I Exist, I Exist, I Exist

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably risesand sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

literally though if you feel like your life is slipping through your fingers and every day goes too fast… try doing hard things, not just taking the easy route, like reading and making art and exercising and cooking a meal from scratch and journaling, doing these things without distraction, without being absorbed on a screen… the time will stretch and you’ll be reminded that life is long and beautiful if you make it so.

sharon van etten, a crime || everything everywhere all at once || (myself) || bush, glycerine || fiona apple, love ridden || eternal sunshine of the spotless mind || salma deera, letters from medea

every day i discover more things about myself, like maybe i don't like being in a corporate job after working on thousand of pages of accomplishment report, or maybe it's because this is unpaid labor and i'm just money obsessed idk myself honestly

& you know what it actually IS lifechanging to smile at strangers & say please & thank you & goodmorning & compliment someones outfit & help someone in need & be more accepting of loving other people just because they are other people!!!

misc readings

On books and reading!

Reading insecurity, katy waldman, slate

The deep space of digital reading, paul la farge, nautilus

The curse of reading and forgetting, ian crouch, new yorker

Why read the classics, italo calvino (pdf)

How reading is like love: italo calvino on the ecstasy of surrendering to other dimensions of experience, the marginalian

Just read the book already, lauren miller, slate

Treasure the books no one else seems to love, molly templeton, tor

Papyralysis, jacob mikanowski, los angeles review of books

How to nurture a personal library, freya howarth, psyche

Brief notes on the art and manner of arranging one's books, georges perec

If I don't remember what I read, did I read it at all? molly templeton, tor

Never do that to a book, anne fadiman, slate

Mary oliver on how reading saved her life and the greatest antidote to sorrow, the marginalian

On the pleasures and solitudes of quiet books, emily st. john mandel, the millions

Being a better online reader, maria konnikova, new yorker

How 11 writers organize their personal libraries, emily temple, literary hub

How many errorrs are in this essay? ed simon, the millions

Adrienne rich on resistance, the liberating power of storytelling, and how reading emancipates, the marginalian

How we read series, wired

Fiction detective: on literary citation and search engine sleuthing, sophie haigney, the drift

our autofiction fixation, jessica winter, the new york times

there's a certain ache i feel whenever i hear people calling me nicknames i don't use anymore, it's like i'm back to being the person i was years ago. a bittersweet feeling. i don't want to be that person anymore but i'm glad you like me the same

anyway literally everyone is going through something all the time!!! everyone is wounded!!! everyone is human & no one makes it out of this life unscathed!! maybe try approaching people in good faith instead of always defaulting to the worst possible interpretations of each other

why is this so accurate it's like someone read my journal 😭

im always like hehe im so smart i will avoid shame by never doing anything ever but then i feel ashamed of not living and it turns out i didn't escape any sort of discomfort i just traded it in for a less rewarding kind

one thing i need to start living by is “become the thing that you want” if i want friends who throw themed parties maybe i should start throwing those parties. if i want someone who writes me love letters maybe i should start writing letters for the people i love. if i want to hang out at museums and pretty cafes maybe i should invite my friends to these places. and maybe even then i won’t find the kind of people i want to be around. but then i would have become the exact person i want to be around. and maybe that’s good enough.