don't wait til the finish line

"Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:20:38 -0600

“Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing.”

- Hunter S. Thompson (via thatkindofwoman)

imwithkanye: Jane Fonda | Flaunt “I love mistakes because it’s...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 11:02:11 -0600

Jane Fonda | Flaunt

“I love mistakes because it’s the only way you learn. You don’t learn from successes; you don’t learn from awards; you don’t learn from celebrity; you only learn from wounds and scars and mistakes and failures. And that’s the truth.”

How Not to Be Alone

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:43:54 -0600

How Not to Be Alone:

youmightfindyourself:

By JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER
NY Times Published: June 8, 2013

A COUPLE of weeks ago, I saw a stranger crying in public. I was in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, waiting to meet a friend for breakfast. I arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early and was sitting on the bench outside, scrolling through my contact list. A girl, maybe 15 years old, was sitting on the bench opposite me, crying into her phone. I heard her say, “I know, I know, I know” over and over.

What did she know? Had she done something wrong? Was she being comforted? And then she said, “Mama, I know,” and the tears came harder.

What was her mother telling her? Never to stay out all night again? That everybody fails? Is it possible that no one was on the other end of the call, and that the girl was merely rehearsing a difficult conversation?

“Mama, I know,” she said, and hung up, placing her phone on her lap.

I was faced with a choice: I could interject myself into her life, or I could respect the boundaries between us. Intervening might make her feel worse, or be inappropriate. But then, it might ease her pain, or be helpful in some straightforward logistical way. An affluent neighborhood at the beginning of the day is not the same as a dangerous one as night is falling. And I was me, and not someone else. There was a lot of human computing to be done.

It is harder to intervene than not to, but it is vastly harder to choose to do either than to retreat into the scrolling names of one’s contact list, or whatever one’s favorite iDistraction happens to be. Technology celebrates connectedness, but encourages retreat. The phone didn’t make me avoid the human connection, but it did make ignoring her easier in that moment, and more likely, by comfortably encouraging me to forget my choice to do so. My daily use of technological communication has been shaping me into someone more likely to forget others. The flow of water carves rock, a little bit at a time. And our personhood is carved, too, by the flow of our habits.

Psychologists who study empathy and compassion are finding that unlike our almost instantaneous responses to physical pain, it takes time for the brain to comprehend the psychological and moral dimensions of a situation. The more distracted we become, and the more emphasis we place on speed at the expense of depth, the less likely and able we are to care.

Everyone wants his parent’s, or friend’s, or partner’s undivided attention — even if many of us, especially children, are getting used to far less. Simone Weil wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” By this definition, our relationships to the world, and to one another, and to ourselves, are becoming increasingly miserly.

Most of our communication technologies began as diminished substitutes for an impossible activity. We couldn’t always see one another face to face, so the telephone made it possible to keep in touch at a distance. One is not always home, so the answering machine made a kind of interaction possible without the person being near his phone. Online communication originated as a substitute for telephonic communication, which was considered, for whatever reasons, too burdensome or inconvenient. And then texting, which facilitated yet faster, and more mobile, messaging. These inventions were not created to be improvements upon face-to-face communication, but a declension of acceptable, if diminished, substitutes for it.

But then a funny thing happened: we began to prefer the diminished substitutes. It’s easier to make a phone call than to schlep to see someone in person. Leaving a message on someone’s machine is easier than having a phone conversation — you can say what you need to say without a response; hard news is easier to leave; it’s easier to check in without becoming entangled. So we began calling when we knew no one would pick up.

Shooting off an e-mail is easier, still, because one can hide behind the absence of vocal inflection, and of course there’s no chance of accidentally catching someone. And texting is even easier, as the expectation for articulateness is further reduced, and another shell is offered to hide in. Each step “forward” has made it easier, just a little, to avoid the emotional work of being present, to convey information rather than humanity.

THE problem with accepting — with preferring — diminished substitutes is that over time, we, too, become diminished substitutes. People who become used to saying little become used to feeling little.

With each generation, it becomes harder to imagine a future that resembles the present. My grandparents hoped I would have a better life than they did: free of war and hunger, comfortably situated in a place that felt like home. But what futures would I dismiss out of hand for my grandchildren? That their clothes will be fabricated every morning on 3-D printers? That they will communicate without speaking or moving?

Only those with no imagination, and no grounding in reality, would deny the possibility that they will live forever. It’s possible that many reading these words will never die. Let’s assume, though, that we all have a set number of days to indent the world with our beliefs, to find and create the beauty that only a finite existence allows for, to wrestle with the question of purpose and wrestle with our answers.

We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts. It’s not an either/or — being “anti-technology” is perhaps the only thing more foolish than being unquestioningly “pro-technology” — but a question of balance that our lives hang upon.

Most of the time, most people are not crying in public, but everyone is always in need of something that another person can give, be it undivided attention, a kind word or deep empathy. There is no better use of a life than to be attentive to such needs. There are as many ways to do this as there are kinds of loneliness, but all of them require attentiveness, all of them require the hard work of emotional computation and corporeal compassion. All of them require the human processing of the only animal who risks “getting it wrong” and whose dreams provide shelters and vaccines and words to crying strangers.

