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Video

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 07:00:40 -0400

Video

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:54:07 -0400

"This is the greatest damn thing about the universe. That we can know so much, recognize so much,..."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:25:38 -0400

“This is the greatest damn thing about the universe. That we can know so much, recognize so much, dissect, do everything, and we can’t grasp it.”

- Henry Miller (via explore-blog)

"Scientists do their work by assuming that every phenomenon can be reduced to a material, mechanistic..."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:25:19 -0400

“

Scientists do their work by assuming that every phenomenon can be reduced to a material, mechanistic cause and by excluding any possibility of nonmaterial explanations. And the materialist assumption works really, really well—in detecting and quantifying things that have a material or mechanistic explanation. Materialism has allowed us to predict and control what happens in nature with astonishing success. The jaw-dropping edifice of modern science, from space probes to nanosurgery, is the result.

But the success has gone to the materialists’ heads. From a fruitful method, materialism becomes an axiom: If science can’t quantify something, it doesn’t exist, and so the subjective, unquantifiable, immaterial “manifest image” of our mental life is proved to be an illusion.

Here materialism bumps up against itself.

”

- Andrew Ferguson considers the implications of philosopher Thomas Nagel’s provocative Mind and Cosmos. (via explore-blog)

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one..."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:24:59 -0400

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”

- Viktor Frankl on love, from his timeless classic Man’s Search for Meaning. (via explore-blog)

"Man achieves his tallest measure of serenity when surrounded by beauty."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:24:30 -0400

“Man achieves his tallest measure of serenity when surrounded by beauty.”

- Classic Henry Dreyfuss, 1955 (via explore-blog)

"Something within her refused to grow. Something endless, eternal. Something bold. Something..."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:24:10 -0400

“Something within her refused to grow. Something endless, eternal. Something bold. Something warrior-like. She looked up at the stars, she could feel, she felt as if she could pluck them one by one and send them spinning into the world, like small beautiful elastic mercurial weapons. Now too, the time is coming.”

- Patti Smith’s beautiful tribute to Virginia Woolf, who took her own life on March 28, 1941. (via explore-blog)

explore-blog: You don’t fall in love like you fall in a hole....

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:42:27 -0400

explore-blog:

You don’t fall in love like you fall in a hole. You fall like falling through space. It’s like you jump off your own private planet to visit someone else’s planet. And when you get there it all looks different: the flowers, the animals, the colours people wear. It is a big surprise falling in love because you thought you had everything just right on your own planet, and that was true, in a way, but then somebody signalled to you across space and the only way you could visit was to take a giant jump. Away you go, falling into someone else’s orbit and after a while you might decide to pull your two planets together and call it home. And you can bring your dog. Or your cat. Your goldfish, hamster, collection of stones, all your odd socks. (The ones you lost, including the holes, are on the new planet you found.)
And you can bring your friends to visit. And read your favourite stories to each other. And the falling was really the big jump that you had to make to be with someone you don’t want to be without. That’s it.

PS You have to be brave.

How you fall in love, and more deceptively simple yet profound children’s questions answered by scientists, philosophers, and writers

Herzschmerz by Solomily

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:18:08 -0400

Herzschmerz by Solomily

explore-blog: The Möbius structure of relationships, one...

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 13:45:56 -0500

explore-blog:

The Möbius structure of relationships, one of David Byrne’s hand-drawn pencil diagrams of the human condition

"If you can draw a relationship, it can exist. The world keeps opening up, unfolding, and just when..."

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 13:45:12 -0500

“If you can draw a relationship, it can exist. The world keeps opening up, unfolding, and just when we expect it to be closed — to be a sealed sensible box — it shows us something completely surprising. In fact, the result and possibly unacknowledged aim of science may be to know how much it is that we don’t know, rather than what we do think we know. What we think we know we probably aren’t really sure of anyway. At least if can get a sense of what we don’t know, we don’t be guilty of the hubris of thinking we know any of it. Science’s job is to map our ignorance.”

- David Byrne (via explore-blog)

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/12/28/magazine/100000001970456/an-illustrated-talk-with-maurice-sendak.html

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 05:59:14 -0500

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/12/28/magazine/100000001970456/an-illustrated-talk-with-maurice-sendak.html

Video

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 05:56:52 -0500

"The best advice I can come up with is this: Keep your living expenses LOW. The smaller you live..."

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 05:49:38 -0500

“The best advice I can come up with is this: Keep your living expenses LOW. The smaller you live (materially-speaking), the bigger you can live (creatively-speaking). This way the stakes aren’t so high…you aren’t demanding of your passion that it keeps you living a rich life. Then you can stretch and grow with the most possible freedom. This was my strategy in my 20’s, and it’s the reason I worked really hard to avoid all debts, and to keep my lifestyle really manageable. If I’d been saddled with a big life, I don’t think I ever could have found my way forward to the freedom I have now.”

- Elizabeth Gilbert’s advice for people who want to turn their passion into a career, a fine addition to our ongoing archive of sage advice.

Also see how to avoid work and do what you love.

(↬ LIVEfromtheNYPL)

From “The Nameless Series” By me! Solomily (aka Milagros...

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 09:07:54 -0500

From “The Nameless Series”

By me! Solomily (aka Milagros Samaniego)

explore-blog: Lovely short film about Britain’s longest-serving...

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:36:37 -0500

explore-blog:

Lovely short film about Britain’s longest-serving blacksmith, a fine addition to these 7 short documentaries about near-obsolete occupations.

"When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made..."

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:35:19 -0500

“When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love.”

- Ernest Hemingway on the pace and routine of writing (via explore-blog)

"Design is a process of trying to address the unknown, through a process, and end at some place. …..."

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:34:59 -0500

“Design is a process of trying to address the unknown, through a process, and end at some place. … Any creative endeavor is about embracing risk, and that risk of failure, whatever form it’s going to take.”

- Designer Paul Sahre on Listen Close with Jeff Close, joining other celebrated thinkers on the importance of living the questions, welcoming uncertainty, embracing the unknown, and harnessing the power of ignorance. (via explore-blog)

explore-blog: Ten Things I Wish I Knew Sooner Rather Than Later...

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:34:21 -0500

explore-blog:

Ten Things I Wish I Knew Sooner Rather Than Later — timeless life-wisdom from the brilliant Debbie Millman, who is wise.

explore-blog: Stunning, quietly haunting animated video...

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:34:04 -0500

explore-blog:

Stunning, quietly haunting animated video for Sigur Rós’s “Seraph” from the album Valtari by SVA alumnus Dash Shaw