This little life of mine that I hold in the circle of my palms. That occasionally feel like water slipping through my fingers. However, more often than not, feels warm, solid, affirmative. I hold her. I hold it.

24 and I’ve learned all that truly matter is you, yourself. All light turns inward. All love funnels inward. All softness channels inward. The negative equally.

It all comes back to you. I have me - and for the first time, for the very first year in my life, I feel like I could be friends with me. I could hold me. I could trust me to make decisions that count.

I want to provide for me. I could love me. It doesn’t feel very far away. It is tangible. I can feel its texture with the ridges of my fingers. I can make out its edges. I want to see how far I can go. I want to invest in myself. I believe in myself. I am 24 and I didn’t wish I was dead. I’m so glad I have this little life in my hands.

The words from a year ago feel prophetic, I have it engraved inside me. It represented a year I dreamed of, a year that made it out of the impossible. I draw its edges with my index finger: this little life I still hold in my hands!

The years don’t get easier, harder, shorter, or longer. Time doesn’t warp itself anymore. The years are shaped by purpose, each one falling into a little rectangle right where they belong. They are real, soft and iridescent. They are laced with hope, courage and warmth.

My year was made up of many little moments and some big ones. I am no longer hoping light washes everything away. I no longer wish time away. I pray everything sticks to memory and I can barely contain them all. I wear a necklace beaded with moments and it continues to grow, longer and longer.

Here’s to sharing lives—

Hope you’re well, thanks for reading!

Two days ago, we attended Tom’s graduation ceremony. (I am beaming with pride!) Tom and I walked through Durham one last time before catching our train back to our place, briefly recalling about the good times we had, both individually and together. The many walks we went on, the many runs we did and all the love that has been pooled into this place and we have, in some way or another, experienced the light and joy it brings.

I’m not sure when we will be back here again, but it was a good run. I am grateful for everything.

I find being in my 20s (or more accurately 24.9 today) a journey full of challenge and conflict. In the last 4.9 years I’ve made one big trans-continental move, and many smaller trans-city moves. I don’t think I’ve gotten very used to the process of uprooting my life, but perhaps the only useful thing that has come out of it is my ability to get rid of a lot of excess (material) baggage and continue to keep it light and easy. I could easily pack all my belongings tomorrow and leave if I wanted to. I’m afraid that is all that’s come out of it; I can’t say I can do the same mentally or emotionally. It has become a far longer and more tedious process than any physical move.

This phenomenon can be explained by ‘emotional/mental regulation’ - where in many contexts, mental regulation is often perceived as slower than physical regulation. This is explained by the fact that mental regulation requires more complex cognitive and neurological processes. More effortful cognitive control is needed and it is influenced by factors such as past experiences, personality traits and current emotional state. Conversely, physical regulation often involves direct actions and their immediate consequences. Moreover, engaging in effortful emotion regulation, like suppressing emotions, can be more taxing on cognitive resources and potentially lead to slower regulation in other areas.1

I’ve attempted to write about emotional regulation for a long time, unsure of exactly where to start and what to say really. I suppose, it has filled the forefront of my mind lately and it is the one thing I find incredibly fascinating and helpful. As someone who is still living in it constantly prioritising self-regulation, there is really little to write about it.2 But I could tell you my experience being negative Nancy in my head (and then reflecting aspects of that in my life), how I’ve struggled and what I’ve learnt.

Controlling emotions

Anger, resentment and disappointment are universally experienced states; people can work to control and mitigate these feelings, but should not needlessly pathologise them. In some cases, though, a lack of appropriate emotion regulation may be a sign of a mental health condition such as borderline personality disorder or depression.

There are obvious hazards of not properly moderating emotions like anger, anxiety, or fear: harm to relationships from overreaction, unnecessary suffering, foregone opportunities that seemed too daunting. Certain ways of regulating emotion regulation, such as regularly bottling them in, may also be associated with lower well-being and satisfaction with relationships.

It is not foreign that emotions are generally complex, to understand and to ‘fix’. In a study by Wilms et al.3, it aimed to shed light on three questions: How often and how consistently do predictors for emotion regulation choice occur in daily life? What predicts emotion regulation choice in daily life? How do predictors for emotion regulation choice interact in daily life?

It is interesting that they examined three factors: emotion regulation goals, situational factors, and emotion regulation strategies at negative emotion events.

Emotional regulation goals

One of the most intriguing factors of the three is emotional regulation goals. We know emotional regulation is an important aspect to an emotionally stable life and fulfilling relationships but goals? What do you mean goals?

*Note: I won’t delve too deeply into the other two, but you are free to read the study (it’s publicly available!). It is brilliant.

