Mood this weekend.
(via nickmiller)
“Our culture has created a reward system in which you get points for tearing down rather than building up, and for besieging with criticism and derision those who dare to work and live from a place of constructive hope. Don’t just resist cynicism — fight it actively, in yourself and in those you love and in the communication with which you shape culture. Cynicism, like all destruction, is easy, it’s lazy. There is nothing more difficult yet more gratifying in our society than living with sincere, active, constructive hope for the human spirit. This is the most potent antidote to cynicism, and it is an act of courage and resistance today.
It is also the most vitalizing sustenance for your soul.
But you — you — are in a very special position, leaving Annenberg, because your courage and resistance are to be enacted not only in the privacy of your inner life but in your outer contribution to public life. You are the creators of tomorrow’s ideas and ideals, the sculptors of public opinion and of culture. As long as we feed people buzz, we cannot expect their minds to produce symphonies. Never let the temptation of marketable mediocrity and easy cynicism rob you of the chance to ennoble public life and enlarge the human spirit — because we need that badly today, and because you need it badly for the survival of your soul.”
It is also the most vitalizing sustenance for your soul.
But you — you — are in a very special position, leaving Annenberg, because your courage and resistance are to be enacted not only in the privacy of your inner life but in your outer contribution to public life. You are the creators of tomorrow’s ideas and ideals, the sculptors of public opinion and of culture. As long as we feed people buzz, we cannot expect their minds to produce symphonies. Never let the temptation of marketable mediocrity and easy cynicism rob you of the chance to ennoble public life and enlarge the human spirit — because we need that badly today, and because you need it badly for the survival of your soul.”
— Maria Popova, “On the Soul-Sustaining Necessity of Resisting Self-Comparison and Fighting Cynicism: A Commencement Address”
Wim Wenders – Western World
“But I have to be there. It’s not just a matter of giving the plans to the fabricator. It’s constant thinking and talking and wondering whether to push something or not push it. I’m always looking for branches in the road, what direction it’s going to take. ‘Young Man’ was the first one that took a really long time to make, close to ten years. We’d go in and work on it by machine, then go back and work by hand. ‘Young Man’ kind of sculpted itself in time—time became the chisel. My decisions were there, of course, but they were the right decisions, because I had time to think about them.”
Huka Falls, March 2014.
Alabama, January 2015.
Josef Koudelka
Downtown Nashville.
“But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.”
— Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
Marin Headlands.