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Being Hot and Having Fun With Amber Akilla
69 Plays8 months ago
The Queens are joined by special guest Amber Akilla to discuss the ins and outs of how to live your best life.
Follow Amber: https://amberakilla.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Female Dating Strategy, the meanest female-only podcast on the internet.
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm your host, Diana.
00:00:06
Speaker
And I'm Rose.
00:00:07
Speaker
And today, Diana and I continue to have another phenomenal guest that we're very excited to host, Amber Akila.
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome.
00:00:15
Speaker
Hi.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hi.
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome, welcome.
00:00:18
Speaker
How are you doing today?
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm great.
00:00:20
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me.
00:00:21
Speaker
Well, Amber, I'm really excited to learn more about you.
00:00:25
Speaker
I think learn more about you because Diana is the one who is really sort of the Amber Akila expert.
00:00:30
Speaker
Wouldn't you say, Diana?
00:00:32
Speaker
I don't know that I would call myself an expert, but I'm definitely familiar with Amber Akila's work from TikTok and from YouTube.
00:00:38
Speaker
And I just thought that she would be a person that is very aligned with the sort of messaging that we have.
00:00:44
Speaker
And just that, you know, the women that are listening to us, they're always looking for other women to listen to.
00:00:48
Speaker
And I've been listening to you for a really long time.
00:00:51
Speaker
And I just think that, you know, in general, you've had a very decentered approach to men.
00:00:55
Speaker
You've prioritized female friendships.
00:00:58
Speaker
You've prioritized radical self-acceptance.
00:01:01
Speaker
And I think that these are things that our audience is looking for as well.
00:01:04
Speaker
And I just thought that, you know, this is a really great fit because at the end of the day, I love introducing our audience to new women that they can also learn from.
00:01:12
Speaker
I remember really early on when the Reddit was out there, I remember, I don't know if it was a comment or if it was like on one of the main pages, but I remember someone said, you don't have to agree with 100% of what all the women say here.
00:01:23
Speaker
Like if you can take away 95% of that and it's useful to you and the 5% you disregard, that's still fine.
00:01:29
Speaker
And I think that we've lost the ability to be
00:01:31
Speaker
to have nuance and to critically think and to assume that we have to agree 100% with everyone's politics.
00:01:37
Speaker
I think that's a big part of the reason we live in such a polarizing environment now.
00:01:41
Speaker
I don't go into every interaction people are expecting I'm going to agree with everything they have to say.
00:01:46
Speaker
And that's one of the things I really appreciate about Amber as well.
00:01:49
Speaker
I think that she also approaches thinking from that perspective.
00:01:52
Speaker
She's just like, everybody needs a good dose of critical thinking and who better to call it than Amber Akella?
00:01:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker
Amber, in the pre-show, we were discussing as we normally do.
00:02:02
Speaker
We discussed like our outline.
00:02:03
Speaker
And one of the things when we were talking at first is I was like, well, Amber Akila, tell me all about you.
00:02:08
Speaker
And you did.
00:02:09
Speaker
You started with a bit of your life journey.
00:02:12
Speaker
And I was wondering if you would be willing to just introduce our audience to more about you in that regard.
Amber's Background and Influences
00:02:17
Speaker
Okay, so I am ethnically Chinese, but I grew up in Western Australia in a very small city in white suburbia.
00:02:27
Speaker
So my mom was a single mom working and she was like the sole provider as well.
00:02:34
Speaker
And I think that had a really big impact on the way that I see like a woman's role in society and
00:02:41
Speaker
and the responsibility and sacrifice that women and mothers make for their children and their family as well.
00:02:48
Speaker
So I also went to an all girls school.
00:02:52
Speaker
Like I basically grew up in Barbie land, essentially.
00:02:54
Speaker
Like when I watched the Barbie movie, I was like, oh, that's kind of how I grew up.
00:02:58
Speaker
Like just surrounded by women, cans and men in the background.
00:03:04
Speaker
yeah ask a quick question yeah with your mother so she was an immigrant to australia right and you said she had immigrated when she was just like a teenager basically yeah like 19 20 years old in the 80s a young woman in the 80s landing on the shores of australia are you an only child yeah i grew up as an only child
00:03:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:27
Speaker
And then with the all girls school that you went to, was that a public or private?
00:03:30
Speaker
Was it a religious, like a Catholic school?
00:03:32
Speaker
It was a private school, but Anglican.
00:03:36
Speaker
And my mom actually said that she intentionally didn't send me to a Catholic school.
00:03:42
Speaker
And maybe she had some like associations with Catholicism.
00:03:47
Speaker
I didn't want me to be in like a really strict religious environment.
00:03:51
Speaker
And, yeah, I think like we didn't have a really strong like religious agenda in our school.
00:03:58
Speaker
It was just like church or chapel every other week.
00:04:02
Speaker
And our priest would occasionally give us like ethics and religion classes.
00:04:09
Speaker
But, yeah, it wasn't like we were...
00:04:12
Speaker
praising God and Jesus every day or anything.
00:04:16
Speaker
So would you call it more like a sort of liberal, secular upbringing?
00:04:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I would say so, yeah.
00:04:22
Speaker
And I think that our teachers provided like a very diverse sort of like, they were able to present a diverse set of ideas to us and
00:04:34
Speaker
Obviously, if you're going to a private school, like most of the parents or the families are going to be more liberal minded, but the teachers are going to be more like left leaning.
00:04:47
Speaker
So they were still, yeah, like critical thinking was...
00:04:51
Speaker
highly encouraged and taught.
00:04:54
Speaker
So that had a really big impact on the way that I interact with information and see the world.
00:04:59
Speaker
And then also because I was like really into visual art and music, my English teachers had a really good
00:05:07
Speaker
huge impact on the media that I referenced and consumed for my projects.
00:05:13
Speaker
And then even though like our music director was a man, he was still like always very supportive and encouraging of me as well.
00:05:20
Speaker
So I think that I was just really lucky to be in that kind of environment.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:26
Speaker
In my formative years.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:28
Speaker
I come from a very Catholic background.
00:05:30
Speaker
And so when I hear that your mom was like, I'm not going to send you specifically, I'm not sending you to a Catholic school.
00:05:35
Speaker
I applaud her good sense.
00:05:38
Speaker
Especially considering like the history of the church with women is just so abysmal.
00:05:41
Speaker
I feel like she really made the right call with that.
00:05:43
Speaker
But it's so interesting to hear you talk about this.
00:05:46
Speaker
You didn't just discuss, but you were taught, you were trained in critical thinking because, you know, this is something that literally has never been taught in the United States that I know of.
00:05:54
Speaker
Like, it's certainly never been on any public school agenda.
00:05:58
Speaker
Never.
00:05:59
Speaker
And I didn't even realize that until when I was living in South America, I became really good friends with a whole bunch of philosophers.
00:06:05
Speaker
And some of them were for philosophy teachers.
00:06:08
Speaker
And in Chile, they start teaching philosophy in sixth grade, like when the kids are like 11 or 12.
00:06:16
Speaker
And the whole idea is like to learn about morals and ethics, logic and reason and critical thinking.
00:06:23
Speaker
And they start that while they're still preteens.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's amazing.
00:06:28
Speaker
It was amazing.
00:06:28
Speaker
And I was like, well, this no wonder I've been feeling like I'm missing out on something.
