Power to the Person

Dashboard cameras capture inspiring acts of human kindness

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:01:20 -0400

Dashboard cameras capture inspiring acts of human kindness

Why I hate school but love education

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:52:00 -0400

Why I hate school but love education

Late night ramble

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:45:24 -0400

A blank page, which can become my emotions once I pour them down onto it and let them soak through. It is nothing before it is created by the words it becomes. But the words could not come down anywhere if there was no page there. But the page is empty before-hand—it has no nature in itself. It is the emptiness, the useless, that allows there to be existence, and use.

Distractions prevent the depth of thought that allows for greatness.

I like blank pages. A lot. I feel the same way toward them that I feel about my future, when I really imagine and envision it. It’s undefined and could become anything. And my blessing and curse is that I see how limitlessly amazing it could become. And then I become scared, because I’ve always dreamed crazily like that. And I’ve gotten lost in those worlds that I create and desire, and the Jocks that inhabit them. And I imagine people that fawn over me, a world that bends to my will, loves and admires me, a world that I’ve left my fingerprint on, I’ve changed it and improved it and the people see me as a hero. And I’m humble and loving but so sure of myself. And I come back to reality and the contrasts strike me like a baseball bat, and I’m left cowering in fear of another blow. Dreams, desires, they intimidate me. Because sometimes I feel like I don’t know how to go about realistically achieving them.

And here I am telling the same old story. The story I’ve been telling since I was aware there was a story. It’s always up and down, but when I tell it, there were those tinges of sadness. Of despair. Because I’ve known them, I’ve sat with them in their dark corners, hoods drawn, fouling the air.

But that’s not the story I’m choosing to tell anymore. It’s kind of funny, every time I start telling my story for the last 3ish months I always jolt into this valiant couragetalk partway through. I guess that’s good, cause I’m questioning an old way that doesn’t serve me and adopting a new way. Yeah, it’s definitely good.

It’s funny also, the things we devote our lives to. What we do for love. The people that make and break us and hold us steady. I love it, everyone running around, going for something, trying, but for they know not what, just zipping here and there and exchanging small parts of our lives. It’s those parts, when our corners chip off on each other as we speed by on life’s highway, that give us what we need. And as long as there is some degree of genuineness, care in those interactions, I will always have hope. Of all the things that bring me hope and reconcile me from my worst nightmares, people do it best. When the interactions become shallow, angsty, human relations take a dive. We need to always protect our authenticity, open ourselves to the person walking by and say hello.

Journey: I lay here in the dark in the full honesty of my heart. All torrents...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 20:32:46 -0400

Journey: I lay here in the dark in the full honesty of my heart. All torrents...:

asweetandspicylife:

I lay here in the dark in the full honesty of my heart. All torrents have subsided and I see the bare truth. It is both painful and hopeful but forever beautiful in its truth.

I want to show you in the time I have with you that I love you beyond anything else in this world. My utmost mission is…

Greenness

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 22:02:12 -0400

Help support a green and sustainable future by stripping away the social license of the fossil fuel industry. They’re profiting from the pollution and destruction of the planet, and it’s up to US to let them know it’s NOT OK.

http://act.gofossilfree.org/act/university-of-delaware

Photo

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:57:43 -0400

newyorkheartsme: “Make a radical change in your lifestyle and...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 16:00:16 -0500

newyorkheartsme:

“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.”

My hero.

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Wed, 06 Mar 2013 11:40:52 -0500

infinity-imagined: The formation of the Solar System and the...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:14:01 -0500

infinity-imagined:

The formation of the Solar System and the collision that created the Moon.

travelthisworld: Il Ponte del Diavolo - Tuscany, Italy | by...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:12:55 -0500

travelthisworld:

Il Ponte del Diavolo - Tuscany, Italy | by Rossella De Amici

"The Uruguayan leader made a similar point when he addressed the Rio+20 summit in June this year:..."

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:15:00 -0500

“

The Uruguayan leader made a similar point when he addressed the Rio+20 summit in June this year: “We’ve been talking all afternoon about sustainable development. To get the masses out of poverty.

“But what are we thinking? Do we want the model of development and consumption of the rich countries? I ask you now: what would happen to this planet if Indians would have the same proportion of cars per household than Germans? How much oxygen would we have left?

“Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet.”

Mujica accuses most world leaders of having a “blind obsession to achieve growth with consumption, as if the contrary would mean the end of the world”.

”

- Jose Mujica, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243493

"What all of these approved altered states of consciousness [by coffee, energy drinks, and sugar]..."

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:50:00 -0500

“What all of these approved altered states of consciousness [by coffee, energy drinks, and sugar] have in common is that none of them contradict or conflict with the basic state of consciousness valued by our society, which I would call the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness. Which is good for the more mundane aspects of science; it’s good for the prosecution of warfare; its good for commerce; its good for politics; but I think everybody realizes that the promise of a society over-monopolistically based upon this state of consciousness has proved hollow and that this model is no longer working. That it’s broken in every possible sense that a model can be broken and that urgently we need to find something to replace it. The vast problems of global pollution that have resulted from the single-minded pursuit of profit, the horrors of nuclear proliferation, the specter of hunger, that millions every night go to bed starving, that we can’t even solve this problem despite our alert problem-solving state of consciousness. And look what’s happening in the Amazon, the lungs of our planet, this precious home of biodiversity: the old-growth rainforest being cut down and replaced with soya bean farms so we can feed cattle so that we can all eat hamburgers. Only a truly insane global state of consciousness could allow such an abomination to occur… We can spend countless billions on warfare, on hatred, on fear, on suspicion, on division, but we can’t get together the collective effort to save the lungs of our planet.”

- Graham Hancock, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WaeMyC86Dw

4gifs: Nope.

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 20:12:42 -0500

4gifs:

Nope.

"There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive..."

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:38:03 -0500

“There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”

- Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (via themalailama)

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Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:27:10 -0500

Emotions

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 20:13:00 -0500

Emotions are so hard to deal with sometimes. They can be so intimidating—a powerful wave of loneliness, worry, doubt, anxiety, whatever. It’s so easy for me to become completely consumed by them, lose myself, get disoriented. Makes me feel weak. The worst response possible though is to try to stop feeling them. To pretend they’re not there, or to bury yourself in rationality until you’re a robot. Or to try to protect yourself by not letting yourself love another. That’s no way to live. In fact that sounds more like dying, because the true nature of life is love. To deny that is to deny ourselves the most important thing there is.

No, the right solution must be finding a way to deal properly with emotions. Meditation helps a lot. I can begin to master emotions—remember that the loneliness or fear I’m feeling isn’t me. Sometimes I feel myself just losing control, wanting to break down under the weight of the endless deluge of negativity. But if I can just sit down, and let it all occur in my head, not to try to fight or resist but just observe it, then eventually I feel some separation from those emotions. I still feel them, but they’re not as threatening.

I’m so fucking hard on myself for making mistakes too, and that makes the whole thing worse. Instead of accepting a mistake and learning from it, I often just start hating myself for it, saying I was stupid and beating myself up, which just keeps the mistake alive in me longer. Doubts become self-fulfilling prophecies when you give them enough weight. That’s why self-love is important. Treating yourself like you would treat your best friend when they make a mistake. It’s an art of living healthily and it takes practice but it’s so worth it to master.

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Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:45:52 -0500

-olly: Magical Sea of Clouds (Source)

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:50:42 -0500

-olly:

Magical Sea of Clouds (Source)

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Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:50:34 -0500

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Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:50:25 -0500