Emotional regulation goals originate from the idea that individuals often regulate their emotions to pursue their goals. The current study investigates two different classes of emotion regulation goals: prohedonic goals and social instrumental goals. These are important to examine because they often occur in everyday life.

Prohedonic goals aim at changing the current pleasure-to-pain ratio in favour of pleasure, and thus aim to change the feeling component (e.g., experienced pleasure or pain) of an emotion.

This is probably the primary reason for my own self-regulation, although it is not always the most obvious and conscious reason. More than we’d like to admit, some of us are masochists and do favour specific negative emotions. For example, my ratio of pleasure-to-pain for anxiety sits on almost equal weights - while I recognise the negative impacts of it, I take pleasure and comfort in its existence too. The pit in my stomach is a reassurance that I am safe.

In many ways, this is why people fail at self-regulation. In a sick and twisted way, there is an element of hedonism involved - we have come to prefer to indulge in a certain kind of pain. I vividly recall the book, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which was critiqued to be ‘misery porn’ and ‘melodramatic’, disguised under bald and beautiful prose. But it is not solely that. The book demonstrates that the disparity between pain and pleasure can be thinned - an uncomfortable reality that we don’t admit publicly, and for most part, goes against humanity.4

By contrast, instrumental goals encompass superordinate goals that are potentially, but not necessarily achieved by regulating emotions. One particular class of instrumental goals are social goals, which reflect the pursuit of creating and maintaining positive social relationships. For instance, it may be beneficial to signal empathy for a friend whose girlfriend has left him.

Instrumental goals, on the other hand, possess a more contrasting and definitive pleasure-to-pain ratio. Maybe it is the fact that we are more aware of our own existence when it involves another human being, and therefore this sets clearer boundaries of what is black from white. Humans, when left alone, can spiral out of control.

Psychologically, loneliness and isolation can cause anxiety, depression and cognitive decline. Philosophically, George Berkeley suggests that our experience of reality, and perhaps even our being, is dependent on being perceived or recognised by consciousness, whether our own or that of others.5 Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that instrumental goals are easier to elucidate and follow through because we have witnesses to the impact of these goals? But I could be wrong.

Emotional dysregulation

Contrastingly, to understand the positive, we need to examine the negative and in this case, answer what emotional dysregulation is.

In a Connell University Research Paper specifically exploring emotional regulation and self-injury6, it defines ‘emotion dysregulation’ as an inability to regularly use healthy strategies to diffuse or moderate negative emotions. While all people occasionally use less than ideal emotion regulation strategies, individuals who regularly experience what feels like overwhelming, intense negative emotions are much more likely to rely on unhealthy strategies, like self-injury.

What makes emotions feel so overwhelming?

The paper expounds on key aspects of dysregulated emotions, notably its cause and effect:

It is really important to note that the experience of an emotion per se is not what leads to difficulties. It is the interpretation of this emotion that tends to ratchet up feelings and a sense of not being able to tolerate them. We call this a ‘vicious emotional cycle.’ Emotions, thoughts, and our behaviour are all linked together. For instance, consider this common scenario: A friend walks right past you in the hallway without acknowledging you and you immediately have a rapid fire set of feelings, like confusion or disappointment or self-doubt or anger, that turns quickly into a series of thoughts about that event (e.g., “What did I do wrong?” “I’ll bet that she is mad at me for that thing that happened a few weeks ago…” “I am sure it was nothing, I am being oversensitive, she was probably in a hurry somewhere. But still…”).

This initial cascade can lead to intense or acute feelings (e.g., frustration, panic, insecurity) and you may have a strong desire to not be feeling the negative feelings coming up. This desire turns into action: you do something (e.g., go home and dwell on it; stop communicating with your friend; get a tasty treat to make you feel better or take your mind off it).

This cycle can become vicious and/or a typical go-to pattern over time. Unless something is done to change the cycle, continued avoidance of the feelings associated with that friend or event may lead to additional negative thoughts and feelings about that person. This further supports one’s initial interpretation of the event and can then lead to even more negative thoughts and feelings (e.g. “Our friendship is ending; she never really liked me anyway. What will happen if she shares what she knows about me to others? Will I lose more friends?? Oh no, it is all happening again!”). It is easy to see how even a small event can cascade into something hugely triggering. This cycle can be even more intense when the events that occur are more serious or somehow tie into earlier negative experiences, like trauma or abuse.

The distress cycle: reducing emotional arousal through self-injury

The desire to reduce strong feelings is one of the most common motivations for self-injury. Interestingly, the desire to reduce strong feelings does not only apply to negative feelings, but can extend to strong feelings in general, even if not clearly negative.

