Changing Coasts

Notes on small-scale and large-scale resistance

To be honest, I have been wholly uninspired here. Compared to before, my life here is based a lot more in doing things than thinking about them. I think this is a good thing. The mental distress that characterized my high school years is now largely at bay (with exceptions, of course). I feel like I should be happier about this, but life is just a bit bland now. It reminds me of this interview in Vogue with BTS’ Suga. The interviewer asks what he’s been thinking about lately. He says, “Actually, I have no thoughts these days … It’s true. I’m too busy, and I try not to think about identity. If you obsess about it, you end up worrying too much. I think it’s perfectly fine to go with the flow, rather than constantly striving and struggling all the time.”

When I first read this interview in December of 2021, I remember feeling jealous of him. I am someone who is never not thinking. My internal monologue is multiple streams of thoughts overlapping and fighting for my attention; my attention, as a result, lands on nothing of substance. In the midst of that noise, all of my streams of thoughts had to do with some sort of insecurity, anxiety, or sadness.  Nothing was ever “right”.

But these days, I find that though I’m still thinking all the time, it’s not as serious. I think about what I’m eating for dinner, when my assignment is due, where that person with the cool outfit might be going. I’m not as plagued by my constant thoughts as I used to be. My brain wasn’t the antagonist, I learned, my distorted thought patterns were. 

Later in the interview:

The last few years have been intense for him. “It’s not that I don’t try hard or that I work less hard. I think I’ve learnt to come to terms with it more than when I was younger,” he reflects. Indeed, he has clearly gone through a change. The rapper Agust D, with his highly contagious pessimism and melancholy, is nowhere to be found. “My first mixtape was all about anger, but then everything was sorted out, right?” SUGA explains with a laugh. “I realised that I didn’t know who to be angry with anymore. Finally, I was able to look at myself. I’d been making a weapon out of anger and a sense of inferiority, but around 2018, my self-destructive rage slowly started to subside. I realised that I couldn’t channel creative energy through only those sorts of emotions any longer.”

Maybe I’m just healing. I always wonder if Los Angeles has, for lack of a better word, changed my vibe. Am I better here? More relaxed? More pretentious? I guess I’ll find out when I go back home, but I suspect that I am simply getting better as I mature. My brain is developing, my independence is blossoming, and I am settling into myself. 

My attitude to things here have been almost nonchalant—what about it? I don’t really have a friend group here, but I have friends. I can’t expect to have made my best, lifelong friends in just 10 weeks, so I think my 2-3 good friendships are promising. I haven’t been keeping up with this newsletter as much as I want to, but I’m still writing, even if it’s bad. And hopefully, I still have an audience that will read my work, even if it’s bad. I miss home a lot, but I will go back very soon! On my bad days, these issues are world-ending, and I am back in my childhood bedroom, anxiety dictating my every move and non-move. But once I muster the energy to shower, have a good meal (thank you UCLA dining <3), and have a good night of sleep, it’s easier to be hopeful again. That cycle is how I keep going.

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Here are some Good Things from the past two months.

Movies (2023 Releases): 

• The Holdovers (d. Alexander Payne)

• Saltburn (d. Emerald Fennell)

• Bottoms (d. Emma Seligman)

• Fallen Leaves (d. Aki Kaurismäki)

Music: 

• Something To Give Each Other (Troye Sivan)

• I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet (Del Water Gap)

• fruitcake (Sabrina Carpenter)

Essays: 

• “Want to Believe in Yourself? ‘Mattering’ Is Key.” by Gail Cornwall

• “The Empty Seat at Our Thanksgiving Table” by Sarah Wildman

• “It’s good to remember: We are all on borrowed time” by Anne Lamott

Poems:

• “Waiting for This Story to End Before I Begin Another” by Jan Heller Levi

• “After You Toss Around the Ashes” by Ada Limón

• “Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying” by Noor Hindi

A Stroll on the beach, Michael Ancher (1896)

Something I also wanted to touch on in this newsletter, unrelated but much more important, is the Palestinian genocide. While I have the privilege of living comfortably, writing about my silly little first-world problems, Palestinians do not have this luxury. Recently, many young journalists have posted letters of defeat, detailing how their hope of survival is low. Bisan, aged 25, writes:

I no longer have any hope of survival like I had at the beginning of this genocide, and I am certain that I will die in the next few weeks or maybe days. I have been sick with severe viral infection for days and cannot move from the mattress!

I suffer from nightmares that are so closely resemble reality that I no longer differentiate between reality and dream.

I live in a world other than the one I claimed to be building! I am a community activist who lived on the fantasy that the world was free and just, and I sought to bring rights not only to my people, but to many men and women in third world countries!

The Israeli occupation of Gaza is an issue that began far before October 7th, and I highly encourage my readers to learn about this history. At this point, with how saturated this genocide is in the media, there is little to no excuse for turning a blind eye to Gaza: if the news is overwhelming for you, imagine how it must feel for it to be your daily reality. 

I’m trying to figure out how to phrase this well. I can’t. I don’t really understand how and why people can choose to ignore a case of textbook genocide. Furthermore, I am reminded of those who support Palestinian freedom in concept, but find it difficult to support it in practice. What Palestine needs right now is attention. The less people that support Palestine in material and monetary ways, the more dangerous it becomes for those who do. My point is, if it is so hard for you to boycott, donate, or protest, the very least you can do is learn. Here are some resources to learn more about the Palestinian genocide that have helped me understand more on this conflict:

• “on condemnation: terrorism, violence, and the question of palestine” by pranay somayajula

• “Letters from Gaza, Part 6” from Protean Magazine

• Palestine Resource List (from UCLA SJP)

First hand accounts from Palestine:

• Bisan Owda, 25

• Motaz Azaiza, 24

• Plestia Alaqad, 22

(I also encourage you to be critical of reports from mainstream media on this conflict. Not all the time, but often, it is financially safer for news outlets to take a pro-Israel or neutral approach towards the conflict.)

Love,

Aarushi.