hello my forest friends, it's time for a book review for a satirical high stakes thrill ride of a book called bullet train. 

some spoilers ahead, so if you do plan on reading this, please skip this blog post completely. the book is only thoroughly enjoyable if you go in not knowing what is happening - in which case, I did and I also did thoroughly enjoy it. Before we begin, I'd like to quote this review by Laura Wilson from The Guardian:

"Part high-octane thriller, part farce, and laced with philosophical and literary debates, this is an unusual and thoroughly enjoyable read." - Laura Wilson, The Guardian

 

The Prince understood it like this: when people have a difficult decision to make, one that may go against their code of ethics, they conform to the group, and even come to believe that the answer is correct.

When he thought about it in those terms, it became easy to see the mechanism by which the genocide not only was difficult to stop but by which it fuelled itself. The people doing the killing didn’t trust their own judgement, but rather went along with the group, believing that was right.

 

Hello my lovely forest friends, how are we today? 

Hello my dearest forest friends - some days I look back at my blog and I question myself - why did I use to address my readers as my forest friends? What was the reason I dubbed thee as forest creatures? I suppose if I were to explain it, I would first have to expound on what this blog initially meant to me. 

I have used this space as a diary of some sort. A spot where I could sit and journal down my thoughts, my feelings, and the things that I have done that made me feel some sort of way - whether happy or sad. In the Scarlet letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorn, the forest is a symbol of nature's relationship with mankind; as a place of refuge and as a place of empowerment. Likewise, I see this space as somewhere I can seek a quiet refuge from the daily noise of the outside world, to clear my ever swirling thoughts in my head. 

And you, my dear reader, are the creatures that seek the same refuge as I do, sitting around this imaginary campfire with me as I regale my tales to you. 

I am back again, after not blogging for many moons. I have been busy, my life in a whirlwind of activities. It is not as if I am not free, no doubt, I do have my free time - but I find myself surrounded by friends on my off days - instead of taking the time for myself. Now that I have some time to spare, I am trying to regain myself and my fragmented mind, doing things for actual personal improvement - not things related to work or to the people around me. 

It felt good today, being able to go to the library by myself and pick out a book from the extensive shelves. Being able to order a meal and savour it all by myself. I realized I haven't done that in years. Eons. I haven't had any time to myself to sit down and try to collect my thoughts. I did for a while today and I find myself lamenting the years I refused to eat alone - it's actually not that bad. I might try it again. It's almost like having a date with yourself. 

I think I haven't gotten the time to sit down and learn about myself. I believe we all have the time, we just don't make it because we fill it up with people that we love, things we want to do with our partners, and games we want to play with our squad - so much so we forget to sit down with ourselves for a bit. The world is filled with noise, escapism, and pretty shiny things we want to collect. Everything is at our fingertips, we fill up our time that we are so afraid of wasting with "important things and important people" we often forget to slow down and appreciate ourselves.

I blame social media - even media in general - but at the core of it all, it's sort of usually my fault. I'm the one who doesn't say "no" to friends and I'm the one who chooses to binge watch 10 seasons of TBBT to fill my head with mindless noise because I'm afraid to deal with my thoughts, instead of actually sitting down and compartmentalizing these fragmented goals - things I want to do, things I want to improve myself with.

I guess while I have the time, I should discipline myself a little and work on me.

it has quite literally taken five gold days to find my password for this blog. apparently i do change my passwords and when i do, i never write them down in my booklet of passwords (that i am now regretting i bought because it's completely empty; digressing, i also have a lot of empty books because i'm afraid of writing in it and ruining it ANYWAY)

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
   // printf() displays the string inside quotation
   printf("Hello, World!");
   return 0;
}

hello world

it actually hasn't been a while since i blogged, the last time i did so was when i was still in quarantine and was absolutely mind frackingly depressed to the point where I was just staring out the window, wondering how it would feel like if i just ceased to exist. hahahahahaha help.

i took a long time trying to figure out my passwords for this blog because i had the dreadful pleasure of welcoming (again, quite literally) the last person on earth to this chaotic mess called my blog. then again, it's not been a safe space for a while considering everything from 2012 onwards happened to be sponsored posts. then again, he's not that diabolical of a person, also he's not as bad as i thought  - so technically everything i've written above doesn't really count. right.

where was i? having someone i don't actually know (but also sort of know cause we see each other on a daily basis) find this page made me a little anxious. ok a little doesn't count - i am living breathing anxiety - but it made me wonder: what if someone else finds it - what if it becomes the talk of the town - the amount of people being cancelled for saying that one word or for doing something stupid - what if what if what if?

it was quite clear to me that I had to delete most of my posts that weren't sponsored related because before i started doing influencer based posts, this blog was my online, PUBLIC, diary. i hurried to find any incriminating evidence - ANYTHING 

so i went digging. i casually sifted through ALL my old posts and let me tell you, i have got a ton of them and they are cringeworthy. it's not as cringeworthy as my primary/secondary school days (wow if i were to ever find that i would DELETE the crap out of it) but it's marginally dreadful. and i stopped right at the first ever post i did. 