00:06:33
Speaker
And I went then to a liberal arts college and I got my degrees in the humanities.
00:06:39
Speaker
And still, that was still not something that was very common.
00:06:43
Speaker
And I just think oftentimes when people are like, what's going on in the States?
00:06:46
Speaker
It's like we are explicitly not taught to think critically.
00:06:51
Speaker
Yeah, like whenever we studied media in school, it was always like question everything.
00:06:58
Speaker
And like, how do you justify your point of view in an essay?
00:07:02
Speaker
When I was studying art, the way that the curriculum was structured and the way that we were told to structure our writing about art was to understand like the context that a piece of work lives in and also the artist context and how does
00:07:16
Speaker
that differ to the audience's context and what are the political and cultural influences that would affect an artist's like process and the way that the art is consumed.
00:07:27
Speaker
So that's actually had like a really big impact on the way that I also create content or the way that I come to not necessarily conclusions because I think it's a continuous exploration, but I read a lot about like political history and
00:07:42
Speaker
And then I think about how political dynamics affect personal dynamics.
00:07:45
Speaker
And there's always parallels because
Corporate Influence on Education
00:07:47
Speaker
what exists on the micro then extends into the macro.
00:07:50
Speaker
I still talk about this with my friends I went to school with.
00:07:53
Speaker
We had a climate skeptic, one of those really famous climate skeptics give us a talk at our school.
00:08:01
Speaker
Like we're in Western Australia in the middle of nowhere.
00:08:04
Speaker
And this like British, like Lord something, he came and he gave us this talk about
00:08:10
Speaker
climate change and like trying to debunk climate change basically and I remember I was probably like 15 at the time and I was sitting in this talk and I was like why am I here like why is this guy talking to us because it's like so antithetical to everything else that I've been learning in class and then after that talk I remember I think I had like
00:08:30
Speaker
geography class and English class that day.
00:08:32
Speaker
And both of those teachers were like, okay, so you guys received a talk today from this climate skeptic.
00:08:37
Speaker
Let's unpack his argument.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:40
Speaker
And like try to verify or debunk what he's saying to you.
00:08:45
Speaker
I think it was when I finished high school, I was listening to like independent radio in the car.
00:08:50
Speaker
And then there was
00:08:51
Speaker
a talk about like the mining industry in Australia, because mining is like a huge industry, especially in the state that I grew up in and talking about one of the billionaires from our state and how she had paid for a climate skeptic to talk at her high school that she went to at her alma mater.
00:09:08
Speaker
And I was like, wait, I was at that talk.
00:09:11
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that becomes clear, huh?
00:09:15
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:09:17
Speaker
You hear about, you know, the collaboration between like the private sector, the public sector, propaganda, how corporate interests like infiltrate education.
00:09:27
Speaker
And that was like the clearest example, like even in suburban Western Australia, like that was happening the way that corporate interests can infiltrate, you know, the minds of the youth and try to influence, you know, future like entrepreneurs and women.
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:45
Speaker
That's a really great point because I think that corporate interests do have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo as well.
00:09:51
Speaker
That's why they have a lot of like this birth rate, doomerism essentially going on in the world.
Feminist Awakening and Relationships
00:09:56
Speaker
Like it's like a big catastrophe if women don't continue to sleep with men.
00:10:00
Speaker
And like, I think that these like dating companies, these dating apps and stuff, they have a vested interest in keeping people safe.
00:10:05
Speaker
settling for shitty relationships.
00:10:07
Speaker
I think that billionaires do have, you know, a vested interest in making sure that women don't have agency and things like that.
00:10:13
Speaker
And I'm kind of curious to, you know, I know you say you had your feminist awakening really young.
00:10:18
Speaker
Like, how has that affected your relationships with other women?
00:10:20
Speaker
And like, you know, seeing as you always had this kind of different perspective, I'm pretty certain you probably felt like an outlier a lot of the times.
00:10:27
Speaker
Like, how did you deal with that growing up and like, you know, now entering the stage of life that you're in?
00:10:33
Speaker
Well, I think that like it's been hard at times for sure, but at the same time, like I just kind of try to keep it moving as well.
00:10:45
Speaker
Or I think I've always had other things that I want to work on for myself that have just kept me sort of like redirecting back to what I want to do.
00:10:53
Speaker
Like, okay, I'm
00:10:54
Speaker
So I talked about how I grew up in like Barbie land, but then when I started interacting and socializing with men at university and when I started DJing, especially like back then there were not many female household DJ names.
00:11:08
Speaker
And even still, it's like kind of a niche.
00:11:11
Speaker
I don't think that's changed much.
00:11:13
Speaker
Exactly.
00:11:14
Speaker
But that was like still like, even back then, that was like the very beginning of sort of like the big EDM wave.
00:11:22
Speaker
And then,
00:11:23
Speaker
DJing becoming like an actual, like, I don't know, like position that you can hold as a artist and performer.
00:11:31
Speaker
It wasn't really like as mainstream as it is now, I would say.
00:11:34
Speaker
So you can imagine like being in an isolated city in Australia, it was very white male dominated.
00:11:42
Speaker
And yeah, just like the misogyny and racism that I experienced in that environment.
00:11:48
Speaker
I mean, granted, there was still like good moments, etc.
00:11:50
Speaker
I'm grateful for the people that supported me, but it was still kind of like a war zone.
00:11:54
Speaker
And yeah,
00:11:55
Speaker
I think that it was weird because then I started questioning my ability.
00:11:59
Speaker
Up until that point, I never thought I wouldn't be able to DJ because I was Asian or because I was a woman.
00:12:04
Speaker
I just thought I want to do this.
00:12:05
Speaker
So I'm going to.
00:12:06
Speaker
And then when I started doing it, I was getting all this pushback and I was like, well, why wouldn't I be able to do this?
00:12:12
Speaker
Like, I don't think I'm worse than any of the other men that I'm on a lineup with.
00:12:17
Speaker
I think I'm better than a lot of them.
00:12:19
Speaker
And then I sort of like went through a period of like really intense self-doubt.
00:12:25
Speaker
like also recondition or like unconditioned myself from back to the sort of mentality that I had when I was younger.
00:12:34
Speaker
But yeah, there's definitely been periods where I've sort of assumed that people around me are on the same page because they can sort of mirror back what I'm saying and
00:12:48
Speaker
in order to like facilitate a connection or a relationship.
00:12:52
Speaker
And then, you know, enough time passes and I've just been consistent with who I am.
00:12:58
Speaker
And like, they are revealed to have like a very different value system to me, actually.
00:13:04
Speaker
Like, it's just kind of like a surface level engagement with the things that are like deep in my core.
00:13:10
Speaker
But yeah, I think I've always had...
00:13:12
Speaker
like this desire to move forward or explore more or see what else I can achieve, see what else I can create, see what else I can connect with or who else I can connect with.
Perseverance and Self-Connection
00:13:24
Speaker
That even though there have been like really devastating, like friend breakups or relationships or like traumatic situations that I've been in, I'm just like, okay, well, I'm just going to do something else.
00:13:36
Speaker
Like there has to be something else that I can do.
00:13:39
Speaker
And I think the more you persevere, you
00:13:41
Speaker
in service of like being hot and having fun when I eventually found the words for it you realize that yeah that's all you can really do you know those are all different sorts of challenges that can deepen your connection to yourself actually if you take that opportunity and to like widen your perspective deepen your understanding and you
00:14:05
Speaker
it puts you in a better position for whatever the next connection or experience or opportunities that you're going to have are.
