[trade] my personal canon
This is a blog post title traded with Sylvia. For more info, click here.
After reading this post by Sylvia, this post by Zoe, this post by Brendan and this post by Tim, what I took away from it is:
A personal canon means "an encapsulation, in list form, of things that have most shaped me"; "things that I continue to return to, things that have influenced how I think about myself, people, life, and the world around me."
This was difficult for me because I have really struggled with finding mentors, role models or idols, comfort shows and something of a truly transformative medium for most of my life. There was often nothing clear to point to as I have always cherry-picked tiny details from a ton of sources to combine in myself and could not fully stand behind most things or would forget about them soon. It always seemed biased towards things I had just gotten into or seen.
But I tried my best now!
books
- Daring Greatly by Brene Brown <3 this is great for practicing vulnerability and courage!
- The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday; great to repeat the lessons I learned reading other Stoic literature over and over again.
- The Enchiridion by Epictetus, my favorite Stoic work.
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, close second.
- The Dance of Connection by Harriet Lerner; her "Dance of" books are generally great, sometimes hard to come by. I mean to read the rest of them. Great for learning interpersonal relationship skills.
- Deep Work by Cal Newport; changed and challenged the way I studied and worked.
- Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, plus other books like The Shallows by Nicholas Carr were helpful in getting me off of social media years ago.
- Inventing the Future by Nick Srnicek; a proposition about capitalism, universal basic income and other things.
- No Logo by Naomi Klein :) It pushed me further away from ads and validated me in my choice not to want to wear brand logos and names, and changed how I feel about graffiti etc.
- The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein; critical lens on how powerful governments, especially the US, either cause or use catastrophic events to make organizing against harmful legislation harder and to overthrow existing governments to plant who they wanna see.
- The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk. It made me understand how big trauma and abuse affect the body, made me treat myself better, learn about different treatment approaches and introduced me to critical views on psychiatry and the DSM V, which I have since expanded upon and am very interested in.
music
- Qveen Herby's catalogue and Dounia's catalogue - I think we underestimate how much music lyrics affect us, even subconsciously. My mood and self-image has significantly improved when I mostly stopped listening to depressing, hopeless, angry music about breakups or low selfesteem. Now I value music that is upbeat, confident, self-loving, praising, about blessings and compliments and has a positive outlook. I still listen to sad or angry songs for catharsis when something happens, but not by default.
- Avril Lavigne's Let Go album was the first one I ever owned and I listened to it up and down as a 6 year old and still revisit it like once a year.
games
- The Mass Effect Trilogy is something I played as I grappled with the fact that I am exclusively attracted to women while still being in a relationship with a man. Playing through it and engaging in queer romance on-screen made me come out and break up.
tv/movies
- Dominion is an animal rights movie that changed the way I consume and live my life.
websites
- Growing up on Tumblr from 2010-2018 made me learn a lot about intersectional feminism, racism, colorism, climate change, LGBTQ+, socialism, anarchism, disability rights, abuse and toxic relationships, developmental disorders and mental illnesses.
- Back when I was on Reddit between 2014 and 2018, I learned a lot from subreddits like antiwork, anticonsumption, nosurf, minimalist, frugal, zerowaste, stoicism, vegan, privacy, piracy, polyamory and visiblemending. They definitely helped shape my values.
articles
This one is the hardest category because I am not sure if they have the recency bias or not! I haven't known them for that long so they haven't stood the test of time yet, but better than nothing :)
- Against Self Analysis by Haley Nahman.[x] Helped me draw a line in self-analysis, senseless navel-gazing, pulling myself apart and seeing myself as a constant project to be improved upon with stories here and there that may not serve us well all the time. Similar: You can't optimize yourself into a good person by Sigal Samuel [x] which really cemented these lessons and my hate for Effective Altruism.
- I practically begged my therapist to diagnose me by Rayne Fisher-Quann on Mixed Feelings [x]. It built upon my existing knowledge of psychiatry criticism and further elaborated on the intense pathologizing of everyday human behavior that is happening right now and how the pressure to seek diagnoses to receive treatment and accommodations is a problem. Do video essays count? I really really love the closely related Where are the neurotypicals? by OliSUNvia [x]. Generally a big fan of her videos. Both made me realize that it's problematic with which fervor people cling to their diagnoses as an identity to view themselves through, which is something facilitated by performance online and how access to help is determined.
people
- Dr. Hannah Ruschemeier, a German legal scholar and professor of Public Law, Data Protection Law and Law of Digitalisation and involved in lots of projects these and AI. She is definitely a big inspiration for my interest in Data Protection Law and pursuing it as a career. I was lucky to have been enrolled in classes of hers in the past and had a great email exchange with her. I always keep up with her newest pursuits, talks and publications.
- I can't say his name, but the Data Protection Officer at my place of work is my mentor about my Data Protection Law certification and helping me see the career in practice. I admire his knowledge, his patience in answering my questions, and his great ability to explain concepts well and have interesting technical discussions with me.
- I admire Ursula K. LeGuin for the ability to write in such a detailed, immersive way. I have never gotten such a feeling from an author; the feeling that they're describing what's literally happening in front of them, or all these facts the characters know about the world around them. The attention to detail is amazing. She was also amazing at making what we are so used to seem so alien, which helps question it. It changed my literary taste and what I value in writing.
- Molly White, of CitationNeeded and Web3IsGoingGreat. I have deep respect for her work, her expertise, her way of writing and research. She seems to be involved in so much and she's definitely someone I look up to in terms of how much she manages to put out there and stay on top of, and how committed she is to her area of expertise.
- Mina Le; I love how much she radiates this positive, friendly, fun and kind energy. Her smile and laugh is contagious and fills the room, so to speak. I am a rather reserved person with a flat affect and a resting bitch face, and seeing her motivates me to remedy some of that.
- Izzzyzzz's videos make me more brave in being experimental with looks and makeup and being unapologetic about my interests.
There are probably things I am forgetting, but I'll edit it if I can think of more.
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Published 27 Jun, 2025