As you know, I love evolving my postcard formats and switching things up for fun — so for January’s archival postcard, I’m sharing close reading notes from three poems that stuck with me. I’ve included the poems in Act One so you can read them directly here: an Eliot, a Yeats, and a Glück, alongside my thoughts.

January is one of my favorite months because I do so well in it. I start with a clean slate, empty inboxes, clear out digital clutter, create fresh folders, set goals for the year, break them down by season and month, and start slow and small. This is also when I buy fresh notebooks to last the year — daily planners, weekly planners, journals, and wall calendars — trying out new organizational systems every year. I’ll forever advocate for analog journaling because it slows us down in an important way. As the pace of the real world out there forces us to rush through most of it, we can resist it and not lose our minds, staying grounded and focused — this is why I make a point of drawing pictures and coloring and doing a good amount of scrapbook-esque journaling — even when time is tight.

By the end of the month, I feel sane — even if I complete only half of what I set out to do, but that’s hardly ever the case, as my to-do lists are famously short because after college, I realized the futility of page-long to-do lists and stopped creating them. All this left plenty of room for focus and attention last month — as well as reading.

Most of my reading happened in bed. Woolf and Didion, I read interchangeably, with Rilke in between — one letter every few days. For fiction, I chose three books that could be read in one sitting: a Didion novel, an NYRB Classic, and a new novel by Virginia Evans that’s been turning heads lately. I kept the fiction light and casual because my deep reading was devoted entirely to Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own — a book that is most glorious when absorbed slowly. Outside of reading, anything I watched was during dinner, and anything I listened to was in the background while getting work done. Last November, I set out to watch a list of films about the First Amendment in a month — and read very little. January, for me, was about reading — far more than watching or listening. I like to play around with how I consume things — a heavy reading month will not include a heavy watchlist — a rule that I have never regretted administering.

But anyway, without further ado, here’s a postcard from January 2026 and everything I’m happy to archive!

Here’s your table of contents:

poetry

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
I don’t write my Substack to share what I love; I write about what I consume — the work that leaves a mark on me, whether good or bad. I avoided T. S. Eliot my whole life, and I understand why others might, too. The dude was openly antisemitic, and his bestie, Ezra Pound, was a committed fascist who facilitated the publication of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in Poetry magazine —catapulted Eliot into literary superstardom.

I read this poem to understand the coffee spoons as literary symbolism and found that it demands at least two readings: one to absorb its cadence, another to grasp its meaning. “Prufrock” traces the inner life of a man paralyzed by self-consciousness. He sets out to lead a meaningful life, only to have it become entangled in an all-too-familiar way with social anxieties, the expectations of family, acquaintances, and society at large — until his original aims recede into insignificance. All that remains is hesitation. On closer reading, the imagery sharpens: city streets that feel crowded yet isolating; yellow fog that mirrors confusion and unease; the repeated “Do I dare?” signaling chronic indecision. The mermaids at the end suggest beauty or transcendence — things he believes are not meant for him. Ultimately, Prufrock is trapped inside his own mind. His fear of judgment — of aging, of irrelevance, of scrutiny — metastasizes into total inaction. The poem’s associative movement mirrors real thought, circling and digressing. By the end, whether he wakes from illusion or drowns in it, he is defeated by his own interiority.

Nabokov would probably say there is a whole lot of poshlost in Eliot’s poetry — and I do generally believe that if you are creating something and purposefully making it “difficult” to place yourself into the echelons of “highbrow” — then that surely sounds like a load of poshlost and fifty shades of pretentious — but I do like this poem. It is one of the first encounters anyone’s ever had with modern poetry. “Prufrock” works because its difficulty reflects psychological reality rather than ornamentation, and its fragmentation embodies anxiety itself.

On the first read, you notice the immediate cadence — it rhymes like the first lines of Macbeth, almost incantatory. On closer reading, an image forms: the city streets that feel crowded yet isolating; the yellow fog that mirrors confusion and unease; the repeated “Do I dare?” signaling chronic indecision. The mermaids at the end — perhaps beauty or transcendence — either way, are things he believes are not meant for him. Ultimately, this is a man trapped inside his own mind. His fear of judgment — of aging, of irrelevance, of scrutiny — metastasizes into no risks taken, and ultimately, total inaction. The poem’s thoughts jump around the way real thinking would, circling and digressing. By the end, whether he wakes from illusion or drowns in it, he is defeated by his own interiority.

If this were the guy in The Road Not Taken by Frost, he wouldn’t pick either road. One could imagine that if Prufrock stood at the fork in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” he would choose neither path. He would remain suspended in analysis, immobilized by the possibility of being seen and found wanting.

Isn’t this familiar? We begin life with clarity and intention, moving from point A toward some imagined point Z. Along the way, fear, judgment, rivalry, betrayal, and even misguided help accumulate as expectations harden around us. Some people construct hard walls around them, while others remain bare. Either way, the original vision can erode, replaced by compromises and fantasies.

What’s the lesson here? People and pressures will always exist; power will be misused; we can’t really ignore things and people — they will always be there, not minding their own business, abusing their power, spreading misery upon others. While we can cultivate a form of psychological insulation as a means of self-protection from the influence of our vicinities, we can’t go with indifference. If there is a resolution here, it is this: to reach the end of one’s life and know that one’s choices, however flawed, were self-directed. Better that than discovering one has lived according to someone else’s script.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
By T. S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats
The first coming was whatever it was. The second, in this poem, inspires no confidence. The speaker surveys the modern world and finds fracture and disorder everywhere — social debris, violence, institutions stripped of authority. Instead of expecting a hopeful “second coming” of Christ, one where everything is blessed with the bright white lights of God and cleansed of sins, the poem imagines that something darker is arriving — something strange and monstrous and unsettling. Something that says that the world as we know may be collapsing but the new age — may be worse, marking a clear contradiction to the way most of us go about our days. We think there’s light at the end of the tunnel or the sun will rise again and things will get better. But will it? The poem entertains the possibility that collapse does not clear the ground for grace but may simply make room for something harsher.

The falcon flies in widening circles until it can no longer hear its handler — an image of humanity drifting away from guiding principles, order, and legitimate authority. We may be spinning out of control collectively, but also individually. How many lawyers enter law school wanting to help people, only to end up in corporate towers, grinding through stress-induced psoriasis and ulcers, their impact reduced to billable hours? We begin with the desire to change the world, yet like the falcon, we widen the circle until we lose contact with the very motivations that once defined us. Wherever you are now — if you are making your childhood self proud, that is a gift. But if you are not, when was the last time you even thought about who you once wanted to be?

The poem, of course, allows for many interpretations. On a broader level, we encounter the famous line: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” Traditional systems — religion, politics, culture — that once anchored societies appear fractured, strained by extremes as reasonable voices recede. The “rough beast” suggests the rise of destructive political movements or the birth of a harsher modern age. One historical cycle closes as another, darker one begins. Yet the Second Coming is not Christ but a sphinx-like figure with a pitiless gaze, moving toward Bethlehem — the site of Christ’s birth — as something ominous prepares to emerge.

For those who are hesitant, reflective, or uncertain about what to defend — moderates, intellectuals, moral voices unsettled by chaos — Yeats places them among “the best.” By contrast, those who cling rigidly to singular ideas and act with unexamined certainty are “the worst,” driven by “passionate intensity.” Their force is emotional rather than wise: loud, confident, and uncompromising. The distinction is less about personal virtue than about opposing social energies — hesitation versus fanaticism. Stability requires the thoughtful to remain engaged; when they withdraw, a vacuum forms, and extremes rush in to fill it.

