As you hit the post button, the blue bar appears at the top of the Instagram screen. Once it’s sent, you are now under public scrutiny. The heart beats a little faster in anticipation of the likes and comments. What will people think of my outfit? Am I posing awkwardly? All these thoughts start to run through your head. Self-love can be challenging in the age of social media when high exposure to media enforces an “ideal physique.” Even without social media, however, most of us have possibly looked in the mirror and made mental notes about our appearance or perhaps things we wish to change. I know I have. The internet simply magnifies these internal thoughts and broadcasts them as external voices from others. However, social media has also played a pivotal role in the rise of campaigns for body positivity. Magazines and companies are heavily involved in online marketing by expanding plus-size collections and promoting customized workouts and diets for different body types. Now, the body neutrality movement has emerged. In contrast to the body positive campaign urging people to love their bodies, body neutrality is a moderate approach to self-image aiming to move beyond our reflex approaches to judge appearance positively or negatively. Anastasia Amour, a self-love coach, claims that if people aim for “total body bliss,” they will inevitably feel like failures when they fall short of achieving such a goal. Instead, she argues that we can develop skills to neutralize “disordered thinking” by directing our focus from “I must love thy body,” to “This is my body, and I’m okay with it.” To put it in simpler terms, Amour believes body positivity can be summarized as “love yourself,” and body neutrality can be defined as “underthink [thoughts related to your body].” The body neutrality movement is supposed to feel more liberating and dispel toxic positivity ideals. However, something as basic as stressing less about your body may be more restricting and complex than it appears. These days, it seems taboo to say you wish you looked different. When I tell people, perhaps, I want to lose a few pounds to get to my best self. My standards to feel my best seem to devolve into self-criticism. People ask why you need to lose weight. Or better yet, tell you to stop worrying about your bodily appearance. Many celebrities, such as the “The Good Place” actress Jameela Jamil has shared their take on body neutrality. Jamil claimed, “I don’t think about my body ever... Imagine just not thinking about your body. You’re not hating it. You’re not loving it. You’re just a floating head. I’m a floating head wandering through the world.” I ask myself this question: how can we learn to accept ourselves while blocking out all thoughts regarding our bodies? Ignorance does not solve anything. Furthermore, is it wrong for me to love my body? What if what I love is imperfection? We’ve come a long way from shifting beauty perspectives and creating a positive atmosphere for embracing our bodies, but we should perhaps reconsider how these initiatives are framed. It is often difficult to stay neutral because the internet campaigns compel you to adopt a position. You are either praised as an ally or chastised as an opponent. People should always be allowed to make conscious decisions to embrace who they are. The climate around body acceptance has revolved around “be grateful for your body,” “every body is unique,” and many more. Although this change in attitude can be encouraging, it does not change the fact that the journey to self-confidence is personal. Everyone moves at their own pace and should not feel rushed in any particular way to follow the mainstream movement.

https://www.instagram.com/pethiopan I wander the seas and the skies alike To find an answer to the hole inside My feet grow tired from my travels As my heart grows grander and unravels. Time moves on, years go by I have no luck yet I try This day is done, but still In this loveless dark I cannot lie. So, I search the stars as I look to the sky Hoping the answers to love are way up high And I search down below the sea But I find instead the fountain of youth, still no luck just suffering for me. I scour the earth and the moon alike But the space between them, is but nothing to the hole inside, My heart grows thin and weak From the unattainable love that I seek. But my hope is in tact In fact, I will still search for love a bit From others that have loved But now, they lack it. I visit the broken, the sad, the melancholy and the mad But none have what I need Because the seed that will sow the love and give me the air I breathe, they can't provide and I can't reach... I wander the seas and the skies alike To find an answer to the hole inside Love is love, wherever it pleases, it will reside It is I, that is too stubborn and blind Who cannot look inside It is I, that love already within me that I cannot find.

