Category: ideas

“1. Give $5,000 to the first 30 people under the age of 30 that ask for it. No questions asked.”

“In translation, a discontent with reality expresses itself forcefully and most hauntingly by the longing to reproduce this one. The fabrication of a new, parallel reality flies in the face of the already created and as such is based on negation, and what should be the vacuum of a dream becomes continually replete as the source of dreams.”

Drumming ultimately has therapeutic value, providing the emotional and physical benefits collectively known as “drummer’s high,” an endorphin rush that can only be stimulated by playing music, not simply listening to it. In addition to increasing people’s pain thresholds, Oxford psychologists found, the endorphin-filled act of drumming increases positive emotions and leads people to work together in a more cooperative fashion.

“Researchers report that people consistently underestimate how many creative ideas they can come up with if they continue to work on a problem, rather than giving up in the wake of mediocre initial results. What’s more, the study finds the most creative ideas tend to arise after many others have been considered and discarded. If you give up too soon, chances are you’re not allowing your most promising notions to emerge.”

“Imagine a group of porcupines trying to survive a cold winter. They huddle together for warmth, only to then poke one another with their quills and withdraw. Schopenhauer wrote that human relationships are like this: Much as cold drives the animal porcupines together, ‘the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature.'”

This new climate is slowly being institutionalized, and is affecting what can be said in the classroom, even as a basis for discussion. During the 2014–15 school year, for instance, the deans and department chairs at the 10 University of California system schools were presented by administrators at faculty leader-training sessions with examples of microaggressions. The list of offensive statements included: “America is the land of opportunity” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”

“Though perhaps the facts of someone’s life, presented end to end, wouldn’t much resemble a narrative to the outside observer, the way people choose to tell the stories of their lives, to others and – crucially – to themselves, almost always does have a narrative arc. In telling the story of how you became who you are, and of who you’re on your way to becoming, the story itself becomes a part of who you are.”

“Admiration is seen as a noble sentiment – we admire people for admiring others, detecting, in their admiration, a suggestion of taste and humility. Envy, by contrast, is thought to be inherently bad … Is that really the case? Or can something frustrating and painful lead, almost in spite of itself, to positive ends – to even better ends, perhaps, than its more admired counterpart? Not all envy, we are learning, is created equal.”

“The mills closed down in 1992 after years of decline, and though officially abandoned, the giant buildings have rarely been empty since: film-makers, music video creators and a variety of unofficial visitors have all been in, many leaving their mark on the building.”