The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck
The wild iris is our narrator — speaking from beneath the soil, recalling its underground before it blooms — a period of darkness, suffering, and dormancy. Even after winter passes, it remembers what it endured. The lifecycle of a flower is like that of a phoenix, rising from its own ashes — except this wild iris retains its memory. So while birth is joyful to humans, rebirth, to the wild iris, is grave and inevitable. While nature submits to these painful cycles of darkness, changes, and renewal, we resist them — making the wild iris a model of endurance for us.

I love the emphasis on memory — something Gluck treats unusually. Humans repress pain — distracting themselves, seeking gratification, trying to overwrite their pain. Futile attempts, of course. The wild iris doesn’t bother with any of it — instead, by remembering, it gives its rebirth meaning, proving it has existed before this moment and persisted in the darkness. The continuity of life gives it its strength. We may not consciously recall every stage of our growth, but those stages live on in us, shaping how we speak and act. Even when we feel undone, the self remains continuous across its different states. Perhaps we fear death because we cannot remember what lies beyond it. And perhaps, like the iris, we too have passed through darkness before.

books

nonfiction

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
I will be writing a full essay on my main January read: A Room of One’s Own — one of the best pieces of text I’ve ever read, and a thoroughly insightful and materially timeless lecture on the topic of “women and fiction.” Woolf gets a lot of hate — but I find that this hate comes from those who are unaware of their own history and the privilege of their time, that they will tell you things like “how is this relevant today” and “of course a woman needs a room to write” or “of course a woman needs to be well-fed to write.” I don’t blame them as much as the educational environments that have failed to foster critical thinking faculties in some. Woolf had many undeniable personal issues, but as a writer and literary critic, she was a genius. I read the Penguin Classics copy of this book and was baffled by Xochitl Gonzalez’s introduction, which showed a whole lot of the same lack of insight and depth I outlined above. But that’s for another essay, perhaps. If you haven’t read the book, you must. It’s a perfect candidate for a slow read.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
To read Joan Didion is to venture into the addictive business of trying to understand her — her inner life, her outer life, her home, her relationships, her mind, her psyche. But she’s hard to get to know, despite being one of the pioneers of new journalism — a form of reporting in which the reporter's personal life and feelings aren’t excluded from the reportage. Yet, the more one reads her, the less one knows her. I spent the month reading her essays, her novel, and her one journal, which I’m not so sure she wanted anyone to read. She is hands down one of the greatest modern writers of all time, and the essays in this book include writing as important as precious gemstones and as sharp as a knife.

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke’s heart, soul, wisdom, passion, and pain come from a notably itinerant life spent traveling across Europe in the early 20th century. His poetry is truly exquisite. That these letters, establishing a beautiful mentor-mentee relationship, are now a piece of literature — is likely something neither Rilke nor his mentee anticipated while they were exchanging them. Rilke is practical and direct yet compassionate and fair — and at times, his opinions are almost as strong Nabokov’s, notorious for strong opinions. Ten letters — that everyone wanting a creative life should read.

fiction

The Door by Magda Szabo
The first NYRB classic I read. I was blown away by the intimate simplicity and poignant guilt strewn throughout the pages of this book like wind through sand. Ultimately, a confession of sins committed in betrayal of trust, love, and moral responsibility, the book tells a psychological story about a complex, tense relationship between a writer-narrator and her mysterious housekeeper, Emergence. Set in postwar Hungary, the novel explores trust, power, loyalty, and guilt. The writer and reader are both fascinated and unsettled by Emergence’s strict personal rules (no one enters through her door) and her hidden past, and even as their bond deepens over time, something dark and painful looms, and a single decision by the writer leads to irreversible consequences — something we fascinatingly learn about within the first pages.

Play It As It Plays by Joan Didion
I've never finished a book this quickly in my life. In Didion’s own words, the book finishes almost as soon as it starts — without missing a beat, and it’s a work of genius. Follows a detached, emotionally numb actress named Maria as she drifts through the emptiness of late-60s Hollywood and Vegas, the chapters are short and fragmented — but each a punch to the gut. As Maria psychologically dislocates and navigates failed relationships, personal loss, and the artificial culture of fame, she confronts meaninglessness, alienation, control, survival, depression — all in a world both morally and emotionally hollow. Hard to read at times because it hits you hard in places.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
I am yet to finish this book, but it’s SO WONDERFUL so far. It centers on a narrator whose life unfolds through letters, observations, and carefully controlled communication with others. Early in the book, the tone is introspective and slightly distant, focusing on how the protagonist interprets relationships rather than directly participating in them. The story seems to explore themes of perception, emotional restraint, and the gap between what people say and what they mean. I’m excited to finish — I had a whole bunch of stuff come up, so I couldn’t see it through, but I’ll try to share a mini review in the next monthly postcard.

music

1920s Jazz
Growing out of New Orleans traditions and later intensified in cities such as Chicago and New York, jazz came to embody the freedom, exuberance, and social transformation associated with the Roaring Twenties. Throughout January, it played in the background as I worked! This one below is characteristic Cole Porter:

Midnight in Paris version:

film & tv

West Wing (Season 1)
One of my favorite shows on the planet, one I’m so glad to be rewatching! Season One is glorious in its introduction to President Bartlet’s White House as an idealistic yet pressured environment where policy debates, media strategy, and personal loyalties constantly intersect, using the famous Aaron-Sorkinesque, fast-paced “walk-and-talk” dialogue and episodic political crises to reveal the characters of the senior staff. There’s Josh — and his drive and pragmatism. Sam — principled and optimistic. Toby is intense and highly moral. CJ is… constantly evolving as an authority figure, and Leo (my favorite) has a steady, self-effacing leadership. And of course Bartlet — probably the most educated man of his time — an econ PhD, Nobel laureate, smart as shit, a hilarious speaker — and his bodyman and everybody’s favorite, Charlie. Rather than building around a single plotline, the season explores top-line themes of public service and ethical compromise and the gradual deepening of President Bartlet’s commanding presence, until the later episodes shift toward more personal stakes and a dramatic tonal escalation that reframes the administration’s early confidence. It is truly one of the best-written shows ever, albeit with some archaic hints that my partner and I were quick to single out: such as the way the women are written — either “badass” or “adorable” — nothing in between. A couple of characters will get on your nerves, but don’t worry about them.

Midnight In Paris
This is my favorite movie. Unfortunately, it’s made by a complete asshole named Woody Allen. The film follows Gil, a nostalgic American screenwriter visiting Paris who feels out of place in his present-day life and becomes captivated by the city’s artistic past; through a whimsical, time-slipping premise, the story blends romance, literary history, and gentle satire as Gil encounters iconic figures from the 1920s while questioning his ambitions, relationships, and idealized view of “golden ages.” Light in tone yet reflective underneath, the movie explores creativity, longing, and the tension between fantasy and reality, using Paris itself as both a setting and an emotional catalyst. You’ll see Fitzgerald and T. S. Eliot and Hemingway and Zelda and Gertrude Stein and Dali and Bunuel and Cole Porter — and like me, if you’re deeply familiar with all their work, you’ll start noticing that their dialogue are renditions of their notable artistic contributions. An unbelievably fun experience.

