We consider the animals to be lower, and to me, that makes no sense at all. If you look at a tree or a mushroom or a squirrel, it’s perfectly in tune with itself. It has no problem being exactly what it is, and it does what it’s meant to do without any complaints or problems. Because we create all these problems in being, we think we’re somehow higher than the animals. But it’s we humans who have a difficult time even caring for our children, or anything.

So, after Aeroplane , I felt I needed to take a bit of a harsher look at life, and that’s what I did. So often, everywhere we look, we seem to find obstacles and facades and smokescreens, so it was really nice to find things in the world that actually spoke to me. And I felt like Eastern thought really spoke to me. Because it isn’t trying to cover up the pain in life; it’s trying to deal with it and overcome it in an intelligent way.

I think the reason I love Eastern thought so much, and mysticism in general— but especially Buddhism— is because it seems to me an attempt to look life squarely in the face, as it is. And to try to deal with the brute facts of the suffering in life, and the joy in life. I’m trying to find peace in the world, as it is. I’m feeling this sort of slow stripping of my mind, like the layers of an onion. I’m starting to see through all these little structures that have been imposed on me by my society that tell me how I’m supposed to view my life and the world. What I’m supposed to find to be important and what is not. Sometimes you see through so much of it that you feel like you’re just a leaf blowing on the wind.

Jeff Mangum

(Source: pitchfork.com)

albinwonderland: This past Christmas night, my wife, daughter, and I went visited some friends for dinner. When my daughter walked through the door resplendent in a new outfit from Santa, our host, Tom, exclaimed “You look beautiful, Heloise!” His partner, Kate, shushed him. “You’re not supposed to tell little girls that they’re pretty,” she said, offering Eira and me an apologetic smile. “It gives them a complex.” As Heloise ran off to play with the other kids, my wife and I assured Tom and Kate that we had no problem with a friendly compliment on our daughter’s appearance. But as she soon explained, like so many others, Kate had read and been influenced by one of the viral articles of 2011, Lisa Bloom’s How to Talk to Little Girls. (According to Facebook, it was the 12th most-shared article of 2011). In her much-read piece, Bloom argues that the best way to inoculate little girls against poor body image is to focus on everything but their looks. Praise their intellects but not their prettiness, she urges, telling the story of her encounter with a friend’s five year-old daughter, Maya. Bloom recounts spending an evening talking books with little Maya, forcing herself to stay away from any discussion of appearance. Not once did we discuss clothes or hair or bodies or who was pretty. It’s surprising how hard it is to stay away from those topics with little girls, but I’m stubborn. Bloom suggests that this stubborn avoidance of “beauty talk” will constitute “one tiny bit of opposition to a culture that sends all the wrong messages to our girls. One tiny nudge towards valuing female brains.” As a father to a daughter as well as someone who lectures and writes around body image, I’m all for pushing back against our society’s toxic messages about women’s bodies and their self-worth. But I’m not at all convinced that refusing to talk about fashion or beauty is the best answer. For many years, I’ve offered a class at Pasadena City College called “Beauty and the Body in the Western Tradition.” The course looks at the intersecting histories of fashion, faith, and body ideals from the classical era to the present. Every time I teach it, I hear from students who express excitement about being able to study beauty as an academic subject. Many explain that they were shamed or teased for having an interest in dress and hair when they were younger. A common theme: many very bright young women who were passionate about clothes report having had these interests belittled or mocked. They tell stories of being called “shallow” or “vain” for their interest in fashion. Caroline, one of the best students I’ve ever taught, told me that her high school math and English teachers were always surprised when she did well on tests or answered difficult questions. She said they saw her assiduous attention to her appearance (and the copies of Vogue that poked out of her bag) and dismissed her as a lightweight. “The message I got — from teachers even more than other students — was that smart girls don’t care about clothes, and girls who care about clothes aren’t smart. I said ‘fuck that.’” When Caroline told that story in class one day, she got vigorous nods of agreement. Her experience of being shamed for her interest in beauty is, as my students continually remind me, painfully common. Lisa Bloom and my friend Kate make the same mistake of embracing a false dichotomy that says we can either talk to girls about beauty or talk to them about books, but not both. They believe that the only way to encourage young women’s intellectual development is to do what Bloom admits is the very difficult work of totally avoiding anything that has to do with appearance in order to focus solely on the mind. (Though she doesn’t mention sports, Bloom presumably would have less of a problem focusing on athletics — as long as the emphasis is on what girls’ bodies do rather than how they look). In a culture that reminds them at every turn that their primary value is in their looks, girls do need constant encouragement that their minds matter as well. It is vital to talk to girls about books, about politics, about art, about sports, about ideas. But girls also need help navigating the confusing messages they get about their bodies. Very few problems are solved by not talking about them. That’s as true of girls’ feelings about beauty as anything else. There’s a difference, of course, between never talking to girls about clothes or make-up (which sends the unhelpful message that such concerns are trivial, or evidence of superficiality) and actively praising little girls for being pretty. Bloom suggests we shouldn’t do either; others, like Kate, worry more about the latter. Certainly, many adults do lavish attention on girls’ looks. But that’s only a problem when they don’t compliment anything else. When girls are lauded for their other qualities, when they get support about their other interests, then attention for their appearance gets healthily integrated into the symphony of encouragement that all children need and deserve. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t tell my daughter how beautiful she is. But I also praise her for the other things she does, and as she has grown more vocal, I engage her in conversation in a host of other topics. I read to Heloise every night — and each night, I help her pick out her outfit for the following day. My little girl loves clothes as well as books. And I want to encourage her in both passions without privileging either. Obviously, I’m much more circumspect about complimenting my students’ looks. But in my professional work, I am careful to emphasize that beauty and fashion are worthy areas of historical inquiry as well as personal fascination. Lisa Bloom calls on adult women to be role models to girls by talking about ideas, accomplishments, and favorite books. That’s wonderful advice. But if clothes or hair turn out to be an area of mutual interest, it’s vital to talk about those things too. Girls need role models who can share how to cope with the pressures of a looks-obsessed culture. And sometimes, they need role models who can show them that a passion for fashion isn’t shallow, and that an interest in beauty can co-exist with a deep devotion to the life of the mind. Article by Hugo Scgwyzer. View on it’s original page here.