Recent research suggests that those who self-injure actually tend to use more active coping strategies than the average person, a finding that suggests that many people who self-injure simply feel strongly and have a desire to do something about what they are feeling to express or or manage it in some way. Wanting to minimise (or even avoid) strong, usually negative, emotions is part of what is often called the “cycle of shame” or the “distress cycle”.

This cycle describes the typical “build up phase” where an individual experiences something that is upsetting (e.g., argument with best friend, parent or romantic partner) and immediately feels something uncomfortable (anger, shame, sadness, frustration). In an effort to reduce the unwanted feelings, the person self-injures.

Engaging in self-injury effectively levels out the rollercoaster of feelings– until the next time. Moreover, the fact that the person used a strategy (self-injury), that she does not feel really good about using despite it s short term effectiveness, tends to add to a larger sense of shame and/or failure (e.g. “why can’t I control myself?”, “Why do I always do this?”) – feelings that set the stage for the whole process to begin again. Over time, this can become a vicious cycle, with self-injury serving as a short-term safe haven that tends to weaken long-term sense of wellbeing and does not create space for deeper resolution of ideas.

Men vs women

Some research suggests that men and women experience emotions differently, which may ultimately lead to different reasons for self-injury.

Women in general report experiencing both positive and negative emotions more intensely than men, which might explain why females report greater difficulties with emotion regulation skills compared to males.7 Also, females tend to report more depressive symptoms, and have more difficulty controlling ruminating behaviours (e.g., thinking over and over again about something) than males. Compared to males who self-injure, females who self-injure repetitively think about negative thoughts, and have difficulty thinking in healthy ways.8

It is interesting to note that “rumination” is conceptualised on a continuum – rumination at one end, and reflection at the other end. With reflection, thoughts are considered over and over and effectively used to gain insight or to make change. The upside of the tendency to be more emotionally inclined is that while women are more prone than men to rumination, women are also more prone to reflection, meaning they are more likely to understand and deal with emotions in effective ways.

Although men and women experience the same emotions, they may have different internal experiences of the intensity and different ways of regulating and expressing them. One source of this difference may be due to socialisation, cultural norms, and learned behaviours. Men in many cultures are taught that they have to be tough, and not to express their emotions, while women learn that it is ok to talk about their feelings and express themselves. The adolescent years may be particularly precarious.

Men and women also experience different emotions at different times in their lives, specifically during adolescent years. Adolescence itself is often a difficult time, and emotion regulation during adolescence is even more difficult than it is at other times in life. Internal distress and sensitivity may be difficult for some females to cope with, and they may choose to cope by self-injuring, abusing alcohol or other substances, or other unhealthy strategies. Adolescent females seem to experience more interpersonal stress than males. Specifically, females tend to report more stress relating to friends, while males tend to report more stress related to school.9

Recognising that these themes are highly-sensitive, and that there is still a huge lack of research to conclude that emotional dysregulation causes self-injury, I implore a deep examination on the correlational nature of the two.

Without straying too far away into other realms, I think this paper has covered important themes such as shame, rumination and gender-norms, all of which are deeply intertwined into the topic of emotional regulation. I find it challenging to disregard these themes.

An act of intention

If anything, the research on emotional regulation has taught me how fascinating the process is, from its conception, to its causes and effects.

Emotional dysregulation is caused by rumination, which is a parallel to reflection. A very self-reflective person is prone to rumination, which then increases their chances of emotional dysregulation. Too much of a good thing becomes bad.

It is the same way excitement and nervousness operate on the same core emotion; the hallmark of growth is the ability to detect the difference and the nuances that lie between them. But increasingly, I’ve realised my ability to analyse and evaluate is nothing but more rumination. If something is not done about it, then all it is are thoughts floating in my mind.

What I’m trying to say is emotional regulation alone sounds like a concept, a thought, an idea. But it is more than that - like most skills, it is the constant act of practicing it that makes it a useful tool. What is an actionable plan to put emotional regulation into practice? (You’d have to figure that for yourself.)

In criminal law, there are two core aspects to proving a crime - mens rea (the defendant’s state of mind) and actus reus (their action). It must be proven ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that both factors are satisfied. I believe the concept can be applied to most things - the mind and the body have to be aligned for something to be truly labelled as intentional, and thus, an intentional act.

An intentional act is always easier to sustain. Quoting Maalvika,

The smartest people I know don't rely on willpower. They're system designers. They understand that if you have to fight yourself every day to make good choices, you're playing a losing game. Instead, they set up their environment so that good choices feel easy and bad choices feel harder.

learning-loving & meaning-making

what math can teach us about how to live

I've always found math to be quite poetic and philosophical. It has taught me about patterns, relationships, and the hidden structures that govern how things change over time. The same principles that describe the motion of planets, the spread of epidemics, and the growth of populations also describe the arc of a life, the development of relationships, and the accumulation of meaning…

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a year ago · 365 likes · 2 comments · Maalvika

Hope you’re well, thanks for reading.