Breakfast At Tiffany’s
Follows Holly Golightly, a charming but elusive New York socialite who drifts through Manhattan’s wealthy circles while avoiding emotional attachment and financial insecurity, and whose carefully constructed persona masks loneliness and uncertainty about identity and belonging. Seen largely through the eyes of her neighbor Paul, Holly lives by improvisation — pursuing rich suitors, dismissing commitment, and insisting on her independence — yet beneath the performance lies vulnerability — with a past she doesn’t want to confront. As Paul and Holly grow closer, he begins to see through her, recognizing both her fear of belonging to anyone and her longing for stability. The story follows their uneasy intimacy as Holly resists love in order to preserve her self-invention, until circumstances force her to choose between perpetual flight and the risk of genuine connection.

comforts & favorites

Homemade Roast Chicken
There is little in the world that tastes as beautiful as a homemade roast chicken — covered with seasoning by hand — lemons, thyme, garlic, salt, pepper inside — legs tied up — carrots and red potatoes and onions underneath. I just don’t make the gravy by adding in the flour and chicken stock — I add hot water, salt, and lemon juice — making an elegant and beautiful French jus.

Here are three legendary recipes I swear by.

• Ina Garten’s Perfect Roast Chicken (I’ve made this one the most since it’s the most classic, most gorgeous simple elegance — as I said above, I don’t make the gravy but make a French jus instead).

• Peruvian Roasted Chicken with Spicy Cilantro Sauce

• Alison Roman’s Slow Roasted Oregano Chicken with Buttered Tomatoes

• Samin Nosrat’s 24-Hour Buttermilk-Brined Roast Chicken

• Marcella Hazan’s Roast Chicken With Lemons (I’m actually yet to cook this one but I’ve had it before).

Toasted Country Bread
Some really good bread — preferably from a local farmer’s market — wonderful with roast chicken jus.

Moleskin Classic Notebook Hardcover Black
I’ve used hundreds of notebooks since I was in middle school — and this one truly is one of the best. I started earnestly using them thanks to my girl — who swears by it.

That’s all for January! Until next time.

XOXO
Tulipe

per requests from readers

I’ve had many of you ask me how you can contribute a gift to me. The Slow Philosophy is kept and tended entirely by me and has remained free, human, and ad-free, growing by repute and word-of-mouth alone. I hope my labor of love has been meaningful to you as well. If you’d like, you can now buy me a coffee here. Thank you for reading!

the slow philosophy

a chic guide to current affairs, intellectual intimacy, philosophy, and overlooked works. for those who love secondhand books, quiet hours, and thinking alongside others. personal philosophical essays, weekly reading guides, and monthly postcards.

By tulipe⋆. 𐙚 ̊

prelude

Last month, I wrote an essay about rest. It became, unexpectedly, one of my most read and most shared pieces, which is why I am now recirculating its final section here in this postcard. The full essay is a personal philosophical piece that draws on Aristotle, Bertrand Russell, and Lao Tzu, to explore the idea (echoing Aristotle) that leisure and reflection are part of what civilization is for and that genuine rest is a necessity for clear thought and composure. We resist it to our own detriment — because we’re absorbed by the idea that hard work is the only dignity, and rest must be earned. It is, in any case, allowable to lie still and gaze at the ceiling.

20 ways to do nothing:

• gaze at the ceiling — no phone, no timer, no agenda

• sip your tea without turning it into a self-improvement exercise

• go for a walk, no step goals, no podcasts, no new music friday (leave your phone home)

• lie down on your back or on your front, on the floor

• look out the window

• pet an animal, just because

• eat a snack, and do just that, no multitasking

• hurkle durkle: roll around in bed for no reason, stretch in all the ways you want

• pick up an object and feel it

• daydream, without turning it into a project

• close your eyes and stay awake

• watch steam rise from hot water (I tried this recently and it’s strangely beautiful. Highly recommend.)

• start a simple chore and stop halfway — on purpose

• sit in your car after parking, don’t get out right away (if it wasn’t clear already: scrolling or being on your phone is the opposite of doing nothing)

• wait by the microwave as it finishes (not directly in front of it, as that can be dangerous)

• make custard (pour whisked yolks, sugar, and salt into steamed milk. stir for 8 long minutes. no stepping away. vanilla after)

• make béarnaise sauce (requires full attention or the sauce breaks. whisk tarragon, yolks, vinegar, salt. place atop a water bath. whisk in butter — one cube at a time)

• let yourself be bored for 5 mins

• listen to a song, do nothing else

• rest your head in your hands, like you’re waiting for nothing

• let a thought pass without following it

• sit in silence with a friend or at a party (“nothing” does not need to appear quiet. you can do it even when in a crowd.)

• if you’re listening to someone talk, don’t nod or prepare to respond immediately after: listen

And now, read on for a sneak peek into the rest of my December.

Read previous monthly postcards:

intertext

“my december archives”

The end of the year is never a clean stretch of time. Holidays make it difficult for plans to integrate the way you might want. Conversations stretch past their intended limits and planned watchlists are tossed out. As December ended, I read a great deal about the human psychology — less for its findings than for its history, which struck me as both rigorous and maybe, faintly desperate. People have always wanted to explain themselves and reading the records of that effort reveals the absolute strangeness of humans attempting to map their own mind. I’m interested in how culture and society shapes desire, restraint, and care — because those dynamics affect families, workplaces, and how we live together. The movies, meanwhile, were scattered. I saw what I could, when I could.

Without further ado, here are my notable archives from December:

poetry

There were three poems that stayed with me in December, one by Dorothy Parker, whom I admire. She was the wittiest woman of the Jazz Age and her clear-eyed views on love and politics made her a cultural icon. In “The False Friends,” Parker skewers well-meaning friends who promise that time will mend a broken heart but when it doesn’t, at least not by their promised window, she makes them pay for it through this verse. Two additional verses stuck with me: an unembellished poem about the resilience we derive from love — against all odds, even the universe. And one about the emptiness we carry within.

Quick note: I have been considering a daily poetry series — one short poem sent each morning — though I am not certain anyone wants this in their inbox. If it happens, it will be by invitation.

1. dorothy parker - “the false friends”
   
   THEY laid their hands upon my head,
   They stroked my cheek and brow;
   And time could heal a hurt, they said,
   And time could dim a vow.
   
   And they were pitiful and mild
   Who whispered to me then,
   “The heart that breaks in April, child,
   Will mend in May again.”
   
   Oh, many a mended heart they knew.
   So old they were, and wise.
   And little did they have to do
   To come to me with lies!
   
   Who flings me silly talk of May
   Shall meet a bitter soul;
   For June was nearly spent away
   Before my heart was whole.

3. eugenio montale - “people talk and talk more…” (the pairs review)

People talk and talk more
about black holes.

I believe the blackest hole
is the one we inhabit,
and that maybe someone outside it
wonders if in here there exist
beasts with two legs or four
or no beasts at all, and that nobody
even mentions plants or flowers.

—Translated from the Italian by George Bradley

books

December’s book haul was a secondhand collection almost entirely from the psychology aisle of my favorite used bookstores. I found two rare Freuds, a Foucault, and a Carl Jung. The sharpest thing I read that month was a collection by French journalist Emmanuel Carreré, whom I read over Christmas. I also picked up Anaïs Nin’s published diary after seeing her repeatedly referenced last fall (like by ).

