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November 11, 2015

Internet Inspiration – November 6, 2015

I think that if you only read one thing in this post, read this post on grief and the bullshit platitudes our culture assigns to it.

Let me be crystal clear: if you’ve faced a tragedy and someone tells you in any way, shape or form that your tragedy was meant to be, that it happened for a reason, that it will make you a better person, or that taking responsibility for it will fix it, you have every right to remove them from your life.

Grief is brutally painful. Grief does not only occur when someone dies. When relationships fall apart, you grieve. When opportunities are shattered, you grieve. When dreams die, you grieve. When illnesses wreck you, you grieve.

So I’m going to repeat a few words I’ve uttered countless times; words so powerful and honest they tear at the hubris of every jackass who participates in the debasing of the grieving:

Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried. 

You’re allowed to start over.

This was a really cool article about boredom, of all things.

And it turns out that an astounding percentage of people hate sitting there thinking so much that they’ll start shocking themselves.

If you ask a simple question, why we have emotions, the answer seems to be that evolution gave us emotions for survival. So, fear is useful. Anxiety is useful. And even boredom is useful, because you don’t want an organism who just does the same thing over and over again without learning anything. It would be good to equip that organism with an emotion, an urge to move on when they don’t think that they’re learning anything new.

Ok, they got a bunch of stars to cover Disney songs. I didn’t realize this happened. But the best three were, for me, Ne-Yo covering “Friend Like Me,” Fall Out Boy covering “I Wanna Be Like You,” and Kacey Musgraves covering “Spoonful of Sugar.”

Damn, Rachel. Wish I’d written this.

I believe dieting is a violent act.

I don’t feel neutral, or calm, or indifferent about dieting. I feel quite clearly that dieting is a violent act that (predominantly) women are encouraged to perform against themselves.

The driest place on Earth is covered in pink flowers.

Ooh I like this quality from Denmark: hygge.

“The rest of the world seems to be slowly waking up to what Danes have been wise to for generations – that having a relaxed, cosy time with friends and family, often with coffee, cake or beer, can be good for the soul,” says Helen Russell, author of The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country. “Hygge seems to me to be about being kind to yourself – indulging, having a nice time, not punishing or denying yourself anything.”

This book, on reclaiming the term “spinster,” might get bumped up on the hierarchy of my reading list.