Being discerning is an art
Greetings,
I try to be cognisant of the biases and perspectives behind the people whose work, writing, thinking, etc that I follow. This is especially the case when I explore particular rabbit holes, ie. recommended books from an author whose book I first read. Sometimes, I will go from book to book, picking a book recommended in the book I am reading.
Listening to podcasts interviews of the people who wrote the books I was reading, I found that they often recommended the other books on my reading list. The fact that they all fit a specific demographic means that there is often overlap on their views about everything else, which I didn’t necessarily agree with.
For example, two years ago, I went on a ‘productivity’ binge, reading countless books about how to manage and use time. The majority of the books were written by Caucasian American men so some of what they wrote about did not really apply to me and the environment I exist in.
Being discerning is a skill I am getting better at and is absolutely necessary as I engage with this increasingly digitally connected world as an African.
Here are this week’s 7 things:
“For centuries, communities across the world have been innovating to adapt to the increasingly changing world by drawing on local and indigenous ways of being and thinking. These epistemologies of the South—as Portuguese economist Boaventura de Sousa Santos famously called them in his 2014 book by the same name—have largely been ignored or marginalized in the Global North, but they offer urgent lessons for reimagining our economies, our societies, and our selves.” - Andrea Jiminez Cisneros and Tony Roberts in What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About Innovation
Hope to try my hand at calligraphy one day and I am fascinated by typography. Until then, I spend too much time watching the masters. I have become a fan of Seb Lester’s short posts on Instagram.
The pervading material-driven definition of success has never worked for me and I try not to use it as a measure of me or my children. How Chinese philosophy can help you parent reinforces a lot of my views in this regard.
My father and I used to disagree on the importance of keeping up with the news, and this was at a time when it was basically just television, radio and newspapers. He would religiously get his Sunday papers and spend the day going through them. That was also my day to catch up on the news. These days, with so much news floating out there, I am, deliberately, consuming less. Why You Should Stop Reading News.
A poet and a protester, Gil Scott-Heron captured his time — and ours. Gil Scott-Heron had an impact on my writing when I dabbled in poetry. It’s nice to see him get his flowers, even though he is no longer with us.
I’ve been trying to get my head around NFTs and loving how African artists are exploring the space.
🎬 New Drop 🎬 Bàkk, a body of work that explores wrestling culture in Senegal. It is my genesis on @rarible 😊 You can see the first 6 pieces of the collection here 👉🏾rarible.com/lindadounia A thread on what this work means to me below👇🏾
Recently updated my Kwaito music playlist, submerging myself in the memories of the 90s and early 00s.
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Easy, Kojo