The Geometry Of Grief

“The distance between here and there is the answer to the wrong question.”

... is also the way to view and live through grief — an exercise in continual dilation of perspective, so that life can be seen from more and more angles besides the acuteness of loss, noticing more and more of what is there, what remains and what grows in the wake of the lost; an exercise in remembering, again and again, that healing is subtle and unpredictable, unfolding in tiny, quiet, immeasurable increments that eventually add up to profound changes of measurable difference.

Small changes may not cause large differences, but small changes, invisible because of our inability to measure exactly, can mask our ability to predict whether, when, and where large differences can occur. Chaos is about the breakdown of our ability to forecast for more than a short time.

by (https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/11/10/geometry-of-grief-michael-frame/)

How to be anxious by David Egan

Kierkegaard, Sartre and Heidegger all think we have a strong motive to flee anxiety when it strikes us. Our freedom entails a heavy burden of individual responsibility, which is daunting. Much easier, then, to act as if the big questions of how to live and how to make sense of things were already settled.

by (https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-be-anxious-like-kierkegaard-sartre-and-heidegger)

Cold Solace by Anna Belle Kaufman

Leave something of sweetness and substance in the mouth of the world.

by (https://www.brainpickings.org/2020/02/03/emily-levine-cold-solace-anna-belle-kaufman/)

Radiating from the pages is also the welcome disorientation of time travel, deconditioning our habit of mistaking today’s culturally constructed commonplaces for ahistorical givens: Blackwell’s bright-red tomato blazes the reminder that this plant — so common today as to be commonplace the world over — was then an exotic native of the New World, known in the Old World as love-apple.

by https://www.brainpickings.org/2020/01/29/elizabeth-blackwell-curious-herbal/?mc_cid=8f54bc6cad&mc_eid=d361d399e1

Century of Global Warming

Created by Antti Lipponen, a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the video uses temperature anomaly data from NASA to show that despite year-to-year variations, communities across the globe are experiencing significantly warmer temperatures since the early 20th century, reported Vox.

by (http://e360.yale.edu/digest/new-video-visualizes-a-century-of-global-warming-in-just-35-seconds)

All You Need Is Love

The Paperfuge: A 20-Cent Device That Could Transform Health Care

THE LOOSE ASSEMBLAGE of paper and string Manu Prakash pulls from his pocket doesn’t look like much. And in a way, it’s not—just 20 cents’ worth of materials you can buy at an art supply store. But in another way, the Stanford bioengineer’s tangle of stuff is a minor miracle. Prakash calls it a Paperfuge, and like the piece of lab equipment it’s named for, the centrifuge, it can spin biological samples at thousands of revolutions per minute. That’s a critical step in the diagnosis of infections like malaria and HIV. But unlike a centrifuge, the Paperfuge doesn’t need electricity, complicated machinery, expensive replacement parts, or even much money to operate.

by (https://www.wired.com/2017/01/paperfuge-20-cent-device-transform-health-care/)

On Self-Respect: Joan Didion

To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out — since our self-image is untenable — their false notion of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone’s Annie Sullivan; no expectation is too misplaced, no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meting the next demand made upon us.

by (http://www.vogue.com/3241115/joan-didion-self-respect-essay-1961/
https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/05/21/joan-didion-on-self-respect/
http://webstage.bg/filosofiya-i-psihologiya/2360-volyata-da-poemesh-otgovornost-za-sobstveniya-si-zhivot-e-iztochnikat-ot-koyto-proizliza-samouvazhenieto-dzhoan-didion.html)

Surma & Mursi

Тези две племена обитават териториите на южна Етиопия и северната част на Кения. И имат много общо помежду си – сходни условия на живот, еднакви бичаи и любов към творчеството. Дълго време тяхната култура била недокосната заради отдалечеността си от шумната цивилизация. Племената Surma и Mursi населяват пустинни планини, които дълго време останали неизследвани. Тези редки кадри са дело на немския фотограф Ханс Силвестър /Hans Silvester/. Публикувани са в две изключително любопитни издания – „Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa" и „Ethiopia: Peoples of the Omo Valley". Силвестър дълго време бил свидетел на живота на хората от двете племена и се опитал да съхрани в детайли колкото може повече от тяхното живо изкуство. Фотографът се страхува, че в близко бъдеще, всичката екзотичност от бита на племената ще бъде забравена и изгубена за света. Ето част от фотографиите, които представят особеностите на естетиката и красотата на племенните хора. Те с благодарност използват всички средства на природата, за да творят върху себе си – с треви, цветя, клонки, плодове, рогове, минерални пигменти, вулканична пепел. Живот в ярки и наситени цветове.

(http://webstage.bg/pateshestviya/2010-estestvena-moda-plemenata-surma-i-mursi.html)

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Супичка - Весела Коледа!

Ароматът на изпечени домашни сладки е един от ароматите, които създават усещане за домашен уют и топлина, а оттам и буди асоциации с най-топлия празник, празникът който събира цялото семейство - Коледа!

by (http://www.supichka.com/2014/11/koledni-sladki.html)

Save The Humans

It takes around 15 pounds of grain to make one pound of beef - which can feed a couple people for a few hours. In comparison, 13 pounds of grain fed to humans directly can feed 13 people for most of the day. ... a long shower uses around 40 gallons of water. Whereas it takes 4,000 to 18,000 gallons of water to create a 1/3 lb hamburger. ... Let's put this in perspective: the good people of Philadelphia create roughly 1,000,000 tons of urine and feces per year. And one, only one, large pig farm will produce roughly 1,600,000 tons of urine and feces per year. ...

by (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/moby/moby-meat_b_5889850.html)

Portraits of Reconciliation

20 years after the genocide in Rwanda, reconciliation still happens one encounter at a time.

by (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/magazine/06-pieter-hugo-rwanda-portraits.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=MG_POR_20140404&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=4)

A Toast Story

How did toast become the latest artisanal food craze? Ask a trivial question, get a profound, heartbreaking answer.

The menu also features a go-for-broke option called “Build Your Own Damn House,” which consists of a coffee, a coconut, and a piece of cinnamon toast. Hanging in the door is a manifesto that covers a green chalkboard. “We are local people with useful skills in tangible situations,” it says, among other things. “Drink a cup of Trouble. Eat a coconut. And learn to build your own damn house. We will help. We are building a network.”

At first, Carrelli explained Trouble as a kind of sociological experiment in engineering spontaneous communication between strangers. She even conducted field research, she says, before opening the shop. “I did a study in New York and San Francisco, standing on the street holding a sandwich, saying hello to people. No one would talk to me. But if I stayed at that same street corner and I was holding a coconut? People would engage,” she said. “I wrote down exactly how many people talked to me.”

If the spread of toast is a social contagion, then Carrelli was its perfect vector. Most of us dedicate the bulk of our attention to a handful of relationships: with a significant other, children, parents, a few close friends. Social scientists call these “strong ties.” But Carrelli can’t rely on such a small set of intimates. Strong ties have a history of failing her, of buckling under the weight of her illness. So she has adapted by forming as many relationships—as many weak ties—as she possibly can. And webs of weak ties are what allow ideas to spread.

by (http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/toast-story-latest-artisanal-food-craze-72676/; http://www.psmag.com/magazines/magazine-feature-story-magazines/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/)

In 10 minutes

Over 240 Incredible HD Clips

by (http://lilhub.com/you-won-t-be-able-to-stop-watching-this-over-240-incredible-hd-clips)

Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy

It's pretty straightforward -- when the reality of someone's life is better than they had expected, they're happy. When reality turns out to be worse than the expectations, they're unhappy.

by (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.html)

Be Happier

Happiness is often a matter of subtraction, not addition.

by (http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-to-be-happier-work-10-things-stop-doing.html?comid=89533)

Landfill Harmonic

Landfill Harmonic film teaser from Landfill Harmonic on Vimeo.

Landfill Harmonic is an upcoming feature-length documentary about a remarkable musical orchestra in Paraguay, where young musicians play instruments made from trash. For more information about the film, please visit facebook.com/landfillharmonicmovie.

by (http://vimeo.com/52711779)