Of these books, I’ve read eight so far. I’m glad to own the rest and will return to them when the mood strikes. Each month I tend to read one or two books closely, then sample chapters from several others. It keeps my reading life interesting and varied. I rarely read only one book at a time — at least not since Harry Potter and Twilight. Oh yes, I read those — I love my classics but as a teenager, I was a passionate patron of the zeitgeist and maintain that habit to this day. While my reading sensibilities alter every year, I pay attention to what’s circulating. Books moving through the culture say something about the moment we are in. Granted, time now doesn’t allow this as often as childhood did.

power and the psyche

civilization and its discontents — sigmund freud
Written in 1930, this is one of Freud’s most important works — it’s been interpreted and reinterpreted and praised and hated. In it, he examines how civilization formed, how it shapes human life, and how awareness of death influences culture. In trying to answer why modern life produces guilt, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness, he argues that civilization depends on repressing desire, and that this repression inevitably turns inward as anxiety and aggression.

the problem of anxiety — sigmund freud
Changing his mind, Freud rethinks anxiety and its relationship with repression, arguing that anxiety in fact is the cause of repression, as the ego represses threatening impulses to avoid the anxiety they would cause. Many of these books dating back to the 1900s and before are now extremely scarce and expensive so I’m lucky to have found a used copy for cheap!

jung’s life and work — c. g. jung and aniela jaffe
I’m yet to dive into this but this excerpt from the book, published by Harper’s, struck me. I write about it in my list of best essays from 2025. In this book, interviewed by his assistant, Jung speaks about his life’s work, his encounters with figures like Freud, William James, Einstein, and H. G. Wells, and what shaped Jungian psychology — the collective unconscious, archetypes, anima and animus, the shadow, as well as religion, the fate of the West, karma, and the afterlife. People really do swear by this book.

the nature of human aggression — ashley montagu
The author rejects the fashionable idea that humans are inherently violent and instead offers scientific evidence that aggression can be managed. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m curious to see how he makes the case.

desire and form

passion: an essay on personality — brian vickers
A historical and philosophical study of passion as a shaping force in personality, I found this book striking. The author examines modern notions of human nature, especially our desire to be accepted by others. It’s a notable book for readers of philosophy and for anyone interested in major modern thinkers.

the history of sexuality, vol. 1 — michel foucault
A classic work of social theory about how power operates in modern societies — including how public conversations shape private life. He is a striking writer and thinker — known, notably, for publishing some of his work anonymously because he believed authorship shaped how people read. After encountering several of his essays, I wanted to go deeper, and this book was repeatedly recommended.

aesthetics of sexuality — romana byrne
Arguing against Foucault's assertions, it’s really a book about how culture shapes what we find beautiful, meaningful, or compelling — not just in desire, but in art, relationships, and everyday life.

fiction and first person

97,196 words: essays — emmanuel carrère
I’m simply blown away by this man. His reportage and moral inquiry and the coldness of his prose will leave you speechless as he reports on belief, obsession, crime, and the uneasy boundaries between the self and the world. The first section comprises of three crime stories he reported — it’s left a ripple effect in me.

the diary of anaïs nin, vol. 1: 1931–1934 — anaïs nin
A major literary diarist of the 20th century — important to understanding modern feminism, creativity, and women’s interior lives. I found this book on ’s book list.

all about love — bell hooks
I’ve been meaning to get this book all year. hooks argues that love is an ethical practice that requires care, accountability, and how we treat one another in families, communities, and public life — not fantasy or domination.

the bell jar — sylvia plath
This iconic book of psychological suffocation and social constraint as a young woman collapses under the pressure of prescribed roles, ambitions, and unlivable expectations. I have always avoided this book as I knew the ending, but after repeated exposures to it last year, I ended up joining forces with the fig tree.

my year of rest and relaxation — the icon
I first saw this circulating thanks to , who has impeccable taste. A brilliant dark comedy about a young woman so exhausted by life that she sleeps for a year — exploring that familiar urge we have all felt to opt out from the relentlessness of the world, numb oneself, avoid pain, wait until life feels bearable again. Moshfegh really widens the scope of the book to critique modern life’s nonstop bad news and over-reliance on medication — fighting back this idea that maybe, stepping back is a necessary stage of survival and once in a while, we can stand to stop amortizing the courage of “being awake.” It won’t kill us.

“Think not of the books you’ve bought as a ‘to be read’ pile. Instead, think of your bookcase as a wine cellar. You collect books to be read at the right time, the right place, and the right mood.”

— Luc van Donkersgoed

films

It was the holidays, so we decided not to think too hard and simply watched whatever surfaced on Netflix. Still, this became our unofficial Stranger Things month — a show of which both my partner and I are fans, so you will see this depicted in the playlists and comforts sections below.

a house of dynamite
An unknown enemy launches an intercontinental ballistic missile shooting straight for Chicago and they have very little time to figure out what to do. It escalates quickly as it shows what it look like for our fragile systems to come together to prevent catastrophe — and how quickly they can fail. This kept me on the edge of my seat but ended abruptly, not in the tidy way a thriller often does, but in something closer to disruption, which felt intentional, though not sure it was entirely satisfying.

wake up dead man
This is the most serious, most mature, most solemn, most sombre Knives Out movie yet. It’s a very good movie and I loved Josh O’Connor. It’s more noir, more Agatha Christie, and towards the end, a less playful caper. It genuinely examines faith and guilt seriously, which gives it a weight the others avoided. Still a Knives Out movie — just a darker one.

the woman in cabin 10
This was awful.

stranger things series finale
Living in Los Angeles, we were able to see this in theaters, which felt like a rare privilege. I’m not ready to analyze it yet, I’m still reeling, and need to rewatch it first — but emotionally, it largely worked for me. It was like watching The Deathly Hallows: Part II: lawed but you’re overwhelmed with caring more about what’s happening to your people — enough that criticism seemed beside the point in the moment. I’m just so happy I got to experience this. We deserve it — after the long cultural dearth that Harry Potter left behind. It felt good to have something to care about this much again.

postscript

comforts

collage & mood boards
The last time I made something remotely resembling the collage below was in anticipation of the release of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. I was deep in it then — refreshing browsers again and again to find out who was going to be Cedric, who was going to be Cho, who was going to be Krum and Fleur, who were going to be Parvati and Padma Patel and what the hell were they going to wear (what they wore was atrocious, btw). I remember collecting news clippings, printing out rare photos of the cast members, making playlists, and creating scrapbook versions of Advanced Potion-Making by the Half-Blood Prince or The Standard Book of Spells by Miranda Goshawk. I drew sketches of The Sorting Hat, and four house emblems of Hogwarts, and made my own Hogwarts class schedule should I be able to borrow the Time Turner from Dumbledore, a shopping list for my own trip to Diagon Alley, and dedicated notes on how they were going to destroy all seven (known) Horcruxes. Well, I was a preteen — I can forgive her and pat her on the back for her dedication. She would have loved being a teenager during the Hawkins-era but she was already sliding into her 20s, and long lost her time to other things, such as, the coveted corporate life. But why not indulge a little bit into the nostalgia of my own life in paying tribute to a nostalgic show. It felt right.

tapes

There’s Kate Bush, along with several Kate Bush remixes. There are also scores and soundtracks from the series, as well as “End of Beginning” by Djo. I’m so sad the show ended. Probably my favorite tv score of all time.

For Christmas, we listened to the classic playlists on Spotify. Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s rock version of the Christmas Canon song always makes a comeback for me during the holidays — I think I Shazammed it from one of the Christmas episodes of The Office (U.S.) one time and it stuck. And of course, Mariah Carey. She came up in our trivia recently as one of the very few artists to have appeared on the Billboard charts across four different decades, which is pretty wild.

