When Taylor Swift wrote: 'I wanna be defined by the things that I love', and Oscar Wilde wrote: 'to define is to limit', and Jorge Luis Borges said: 'I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited'.
heard 'beauty is terror' for the first time in literature class today and almost nearly had a stroke while the people around me looked as pacific and tranquil as if it was another tuesday (it is)
The amount of time that the Ancient Egyptian civilisation lasted is just so mind boggling. It lasted over 3000 years. That's such an insane amount of time. It ended around 30BC meaning that it will only be extinct for as long as it existed in around 950 years. Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of bitcoin than the building of the pyramids of Giza. They were already ancient to her. What the fuck
We have a records from the time of Ramses II of ancient Egyptians doing archeology on monuments that were already a thousand years old to them.
ancient egyptian archeologists. ancient egyptian archeologists. excuse me i have to go lay down and think about things
Karl Heilmayer (German, 1829 - 1908) - Venice, a Canal at Night, with the Campanile in the Background
It was a lovely afternoon; the leaves from the lofty limes were falling silently across the sombre evergreens, while the lights and shadows slept side by side: there was no sound but the cawing of the rooks, which to the accustomed ear is a lullaby, or that last solemn lullaby, a dirge.
George Eliot, Middlemarch, 1871
I want to take back some of who I am. The stillness my life took on after moving rocked the only foundation I knew, and without the constant noise to keep me pushing I lost so much of my hobbies, interests, and companionship. I no longer require them to cope, but I yearn for their enrichment.
“you’d resent me for doing all these things you can’t understand and I’d resent you for not being able to understand them”
Mrs. Daniel Sargent (Mary Turner), detail, John Singleton Copley (1763)
“For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.”
(Tartt, The Secret History).
dead poets society changed my life because john keating is so right. i read and write poetry because i’m a member of the human race. i do need to seize the day. words and ideas do change the world. i am filled with passion.
I am re-reading the secret history and realized that in almost every scene where the greek class acts all pretensious and superior smart, Bunny is the link to reality and humanity.
And you might think that when the class loses that link they become the elite superior group they always strike to be, but they dont. With losing their touch to reality their humanity disappears but instead of becoming gods they become unrecognizable messes
“Our generation thinks it’s cool not to care. It’s not. Effort is cool. Caring is cool. Staying loyal is cool. Try it out.”
— Post Malone
best fucking hozier lyrics in no particular order
- we tried the world, good god, it wasn't for us
- i slithered here from eden just to sit outside your door
- after the foxes have known our taste, i'll be home with you, i'll be home with you
- no grave can hold my body down, i'll crawl home to her
- why were you digging, what did you bury, before those hands pulled me from the earth?
- my dearest love, i'm not done yet
- who could ask to be unbroken or be brave again?
- whatever here that's left of me is yours just as it was
- remember me love, when i'm reborn as the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn
- i'd be the dreadful need in the devotee that made him turn around, and i'd be the immediate forgiveness in eurydice
- be like the love that discovered sin, but freed the first man and will do so again
- be that hopeful feeling when eden was lost, that's been deaf to our laughter since the master was crossed
- love, when the sea rises to meet us, oh, and there's nothing left for you and i to do
- true that i saw her hair like the branch of a tree, willow dancing on air before covering me
- and i love, too, that love soon might end, be known in its aching
- be still, my indelible friend, you are unbreaking
- the last time i felt your weight on my chest, you said "we didn't get it right, but love, we did our best"
- and just knowing that everything will end should not change our plans
- i would still be surprised i could find you, darling, in any life; if i could hold you for a minute, darling, i would do it again
- heaven is not fit to house a love like you and i
I just rewatched Before Sunrise (1995), so here are some reasons of why I am obsessing over it:
- The way the movie is shot. Random shots of Vienna's buildings. "Meaningless" shots of strangers speaking foreign languages at a bar. Random shots of people dancing and playing instruments, or an old lady walking at the park. A poet writing and smoking near a river. It feels so special.
- There isn't really a plot. Usually, movies have plots that are helped forward by conversations, but in this one the conversation between them is the plot. They talk to each other for the entirety of the movie, bringing up a bunch of different topics and views on life. Death, love, purpose, birth, stars, fate. Monkeys. Friends. The horoscope. It gets super random.
- The conversations seem so REAL. I feel like I'm spying on two strangers talking; it really doesn't feel like a movie. Especially not a cheesy romcom.
- Again, the conversations are really really deep, like ones you'd have with a friend at 3am at the beach. But it's way more special, cause they're strangers, so they don't care about being judged by the other and the topics get weirder and deeper as the movie goes on.
- There are no sex scenes. Need I say more? okay they do makeout BUT there are no embarassing sex scenes. the plot stands on its own. doesn't need a sex scene.
- The ending (maybe a bit of a spoiler so if you're planning on watching don't read here). We are left not knowing if they meet again or not, and I think it says a lot about the watcher. Someone could think that the two absolutely will meet again. Someone else could think there's no way, that was totally an empty promise. I worded it weirdly but, the point is you can be hopeful, delusional, realistic, hopeless, you can believe, and you can also not believe. That's the magic.
- Young Ethan Hawke. That's it, that's a point on its own.
- I kinda relate to Celine/Julie Delpy, she's amazing.
yes and yes
A comforting thought
Five thousand years ago, the Sumerians called the night ngi, the stars mul, and the moon Nanna.
Four thousand years ago, the Akkadians called the night mūšu, the stars kakkabū, and the moon Sîn.
Three thousand years ago, the Hittites called the night išpanza, the stars haštereš, and the moon Arma.
Two and a half thousand years ago, the Greeks called the night nux, the stars astra, and the moon Selênê.
Two thousand years ago, the Romans called the night nox, the stars stellae, and the moon Luna.
Kings and queens and heroes looked up at them. So did travelers coming home, and little children who sneaked out of bed. So did slaves, and mothers and soldiers and old shepherds, and Sappho and Muršili and Enheduanna and Socrates and Hatshepsut and Cyrus and Cicero. In this darkness it didn’t matter who they were, or where they stood. Only that they were human.
Think of that tonight, when you close your window. You are not alone. You share this night sky with centuries of dreamers and stargazers, and people who longed for quiet. Are you anxious? The Hittites were too: they called it pittuliyaš. Does your heart ache? The Greeks felt it too: they called it akhos. Those who look up to the stars for comfort are a family, and you belong to them. Your ancestors have stood under Nanna, Sîn, Arma, Selênê and Luna for five thousand years. Now its light is yours.
May it soothe you well.