00:14:12
Speaker
Because I always try to tell my listeners, because a lot of them are still really young or at least younger than me, I'm like, sometimes you just haven't been alive long enough to know how your life can change in ways that you could never predict for, or how your life could be better.
00:14:29
Speaker
than the situation that you're currently in.
00:14:30
Speaker
Like when you're young, you literally just haven't had enough experience.
00:14:34
Speaker
There hasn't been enough time that's passed for you to contextualize this relationship and its breakdown relative to your other life experience.
00:14:42
Speaker
But once you've experienced a few friend breakups or romantic relationship breakups, you're like, okay, it's actually not going to define me the way that it feels like it will in the moment.
00:14:52
Speaker
So I think that having dealt with a lot of like anxiety and depression, I think that
00:14:59
Speaker
reminding yourself that it's worth just seeing what happens next you know like you don't have to know exactly what it is but just being open to the fact that it could be better you know it could be worse too but you'll be okay regardless I want to get into the philosophy behind being hot and having fun but I do also want to talk a little bit yeah I wanted to see
00:15:21
Speaker
How did you get to that?
00:15:22
Speaker
Like, how did you get to being hot and having fun?
00:15:24
Speaker
Like, that's such a pithy phrase.
00:15:26
Speaker
And I love what that implies.
00:15:28
Speaker
Would you break it down for us?
00:15:29
Speaker
Like how that sort of came to fruition?
00:15:32
Speaker
But before we get into that, I also want to talk a little bit about motherhood, because we had such an interesting discussion about motherhood in the pre-talk.
00:15:38
Speaker
And I wonder, you know, I mean, it seems like your mom was the OG when it came to this philosophy, really, because, you know, she moved to a foreign country when she was really young.
00:15:49
Speaker
And she did it on her own.
00:15:50
Speaker
She raised it on her own.
00:15:51
Speaker
And I think that growing up with a person that has that much strength must have had some kind of profound impact on you.
00:15:57
Speaker
And like, I want to know, you know, how did that, you know, affect your goals?
00:16:00
Speaker
And like, you know, all of us have such unique relationships with our mothers.
00:16:03
Speaker
And I think it also sets the stage for what we accept and tolerate in relationships.
00:16:07
Speaker
So, I mean, I would love to hear a little bit about that.
00:16:09
Speaker
And then, you know, obviously we can get into, you know, being chaotic and critical thinking and being hot and having fun, but just want to know a little bit more about
Mother's Influence on Self-Assuredness
00:16:17
Speaker
that.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, my mom is the OG baddie in my opinion.
00:16:24
Speaker
I think that I definitely took for granted like the impact of being around somebody like that and being raised by someone like my mother.
00:16:33
Speaker
And as I've gotten older, I've realized that not everyone has been married
00:16:38
Speaker
in the same situation as me you know and I said in the pre-talk as well like I'm definitely empathetic to people who didn't grow up in that environment and how that's affected how male-centered their life might be or how their perception of themselves as a woman and women in general is influenced by that but
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, my mom, I think also, I talk about like the difference in our sort of like core personalities.
00:17:05
Speaker
My mom is just naturally very self-assured and confident.
00:17:08
Speaker
And my grandma is like almost a narcissist.
00:17:11
Speaker
So for her to have the outlook on life that she does, given the environment that she grew up in, I think is like incredibly radical.
00:17:21
Speaker
And yeah, she just always said like, ever since I was young, I just always felt like I was better than everyone.
00:17:26
Speaker
Like,
00:17:28
Speaker
That's my mom.
00:17:30
Speaker
She was like, I don't know why you would ever question like who you are or like whether or not you're attractive.
00:17:35
Speaker
Like, why would you ever question that?
00:17:38
Speaker
She was like, there was no indication that I was ever like less than even when people tried to tell me that I was, I would never believe that, you know?
00:17:45
Speaker
So that's just like, some people are just born that way, you know?
00:17:48
Speaker
And I think that for me, I definitely did not have that disposition when I was younger.
00:17:52
Speaker
Cause she would say like, oh, you were like so small.
00:17:55
Speaker
You were the youngest in the class.
00:17:57
Speaker
Like they tried to hold you back in pre-primary cause you were asleep for the whole thing, but I pushed you.
00:18:02
Speaker
to move into year one.
00:18:04
Speaker
I didn't think you were going to make it.
00:18:06
Speaker
Like you would cry over everything, blah, blah, blah.
00:18:08
Speaker
Like she was like, I was so worried about you.
00:18:12
Speaker
So like, I didn't have like the same level of self-assuredness that my mom just naturally has.
00:18:18
Speaker
Like I talk about how like you can be born with it, but you can also build it, you know, like through the experiences that I've had, through the example that she set for me.
00:18:25
Speaker
It's like an ongoing process and it's not like I'm completely free of insecurities or anything or my mom doesn't have insecurities or doubts as well, but we just sort of deal with them very differently.
00:18:34
Speaker
And I think because I've built my sort of like self-confidence now that I'm an adult, I give my mom like advice and perspective on like what she's doing because she's like, yeah, I've never questioned this before.
00:18:49
Speaker
And now I feel like I, there's like a process to how she's thinking or like moving into the next stage of her life.
00:18:55
Speaker
But being raised by her in the environment that I was, it was a really stark contrast.
00:19:02
Speaker
And I really got an example of like the sacrifices that mothers make for their children, for their family, and the challenges that come with being a woman, especially in that time, providing for your daughter, balancing a demanding career with having a child in an environment that expects you to
00:19:22
Speaker
just sacrifice everything to be like a full-time mother.
00:19:25
Speaker
So I think also for her, she just talks about how like, she just didn't have time to even think about what people thought of her as a Chinese woman or as a single mother.
00:19:36
Speaker
She was like, I had shit to do, you know?
00:19:39
Speaker
And for me, I,
00:19:41
Speaker
Because she was like, when I was experiencing racism, she was like, what are you talking about?
00:19:45
Speaker
Like, you're so lucky to even go to the school that you go to.
00:19:50
Speaker
Or like, why do you want friends, Amber?
00:19:52
Speaker
I was like, what?
00:19:53
Speaker
I kind of understand where she comes from, because I think it is a really big cultural shift between first generation immigrants and like second gen.
00:20:01
Speaker
I mean, I was a first generation immigrant too.
00:20:03
Speaker
And I was like, in a very similar position of like, I don't really have time to worry about
00:20:08
Speaker
how colonialism is affecting me right now.
00:20:10
Speaker
I need to feed myself.
00:20:12
Speaker
And I completely understand that generation for that as well.
00:20:15
Speaker
But I do think that, you know, even if you're born with it, I think that there is some value in building it brick by brick, because I mean, I can say that I'm probably close to saying that I was born with it.
00:20:24
Speaker
I had a very supportive environment and I never really thought that there was anything wrong with me, but it's very easy to lose as well, because
00:20:30
Speaker
When it's being propped up by a parent, you know, if you lose that parent or if your environment changes and you're not used to having that level of pushback in your life, it's very easy to slip from being self-assured to not as self-assured.
00:20:41
Speaker
And I think that people have to accept that they go through phases as well.
