A 300-Year-Old House Transformed Into A Minimalist Modern Home - DesignTAXI.com
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Friday, August 30, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
A (Fourth) Open Letter to My Daughter
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Hi, Peanut.
Since the last time I wrote you, another summer has passed. A summer filled with both growth and decay, with revelations and disappointments, with dreams and reality- in short, with life.
You’ve grown this summer, not merely in inches, but in wisdom, in compassion. You’re figuring out who you are, and it’s a wonderful thing to behold. You are the product of nine years of your parents blathering on about how you should live as if we hold the key, as if there were such a thing.
But, obviously, we’re doing something right, because you’re a magnificent human being.
You transferred schools this year, into one that offers advanced placement classes. You’re taking to it well (thank heaven), and making us proud.
It got me thinking.
You’re challenging yourself. Your teacher is challenging you. Most interestingly to me, though, your fellow students are challenging you. Now, let me preempt this by saying emphatically: your new AP classmates are not, in any way, better kids than your previous classmates. They are, however, more skilled in a given subject (hence their inclusion in the AP program).
So, in that one particular context, you’ve surrounded yourself with people who are better in the area in which you’re trying to improve yourself (reading, math, etc).
You’ve no idea how important that is. When I think about it, you can succeed in nearly any aspect of... well, anything... by surrounding yourself with what we’ll call The Better.
The Better is not simply better in some abstract way (such a thing doesn’t really exist, does it?), but is better at a particular thing at which you want to improve.
To improve your math and reading, you’re surrounding yourself with a teacher and students better suited to fostering the necessary environment.
Daddy’s a writer who wants to get better at writing, so I surround myself with writers who are better than I. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I so love the web; not everyone in my physical surroundings are writers (in fact, very few are), but on the web, I can seek out The Better, I can surround myself with them, their work, their passion, and it seeps into me. In short, I become better.
Often, when a person has too much noise in their life, they go to a retreat to silence things for a bit. He or she wants more silence, so they surround themselves with those who are better at silence.
If you wanted to, say, practice more kindness, you could do no better than making a deliberate effort to surround yourself with kinder people. Want to learn a language? Immerse yourself in the culture, they say. Go to the source, they say. In essence, surround yourself with people who are better at that language than you are.
Sometimes, of course, surrounding yourself with The Better doesn’t even require people. This is the true beauty of books. If Daddy wants to get better at writing descriptions, then I can, though they are long gone, surround myself with Flaubert and Tolstoy. If you ever feel that you are flying a bit too straight, then you can immerse yourself in the story of one who’s better at mischief than you are- Pippy Longstocking, say.
You get the idea.
The problem is that we are human, and humans have a tendency to shrink away from The Better. Why? Because of a little thing Sigmund Freud called ego. You know how, when you’re out playing with friends, it’s really, really hard to admit that you don’t know something that everyone else knows? Or that you’re not very good at a particular thing? That’s ego getting in the way, and ego doesn’t leave, doesn’t diminish, doesn’t lose its grip as you get older. It stays with you, always sticking its nose in where it doesn’t belong. Don’t get me wrong: ego has its uses. It’s the thing that instills confidence. It’s responsible for that little spring in your step when Mommy does your hair in the morning, and you feel good about it. It’s responsible when you ace a math test, or when you master a cartwheel after weeks of trying. It’s that little voice inside your head saying “You can do this.” Without that voice, you’d accomplish very little. But, just like you can take things too far sometimes, so can ego.
Ego is also responsible for the what ifs?
What if they think I’m stupid?
What if they laugh at me?
What if I screw it up?
What if. What if. What if.
Remember the Silverstein poem that we always read? You remember:
Last night, while I lay thinking here,
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear...
Don’t let the whatifs inside, sweetheart. The ego feeds on them, and an ego full on whatifs is like you on too much ice cream: it can’t be controlled. Be bold, be brave, be smart enough to surround yourself with The Better, with those people and those things that will lift you up to new heights. Things can seem dizzying from those heights, you should know, but the scenery is amazing.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Saturday, August 24, 2013
If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (via stuff—n—things)
Friday, August 23, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
Sunday, August 18, 2013
What people who do write do understand
Woody Allen recently:
What people who don’t write don’t understand is that they think you make up the line consciously — but you don’t. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it’s the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don’t think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I’ve said. And I laugh at it, because I’m hearing it for the first time myself.Whenever I find myself in a bout of nonwriting (not writer’s block per se, but an extended period of nonwritingness), I know it’s this. Not a lack of ideas, not a lack of the right space to write, the right drink, the right order, the right methods, the proper instrument, not a deficit of time. It’s simply my conscious getting in the way. I would be better off saying things more wildly, then looking at what I’d said. Do first, think later; many things can benefit from this method — falling in love, taking your first job, speaking up for what you believe in. Write first, think later. Repeat.
