Posts tagged life
“ If you are convinced that you need Stabucks grande lattes every day, or an iPhone or iPad, or an SUV or Cooper Mini or BMW … you are in the weak position, because you can’t give it up. Someone else might know that those aren’t essential to happiness, and can walk away.”
» Be able to walk away :mnmlist
The Internets are full of good stuff today.
“ Greatness is nothing but the surface tension on the spit bubble of human endeavor. On a geological time scale, our measurable effect on the planet is a greasy burp. We are seven billion tiny flecks of talking meat stuck to an unremarkable mud ball hurtling through space in an unimaginably vast universe for no particular reason. There is no difference between kings and cripples, my friend. We’re all the same hodgepodge of primordial goo, and the pursuit of greatness is a fool’s errand.”
Genius.
Dear Coke Talk: On creation.
Any idea how everything was created? I’m trying to figure out what I believe, and it seems that the process of elimination seems to be the easiest way at this point.
I’m not exactly asking for advice, I know, but I figure your advice would be as good as any (and better than some). Thanks for…
I have nothing to add. I’m just going to bask in the glory of how perfect this answer is.
“ It applies to everything. America is full of frustrated, broken, baffled people because so many of us think, “If I work this hard, this many hours a week, I should have (a great job, a nice house, a nice car, etc). I don’t have that thing, therefore something has corrupted the system and kept me from getting what I deserve, and that something must be (the government, illegal immigrants, my wife, my boss, my bad luck, etc).”
How ‘The Karate Kid’ Ruined The Modern World | Cracked.com
So, so true. Though I disagree that it’s movies that ruined the modern world; instead, it’s people uncritically believing in those movies, because it’s nicer to dream that life is really that easy, rather than face reality on a daily basis and realize that everything you do in life will always be difficult at first, and should be difficult.
Kind of like why people believe in god(s).
“ The saddest people I’ve ever met in life are the ones who don’t care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand. And without them, happiness is only temporary because there’s nothing to make it last. I love to hear people talk about what their most passionate about, because that’s when you see the person at their best.”
“ Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
Immanuel Kant: Critique of Practical Reason (via fuckyeahphilosophy)
I could not agree more. I shutter to think that there are people in this world that look neither up nor within; what a horrible, stunted way to live.
galactic center of milky way rises over texas star party
What I absolutely love about this, besides the sheer beauty and the way it awakens the astronomy nerd in me, is the divergence in the speeds at which things move: human activity seems to flash by, as lights twinkle on and off repeatedly; meanwhile, in the background, the Milky Way glides slowly by, as it has for eons and will continue for eons more, completely disregarding the whirlwind activity below. It’s permanence versus flux, the vast universe versus our minute lives. But it’s also that very speed, the urgency and the knowledge that in the grand equation human life is so short that makes it so momentous, so worth living fully.
“ It took years after I’d graduated from Amherst to realize that people were actually far more complicated and interesting than books, that almost everyone else suffered the same secret fears and inadequacies as I, and that feeling alone and inferior was actually the great valent bond between us all. I wish I’d been smart enough to understand that when I was an adolescent.”
David Foster Wallace (via ogabriel) (via davidfosterwallace) (via peterwknox)
I’d argue that few people are more interesting than books. But once you find those people, you hold on to them with all of your might.
“Security” by Hunter S. Thompson, age 17, 1955
Security … what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?
Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?
Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.
As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? (via)
“ Good morning. I’d like to start by noting, you’re all fucked.”
PhilaLawyer.net | Commencement 2009 (If I Were Giving the Address)
The whole thing is very much worth reading.