00:20:44
Speaker
I mean, we all have insecurities, but there are times in your life when things are just harder and you might not be nearly as confident as you were.
00:20:50
Speaker
But that's why I think there's more value in building it brick by brick because you've been able to weather the storm.
00:20:56
Speaker
And I think that when you're able to do that, you know, you just wind up with a stronger sense of self.
00:21:00
Speaker
It's so interesting that your mom and your journey parallels each other because your mom left China to move to Australia and you left Australia to move back to China.
00:21:07
Speaker
So in some ways, that's like a homecoming, you know?
00:21:10
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:10
Speaker
When I first wanted to move to China, she was like, why?
00:21:14
Speaker
I brought you here.
00:21:15
Speaker
Like...
00:21:18
Speaker
But now understood in time, she was like, okay, yeah, there's definitely more opportunity for you in China.
00:21:23
Speaker
It makes sense.
00:21:24
Speaker
And she also did come to understand how different it was for us, like her moving to Australia and me growing up
Cultural Journey to China
00:21:31
Speaker
there.
00:21:31
Speaker
She was like, yeah, when I moved to Australia, like you said, I was like focused on survival.
00:21:36
Speaker
I didn't think about like being Chinese, you know, but for you growing up around white people,
00:21:42
Speaker
it's very different.
00:21:43
Speaker
You want to fit in and yeah, like this desire to be sort of included or like to feel included or part of the community is like really important.
00:21:53
Speaker
Whereas for my mom, she was already like spent her childhood in China and there was no doubt about her Chinese identity.
00:22:01
Speaker
But then similar to when I moved back to China, I
00:22:04
Speaker
in 2022, I was like coming from Australia, two years of on and off lockdown and like not much going on in like my physical surroundings.
00:22:17
Speaker
So I was just like, so single-minded in coming back and like figuring out how to get shit done that only in the last like six months, I've been reflecting more on it.
00:22:27
Speaker
And like the
00:22:28
Speaker
different challenges that came with it.
00:22:30
Speaker
And when I describe certain things to my friends, like have met more recently, they're like, what the hell?
00:22:37
Speaker
Like that's traumatic.
00:22:39
Speaker
you went through but again like I was just so focused on like what I needed to do that you go through different phases you know when you are really single-minded and then your awareness can diffuse after you feel like you've built like a foundation for yourself and I also think like speaking to the being born with confidence and
00:23:01
Speaker
building your confidence.
00:23:03
Speaker
I try to tell my audience, like, even if someone looks like they're having it really easy now, it doesn't mean that it's easy forever.
00:23:10
Speaker
And it's not because you're preying on people's handful, but it's like recognizing your own humanity just because you're having a hard time now doesn't mean that it won't be in service of you having a better time.
00:23:19
Speaker
Like everybody, I do feel like everything kind of balances out in the end.
00:23:24
Speaker
So just sort of embracing each phase of your life with as much awareness and intention as you can.
00:23:31
Speaker
And not getting too caught up in comparing yourself with other people because it's human nature to just convince yourself that your situation is good or like it is better than it actually is.
00:23:41
Speaker
And you might not realize until way after that you were completely deluded or you were being manipulated.
00:23:47
Speaker
So don't just think that because someone is telling you, my life is amazing right now, this relationship is totally great.
00:23:53
Speaker
that that is necessarily the case you know you don't have to do anything about it but you just have to remember that only you can experience your experience and only they can experience their experience so you're sharing information but it's not like you know nothing is really like written in stone at the end of the day amber i feel like you have like the wisdom of like a buddhist monk actually it's so funny because we interviewed felixie a couple of weeks ago and she was like oh she's like a philosopher yeah
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:24:22
Speaker
These are sort of the conversations I would have with my philosopher friends in Chile.
00:24:26
Speaker
And that's why it was such an important epoch of my life, because these were things expressed that I had never heard before, especially coming from a very Catholic, very U.S. American religion type environment.
00:24:37
Speaker
I think you're so right, especially helping younger people understand that like nothing is permanent.
00:24:43
Speaker
This sense that whatever you're going through right now, it's always going to be like that.
00:24:46
Speaker
The only assurance you have is that it will change.
00:24:49
Speaker
Change is the only constant.
00:24:51
Speaker
Right.
00:24:52
Speaker
I was going to say just learning how to reorient and learning how to sort of recalibrate is so important to one's emotional health.
00:24:59
Speaker
And I will say that people do a lot in service of an image, especially with the way that social media has grown.
00:25:04
Speaker
I think a lot of people think, I mean, the fear of missing out and like the desire to have community.
00:25:09
Speaker
I think these are two really strong reasons that women stay trapped in relationships that are honestly beneath them.
00:25:15
Speaker
Because I think that they look at things on social media and they're like, well, this person is projecting a really picture perfect life.
00:25:20
Speaker
And in some ways I feel behind.
00:25:22
Speaker
And so that, you know, I think it's really human to just want to belong, to fit in with everyone.
00:25:26
Speaker
And I think that if you're in an environment where everyone prioritizes that kind of connection, you're just going to feel left behind inevitably.
00:25:32
Speaker
We say this on the podcast all the time.
00:25:33
Speaker
It's easier said than done to de-center men because your entire life has been the opposite of that.
00:25:39
Speaker
And to like go through the unraveling, the conditioning process,
00:25:42
Speaker
It takes years for some people.
00:25:44
Speaker
But I also think about the really funny fact that your mom was like, you'd be surprised how many people get married just for the money.
00:25:50
Speaker
And it's true.
00:25:50
Speaker
And it's like, I think people think that every single relationship they see around them is this like picture perfect romantic comedy where they're being super valued.
00:25:59
Speaker
I mean, of course, it could be.
00:26:00
Speaker
We don't know.
00:26:00
Speaker
Right.
00:26:01
Speaker
But I think that people set too much store by what they observe in other people and set that as the benchmark for how they should live their own life.
00:26:08
Speaker
And, you know, I do think that even in that regard, detachment becomes really important.
00:26:13
Speaker
Understanding that, you know, somebody else's good outcome doesn't mean that you're doomed to a life of failure, not internalizing other people's success as your own personal failure.
00:26:21
Speaker
I think that that's been like a big thing for me as well over time.
00:26:25
Speaker
Also, because I live in a society where people compare a lot, like
00:26:29
Speaker
it's kind of a very South Asian thing to be like, oh yeah, you know, compare my kid to this person's kid and how well is this kid doing?
00:26:35
Speaker
So like, it's always like you're accomplishing other people about milestones.
00:26:38
Speaker
If it's not for like school or grades, then it becomes about jobs and partners or kids.
00:26:43
Speaker
And then, you know, then you have children and it becomes about your kids are competing with other people now.
00:26:46
Speaker
And so it's like the cycle never really ends.
00:26:49
Speaker
And I think somewhere it's with us to actually stop and be like, listen, like, do I want these things because I want them?
00:26:54
Speaker
I think in the pandemic, a lot of women woke up to that reality because I certainly did.
00:26:58
Speaker
where I was like, do I want these things because I want them?
00:27:01
Speaker
Or do I want them because everybody around me told me that I would want them?
00:27:04
Speaker
And because society is an aided that.
00:27:06
Speaker
And my question then becomes, Amber, like when you decided I'm going to make this, I'm going to go to China and I'm going to like enter my be hot, have fun era.