This topic is important to me because I feel that if I forget to say Bismillah before any task, either it feels incomplete or that task becomes meaningless after a while. https://www.instagram.com/p/ChkSqLIPfK5/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D

The theme was fear; in all humans, we're scared of what we don't know. The one thing no one knows all about is the future. It's unpredictable, and that's terrifying the future could be filled with joy or danger, but no one knows. However, spending all your time worrying and panicking about the future doesn't let you predict it. We push ourselves every day, slowly destroying our intrinsic motivations. Wearing ourselves down physically and emotionally just so when report cards come around, we see that A+. Because if I don’t get that grade, I can’t graduate, and if I can’t graduate high school, I can’t get into that prestigiously, obnoxiously rich university, and if I can’t graduate from said prestigious, obnoxiously rich university, I can’t get a job and if I can’t get a job and fall into the never-ending, constantly working system that is capitalism then… What is the point? What was the end of psychologically torturing myself since 14 for a piece of paper that apparently determines my future? What was the point of endless nights with no sleep for a class I couldn’t care less about? All the sacrificed relationships and never going out just for a 4-digit number summarizes my intelligence. All of this work for the future, for a future that we don’t even know? The world is burning up; will it even be here by the time in 25? Animals are dying. Pestilence, famine, war, and death are all around us; it seems if one piece of society is happy, it must come at the cost of others. I finally got those flashcards; they took a whole day to arrive! Thank God that the postman didn’t go home to see his family and was instead able to drive to the factory and get it to me first thing in the morning. The postman’s family: Well, I can’t feel guilty. He applied for the job. He must have known the hours, and so must his family. It’s not my problem. You work to live; that's just how the world works. Or is it the other way around? It doesn’t matter; it's probably his fault he has to be a postman. If he worked harder in school, he wouldn’t be stuck in a dead-end job in an apartment too small for him and his pregnant wife. I’m not a bad person, I reposted a global crisis on my social media, and last Christmas, I spent 1 hour at a homeless shelter. I am a good person. I am a good person. A hardworking person. A determined person. Maybe if that postman had a higher sense of self-efficacy, his life wouldn’t be the way it is. Graduating college. No more excuses as to why I don’t have a job and stable income, a family, or a house. It’s all up to me now. But I’m just 22. Did you know the brain isn’t fully developed until someone is 25? But I’m just 22? No time for excuses. I am a good person. A hardworking person. A determined person. How was college? It was a fantastic experience that I wouldn't change for the world. All the nights alone, crying about a quiz on mycology, psychology, and all theologies. The party life was terrific. I heard. I never experienced it but I mean what the fun of going out with your friends and meeting new people is? There are more critical things to focus on; college isn’t forever. Getting a job? That’s easy enough. I worked hard in college, never skipped a lecture, and went to all the alumni meetings. No one could possibly be more qualified than me for this position. They’ll get back to me in two weeks max, and once I get that job, everything will be smooth sailing from here on. “We’re sorry to inform you we’re looking for a candidate with more personality in their application.” What? Personality? Per… personality? But I’m qualified. I did everything right; how is this possible? The rent’s getting a bit expensive. I’m going to need to pick up a job quickly, But this is just a minor setback! I’ve done everything right; this will all work out. I am a good person. A hardworking person. A determined person. The post office is hiring, god these hours are horrible but a job is a job.

https://www.instagram.com/minuk_art In this painting, I wanted to show the records of Asian civilizations through a single point-of-view perspective. Elements like architecture, daily lifestyle, traditional buildings, and festivities are shown to immerse the viewer into the past, represented in black and white in contrast to the present times, represented as the colored room they may be in when looking at this artwork.

