It has been argued that a chronic fever of distraction and fascination arrives on waves of Wi-Fi to stunt our attention spans, encouraging writers to paddle about, tweeting and liking, instead of striking out for deeper waters. As a writer who writes about writers, I struggle with this surfeit of ideas and impressions myself, but I also can see this so-called malady from a different point of view, through the prism of history. Authors, after all, have always sought the means to build bridges between the world and the page. Wi-Fi, Google Docs, social networks and even smartphones and other gadgets are just the most recent means of doing so. While they can distract us with their bells and whistles, they also provide powerful tools for gathering information, tracking renegade thoughts and inspirations and disciplining the flow of words and ideas.
The impulse to connect to the outside world is an ancient one.
[…]
Writers have always welcomed this intervention and inspiration of the world in the work of composition. Early-modern European authors had their commonplace books: journals they filled with excerpts from classical and modern works, snippets of journalism and reflections gleaned from daily life. More than a mere journal, the commonplace book can be thought of as a paper-based interface for the social world of letters, in which Enlightenment-era writers continuously added, combined and swapped out snippets of found text gleaned from such new media as newspapers, broadsides and learned journals.
(via explore-blog)
Quentin Dupieux, Director of Rubber
Currently on my reading list
Will it matter if I didn’t deal with what depresses me?
you know parents make such a big deal about explaining homosexuality to their children but when I was a kid I watched a show where one of the villains was a satanic cross-dressing lobster and never once questioned it
(via fearr-and-loathing)
Reblogging because I need it.
(via thecultureofme)
(via fennels)
The first photo is especially awesome. And yes, I didn’t think such a sentence could ever exist .
(via thisbigcity)
(via fennels)
What am I doing with my life?
I don’t have the slightest idea on what I’m doing right now. It feels like I’m slowly and hopelessly wasting whatever life was given to me. OK now the one direction crescendo just ruined the mood. I feel like I have ten school requirements I’ve never touched since… well since the start of the year (although I probably have around just 5 actual requirements). And the miraculous life - repairing reset button I looked forward to disappeared as soon as the call with my mother ended. It’s not that I blame her though; she sounded legitimately uhh… sound with her persuasion pitch.
It’s just it seems like every time I make plans, something or someone comes in and messes things up - sometimes even before the plan materializes. -_-
Okay now I just sound like a spoiled brat. Of course not all plans go exactly the way we want them to. Who am I to deserve special treatment from the dominating force of existence?
Back to the question: What am I doing with my life?
Short answer: Trying to preserve whatever is left of my identity - dreams and convictions - as my current life eats it away.
I am the complete opposite of this right now.
(via explore-blog)
You want to slow the spread of AIDS? Educate a girl. You want to slow population growth? Educate a girl. You want to grow the global economy? Educate a girl. So, what exactly changes when the 600,000 girls in the developing world get a good education?
Everything.
Some stirring statistics in this trailer for Girl Rising, a moving documentary about the impact of educating girls worldwide.
At a time when even in the “developed” world the gender gap in academia gapes wide, what could be more important? Even Einstein knew that.
Help support the project with a donation – for the cost of an average New York City dinner, for instance, you can cover the school feels for one girl for an entire year.
