I Love Easter ...

and this is why!

Brain Candy

(via)

Don’t you just love smart in-depth content?  Well, I’ve collected some links over the years to some really great sites.  So, for your Tuesday Rabbit Hole of the Mind, here they are.

·       TED, or Technology, Entertainment, and Design, a site that has great 20 minute talks by really smart people (http://www.ted.com/)

·       Byliner, which highlights amazing longform journalism and fiction and even has some great short book-length works in their Byliner Originals (https://www.byliner.com/)

·       Brain Pickings, a great site by Maria Popover that highlights and points to great smart and original content (http://www.brainpickings.org/)

·       Arts & Letters Daily, a site that points to really smart academic and related articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://www.aldaily.com/)

·       Open Culture, a free cultural and educational website (http://www.openculture.com/)

·       The Millions, smart people saying smart things (http://www.themillions.com/)

·       The New Yorker (of course) (http://www.newyorker.com/)

·       New York Times (of course) (http://www.nytimes.com/)

·       The Atlantic (of course) (http://www.theatlantic.com/)

·       Harper’s (of course) (http://harpers.org/)

 

And a bonus for those of you who forgot more about math than you ever knew:

·       The Khan Academy, the absolute best way to brush up on your algebra, trig, and calc (http://www.khanacademy.org/)

A Braver Life, or Today I Write

Bravery, by Nathaniel Eckstrom (via)

One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is fear as dream-killer.  The opposite of dreams is fear, I’m convinced.

It is very hard to live a brave life.  By brave, I mean following up on opportunities, going for your dreams, and allowing yourself to dream in the first part.  Going against the tides of your life and the world around you to go after that which lights you up, whether that’s doing art or following a career as an animal communicator or going to Africa to help the poor.

It’s so much easier to be safe, to do what we’re supposed to do.  I had a counselor once who said, “Don’t ‘should’ yourself to death.”  Because it can be death, a slow spiral where you feel like you’re drowning.  And the whole world around you and your family and friends all have an agenda for you.  They want you to be answering their needs, doing what you’re expected, and not changing an iota. 

And beyond that, you can take on the fears of those around you.  The political climate of the last ten or fifteen years has included lots of fear-mongering, and it’s like mass hysteria took over there for a while ~ even now with the whole gun thing.  It’s about fear.  And you can also take on the fears of those closest to you, and they only want what’s best for you, so you honor that and before you know it, your life is very small.

The problem with all this is you can’t just make one big decision and everything changes.  Well, you can decide, “I’m going to live a braver life,” but then what it comes down to is a whole bunch of very small decisions every day.  Do you carve away time to do your art, or do you do the laundry?  Do you follow up on that serendipitous connection a friend mentioned, or do you not bother?  Do you take care of your body so it’s in the best health it can be so that you’re ready to follow your dream, or do you get fast food because it’s cheap and easy?

So, a braver life, one tiny step at a time. Today I write.

PS And if you want a smart and hilarious take on being brave, read Patty Chang Anker's Facing Forty Upside Down blog (http://www.upside-down-patty.blogspot.com/) and follow her author page on FB (https://www.facebook.com/#!/PattyChangAnker) and her on Twitter (@PattyChangAnker).

Names as Destiny

The Gashleycrumb Tinies, by Edward Gorey (via)

Are our names our destiny?  Well, Edward Gorey is certainly evidence in favor of the theory.  Like Charles Addams, he saw life as dark and humorous, and his work is amazing. 

But as it turns out, he did not originate the meaning of "gory."  According to the OED, it occured as early as 1480. 

So what do you think?  Nature or nurture?

Guy Fieri's Dad on Imagination

My wonderful mother-in-law came across this in Guy Fieri Food, a great cookbook.  This is in the introduction.  It is entitled "Jim on Imagination" ~ Jim is Guy's dad.  I love this!

Guy Fieri and his dad Jim (via)

We’re all born with imagination ~ that’s the first thing we have going for us.  Kids are fantastic to watch ~ they don’t speak for the first two years because they’re so busy learning! For that reason I’ve always felt it’s important not to rush them from the imagining stage to the memory stage of their growth, such as learning to speak or teaching them the alphabet.  There’s a connection between imagining and doing, and I’d argue that it’s just as important throughout adulthood as it is in childhood.

For the most part, if you can’t imagine doing something, there’s a good likelihood you can’t actually do it, and vice versa.  I can’t imagine walking on a tightrope between to high-rise buildings, but I know it can be done.  Some people have no problem taking a long pole and going for it ~ but that wouldn’t be me!  On the other hand, there are people who are unemployed for three years who can’t imagine getting a job again.  But without the ability to imagine it, how can it ever happen.

We must be careful not to destroy children’s imagination, because we don’t have a good framework for getting it back.  How do we get people to start imagining again?

Terrafin, or Feeling Things Intently

My son is absolutely ecstatic with anticipation.  He loves the video game Skylanders, and he’s been waiting for at least 6 months to get the character Terrafin, shown above.  I write this on Tuesday afternoon, and the figurine should be delivered this afternoon.  It allows you to be this character within the game in a world called Skyland, which are islands floating in the air. My son's grandma just flew in today, though, and he has music concert tonight, and so he won’t be able to play with it much today.  He was totally bummed about that.

Do you remember what it was like to anticipate things when you were a kid?  Oh, the agony, the torture!  There’s a great Calvin and Hobbes comic strip series (which you can see here) about this very thing.  Wanting something so bad and having to wait.  Once we ordered it, my son only had to wait two days, though ~ a huge difference from when I was a kid.

I wonder if kids experience these kinds of things more intensely.  We certainly get more patient with age, and we get blunted somehow.  Self-preservation, maybe. 

But I think it would do us good to remember, sometimes, what it’s like to remain that open, to feel things that intently.  Sometimes not, a lot of times it’s too much.  But that’s the state that’s the most alive, the most creative.

'All These Stars Are Silent'

I must reread Le Petit Prince.

The Little Prince (via)

All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems... But all these stars are silent. You-You alone will have stars as no one else has them... In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night...You, only you, will have stars that can laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me... You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince