Visceral human feelings
In both myth and theory, Eros is the same force: the spark that brings aliveness out of inertia. To live erotically is to stay attuned to that rhythm, to let the energy that animates the world also animate you. But that kind of vitality resists management, which is precisely why the modern world fears it.
I’ve come to believe the greater danger is sometimes tolerable and lukewarm mediocrity. This is because catastrophe forces a change, but mediocrity can keep you still. You don’t quit because things are “fine”, but that haze of “fine” can subtly eat away a decade, or even a whole life.
sometimes the grass actually is greener
‘The rituals of eating,’ Sarah Wigglesworth wrote in 2002, ‘played out on the plane of the dining table are similar to the rituals of domestic life.’ These drawings of a dining table before (top), during (centre), and after (bottom) a meal, drawn by Wigglesworth, explore how the relationship between diners around a table can be compared to the interactions between occupants in the home.
a lot of celebrated qualities are incompatible with each other. Ambition often comes with discontent; focus with rigidity; contentment with complacency. A couple that does everything together probably has fewer close friends. A social butterfly might have a messy house. These are crude examples, but it’s worth remembering that we all have to assess... See more
In Pascal’s Pensées, he writes “And how shall [man] be happy? By finding something to occupy him, that shall divert him, and prevent him from seeing himself what he is. For if he saw himself as he is, he would be miserable indeed.”
It is very tempting to believe that because you are twenty-something and struggling, the world is conspiring against you. But sometimes, the pain we feel in life is not from people holding us back, but our own inability to deal with their indifference.3 In other words: no one is out to get you. They just don’t care that much. This is both a little... See more
If you poll a group of strangers on their biggest fears, I imagine that you would hear a collection of answers like, “dying,” “public speaking,” “flying,” and “family illness.” But I think, for most people, the real answer to this question lies deep in their subconscious, and it only surfaces it when risks becoming a reality: the fear of not... See more
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- the concept of inverse charisma:
E. M. Forster wrote, “To speak to him was to be seduced by an inverse charisma, a sense of being listened to with such intensity that you had to be your most honest, sharpest, and best self.”
What's in the cards?
