Amal Abdullah

“For many people, their compulsive phone use papers over a void created by a lack of a well-developed leisure life. Reducing the easy distraction without also filling the void can make life unpleasantly stale.”
― Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

“That particular situation was problematic enough, but it is emblematic of much larger and more entrenched questions and conflicts around who speaks for parks, who speaks for land. The claim that parks should be accessible to “all” is a performatively liberal stance, one that undercuts any agonistic claims and becomes atheoretical and depolitical in the hands of state bureaucracies. All land is saturated with stories and histories, much of it beautiful and honourable, and some awful and violent. Claiming land to be “common” or to be commonly held does not wipe history clean. We live among the accumulating ruins of colonial rationalities, and stating that parks should “benefit all” willfully ignores history and obscures the highly political choices that are being made all around us. Any claim that parks are “open to all” is a naked lie — a lie that is designed to buttress colonial rationalities.”
― Matt Hern, On This Patch of Grass: City Parks on Occupied Land

“Diabetes is a choice if you forget colonialism, fellas.”
― Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies

“You can't, in other words, build a billion dollar empire like Facebook if you're wasting hours every day using a service like Facebook.”
― Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World