00:27:15
Speaker
Like how did that mentality or how did that shift into that mentality come about?
Philosophy of Happiness and Fun
00:27:20
Speaker
So I think being stuck in Australia during the pandemic when I wanted to be in Shanghai was
00:27:26
Speaker
That was like a really overwhelming experience and I went into my like saddened return, emotional, spiritual, rock bottom, existential crisis.
00:27:39
Speaker
And I think I remember when I was young, I was reading like some –
00:27:45
Speaker
meditation or like Buddhism book or something like when I was a teenager and I remember thinking like okay no matter what happens like you deserve to be happy or like you have to figure out a way to be happy even when it feels like too overwhelming like I sort of carried that sentiment with me as a teenager I guess and by the time I was in my like mid to late 20s being stuck in Australia and
00:28:07
Speaker
I felt very defined by not being able to be in Shanghai for the first few months that I was there.
00:28:13
Speaker
And I still very much held onto the hope that I would just be able to get a visa and I'd be able to be back in Shanghai within a few months.
00:28:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:20
Speaker
Then more months passed and I was like, cool, this doesn't seem as likely as I initially thought.
00:28:27
Speaker
And at first I felt like it was my fault.
00:28:29
Speaker
You know, I remember seeing my therapist and being like, I don't know, I feel like it's my fault that I can't like live the life that I had in Shanghai before.
00:28:37
Speaker
And she was like, but it's not your fault.
00:28:39
Speaker
Like it's completely out of your control.
00:28:41
Speaker
Why would you think that you're in?
00:28:43
Speaker
She was like, you're in Perth, look around you.
00:28:44
Speaker
Like you're not in Shanghai.
00:28:45
Speaker
So there's no reason why your life should look like that, you know, and it's a global pandemic, you know, it's not your fault.
00:28:53
Speaker
I was like, okay, cool.
00:28:55
Speaker
I wonder if you had a therapist because it sounds like you've got some real therapy like truths that you've absorbed.
00:29:01
Speaker
Right.
00:29:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:02
Speaker
There was definitely like two major takeaways I had from my time at therapy, which was like underneath all of the things that other people think that you should do, like what is it that you want, you know?
00:29:13
Speaker
And I was like, I want to go back to Shanghai because there was like a period where I thought, should I move to Melbourne?
00:29:17
Speaker
Should I move to Sydney?
00:29:18
Speaker
People there are telling me to go there.
00:29:20
Speaker
Like on paper, it felt like it would make sense for me to do that.
00:29:23
Speaker
But I just don't want to.
00:29:25
Speaker
I just want to wait until I can go back to Shanghai.
00:29:26
Speaker
And she was like, yeah, so like that's what you can do.
00:29:29
Speaker
You know, you don't have to do these things that other people say that you should do.
00:29:32
Speaker
I was like, oh, OK.
00:29:33
Speaker
But yeah, I think one day I just woke up and I was like, cool.
00:29:36
Speaker
Being depressed is like not chic.
00:29:40
Speaker
and this is like, I was like, who wants to hear about me being sad every day?
00:29:44
Speaker
Like, even I'm sick of myself, you know?
00:29:46
Speaker
Like, I always...
00:29:48
Speaker
I always talk about like, think about what you're contributing to the vibe as well, because that I think, especially for like Western hyper individualistic cultures, it's always like my feelings are superior or my feelings take priority over how everyone was feeling.
00:30:05
Speaker
But you might be making other people feel shit in the process of you not dealing with your shit too.
00:30:12
Speaker
So I was like, okay, well, it's still important for me to have like a positive contribution to the world around me, even if it is
00:30:18
Speaker
Very minor.
00:30:19
Speaker
And I think me posting about how I'm sad every day is like really lame.
00:30:23
Speaker
So I have to do something about this.
00:30:25
Speaker
And then I think it started with like, I was not born to be ugly or have a bad time, you know?
00:30:33
Speaker
I was just like I was born to be ugly I have a bad time like whenever I was sad and then I made a podcast episode about that but after I recorded it I was like you know what I need to like rework this into like a more positive and affirming yes saying so then I reworked it into okay I was born to be hot and have fun and then like that's sort of like how the philosophy was born of
00:30:59
Speaker
It's funny because when you're on the precipice of great change is when you're tired of your own bullshit.
00:31:03
Speaker
I think I've said this on the podcast.
00:31:05
Speaker
I was like, when you get sick of your own shit is when you're actually going to change.
00:31:09
Speaker
Right, right.
00:31:10
Speaker
And I've spoken to people that have been going through a really hard time and it's just this like constant negative feedback loop.
00:31:18
Speaker
And I've been like, you know, you just have to get sick of yourself and you have to get sick of being this way.
00:31:24
Speaker
And they don't understand it because they're so deeply entrenched in the narrative that they constantly reinforce to themselves.
00:31:31
Speaker
I'm like, look around you.
00:31:34
Speaker
It's not as bad as your mind is like tricking you into thinking it is.
00:31:40
Speaker
So that's why, you know, I always talk about having a hobby that allows you to get into your body or like having relationships or just practices that can ground you.
00:31:49
Speaker
Even when things get tough, you know, those practices don't guarantee that it'll be easy forever, but that if it does get hard, you have something that can pull you out of it so that you can like regain perspective or like just recalibrate how you see things because it's only natural for your mind to try to like pull you, you know, being hot and having fun.
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:09
Speaker
I was thinking about how like 10,000 monkeys is one of the ways that like, you know, in Hinduism, they'll be like, part of the reason you meditate is to quiet the 10,000 monkeys.
00:32:20
Speaker
That is your brain, right?
00:32:22
Speaker
The fact that your brain can never just calm down and shut the fuck up.
00:32:25
Speaker
Like it's its own animal.
00:32:27
Speaker
Right.
00:32:27
Speaker
And we have to learn ways in which like it will trick us.
00:32:30
Speaker
It will lie to us.
00:32:31
Speaker
It will distort things.
00:32:33
Speaker
We have to learn how to manage those.
00:32:35
Speaker
And one of the things I remember, I had to become sober, Amber.
00:32:38
Speaker
I'm just somebody who's like, I'm such a hedonist.
00:32:40
Speaker
I just, you know, I'm like a typical American who just like is gluttonous and whatnot.
00:32:45
Speaker
And it was during COVID that I was like, oh, this is really becoming a problem.
00:32:48
Speaker
And also because my mother had died.
00:32:50
Speaker
And so like things just kind of snowballed after that.
00:32:53
Speaker
So that's when I started my journey to sobriety.
00:32:55
Speaker
And one of the things that is often mentioned in sobriety is like, you have to get to the point where you're sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Growth Through Life Changes
00:33:03
Speaker
And so I think this is what we keep coming back to.
00:33:05
Speaker
It's like, everybody's responsible for their own destiny.
00:33:08
Speaker
But like, if we combine our forces, and we work on being hot and having fun, like, what kind of different world can we create together?
00:33:17
Speaker
And I think that, you know, it's also a good idea to laugh at yourself and not take yourself so seriously.
00:33:21
Speaker
Like, I think I got to bypass some of my angsty teenage years.
00:33:24
Speaker
But then what ended up happening is they started like manifesting real hard during my Saturn return.
00:33:29
Speaker
And I realized, oh, I had it easy because that was probably the worst I've ever had it.
