Kurt Vonnegut on Reading, Boredom, Belonging, and Hate

by Maria Popova “Hate, in the long run, is about as nourishing as cyanide.” What makes the commencement address such a singular pinnacle of the communication arts is that, in an era where religion is increasingly being displaced by culture and secular thought, it offers a secular version of the sermon — a packet of guidance on how to be a good human being and lead a good life. It is also one of the few cultural contexts in which a patronizing attitude, in the original sense of the term, is not only acceptable but desired — after all, the very notion of the graduation speech calls for a patronly father figure or matronly mother figure to get up at the podium and impart to young people hard-earned, experience-tested wisdom on how to live well. Kurt Vonnegut — a man of discipline, a champion of literary style, modern sage, poetic shaman of happiness, and one wise dad — endures as one of the most prolific and sought-after commencement speakers of all time. We are supposed to be bored.

America’s Bicentennial Poem This is Part 12 of The Universal Emancipation Proclamation : All Art is a gift of the Holy Spirit. When this light shines through the mind of a musician, it manifests itself in beautiful harmonies. Again, shining through the mind of a poet, it is seen in fine poetry and poetic prose. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Chosen Highway, p. 167. During America’s Bicentennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence in 1976, Baha’i poet Robert Hayden served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. American Journal Robert Hayden Robert E. here among them the americans this baffling multi people extremes and variegations their noise restlessness their almost frightening energy how best describe these aliens in my reports to The Counselors disguise myself in order to study them unobserved adapting their varied pigmentations white black red brown yellow the imprecise and strangering distinctions by which they live by which they justify their cruelties to one another for their importance and identity

How Should We Live: History’s Forgotten Wisdom on Love, Time, Family, Empathy, and Other Aspects of the Art of Living by Maria Popova “How to pursue the art of living has become the great quandary of our age… The future of the art of living can be found by gazing into the past.” “He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth,” Goethe famously proclaimed. Thomas Hobbes extolled “the principal and proper work of history being to instruct, and enable men by the knowledge of actions past to bear themselves prudently in the present and providently in the future.” It is this notion of “applied history” that cultural historian and philosopher Roman Krznaric — who gave us How to Find Fulfilling Work, one of the best psychology and philosophy books of 2013 — places at the center of How Should We Live? He writes in the introduction: How to pursue the art of living has become the great quandary of our age.[…]I believe that the future of the art of living can be found by gazing into the past. The Histomap by John Sparks, 1931. George Orwell On some level we fear boredom. How Should We Live?

The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success:Amazon:Books Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion:Amazon:Kindle Store Books That Predicted The Future - Books - ShortList Magazine George Orwell's famous 1984 described an all-seeing state capable of watching our every move - of course, this would be some far-off dystopian vision of the future, right? Well, old George's prediction is very much in evidence now, with security cameras, internet tracking and the like - and a surprising amount of other writers have been able to predict the future with unerring accuracy. This brilliant infographic, made by printerinks.com, shows various fictional predictions that ended up coming true, and the time that lapsed between forecast and reality - click on it to see a bigger version. Having said all this - if they were that good at predicting the future, they could have made a fortune on the football pools, so maybe they were using their talents in the wrong area. (Image: printerinks.com)

The 10 Most Important Dystopian Books and Films of All Time | Underwire 1984 (1948)Author/Filmmaker:George OrwellThe Themes: Government oppression, state-sponsored surveillance, bureaucracy, the military-industrial complex. (Expand the gallery to fullscreen for the best experience.) 1984 (1948) (also Brazil)Author/Filmmaker: George Orwell (also Terry Gilliam)The Themes: Government oppression, state-sponsored surveillance, bureaucracy, the military-industrial complexThe Plot: Perhaps the most famous dystopian text, 1984 is a parable following Winston Smith, an everyman living in a postwar Britain completely regulated and controlled by oppressive laws, surveillance, and propaganda—a land where simply thinking negative thoughts about the oppressive Party is branded "thoughtcrime." The Trial (1925)Author: Franz KafkaMajor Themes: Impenetrable bureaucracy, the prison-industrial complex Brave New World (1932)Author: Aldous HuxleyThe Themes: Big pharma, eugenics I, Robot (1950)Author: Isaac AsimovThe Themes: Overreliance on robotics, specifically AI

A Calendar of Wisdom: Tolstoy on Knowledge and the Meaning of Life by Maria Popova “The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life.” On March 15, 1884, Leo Tolstoy, wrote in his diary: I have to create a circle of reading for myself: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal, The New Testament. This is also necessary for all people. So he set out to compile “a wise thought for every day of the year, from the greatest philosophers of all times and all people” — a florilegium five centuries after the golden age of florilegia and a Tumblr a century and a half before the golden age of Tumblr, a collection of famous words on the meaning of life long before the concept had become a cultural trope. Armenian sculptor Sergei Dmitrievich Merkurov (1881-1952) working on his statue of Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy spent the next seventeen years collecting those pieces of wisdom. Tolstoy writes in the introduction: Running through the book are several big-picture threads that string together the different quotations. Donating = Loving

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