Hermanita, I will always sit next to you. I will always follow you with my hands outstretched, knowing that our fingers are threaded through with strings and knotted together in the middle. We always follow each other, hands flying up over things, minding the delicate thread and never tearing it. Our strings catch little things in the air like strangers’ social cues and the damp remnants of a thunderstorm. We sit on old benches and pass food between us, making patterns of crescent moons with our teeth. We share elusive scraps of colored paper and fresh ticket stubs, sticking them into our journals and leaving the glue stick uncapped for one another. When we board the bus to Mazamitla, we weave through the aisle and collapsed, shoulders pressing and knees bumping. I'll let you take the window. I always let you take the window, and I’m happy to sit there next to you and think about what it means to be an older sister. We sink into ourselves, split a pair of earbuds, and I teach you to braid with the strings coiled in our palms. French. Dutch. A braid with four pieces. Five. I’d teach you one with twelve if you asked. When you fall asleep, I tuck my sweater between your neck and your shoulder. I gaze over your hair and out the window, wishing my slow blinks could capture the deep green in the hills, wishing my slow breaths could ease the pain of knowing you’ll never be this little again. And when the bus pulls into the station at Mazamitla, I’ll wake you. We’ll walk every inch of the plaza, leaving a part of ourselves in the lilting cobblestone and mid-July rain, and you’ll give me the window seat on the ride back home.

https://www.instagram.com/cynnysays?hl=en The underground DVD store around the corner turned into a bar and maybe that’s why a little part of me died today. It’s like Blockbuster, my brother said. Streaming services are more popular and no one is renting DVDs anymore. The quality is also not comparable. 720p is its best. And I get all that I do, but why do I also want to cry and yell and scream and shriek like a little kid again? Why do I wish I could’ve visited the store one more time even if there aren’t any movies I haven’t watched or movies I even want to watch and just walk around the aisles reaching and touching and reading every blurb and synopsis? Even if nothing intrigues me and the trip is a bust, I wish I could’ve breathed in the stale and slightly dusty air once more and feel the chill from the ac and look at the indifferent cashier reading his own novel wishing he were anywhere else while I wished I could shrink the whole store and fit it into my pocket and carry it with me to my childhood bedroom. Maybe put it into a box and lock it so it’s safe and quiet and there. But now it’s an underground bar and a niche little hangout spot for cool hip people to gather and chat about nothing and everything and it might seem like a great thing, but I don’t want a free shot for every five even though I just turned legal two months ago. And I should be happy that I have a new place to go to but I can’t stop thinking about all the weekends and maybe late weekdays if the mood is right when mom would take us to the store and let us choose any DVDs we want to rent but usually two is our max. One for me and one for my brother because we could never agree on anything. And we would go home and play it in our DVD player while we fought over whether the machine was actually on or not and who should microwave the popcorn. He was always better at both but he let me participate. And we would watch it and laugh or maybe just sit in concentration and we were both too small to fight over legroom so we would sit in peace and eat in peace and watch in peace and giggle together and we didn’t want to be anywhere but there. Right there in our living room with our DVD at 720p where the world was spinning and we were smiling and nothing else mattered. But the DVD store turned into a bar and it looks quite nice but I don’t think I’ll ever visit even though the deal does look quite tempting and the decor looks carefully chosen. I haven’t even seen what they did with the whole place, but I just can’t bring myself to go because I still love the world in 720p.