00:33:32
Speaker
And that's why all my angsty teenage shit started coming out then.
00:33:36
Speaker
And then I started laughing because I was like, this is not that deep.
00:33:38
Speaker
I don't know why I'm so upset about this because a lot of the fears I had before that, like those fears came to pass.
00:33:44
Speaker
And I was like, oh, actually, I'm still alive.
00:33:46
Speaker
I'm still here.
00:33:47
Speaker
I still live in a beautiful place.
00:33:49
Speaker
I have the privilege of working in the field that I set out to work in.
00:33:53
Speaker
Like I work in a very, very promising industry.
00:33:55
Speaker
I have a promising career.
00:33:57
Speaker
I did all the things I said that I would do that I thought that I wouldn't do when I was 18.
00:34:00
Speaker
Like all the things that were just like random thoughts, like I made them real.
00:34:04
Speaker
Right.
00:34:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:05
Speaker
And I'm sitting over here whining because one thing is not the way I want it to be or two things are not the way I want it to be.
00:34:12
Speaker
And I was like, OK, this is a teenage temper tantrum.
00:34:14
Speaker
That's what's happening.
00:34:15
Speaker
I mean, I didn't have it in my teens.
00:34:16
Speaker
I'm having it now.
00:34:17
Speaker
Right.
00:34:18
Speaker
Working through that emotion, I think, is really important.
00:34:21
Speaker
You know, accepting that it is what it is that you're feeling that way and not repressing it so important.
00:34:26
Speaker
Also, I think people get caught up in positivity culture and they're like, oh, just good vibes only and like, don't ever acknowledge the dark, you know, and I'm like, well, you kind of do need to make peace with your demons if you're going to actually move past that, you know, and I do think that there's some value in balance.
00:34:42
Speaker
Yes.
00:34:42
Speaker
And I think in the end, like the time that I had during the pandemic, even though at the time or at first, I was like, why is this happening?
00:34:50
Speaker
This is the worst thing ever.
00:34:52
Speaker
Like all the projects I had lined up for 2020, I wasn't able to do.
00:34:55
Speaker
I would still get asked if I was available to work, which was in one way flattering, but in another way frustrating because I was like, well, I can't because I'm not there.
00:35:04
Speaker
But when I eventually moved back to Shanghai, I
00:35:07
Speaker
Now I look back on that time and I'm so grateful for that time that I had because I connected with my mom more as well.
00:35:14
Speaker
Like my mom and I had lived pretty separate lives up until that point.
00:35:18
Speaker
It was like the longest time that I'd spent consistently with my mom during the pandemic and a long time.
00:35:23
Speaker
And both of us went through a lot
00:35:25
Speaker
in that period.
00:35:26
Speaker
So we were able to be there for each other.
00:35:28
Speaker
And I think we were able to build a connection and a relationship as like adults as well and still mother daughter, but also like almost as equals in a way.
00:35:39
Speaker
And with all the time that I had and just like the lack of sensory stimulation being out in the suburbs during lockdown, I was able to really focus on having practices that
00:35:53
Speaker
that would ground me and help me to like work through all the trauma that I was running away from when I first moved to Shanghai.
00:36:01
Speaker
And then when I came back to Shanghai, those practices continued to ground me during the chaos of like coming back to a place that had just come out of a lockdown as well.
00:36:11
Speaker
But like a lot of people, a lot of socializing, I had way more social contact in like a week of being back in Shanghai than I had in like six months in Australia.
00:36:21
Speaker
also figuring out like what I wanted to do or what I could do, I needed to continue those grounding practices.
00:36:28
Speaker
And I probably wouldn't have developed them to the level that I had if I had just been in Shanghai at the time.
00:36:33
Speaker
And like, who knows what direction my life would have taken if I hadn't had that space as well, because then I saw a lot of people who didn't really reconcile, didn't take the opportunity to deal with things that they'd been running away from pre-pandemic
00:36:49
Speaker
during the pandemic or whatever.
00:36:51
Speaker
And it really did affect our relationship and also the trajectory that they're on as well.
00:36:59
Speaker
So yeah, that was a perfect example of how my perspective of something shifted so radically just with time and trying to be intentional with the time in spite of how difficult it felt or how
00:37:12
Speaker
it didn't seem like it was going the way that I wanted it to go.
00:37:15
Speaker
And then also like having a sense of humor about the entitlement for everything to go your way.
00:37:20
Speaker
Like that's such a delusional way of thinking.
00:37:23
Speaker
So delusional, but yeah, we all fall prey.
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:26
Speaker
That's why sometimes I'm like, I haven't fully embraced like the delusional discourse because I think that
00:37:33
Speaker
It's about, you know, everything will go my way, but not in the way that I anticipate.
00:37:38
Speaker
And like embracing that journey is important because that's also what makes an interesting story.
00:37:43
Speaker
You know, if I moved to Shanghai in 2017 and then all my problems were solved and everything just went
00:37:49
Speaker
well I would have nothing to say today you know so that whole push pull hero's journey whatever is such an important part of the human experience so yeah just like embracing it for the plot rather than being chaotic for the plot I think is also like a helpful mindset shift when things start to go a little left
00:38:10
Speaker
It's really interesting that you bring up the hero's journey because it's like a tool that we use in screenwriting a lot.
00:38:15
Speaker
But one of the most fundamental things about it is that you need to have conflict to make a character interesting.
00:38:20
Speaker
Exactly.
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:21
Speaker
Like a character is really boring if nothing ever happens to them.
00:38:24
Speaker
You know, the delusional thing, I think it only really works if you're a person who is constantly an overthinker and don't do anything.
00:38:30
Speaker
If delusion moves you to act, that's probably the only time it's actually helpful for you.
00:38:35
Speaker
I also agree with the idea that like, you know, there's some things you can't be delusional about.
00:38:38
Speaker
There are some things you do need to be a little bit grounded about.
00:38:41
Speaker
But also, I think that you need to be open to what life is trying to teach you.
00:38:44
Speaker
I think if the assumption is like, I'm entitled to everything because I feel like I deserve it in some way, as opposed to I want to be accepting of what life could
Emotional States and Manifestation
00:38:52
Speaker
give me.
00:38:52
Speaker
You know, I think you're missing a lot of the blessings that you're supposed to have.
00:38:55
Speaker
Like, I think a lot of people try to force a situation that doesn't necessarily bring them joy just because I mean, again, it's all about timelines, right?
00:39:03
Speaker
I think a lot of people are like, okay, I'm in my late 20s, my early 30s, I should get married, I should do these things.
00:39:07
Speaker
I should get married, I should have kids.
00:39:09
Speaker
Like, it's a lot of I should as opposed to do I want to.
00:39:12
Speaker
You know, is this the right time for me?
00:39:14
Speaker
And people settle for really bad situations because they don't have the ability to actually determine what is good for them, what is healthy for them or not.
00:39:21
Speaker
And I think a lot of that has to be like, you have to let go of a degree of control in your life and assume that it's all going to look the way you need it to.
00:39:28
Speaker
There needs to be this ability to let go of control.
00:39:31
Speaker
And I think a lot of people, when they don't feel like they can control everything, they get anxious and they're like, no, no, no, now I'm going to start spiraling into scarcity mindset.
00:39:39
Speaker
If I don't do it now, it will never happen.
