Friday Five: May 2, 2025

It's Gonna Be May

May 02, 2025

Hi Consumers! We made it through yet another week. I’m back with your Friday Five, the weekly roundup of joyful, cathartic content from across the corners of the internet and my mind.

Short Film Excerpt: What better way to start your day than with color? This is an clip from the legendary Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s short film Rangha, or The Colors. The film is meant for young kids to learn the colors in the context of the beautiful world around them, but there’s something both soothing and satisfying of the visuals for grown-up me. You might be able to watch the full thing (16 minutes) on the Criterion Collection!

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Poem: It’s always a good time to read some Rumi. Here’s The Guest House, which feels ripe for spring and somehow reminds me of advice from my amazing therapist (who I saw remotely this week for the first time since moving, it was a treat!).

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This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Song: Self Esteem, aka Rebecca Lucy Taylor, makes music that feels validating and raw all at once. I learned of her on a work trip to London years ago where she was interviewed on some morning show, and as this song played I stopped in my tracks transfixed by her. She’s got a new album out now, “A Complicated Woman” and I cannot wait to dig into it this weekend. She also seems to love East Enders just like myself, which I’ve only really gleaned because whenever I go to follow an actor from the show on Instagram she’s already following them. Rebecca, I adore you and cannot wait to see you perform now that I live in London!!

Relatedly, this is a Self Esteem double feature, because her confessional in the ‘View from a Bridge’ series is extremely cathartic. Allow me a moment of vulnerability here: I am undecided on whether or not I want to have children and that indecision takes up a lot of my headspace. It’s something I’m consumed by, as time ticks on and as the pressure I’ve imposed on myself just seems to continue mounting.

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“When are we not on some sort of treadmill?” resonates so deeply. The treadmill starts when you’re a kid and it’s about achievement, it goes into teens and it’s about friendship and building some sort of identity, into adulthood it’s finding out who you are, finding your purpose, finding a vocation in life… The treadmill sometimes feels like a hamster wheel. If you’re feeling that weight or that indecision, or feeling a different kind of time-pressure, you are not alone in this.

Joyful Internet Content:

Look at these tomato cakes from Seoul! WOW!

eatnunchi