The rest of the month, there was a whole lot of ‘80s throwbacks, probably in subliminal preparation for Stranger Things Season 5: ABBA, Europe, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Boney M., Depeche Mode, and one of my favorites, Modern Talking. There are also some random ’90s and early-2000s throwbacks mixed in — Muse, Enya, Eminem, and Panic! at the Disco. I have no idea how they snuck in. I couldn’t tell you.

I also have “Lilith” on there, the collaboration between Halsey and SUGA of BTS, an old Hindi favorite called “Saiyyan” that I played for my partner one night before bed, and I see that I have “Cancelled!” on there for some reason. It makes sense. I find that song’s composition oddly addictive when the mood strikes. Full playlist below.

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Postscript:
Thank you for reading the slow philosophy and helping it grow in ways I never expected. This work has remained free, ad-free, and fully human — sustained by readers who’ve followed it closely and pass it along to friends. If something here has added a small measure of meaning to your days, the simplest way to support its ongoingness is to share it with someone. Word of mouth has been its biggest engine, and I’m deeply grateful for it.

Share the slow philosophy

I’d love to hear from you.

Did you watch the films I listed? Read any of the books?

That’s all for now. See you next time.

Best,
Tulipe

the slow philosophy

a chic guide to current affairs, intellectual intimacy, philosophy, and overlooked works. for those who love secondhand books, quiet hours, and thinking alongside others. personal philosophical essays, weekly reading guides, and monthly postcards.

By tulipe mctipton

on the shelf

dear jane books is my bookshop. all books linked are directed through it. proceeds support independent bookstores.

prelude

an epitext on loyalty & gossip

in november, i had a frightening eye injury that brought me close to losing my eyesight. i ended up documenting the experience for friends and family — and was met with more love and compassion than i had expected.

often, we don’t know what’s going on under the surface. i wanted to break that pattern for the first time in my life by sharing it.

i don’t normally share my life. i’ve never believed people are entitled to access one another’s inner worlds — and i extend myself the same restraint. i care deeply about those i love but i have never felt compelled to track other lives without invitation.

this instinct developed years ago, when i moved abruptly as a teenager, meeting with precarity along the way and surviving by learning to focus on one pressing reality at a time.

i imagine that at some point, this became unnecessary. although by then, it had already grown into a habit.

now, i’m trying to change it. at least a dash. i have friends all over the world, and reconnecting with many of them during my injury reminded me how beautifully people evolve. i also found myself more open to sharing. i can lift the lid, i learned — even if a little.

some things, however, will not change. for example, gossip culture leaves me feeling out of place. the casual way people dissect others’ inner lives makes me feel like an anomaly. it’s never quite felt relevant to me.

that is how i love people — through neutral regard. prying in the name of care doesn’t feel like love to me.

i relearned recently from my little sister, that there is nothing more tasteless than gossiping, something she abstains from like a religion. if you ever want to get something sensitive off your chest, you can say it to her. that lady will take your words to grave and one can’t pay her a million dollars to break.

as her older sister, i swell with pride as, much like me, she sticks to self-directed principles and isn’t in the least bit unmoored by what anyone thinks about it.

the principle i’ve most closely stuck to is that everyone in my life has a right to live on their own terms, without societal scrutiny. if i hear otherwise, i shut it down.

loyalty is not supposed to be a performative thing. it’s totally crude to tell someone “oh hey, so and so said shit about you.” that’s dumb. why did you let them?

friends (or family) should be able to trust friends to have their backs on principle, to know that their names are safe with each other.

my sister does this through trust. i do it through deferential inattention. those who understand this principle, especially those that abide by it, have remained my friends for almost three decades.

read last month’s postcard:

intertext

these reflections weren’t all that defined november. some wonderful reading, journaling, watching, discussing, purveying, and listening was part of it as well — i share it all below. thank you for staying with me.

“my november archives”

themes

the intertext includes selected poetry, books, films, and essays. november’s books were a study of the inseparability of politics and mythology — how power earns its loyalty and how societies organize themselves around shared narratives. before laws, institutions, and modern governance, there were gods, heroes, fairy tales, and moral archetypes that taught us what a good leader, a good hero looked like. i found this to be a very interesting mishmash — reading the old and the new together to see evolving political thoughts. november’s films explored the same questions through a focus on individual civic duty. i called them “my first amendment movies” — but it goes beyond freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press, and petitioning the government. i also look at individual abuse within a society. democracy is protected by people and this is a reminder that leaders and citizens are both individuals, bound by the same rights and accountable to the same civic standards. we have to do our part, too.

poetry

sunrise - louise glück
riddle - alice oswald
letter in april - marie t. martin
the poets awoke - m. nourbese philip
note blue - kyle dargan
homework - allen ginsberg
on the pulse of the morning - maya angelou
of history and hope - miller williams

books

the republic - plato
as a government & political science major, this book about the domain of culture, moral psychology, and power that shape souls and societies — was my gravy train. a yale professor once said that every term, at least one of his students’ life changes after reading this book. rings true because it’s rereading has reaffected the way i think, talk, write, and live. may all great philosophers have a student like plato to immortalize their words.

lincoln: speeches and writings: 1859–1865
finding this book was a joy. it includes presidential messages, proclamations from his rise to the presidency to the end of the war, the gettysburg address, the emancipation proclamation, and the first inaugural address. but i most love the hundreds of personal and political correspondences he wrote in his lifetime.

a promised land - president barack obama
dive in to his early days. what educated his mind, what titillated his spirits, what molded his heart — his time at occidental, columbia, being a professor of law at chicago whilst being a civil attorney, state senator, and a family man. you’ll also hear the story about how he came to give his famous speech at the 2004 democratic national convention for john kerry’s run. also, has glimpses of his hilarious romance with michelle obama.

the prince - machiavelli
this political treatise from the 16th century was the next book in my college gravy train — a foundational text in political philosophy, known for its ruthless, realist approach to statecraft that separated politics from ethics. his “ends justify the means” aka realpolitik advice that rulers be both strong and cunning, appear virtuous but be prepared to act contrarily when needed — may not be what i want my children to learn, but i’d want my children to read to better understand how the political systems of the present world came to be.

a history of god - karen armstrong
this is a brilliant book that misses nothing in surveying the history of religions. tremendously educated and well-read, she also talks about literary figures, philosophers, and reformers that drove the religion movement. ‘yearning,’ said augustine, ‘makes the heart deep’ — this book explains the historical implication of this emotion.

the uses of enchantment: the meaning & importance of fairy tales - bettelheim
our lives are shaped by fairy tales whether we’re aware of it. the author writes charmingly about its effects on the psychological development of children, and how its used to help them understand and cope with complex emotions and inner conflicts like sibling rivalry, separation anxiety, good vs. evil, etc. she analyzes classics like cinderella and arabian nights to show how they provided a symbolic way for children to work through their anxieties to find meaning in life.

mythology – edith hamilton
this 1942 perennial bestselling-book retells timeless stories of greek, roman, and norse myths for a modern audience. not an academic analysis but more a focus on the myths, it covers creation myths, stories of the trojan war, hercules, odysseus, and more. a foundational text for most college & high school mythology classes.

the odyssey – homer
the cornerstone of western literature, and the original hero’s journey. a racket of themes of loyalty, cunning, war, family, home — that’s lasted nearly 3000 years. a beautiful, mesmerizing slow read.

films

first amendment movies

shattered glass (2003)
this was a silently shocking movie to watch. true story about former new republic reporter, stephen glass, who faked almost all his stories.