00:39:41
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:39:42
Speaker
Like a lot of people get really siloed into these thought patterns that are very negative just because their lives don't mirror like a life that they saw on social media or their friends' lives or whatever, you know?
00:39:53
Speaker
Yeah, and I think like I am not super well versed on like manifestation theory, but my understanding of it is it's like focusing on the emotion that you want to feel or like the state that you want to be in.
00:40:07
Speaker
And when you sort of open your mind to like the possibilities of like how –
00:40:13
Speaker
you can live all the experience that you can have, you realize that there are actually so many different ways to get into the state that you desire, that aren't just if I meet societal expectations, you know, and also the things that you want to do, just because you want it and you didn't get it this time doesn't mean it's not possible for you at a later date.
00:40:35
Speaker
Like I experienced that so much with work opportunities, like sometimes I
00:40:39
Speaker
this opportunity comes and maybe I don't get it.
00:40:41
Speaker
And I feel like, oh my God, I've cooked it.
00:40:43
Speaker
Like I'm never going to be able to do it.
00:40:45
Speaker
And then in the end, all these things happen that I could never like draw a path out for like, I'm going to meet this person and then do this and then do this.
00:40:53
Speaker
And then I'm going to get it.
00:40:54
Speaker
It's like, I still got the opportunity to,
00:40:56
Speaker
And it actually came to me in an even better form than I initially imagined.
00:41:02
Speaker
And it's just because I let go of needing everything to go the way that I projected that it had to.
00:41:08
Speaker
And like the feeling that I get, especially when it comes to like validation, because I talk about that a lot when it comes to decentering men, learning to cultivate other forms of validation, whether that's self-validation, validation in your work, validation in your contribution to community, validation in your friendships, in your family.
00:41:26
Speaker
versus just validation for being desirable to a man, like validation for your appearance.
00:41:33
Speaker
Like there are so many different types of validation.
00:41:35
Speaker
And when you explore like the path to those things, you realize that there are so many ways to feel fulfilled in your life as a person and as a woman that have nothing to do with being desirable to men.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:51
Speaker
You're here.
00:41:52
Speaker
You're here.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:53
Speaker
You know what?
00:41:54
Speaker
I'm kind of curious to know what your philosophy is just with decentering men in general and standing your ground, especially like the cute, chaotic and critical thinking.
00:42:01
Speaker
Like, how did you come up with that?
00:42:03
Speaker
So I think the cute, chaotic and critical thinking, like I do try to acknowledge that there is like a shadow self and it's not about repressing people.
00:42:14
Speaker
the part of you that seems undesirable or seems problematic to whatever like echo chamber you live in because I think especially for like western media landscape and like narrative it is very focused on like being quote-unquote good and it is like a human desire to see yourself as a good person and to be seen as a good person but
00:42:37
Speaker
when you can reconcile like the light and the dark and the desirable, undesirable parts of yourself and embrace it, but then also be intentional with how you express it.
00:42:49
Speaker
I think that you can just have like a more integrated sort of like experience.
00:42:54
Speaker
So that's why it's like,
00:42:56
Speaker
cute, chaotic and critical because you are going to have times where you want to crash out or where you really have hatred for a person or a thing or you want to like seek revenge or you feel the urge to be toxic.
00:43:09
Speaker
But there's also parts of you that, you know, are cute, are loving, nurturing, want to be kind, generous, compassionate, but also critical in the sense that you are discerning between like
00:43:22
Speaker
which parts of you you prioritize, accepting that you can have like dark thoughts and dark emotions, but your character will be determined by how you behave, right?
00:43:32
Speaker
And I think that thought policing, like cancel culture makes it seem like you're not allowed to have any
00:43:38
Speaker
dark parts of yourself or it's people who haven't reconciled with their own darkness that are denying the existence in other people or denying other people like the space to have been that, you know, and like the question of like self accountability and responsibility and stuff.
00:43:55
Speaker
So that's like cute, chaotic and critical thinking.
00:43:58
Speaker
And then like with Decentering Men, I think that it is very much a journey in the same way that a lot of people's journey and development like through feminist ideas is not necessarily
Decentering Men and Egalitarian Relationships
00:44:12
Speaker
going to be perfect.
00:44:12
Speaker
Like nobody is a perfect feminist and Decentering Men is not about
00:44:18
Speaker
hating men the same way that feminism isn't about siloing men either.
00:44:23
Speaker
You know, I think that true feminism is seeking like collaboration between the genders or the sexes rather than one over the other, you know, like one over the other is a patriarchal
00:44:35
Speaker
sort of like imperialist colonizer, white supremacist mindset that there is a winner and a loser.
00:44:41
Speaker
And I think that feminism, socialism and decentering men for me is more about being able to like sort of create a more egalitarian way of approaching your relationships and your life in general, I think.
00:44:57
Speaker
And it's not one or the other as well.
00:45:00
Speaker
It can be a combination of both.
00:45:01
Speaker
Like I live in China and it's like socialism with Chinese characteristics.
00:45:05
Speaker
the way that people live or the way that society is structured is not capitalism or socialism it's like a combination of both that works for where the country is at now you know and they constantly develop and refine how they govern society and it's not a perfect system because it is no perfect system but
00:45:24
Speaker
I think that it's brought a lot of positive development for the country.
00:45:28
Speaker
And of course, you know, there are consequences that come with it too.
00:45:31
Speaker
But again, I think like the way that the West talks about China is similar to the way that men talk about women or the way that people that aren't feminists talk about feminism.
00:45:40
Speaker
Oh, they're crashing out.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:44
Speaker
China is in its hot girl era and the Western countries are crashing.
00:45:48
Speaker
crash yeah so I see a lot of parallels you know between my personal experience as a Chinese person like growing up people being like you're weird you're ugly whatever like your culture is weird and now it's like Amber I want to come to China like blah blah blah it looks so cool and I think that back to like the decentering men think I think
00:46:08
Speaker
Back to the decentering men part, I think that it's normal when you first sort of like realize or you start to see the reality of society, of history to be like, I fucking hate men.
00:46:19
Speaker
Like, what the hell?
00:46:21
Speaker
Why has it been this way?
00:46:22
Speaker
You know, like I definitely had that phase two where I was just like, this doesn't make any sense.
00:46:28
Speaker
You get disillusioned, right?
00:46:30
Speaker
And you're angry and you're rightfully so.
00:46:32
Speaker
Like, why has this been going on for so long?
00:46:35
Speaker
And then you sort of get to a point of, for me, realizing that, you know, the opposite of love isn't hate.
00:46:41
Speaker
It's like apathy and indifference.
00:46:43
Speaker
And for me, I don't hate men.
00:46:45
Speaker
You know, I hate the system that has created the society that we live in where women are being marginalized.
00:46:51
Speaker
There's so much violence against women.
00:46:52
Speaker
There's the denial of the female experience of like women's labor, of women's contribution.
00:46:58
Speaker
of women's voices and experience.
00:47:00
Speaker
But on a person to person level, I'm just like, generally indifferent to men, unless they can show me that they treat me with the respect that I would grant them just as a person, you know, like, it's like when I was younger, growing up Chinese in a white environment, I never thought to treat a white person differently, because they were white.
00:47:20
Speaker
To me, they were just a person.
00:47:21
Speaker
And my question was never,
00:47:23
Speaker
why aren't I white?
