I’ve decided to start the “weekly finds” posts again, as they are a lot of fun for me and they also give an idea of what I read that influences my fiction (up to a point, obviously). I’ll still do Friday Favourite Music as well, but I think it will more often than not be part of a “Friday Stuff” post.
This week I give you some ponderings on ideas, reality (thank you, John Green!), as well as some articles relating to culture, taboos in culture, etc. which I’ve rediscovered this week while looking for something completely different. I have forgotten what that thing was, but hey – interesting articles!
One reason I love reading about other cultures (or religions, for that matter) is that I get to see a glimpse of the world that is at the same time familiar and yet so different to my own. It’s not a fetishisation of the exotic, but rather searching for an understanding of and discovering differences and similarities.
Perhaps that’s also why I enjoy working in a multi-cultural and multi-lingual setting so much. Especially with other people who like to learn about different cultures, etc. Although I stand firm by the fact that sugar and (lots of) cinnamon on pumpkin is the best way to eat it. No one can convince me otherwise! Mwahaha!
Now that I’m done with my ramblings, here are your Friday reads, video, and music.
Let Your Ideas Go, By Nilofer Merchant, (Harvard Business Review, 26 June 2012)
… an idea held in an open hand can evolve.It has space to grow bigger. Ideas are actually organic, living things. If they have room to expand, they can quite possibly spread, and be picked up by others and grow into something much, much bigger than what you imagined.
The Widows Who Can’t Return Home, by Pascal Maanaerts (13 September 2016)
Rejected by their communities and abandoned by their loved ones, thousands of Hindu women make their way to Vrindavan, a pilgrimage city that’s home to more than 20,000 widows.
Myanmar’s Tattoed Chin Women, by Dave Stamboulis (21 December 2016)
In Myanmar’s mountainous and hard-to-reach Chin State, the ethnic minority women are renowned for their remarkable face tattoos.