erin brockovich (2000)
one of my favorite julia roberts films and a true story about a tenacious paralegal with no law degree instrumental in building a landmark case against pg&e for groundwater contamination. she will dress the way she wants and speak profanity with pride, and proves that you don’t need a stamp to make a difference in the world. honestly my hero and writes about environmental concerns on substack.

spotlight (2015)
one of my all-time favorites. true story of boston globe’s investigative journalism team uncovering the catholic church’s widespread child sex abuse and subsequent cover-up. brutal but beautiful performances from mark ruffalo, rachel mcadams, john slattery, micheal keaton, stanley tucci, and liev shreiber.

the post (2017)
speilberg’s take on the washington post publishing the pentagon papers, exposing the the government cover-up of the vietnam war spanning four presidencies who sent young american boys to a war that knew they’d lose — all to protect image. excellent ensemble cast of meryl streep, tom hanks, matthew rhys, bob odenkirk, bradley whitford who’s hilarious as a mini-villain & jesse plemons.

all the president’s men (1976)
great segue. washington post reporters uncovering watergate, leading to nixon’s resignation.

frost/nixon (2008)
a natural follow-up. the historic post-watergate interviews between british journalist david frost and nixon.

dark waters (2019)
this haunted me for a month. inspired by an nyt magazine article about robert billet, who is fighting, to this day, a decades-long battle against dupont chemicals over pfas contamination. pfoas (8 carbon atoms linked to a chain, used to make teflon) are forever chemicals that are indestructible and cancer-causing, and now found in 99% of all humans. so please do everything you can to prevent its contamination in your life — it’s mostly water but also plenty of other things.

september 5 (2024)
beautifully shot and extremely hard to watch. the 1972 munich olympics hostage crisis, told from the perspective of the abc news team covering it live.

good night and good luck (2005)
i’ve always loved this smoky black-and-white movie telling the true story of cbs news journalist edward r. murrow publicly challenge mccarthyism. journalists risking their careers to defend democratic values. amazing ensemble cast of clooney, rdj, and more. one of the executive producers is also my wonderful mentor of many years — one of the rarest execs in hollywood.

the insider (1999)
a deeply unsettling true story about a tobacco industry whistleblower (crowe) and the cbs producer who risks his career to protect him (pacino).

fictional but socially relevant:

network (1976)
an absurd classic about ratings, spectacle, and corporate control of the news.

broadcast news (1987)
a romcom to lighten the mood.

wag the dog (1997)
a satire about spin doctors manufacturing a fake war to distract the public from a presidential scandal (hoffman, de niro).

in the name of the father (1993)
the wrongful conviction of the guildford four (day-lewis). devastating.

the pelican brief (1993)
grisham thriller. julia roberts uncovers a conspiracy tied to murdered supreme court justices, with denzel washington’s help.

a few good men (1992)
my favorite movie of all time. inspired by real military hazing incidents. a must-watch. rest in peace, rob reiner <3

essays

the book’s the thing (the hedgehog review)
how should one read a book? (the yale review)
what’s happening to reading? (the new yorker)
the dawn of the post-literate society (james marriot)
the curious notoriety of “performative reading” (the new yorker)

postscript

the postscript includes annotations from my journal, a playlist, some ordinaries, and some comforts.

annotations & marginalia

after years away from keeping a diary, i’ve returned to it. last month’s entries circled around these scribbles and questions:

• what is the purpose of a writer? i don’t think it’s to evoke emotions but rather, to inspire clarity. through that, if one has emotions evoked, that’s fine. if a writer aims to make someone cry or laugh or itch — the writing becomes expositional.

• we are so hungry for knowledge yet never satisfied with it. i think true satisfaction comes from acquiring the right knowledge — following a syllabus.

• we need to stop romanticizing one-sided love. people have misunderstood dostoevsky’s white nights. the point wasn’t the beauty of longing for what you can’t have but how quickly he got over it — because it was never mutual or real. letting narcissism masquerade as romance is a cultural failure.

• peace is fragile. it can come and go shockingly fast. and it always arrives with the promise of permanence but that’s such a slight of hand. there’s no such thing. all of life is a perpetual wave of good and bad days. but it does that because it wants to be with us at all times. the difference is whether we are ready to reach for it at all times.

tapes

ordinaries

ritual of note: eating the same thing every day

i had the same breakfast every all of november. two semi-boiled eggs, avocado with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, turkey bacon, and a naval orange.

the same lunch: hearts of palm, avocado, and chickpeas with lemon squeeze and olive oil.

the same three dinners: baked fish with olives, tomatoes, lemon, and potatoes; baked chicken with mustard, potatoes, and parsley; and flank steak with grilled squash, roasted rosemary potatoes, and asparagus.

i still crave the same although i’m trying to switch it up for fun.

comforts

congee
my friend made this for me with century eggs, baked fish, carrots, and acorn squash (good for the eyes). years ago, when i was going through something painful, he made me a congee platter for breakfast every day. “it’s sick food,” he said. “and you’re not feeling well.” it’s now my favorite comfort food.

chrysanthemums
easy-to-care flowers.

manuka honey
it’s the best everyday honey.

letters to milena by kafka
my favorite new form of reads. his emotions are palpable.

vinegar solution
great for stain removal when mixed in with baking soda.

dandelion tea
i love this tea — it’s dark red, and great for your liver.

the paris review interview archives
a new pastime.

beige
i don’t care about trends but this color calms me down.

wall calendar
first rule of analog living.

this dutch painting from of a slightly ajar door (artist: de vries):

i’d love to hear from you.

did you watch the films i listed? read any of the books, poems, or essays?did any of my annotations or comforts stay with you?

did you like the artwork?

that’s all for now. see you next time.

best,
tulipe

the slow philosophy

a chic guide to reading, intellectual intimacy, and media literacy — as well as personal philosophical essays. best for those who feel alive in secondhand books, slow films, beauty, and quiet hours. weekly reading guides and monthly postcards.

By tulipe

on the shelf

dear jane books is my official bookshop. all books linked are directed through it. proceeds support independent bookstores.

a semi-serious preface

despite being pulled in a hundred directions last month, i still found small, steady pockets of sanity and joy. i cooked. i read. i journaled. i rested. i walked for no reason except to feel the air shift and to chase squirrels. i revived two lost arts: slow reading and ceremonial matcha. i meditated. i pilates-ed. i ate clementines. you know, all the essential jollities of life that we normally shunt to the bottom of the modern to-do list.

it was, surprisingly, a very good month, and i credit that entirely to you. through this publication, i’ve been fulfilling my lifelong (hyperbole) dream of being a serious philosopher who seriously philosophizes the notions of modern life, and writes incessantly about it. i don’t want to be someone who talks about it like some holier-than-thou who, underneath it all, isn’t serious at all. and so i wanted to preserve it and mark the month properly — to make a kind of lookback book as archival evidence of the seriousness of my work here. this is the first in a new series of monthly postcards that will allow me to do that. i will share all the ways i consumed — books, films, journals — so you can, too. i will not be including, however, any embarrassingly dizzyingly, terrifying moments from the month in which i may have greatly failed at my own philosophy by living the fast, shattered-glass, spilled-my-morning-tonic-all-over-the-kitchen-rug-and-my-cat’s-food-bowl-whilst-trying-to-shake-it-like-a-cool-bartender life. you will not be reading about those.