00:47:24
Speaker
Can I be white?
00:47:25
Speaker
It was just, why do white people think that they can treat me as less than just because I'm Asian?
00:47:29
Speaker
Cause I would never do that to them, you know?
00:47:31
Speaker
And I had the same question with men.
00:47:32
Speaker
Like why do men think they can treat me as less than when I just treat them like a person, you know?
00:47:38
Speaker
So for me, it's like, okay, are we meeting people?
00:47:41
Speaker
As equals, are we meeting from a place of mutual support and respect, regardless of your gender?
00:47:47
Speaker
Those are the relationships and the connections that I will prioritize.
00:47:50
Speaker
And whenever relationships like that don't carry that energy anymore, then I have to reassess, you know, and that goes for people of any gender and in any context.
00:47:59
Speaker
Like I've had to cut members of my family out.
00:48:02
Speaker
friends, work, et cetera.
00:48:04
Speaker
So I try to maintain like integrity and consistency in all contexts.
00:48:11
Speaker
Cause I think another thing with like the romance industrial complex, especially for women is like, Oh, your relationships with men and your romantic relationships run with a different set of rules to all the other relationships in your life, you know, but actually why would they?
00:48:30
Speaker
Because like your relationship with a man or your romantic relationship is the most intimate relationship that you can have separate to maybe your family, just from like a sort of like societal perspective.
00:48:43
Speaker
So why should you be any less stringent or discerning with who gets to assume that role in your life than you?
00:48:53
Speaker
who you work with or who you're friends with.
00:48:55
Speaker
And I think like the saddest relationship dynamic to observe is like a woman that will kind of isolate herself from her community, from her friends and from her family in service of a relationship with a man who treats her worse than her friends and family, you know?
00:49:10
Speaker
So I think that like decentering men is not like hating men, but I think a lot of women have subconsciously placed their relationships with men and the validation of men on a pedestal.
00:49:21
Speaker
So it's just like placing men in an equal position to everybody else that you deal with, because why is a man who's doing less than the bare minimum being less
00:49:30
Speaker
given so much of your time and energy relative to the people who actually have your best interests at heart.
00:49:35
Speaker
You know, a man who literally wouldn't care if you lived or died, sees you as replaceable, is like being given your time and your energy in ways that your other relationships aren't.
00:49:46
Speaker
And that's not to say that everyone's relationship with men is that way, but it's just like coming from this patriarchal culture and history.
00:49:54
Speaker
That's like the pain point for a lot of women.
00:49:55
Speaker
You know, they're like, why won't this man change from you?
00:49:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:59
Speaker
I don't think it's about like just de-centering men either because people assume that then you just live in a vacuum.
00:50:03
Speaker
It's about centering yourself.
00:50:05
Speaker
Like we're not saying de-center them to the point of like, you know, not having anything else going on for you.
00:50:09
Speaker
I think a lot of women are just not
00:50:11
Speaker
used to centering themselves.
00:50:13
Speaker
They're not used to thinking about, well, like what serves me, what makes me happy.
00:50:16
Speaker
I mean, if you come from the perspective of like, I am innately valuable and I pour a lot into my connections because I know that I do, you know, like I know how I operate in friendships.
00:50:25
Speaker
I know how I operate with my family.
00:50:26
Speaker
And there's a lot I put in.
00:50:28
Speaker
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that somebody who's supposed to be my most intimate connection
00:50:33
Speaker
pours into me as well.
00:50:35
Speaker
Otherwise, what's the point?
00:50:36
Speaker
Like, I mean, a lot of people have extremely intimate connections with men that are actually very superficial compared to the relationships they have with other women.
00:50:44
Speaker
They still rely on their friends and they still rely on their family to pick up the slack of this guy who's not doing that much.
00:50:51
Speaker
And yeah, I do think that there's some benefit to decentering them.
00:50:54
Speaker
And I agree with the thing about being apathetic to them.
00:50:56
Speaker
Like, that's the thing.
00:50:57
Speaker
I think a lot of people have the assumption that
00:50:59
Speaker
FDS is a space that hates men.
00:51:01
Speaker
In all honesty, we tell women to prioritize their own individual lives.
00:51:05
Speaker
Like, it's actually a good idea to be apathetic or indifferent to someone who's determined to oppress you, honestly.
00:51:11
Speaker
You know, I mean, again, we don't assume that every man is coming in with that intention.
00:51:15
Speaker
But, you know, if somebody is going to get into an argument with me, not in good faith, right, trying to misunderstand me intentionally, I'm not going to waste precious time trying to prove a point to them because they've already come into the conversation determined to misunderstand me.
00:51:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that in spite of growing up in like a Barbie land environment relative to maybe most people's experience, like a lot of the men that I encountered treated me very well, you know, like even in my romantic relationships, I think I've been treated pretty well by men.
00:51:45
Speaker
It's just at the breakdown of the relationship, it's like, okay, I'm not going to tolerate this because I know what you're capable of.
00:51:50
Speaker
So why would I allow you to lower the bar for me if I haven't lowered like the way that I approach this?
00:51:58
Speaker
And also it's just like compatibility issues, whatever.
00:52:01
Speaker
So because I am treated well by men,
00:52:05
Speaker
I'm like, why would you tolerate poor treatment for men?
00:52:07
Speaker
You know, like it would never cross my mind to allow a man to siphon energy for me if there are men who like understand what I'm about and, you know, we respect and support each other and it doesn't have to go into this like weird toxic territory.
00:52:24
Speaker
But that's also like understanding your power as a woman, that you are the person that gets to determine how other people treat you.
00:52:31
Speaker
And that's every person, you know, because I even have men and like guys who have listened to my podcast or have tuned into my TikTok lives or whatever.
00:52:39
Speaker
And they say that they've learned a lot from my point of view as well.
00:52:43
Speaker
So I think that my content is generally like gender neutral, like anybody can take something from it.
00:52:51
Speaker
It can be.
00:52:52
Speaker
I was going to say, Amber, to me, you sound like a humanist.
00:52:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:56
Speaker
Right.
00:52:57
Speaker
And I really wish we could head more in that direction, especially men.
00:53:00
Speaker
Like, OK, if feminism is such a hard pill for you to swallow, can we just get you into humanism like as a primer?
00:53:07
Speaker
Honestly.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:09
Speaker
I think we're almost out of time and we want to make sure that we give you the opportunity to plug your projects and your social media.
00:53:17
Speaker
Would you mind giving a shout out about what you'd like us to know and our listeners as well?
00:53:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:22
Speaker
So you can find me on everything at Amber Akila, mostly Instagram, TikTok, YouTube.
00:53:30
Speaker
And I have a podcast called Friend Crush with Amber Akila, which is sort of like at the moment, the YouTube videos are also posted as audio.
00:53:39
Speaker
So YouTube is taking priority right now.
00:53:42
Speaker
And yeah, music and mixes I post on SoundCloud and Spotify.
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah, stay hot and having fun.
00:53:53
Speaker
Thank you very much for your time, Amber.
00:53:54
Speaker
I'm so happy to have met you.
00:53:56
Speaker
Thank you for having me.
00:53:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:59
Speaker
Rose, do you have anything?
00:54:00
Speaker
Any last thoughts?
00:54:02
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:54:03
Speaker
Scroats, die mad.
00:54:05
Speaker
Have a good week, everybody.