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I was seen as an ambitious person with lofty goals, and even though I often denied such claims, I had subconsciously adopted it to be a part of my personality; my work was me, and I was my work. How worthy I was of joy and love was greatly dependent on my professional achievements and, therefore, my ability to give my everything to my work and job, whatever that looks like.

I remember writing on here late last year that I had landed my first job in the corporate world. I was incredibly fortunate and lucky — things fell into place for me. I started work incredibly excited to put in the graft, knowing that after all the years and hours I had spent tirelessly working in a minimum wage job, I could finally channel that exact same attitude into my first corporate role and grow up the career ladder. And so I did.

I did my best and constantly worked to excel. A part of me finds satisfaction and comfort in knowing that I was of use to an organisation, and slowly, this satisfaction turned into my sole source of validation of my existence; I was worthy of a space in this world because of my work.

I guess it was a slippery slope. Very quickly, the candle burnt at both ends. I remember mid-December sending a voice note to Tom telling him I didn’t know if I could keep going. My energy and hunger for success were starting to dwindle and the 3 hour commute did not help. No, it did not occur to me then that I had gotten it all wrong. Yes, I thought I wasn’t enough and should push further beyond the exhaustion. At the end of the day, I was ambitious and had lofty goals!

This May, after hanging on a thread for a while, I handed in my notice. I decided I wanted to go back into law.

But I never really understood the importance of connecting ambition with integrity. I had imagined they were mutually exclusive, never to cross paths, complete foreign concepts to each other.

I’ve had the time to think, and think again where I stood on the line of ambition and integrity. As time passed, I realised how important it was that I was walking on an honest line of the impact I wanted to provide in this world. It was crucial to be extremely truthful with what I wanted to achieve.

In today’s times, ambition is the powerful motivator for personal and professional development. It is a necessary ingredient to move forward. But it is also easy to get caught up in the constant act of achieving without stopping to think about what it is that you are going after. Is it aligned with your other goals? Is it a true expression of your identity and your desires? Is there more than just your ambitions?

I realised how empty my ambition was without integrity and when I learned to be honest with what I wanted in life, who I was and what I could positively contribute to, it changed the way I saw my career path. I started to consciously detach ambition to my personality or personal life as it did not dictate my life, and I understood its purpose and its role without making it a knife that turned inwards. What it is, is simply a driver that helps achieve the things I want, without it being a signal of how worthy of an existence I was. Now that isn’t mutually exclusive. Two things can exist at once.

Success in the corporate sense is often tied closely to the degree of ambition a person has, but I’d like to offer an alternative: success is the understanding of your role in the world and the impact you can make, but beyond that, it is also made up of the people around you who provide the warmth and love that brings all the colour to the picture. And you!!!! Your existence, as itself, can never be defined by any success other than self-validation, respect and love.

So I begin. I am looking to constantly clarify my definition of ambition while recognising the value of my personal wellbeing and relationships that make my life both a joyful and purposeful one. (Nothing I enjoy more than a pint with my friend in the sun on a Thursday evening!)

I’m not sure what’s in store for me in the next chapter, but I am at peace! I know what I want to do and I know I’d do what it takes to get me there. But it will not come at the cost of my valuable relationships and personal growth.

Hope you’re well! Thanks for reading.

This past Christmas1, I was very lucky to spend some time with Tom and his family. I had never met his parents before; the last time I was in Brussels, they were in Greece. Even though Tom and I weren’t going out yet, he had always wanted me to meet them, and so it became something I looked forward to.

Being in Brussels for 11 days was exciting as we hadn’t spent this much time together before. Meeting Tom’s parents for the first time was a precious and sweet moment, but living with them was manifestly warmer – it offered me firsthand the portrait of a loving family of which I observed keenly on the sidelines.

Having grown up in one that did not border that, I had always hoped that someday I too could create my own home of joy. Yet it was incredibly hard to picture the granular; like the pillars that propped up the home, or the gravel that filled the foundations of it. Being with Tom and his family thus gave me two things: firstly, the reassurance that a loving home exists (of course it does), and secondly, the realisation that I was right here bearing witness to the love emanating from one, and getting to be a part of that.

We did a great blend of festive things like Christmas roast, opening Christmas presents, and visiting the markets, as well as fun stuff like all of us spending the morning working out (in our own ways) before coming back to have breakfast (my personal favourite), visiting the Elliot Erwitt exhibition, exploring Ixelles and Ghent, and watching films in front of the fire. I was also really lucky to have been able to partake in traditions like Take-out Fridays.