this month, i include a mix of mini-essays, lists of books, movies, music, recipes, rituals, journal prompts, and actual deep conversations i’ve had with friends — who, despite the fact that I’ve become the person who sees one fallen leaf and immediately rethinks the meaning of life (and wants to discuss it over the phone), continue to join me for sunday brunches. I dedicate this postcard on these kind-hearted enablers.

below, please find a tiny table of contents. i’ll include these whenever applicable, as i believe it’s an integral part of my academic work to convince you that i am, in fact, a serious slow philosopher.

prologue

art corner

a respectable dutch family, freshly fed and spiritually primed for round two at church. the mother handing a prayer book to the younger child and the girl beside her clutcheing her starched cap and fan like a tiny puritan bureaucrat. it’s a tableau of domestic virtue that would make any calvinist beam. the longer you sit with the painting, the more it hums with quiet existential menace. look at the mise en abyme — paintings within paintings, art within more art. i count six in total. and on the mantel: five little decorative vessels. but then: right above the mantle, the large landscape of a ship at sea, a dark sky, a suspiciously theatrical shaft of light slicing through the gloom. disaster a mere storm away?

mini late night philosophy essays (the unfiltered edition)

below, you will find not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six mini philosophy essays on various topics. one of my slow living rituals last month was to reflect more.

these days, information barrels toward us at a velocity that all but discourages lingering with it, let alone the antiquated indulgence of reflecting or — god forbid — writing about it.

in my ongoing bid to become an analog, slow philosopher (this month), i took to writing small bedtime essays on whatever topic happened to float my boat and tried my best not to think too deeply about it with the purposes of capturing the “hemingway raw” before the “hemingway with coffee” watered it down it the day. come read.

on gratitude
despite the fact that gratitude is one of aristotle’s most lauded ethical pillars, it unnerves me. to name something good feels like tempting fate, as though the universe might immediately spring it back to sport. it requires exposing yourself and standing unarmored, stupid, and gleeful in front of a world ready to hurtle cruelty. i guess i don’t want to look stupid. i don’t want to look naïve. i don’t want to look embarrassed. but i try anyway. for aristotle insists that the highest form of strength and happiness come from practicing the nichomanean ethics, of which, gratitude is a part. to find the courage to be grateful for something good that’s happened to you, unfortunately, falls under that. for instance, one way to do this is by letting something be real — to let it count, however temporarily. i know you’d rather look cool and aloof. same here. but i have come to terms with the fact that the ethical will never become cool unless we collectively petition for it to be. so please sign my petition gleefully. i’d be grateful.

on love
love is tragic — even the successful kind. if you’re lucky enough to find the resilience and commitment it takes to build a lasting, decent, honorable relationship — if no one lies, cheats, two-times, three-times, ghosts, or leaves — it still ends, because, and i only say this because i’m a serious philosopher (this month): everything does. (sorry, i know, morbid much, like.) love always breaks your heart, one way or another. yet, extraordinarily, humans keep doing it. we love despite the inevitability of endings, the small and large devastations, the endless parade of deeply educational films and books telling timeless stories about people getting screwed by love since the dawn of time. but we do it anyway. we love love. we love fate. the stoics called it amor fati — the love of one’s fate, and most of us practice it without realizing it. so do i. my theory is, if all of life is going to deliver its tragedies one way or another, i don’t have to make it more tragic by depriving myself of the chance to love someone wholeheartedly, and be loved (or cleanly shattered) in return. life is too short.

on power
i was watching ken burns’s documentary on the roosevelts and found myself flamed by fdr’s presidency. i can’t think of a leader more precisely matched to his moment — his voice, certainty, unflinching, testosterone-induced, preternatural belief in his own ability to lead the country and screw the enemies. there’s a strange seduction in that kind of steadiness, the public performance of a man who never doubts himself. you want to be lead by that man. and yet, as it so happens, beneath it all, is a story of a simpleton. beneath the statesman is a man who was, in many ways, startlingly human — ordinary, flawed, disappointing, occasionally small. the infidelity. the secrecy. the retrospective lies. it is without doubt that eleanor’s political instinct and moral courage were among the secret sauces propping up fdr’s success, but history, forever preferring a singular genius and ever fond of a lone hero, rarely applauds the woman who held the scaffolding in place while the country went to war. why is power always hiding something underneath it? is there something inherently wrong with it? it makes me wonder why it so often comes with a subtext: something concealed and uneasy. is it the nature of power itself, or simply the nature of the people who reach for it?

on wanting power

let’s play a game called guess how serious i am. do i want power? it kind of feels vaguely indecent and weird to say yes. especially as a woman. i’m pretty sure i’m supposed to say no — if i don’t want the vitriol. i think it is my moral duty to be kind and not averted to power. i am not saying it, society is, and i’ve still got to live in said society. i don’t want power. you can keep it. or give it to the next president.

on weakness
speaking of bill clinton, i’ve read the biographies, and by god, his betrayals long predated the scandals we remember. i met him once, at a leadership program his foundation ran when i was in college, and he was every bit as charming as they say. whatever he said to me, i am almost certain that i remember word for word. he was present, kind, attuned — disarmingly human. say what you will about the controversies that shadowed his life (and continues to, as the man cannot escape them, and probably knows that by now), his presidency — one of the best in history — did indeed show how deeply he cared for people he promised to serve (this would be in spite of that welfare reform bill, but let’s not dwell on all bad things today). but maybe he is proof that charisma, without an internal anchor, can only carry a person so far. at its core, this is a story of weakness. we’re living in an age where men like david harbour happily recast their cheating and general moral entropy with words like “obsession,” “addiction,” “compulsion,” while the labour of understanding and emotional digestion falls neatly into her lap. his ex-wife lily allen’s latest album is spinning women’s heads the world over, and if you haven’t had a chance to listen to madeline, consider this a public service announcement. so let’s call a spade a spade, weakness weakness, and depravity depravity. potatoes will potate, tomatoes will tomate, cheating men will cheat, and with any luck, their moms will tell them to stop before their poor wives have to.

on marty
president obama is actually the only one I’ve seen plainly admit it in his memoir, a promised land — that there might be a kind of megalomania involved in wanting to be president, or at the top, or famous at all. it leaves me thinking if there is a pattern of powerful men drawn to magnetic women, and then, somewhere in the ascent, the air shifts. what happens there? is it better, in some pervasive way, for men to choose someone with low self-worth if that’s their preferred emotional terrain, rather than partner with a woman with self-worth and watch it turn into shambles? it’s too late into the night for me to take a definitive stance on the psychology of this. but either way, i know i refuse to play the politics of “this is normal” and “every man is the same” in this digital moment we’re all meant to be navigating, because history proves that’s untrue. take ruth bader ginsberg, and the man who never once flinched at her light. marty is the dude who would accidentally win “woman of the year” in a feminist magazine. aristotle wrote that love is two souls choosing the same good. rbg’s husband, the angelic marty ginsburg, seemed to understand that better than most philosophers ever did. maybe that’s why their story moves me more than any political victory or stupid, tedious scandal.

on empowerment
this october, i watched films about women who don’t vanish into someone else’s life or who, at the very least, did the hard job of fighting against that ingloriously unpleasant prospect. i’m grateful for that, and for every woman who carved a path wide enough for me to walk unafraid. dignity is not something bestowed by someone else, but ours to hold. devotion doesn’t mean erasing yourself or slipping into the background to be trampled. let’s please stop defining women in such egregiously stupid ways. when it comes to women, i always like to quote my girl eleanor roosevelt, whose own daughter, impressively, helped her dad cheat on mom (that ****): “there’s a special place in hell for a woman who does not support other women.” true. true. and true. we didn’t deserve eleanor any more than eleanor deserved fdr. but per aristotle, i’m not going to bed ungrateful that we got her anyway.

