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Link reblogged from words & pictures
Make something today. Don’t think about making something. Don’t plan out how to make something. Don’t tell someone you are going to make something. Actually make something today.
There are lots of people out there that look at people who have made something, directed a film, written a book,…
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Link reblogged from Contrariwise
I’m not sure what it is, whether it’s the prevalence of texts as opposed to conversations, or emails instead of snail mail, but it seems like the age old tradition of love letters has bitten the dust these days. I get it though… Why wait for someone to receive something days from now and pay postage for it when you could just text them and have them know immediately? Why take the time to put something down when you could just go see them?
Why write it out when you will probably just say it all out loud eventually anyways… Right?
But have you ever noticed how different you sound in the moment than when you think something out, make yourself nervous with second guessing? Have you ever thought about what that person would think, reading something and imagining you sitting there writing it and thinking about them?
Have you ever thought about picking every word you write just so you could sit and imagine them smiling, even though you won’t see it when it happens?
See, it’s that sort of drawn-out, nail-biting anticipation that made our grandparents weak in the knees. It’s why their favorite love letters ended up dog-eared and stored away, tied up in boxes and tucked into diaries to be read and reread. Famous love letters have launched battles, inspired the receivers to paint masterpieces or find their moment of ‘Eureka!’. Some have even been published in books for future generations to devour.
Because you see, there were no Skype sessions back then, no texts or emails to be sent at all hours of the day. And there were just some things you didn’t want said over the phone, out loud so that wherever you were the whole world could hear.
So maybe, just once this year, send a love letter thru the mail. Doesn’t matter if it’s to your mother, or maybe an old friend you don’t see often. Anyone who would appreciate it. There are even some great programs to send mail to our servicemen overseas, just so they have something nice to read.
Just write down what you’re thinking about them, lick that stamp and put it in the mail knowing that, eventually, it should make its way into their hands.
And then smile with the knowledge that soon, someone somewhere, will be smiling because of you.
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Photo reblogged from Neil Gaiman
From http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/01/feeling-oddly-ghostly.html
I wandered past sushi shops and backpacker places and Thai takeways and tobacconists in the hot Sydney summer evening sun. Last night Amanda (who is vastly amused by my complete lack of hooker recognition skills) had pointed out the hookers to me, and I saw a couple of the ladies she had pointed out to me coming on duty, looking wary in the daylight.
There were a couple - a man and a woman, both in their twenties at a guess, both shorter than I am and dark-haired, looking into a shop window, with their backs to me. The woman had a tattoo on her shoulderblade - writing - and because I cannot pass writing without reading it, I glanced at it. Part of the writing was covered by a strap.
But I could still read it. And I knew what the words covered by the strap were.
The tattoo was a lot like this (which is to say, the same content, and similar typeface, but probably not the same person. I’m already trying to remember if it was the left or the right shoulderblade):
I read the tattoo, read words I had written to try and exorcise my own small demons eighteen years ago, and I felt like a ghost. As if, for a moment, under the hot Sydney sun, I was only an idea of a person and not a real person at all.
I didn’t introduce myself to her or say anything (it didn’t even occur to me to say hello, in all honesty). I just walked home, through a world that felt flimsier and infinitely stranger than it had that morning.
I don’t know why it affected me like that. But it did.- from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections
“Fear of Falling”
Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
If I’m going to put words on my body, I want people to be able to read it easily and understand it. This phrase truly speaks to me. It inspires me every time I read it, and I want it to inspire other people too. I decided to have it tattooed on my body so everyone I meet, whether Sandman fan or not, could draw inspiration from it as I have. :)
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Nearly four years later, I sometimes type his email address in the search box in my Gmail. Hundreds of results pop up, and I’ll pick a few at random to read. The ease of our everyday interactions is what kills me. The way we spoke to each other about what I’d bring home for dinner or whether it was a PBR or a Grolsch kind of night. In nearly every conversation, there is something that releases the pressure from my chest by forcing a giant laugh.
