“When I think of happiness, I see myself chasing ass, or being newly fascinated with a friend. I see myself either by their side, or constantly texting. A lot of those times I’m drinking too much and eating too much or I’m in the back of a cab at five A.M. with a friend jawing on about something too much. There is often music. That’s some of the time. Other times I’m somewhere alone, with nothing. It’s quiet, and I can see myself happy and thinking. I just can’t see what it is that I’m thinking about.
But, when I think of happiness, I mostly see myself with others.”
— Giancarlo DiTrapano, Happy Hour with Gian (an interview with John Haskell by Giancarlo DiTrapano), The Paris Review (via theparisreview)
by Matthew Franklin Jenkins
(Source: matthewfranklin)
(Source: gay-men, via prayingbuddha)
I need feminism because I don’t want my son growing up thinking that he has no control over how he treats others. I want him to know that he won’t turn into an animal just because another person happens to be drunk or wearing “provocative” clothing.
There is no justification for sexual assault. As well as being remarkably dis-empowering to the victim, the “she was drunk” etc etc arguments place men in the default position of being a sexual predator. How are more men not outraged by that? I would like to believe that I, as a man, have enough self control not to sexually assault another person regardless of setting or circumstance. I don’t want my son to grow up afraid that he is not in control of his own actions and may harm somebody as a result. Every person is responsible for their own actions, sexual assault is a CRIME and sexual assault is NEVER THE FAULT OF THE VICTIM.
So my mom and I have been working the same waitress job for 5-6 years now. She had been waitressing years before, but this is recently. Anyway, about… 15 minutes ago this guy she waited on left and told her to take care. Just that. Prior to this she had talked to him about Italy. Her people are from Florence, this and that, and she said she’s never been. She’s got 8 years of art education and she’s working a waitress job. It’s pretty… Sad and disappointing, I guess. Her and my father divorced 6 years ago and she hasn’t had a real job ever. Just been stuck in a small town she’s not from.
This man who we have never seen before tipped her 1000 dollars for a trip to Italy. Walked out, not another word.
…you know. Just when I start to lose faith in humanity….Hm.
(via galaxiesofmystery)
quiet time is
when God quiets me
with His love
“[H]ow much is happiness conscious? I remember one time as a kid in high school running across the parking lot, and I just loved to run, but I didn’t think of it as happiness then. So what part of happiness is the awareness of it and what part is not even thinking about happiness, but just doing it? I think happiness has a little self-consciousness, but it’s weird because it’s enough to tell you ‘This is a moment’ but not enough to say ‘I want to preserve it and hold on to it,’ because then it stagnates and dies.”
— John Haskell, Happy Hour with Gian (an interview with John Haskell by Giancarlo DiTrapano), The Paris Review (via theparisreview)
“If I had to choose a period of my adult life in which I was happiest, I’d say it was during university. There was this one philosophy professor. I’d always watch him walking near campus, alone, but with a smile on his face. This smiling intrigued me to no end. During his Phaedrus lectures, he seemed to radiate a strange joy into the classroom. He made you want to know what he knew. I was under the impression that there was some tidbit of information, a few words I hadn’t yet heard, standing between me and a reason to smile when I walked alone.”
— Giancarlo DiTrapano, Happy Hour with Gian (an interview with John Haskell by Giancarlo DiTrapano), The Paris Review (via theparisreview)
“The presence of others seems to be key to living a happy life, but people are more often opting for isolation. I’m afraid we’re making it hard on ourselves.”
— Giancarlo DiTrapano, Happy Hour with Gian (an interview with John Haskell by Giancarlo DiTrapano), The Paris Review (via theparisreview)
“Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck
Some nights I call it a draw
Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle
Some nights I wish they’d just fall off
But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh, Lord, I’m still not sure what I stand for, oh
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights I don’t know anymore”
— fun., Some Nights
[video]
“Maybe this will become your new favorite book. That’s always a possibility right? That’s the beauty of risk. The reward could actually be worth it. You invest your time and your brain power in the words and what you get back is empathy and a new understanding and pure wonder. How could someone possibly know you like this? Some stranger, some author, some character. It’s like they’re seeing inside your soul. This book existed inside some book store, on a shelf, maybe handled by other people and really it was just waiting for you [to] pick it up and crack the spine. It was waiting to speak to you. To say, ‘You are not alone.’
You just want more of the story. You want to keep reading, maybe everything this author’s ever written. You wish it would never end. The closer it gets to the smaller side of the pages, the slower you read, wanting to savor it all. This book is now one of your favorites forever. You will always wish you could go back to never having read it and pick it up fresh again, but also you know you’re better for having this close, inside you, covering your heart and mind.
Once you get in deep enough, you know you could never put this book down.”
— Gaby Dunn, Falling In Love Is Like Reading A New Book, Thought Catalog
“[I]f you haven’t confessed to caring, no one can consider you to have failed.”
— Francesca Mari, Shelf-Conscious, The Paris Review (via theparisreview)
Nature harbors no opinions;
it is we who think of her.
We make sentience
of her indifference, and we communicate
by engineering, adjectives, and awesome
violence. When I arrive
at the island, my soul
will harbor no opinions.
I’ll stop my car
where sea-air and sand-light
become one perception,
all the world my affections, stitched together
by a muster of billboards, the dizzying gulls,
and a drawbridge open in prayer.
— Alan Michael Parker, from “The Island”
Art Credit: Margarita Georgiadis
(via theparisreview)
“What stays with me is getting to know someone while they’re emerging. When people talk about parenting, the focus is too much on how you’re molding them. Don’t give yourself so much credit. You’re watching them emerge: seeing what comes out of your child. For me, this is the magic of parenting.”
— P, quoted in Gay parents in Singapore by Ng Yi-Sheng, Fridae