“We don’t know enough about ourselves. I think it’s better to know that you don’t know, that way you can grow with the mystery as the mystery grows in you. But, these days, of course, everybody knows everything, that’s why so many people are so lost.”
– James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk
Epigraph
Less Study More Life
[I]n order to write a book, do a deed, paint a picture with some life in it, one has to be alive oneself. And so, unless you never want to progress, study is a matter of very secondary importance for you. Enjoy yourself as much as you can, have as many diversions as you can, and remember that what people demand in art nowadays is something very much alive, with strong colour and great intensity. So intensify your own health and strength and life a little; that is the best study.
Vincent Van Gogh
Preservationists
“We’re all so frightened by time, the way it moves on and the way things disappear. That’s why we’re photographers. We’re preservationists by nature. We take pictures to stop time, to commit moments to eternity. Human nature made tangible.
People are taking more pictures now than ever before, billions of them, but there are no slides, no prints. Just data. Electronic dust. Years from now when they dig us up there won’t be any pictures to find, no record of who we were or how we lived.”
Ben Ryder, Kodachrome
The Journey Changes You
Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable.
Anonymous
Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But
that’s OK. The journey changes you; it should change
you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your
consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You
take something with you. Hopefully, you leave
something good behind.
Take Five
What is the most enjoyable five-minute stretch of your day? How could you lengthen it to ten minutes?
Up The Creek
When you are a young person, you are like a young creek, and you meet many rocks, many obstacles and difficulties on your way. You hurry to get past these obstacles and get to the ocean. But as the creek moves down through the fields, it becomes larges and calmer and it can enjoy the reflection of the sky. It’s wonderful. You will arrive at the sea anyway so enjoy the journey. Enjoy the sunshine, the sunset, the moon, the birds, the trees, and the many beauties along the way. Taste every moment of your daily life.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Conserve & Protect
“Over the coming century, the most vital human resource in need of conservation and protection is likely to be our own consciousness and mental space.
Tim Wu
Keep On
Keep wondering. Keep wandering.
200 Miles
You would be surprised what there is to see in this great country within 200 miles of where any of us live. I don’t care what state or town
Will Rogers
Salvitur Ambulando
The moment my legs begin to move my thoughts begin to flow.
Henry Thoreau
Conversations Are Books. Build A Library
“How does one keep an imagination fresh in a world that works double-time to suck it away? … I think that the answer is, one must live a curious life. One must have stacks and stacks and stacks of books on the inside of their bodies. And those books don’t have to be the things that you’ve read. I mean, that’s good, too, but those books could be the conversations that you’ve had with your friends that are unlike the conversations you were having last week.”
- Jason Reynolds