Greetings my readers,

And yes, it is a thing. A thing that I don’t think most people actually understand what it truly means.

When people think of mansplaining, they’re actually thinking of men complaining, which isn’t what it is.

Mansplaining (and this actually is a word according to Microsoft word because it isn’t correcting it or saying it’s wrong, so that’s funny haha) is when a man explains a concept to women that is common knowledge or doesn’t take much to understand: aka something the woman already knows; and tries to teach it to the woman as if she doesn’t know it.

It happens to me all the time.

Popularly, a Deadpool writer was standing in line for the new Deadpool movie and a man in line started grilling her on not knowing who Deadpool was and trying to explain the character to her.

In my case, I was a boom operating for a short student film. Our actor, a very outspoken male, kept insisting how I should do my job, even yelling at me at one point because the boom was on, despite having my director instructing me to start recording.

Women are not shutting down because you’re disagreeing with them. We’re not that petty. But when my male friends starts to argue with me on how women have it much easier than men and we have privilege because we can “go to the bar, get free drinks, and then don’t even have to have sex with the guy in return like a tease,” I get a little frustrated because that’s one of the most outrageous statements I have ever heard.

Women are not shutting down because you’re disagreeing with them.

They’re shutting down because you won’t listen to their side of the story.

So, I hear you say “you are just using mansplain to refer to a man giving a correct response to something, technically he isn’t wrong. You could use “condescending”, something that isn’t gender exclusive.

True, but “mansplain” is a term that is meant to be gender specific. It refers to the specific type of condescension a man levels at a woman because he maintains a gender bias. Nobody ever said “mansplaining” was inaccurate. It is usually correct in the information it presents.

The issue at hand is that this is done with a specific intent, i.e. To undermine a woman WHETHER OR NOT she asked for correct information, and WHETHER OR NOT she was intentionally being humorous. In other words, the man assumes the woman is wrong because she is inherently incapable of knowing things, and ignores all cues to intellect, like a subtle sense of humor, rhetoric, more extensive education, emotional terminology and so on. The man assumes that she requires him to enlighten her. The man assumes that he is ENTITLED to enlighten her. The man assumes a socially superior position, whether or not it is warranted.

So, why use it?

Why fight for equality by using gender-encoded terms?

Because it is a negative gender-encoded behaviour and it absolutely should be pointed out AS A NEGATIVE. We call a murderer a murderer and a rapist a rapist. A sexist is a sexist, meaning they are prejudiced against someone for their sex. Pointing out a gender bias with a humorous term is not sexist. Think about it. Do men have any funny and not inherently cruel and dehumanizing language for women? No. If they think a woman is unfair, they call her a bitch, a cunt, a whore, etcetera. There is no equivalent to “mansplain” except “feminazi” and that is of itself, a term designed to delegitimize and degrade.

“Mansplaining” points to the negative behaviour and does not in any way deride the speaker. It merely elucidates the gender bias.

“When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like prejudice”.

Men are accustomed to being taken seriously with no more credibility than their genitals, endowed with authority, socialized to speak whenever or wherever they wish, and learn to treat women as unequal in subtle but hurtful ways, from gender bias in the workplace to social interactions. When this negative bias is pointed out to them and highlighted, when the privilege of doing this with impunity is revoked, suddenly they feel as if they are being mistreated.

Female subjugation is to our culture as water is to fish; it’s so pervasive and ubiquitous that it’s almost impossible to see unless you know what you’re looking for.

But it’s there.

No one can debate you into understanding their point of view. It will never happen, and I think we all know that, if we’re honest with ourselves. All we can really do is keep extending the invitation for you to give us your sustained curiosity, and hope that you accept that invitation someday. Until then, you can hold out in your unassailable “debate us or be wrong” fortresses for as long as you’re determined to.

Until then, stop trying to mansplain to me about a woman’s biological clock, or about how to play the games I have on my steam pc.