10.9.2015
Internet Inspiration – October 9, 2015
October 9, 2015
3-books-to-keep-close
3 Books to Keep Close and Reread
October 24, 2015

Internet Inspiration – October 23, 2015

I’m loving this reminder that it might be time for a friend purge. I’ve been unfriending and unfollowing people like it’s my job, and… I don’t miss any of them. You won’t either. In fact, I remember a client coming to the gym upset and stressed and telling me, in a moment of frustration, “If you ever think, ‘I might like to fire that person someday.’ Fire them TODAY. Fire them now. Don’t even hire them.” And in my experience of employees, employers, and friends, that’s true. Your instincts know.

Eli Pariser was right in his book The Filter Bubble , when he warned of the danger of living in bubbles of personalization that reinforce and insulate our worldview. If one seeks only information that they like or confirms what they know, they’ll never learn anything new.

The problem is that we can use this justification to keep unworthy people and sources in our lives. “Oh, so and so is just different. I am exposed to new things through them.” You know what happened when I pressed the “Unfollow _____” button on Facebook? Nothing. “Oh but sometimes Gawker has funny or smart articles.” Yeah but the vast majority are inaccurate, toxic,exploitative, nasty or pointless. You know what’s going to happen if you stop reading? Your life will get better and you will find smart stuff other places.

Semi-snarky but mostly serious: how to make your name plural for holiday cards. This really applies to just about any word you want to make plural; you virtually never need an apostrophe to make something plural. I promise.

Are you guys familiar with this line, goodhYOUman? I’m kind of intrigued by some of these tops.

Lovely, meditative piece from dig this chick. Give yourself three minutes. And she references a lovely poem:

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

Havi is awesome, as always, and she’s found a Nigella Lawson cookbook, which is the cookbook of a woman who loves food, loves herself, and is not only unafraid of pleasure, but is in a love affair with pleasure.

I read an article about the art of pies,
the in-flight magazine pie-making expert
was somewhat reluctant to give tips though because, as she said,

technique is all well and good,
but if it’s not made with love, it’s not good pie
it’s the love that makes the pie

related to this (love, not pie)

Nigella says:

“there seems to me to be something
robustly affirmative about taking trouble to feed YOURSELF –
enjoying life on purpose
rather than by default”

I liked this interview with Gloria Steinem, particularly what to say to someone that calls you a bitch.

The best thing I’ve ever thought of to say when somebody calls you a bitch is “Thank you.” I mean, it totally disarms them. They don’t know what to do. Marlo Thomas always used to say that for a man to be called aggressive, he had to take over your business, but for a woman to be called aggressive, she had to only put you on hold. It’s just a terrible double standard. We have to call them on it. If you call them on it, it changes people’s heads.

Semi-related, I love Roz the Diva’s response to being dismissed as a trainer because of her size. [there’s definitely profanity in this diatribe, so click accordingly.]