interlude

what i watched…

theme — “power & empowerment”
mona lisa smile, on the basis of sex, hidden figures, the help, erin brockovich, legally blonde, veep, matlock, genius: einstein (national geographic, 2017), the perks of being a wallflower (idk, i just threw it in there — isn’t every movie about power?), inside the roosevelts (PBS), bill clinton’s presidency (PBS)

what i read…

books

jane eyre, by charlotte brontë
braiding sweetgrass, by robin wall kimmerer
the code breaker, walter isaacson
a short history of medicine, steve parker

find these books listed at dear jane books. (supporting local bookstores)

essays

“the art of fiction” — henry james
“george eliot” — virginia woolf
“a humble remonstrance” — r. l. stevenson
“the decay of lying” — oscar wilde

articles (news/research)

“college and the “culture war:” assessing higher education’s influence on moral attitudes” — miloš broćić, andrew miles (university of toronto)

“why do we agree to take off our shoes at the airport?” — the conversation

“how giorgio armani mastered the art of outfitting Hollywood stars to sell clothes to the masses” — the conversation

deliberations & discourses

annotations & marginalia from my journals…

• i spent a lot of time last month just plain reflecting. and reflecting on that.

• i started journaling every night. my favorite new prompt being: “what belief about myself, others, or the world did today subtly support or subtly challenge?”

• i created a sacred little reading nook for myself — comfortable floor seating, a throw, a lamp, tv playing light jazz — to read, reflect, and write. it. is. heavenly.

• i’ve been thinking a lot about critical thinking — and how i used to be really good at it back in school when writing essays and participating in the debate teams and such. over time, of course, my skills have dwindled significantly.

• i started keeping track of the great conversations i’ve had with friends and loved ones. read below for the topics we covered.

• i decided to call a spade a spade, weakness weakness, and depravity depravity. this might be my new religion.

memorable conversations i had with friends…

conversations come and go. i hardly sit with them long enough anymore. but last month, i did.

• oscar wilde vs. henry james — an awesome friend of mine went ahead and read both the essays with me and we were left with no choice but to sit down for half a day to compare and contrast these two wildly successful people who possessed wildly different approaches to their art. when two people are both successful, what metric do we use to determine who was more right and who was more wrong? we came up with several ideas and one of these days, if i feel up to it, i might write it up in an essay. i think i’ll call it “an essay that came out of two better essays.”

• taylor swift and the sociology of parasocial fame — what are the repercussions of a wildly successful public figure holding a significant sway over a large swath of the population? i discussed with two friends of mine and we came to the conclusion: quite a bit. i even wrote an essay about it. i don’t like that our children will read the wrong shakespeare through someone’s pop lyrics and as a future mom, it is emphatically going to be the hill i die on.

• gratitude and how it changes memory — we are a mosaic of what we were brought up to believe was normal. when you can’t rely on your own mind to reflect on your past accurately due to its ability to edit events (a form of coping from trauma) — what do you rely on? a deeply moving conversation with a friend suffering from PTSD and my own unreliable memory made me delve into my contours of my own mind in a way i hadn’t before. that said, i’m never doing it again.

• long-distance friendships and emotional rituals — can long-distance friendships be tagged under the same category as proximity-based friendships? if not, what exactly sustains either kind of friendship? over a 4-way phone call with childhoods friends in three different parts of the world — we ventured into a heated debate and i got the bashing of my life once i was made to rightfully realize that i had allowed the simple act of making an effort get in the way of lifelong friendships that deserved to be nurtured more closely. a bashing i deserved. grateful i have friends who bothered to bash me. (i’m getting pretty good at this).

• naming your different selves — a brilliant friend of mine had me do an exercise to think about the various stages of my life as a different person altogether. i ended up naming each person — and even went so far as communicated with each of them distinctly. an inception of brilliance, that felt like a warm hug. when you feel alone, remember that you’re not — there are versions of you out there in the past and the future, your forever companions. rely on them more, and ask them how they feel about what you’re doing in your life right now. time is nonlinear. let einstein guide you home.

• evolution: theory vs. law — after watching a video where beauty queens were asked if evolution should be taught in schools and most responding with “no” and saying the age old fallacy of “it’s a theory, not a law” — I was especially impassioned to have a full conversation about this with a friend who had a different school biology curriculum than me. when i studied AP biology, evolution, chapter 23 of the textbook, was not only the topic of our summer-before-term reading, but also the accelerated first chapter we studied. our teacher knew that without it, no layer of biology can be truly understood. grateful to the state of massachusetts and new england in general for their riveting standards of education — one of the best in the country. please sign my petition to have more beauty queens from there.

• the education system and who it serves — basically part and parcel of the conversation continued from above. i understand now that saying it “should serve everyone” makes me deeply politically controversial, radical, and incorrect. sorry.

• why education doesn’t always make people smart — i had this conversation with my amazing nail artist while she painted by nails. she is as talented with her art as she is with her chatter.

• beowulf and masculinity — i had this theory (not a scientific theory, just a rhetoric one), that we have been reading beowulf all wrong. this is something that has made even some of my most critical and hard-to-maneuver friends tilt their heads. so i think instead of telling you about it here, i’m writing a post about it — will publish soon.

• art criticism — i wrote about this recently, it trudged from several conversations i’ve had with various friends and of course, culminated into an essay about keeping nuance alive in modern society. here’s a post i wrote about it. LOVE having friends who inspire essays in me. GRATEFUL!

• honorable mention of topics that we didn’t talk about whatsoever: organic substances detected within water vapor plumes from enceladas, saturn’s sixth largest moon. a possible biosignature of extraterrestrial life under the moon’s icy surface.

epilogue

what i made…

here were the familiar rotation of favorites

- white fish baked with tomatoes, kalamata olives, garlic, capers, and potatoes
- chicken breast with castelvetrano olives, medjool dates, and potatoes
- flank steak with grilled zucchini, squash, and homemade chimichurri
- cinnamon chicken with acorn squash and onions
- coconut chia seed pudding with blueberries
- oatmeal with banana, honey, flaxseed, and peanut butter
- homemade matcha latte with oat milk and vanilla
- popcorn with dates tossed in
- air-fried potato chips of every flavor i can toss it in: oregano, paprika, cracked pepper (should out to michael, the unrelenting potato chef who promises to deliver and refuses to quit)
- buckwheat tea
- cocojune yogurt
- peruvian chicken with homemade avocado sauce
- salmon rice bowl with edamame, avocado, red onion, lemon
- spicy chicken piccata with capers and lemons and wine
- dates with almond butter
- pear with manchego cheese
- chickpeas tossed in good olive oil, flaky salt, cracked pepper, and a squeeze of lemon

halloween menu

- salted kaya toast (gem of a dish)
- potato chips with spicy vinegar anchovies
- turmeric sesame labne dip
- buttered multigrain toast with trout roe, lemon zest, and herbs
- smoked trout dip

favorite day of the month…

i went to three markets in one day to get specialty groceries for cooking our chosen halloween menu. the french market for coconut jam for the kaya toast, the mediterranean market for labne, and the fish market for fresh trout roe. can every day be like that?

self-care & rituals…

sweet almond oil, infrared heat therapy (magical pain relief)

let me know if anything above resonated. i’d love to hear from you.

thanks for sticking around. g’bye for now!

love,
tulipe