juliana ong

I think about the relationships I’ve outgrown—because of my personal or political evolution—and how living in cities has meant I could let go of those relationships and form new ones. Whitney makes me wonder if that was the easy way out. I don’t think relationships need to be held on to forever just because they exist. Plenty of us have rightly... See more

“You can search and search all your life, but sometimes you need to realise you’ve arrived.”

I grew up believing what all modern people are taught: that freedom meant lack of constraint. Orthodoxy taught me that this freedom was no freedom at all, but enslavement to the passions: a neat description of the first thirty years of my life. True freedom, it turns out, is to give up your will and follow God’s. To deny yourself. To let it come. I... See more

This is maybe the single most important core of human psychology - people want to reinforce narratives about themselves. If you’re marketing, don’t sell them a thing, sell them a self image that your thing happens to reinforce.

“Yearning has been showing up in pop culture, with the succession of films like Netflix’s One Day , Bridgerton and the recently concluded The Summer I Turned Pretty all depicting the sweet torture of pining and longing for someone. And it goes beyond the media industry to manifest in the types of content we see brewing on social—people are... See more

I used to believe in the adage, “If they wanted to, they would.” But now I think it’s more like, “If they’re open-hearted, and open-minded, and curious, and not too cautious, then, maybe, they might. Or they still might not.”

“Are your opinions your own or are they borrowed, without thought or scrutiny, as you have been too lazy to form your own?”

Love, for hooks, is not a feeling but an ethical act, a conscious choice to engage in mutual transformation. To love is to take responsibility for one’s own and another’s becoming, sustaining relationships that enable freedom rather than dependency.

This definition allows for many forms of attachment but roots the concept of love in commitment: a... See more