Going Solo: A Brief History of Living Alone and the Enduring Social Stigma Around Singletons by Maria Popova “Despite its prevalence, living alone is one of the least discussed and, consequently, most poorly understood issues of our time.” In the 4th century BC, Aristotle admonished: The man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political association, or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient, is no part of the polis, and must therefore be either a beast or a god. Indeed, the ancient world held exile as the most formidable form of punishment, second only to execution, though in Greek tragedies it was often regarded as a fate worse than death. For more than two millennia, this fear and loathing of solitary life endured and permeated the fabric of society. The nuclear family is a universal human social grouping. Yet our relationship with solitary life has undergone a radical shift in the recent past. Until recently, most of us married young and parted only at death. Klinenberg paints an even more vivid picture by the numbers: Donating = Loving
5 Vintage Versions of Modern Social Media from Centuries Ago by Maria Popova From Voltaire’s status updates to Edison’s viral videos, or what Diderot has to do with data visualization. We’ve previously made the case that everything builds on what came before, yet our human tendency is to inflate and overestimate the novelty of our ideas. Today, we turn to five concepts from the centuries of yore remarkably similar to the central premises of five of today’s social web darlings, in the hope of illustrating that, indeed, creativity is combinatorial and innovation incremental. In November of 1906, artist, anarchist and literary entrepreneur Félix Fénéon wrote 1,220 succinct three-line reports in the Paris newspaper Le Matin, serving to inform of everything from notable deaths to petty theft to naval expedition disasters. He became the one-man Twitter of early-twentieth-century Paris. Catch our full review, with many more illustrated “tweets,” here. More on the project in our original piece about it here. HT MetaFilter Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
The Smiley Book of Colors By Maria Popova When Freud came to believe he was going to die between the ages of 61 and 62, and subsequently began seeing the two numbers everywhere he looked, which only intensifying the urgency of his superstition, he came to observe the value of selective attention in focusing the unconscious. But what if we engineered this selective attention purposefully and aligned it with our emotional and mental well-being? Four years later, The Smiley Book of Colors was born, at once teaching (eternal) kids basic color theory and instilling in them the habits of optimism — a charming, light-hearted complement to the recent grown-up exploration of the science of smiles. (Yes, let’s throw in a cat photo for good measure — after all, that’s the hallmark of curatorial achievement according to Jennifer Daniel over at BloombergBusinessweek. Skeptical, still?
GOOD Magazine: The Real Stimulus Package by Maria Popova How the best magazine around got better, or why taking a slight financial hit can get you an intellectual grand slam. We love GOOD Magazine. Initially, an annual subscription to GOOD used to cost $20, all of which went to your choice of charity from their list of nonprofit partners — great already. Your choice of subscription also gets you various tiers of perks: Anything over $20 gets free admission to Choose GOOD parties (and good they are, take our work for it), $10o or more gets your name immortalized in the magazine, and if you have the good will and appropriate pocket depth to afford the $1,000 subscription, we’re talking lifetime subscription to the magazine, lifetime free admission to Choose GOOD parties, your name printed in the magazine, and a signed, limited edition bound copy of GOOD. Genius. We’ve seen this sort of approach in the music industry, with acts big and small, from Radiohead to Jill Sobule, redefining the traditional business model. Share on Tumblr
Why We Love: 5 Must-Read Books on the Psychology of Love It’s often said that every song, every poem, every novel, every painting ever created is in some way “about” love. What this really means is that love is a central theme, an underlying preoccupation, in humanity’s greatest works. But what exactly is love? No superlative is an exaggeration of Alain de Botton‘s humble brilliance spanning everything from philosophy to architecture. Every fall into love involves [to adapt Oscar Wilde] the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. You might recall biological anthropologist Helen Fisher‘s work from this fascinating discussion of how antidepressants impact the experience of romantic love. Sample her work with this fantastic TED talk on the brain in love: Originally written in 1988, The Psychology of Love is an anthology of 16 academic, though highly readable, papers dissecting various aspects of love. For many people, love is the most important thing in their lives. Is love really blind?
Dog Songs: Mary Oliver on What Dogs Teach Us About the Meaning of Our Human Lives by Maria Popova “Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift.” Mary Oliver is not only one of the sagest and most beloved poets of our time, a recipient of a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, but is also among literary history’s greatest pet-lovers. Inhale, for instance, this: LUKEI had a dog who loved flowers. Amidst the poetic, there are also the necessary, playfully practical reminders of how dogs illustrate the limitations of our own sensory awareness: A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing. Then there are the fictional — or are they? “If I ever meet one of these dogs I’m going to invite him to come here, where he can be a proper dog.” In another poem, Oliver affectionately acknowledges that innocent canine gift for employing a dog’s intellect for his own self-gratification, as when he dupes both you the other household human into feeding him breakfast:
New Collection Of 35 Creative Photos This is a fresh collection of 35 creative photos that will fuel up your creativity. When you are out of idea its always great and helpful to see some professional work to inspire you to do better. The Library Rethought by Maria Popova How to one-up the Greeks and what Shepard Fairey has to do with Copenhagen circa 1891. Libraries have a special place in history as a hearth of culture that kindled the greatest feats of science and the grandest works of art. Yet today, they’re in danger of being left precisely there — in history. As our collective use of libraries dwindles in the digital age, five brave efforts are innovating the concept of “the library” in ways that make it as culturally relevant today as it ever was. Almost nine years ago, NYC design studio Pentagram got involved with the Robin Hood Foundation in an inspired effort to build new elementary school libraries throughout NYC’s five boroughs — the best architects were to build them, private companies were to fill them with books, Pentagram were to design the inspirational atmosphere and craft the entire identity for what became The Library Initiative. Needless to say, we love the idea. Turns out, you can actually talk in libraries.
Little Bird: A Beautifully Minimalist Story of Belonging Lost and Found by Swiss Illustrator Albertine by Maria Popova “There are no greater treasures than the little things.” Children’s picture books — the best of them, at least — have this magical quality of speaking to young hearts with expressive simplicity, but also engaging grown-up minds with subtle reflections on the human condition. It tells the tender story of a big-hearted man who halts his truck at a cliff’s edge. The two have lunch together and, eventually, the man tries to encourage the bird to fly off and join the others by attempting a comic demonstration of flight himself. The humorous situation deepens the tenderness between the two creatures and soon the bird departs, the man drives away, and the story seems to end — but! There are no greater treasures than the little things. A lovely quote from an e. e. cummings poem graces the first page: may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living Korean designer Young-jun Kim created this charming animation based on the book: Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr