Iman Mohamed
@iman
storyteller, strategist, lover of rest and play
Iman Mohamed
practicerestinleisure.substack.com
“What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation.
When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its... See more
When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its... See more
A quote from Beauty
approch to self discovery
“When I was a child, luxury was fur coats, evening dresses and villas by the sea. Later on, I thought it meant living the life of an intellectual. Now I feel that it is also being able to live out a passion for a man or woman”
Simple Passion, Annie Ernaux
May we all be lost in the desires and the indignities of our hearts, drowning in all-consuming passion.
I love all the ways we are sensual. I like to smell good, taste everything yummy, feel how alive skin is, listen to sounds of breath and pleasure, see the beauty of flesh and bones. Laugh uncontrollably. Play. Feel alive. My body has the capacity to sense immense pleasure, and as I get older I keep intentionally expanding my sensual awareness and... See more
If I were living purely from my body, I might have achieved ...
sensuality and human acts
Studying sensuality outside of sexuality will perhaps lead me back to sexuality, rooted in a return of power and control. A return of what I have lost.
The power of capital is in the voluntary surrender of its subjects to their own exploitation
Because power so often involves coercion, Han argues, there has been a tendency to see them as inextricable. But it is only when power is poor in mediation, felt as alien to our own lives and interests, that it resorts to threatened or actual violence.... See more
Because power so often involves coercion, Han argues, there has been a tendency to see them as inextricable. But it is only when power is poor in mediation, felt as alien to our own lives and interests, that it resorts to threatened or actual violence.... See more
Oliver Balch • Thought-tinkering – the Korean German philosopher Byung-Chul Han | Aeon Essays
We do the exploiting to ourselves, and we do it willingly. That’s the real flex of capitalism today — it doesn’t need to force us to work harder, hustle more, or optimise every inch of our life. We choose to do it, thinking it’s our own idea.
1.
Old-school power = coercion.
Think: dictatorship, threats, punishment. You obey because you’re afraid.
2.
New-school power = consent.
You comply not because you’re forced — but because it feels like you want to. It speaks to your dreams, your hustle, your freedom, your “potential.”
Rejection may be universal, but as plots go, it’s second-rate—all buildup and no closure, an inherent letdown. Stories are usually defined by progress: the development of events toward their conclusions, characters toward their fates, questions toward understanding, themes toward fulfillment. But unlike marriage, murder, and war, rejection offers... See more
Tony Tulathimutte • The Rejection Plot
Rejection is a lack of happening, there is no plot change you are exactly where you were. “tis better to have loved and lost than to never have been loved at all”.
he fundamental basis of this erosion of meaningful experience, argues Han, is felt at the level of temporality. The accelerated time of digital capitalism effectively abolishes the practice of ‘contemplative lingering’. Life is felt not as a temporal continuum but as a discontinuous pile-up of sensations crowding in on each other. One of the more... See more
Oliver Balch • Thought-tinkering – the Korean German philosopher Byung-Chul Han | Aeon Essays
Digital life speeds us up so much that we can no longer sit with anything — not art, not people, not even ourselves.
Without slowness and uncertainty, trust dies. Love dies. Everything becomes temporary and shallow, because there’s no time to build meaning.
love is a leap into the unknown. But when everything is designed to be convenient, optimised, and “safe,” that kind of love becomes harder to find — or even imagine.
Go to the Limits of Your Longing
Written by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated and read by Joanna Macy
Listen
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move
If what matters to us is what we’re concerned about, then play and rest is important. If what matters to us is what other people think or say or value, then it’s back to exhaustion and producing for self-worth.
Brené Brown • The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
Rest can’t come from a place of scarcity. Scarcity means you focus on the output, instead of resting or playing as a form of looking into yourself and honouring your divinity.
Most people don’t want to be perceived, they want to be approved of. And those are not the same thing. Real attention interrupts the curated self instead of confirming it. It creates the possibility of rupture, of exposure, of being mirrored back in ways that aren’t always flattering. And in that sense, to be deeply paid attention to, without... See more
Tamara • The Attention Economy Is Making Us Emotionally Poor
Do we know what we look like when we’re not performing? to really be seen versus to be liked or followed etc.