Quite simply put, we just spent time with each other. And see, that’s the crux of it. In retrospect, it didn’t matter what we did, all I could remember was being surrounded by people whom I felt happy and safe around. I know that does not come by often.

If there were three moments I could etch into stone it would have to be these:

• Tom’s mum and I went to walk the dog one evening and we were very open and vulnerable with each other. We hugged and cried, and then saw the sunset. I watched her take a photo of it, and sometimes you catch yourself living in a moment and you’re already aware of its fleeting nature, its dissipation just as quick as its unfolding. It’s quite bittersweet because I wish time would pause then. Since then, whenever I see a sunrise or sunset I think of her.

• I had the chance to get into the granular of film cameras and the film developing process with Tom’s dad. It was like watching the artist talk about the art: he showed me his archives and filing system — his attention to detail, respect for his gear, and pride in his work were deeply inspiring. It made me wish I kept all my negatives! It was also very clear where Tom got his attention to detail from. I also wanted to add that you could feel the love and joy from the photographs themselves. There are a multitude of reasons why photographers take photos, and I highly suspect one of them is because it serves as a medium which translates the unspeakable nature of love (a picture is worth a thousand words?). I was very inspired to use film in a similar manner.

• When Tom’s dad drove us to town, he very excitedly pointed out, “That’s my workplace!” and it made me cry. To have seen and known this childlike excitement really struck a nerve in me. (I’ve also seen many little moments where he was full of light – eyes bright, smiles wide. I’d say the crying was a slow build-up of emotions witnessing another’s emotions, lol) He reminded me of my dad in some way. I hope in the years to come, I would also see the world the same.

And getting to be with Tom for so many consecutive days was a real treat. I could really get used to going to bed and waking up to his face! There is something about seeing him everyday at home that further embeds steadfastness and certainty in me. My ardour was no longer derived from novelty, but instead from knowing and seeing him in close proximity. To my delight, this only magnified my admiration for him.

With some defiance on my part and a lot of patience from Tom, I learned to lay my cards on the table. I suck at being vulnerable because in my head it opens up a huge possibility that the other person could walk away after seeing the horrid and appalling parts of you that you work so hard at concealing. But he encouraged me to talk about it and very sweetly coaxed the many fearful revelations out of me. Shockingly, he didn’t stand up and leave. Instead he sat through all that ugly crying, bless!

And it was like something between us had shifted — what we have now is less like a new, glossy and mercurial thing we were exploring, but rather it had matured and taken the form of an unwavering dedication to each other. (I know that because I’ve developed a slight obsession with bananas, squeezy peanut butter, learning how to cook, I speak candidly and earnestly about everything, and we make plans a year from now.) That is probably one of the most tender yet strongest feelings to have for someone.

I came home on New Year’s Day, heart full and bright, light and free in a very visceral way. To have felt joy this deep and to have eased into it.

I would not have been able to experience so much tenderness, warmth and merriment without Tom, and my heart remains so full from it. Thank you for giving me a Christmas to remember.

Just like that January’s gone and past. It felt like the longest month ever. I find it difficult to expand creatively when work gets hectic, but in the past two weeks I’ve spent a lot of time in my head, itching to create. I’ve been on here a lot, perusing whatever that comes up on my feed and came across some really good articles.

Here’s a few I really enjoyed:

1. What it’s Like to Be (Very) Rich in NYC: A brutally honest interview with David Roberts as he answers all the things we want to ask rich people but never.

2. all’s unfair in love: There are lots written about relationships, but not enough is picked apart on the darker areas of abuse and toxicity. This was intriguing.

3. The Horny Woman Renaissance: A deep-dive into women, sexual desire and the courage to want. Based on the films Babygirl and Nosferatu — just simply an incredible piece.

4. Looking for Alice: An honest and tender one on courting and romance.

Lastly, leaving you with this beautiful piece:

I wished I had more to write about but the truth is I’ve been struggling to have anything to say. It is as if life has completely washed upon me and grabbed me by the neck and pulled me away. I struggle to think coherently or deeply. The days are just like a tap that keeps running.

If I said I was surprised that December has come so quickly, I’d be lying. I dare not think about the year, I dare not think about anything much at all. Some days I feel incredibly lucky to have made it this far and to be able to look ahead and watch the picture come together. The rest of the days are grey as ash and I spend a lot of time trying to get out of my thoughts. I have tried convincing myself this emptiness is temporary, only because in a very logical sense, I know it is. But it remains difficult to shake off such a feeling, isn’t it? It sticks at the back of your head like the cold. I can’t quite understand this pessimism and sadness forming in my throat, yet it doesn’t go away; it sits there quietly, asking to be known.

