“No generation has ever had as much of what it needs to change the world so early. In the long-run, however, whether we live up to that promise will be largely based on how we define success in our personal lives, and how that translates to our professional endeavors. If we decide in five years that money and comfort is the primary objective, we’ll compromise left and right and quickly learn to the next group to pick up where we left off. If, instead, we define success to include not only money but impact and engagement, it will change the entire structure of our economy.” — Making A Big Fat Bet on this Generation | Social Entrepreneurship | Change.org
“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.” — Charles Bukowski (via @jonnybint)
Imagine leaving a cell after two years - with only $200 to your name. From that $200 you must first buy a bus pass and some clothes. Imagine that you also happen to have diabetes, severe mental illness, or profound intellectual impairment. You stand there, looking at the bills in your hand. If you had no home, no friends, and no social support of any kind - where would you go? How will you afford your pills? Or get a doctor’s appointment? Should you go to San Francisco? Los Angeles? If you tried one city before your last prison term, would you now try the other? …
“Most people I know have problems with Internet addiction. We’re all trying to figure out our own customs for getting free of it.
…
if I’m right about the acceleration of addictiveness, then this kind of lonely squirming to avoid it will increasingly be the fate of anyone who wants to get things done. We’ll increasingly be defined by what we say no to.”
—
The Acceleration of Addictiveness
-Paul Graham
(via neekolas)
Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker, pg 19
(via fuckyeahtomrobbins:pageshot: mikehudack:adamiss)
“The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That’s the only lasting thing you can create.” — Chuck Palahniuk (Choke) (via kari-shma) (via quote-book) (via jessperation, kari-shma)
“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.” — Susan Sontag (via jessperation)
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
…
What I Did When I Couldn't Find a Job -
It was a bit of a shock, losing all expectations. For years—all my life, really—parents, teachers, and guidance counselors had told me that if I went to a good college and did well, I would be able to find a job after graduation that would, with a little ladder-climbing, keep me comfortable and financially secure. After I graduated in May 2009, in political science, I moved back home to St. Louis to start my career, but there simply were no jobs to be found.
Over several months, I sent out more than 500 résumés for all sorts of jobs all over the country, but I got only two interviews and no offers.
I couldn’t find a job, but neither could anyone I knew. Now, more than a year after graduation, most of my college friends still live at home, and many of those who have moved out are borrowing money from their parents to eat and pay rent. A few have internships, but most of those are unpaid, and few are likely to lead to jobs. Two friends who studied psychology for four years now work off the books at a sandwich shop. Another, who got her master’s in development studies from Cambridge, became a barista at Starbucks.
Some are applying to grad school just to have something to do, but the prospect of racking up thousands more dollars in student debt is crushing. The rest are still looking, sending out résumés, going to career fairs, volunteering for experience, and networking. Some have given up. We are a whole generation graduating into a job market that has no room for us.
So I moved to India.
“A collaborative co-care model is starting to evolve for healthcare delivery…the patient’s role may become one of active participant, information sharer, peer leader, and self-tracker, while the physician’s role may become one of care consultant, co-creator, and health co-ordinator.”
Patients become the designers. (See the slideshow)
