In Common Light
Rooted reflections on belonging and being
Category: culture
Reflecting on and challenging cultural norms, socialization, commonly accepted truths
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When I first started practicing yoga, I was a bit surprised when I first heard the common saying from the instructors: “Do what feels good, do what feels right.” I asked myself “Really? Doing what feels right can help my physical and mental health? It doesn’t require something super difficult, strenuous, or hard?” I thought…
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I have a lost a lot of friendships in my life. It was upon reflecting on one of these friendships that I came to realize something about how we understand human connections under capitalism. When I reflected on this particular friendship that I had lost, I reflected on our shared memories and said to myself,…
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The opposite of love is not hate, but fear. When someone expresses an act of hate, it often is an expression of fear. In this post, I will: Fear Only Serves the Ego The Evolutionary Benefit of Fear Fear evolved as a survival mechanism to protect us from danger. Fear is “caused by particular patterns…
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As I was moving through college, I often asked myself, “What career will I have?”. During my first year, I considered nursing. So I took a Chemistry class and attended a Health conference, only to realize that science was not for me. During my second year, I considered being a therapist. So I took an…
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With one google search on the internet, we can answer any question that we have. A whole host of information is out there, you can get the answer from multiple sources within a short amount of time. The invention of the internet dramatically shifted the way that us humans spread information and come to understand…
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Social media was consuming me in more ways than I realized at the time. It was 2020, and with more free hours in my day, I found myself spending an average of eight hours on my phone—half of my total waking time. As research suggests, this level of digital engagement was taking a real toll…
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“Are you a perfectionist?” said my family friend who was helping me with my college applications. We were sitting at her kitchen table, laptops open at one of our last meetings in late November. She had asked me this after I explained to her that I had not yet turned in my essays, the essays…
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Phoebe Bridgers’ “Scott Street” is a particular song that stirs up strong emotions in me. I first listened to it one night during my second year of college. As I hit play for the first time, it brought up a lot of emotions. With its reminiscent tone, conversational lyrics, and bike bells in the outro,…
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Does a good deed exist that is purely selfless? Or do all good deeds, in at least some capacity, make us feel good? These questions highlight the argument that Friends characters Joey and Phoebe held in one episode (Curtis, 1998). It was after watching this episode and considering the answer to their argument that I…
In Common Light 