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1. The first time I decided I was going to travel solo, I did it out of spontaneity. I did it because I didn’t want to sit around and wait for a friend. I did it because I wanted to try something new, because I decided I had nothing to lose.

2. I booked a flight to Copenhagen in January this year, ‘seeking to see, explore and feel lots’ so that when I returned home to Durham (at that time), I’d be able to ‘look at the place with new eyes, washed clean and bright again’. Those were the words I used when noting this down. I was inspired by my friend J who went to Seville, Spain by himself in December and mentioned that it would not be the last solo trip he’ll take. When asked how it was like to travel by himself, he said it was ‘nice’. (He was not a person of many words.) That was intriguing for me – what exactly was nice about this? What if I did the same – what could it bring out?

3. I was in Berlin with a friend before Copenhagen and realised that I had changed; I wanted to see more of the world. The thirst gaping, but more importantly, I did not mind doing it alone. In fact, I wanted to venture off all by myself. This trip was important to me: I hadn’t seen P for five years before Berlin, and it was through Berlin that I realised that we had grown to be very different people. We were once 16, youthful, naive, innocent and passionate. We had vigour; more 氣 (qì, vitality). We were the best of friends who were joined at the hips, with so much pent-up rage about the world we lived in and we were determined to grow up and make a difference. But this time, it was obvious that we had grown into vastly different people. We are on paths that forked out a long time ago and she was less of who I remember her to be. Time washes everything away, sometimes cleanly. How did we even become friends years ago? When was the starting point of this massive transformation? I couldn’t tell.

4. I believe that we grow more and more into ourselves as we age. As we gained greater clarity of who we are on the inside, we begin to rearrange the externalities to reflect that. You couldn’t escape this. And this time, I could see very clearly who she was now that we were stripped bare of our shared teenage struggles we used to face bravely together – we were no longer tied by the same problems and emotions and therefore lost that most pivotal point of connection of our friendship, and in essence, lost the friendship itself. But this loss was not all forsaken as I found myself more resolute that I had also grown to be more of who I am too: ‘stronger, well-fortified and more hard-wearing now, better at holding my own.’

5. But I must be careful. Was I truly more myself now? Or am I still trying to run away from myself by convincing me that a getaway to a different land will bring brief respite from all the problems that stood on the perimeter of my life?

6. Copenhagen then became an experiment – What was I running away from? Would I go and find it dreadful to come home? Had I really grown into myself?

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I have a list of goals that I aspire to accomplish and though they’re by no means set in stone, they are ironically detailed. Some on the list: finding a big girl job that I enjoy and allows some sort of creative expression, get to a place of financial security and freedom, travel to (specific locations), work on growing my own personal projects like this newsletter, etc. I could go on forever. Every year, this list gets longer. Some people are not big on goals and I completely understand, it is like setting yourself up for failure by imposing these expectations on life, the very life that we know is unpredictable, Murphy’s law. But these goals have helped me make sense of the everyday; they are good checkpoints that make time seem more purposeful and worthy, especially when you’re unemployed and have way too much time on your hands.

I’ve tried to write about unemployment thrice and still struggle probably because I’m right in the thick of it. It is challenging to synthesise thoughts about something you’re currently living through so maybe I’ll write about it when I’m no longer sitting in this phase.

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Just this Tuesday that passed, I sat on the edge of my bed talking to my friend G. It was a cold and windy afternoon and we had just spent two hours sauntering around town. Bodies slightly warm and clammy from the walk, we sat in my room talking away while she waited for her phone to be charged. I mentioned, quite randomly, that I realised I had a deep fear of being “too much” (incredibly cliche). I said I was always afraid of saying what I thought, or revealing things from the past because I never knew how much was too much. It was impossible to quantify. In turn, I stuck to saying less and being less so that I’d never be “too much” for anyone. This fear had deep roots that go back to a part of my childhood, and later when I was a teenager, it was reaffirmed by multiple people I interacted with. It was always a problem I had to fix – and the solution I came up with was to dilute the stories I tell or the revelations I had. Feel less, think less, and if that was not possible, say less. This had seismic consequences, whether I’m conscious of them or not.

G was quiet, listening. When I was finished, she said, “I never think you’re too much. I never think any of my friends are too much. If you’re texting me, I never see it as too much, I only think that she wants to speak to me, and that makes me want to listen.”

I was caught off-guard by her response. But if I examined my friendships closely, that made sense. There was not a close friend I had who once told me I was too much, no matter what I said. G went on to say, “You’ll never find the friends you like to be too much, ever.”

My heart was warm that afternoon, gently lit by the flames of friendship.

*

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I have long struggled to grapple with love, and more specifically, romantic love. I was single for a while before my current relationship and realised two conflicting things: one, I wanted to be in a committed long-term relationship, but two, I didn’t know how or where to start.

