thinking thursday
After some hiatus, I offer Thinking Thursday once more:
mind
Meet the first digital generation: For the roughly 4 million Americans born in 1993, these contradictions must constantly be negotiated: public versus private, virtual versus real, active versus passive.“You can totally imagine Goethe doing the same thing, preserving each precious instant of angst for the posterity that would someday recognize his genius. Except Daniszewski doesn’t preserve them all; some she sends out with Snapchat, so they appear on friends’ phones for around six seconds before vanishing irretrievably. In an era when everyone has the tools to be an artist and everything is recorded and stored—potentially forever—this counts as provocation. Daniszewski is embracing the ephemeral.”
Depression runs in my family. I suffer from depression. Do you? I appreciated this list of 21 tips for beating depression, including this one: “Face a window as often as you can – at work, at home. Look out into the world. Watch. Observe. Try to find something you find pretty or interesting to focus on. And, handily remember that one in five of those people out there feel the way you do.” Sometimes this translates, for me, into simply putting on clothes and standing barefoot in the grass at least once a day.
body
We are weighed down, most of us. My older daughter, Emma, posted this link. I urge in this direction. To be sure, it will take a while to get there, and I may not. But the impulse toward this kind of simplicity is already changing my life: “Most of us can only handle stacking, storing and stepping over our stuff for so long before we start to feel claustrophobic. We go on a cleaning spree and give (or sell) it all away. But that’s only a temporary fix. Living small requires a more permanent shift.”
Conflict Kitchen is a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict. The food is served out of a take-out style storefront that rotates identities every six months to highlight another country. I want to go there.I would like this sandwich. Now.
soul
This gorgeous piece of writing about the Boston Marathon bombing stopped me: “And so I wish on all of us, the moment beyond anger, when we suddenly know, deep in our soul’s roots, that it is not the other that angers us, but our own ineffectiveness, or inability to create change, our fear for the life we have, or the life we want to lead. Our terror that our children will go hungry or be too scared to sleep. Our suspicion that we are not enough, not pure in the eyes of our Gods, not heard by our partners. Not lovable. Our sudden knowledge that it is not the other that angers us, it is ourselves.”
My heart breaks when I see what we humans are capable of: Minutes after the explosions, internet tough guys and girls were already pointing the blame and ready to kill. (Here) is some of the horrible shit that was said online, all posted no more than a couple hours after the tragedy happened.”
word
“As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don’t deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.” -Pema Chödrön
(photo from Conflict Kitchen)
