The next things are coming into shape. Writing and editing and sharing. Quietly. Here we go.
Author Archives: Dipika Kohli
I think these are similar ideas, if you get down and focus on what matters most in each. I’m not a worker worker, per se, as I have not held a day job since 2005. I wish I could say that this was easy peasy but it was work, actual work, to keep going in a way that felt the most honest, to me, personally. Which was to enjoy work. To enjoy making, to create and co-create, with just the handful of people whom I would choose, at any given moment, to make and create with me.
Crisscrossing
In a cafe in Aarhus that had a name that started with a ‘J’, where I met later with my friend A., who told me that it was strange to see me in his hometown instead of some back-alley guesthouse like where we had met in Kampot, Cambodia, which I could only understand when someone from my ‘other’ world came recently to the one I am, so yes, rambling sentence having completed itself. I shall carry on with my idea.
Which is me. To do that. To carry on with my idea. There in Aarhus I first heard it, from some art students: ‘What you are doing? It is relational art. Google it.’ And I did.
Work, for me, was this: to discover what good, no wait, what incredible ideas could be. Not ideas though. That’s not it, either. Finds. Feelings and finds that the feelings that I didn’t know I could have got… called up. The remarkable: have you read any of Nicholas Roerich‘s Invincible Now? It’s in there, and it’s in the lectures of J. Krishnamurhti, who said never to quote him, but whose lovely story about a birdsong being a lesson really moved me. And others I told it to. Including a professor, K., who had taught me a lot about life when we were both students.
I think going and seeing, discovering new ways, focusing on how to enjoy that which is yet to emerge is so, so incredible. Merging into it. Occasionally. Teaches me new things, too.
Art of Work is learning. For me, the work of art is to bring the outcomes to the fore.
Let’s go. Let’s get it.
The new, the near, the now, and the next.
To the journeys!
-Dipika K.
HT AP and KY
The work of art, the art of work
A new series of writing prompts is coming up. Its theme is ‘safekeep’.
It’s not too late to join this conversation, which is interactive. Apply here.
Safekeep
This word, or a variation of the idea, has been recurring in conversations online and I wanted to focus on an 8- or 12-week conversation with the people who have been interested in discussions around it. In the online workshop I host every so often when a theme emerges.
The workshop is called The Mirror.
I’ve been hosting it semi-regularly since 2017.
2020’s Mirror was ‘Interactive Papers’
Maybe for allowing people some room to discover, through the art that I have chosen for myself which is journaling, what it is they feel internally and how they can communicate more closely with themselves.
Naturally there are plenty of people doing this online everywhere, but my way is… well, my way. Kismuth is for me a way to try various experiments in writing from the heart. Being an engineer by training, I like processes. The design intent is emergence: we talk about what’s coming up, as it does. The writing prompts are crafted each week, based on what those of you who take part are sharing. It’s like that. Interactive. confidential and everything gets deleted, at the end of the 8- or 12-week set. It’s USD160 for either option.
You can start by applying to see what you think.
For the next Mirror, you can apply.
More from there, if it’s a fit.
Mirror | ‘Safekeep’
I made a new mailing list for 2023. It’s called #landsonthemoon.
The signup page is here:
https://mailchi.mp/cc5b14f7ad8f/readyset
Focus
I like writing to people but I prefer writing to people who are really interested in conversations, with me and others whose paths they might not have crossed. I know there are myriad ways to get that need met if you are someone who loves new input, as I do, but for me, Kismuth conversations, and DK’s S P A C E ones are the best because we get to making something together. Maybe a zine, maybe an art piece that’s a curated set of others’ musings, as we write and discover things together. Talking is nice.
Traveling is fine. But making meaningful connections isn’t easy. So I’m getting us together online, for that.
Intent
Next for me is to interconnect those people with whom I’ve developed rich relationships. Many of them I’ve met on my travels in these years in Southeast Asia and Northern Europe since I left the United States for the third time, 10 years ago. Was trying to make popup shows, on the road. Hit and miss, this effort.
I am going to focus in on something I have been doing since 2014: interconnecting people online, through my ways of doing that. Hosting. This has been fun. Kismuth’s Cojournal Project, for example, led to real life connexions that were born of the experiment to talk together in online circles of 4 or fewer. The Jigsaw Method that I was part of in fifth grade and also various aspects of Open Space Technology, which I learned about in 2014, helped me think up a way to get people together asynchronously over emails alone in those early days. Things grew and changed, but I’ve backwards innovated to get back to the plain ol’ email space for connecting for Cojournal, because it works.
Zines, Podcast
Let me try to keep this going on building meaningful, conversational spaces online. Also, in real life where I am, when I feel interested enough in doing that again. It’s going to take some time. I have been enjoying, meantime, making the first few episodes of a podcast. It’s at dipikakohli.com.
ZINES. The invitation is always there to co-create zines, with me and others too, for as long as I keep #spacethezine going. If you want to see what projects I’m running online and that you can join in, currently, see the #spacethezine crowdfunding page. That link is:
http://chuffed.org/project/spacethezine
Checkit.