The portrait of romantic love I was familiar with was drawn from romcoms, Disney movies and social media. They were often unreliable and ostensible sources as they depicted love to be a swinging pendulum that specifically took advantage of the rollercoaster of our emotions and appearing as a culmination of either complete joy or sorrow. Love oscillated between two absolute states. This was all unhelpful in determining exactly what contributes to the longevity and commitment that long-term relationships require (although this topic itself would make for another essay another time).

What about the in-between then? – is love not love when it plateaus? Flatlines?

My doubts were not quelled. I took it upon myself to search for something different that would make the most sense to me – I wanted to tear its abstractness down and make it more practicable and actionable in everyday life.

What is love? Is it a word we use to describe a feeling or is it a concept? If it is a concept, what are its foundational definitions? What does love, beyond its extremes and settled into domesticity, look like? What contributes to the concept of love? Quite simply, are there pillars that make up the word love, and if so, what are they?

I found Andrew Huberman’s recent podcast episode with Esther Perel deeply illuminating. Perel, incredibly intelligent and sharp, has made groundbreaking progress on everything we should know about romantic relationships. She mentioned that every human has “a fundamental set of dual needs: the need for security and freedom and adventure”. Therefore, humans enter relationships both for its “identification” as well as “differentiation”.

Relationships are a mechanism which we use to try and initiate the process of change, but that comes with its limitations. We only want to change as long as it does not hit our “friction point” (Huberman), but once it starts to challenge who we are, defensiveness and resentment arise.

Fortunately, this is all part of the normative approach that every system in nature takes. The delicate act of balancing change and stability is not remote to romantic relationships – in fact, we find ourselves attempting to balance the two on the daily.

Cornerstone and capstone relationships

Perel notes that there are a constellation of factors that give people the reasons for being in a relationship and these are defined by the kind of relationships that exist.

Cornerstone relationships are formed when both parties meet in their early twenties1 and in the course of the relationship, go through many life milestones and build foundational pillars (i.e. graduating university, finding first jobs, buying first house, etc.). Capstone relationships on the other hand are formed when both people are older and have most aspects of their lives in order (i.e. achieved some professional success, adult identity, important personal goals, etc.).2

It is crucial to know the differences between the two as they dictate the type of balancing act that needs to be carried out. Cornerstone relationships go through more changes than a capstone, both as an individual and as a unit. But that does not mean it is doomed, and in fact, as Huberman mentions, younger people have more neuroplasticity to accommodate change. Inversely, the younger we are, the harder it is for us to be cognisant about our patterns and flaws, as well as the ability to communicate that to our partners in a constructive way.

Perel defines the archetypes as “different choreographies”: individuals in cornerstone relationships often invest a lot into the building of the unit to form the scaffolding from which they can begin to grow and define themselves; capstone relationships, conversely, are made up of two individuals who already have a sense of self-identity before creating the energy to come together.

The challenge for younger couples encircles the maintenance of sovereignty: can the relationship expand enough to encapsulate the growth of these two individuals and allow them to emerge individually, or can it become too restrictive?

The antidote to that, quite simply, is embodying fluidity – the relationship has to make room for the changes of both individuals.

Love as a skill to be learned

If a relationship has to be pliant and malleable in order to keep both individuals together, then love is starting to sound less like an abstract figure of speech and more like a thread that holds two people together. If so, what are the skills that can be acquired to make sure that this thread will be both accommodating and enduring? How can we make romantic relationships more adaptable to the trials and tribulations of life? What are the steps to take to make this thread more durable to withstand change?

Alain de Botton3 advocates love to be “something we have to learn” and “make progress with” on the On Being podcast with Krista Tippett. He elaborates that love “requires forbearance, generosity, imagination, and a million things besides” and it is the generosity we find in ourselves to give towards “flawed humanity” that allows us the better chance to do the “true hard work of love”.

Citing modern narratives of love to be “unhelpful”, he opines that for most of us who are interested in long-term relationships, we are “strangely obsessed by the run-up to love”.

On the contrary, the definition of love is much better borrowed from the Ancient Greeks to be “a benevolent process whereby two people try to teach each other how to become the best versions of themselves”.

Hence, love is not merely a feeling – it is not the butterflies in the stomach, or the sparks flying. It is an act of observation and acceptance. I once read somewhere that the “right person” for you should make you more “you”. That’s too many yous in a sentence but you get the idea – the relationship we choose to invest in should magnify the qualities that we possess and the light that we radiate. On the contrary, it also means that our partners will have to accept that we are not perfect and vice versa.

