by softerworld
"Rest. Do not undervalue your work, your motivations and goals, your affections and your alliances. Treat yourself with kindness when you realize that you can’t achieve every damn thing you think will give your life some significance, when another year passes and you still find yourself absolutely alone, when you are struck by intangible emotions of purposelessness, when you have a moment of uncertainty, a moment that strikes you down and leaves you helpless and unable to move."
– —Brent Delaney, A Memo For Your Twentysomething Irony (via Thought Catalog)
"Don’t pursue your passion directly. At least not yet. Instead… pursue the things that will empower you. Pursue knowledge. Be relentlessly curious. Listen, learn. You’re leaving Harvard this week, but your learning cannot ever, ever be allowed to stop. Pursue discipline. It’s an old-fashioned word, but it’s never been more important. Today’s world is full of an impossible number of distractions. The world-changers are those who find a way of ignoring most of them. And above all. Pursue generosity. Not just because it will add meaning to your life — though it will do that — but because your future is going to be built on great ideas and in the future you are entering, great ideas HAVE to be given away."
–
TED’s Chris Anderson addresses Harvard’s graduating architects
Kelly Tsai : Kindness over Genius (by speakeasynyc)
for Sarah who said somethin’ like:
“in my 20’s, i think i was most captivated by genius, but now, in my 30’s, i realize how rare authentic kindness is.”
i’ve got to agree with sarah.
in my 20’s, i thought genius
was the hot shit.
muthafucka’s who taught themselves
how to play 20 different instruments —
a combination lawyer / ER doctor /
and clinical social worker —
a novelist who writes for 10 hours a day,
goes to sleep for 2, gets up and writes for another 10 —
now, genius bores me.
the tedium of the workaholic,
the blistering erections of human achievement,
all while the genius’ life crumbles
around him or her.
the phone goes silent.
birthdays and holidays go missed.
vacations never get taken.
genius doesn’t believe
in such frivolous things.
i know, because i have been
a sufferer of genius.
i’m not saying that i am a genius,
but i’ve almost died in its pursuit.
sacrificed so many nights not sleeping,
exploded an atomic mushroom cloud
of emotional distance around me,
found my own ingenuity and energy
outpacing me, running over me foot by foot,
genius doesn’t have time
for feelings or social skills
or farmville on facebook
for bubble tea dates on rainy afternoons
or guitar hero marathons or knowing
what one’s loved one is crying about
when the crying eventually does come.
genius is so often absent —
swinging around in its own genius world,
gorilla knuckled with broad teeth and a thick skull,
blowing through the jungle,
not caring who he or she crushes.
to live like this is not extraordinary —
not when compared to the open hand
that on monday, tuesday, wednesday,
thursday, friday, saturday, sunday stays here
no flinching, no quaking, no fists.
not extraordinary when compared
to the open hand that stays here
through powdery blizzards, scorching summers,
balmy springs,
not extraordinary when compared to the open hand that stays here —
and isn’t worried about whatever “hand” things
it could be doing right now?
or what are all the other hands are up to?
or if it really is appreciated and recognized
by the entire world in its true value as a hand?
not extraordinary when compared to
the open hand that stays here and extends,
fingers and wrist rooted in the whole person.
one who is right here, right in front of me,
not racing ahead to seek out the next solution,
the next innovation, the next trend.
not extraordinary when compared to the open hand
that stays here and remains, unafraid to be kind,
in the midst of so much genius.
by youtube.com
by madlangbayan
Ain’t that the sad truth.
“With our bountiful gifts from mother technology and our cross-cultural media grub, we’re supposed to find a way to make ourselves great. Now more than ever, we have to prove ourselves worthy of the time we were born into. So who can blame us, for wanting to run all the time? The pressure is immense. So much is running after us and worse, there is so much we are trying to keep up with.”
—
Gena Valerie Chua, Quarter-life crisis
by philstar.com
"Not to get all Cheshire Cat up in this bitch, but until you know where you want to go, you’re wasting your time wondering why you’re lost."
–
Dear Coke Talk: On why you even bother. (via piratekitten) (via astroblemes)
________
Harsh. But this kind of hits home.
by dearcoquette
Make for yourself a world you can believe in.
It sounds simple, I know. But it’s not. Listen, there are a million worlds you could make for yourself. Everyone you know has a completely different one—the woman in 5G, that cab driver over there, you. Sure, there are overlaps, but only in the details. Some people make their worlds around what they think reality is like. They convince themselves that they had nothing to do with their worlds’ creations and continuations. Some make their worlds without knowing it. Their universes are just sesame seeds and three-day weekends and dial tones and skinned knees and physics and driftwood and emerald earrings and books dropped in bathtubs and holes in guitars and plastic and empathy and hardwood and heavy water and high black stockings and the history of the Vikings and brass and obsolescence and burnt hair and collapsed soufflés and the impossibility of not falling in love in an art museum with the person standing next to you looking at the same painting and all the other things that just happen and are. But you want to make for yourself a world that is deliberately and meticulously personalized. A theater for your life, if I could put it like that. Don’t live an accident. Don’t call a knife a knife. Live a life that has never been lived before, in which everything you experience is yours and only yours. Make accidents on purpose. Call a knife a name by which only you will recognize it. Now I’m not a very smart man, but I’m not a dumb one, either. So listen: If you can manage what I’ve told you, as I was never able to, you will give your life meaning.
“If the Aging Magician Should Begin to Believe,” A Convergence of Birds, Jonathan Safran Foer. (via presidents)
"Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
– High Fidelity
