Some days I miss you more than I remember you. Some days I remember you more than I miss you, and I don’t know which one is more painful. I’m going to let the pain of exile erase this distinction from my vocabulary. I’m going to let the pain of exile devour all the pains.

The ideal modern human and the ideal religious human share a common aim: independence from other humans. The former seeks it through self-reliance, the latter through reliance on an infinite other. In theory, the self-reliant should be more arrogant: “I am my own best provider.”/1

“A whole civilization will die tonight…” I’m so tired of reading his words and telling myself that he is a lunatic…maybe I’m a lunatic…what sane person can read this while having no access to their whole family under this threat and still act like everything will be ok? I’m not sane…I’m not ok…

Reading a quote from a ‘proud Islamophobe’ doesn’t shake me, but reading it while knowing she has influence on the lunatic running this war does.

“And then we need to make the people beg on their knees for humanitarian food assistance from the international Red Cross so that the people force Iran to surrender to the US.” Laura Loomer

If you’re going to rage-tweet a war, at least learn the difference between “reign” and “rain.” 🤡

Ten years ago today, I became a mother to an amazing soul.

-Mum! What are you doing these days without any internet connection? +I sew…I sew a lot…

Salve for the soul-6 youtu.be/ipemfEvbth0?...

The best moment of the day: when he’s asleep and I lie beside him, smell his small head and wait until I feel the warm energetic pulse on his neck… when I can finally tell myself that ‘you’re safe, we’re safe’ and believe it.

I wrote this two years ago and came across it again today. I was thinking the passion for survival is probably so strong and addictive that once you’ve fully developed it, you can never turn it into a passion for life. That’s why staying in survival mode for too long is dangerous.

Today, Tehran…

I wrote about good imaginary interventions, ugly rallies, bad politicians, and the moral snobbery tearing Iranians apart. Please have a read and let me know what you think. open.substack.com/pub/somayeht...

Salve for the soul-5 youtu.be/eriJu-goXEw?...

“We negotiate with bombs! You have a choice as we loiter over the top of Tehran!” said a senior official of a major Western country in the 21st century!

The situation is so ridiculous, surreal, and messy there’s no need to even joke. I just saw a tweet by Ghalibaf, the most militant and corrupt official rumoured to be negotiating with Trump, retweeted by Larijani, who was assassinated a week ago! Apparently the afterlife has better wifi than Iran.

If I wanted to promote a stereotype about Iranians, it would be that in any crisis we laugh as hard as we cry. Yesterday, I finally managed to have a proper talk with my dad, and he couldn’t stop joking and laughing about what’s to come.

I was watching this knitting competition on Channel 4 and one of the knitters said “I’m probably perceived as being quite quiet, but I’m just soaking everything up and seeing what I can really do to be really loud with my knitting, albeit being quiet myself”. I loved it!

Salve for the soul-4 youtu.be/kmxUXVJ6VUo?...

The idea that one’s political project should not be an extension of their personal trauma is as appealing as it is absurd, much like the idea that science should be value-free. Activism is inherently emotional, and detaching it from personal trauma is not possible./1

By Anna Cunha annacunha.com

Join us at LSE for a panel on the ethics of foreign intervention, with Kieran Oberman, Jonathan Parry, Paola Romero, and myself, chaired by Alex Voorhoeve. In person and online. www.lse.ac.uk/events/inter...

I opened Instagram and the first story was from a friend from my undergraduate years, reporting that she had lost her dad in the recent strike. As the missiles hit closer, they become more painful. I’m ashamed of having an extension. I’m ashamed of being here.

When the outside world perfectly reflects my inner world…

This video was published less than an hour ago in a channel that broadcasts videos that people manage to send from Iran. They are targeting oil refineries. This is very close to my parents’ apartment. I can’t contact them. I can’t breathe.

A graveyard of civilians killed on the very first day of the war: over 150 students, aged seven to twelve! I don’t even know what to demand of the world! Don’t leave us alone with the IR! Don’t leave us alone with Trump and Netanyahu!

Larijani, one of the main, if not the main, figure in the team replacing Khamenei, has his PhD in Kant’s philosophy of mathematics, and given his religious background, I can assure you he is a ‘proud Kantian’ and therefore, the worst of the worst!

Khamenei is dead!

The war between two incommensurable evils should be considered a natural catastrophe. An activist is not obliged to choose between the two evils. The most meaningful cause for activism is finding a way to prevent the catastrophe from becoming more catastrophic without empowering either evil.

“May God bless the brave men and women of America’s armed forces. May God bless the United States of America.” And I don’t give a fuck whether God or my bombs bless the people of Iran. Only God knows how much I hate you! To hell with you!

“To whom shall I entrust you, so the wind won’t scatter you to dust? To whom shall I entrust you, oh home, so you won’t fall to ruin…” Oh… to whom shall I entrust you…

I wrote this two years ago and came across it again today. I was thinking the passion for survival is probably so strong and addictive that once you’ve fully developed it, you can never turn it into a passion for life. That’s why staying in survival mode for too long is dangerous.

I guess one can be passionate about surviving without being passionate about living. I also have the intuition that the worst thing a social order can do to a group of people is to turn their passion for life into a passion for survival.

I miss you and I always think of you as a role model…

Another salve for the soul…the fearful soul… youtu.be/KvzewZYo3Fk?...

I think activism for any cause always starts by opposing political power. It begins through negating an action or policy, and the sad thing is that it often remains just that, a negation. It rarely, if ever, offers a solution./1

This has become the symbol of Valentine’s Day on Iranian social media. A woman saying her final goodbye to her partner, killed in the January massacre.

Research papers are like tattoos on your intellectual body. If you don’t attend to them properly, they get infected. Half-understood ideas sitting uneasily under the skin. I finally have time to sit with a few old ones. It feels like a cat licking old wounds.🐈

Alice James told her brother Henry James that, could she have her close friend Katherine Loring “quietly and uninterruptedly for a year to relieve her of all responsibility, she would get well”. Alice was diagnosed with hysteria and Henry cruelly surmised that her illness was a ploy to keep K close