“The anditode to doom is curiosity.”
– Ezra Klein
The Antidote to Doom
Darkness Of The Womb
“What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb but the darkness of the womb?
What if our America is not dead but a country that is waiting to be born?
What if the the story of America is one long labor?”
– Valarie Kaur
Notice
“I urge you to please notice when you are happy.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
Flourishing
“All flourishing is mutual.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer
Nowhere to go but up
“It’s so freeing and beautiful in a way, to have a great failure. There’s nowhere to go but up.”
– David Lynch
Build A New Model
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
—Buckminster Fuller
Always Go To The Funeral
“Always go to the funeral” means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don’t feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don’t really have to and I definitely don’t want to. I’m talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. The Shiva call for one of my ex’s uncles. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn’t been good versus evil. It’s hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.”
A beautiful read: Always Go To The Funeral, by Deirdre Sullivan
Community is…
“Community is what happens when you do what you love together.”
– Pete Davis
We Can Disagree
“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”
– James Baldwin
Instrument of Cultural Change
“A talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well, is the chief instrument of cultural change.”
― Richard Rorty
(via Casper)
Everything is on Fire
“Everything is on fire,
but everyone I love is doing beautiful things
and trying to make life worth living,
and I know I don’t have to believe in everything,
but I believe in that.”
– Nikita Gill
Now we continue living a life of integrity, kindness and community, no matter the circumstances. Find the helpers. Connect hearts.
We Need To Rewild The Internet
“Rewilding the internet is more than a metaphor. It’s a framework and plan. It gives us fresh eyes for the wicked problem of extraction and control, and new means and allies to fix it. It recognizes that ending internet monopolies isn’t just an intellectual problem. It’s an emotional one. It answers questions like: How do we keep going when the monopolies have more money and power? How do we act collectively when they suborn our community spaces, funding and networks? And how do we communicate to our allies what fixing it will look and feel like?
Rewilding is a positive vision for the networks we want to live inside, and a shared story for how we get there. It grafts a new tree onto technology’s tired old stock.”
We Need To Rewild The Internet, by Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon
(Thank you Brendan)
Stop Trying To Be Cool
“Stop trying to be cool. Be nerdy and obsessive about the things you love. Enthusiasm will get you farther than indifference.”
I’ve lost all the poems from the night
And now that it is morning
I’ve lost all the poems from the night.I watched them leave,
pack their bags and go.No way to stop them,
I’m left alone, and with nothing to show,
but my empty page and motionless pen.Until this night, I will wait
for my dear poems return
carrying nothing but fate
and stars in their little briefcases.And as I sit
I would rather chat than
write them down,
because who am I
to trap them in this town?– Ella Joy
Things That Have No Soul
”Understand me…I do not have time for things that have no soul.”
– Charles Bukowski
The In Between
“I don’t think we talk enough about the in betweens. The part when you know you want to change something but don’t yet know how, don’t yet feel strong enough, don’t yet know what your first step is. So to the people in the in betweens, don’t be disheartened, don’t give up. You’ve done the hard part. Now just take it one small step at a time.
– allyislia
Fear
“Sometimes fear does not subside and you must do it afraid.”
– Elisabeth Elliot
Article on Friendship
“Friendship insecurity remains a final hurdle in how I interact in the world, but I’m realizing that if I want close, family-level friendships, I need to act as if I am already in them. Even if it brings me discomfort to text my friend an unprompted update about my life so they will feel more inclined to text me about one of theirs in the future. While most of my friends’ behaviors haven’t drastically changed overnight in response, I remain hopeful that I am slowly moving toward tighter bonds. And my growing friendship with my neighbor is shifting into the type of dynamic I’ve been so hungry for — much to my delight.”
– By Allison Raskin
Lovely read about Adult Friendship. Stumbled upon thanks to this thoughtful TikTok.
Call To Creative Work
“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
― Mary Oliver
The Ability to Observe
“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
Collective Change
“Without inner change there can be no outer change, without collective change, no change matters.”
-angel Kyodo williams
Creativity
“Creativity is an active engagement with the unknown, it’s risk-taking, it’s curiosity, it’s exploration, it’s discovery, it’s mystery. It’s all of that.”
– Esther Perel