De Botton goes on to say that perhaps it is good news to know that our partners are just as imperfect as we are and all we need is “people to be able to explain their imperfections to us in good time, before they’ve hurt us too much with them, and with a certain degree of humility”, citing this as an “enormous step”.

What that means is we must be aware of what we are made up of – the flaws and triggers – in order to articulate succinctly why we react the way we do. This will take a lot of self-awareness and self-reflection to achieve, but is a very reasonable requirement to have should we want a relationship to stand the test of time. (de Botton) Perhaps there is some truth in the notion that you should love yourself before you love another, and loving yourself means sitting with your own thoughts and the truths that emerge from them in order to figure out the blueprint that makes up you. In turn, this makes it so much easier to communicate our emotions to another person, creating an opportunity to forge greater understanding and connection between two people.

If learning to love another means exhibiting unconditional acceptance and endless curiosity, then perhaps the only way we can practice at being good at it is to start by showing ourselves the same thing.

One day in June this year, I was convinced I had the mastered the idea of love. I had an epiphany of sorts. I tried to rewrite the definition of love, thinking we have gotten it all wrong this whole time. I wrote this down on a private platform and am sharing it publicly for the first time:

I think we got love all wrong. Love is portrayed as *emote*, emote, emote – a pool of cuddly warm fuzzy feelings that make us grin and laugh. But what if love was none of that?

What if love is – a constant stream of hard work, effort, on both the good and bad days, choosing to do something again and again despite however many failures and setbacks and fearfulness built up?

A dynamism that requires us to keep moving, evolving, adapting, letting go of preconceived notions and ideals, letting go even more, occasionally rounding our edges, reflecting, reflecting,

healthy self-talk, optimism, a loaded zest for life?

What if love is like water in glass - reflective - and *must* be applicable to all facets of life? What if we’ve gotten it all wrong?

Consistency and adaptation hardly needs emotion. If anything, it ignores all emotion.

And that’s why all these big profound poems on love feel so restrictive, they were only applicable to romantic love as the only noble love. But love is everywhere – it is doing things for yourself, making choices for yourself.

Been trying to grasp self-love as a form of love that is enduring and lasting so I can love another that way too.

And I think love rears its head in the toughest of times. It is in those moments of darkness that love finds its place – illuminating, radiating.

I remember writing all of this down in a time of my life when everything felt very uncertain, but reaching this epiphany had given me some sort of courage. Love was merely a reflection of how I spoke to myself, and if I wanted to “love well”, then I’d have to learn to give myself the grace I would give to anyone struggling in that moment. And hopefully in time to come, where necessary, I’d learn to extend the same patience and kindness to the people I love. Love is a skill we learn over time so we can have stable and fulfilling long-term relationships with another person, but it is also a skill we learn so we can have the same life-affirming relationship with ourselves.

I want to also share that I was inspired by an excerpt from Isabel’s essay:

On finding the right person

One last thing: how do we find the right person?

De Botton suggests that there is not really a “right person”, but instead someone who is “good enough”. He borrows this term from Winnicott, originally used in relation to parenting, where we should aim not to be a perfect parent, but just “good enough”. This perfectly aligns with de Botton’s practicable approach to love (ha-ha) and with the expectation that your partner has to understand everything about you. Stating that we must be “modest” about how often our lovers can actually understand everything (everything being the quantification here), we must remain grounded to the fact that there will certainly be “a sizeable minority share of your life which you’re going to have to endure without echo from those you love”.

Thus, it is necessary to realign expectations and approach what could be a complex and subjective situation with as much intention and objectivity as possible. It is also a reiteration that we are unique and different in our own ways and can still hold onto these “rough edges” despite connection and enmeshment of lives.

In the end, the common denominator for a thriving and enduring relationship is acceptance, both of the Self and the Other.

Although I have not yet thoroughly implemented these frameworks in my life, I believe that possessing such resources and knowledge gives me the assurance that should I ever find the need for it, I can turn to this.

If love is not a fleeting feeling or enthusiasm, but instead a skill to be learned, then we should keep refining our notions on the matter.

*

This essay would not have been possible if not for everyone mentioned, most especially Esther Perel and Alain de Botton and their boundless wisdom, and my sweetest friend Molly who read this before anyone did.

If you’re curious, I’ve linked the podcast episodes where they go into more detail on this topic and will link them here again along with a couple others that I liked:

• Huberman Lab featuring Esther Perel: How to Find, Build and Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships

• On Being with Krista Tippett featuring Alain de Botton: The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships

• The High Performance Podcast featuring Alain de Botton: On the joy of being average

• The School of Greatness featuring Esther Perel: Esther Perel sets the record straight on relationship myths

I like to add a tune to every essay, and for this week’s, there’s nothing more fitting than this from Maggie Rogers: