Humans of New York
For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of WWII
Siberian summers do not last long. The snows linger into May, and the cold weather returns again during September, freezing the taiga into a still life awesome in its desolation: endless miles of straggly pine and birch forests scattered with sleeping bears and hungry wolves; steep-sided mountains; white-water rivers that pour in torrents through the valleys; a hundred thousand icy bogs. This forest is the last and greatest of Earth’s wildernesses. It stretches from the furthest tip of Russia’s arctic regions as far south as Mongolia, and east from the Urals to the Pacific: five million square miles of nothingness, with a population, outside a handful of towns, that amounts to only a few thousand people. When the warm days do arrive, though, the taiga blooms, and for a few short months it can seem almost welcoming. It is then that man can see most clearly into this hidden world–not on land, for the taiga can swallow whole armies of explorers, but from the air. She will not leave. Anon.
Kierkegaard on Our Greatest Source of Unhappiness
by Maria Popova Hope, memory, and how our chronic compulsion to flee from our own lives robs us of living. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” Annie Dillard memorably wrote in reflecting on why presence matters more than productivity. “On how one orients himself to the moment depends the failure or fruitfulness of it,” Henry Miller asserted in his beautiful meditation on the art of living. And yet we spend our lives fleeing from the present moment, constantly occupying ourselves with overplanning the future or recoiling with anxiety over its impermanence, thus invariably robbing ourselves of the vibrancy of aliveness. Kierkegaard, who was only thirty at the time, begins with an observation all the timelier today, amidst our culture of busy-as-a-badge-of-honor: Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work. The unhappy one is absent. Consider first the hoping individual. Donating = Loving
Teaching ate me alive
It wasn’t one single incident that made me quit teaching in a public middle school. It was the steady, moldy accumulation of dehumanizing, lifeless, squalid misadventures of which I was a part. Like that time with “Carlos,” to pick an incident more or less at random. I can’t even remember what it was that happened between Carlos and me. Anger, impatience, frustration, stupidity — and that was just me. The next day I saw my friend the Dean of Students. My friend the Dean of Students had diplomatically suggested that Carlos’ father and a couple of his uncles accompany him to his office, where the matter could be discussed at leisure. “Mission accomplished,” I said. So, I have to leave the Los Angeles Unified School District. The end of winter break came last January, and my wife saw the state I was in, and she said, “You’re not going back.” In the final analysis, I’m too sensitive for a public, inner city, “high-needs” middle school. That was not what I had envisioned. But, heck!
Maya Angelou on Identity and the Meaning of Life
by Maria Popova “Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you.” The light of the world has grown a little dimmer with the loss of the phenomenal Maya Angelou, but her legacy endures as a luminous beacon of strength, courage, and spiritual beauty. Reflecting on her life, Angelou — who rose to cultural prominence through the sheer tenacity of her character and talent, despite being born into a tumultuous working-class family, abandoned by her father at the age of three, and raped at the age of eight — tells Rich: I’ve been very fortunate… I seem to have a kind of blinkers. She later revisits the question of identity, echoing Leo Buscaglia’s beautiful meditation on labels, as she reflects on the visibility her success granted her and the responsibility that comes with it: What I represent in fact, what I’m trying like hell to represent every time I go into that hotel room, is myself. The kindnesses … I never forget them. Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
Seven Gripping Photos Of Homeless Los Angelenos Will Change The Way You Look At A Stranger
Photographer Michael Pharaoh is only 22 years old. Yet already, he possesses the uncanny ability to capture the story written on a stranger's face. New Zealand-based Pharaoh created the gripping series "The Homeless of L.A." while on vacation in California. The photographs evoke, in tremendous detail, the identity of Hollywood's homeless population in a series of muted yet stylistically gorgeous up-close portraits. "[The project] was fascinating to me because we don't have the same plethora of homeless people as L.A," Pharaoh explained in a statement for the series. While the homeless population is all too often treated as invisible, Pharaoh's high definition portraits explore every facet of their visages to capture a striking and honest portrait of a complete stranger.
Lucid Dreaming Techniques: A Guide To Lucid Dream Induction
Here are my top lucid dreaming techniques for beginners. They range from simple memory exercises (like Reality Checks and Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams) to specialized meditation (like Wake Induced Lucid Dreams). Lucid Dreaming Tutorials For step-by-step tutorials and audio tools for lucid dream induction and exploration, check out my Lucid Dreaming Fast Track study program for beginners and beyond. 52 Ways to Have Lucid Dreams A complete list of 52 ways to have lucid dreams - based on visualization, memory, supplements, sleep cycles and more methods than you can shake a stick at. How to Have Lucid Dreams A summary of my favorite lucid dreaming techniques, from improving dream recall, to programming your dreams, to meditation and self-hypnosis. How to Remember Your Dreams To lucid dream, you must first remember your dreams. Keeping a Dream Journal How to Perform Reality Checks How to Improve Your Self Awareness Lucid Dreams and Prospective Memory Dream Induced Lucid Dreams (DILDs)
That’s not autism: It’s simply a brainy, introverted boy
I have followed William in my therapy practice for close to a decade. His story is a prime example of the type of brainy, mentally gifted, single-minded, willful boys who often are falsely diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when they are assessed as young children. This unfortunate occurrence is partly due to defining autism as a “spectrum disorder,” incorporating mild and severe cases of problematic social communication and interaction, as well as restricted interests and behavior. Jacqueline, William’s mother, realized that he was a quirky baby within weeks of his birth. When she held him in her arms, he seemed more fascinated by objects in his field of vision than by faces. The whir and motion of a fan, the tick-tock of a clock, or the drip-drip of a coffeemaker grabbed William’s attention even more than smiling faces, melodic voices, or welcoming eyes. Some normal developmental milestones did not apply to William. At preschool, William was a veritable pied piper. Dr.
