Do you understand life?

Sharing is Caring!

I just wanted to take a minute here to share some of the videos, pages, songs, projects etc. that I have enjoyed this past week or so. Each of them very different, each with very awesome views on life. Enjoy! 

Sites:

Under City

I found this guy through a video that is posted below, and he is an urban historian and photographer. His work is incredible. Check it out.

fuckyouverymuch

A great visual diary. Remember children, that fuck you is the new thank you.

Yowayowa

Self portraits in Tokyo of Natsumi Hayashi as she levitates through life.

Videos:

Undercity-NYC

Andrew Wonder [Director/Cinematographer

Morals

1)When you're dead, you're dead.

How do so many people forget this? We are here. We are living, loving, creating, exploring, innovative, bold, individuals. This is the one life that we get. Some believe in reincarnation, or the transfer of energy; and I am supportive of those ideals, but even if your soul or energy goes on to "the next life", you will never again have the chance to be exactly who you are in this life ever again. So why the comfort? Why do so many of us settle for the comfort of our jobs, our homes, our possessions? Why can't more of us just take the hands of our loved ones and GO? Take my hand, Love. Let us go.

2)Make love when you can. It's good for you.

Making love can be one of the most uplifting mental escapes (no pun intended for all my male readers). I must admit that I think that the term "making love" is so stupid. You don't make love when you're sleeping with someone. If you are sleeping with someone you deeply care about, well then definitely, sex can in turn bring you closer together both physically, and mentally. It is an opportunity for feelings to flare and chemistry to run. There is no greater feeling than having sex with someone you care immensely about. The connection you have with that partner makes you feel impervious to the rest of the world. But you are not creating love. In comparison to casual sex where you may have your 20 min of fun, there is no chemistry, there is no true connection beyond that of the physical attributes. "making love" with someone you care about, and can laugh with you, and sometimes at you, even when you're in the act with them, is one of the best feelings. Sex is healthy ladies and gents--Enjoy.

3)We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. 

We all do it. We all try to impress. There is a need built into our brains where we feel it is imperative to be liked by everyone. I always noticed this in my own life whenever I would start dating a new partner. For example, for a date Brennan once asked "do you wanna go see [whatever sci-fi movie was out at the time] and flirtatiously, I replied with an enthusiastic "yes". I was into him, therefore I would have said I wanted to go to a ship yard if that was what he wanted to do. Truth is though, science-fiction isn't my thing. Not even in the slightest. Whatever movie we went to that night I'm sure bored me to tears, but I sat there and pretended to enjoy it. I never told him though that I didn't enjoy it, so he assumed I liked them, and then I got trapped into seeing a zillion other dumb science-fiction movies during our relationship. It was awful! But I wasn't honest with myself, and I pretended to be into those films.

If this pretending gets taken to a higher level, one could really get themselves into a pickle. This goes beyond the basic lie though. This pretending can easily transfer into a newly mandated lifestyle change [something larger than just getting suckered into a sci-fi movie pool]. So make sure if you pretend, you aren't pretending. You will not only lose a lot of people you love, but you will eventually lose yourself. Something I continue to work on daily.

Escape

"Don't wake up a woman in love. Let her dream, so that she does not weep when she returns to her bitter reality" 

--Mark Twain

"Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity"

I find it intriguing  that two of my favorite books that I have read recently are "The Sun Also Rises"(Hemingway) and "The Moon is Down"(Steinbeck). Isn't that the truth with me though? Literature, day in, day out; morning and evening.

While I was stuck writing confined blogs about "who I am" the whole month of January,  in my personal time I was going on a classic literature binge (one of the many privileges of living alone). I read so much modern fiction in college, lots of Piccoult, Gilbert, Gruen, and never even thought about Twain, Steinbeck, Homer, Hemingway, and Wilde.

"Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read." -Mark Twain

It wasn't until I re-read Homers, "The Odyssey" as an adult, that I became enamored with the writing style. Now, I had previously read this book twice; once as a freshman in high school, and then again as a sophomore in college. Both times, I enjoyed the book, but I never appreciated it. But once the classroom setting was gone, and there was no pressure about being tested on the material, I was able to really get into it.  My conclusion? The classroom kills classics.

As much as I love the fictional story of "the classics", I love thinking about the authors mental journey as they wrote the story infused with their own personal experiences. "The Moon is Down" is a perfect example of this: Written in 1942 as a work of propaganda to assist the Allied war effort, Steinbeck came under some criticism for portraying the Germans (the conquerors were not actually identified as German in the book itself) too sympathetically, in contrast to the more virulent and crude propaganda that tried to demonize them. Steinbeck gave the enemies a face. He gave them emotions, and showed them as people, and not monsters.  After the war, the work was more universally praised when it became apparent that it had greatly encouraged the resistance in Nazi-occupied countries. The Moon is Down exhibits Steinbeck's skill in characterization and psychological sensitivity. Without question, its is a work of propaganda, but I think it stands as a substantive piece of literature in its own right. The work leaves readers with an important idea to chew on:  What is the nature of propaganda itself, how can it be defined? Is it a particular genre or is its categorization as propaganda determined by its intent?

I wish I had more "geeky" friends who I could discuss these ideas with. It makes me miss school in that regard. First and foremost, I love literature, but second of all I love discussing literature. This is why I have committed to going back and auditing one literature class a term. I don't care about the credit, I care about the passion. 

Here is a random list of some of the classics I have grown to love more and more every time I read them:

Steinbeck:

 East of Eden

Pastures of Heaven

The Moon is Down

Travels with Charley

The Winter of Our Discontent

Hemingway:

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The Old Man and the Sea

The Sun Also Rises 

Twain: 

Diaries of Adam and Eve

Letters from the Earth

 

"When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before.  You see more in you than there was before."-Clifton Fadiman