Writing

The poem <n>The Thing Is</n> by <n>Ellen Bass</n>.

read to collect the dots, write to connect the dots.

Notes on “Taste”  | Are.na Editorial

<n>Killing the flowers will not delay spring</n> graffiti in Syria's <n>Al-Yarmouk refugee camp</n>.

observe 

that’s the best tool 
the rest are versions of the best 

train your eyes to see what goes hidden, how things are made, try to make sense of the design of your best tools/objects/environments 

lots of people put lots of time into things you love and never wrote about them — best information is received through observing what you like and don’t like

wake up to life and observe 
it’s all there for you to see and learn

A quote on writing from author <n>Anne Lamott</n>.

Optimistic Nihilism

“I read a lot. I listen a lot. I think a lot. But so little remains. The books I read, their plots, their protagonists fade… Names of people, books, cities. They are already fading away. Even the titles of films I’ve seen recently...they have already faded… Everything that I see, or read, or listen to, connects, translates into moods, bits of surroundings, colors… With me, everything is mood, mood, or else...simply nothingness.” — Jonas Mekas

Excerpt from <n>Mary Oliver</n>'s poem <n>In Blackwater Woods</n> from the 1983 book <n>American Primitive</n>.

A quote on happiness from <n>Thought Catalog</n>.

An excerpt from the poem <n>Lady Lazarus</n> by <n>Sylvia Plath</n>.

What I Want From The Internet - Christopher Butler

<n>Tell me your story</n>, a poem by <n>Barbara Gianquitto</n>.

A poem by Japanese poet <n>Takuboku Ishikawa</n>.

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son.

Poem <n>sometimes</n> by <n>Rupi Kaur</n> from her collection <n>home body</n>.