Sometimes to be black is to be born into slavery. It is to be declared guilty for a crime you know nothing of. Sentenced to a life of constant running and fighting, proving that you’re not metal or steel, that you feel. That you’re just as human as the person next to you – capable of pain. Shall I cut open this vessel so you can watch it bleed, I promise I’m deserving of this air I breathe. Sometimes to be black is to stand before a mirror and watch a reflection point a gun at you and shoot without flinching. It is to carry this feeling of hate as you sit in your body, and you don’t completely understand why but you have labeled yourself a failed experiment, a disease this world needs to eradicate. Sometimes to be black is to wonder whether your destiny is a tombstone engraved “murderer” “thief” “criminal” “pauper” or just another in line to die by the hand of a white man. Or a black man, who has forgotten we’ve already suffered enough together we’d be destroyed apart. Sometimes to be black is to cram your mother tongue on the way to a village whose history you barely know of. You fear they will call you the child engulfed by a city that is not her own. You’re wiping your mouth of every trace they will never know how deep your teeth sunk into the white mans’ food. It is to dust you lips off from every language that is not your own, hoping that this time you would connect with the old strong tree that is your grandmother. Roots thick and so deep into the ground she calls home. Her wrinkles, A map of roads she longs to walk on A land long gone, a time she may never know again. In her minds eye she holds blurry stories of the past, Full to the brim with conviction. Sometimes to be black is to practice how you will explain to her that freedom was only an illusion, that it’ll take many more generations to escape the mental prisons that we still live in. how do you tell her that the oppressor she sang of in struggle songs has a different face now? How do you tell her a man who calls her mother and looks like her is wreaking havoc in countries. Sometimes to be black is to watch a man who shares the color of your skin stare you down. There are armies of him at every turn. Has nobody taught him of his history? Does he not know the graves of his ancestors clang and clutter. Their cries have birthed activists and protests. Does he not know- You may kill the body but the spirit lives on. Sometimes to be black is to pray, But still wonder why a God whose name is love would brand you with such a mark. You don’t know how it is you will survive the rest of your days as an outcast. With this weighty baton, this cursed inheritance that keeps being passed on in this seemingly eternal relay. But if only you knew. It is only the artist that names his art. It is only the creator who says what his creation is. You were taken from the cloth perfection. you were made in the image of three in one, In the likeness of God you were formed. Every inch of you speaks of the goodness of God. You are evidence that His hands craft beauty. Skin, Powerful enough to absorb the sun. Eyes, a gateway to a soul rich in culture. Hair, a crown passed down from old like a sacred family heirloom. A God whose name is love, fashioned you into a being worthy of admiration Sometimes to be black, is to learn that you are not less than, power and greatness lie within you. The heavens marvel at how magnificently you were formed. So should you.

