What 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. Anaïs Nin, whose wisdom on love knew no bounds, in A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953: What is love but acceptance of the other, whatever he is. C. E.
The 21 Emotional Stages Of Shopping At Ikea, From Optimism To Total Defeat Going on a trip to Ikea is like going on a highly anticipated date. You've done your online stalking, your expectations are insanely unrealistic, and you mentally prepare yourself to stay cool and collected throughout the entire experience. Then, usually, nothing goes as planned. Below, we've outlined the Ikea experience that'll resonate with anyone who's visited their local store and left in a total haze of exhaustion. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. Taming the Mind : A Conversation with Dan Harris (Photo via h.koppdelaney) Dan Harris is a co-anchor of Nightline and the weekend edition of Good Morning America on ABC News. He has reported from all over the world, covering wars in Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, and Iraq, and producing investigative reports in Haiti, Cambodia, and the Congo. He has also spent many years covering religion in America, despite the fact that he is agnostic. Dan’s new book, 10 Percent Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story, hit #1 on the New York Times best-seller list. Dan was kind enough to discuss the practice of meditation with me for this page. Sam: One thing I love about your book—admittedly, somewhat selfishly—is that it’s exactly the book I would want people to read before Waking Up comes out in the fall. Dan: I was incredibly skeptical about meditation. Sam: Rarely has the connection between yoga and child abuse been illustrated so clearly. Dan: No doubt.
Brain Pickings Maslow 2.0: A New and Improved Recipe for Happiness - Hans Villarica - Life A study based on a survey of thousands of people from 123 countries reveals the universal needs that make us happy What are the ingredients for happiness? It's a question that has been addressed time and again, and now a study based on the first-ever globally representative poll on well-being has some answers about whether or not a pioneering theory is actually correct. The theory in question is the psychologist Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs," a staple of Psychology 101 courses that was famously articulated in 1954. The problem is, Maslow's theory remained a theory. To find proof that Maslow's theory translated into real life, Diener, a University of Illinois psychologist and senior scientist for the Gallup Organization, helped design the Gallup World Poll, a landmark survey on well-being with 60,865 participants from 123 countries that was conducted from 2005 to 2010. The results are mixed. For Diener, the implications for public policymakers are clear. ...
25 Things You Need to Stop Wasting Time On “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.” ―Benjamin Franklin This morning I received a thank you email from a reader named Hope. She said our blog and book helped motivate her through an arduous recovery process following a serious car accident last year. Although her entire story was both heartbreaking and inspiring, this one line made me pause and think: “The happiest moment of my life is still that split-second a year ago when, as I laid crushed under a 2000 pound car, I realized my husband and 9-year-old boy were out of the vehicle and absolutely OK.” Dire moments like this force us to acknowledge what’s truly important to us. It’s hard to think about a story like Hope’s and not ask yourself: “What do I need to stop wasting time on?” Here are some things to consider, that I’ve been examining in my own life: Your turn… Truth be told, the most important decision you will ever make is what you do with the time that is given to you. Related
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. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience.
5 Scientific Reasons Your Idea of Happiness Is Wrong Our two favorite subjects at Cracked are the elusive concept of human happiness and Batman. This article is about the first one. If you're looking for an answer to "How can I be happy?" then the response from the experts is, "You're asking the wrong question." The better question is why our idea of happiness is so screwed up that most of us wouldn't recognize the real thing if we saw it. #5. Getty This should blow your mind: The entire concept that you can become happy via some action you can take is a relatively recent invention. Getty"I'd define happiness as less than four types of lice on my body." Now, before everyone digs out their old goth clothes and screams, "Aha! See, the thing is that humans have never actually settled on what "happiness" is. Getty"I'd say I define happiness as less than three types of lice on my body." Go back to ancient Greece and it's very simple: Happiness = Luck. Flash forward to Aristotle's day, 335-ish B.C. "... with liberty and puppies for all." #4. #3.
The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is (Part 1) Existence is elsewhere. — André Breton, “The Surrealist Manifesto” 1. The Juice David Dunning, a Cornell professor of social psychology, was perusing the 1996 World Almanac. In a section called Offbeat News Stories he found a tantalizingly brief account of a series of bank robberies committed in Pittsburgh the previous year. From there, it was an easy matter to track the case to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, specifically to an article by Michael A. At 5 feet 6 inches and about 270 pounds, bank robbery suspect McArthur Wheeler isn’t the type of person who fades into the woodwork. Wheeler had walked into two Pittsburgh banks and attempted to rob them in broad daylight. In a follow-up article, Fuoco spoke to several Pittsburgh police detectives who had been involved in Wheeler’s arrest. (a) the film was bad; (b) Wheeler hadn’t adjusted the camera correctly; or (c) Wheeler had pointed the camera away from his face at the critical moment when he snapped the photo.[2] ERROL MORRIS: Why not? 1. 2.
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? The choice of solitude, of active aloneness, has relevance not only to romance but to all human bonds — even Emerson, perhaps the most eloquent champion of friendship in the English language, lived a significant portion of his life in active solitude, the very state that enabled him to produce his enduring essays and journals. And yet that choice is one our culture treats with equal parts apprehension and contempt, particularly in our age of fetishistic connectivity. Solitude, the kind we elect ourselves, is met with judgement and enslaved by stigma. Illustration by Alessandro Sanna from 'The River.' Donating = Loving