explore-blog:

The Wheel of Intense Emotions – Jessica Hagy revises Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions to include the vital missing part.

theparisreview:

“The theme of art is the theme of life itself. This artificial distinction between artists and human beings is precisely what we are all suffering from. An artist is only someone unrolling and digging out and excavating the areas normally accessible to normal people everywhere, and exhibiting them as a sort of scarecrow to show people what can be done with themselves.”

—Lawrence Durrell, The Art of Fiction No. 23

The Fault In Our Stars: a noticeable universe

“Suleika Jaouad was a senior at Princeton when I was a sophomore. I didn’t know her — she was two years older, and intimidatingly beautiful. After graduation, she moved abroad. Then she was diagnosed with leukemia. Since the end of last year, Suleika has been writing a column for The New York Times’s “Well” blog. With frank insights and tremendous eloquence, Suleika tackles a series of tough topics, from managing pain during chemotherapy, to navigating relationships made complicated by cancer (for example, her brother becoming her bone-marrow donor). Her articles, as well the series of video clips which accompany them, offer an affecting glimpse of what it means to be a young person wrestling with cancer.” —Alyssa Loh

The Art of Distraction, by Hanif Kureishi:

From this point of view — that of drift and dream; of looking out for interest; of following this or that because it seems alive — Ritalin and other forms of enforcement and psychological policing are the contemporary equivalent of the old practice of tying up children’s hands in bed, so they won’t touch their genitals. The parent stupefies the child for the parent’s good. There is more to this than keeping out the interesting: there is the fantasy and terror that someone here will become pleasure’s victim, disappearing into a spiral of enjoyment from which he or she will not return.

It is true, however, that many people have spent their lives being distracted, keeping away, often unknowingly, from that which they most want, thus brewing in themselves a poison of disappointment, bitterness and despair. But there are still […] forms of distraction that can be far more harmful. We can attack ourselves unknowingly: we might call this corrupted desire, as if we are being inhabited by a demon whose whispers are cruel diminutions of the self, destroying creativity and valuable connections, until enervation and self-hatred make a living death.

It is said that distractions are too easy to come by now that most writers use computers, though it’s just as convenient to flee through the mind’s window into fantasy. In the end, a person requires a method. He must be able to distinguish between creative and destructive distractions by the sort of taste they leave, whether they feel depleting or fulfilling. And this can work only if he is, as much as possible, in good communication with himself — if he is, as it were, on his own side, caring for himself imaginatively, an artist of his own life.

writingprompts:

369

Things Happen – a brilliant Venn diagram of life from the brilliant Wendy MacNaughton

writingprompts:

writing prompt #103

The universe
and the light of the stars
come through me.

There is something in us
That has nothing to do with night and day,
Diamonds which come from no earthly mine.

Cease looking for flowers,
there blooms a garden in your own home.

Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

The branch might seem like the fruit’s origin:
In fact, the branch exist because of the fruit.

Love is that that never sleeps,
nor even rests,
nor stays for long with those that do.
Love is language that cannot be said,
or heard.

With love
you cannot bargain there,
the choice is not yours.
Love is a mirror,
it reflects only your essence,
if you have the courage
to look in its face.

Look at me and hear me,
because I am here…
just for that !

—Rumi