519. The best way to ruin an apology is with an explanation.

(Source: rulesformyunbornson)

kathleenjoy:

MATING RITUALS CONDUCTED ENTIRELY THROUGH LIKE, STAR, RETWEET AND CLICKING AN ICON OF A HEART.

If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which WEALTH, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while POWER remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

1984 - george orwell

She’d thought of that as going with the flow, but maybe, she thinks now, it had really been the path of least resistance. What if that flow naturally tended to the path of least resistance? Where does that take you? “Down the tube,” she says aloud, causing a very good-looking young Asian man, walking parallel with her, to start, and look at her with brief alarm. She smiles in reassurance, but he frowns and walks faster. She slows, to let him get ahead.

Pattern Recognition (2004) by William Gibson

“Passive Aggressive emailing tip:
if they piss you off, spell their name wrong.

— via lants

∞ poetic Tumblr: 'Aubade' by Philip Larkin

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

∞ yes or no?: the grind

yesnoerica:

I remember a time when I found the daily commute dehumanising.

I was one of millions who’d scrabbled out of bed, bloodshot and gasping, undertaking a circadian ritual of wash/brush/swallow before dragging my under-nourished carcass to my local railway station to fight with the other millions for one uncomfortable seat. We’d sit there, judging each other by our choice of author, sighing angrily at the noisy schoolkids and mentally preparing ourselves for the onslaught of disappointment and stress that we were inevitably to endure for the next eight to twelve hours before fighting each other for that single fucking seat again.

I felt like nothing. I really was one of millions. I found my job stressful and all-consuming and that daily commute was like a death march I had to complete five distressing days per week so that I could make enough money to sustain the kind of lifestyle that I didn’t even have the energy to live out anymore.

But I can’t relate to that feeling anymore. Sure, some of my stress now lies in money worries, but it’s a fraction of the overall stress I experienced before.

Now on my daily commute I look at all the furrowed brows shadowing pairs of downcast eyes and I remind myself of how lucky I am. Yes, I’m one of the millions that undertake the ritual. Yes, I have to push my way - with thousands of other people - through doors, through turnstiles, up narrow escalators.

But I’m an imposter. My unsmiling face is a liar. I don’t hate my life; I love my life. I don’t hate my job, either. I don’t even hate the daily commute anymore. I own my time and I own my happiness and I’ll forever own the knowledge that I am no longer one of the unhappy millions and never will be again.

excellent post, love this.  not many people seem to have a healthy grasp of relativity and the first world.

(Source: amplifiedjournaling)