albinwonderland:

This past Christmas night, my wife, daughter, and I went visited some friends for dinner. When my daughter walked through the door resplendent in a new outfit from Santa, our host, Tom, exclaimed “You look beautiful, Heloise!” His partner, Kate, shushed him. “You’re not supposed to tell little girls that they’re pretty,” she said, offering Eira and me an apologetic smile. “It gives them a complex.”

As Heloise ran off to play with the other kids, my wife and I assured Tom and Kate that we had no problem with a friendly compliment on our daughter’s appearance. But as she soon explained, like so many others, Kate had read and been influenced by one of the viral articles of 2011, Lisa Bloom’s How to Talk to Little Girls. (According to Facebook, it was the 12th most-shared article of 2011). In her much-read piece, Bloom argues that the best way to inoculate little girls against poor body image is to focus on everything but their looks. Praise their intellects but not their prettiness, she urges, telling the story of her encounter with a friend’s five year-old daughter, Maya. Bloom recounts spending an evening talking books with little Maya, forcing herself to stay away from any discussion of appearance.

Not once did we discuss clothes or hair or bodies or who was pretty. It’s surprising how hard it is to stay away from those topics with little girls, but I’m stubborn.

Bloom suggests that this stubborn avoidance of “beauty talk” will constitute “one tiny bit of opposition to a culture that sends all the wrong messages to our girls. One tiny nudge towards valuing female brains.” As a father to a daughter as well as someone who lectures and writes around body image, I’m all for pushing back against our society’s toxic messages about women’s bodies and their self-worth. But I’m not at all convinced that refusing to talk about fashion or beauty is the best answer.

For many years, I’ve offered a class at Pasadena City College called “Beauty and the Body in the Western Tradition.” The course looks at the intersecting histories of fashion, faith, and body ideals from the classical era to the present. Every time I teach it, I hear from students who express excitement about being able to study beauty as an academic subject.

Many explain that they were shamed or teased for having an interest in dress and hair when they were younger. A common theme: many very bright young women who were passionate about clothes report having had these interests belittled or mocked. They tell stories of being called “shallow” or “vain” for their interest in fashion. Caroline, one of the best students I’ve ever taught, told me that her high school math and English teachers were always surprised when she did well on tests or answered difficult questions. She said they saw her assiduous attention to her appearance (and the copies of Vogue that poked out of her bag) and dismissed her as a lightweight. “The message I got — from teachers even more than other students — was that smart girls don’t care about clothes, and girls who care about clothes aren’t smart. I said ‘fuck that.’” When Caroline told that story in class one day, she got vigorous nods of agreement. Her experience of being shamed for her interest in beauty is, as my students continually remind me, painfully common.

Lisa Bloom and my friend Kate make the same mistake of embracing a false dichotomy that says we can either talk to girls about beauty or talk to them about books, but not both. They believe that the only way to encourage young women’s intellectual development is to do what Bloom admits is the very difficult work of totally avoiding anything that has to do with appearance in order to focus solely on the mind. (Though she doesn’t mention sports, Bloom presumably would have less of a problem focusing on athletics — as long as the emphasis is on what girls’ bodies do rather than how they look).