This is a world I picture when I think of my favorite fantasy worlds. It's dark, gritty and cobblestoned, and the characters are all struggling in some way. This piece employs elements of magical realism, and I chose to twist pollution (smoke, vapor, etc.) into a source of creation. How it's used is up to who wields it, as with all tools. It's a quiet story, but one that alludes to the complexities of morality, the impact of human activity on our environment, and draws portraits of people who navigate a cruel world in their own ways. https://www.instagram.com/sheenzbeenz?hl=en His bike rattled over cobblestoned streets, skittering a bit on loose gravel. He slowed a good distance from the factory to marvel at the way it had managed to look even angrier than yesterday. Puffs of smoke came from round, imposing chimneys in erratic bursts, and nearly all of it dripped down the bricked walls with a burning fervor. With more triumph than an orphan should ever conjure, Willis dropped his bike next to his designated pipe and scrambled in. “Ohh, we’re in for a good one,” Willis whispered to the boy next to him in line. Several of them had been mushing about in a lackadaisical manner, but a cycle later, the portly man strode in. The machinery boys counted time in cycles. The mechanical arm that stretched out above the factory floor pumped at a constant pace as they worked. Finish breaking up the coal before two hundred cycles. File out to eat in five. It would be almost triple that before the day would finally end and a few meager coins would enter their pockets. “I’ll not warn you again,” the portly man drawled around his cigarette as the boys scrambled to stand, straight-backed as floorboards, in a line. “You will finish this batch before the next shipment, or I’ll cut your meal in half.” “Maybe you should cut yours,” Charlie muttered under his breath. Willis tensed, praying on his buttons that his friend hadn’t been heard. He wished Charlie could have the good sense to patch his mouth shut the next time his threadbare shorts ripped. “Dismissed.” “Lots today?” Charlie circled Willis as the other boys trailed to their stations. “Hush,” Willis hissed. “You could be a little more discreet.” The nickname “the machinery boys” was a bit of a misnomer. They didn’t exactly run the machinery—no one would trust twelve-year-old boys within a mile of such big, dangerous things. No, they mostly stood at the sidelines where stations for coal-breaking, needle-threading and engine-oiling had been set up, large mechanical contraptions thrashing all around them. The neighborhood kids only called them so because they always emerged from the large factory with hands greased and eyes puffy from squinting, much like a seasoned mechanic after a day of intimate work with wrenches and nails. Willis did like to think he was quite a professional when it came to his work. It was approaching five hundred cycles, and the boys all hunched over to still their growling stomachs. The Counter of the day, Thomas, was particularly dizzy. “No more numbers, ever,” he moaned. “I’m only uneducated filth!” Willis, whose excitement had begun to wane, was now bursting with anticipation once more. “Stay with me,” he whispered to Charlie, and they dallied around until all the others had left. The few adults who wandered occasionally in and out to keep the boys in check had been the first to leave. Then, paperboy cap bursting with expectancy, Charlie tailed Willis to the base of a ladder. It leaned against the far wall with no safeguards and stretched far above them, but the machinery boys feared nothing. They climbed like acrobats, bounding up with lithe agility. The latch at the top swung open to dark fog. They spent the little time they had grabbing fistfuls of the smoke and stuffing it haphazardly into the knapsack Willis had been hiding in his overalls. It was particularly heavy today, the texture like rich silk—not that either of them had felt silk before—and weighed substantially in the satchel. “This’ll fetch us a whole dollar or two,” Charlie trilled eagerly. “You see? I’m good at my work.” It was to the boys’ immense satisfaction that the sky seemed to get brighter the more they took. They moved in tandem, humming and working the only way they knew—like machines. As they toiled, soot fell gently like powdered sugar over their grimy heads. Without the mechanical arm, they couldn’t measure time well, so they took turns sliding down the ladder to check if anyone had returned, only to ascend impatiently once they saw that the coast was clear. Finally, when even their pockets couldn’t handle any more cramming, they lumbered down the ladder with significantly less grace but loads richer. - - - - - Lena rubbed at her back and neck. A day of ironing garments had made her joints stiff as a bursting kettle, and even with her knees screaming about, she had more work ahead of her. She bent to pull the rug aside, and the latched compartment beneath slid aside to reveal piles of smog and smoke and sulfur coiled tightly in neat bundles. Here was her real work, and she was damn good at it. Rivulets of sweat converged on the damp towel at her neck as she tugged out her materials. Her job was a heavy one, but so were the winds of life alone as a woman, and her business helped act as sandbags against these uncertain, vicious gales. A series of knocks came at the door, one long and two in rapid succession. When she answered, a boy who reached no higher than her chest looked up at her, so filthy that standing there, he resembled her shadow. “Today’s haul,” he said, hefting up a bursting bag. She smiled, said thank you, and dropped twenty-five cents into his outstretched palm. “Ma’am,” he paused. “You must feel today’s haul, ma’am. It’s like no other.” A bit indulgently, she reached in to grasp the smog inside. To tell the truth, there was no need to assess what he’d