Alain De Botton, Essays In Love [transcript In ALT]

the idealized version of my tomorrow self will fix this

Alejandra Pizarnik, tr. by Yvette Siegert, from “Psychopathology Ward”, Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962 - 1972

“Believe me, what you want is someone to have dinner with. Sleep with from time to time, telephone every day or write. It’s what you set up that is defeating. Make it very modest. And give yourself permission to make a few mistakes. You know, blow it a bit. Have a few drinks and fall into bed with somebody. It doesn’t have to be the final thing.”

— Leonard Cohen on relationships, 2007

You came into my life – not as one comes to visit (you know, ‘not taking one’s hat off’) but as one comes to a kingdom where all the rivers have been waiting for your reflection, all the roads, for your steps.

— Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Véra

Something about me is that I love the world. I love people. I love humanity. We, as a species, are so, so beautiful. We created music, just to dance! There is no real need for music other than to fulfill our urge to create! We are creators! We created music with our voices, and then we created instruments to create new kinds of music. And we told stories passed down for generations. And then we created written languages because we didn't want to forget them. And now we write and we create stories and take stories already written and alter them to be our own because we, as humans, have this insatiable yearning in the back of our mind saying, "What if this existed?" And then it does! And we draw and we paint and we have been doing it all for as long as we have existed. Some of the earliest signs of human civilization is stone tools. We painted in caves and left handprints just to create something and say "I was here, I was here!"

Many christians say we are "made in God's image" and I think they have it almost right. I don't think God is a literal bipedal being with creased eyebrows on a face like ours. He could be, but that isn't what the verse is talking about. We are made in His image because we create! God is The Creator; He created us, so that we could create! That is our purpose! God made humanity, and He said it was good. Actually, once humanity was created, God said it was not just good, but very good. Humans are good. We are good!

Did you know that your temple on your forehead is one of the weakest parts of your skull? Did you notice that it's also called a temple? Do you remember that we kiss foreheads as a gesture of love? Did you know that some people refer to it as "kissing another's thoughts"? To love is an act of worship. To kiss and be kissed on the forehead is to say I trust you. Worship me and I will worship you. I am devoted to you, not exclusively or necessarily as a lover, but as a human. When Mary Oliver wrote, "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine."

And we are so kind and good and I have hope. Why do you think "have some humanity" means to have compassion and concern and care for others? Yes, there are wars, and corruption, and evil, and hate, and greed. But I believe in humanity. We've made it this far only because we have loved and been loved.

Something about me is that I love people and I have hope for the world and I think humanity is so, so incredibly amazing, and that is something they can't take away from me.

Alice Notley / Oscar wilde / Sarah Kane / Anne Sexton

I ATE A BIG BAG OF FACTORY REJECT SEEDS UNTIL A HEALTHY FLOWER UNFURLED IN MY CHEST ...

I MISTOOK THE SENSATION FOR LOVE AND DIED.

things that are scary that you just have to get over at some point

being wrong (as distinct from)

other people having different opinions from you (as distinct from)

minor disagreements

the eternal uncertainty caused by living in a universe where luck exists (e.g. Just Anything could happen to you for no reason)

.

i've had this list open for so long but i can't think of anything else

i sorta feel like most other fears are kind of fine to have

oh like spiders i guess

Kazuo Ishiguro, from “Kazuo Ishiguro, The Art of Fiction No. 196,” interviewed by Susannah Hunnewell, Paris Review (no. 184, Spring 2008)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

Reblog if you need to scream