Kismuth Connexion
Wow.
This makes me want to re-do every cover at Kismuth’s small collection. I didn’t really know that you have particular styles and matches of typefaces for styles of writing. There’s so much to learn since the time I started making books at Kismuth, in 2012.
I think Wattpad has come a long way, too.
So much to look into.
Book cover designer gives quick lesson on YouTube
The quote in the image above feels right, for this moment.
I will put it into the Cojournal. More at the end about that. Talk there.
***
Slowing
This last week, I got to really slow down and see the place where I am now with fresh eyes. It was lucky that I could, and did. Sometimes you need a little nudge to set things into alignment.
I got to go through some articulating, too, of difficult moments in the last 1.5 years. Most of this time I was processing the weird moment that was a 20-month ‘waiting indefinitely’ for the pandemic to ‘end’ while national borders kept me cut off from the people from my past, my culture, my home, my life. The one from ‘before Vietnam,’ anyway.
Out in Ho Chi Minh and before that Dalat, I had to forge a new life, out of thin air, resourcefulness, bartering, asking for help, grit, and the beautiful thing I discovered in only Vietnam when it comes to the remarkable capacity of people to band together and help each other. Neighbors. ‘In Vietnam, the word neighbor is more important than daughter,’ TL had said, over email. She was part of Atelier S P A C E in Dalat, the first few months after the borders closed in 2020 I was there, waiting, and gathering people for zinery. (Still at it, but virtually now.)
District 3 in HCM became a kind of base. Not that I will say I miss it, because it’s not my home, but it was familiar. The way mountains of a terrain you know after viewing it for a long period become familiar, or the hills of southwest Ireland can because you drive through the same ones at the same times for many days. See The Elopement.
Living in Solitude, I observed. I studied on my own. I listened and listened out for how to hear the sounds of Viet Nam. This was important because it helped me with survival. Yes, basics.
And I saw, too, a lot about collectivist culture’s up sides, having grown up in the United States which loves loves loves its ‘rugged individualism.’ That stuff will not get you home-cooked meals from across the street, secretly delivered tickets to get out and walk about when you feel so, so stuck, eggs that you can’t get without such tickets, free pineapples in the market because you’re really quite stuck and looking so, language lessons, shoulders to cry on, translation help for your zines, a fair exchange rate on dollars to dong at the jewelry place that knows you now and has a kid that reminds you of The Dive which is why you go there to give them your money, waves from your VinMart friend who sells cigarettes in front of it after lockdown lifts and oh that’s why you hang out here becomes obvious while you acknowledge each other, waves from the bakery person who you buy the same thing from, waves and even a joyful, teary goodbye from the person who prints your zine for you week after week after week after week and one time, a US election ballot.
I fell. I landed. I caught myself. I grew.
Cojournal
***
WHAT IS COJOURNAL? An ongoing conversation for people to meet, talk, and discover things together over emails. International, and asynchronous. It’s no more than four people per circle. Also, there are 12 prompts ready to go for you, and to get them, you can register through the link below.
COST. It’s USD $10/week, pay-as-you go. You can cancel anytime.
Here’s how to sign up.
Register with PayPal >
Falls
I love when people enjoy writing and make the way for themselves to get into it. I can’t read everything everyone sends me, for review and comment, but I welcome people into the Cojournal Project space so they can get to know us, me, and, if we’re lucky, themselves.
Cojournal started in 2014. Since then, I’ve seen people change jobs, change relationships, and move to another part of their country, through the simple act of writing their feelings, telling me what they think, and listening for the feedback.
It can be an important ‘third place,’ somewhere that is not work, and is not home, for people to engage in a new way with some as-yet unexplored parts of themselves. I feel that way, anyway. I feel that way and that’s why I continue to invite people to take part. Here and there, every so often, someone says ‘yes’, and through the exchanges we discover our way to something…. new.
Write with me and up to three others, in a small circle, every week.
WHAT YOU GET. 12 writing prompts over email and a small group assignment. You’ll get the chance to write together, or to share your writings with, if you opt to do so. You have the opportunity to connect and hear other people’s perspectives. (If no one is responding, I will: I’m here for you as an accountability partner.)
This project is ideal for the very curious, people who welcome international perspectives and want to engage with ‘something different.’ The idea is to have a place to talk.
In a safe, not-work and not-home kind of place .
There are 12 prompts ready to go for you, and to get them, you can join through the PayPal link below.
COST. It’s USD $10/week, pay-as-you go. You can cancel anytime.
Here’s how to sign up.
Register with PayPal >
Cojournal | 10 weeks of writing in a very small circle
From the book, Your Money or Your Life, this early-chapter excerpt:
‘Even if we were financially able to turn our back on jobs that limit our joy and insult our values, we are all too often psychologically unable to free ourselves. We have come to take our identity and our self-worth from our jobs.
‘Our jobs have replaced family, neighborhood, civic affairs… and even mates as our primary allegiance, our primary source of love and site of self-expression. Reflect on that for yourself. Think about how you feel when you respond to that getting-to-know-you question, ‘What do you do’? with ‘I am a ___’
‘Along with racism and sexism, our society has a form of caste system based on what you do for money. We call that jobs, and it pervades our interactions with one another on the job, in social settings, and even at home.
