Source: Wasted Rita via this isn’t happiness
If I like something, I like it a lot. (Simpatico)
June 30, 2015 by 30 Comments
My friend Denise tells me somebody told her, “Shopping is despair,” but my daughter Jennifer says, “Shopping is hope.” Hope gets out of hand. One turquoise ring from eBay is not enough. I must have five. A single secondhand Coach bag is not satisfying – I bid on seven. As I have implied, one is not a concept I understand. When I smoked I smoked three packs a day, when I drank, well, let’s not get into that. If your psyche is a balloon animal and you squeeze to eliminate the cigarettes and whiskey, the crazy has to go somewhere. A friend’s mother ate nothing but clams for six months. Morning, noon, and night, nothing but clams for six months. “I don’t know what it is – I can’t seem to get enough of them,” she told her son. He shakes his head, but i understand. I eat nothing but broccoli for a month, then yogurt for six days, then (for one glorious week) lamb chops. One day I roasted a chicken and had seven chicken sandwiches before nightfall. If I like something, I like it a lot. Just one doesn’t cut it. I don’t know what it is I can’t get enough of. At least I don’t have shopping bags full of duck sauce.
~ Abigail Thomas, Thinking About Memoir
Photo Source: weheartit
Like me. Like ME. LIKE ME DAMN IT.
May 13, 2014 by 36 Comments
Bruce Feiler: For the Love of Being ‘Liked’ – For Some Social-Media Users, an Anxiety From Approval Seeking:
Walking through an airport newsstand this year, I noticed a novelty…I quickly snapped a photo and sent out a tweet to my modest list of followers…Then I waited for the love. I checked the response before passing through security. Nothing. I glanced again while waiting for the plane. Still nothing. I looked again before we took off. Nobody cared. My little attempt to pass a lonely hour in an airport with some friendly interaction had turned into the opposite: a brutal cold shower of social isolation.
We are deep enough into the social-media era to begin to recognize certain patterns among its users. Foremost among them is a mass anxiety of approval seeking and popularity tracking that seems far more suited to a high school prom than a high-functioning society…
…it all begins to seem a bit, well, desperate.
…Time for a rewrite, Mr. Shakespeare. This above all: to thine others be true.
…“In a lot of ways, the addictive part is in the anticipation,”
…”I noticed I get in this puppet situation,” she said. “I get bored, and there’s something compelling about being able to put something online, and all of a sudden there’s instant gratification of ‘They like me!’
…Maybe Warhol needs a rewrite, too: Today, everybody can be famous for 15 retweets.
…A growing body of research indicates how deeply our brains are wired to seek social approval.
Read full (and excellent) article at For the Love of Being ‘Liked’
Notes:
- Image: The Keep Calm-O-Matic
- Title: Shakespeare said: “The above all: to thine own self be true.” What does it mean? See here Wiki.Answers.com.
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There is nothing that I dislike
January 20, 2013 by 27 Comments
“There is nothing I dislike.”
“These are the extraordinary words of the great teacher Linji; they are a lifetime koan for anyone who dares to take it on. Lifetime koans like this one never give up on you, luckily. ‘There is nothing I dislike’ is daring and fragrant and alive, and it is like this because it’s like this. ‘There is nothing I dislike’ rearranges us profoundly, when we offer ourselves to its energy, its scrutiny, its disturbance in us. [Read more…]
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