Why Are We Perfectly Willing To Ascribe Agency To A Strand Of DNA (however “metaphorically”), But

I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that - I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying “write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep”, and “cheer up” and “happiness is our birthright” and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say “Quick! Move on! Cheer up!” I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness”. Ask yourself “is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is.

Hugh Mackay (via varanine)

I’m not so worried about the dangers of mental junk food. No, my worry is that you won’t put enough really excellent stuff into your brain. I’m talking about what you might call the “theory of maximum taste.” This theory is based on the idea that exposure to genius has the power to expand your consciousness. The theory of maximum taste says that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit—the best that it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming. ... Our maximum taste shrinks. Have you ever noticed that 70 percent of the people you know are more boring at 30 than they were at 20? I’m worried about the future of your maximum taste. People in my and earlier generations, at least those lucky enough to get a college education, got some exposure to the classics, which lit a fire that gets rekindled every time we sit down to read something really excellent. I worry that it’s possible to grow up now not even aware that those upper registers of human feeling and thought exist.

David Brooks

Peter Bialobrzeski

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Ernest Hemingway (via scribnerbooks)

Although you mention Venice keeping it on your tongue like a fruit pit and I say yes, perhaps Bucharest, neither of us really knows. There is only this train slipping through pastures of snow, a sleigh reaching down to touch its buried runners. We meet on the shaking platform, the wind’s broken teeth sinking into us. You unwrap your dark bread and share with me the coffee sloshing into your gloves. Telegraph posts chop the winter fields into white blocks, in each window the crude painting of a small farm. We listen to mothers scolding children in English as if we do not understand a word of it– sit still, sit still. There are few clues as to where we are: the baled wheat scattered everywhere like missing coffins. The distant yellow kitchen lights wiped with oil. Everywhere the black dipping wires stretching messages from one side of a country to the other. The men who stand on every border waving to us. Wiping ovals of breath from the windows in order to see ourselves, you touch the glass tenderly wherever it holds my face. Days later, you are showing me photographs of a woman and children smiling from the windows of your wallet. Each time the train slows, a man with our faces in the gold buttons of his coat passes through the cars muttering the name of a city. Each time we lose people. Each time I find you again between the cars, holding out a scrap of bread for me, something hot to drink, until there are no more cities and you pull me toward you, sliding your hands into my coat, telling me your name over and over, hurrying your mouth into mine. We have, each of us, nothing. We will give it to each other.

For the Stranger  Carolyn Forché

The main response by the authors in defense is that genetic diversity is a ‘proxy variable.’ This is a common assertion, but I find it really infuriating. I happen to drink coffee most days, which correlates with my happiness. So coffee consumption is a ‘proxy’ for my happiness. Therefore, I can put it in a regression and predict the relationship between my happiness and the amount of times I go to the bathroom. Ergo universal conclusions: ‘Relieving yourself improves mental well-being.’ New policy— you should relieve yourself at least two times per day in order to maintain high levels of emotional well-being.

Kyle Peyton Regarding this controversy.

vesi on Flickr.

It's a new world order anyway, you cannot heat your home but you can buy yoghurt with chocolate in it.

Loki with Becci Wallace

Preparations for the Coriolanus live broadcast - I can relate to this on a psychological level.

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