What I say when asked ‘What do you do?’
I say ‘I am a writer.’
People, even people in my own family, have tried to shame me for this. But, so what. There are some short stories I have already written, and seen people read, and respond to, and even shed tears by reading them. This is something. I have engaged a friend who always wanted to write to write something and write it until it was the way she felt good about it and then published it and saw her words get shared and that was beautiful, because then she died.
Dying happens.
Who has time to deal with the judgment of strangers, about what you want to do with your time?
A common scene is them saying:
Them: Oh, so what have you written that I would have read?
Me: Hm. Well, I don’t know. What’s the last book you read?
Them:
‘Your Money or Your Life’: Robin & Dominguez
There are tons of people writing, and writing about writing, and instapoetry became a thing sometime in the last little while and here we all are, ‘expressing myself’ through writing.
Mm-hm.
‘Expressing oneself’. Such a cliche.
Why is writing for that? Why is art for that? I wonder if people can appreciate the idea that sometimes there’s no ‘output’ or ‘outcome’ or recognition or anything like that which is required.
I mean, occasionally, it’s just because.
Art for art’s sake, et al.
Let me expand on this.
My writing is for me, mostly, and for people I don’t know who vibe well with me, and it
Why have I been writing since I was six years old? Why is it part of my daily practice?
Why do I care about writing? Or is it something besides ‘writing,’ and beyond ‘expression.’ It is, I think.
Let’s go into why.
For me, at those early stages, in my adolescence especially, I felt like writing was a kind of home. It was where I could be, just be, honestly and completely, and utterly, and say anything.
It was good for me to have a place like that.
As I got older, I could write more and even send letters. I did send a lot of letters in the 90s. To find out. What was going on, within. Sharing with a recipient in mind helped me get more steady.
To articulate things, while building the practice and writing-endurance, let’s call it, you need. This matters so that later, the right words appear, and through that, then show you things. Specifics, of things about you that become more clear, with time. Practicing in this way, and learning your own best practice, through the process, you can clarify.
Through the clarification, then you can make better choices.
And through choices, which include deliberate motions away from either going outside of the boxes when that’s what’s best for you or taking chances and saying ‘yes’ when you don’t know the outcome, you can see who it is that you are becoming.
A friend in the cojournal project in 2015 had said she read something about that. The question to ask in life is:
Did you become yourself?
I like this.
Journaling and writing with others, in writing circles
I kind of got really into writing about flow, the other day.
I blogged into the late evening and well past my usual falling-asleep-time, which I have been paying attention to, due to research and interest lately in circadian rhythms.
Rhythms of all varieties.
Creative flow-making is getting into the zone.
Circadian rhythm-heeding helps let your body optimize for flow-starting states, too.
So it’s related: art and making, and how we take care of our bodies’ natural rhythms. I like this.
From my notebook, about Circadian rhythms.
. Why is it important to pay attention to Circadian Rhythms? My understanding from skimming text is disease prevention; during sleep, we repair a lot of things that could otherwise go haywire. The body’s incredible ability to heal itself is doing its big lifting while we sleep. I think that’s what they’re saying. I’m checking with experts.. How much leeway is there in the scheduling thing to still be healthy? I kinda sometimes just don’t want to be on such a tight schedule. It feels boring. Actually, the more I read about how to do this correctly, the more I see my grandfather’s lifestyle.
Sleep well. Eat well. Keep to a schedule. Exercise, rest, and repeat.
Cojournal : ‘A Life Well Lived’
Is a life well lived this?
Exploring, in Cojournal of late.
Making the rounds and enjoying the energetic starting, that come from having systems developed an respected to get you ready to make, move, connect, enjoy, engage, and create?
I’m in flow, these days. Which means, for a time, I’ll go offline. Except for The Mirror and Cojournaling, I’ll be away for a bit, with the quiet, simple and comfortable spaces. With friends, comforts, and the good stuff.
Love the life you have; live the life you love. Where did I hear that before? I’m wondering now. As it flows back, into consciousness, from a back-portal and archived memories.
Rejuvenation.
ir
Connexion, conversation, and the movement between the both
I love this Tagore quote.
Butterflies and moments. Slowing down to recognize where we are and how we are doing, together, is very nice. I used this image when I first started up the series Mirror in 2018. I was in a small guesthouse in Melakka and it was the start of that year.
New reflections in Mirror
I like it. When we start talking and getting more and more connected because the topics are of interest to all of us; that’s why I have an application for it, so I know what to design for. And to. And it’s good. It also feels like a nice time to announce the next one. I’ll offer a free trial for it, this time. Internet is hard to trust lately and I understand. So here we are.
Mirror is 100% virtual. Used to be just email, but things are changing up a bit for the summer series because, well. Voice calls are nice. And we talk.
You can register for a free trial. It starts in May. Register your interest.
Here is a link.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-mirror-tickets-609176081057
More from there.