random pieces of wisdom

" Dove’s premise is wrong. But thinking we are more beautiful than we really are may not be such a bad thing."

"This is not meant to be inspirational. You might never have your “great” thing that you do. I’m not even saying “it’s the journey that one should love”. Because some journeys are very painful. And nobody says you get special marks in death if you wrote a great novel at the age of 50. Or came up with a great chicken, or a way to stuff lots of people into factories. I’ve stumbled and fallen and got up and survived enough that I’m sick of goals and purposes and journeys. I want to cut out the middleman. The journey. The desperation and despair that thinking of a “purpose” entails. Fuck purpose. It’s ok to be happy without one. You don’t need to pay with lots of unhappiness to buy happiness."

When young adults ask me about how to be successful, I always say, “Fall in love with your work”. It seems the most guaranteed ways I know of, anyway....

Having faith in a higher power has nothing to do with a belief in evolution. The two can totally exist in harmony. Yet here we are, thanks to a delightful anti-science campaign that has somehow managed to stoke fear of scientific thought, to our own detriment.

here's a fun fact "Psychologists at the University of Cardiff in Wales found that people whose ability to frown is comp­romised by cosmetic botox inject­ions are happier, on average, than people who can frown."

"here is a tribe in Africa where the birth date of a child is counted not from when they were born, nor from when they are conceived but from the day that the child was a thought in its mother’s mind. And when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to come. And after she’s heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father, and teaches it to him. And then, when they make love to physically conceive the child, some of that time they sing the song of the child, as a way to invite it."

Track Your Happiness.org is a new scientific research project that investigates what makes life worth living.

Using this site, you’ll be able to track your happiness and find out what factors – for you personally – are associated with greater happiness. You’ll also contribute to our scientific understanding of happiness.

“Creativity is not a talent; it’s a way of operating.” (John Cleese)
"You should bring something into the world that wasn't in the world before" (Ricky Gervais)
"Throw out your garbage" (Louis CK)
"Don't torture an idea to death" (Woody Allen)

You Are My Wild is a weekly portrait project that brings together 14 photographers to document how they see their children.

Today is the first International Day of Happiness as proclaimed by UN. So, my friends, happy happiness day :)