Fifth, without a morning call from my Mum, who always wanted to be the first one to remind me how happy she was I was in the world.

She would retell me the same story year after year of how the nurse brought me to her for the first time, and allegedly, I gave her a look saying, “You’re ok. I approve of you 😅”

While “I approved of her”, she saw the best in me regardless of whether I was the golden child who won every competition possible, the misunderstood bookworm kid, an obnoxious snob who “listened to it before it was cool” or a drunken teenager throwing up in the night bus.

This year, like the four previous ones and the ones that will come, I take my time to feel all the feelings, holding both the grief for the moments we’ll never get to experience and the gratitude for the rich, beautiful life I’ve built.

My life keeps getting better because, with every year, I learn to look at myself more and more often with the generous, kind eyes my Mum looked at me.

When I was about 10 years old, “Harry Potter” was all the rage, and I told my Mum I would write a bestselling novel too. Full conviction, no doubt about it. She gave me a notebook and said, “Go for it. Do you already know what you would write about?”

And I guess that’s my birthday wish this year - to remember both about that audacity of my 10-year-old self and to feel, seek and create that support, love and encouragement to pursue those new bold visions 💛

(Just in time, only 2.5 years since I started readinginberlin profile 😇)

What do I want to share with others? What do 3, 4, and 5-star ratings even mean to me? What are my criteria for choosing a book to read or a movie to watch?

I’ve jumped into this rabbit hole recently, after I came across a couple of review reels, published by some well-known cultural commentators. Frankly, I was really startled by how much shaming they could fit into a 120-second reel. The overall message was that if you enjoyed this movie, you have no taste.

I know that shock value feeds the algorithm by encouraging a divided audience to generate more comments, but if we go one layer deeper … why?

I can see how my little cosy profile might want to use these tactics to grow (I won’t, not my vibe), but well-established names, with thousands of followers, cooperating with esteemed media outlets …. pourquoi? (I won’t be sharing the names, that’s not the point).

Anyway. I guess I couldn’t get these shame-filled reviews out of my head not because they attacked me personally - I haven’t even watched the movie in question; but because at one point in time, I used to be a snarky snob myself, priding myself on my high-brow taste, smoking slim cigarettes thinking that it made me cool, and pretending I only enjoy watching Godard movies and God forbid, no blockbuster franchises or romantic comedies….

(That lost, insecure 20-year-old me would faint if she learnt that I watched Bridget Jones 4 about ten times last year, experiencing the full range of emotions, and I will surely rewatch it many times to come… or how many weeks I spent with my hockey boys at the cottage. And shared that publicly.)

Speaking of shame - God, it runs so deep into so many facets of our lives, even to what our tastes are and aren’t supposed to be.

Think of guilty pleasures - what does that even mean? Why should I feel guilty about enjoying something?

If, for any reason, I keep on rewatching/rereading it, then it must have struck some emotional chord in me. Joy, solace, hope, comfort, familiarity…. - whatever the emotion I am seeking, the creators and authors must have done something right in how they shared the story. Even if that story is a cliche.

When I was grieving losing my Mom at a relatively young age, it was through watching series like This is Us, where I felt seen in my pain. Or what a healthy disagreement without shutting down and moving away from one another could look like.

With that in mind, what kind of reviews do I want to share? What kind of reviews do I want to read?

Well, a review often says more about the reviewer than it does about the work itself 🙂 The lens through which you see the world, what you and your reticular activating system pick up, your belief system, etc.

I want to focus on:

• What I have learnt about myself and/or the world from it?

• What emotions has it evoked, when and why?

• Are there any open questions, threads I’d be curious to explore further?

• Language, choice of words, rhythm of the sentences, pacing, metaphors (or the music, scenography, costumes, cinematography, depending on the medium)

• Scenes I remembered and why these were the ones that stayed with me?

Some of these reflections may end up being very personal, and I might not want to publish them. It’s OK. I don’t need to impress anyone (anymore) about how cultured, well-read I am or how many reading challenges I completed.

That level of intentionality, however, takes time and space, and honestly, I don’t even want to exercise it for everything that I read or watch.

Even last week, I stopped a movie after 30 minutes, because I felt absolutely no connection to the characters or interest in finding out how their story would unfold over the next 90 minutes.

But is it something worth sharing? If I have absolutely nothing of value to say, I’d rather not post than criticise all the things I didn’t like. I know that I shared some reviews like this in the past - now I’ve checked in with myself and re-oriented.

I don’t want to be this kind of person who has never even attempted to publish any short story, let alone a novel, but knows best how to write a 5-star, Booker Prize finalist level of prose.

(On that note, it was from folks who never even entertained a thought of side hustle, let alone starting a biz, from whom I’ve heard the most advice about how I should run my business, client relationships, investments… 🙂)

Why am I sharing this stream of consciousness?

Well, because this Substack section is called After Hours, and I am a person who dwells on random topics in my pastime :)

But other than that, because we do so many things on autopilot.

Comment and consume on autopilot.

Move from one thing to another at lightning speed.

I know I did. It took me 2.5 years of running a book club/review profile before I sat with my thoughts as to how I want to show up online. In this noisy world, I at least want to attempt being more conscious about what I share with the world and why and challenge where I operate on autopilot.

As always, if this stream of consciousness sparked any feelings or reflections in you, let me know!

PS. Two books I keep on re-reading: a heartwarming one , a weird AF one. The first one’s a short novel, the second is a collection of stories.