http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/06/alan-watts-wisdom-of-insecurity-1/
Related: Philosophy • PsychologyWhat Is Love? Famous Definitions from 400 Years of Literary History by Maria Popova “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only with what you are expecting to give — which is everything.” After those collections of notable definitions of art, science, and philosophy, what better way to start a new year than with a selection of poetic definitions of a peculiar phenomenon that is at once more amorphous than art, more single-minded than science, and more philosophical than philosophy itself? Gathered here are some of the most memorable and timeless insights on love, culled from several hundred years of literary history — enjoy. Kurt Vonnegut, who was in some ways an extremist about love but also had a healthy dose of irreverence about it, in The Sirens of Titan: A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
New drug curbs dementia’s delusions, researchers find A drug that curbs delusions in Parkinson’s patients did the same for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia in a study that was stopped early because the benefit seemed clear. If regulators agree, the drug could become the first treatment specifically for dementia-related psychosis and the first new medicine for Alzheimer’s in nearly two decades. It targets some of the most troubling symptoms that patients and caregivers face — hallucinations that often lead to anxiety, aggression, and physical and verbal abuse. 20-Year-Old Hunter S. Thompson’s Superb Advice on How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Meaningful Life As a hopeless lover of both letters and famous advice, I was delighted to discover a letter 20-year-old Hunter S. Thompson — gonzo journalism godfather, pundit of media politics, dark philosopher — penned to his friend Hume Logan in 1958. Found in Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (public library | IndieBound) — the aptly titled, superb collection based on Shaun Usher’s indispensable website of the same name — the letter is an exquisite addition to luminaries’ reflections on the meaning of life, speaking to what it really means to find your purpose. Cautious that “all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it” — a caveat other literary legends have stressed with varying degrees of irreverence — Thompson begins with a necessary disclaimer about the very notion of advice-giving: To give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania.
Need to De-Stress? Watch This Video of Alpacas Peacefully Grazing While Enjoying a Stunning Sunset We may have just found the perfect cure to a long work week: watching the sun set on the shores of New Zealand with a pack of contented alpacas to keep you company. This peaceful 30-second clip from the Shamarra Alpaca Farm depicts a few dozen alpacas grazing in Akaroa as the sun paints the surrounding hillside a stunning pink. Shamarra Alpaca Farm, which is home to 160 alpacas, is a notorious tourist hotspot for travelers looking to spend some quality time with the fuzzy grazers. If you want more cute alpaca pictures and breathtaking videos of the New Zealand scenery, you can visit the farm’s Instagram or Facebook page. (WATCH the soothing video below) Don’t Let The Sun Set On This Sweet Clip Without Sharing It With Your Friends On Social Media…
How to Be Alone: An Antidote to One of the Central Anxieties and Greatest Paradoxes of Our Time by Maria Popova “We live in a society which sees high self-esteem as a proof of well-being, but we do not want to be intimate with this admirable and desirable person.” If the odds of finding one’s soul mate are so dreadfully dismal and the secret of lasting love is largely a matter of concession, is it any wonder that a growing number of people choose to go solo? Terry Jones Terence Graham Parry Jones (born 1 February 1942) is a Welsh actor, writer, comedian, screenwriter, film director and historian. He is a member of the Monty Python comedy team. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in history, Jones and writing partner Michael Palin (whom he met at Oxford) wrote and performed for several high-profile British comedy programmes, including Do Not Adjust Your Set and The Frost Report, before creating Monty Python's Flying Circus with Cambridge graduates Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman, and American animator/filmmaker Terry Gilliam. Jones was largely responsible for the programme's innovative, surreal structure, in which sketches flowed from one to the next without the use of punchlines.
The Shortness of Life: Seneca on Busyness and the Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long “How we spend our days,” Annie Dillard memorably wrote in her soul-stretching meditation on the life of presence, “is, of course, how we spend our lives.” And yet most of us spend our days in what Kierkegaard believed to be our greatest source of unhappiness — a refusal to recognize that “busy is a decision” and that presence is infinitely more rewarding than productivity. I frequently worry that being productive is the surest way to lull ourselves into a trance of passivity and busyness the greatest distraction from living, as we coast through our lives day after day, showing up for our obligations but being absent from our selves, mistaking the doing for the being. Despite a steadily swelling human life expectancy, these concerns seem more urgent than ever — and yet they are hardly unique to our age. In fact, they go as far back as the record of human experience and endeavor.
Primary progressive aphasia Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a type of neurological syndrome in which language capabilities slowly and progressively become impaired. As with other types of aphasia, the symptoms that accompany PPA depend on what parts of the left hemisphere are significantly damaged. However, unlike most other aphasias, PPA results from continuous deterioration in brain tissue, which leads to early symptoms being far less detrimental than later symptoms. Those with PPA slowly lose the ability to speak, write, read, and generally comprehend language. Eventually, almost every patient becomes mute and completely loses the ability to understand both written and spoken language.[1] Although it was first described as solely impairment of language capabilities while other mental functions remain intact,[1] it is now recognized that many, if not most of those afflicted suffer from impairment of memory, short term memory formation and loss of executive functions. Causes[edit]
How to Live: Lessons from Montaigne, Godfather of Blogging by Maria Popova Don’t worry about death, pay attention, read a lot, give up control, embrace imperfection. “Living has yet to be generally recognized as one of the arts,” Karl De Schweinitz wrote in his 1924 guide to the art of living. Sarah Huckabee Sanders Apologizes for Mocking Biden’s Remarks on Stuttering Sarah Huckabee Sanders apologized late Thursday after she mocked comments by former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during the Democratic presidential debate in which he recounted mentoring a boy who had a speech impediment. Ms. Sanders, the former White House press secretary, made the remarks on Twitter after Mr. Biden, who has been open about his stutter and his struggle with it since he was a child, described his interaction with the boy.