Kartik

“Sleep deprivation even impacts DNA and learning-related genes in the brain involved in memory-making. Was that why other mothers didn’t talk about the reality of early motherhood or childbirth? Because they hadn’t made the memories?”
― Lucy Jones, Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood

“It’s being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas. We’re being asked to believe that the US marines are actually on a feminist mission. (If so, will their next stop be America’s military ally Saudi Arabia?) Think of it this way: in India there are some pretty reprehensible social practices, against ‘Untouchables’, against Christians and Muslims, against women. Pakistan and Bangladesh have even worse ways of dealing with minority communities and women. Should they be bombed? Should Delhi, Islamabad, and Dhaka be destroyed? Is it possible to bomb bigotry out of India? Can we bomb our way to a feminist paradise? Is that how women won the vote in the United States? Or how slavery was abolished? Can we win redress for the genocide of the millions of Native Americans, upon whose corpses the United States was founded, by bombing Santa Fe?”
― Arundhati Roy, My Seditious Heart: Collected Non-Fiction

“When my patients ask me what mental health means, here’s what I tell them: Mental health doesn’t involve the aim of eradicating uncomfortable emotions and life stressors. Rather, mental health involves practicing healthy ways to roll with, and grow from, life’s punches. It involves a state of mental functioning in which a person can experience productivity, satisfied relationships, meaning and purpose, high quality of life and possess the ability to cope with adversity.”
― Jonathan N. Stea, Mind the Science: Saving your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry

“I read that blue whales are the largest creatures ever to roam our planet, as long as thirty meters and weighing up to 173,000 kilograms. They have intricate social lives and complex languages. Hunted to near extinction. Less than a few thousand remained before whaling restrictions were introduced, but whalers continue to serve a black market, and these majestic creatures might disappear from the world. I often wondered what it's like to be a whale. To be the biggest creature on earth, still vulnerable to a small man’s greed.”
― Susan Abulhawa