This thought was first published by The Pastry Box Project
What people who do write do understand
Saturday, August 17, 2013
kateoplis: “Start consuming art. Consume everything you can. It doesn’t matter if...
“Start consuming art. Consume everything you can. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, that’s all subjective anyway. Visit museums. Look at every painting, every artifact. Don’t go anywhere without new music on your iPhone or in your car. …
Start to have opinions. Tell everyone you’re…
kateoplis: “Start consuming art. Consume everything you can. It doesn’t matter if...
Everybody is expected to upgrade to the latest version of every single one of the latest devices,” says Nielson. “We live in this insane upgrade culture which has proven to be meaningless. I think some music being made today doesn’t just move in this one-directional, upgrading way. It goes forward and back. It picks up whatever was the most appealing thing from any point in time.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
A Small Corner of the World
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My decision two years ago to quit the sales industry and begin writing full-time has come with consequences. Most are superb consequences, some are unfortunate, some are merely different.
On occasion, I act at a local hospital. It’s a nearly perfect setup: because I sit at home all day, staring at a computer screen, it’s a welcome chance to get out, stretch my legs, and... y’know... talk to people (as opposed to myself or a blank page). Today, I decided to stop off at a local coffee shop on the way home. I could work there for a bit, then come home and finish up.
While I was there, I noticed something.
The things that seem important to me while I’m home, whether I’m working or not, tend to fall away while I’m out and about. These are small things: changes I want to make to my office setup at home, or a tweak to my website. I need to listen to more podcasts, or I need to read more, or I need to read better. The playlist I made for creative writing doesn’t differ enough from the playlist I made for copywriting. The leak under the sink needs fixed; I need to call the bank before Thursday.
All of these things occupy my mind when I’m home (and I’m home a lot). Walking the downtown city streets on a beautiful afternoon, though, they fade away. They shrink, from things that, once they accumulate, weigh me down, to things that are so light that they’re swept away by the breeze.
I wonder how often we do this.
Perspective is a skill. Find someone who seems to have mastered life and you’ll find someone who’s mastered the art of perspective. This is why frequent travel is so highly recommended, so sought after, so therapeutic. It puts our problems — indeed, even our successes — into perspective.
It doesn’t take a trip to Rome to gain some perspective, though. All it takes is a little lesson in mindfulness. A walk can have the same effect, or a simple dinner with friends, or a round of golf. By all means, when you get the chance, travel. But don’t underestimate the power of traveling deep into the worlds just outside of your bubble. Take a walk into that adjacent neighborhood you’ve never really seen. Take a detour home from work. Call your friends, and tell them to meet you for drinks at a pub to which you’ve never been.
The road less travelled is not simply a path you’ve never taken; it’s a world you’ve never seen. It’s not a career path or a different fate (though it can be those things). No, it’s not nearly so heavy. The road less traveled is just a small piece of the world — your world — that you’ve never seen. And it’s usually just around the corner.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.
— Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices (via streetetiquette)
These are some of the most insightful words I’ve read in a long time.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Chaos
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At some point in our lives, we come face to face with Chaos. What separates us from each other is our approach to that meeting.
Some will run in fear. Those will spend the rest of their days running from Chaos, hiding. They will create a dark corner of their own world, and never truly show themselves, for fear that Chaos might still be lurking.
Some will wrestle Chaos into submission. The problem with this approach is that it grants only the illusion of control. Chaos is still the natural state, and you are, ironically, only perpetuating further chaos by upsetting the natural order- that is, that Chaos rules.
Or else you befriend Chaos, walking side by side with it. In that case, you become like a child, recognizing that Chaos must often lead the way, but will occasionally let you venture out on your own.
That is why I write. Chaos, I realize, is the order of the day in my waking hours. Fiction, though, packages life into neat and tidy boxes. Fiction allows us to make sense of chaos, even manipulate it, however briefly. It gives us a brief window of time in which we let go of Chaos’s hand and say, “It’s okay. I got this.”
I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless.
Albert Camus (via poetrymustdie)
Friday, August 9, 2013
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
Inner peace
We yearn for silence, yet the less sound there is, the more our thoughts deafen us. How can we still the noise within?
Inner peace
‘The Importance of Being Idle’ by Oasis
I begged my doctor for some more time, he said “Son, words fail me.”
I love this song.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature -if that word can be used in reference to man, who has ‘invented’ himself by saying ‘no’ to nature- consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.
Octavio Paz, El laberinto de la soledad (The Labyrinth of Solitude)
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Thursday, August 1, 2013
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