Principles of pali pi ante toki
wile sona (curiosity)
Artistic consumption is a process that combines introspection and communication with the creator of the art, since creation and projection are also points of contact between someone's subjectivity and the subjectivities of others. In this way, it's just like communication in toki pona. I want to apply the cognitive disruption of toki pona grammar and vocabulary to my interpretation of the symbolic expressions of others' subjectivities, but I need to strike a balance between challenge and enjoyment.
- I don't want to rewrite analyses or analyze source materials that I'm currently so obsessed with that the metaphorical tangle of neural pathways is raw and overstimulated. I want this project to serve as an encouragement to watch and read things that I haven't experienced before or that I experienced a while ago because those are the pathways that are more susceptible to examination and in need of change: how to face the uncertain and how to uproot the certain.
- I think the only way to engage with media that I'm currently interested in, at least in the ways intended for this project, has to be through transformative works. I don't want an excuse to revisit the source material, but I can see other fans' interpretations of the work and their own spins, which is a new subjectivity on the board. That's why fanfiction comments are something I want to encourage, since it's a good balance of familiar subjects and new forms.
- I enjoy reading poetry, not analyzing it. Also, I feel like the translation of poetry is a very delicate art, and I'd much rather read the originals in the natural languages I know than focus on conceptualizing them in toki pona.
- If I'm reading a technical or political text, I want to focus on understanding the concepts. The added pass of commenting on them in any way in a language that is meant to be auxiliary rather than a primary driver is a certain way to burn myself out.
- I want this project to have a weighty potential for connection in public internet spaces; my emotional struggle is not something I want in those spaces, even if inevitably all projection done into any of this media will be personal in some way. Tarot journaling focuses on the images and the process of projection; therapeutic journaling is for the privacy of my own mind, my loved ones, and helpful medical professionals.
alasa luka (interfacing)
I want to make the baseline of enjoyment of this project personal, not social, which means that there will be a focus on expressing myself in toki pona. However, for the social half of this project, the content has to be available in English to reach anyone who might not be familiar with toki pona.
- The main text of the entry (review, comment, journal) must be originally written in toki pona.
- All annotations in English are for the purpose of recording my thought processes primarily for my own reference, secondarily for people who are already familiar with toki pona.
- All explanatory pages on the site will be in English.
- There will be an English translation at the end of the original toki pona texts.
- Proper names of people and places will not be phonetically tokiponized.
awen pali (sustainability)
I want to see this project through; 3 months of routine is more than I'm used to keeping, and this principle is about making this routine easier on me in the long term as well as encouraging technological sustainability by making the site accessible, compatible and easily maintained.
- No indexed lists of pages until the project is over. I don't want to use a static site generator, which means I would have to handwrite every link list and tweak it any time I changed a link slug, and it would be simultaneously tedious and a very enticing time-waster. So I've decided I'm handwriting this code, and I'm just linking to the entries in the corresponding review, comment or post.
- The palette must be high-contrast black-and-white and adapt to user-end dark mode and light mode preferences. All the colors are set with CSS variables so that they switch automatically, and the stylesheet can be easily modified to make your own palette. I also tend to get lost in the sauce when it comes to tweaking style over substance, and this is a way for me to avoid that pitfall.
- sitelen pona fonts will only be used to style standalone terms in English pages and will be rendered as plain Latin script if the font can't load on a slow connection or the text is being spoken.
- No JavaScript to avoid bloat and ensure functionality in text-only interfaces
- Semantic HTML structure and elements will be the primary components of the page to make navigation easier on screen readers and browsers' reading mode. All styling must be applied to these elements.