David Pennington
@dtpennington
I write stuff. I’d like to write more stuff. Currently: reclaiming my brain.
David Pennington
dtpennington.com
It is tempting, in moments of ambition, to think that we must change everything all at once, that the path to mastery or peace requires a sudden, dramatic shift. But this is rarely the case. In truth, most lasting changes come from small, deliberate actions. It is in the repetition of these small actions, over time, that we build strength, that we... See more
Bill Wear • The Quiet Art of Attention
to save, to add to our collection, the action both etches it a little deeper into our hearts and creates a context around the artifact itself, whether text, song, image, or video. The context is not just for ourselves but for other people, the knit-together, shared context of culture at large. That’s what Benjamin described when he wrote, “The
... See moreKyle Chayka • Filterworld
Even if you don’t plan a whole trip around them, libraries are excellent spots for weary travelers: free, quiet, cool, full of locals, and staffed by people whose job is to help any visitors who walk in the door.
Austin Kleon • Library Tourism - Austin Kleon
Once we were camping outside of Savannah, GA, in the middle of December. The weather was mild, but gloomy. We spent the better part of a day in the downtown library - wifi, quiet, just getting out of the campsite for a bit. Free, which was nice. A good break from our usual bar-hopping tourism.
Today’s Young People Need to Learn How to Be Punk
archive.ph
We live in an age of lexical abundance. More words, more access, more content than at any time in human history. And yet something essential is slipping away. Not reading itself, but the kind of reading that once shaped minds and formed character: slow, immersive, reflective, and richly human. As Harold Bloom noted: “"We read deeply for varied... See more
Carl Hendrick • Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
But there is one big reason why a lot of men don’t think they should create—they think their turn to be creative has passed. It was taken by their ancestors, and they misused the privilege. Now they must, in the names of their fathers, be silent.
Amie McNee • We Need Men's Art.
Oh, damn…I felt this one.
She wrote on Hollywood and Washington, New York and Sacramento, Terri Schiavo and Martha Stewart, grief and hypocrisy and Latin American politics, and somehow it all drove toward the same point: Narratives are coping mechanisms. If we want to truly understand ourselves, we have to understand not just the stories we make up together, but the tales... See more
Alissa Wilkinson • The Essential Joan Didion
PTSD is literally defined as being “marked by an inability to construct a coherent story of our past.”