In a culture that reminds them at every turn that their primary value is in their looks, girls do need constant encouragement that their minds matter as well. It is vital to talk to girls about books, about politics, about art, about sports, about ideas. But girls also need help navigating the confusing messages they get about their bodies. Very few problems are solved by not talking about them. That’s as true of girls’ feelings about beauty as anything else.

There’s a difference, of course, between never talking to girls about clothes or make-up (which sends the unhelpful message that such concerns are trivial, or evidence of superficiality) and actively praising little girls for being pretty. Bloom suggests we shouldn’t do either; others, like Kate, worry more about the latter. Certainly, many adults do lavish attention on girls’ looks. But that’s only a problem when they don’t compliment anything else. When girls are lauded for their other qualities, when they get support about their other interests, then attention for their appearance gets healthily integrated into the symphony of encouragement that all children need and deserve.

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t tell my daughter how beautiful she is. But I also praise her for the other things she does, and as she has grown more vocal, I engage her in conversation in a host of other topics. I read to Heloise every night — and each night, I help her pick out her outfit for the following day. My little girl loves clothes as well as books. And I want to encourage her in both passions without privileging either.

Obviously, I’m much more circumspect about complimenting my students’ looks. But in my professional work, I am careful to emphasize that beauty and fashion are worthy areas of historical inquiry as well as personal fascination. Lisa Bloom calls on adult women to be role models to girls by talking about ideas, accomplishments, and favorite books. That’s wonderful advice. But if clothes or hair turn out to be an area of mutual interest, it’s vital to talk about those things too. Girls need role models who can share how to cope with the pressures of a looks-obsessed culture. And sometimes, they need role models who can show them that a passion for fashion isn’t shallow, and that an interest in beauty can co-exist with a deep devotion to the life of the mind.

Article by Hugo Scgwyzer. View on it’s original page here.

Georgia.

Georgia.

Today an old friend asked me if she could write a short story about you after watching me cope with your loss.

Cope with your loss, you lost her, I just never think of you as lost, but rather floating above me in some sort of spiritual whatnot just sort of guiding me from afar the way you always did. I think that the people who knew me back then are the only people who could ever understand how much you meant to me, because I was so lazy in high school about keeping in touch and making trips to you that it was easily forgotten. I got so caught up in the onward rush of my life and assumed you’d always be there, because you always had been. You always had been.

There is no deeper regret in my life than not paying closer attention to you and returning every late night phone call that I occasionally forgot about. I almost wish that your mom had told me about her premonition, so that I could have held you close and squoze you until you choked. I wouldn’t have let a day go by without telling you how much I loved you, but I guess that’s not the way things work. We have to be grateful for everything as it enters our lives and not just after we lose it. Though I was so grateful for you all the time, I probably would’ve taken more time to tell you, but you knew. I know you always knew. I sincerely hope, anyway.

I watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close the other night. It’s one of my favorite books but I had forgotten what he says about stretching his time with his father.

“If the sun were to explode, you wouldn’t even know about it for 8 minutes because thats how long it takes for light to travel to us. For eight minutes the world would still be bright and it would still feel warm. It was a year since my dad died and I could feel my eight minutes with him… were running out.”

I know my eight minutes with you are running out, I can almost feel things physically grow colder as time beats on. The embers of your life are dying out as I’ve reread every conversation, rewatched every video, minutely studied every photograph of you and me. I’m losing all that I had left of you, watching it slide through my fingers like finely weathered sand and I can’t do a thing to stop it. And oddly enough I don’t even want to, I’m okay with it. The time where I spent frantically gathering the remnants of your life is over but then again maybe this is just the eye of the storm. I’m not really concerned. I would actually be okay with reliving it all if only to feel closer to you again. Grieving is almost a way of feeling close to you, the sadness is an addiction that brings you back into my life. It makes you live with me here again in this strange world of fragmented pain.

I miss your mind a lot. I miss the way you thought.

I knew I really loved Ethan when I planned to tell him “no matter what, Georgia will always be my best friend.” I don’t know if I ever even said it to him, but I thought about it that whole drive up to Charlotte. That’s okay. I realize now there are a lot of things only planned but never done, but the ideas of them seem just as real as the things that actually occurred. I like that.

RIDING IN A CAB

howdoiputthisgently:

SOBER:

DRUNK:

colormynights: My two future roomies

colormynights:

My two future roomies

What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.
Ram Dass (via nirvikalpa)

A seal helping a helpless turtle get back into the water.

(Source: ray-moro)

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Henri J.M. Nouwen
(via foxgloves)

:( :( :( i miss my best friend

(Source: ancora-imparo)