We live in a world made up more of story than stuff. We are creatures of memory more than reminders, of love more than likes. Being attentive to the needs of others might not be the point of life, but it is the work of life. It can be messy, and painful, and almost impossibly difficult. But it is not something we give. It is what we get in exchange for having to die.

oh, this is wonderful

"My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always..."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:41:57 -0600

“My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are - really and truly - still in existence somewhere. […] Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested in whether there’s any sober evidence for it. So I don’t guffaw at the woman who visits her husband’s grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It’s not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she’s talking to, that’s all right. That’s not what this is about. This is about humans being human.”

- Carl Sagan on why sometimes it’s good to temporarily forgo your beliefs in order to respect someone else’s (via applepiesfromscratch)

I sometimes get into loooooooooooong discussions/arguments about why it’s important to have memorials like graveyards and holidays that celebrate the dead, and why resources given to those who’ve passed on are not “wasted” for the living. As always, Sagan says it better than I ever have.
(via weirdsociology)

igotopinions: So there is a word for my crimes…

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:22:31 -0600

igotopinions:

So there is a word for my crimes…

velvetlovepocket: “If You Know Someone Who Doesn’t Believe...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:21:10 -0600

velvetlovepocket:

“If You Know Someone Who Doesn’t Believe Sexism Exists, Show Them This”
Link here: [x]

alsocarlie: Wow. Well, that about does it.

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 23:06:25 -0600

alsocarlie:

Wow.
Well, that about does it.

"Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a..."

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:24:17 -0600

“Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep travelling honestly along life’s path.”

- Street Smarts: A Learning Process: 11 Things to Know at 25(ish)

all I want.

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:52:40 -0600

all I want.

I Have Made Mistakes - The Oh Hello's

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:53:44 -0600

I Have Made Mistakes - The Oh Hello's

"‘If the girl had been worth having she’d have waited for you?’ No, sir, the girl really worth having..."

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:46:00 -0600

“‘If the girl had been worth having she’d have waited for you?’ No, sir, the girl really worth having won’t wait for anybody.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (via thatkindofwoman)

i saw this a few weeks ago and i don’t remember if i reblogged it or not, but weeks later, i still want to yell THISTHISTHIS.

"My heart wants roots. My mind wants wings. I cannot bear their bickerings."

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 01:02:06 -0600

“My heart wants roots. My mind wants wings. I cannot bear their bickerings.”

- E. Y. Harburg (via forlornes)

Things I Do Not Understand And Definitely Am Not Going To Talk About

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 01:01:29 -0600

thingsidontunderstandand:

“It’s not” or “it isn’t.”

i am a shark/i might die.

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 22:40:00 -0600

me: i think i want to move.
porter: like a shark
me: what does that mean?
porter: wait, you mean you don't want to live in the mormon capital of the world the rest of your life? shocking.
porter: sharks have to move constantly or they'll die.

"1. push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go..."

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:16:34 -0600

“1. push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sun rise.

2. push yourself to fall asleep earlier - start with 11pm, then 10pm, then 9pm. wake up in the morning feeling re-energized and comfortable.

3. erase processed food from your diet. start with no lollies, chips, biscuits, then erase pasta, rice, cereal, then bread. use the rule that if a child couldn’t identify what was in it, you don’t eat it.

4. get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. sit and eat it and do nothing else.

5. stretch. start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. roll your head. stretch your fingers. stretch everything.

6. buy a 1L water bottle. start with pushing yourself to drink the whole thing in a day, then try drinking it twice.

7. buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, coffees, what you need to do that day. no detail is too small.

8. strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. make your bed in full.

9. organise your room. fold all your clothes (and bag what you don’t want), clean your mirror, your laptop, vacuum the floor. light a beautiful candle.

10. have a luxurious shower with your favourite music playing. wash your hair, scrub your body, brush your teeth. lather your whole body in moisturiser, get familiar with the part between your toes, your inner thighs, the back of your neck.

11. push yourself to go for a walk. take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised how many smile back. bring your dog and observe the dog’s behaviour. realise you can learn from your dog.

12. message old friends with personal jokes. reminisce. suggest a catch up soon, even if you don’t follow through. push yourself to follow through.

14. think long and hard about what interests you. crime? sex? boarding school? long-forgotten romance etiquette? find a book about it and read it. there is a book about literally everything.

15. become the person you would ideally fall in love with. let cars merge into your lane when driving. pay double for parking tickets and leave a second one in the machine. stick your tongue out at babies. compliment people on their cute clothes. challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. then two. then a week. walk with a straight posture. look people in the eye. ask people about their story. talk to acquaintances so they become friends.

16. lie in the sunshine. daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn’t a thing. open your eyes. take small steps to make it happen for you.”

- Sixteen Small Steps to Happiness (via pigmenting)

Photo

Tue, 28 May 2013 20:05:09 -0600

Video

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:43:26 -0600

sun-and-flower-power: Good getaway to the mountains ♥ #boise...

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:07:05 -0600

sun-and-flower-power:

Good getaway to the mountains ♥ #boise #idahome

oh, this is lovely.

Photo

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:06:09 -0600

awelltraveledwoman: Never not

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:03:56 -0600

awelltraveledwoman:

Never not