It seems to me that you need a lot of courage, or a lot of something, to enter into others, into other people. We all think that everyone else lives in fortresses, in fastnesses: behind moats, behind sheer walls studded with spikes and broken glass. But in fact we inhabit much punier structures. We are, as it turns out, all jerry-built. Or not even. You can just stick your head under the flap of the tent and crawl right in. If you get the okay. – Martin Amis
“Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us.”
– From Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez’s Perfumes: The Guide
I’ve been slightly obsessed with Citizen Cope (Clarence Greenwood) lately. I’ve really liked the few songs I’ve had of his and earlier in the week I bought several albums. Today I bought another. Gorgeous stuff – layered, slow, a beat which makes my head and shoulders move and what a voice!
Citizen Cope – A Father’s Son
Look look what you’ve done
Not to become your Father’s Son
Before that day, day, day is done
You’ll get your day, day, day in the sun
and
Citizen Cope – Off The Ground
When you and I
Were so far
We were so far
Away from here
All my life been gambling times
Been evading mines
Away from here
The universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. There is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.
Jon Stewart, though ostensibly a comedian, is, I think, one of the most thoughtful and important voices we have on current politics and the media. He recently spoke about the terrible shooting in Arizona and his words are both moving and wise:
… to see good people like this hurt. It is so grievous and it causes me such sadness. But again, I refuse to give in to that feeling of despair. There is light in this situation. I urge everyone – read up about those that were hurt and or killed. You will be comforted by just how much anonymous goodness there really is in the world.
You read about these people and realize that people you don’t even know, that you have never met, are leading lives of real dignity and goodness, and you hear about crazy, but it’s rarer than you think….
If there is real solace in this, I think it’s that, for all the hyperbole and vitriol that’s become part of our political process, when the reality of that rhetoric, when actions match the disturbing nature of words, we haven’t lost our capacity to be horrified. And please, god, let us hope we never do…
Someone or something will shatter our world again. And wouldn’t it be a shame if we didn’t take this opportunity and the loss of these incredible people and the pain that their loved ones are going through right now, wouldn’t it be a shame if we didn’t take that moment to make sure that the world that we are creating now that will ultimately be shattered again by a moment of lunacy, wouldn’t it be a shame if that world wasn’t better than the one that was previously lost?
“That’s a beauty”
Bukowski read by Tom Waits – fantastic. (via moon river)
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
This year the keynote speaker at the American Psychological Association convention was Dr. Dan Gilbert of Harvard. His book Stumbling on Happiness is an international bestseller and his talk was about affective forecasting: Do we know what will make us happy?
He pointed out that we are hardwired from birth to be happy when we get salt, fat, sweet things and sex. Beyond that our culture provides us cues about what will make us happy…
It is the goodness of social relationships that truly makes us happy. Good relationships are the foundations for almost every measure of well being. Our immune system, our incidental sense of peace and joy, and our optimism for the future is better when we feel good about our daily social relationships. The better we feel in the social network of others in our life, the happier we are. With poor or nonexistent relationships we cannot flourish…
Choosing who we talk to, spend time with and respond to — and who we don’t — is the stuff of what Moreno called sociometry. He found that people who were able to choose their compatriots did better and survived longer.
Choosing who we want to be with, and talk to, and spend time with sounds like a no-brainer. But the truth is most people simply don’t do it. We feel obligations and play politics, and in doing so lessen the time we spend with people who make us happy…
Some people make us feel good when we are around them. I encourage you to foster, nourish and cultivate these relationships. Spend more time with those who make you feel good, and less with those who don’t. If you are responsible for assigning people, and it is possible to let them choose who to be with or where to go, do it.