brought. Lena could easily harvest polluted air anywhere in the cramped city, at much freer a cost. “This is nice,” she said anyway, adding a dollar to the boy’s hand. He bowed, paperboy cap to chest, grin ablaze, manner crisp and proper. Lena noticed that from where she stood, the boy was positioned so he perfectly coincided with her own shadow, her silhouette cast over his small form in a way that dimmed his shiny demeanor. Before she could shift away to see that bit of light again, he had risen. The little boy turned and danced away down the filthy street, feet never touching the ground. Back in the confines of her room, she emptied the satchel. Out poured wisps of dense, velvety smoke, which she deftly worked at, spinning and threading until it resembled inky cocoons. Lena liked to think of them as cocoons, for they were bundles of potential waiting to burst in her hands. First, she made blankets. They were made from lighter vapor, grayer and more voluminous than the average, and, with the steady clicks of her large wooden needles, she soon had it fashioned into a swathe of misty fog. She gifted these to orphanages and the homeless, so they can lie low for a night, hidden and undisturbed. Then, she made cloaks. These were stitched from the heftier, more gritty material, and slid thickly, like the dregs of sewage pipes, as she knit. The final products bore a dragging weight and left a bitter taste of iron so strong it congealed as blood on her tongue. Lena spent most of her time on the darker shrouds. They weighed heavily at her fingertips, on her shoulders and upon her heart when she wore them slinking through the night delivering these bundles, but they were necessary. They paid for her hard bread and safety from drunk, violent men who promised to protect her. They made her sky brighter. So, each dusk, she snuck under a shroud of malice, a mere smudge against the grimy bricked backdrop of her city. She slipped into its most unsavory parts like a shadow, there and gone, depositing one more shadow on the doorsteps of business magnates and political bosses. What they planned to do with her cloaks, she didn’t bother asking, as long as due payment was delivered without fanfare or fuss. There was, after all, more heavy pollution than there was kind fog in Lena’s streets, and she did her best to tame the darkness with her needles the way wizened wizards wielded their wands, with expertise and a dash of reluctant obligation. She recognized that her job led to more shadows lurking at night, but it was nothing compared to all the waste the mills around her chugged out. She cleaned up after greedy robber barons who polluted her streets, and she was damn good at her job. Lena was bent over her latest cloak, reworking a stitch that had slipped off her needle when, from the corner of her eye, she saw something slip beneath her door. It was a smudged envelope, a wedge of tar where a seal should be. From it, she pulled out a note and twenty dollars. After slipping the money into her apron pocket, she scanned over the note, then promptly tore it up and scattered its remains out on the streets so it mixed with the gray sludge that muddied the cobblestoned paths. She couldn’t burn the contents—the city was in a state of such permanent dreary dampness that it would’ve been more suspicious to raise a fire. What a crime that something burned with fervor so blatantly. This latest order had been imprinted on Lena’s inner eyelids, as every other order was, to maintain discretion as her clients tended to stipulate in their deals, but this one tugged at her mind and twined around her stomach, stretching her tolerance taut. A small shawl, sized to fit a small child no taller than two canes. She couldn’t help but see the little boy from earlier, a miniature playing at being a man. He had held himself with such simple assurance—a young charmer, for sure. Lena knew the happenings that took place in her city’s winding alleyways and darkest corners. The little boy had no place there. She had been able to push through the irony tang that flooded her mouth every time she knit with dark smoke, but now it flooded into her eyes, obscuring her sight. Her eyes watered, and tears dripped down her perpetually grimy cheeks, leaving streaks like bleach burns behind. She continued anyway, working her stitches by touch. Her blindness didn’t matter because, if there was one thing she knew, it was how to navigate the dark.

The whole idea makes me feel, like a star. A star that can’t sustain life. Nor destroy. Once invisible, my life explodes. Maturing me in the process. I look back and see, the calmness of age one; the inclusiveness at age three. I look back and see; The wonder in my eyes at age five; and the fable-like simplicity of age nine. As age twelve slips from my life, I see darkness in my soon to be age. Even if thirteen brings money, fame, adoration, and love; I know that darkness will soon follow. My universe isn’t filled with; the twinkle of older friends. For I know, That twinkle also meant the slow arrival, of death. As the trail of light behind stands frozen. This is the end of rosy cheeks and the labored breath from the game of tag. This is the beginning of looking at life. With wisdom and love. It seems like yesterday was my day of anxious waiting, for thirteen. But now that it’s here it fades the meaning of childhood. And grants me. Adulthood.

I like to think of myself as shattered glass. When I look at the different pieces that make me who I am, I don't think of myself as being broken; but being resilient and glued together by experiences such as love and hope. This is a painting for when it's hard to recognize yourself in the mirror, and a painting for when you're struggling with self love. https://www.instagram.com/minuk_art/

Fragmented, in Full Bloom is a piece I made about self awareness. https://www.instagram.com/leonsrandoms/