Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

-Albert Einstein

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."
— Friedrich Nietzsche

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/how-to-be-a-20-something/

How to be a 20-Something

Dec. 13, 2010

By Ryan O'Connell

Be really attractive. Your acne is gone, your face has matured without having wrinkles and everything on your body is lifted naturally. Eat bagels seven days a week, binge-drink and do drugs: you’ll still look like a babe. When you turn thirty, it’ll become a different story but that’s, like, not for a really long time.
Reestablish a relationship with your parents. You don’t live with them anymore (hopefully) so start to appreciate them as human beings with thoughts, flaws and feelings rather than soulless life ruiners who won’t let you borrow their car.
Go from eating delicious food at your parents’ house to eating Ragu tomato sauce over Barilla noodles. Develop an eating disorder to save money.
Move into an apartment on the corner of Overpriced and Dangerous. Sleep on a bare mattress with an Ikea comforter. Your mother talks to you about buying a top sheet and a duvet cover but feel like you’re not mature enough to own something called “duvet.”

“Date people who you know you’ll never be able to love.”

Read the New York Times piece, “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” Feel exposed and humiliated. Share it on your Facebook with the caption: “Um….” Your friends will comment “Too real” and that will be the end of that.
Work at a coffee shop but feel hopeful about your career in advertising, writing, whatever. Remember that you’re young and that the world is your oyster. Everything is possible, you still have so much to see and hear. You went to a good school and did good things. Figure if you’re not going to be successful, who the hell is?
Date people who you know you'll never be able to love. See someone for three months for no other reason than because it’s winter and you want to keep warm by holding another body. Date a Republican just so you can say you dated a Republican.
Eventually all these nobodies will make you crave a somebody. Have a real relationship with someone. Go on vacations together, exchange house keys, cry in their arms after a demoralizing day at work. Think about marrying them and maybe even get engaged. Regardless of the outcome, feel proud of yourself for being able to love someone in a healthy way.
Start your twenties with a lot of friends and leave with a few good ones. What happened? People faded away into their careers and relationships. Fights were had and never resolved. Shit happens.
Think of yourself at twenty and hanging out with people who didn’t mean a thing to you. Think about writing papers, about being promiscuous, about trying new things. Think of yourself now and your face looking different and your body feeling different and how everything is just different.
Form the habits that will stick with you forever. Drink your coffee with two sugars and skim milk every morning. Buy a magazine every Friday. Enjoy spending money on candles, smoke pot on Saturdays, watch the television before bed.
Move into a bigger apartment on the corner of Mature and Gentrification and finally buy a duvet cover. Limit your drug-use. If you find yourself unable to do so, start to wonder if you have a problem.
Have your parents come to your place for Christmas. Set the table, make the ham, wear a sophisticated outfit, This will all mean so much at the time.
Think about having children when you stop acting like a child. This may not ever happen.
Maybe this is assuming too much. Maybe this is generalizing. Maybe society uses age as an unrealistic marker for growth. Maybe. Still feel the anxiety on your 30^th birthday and think to yourself, “Oh shit, I’m no longer a 20-something.”

http://makeitmad.com/2010/07/07/a-gentlemans-guide-to-the-21st-century/

A Gentleman’s Guide to the 21st Century

July 7, 2010

In a world full of hipsters, gangster rap, and baggy pants, the gentleman is becoming obsolete.  They are a dying breed, wiped out by iPhones and iChats; popped collars and one night stands; sex through texting, breaking up over e-mail, and women that can change their own oil and stand up for themselves in a bar fight.  But this doesn’t mean chivalry is dead.  It’s simply evolving.  As a man, I believe we’ve lost sight of how to behave in public.  Nobody likes a drunken, college Frat boy.  I promise.  Nuclear fallout or feminist reign is no excuse to quit acting like a gentleman.  It’s time to man up.
Below is a guide to surviving the 21^st Century while still remaining a gentleman.

You can and should still hold the door for a lady.  Even if she’s a malicious feminist plotting the fall of mankind.  Ladies, we open the door for you because we know you’re in charge.  People in charge don’t open their own doors.  You enter.  We follow.
Stand when a woman comes to the table.  Keep that napkin on your lap.  Let the woman order first, and for the love of God, never, ever order for her.
Keep your Blackberry, your Blueberry, or your Chuck Berry in your pocket while in good company.  There is a time and a place for your iPad, iPhone, and iPod.  At the dinner table with family, coffee with friends, a tandem skydive jump or bike ride, or on a date is not that place.  Show some respect.  Make eye contact.  The world won’t stop spinning because you haven’t updated your Facebook status for an hour.
Be early.  Fashionably late is out of fashion.
If someone else is talking, shut up and listen. It’s that simple.  Got it?  Good.
It may be common practice these days to swear like a sailor on a ship full of swashbuckling pirates, but a gentleman chooses his words carefully.  Your tongue is a rudder.  It steers the whole ship.  Tacking on a curse to the end of every sentence does not make you sound like an individual—it makes you sound like an uneducated moron.  Your vocabulary is unimpressive, dick.
No matter what, do not go into a woman’s purse—even if she asks you to retrieve some mysterious artifact from it.  This is a trap. You don’t want a woman digging through your closet or all those private folders hidden on your desktop.  Sometimes it’s best if you let some things in life remain a mystery.
You are not Tyler Durden.  Walk away from altercations.   No one will be impressed with you punching another man in the teeth because he’s eyeballin’ your woman, yo.
A pair of dark, slim-fitting, true denim jeans are good for a relaxing day off, as well as a night out at a fancy restaurant or club.
You are never over-dressed when wearing a suit.
Read. A gentleman educates himself.  Your iPad and iPhone can now download books for little or no cost.  There’s no excuse not to be reading Kerouac’s On The Road or Catcher in the Rye by Salinger.  Not heterosexual enough for you? Then go for grittier work like Charlie Huston’s Caught Stealing. This book reads with the intensity of a Bruce Willis movie jacked up on Methamphetamine.  It’s dirty, mean, violent, and funny.  And best of all, short.
A quick text message or a sloppy email sent on your lunch break does not constitute a Thank You Note.  Want to show genuine respect and gratitude? A hand-written, analogue letter will always hold up in a digital world.
When asking a woman out on a date, a gentleman does this in person or over the phone.   He does not poke her on Facebook or shoot her a text.  Poor form, my friend.  Be confident.
This goes for breaking up, too.  You do not send an email telling her it’s been real and thanks for the memories.  Do not send your brother by to pick up your things or send a text.  This is to be done in person without using phrases like, “It’s not you, it’s me,” or “I no longer find you attractive and want to start dating your roommate.”
I sometimes think I’m George Clooney or Fred Astaire.  Dark and mysterious, suave and sophisticated.  Sweeping women off their feet with a wink and a smile, throwing my coat over puddles, and helping old ladies cross the street.  In truth, I’m awkward and clumsy; I talk too fast and stumble over words.  I run into doors, and I’m all left feet and elbows on the dance floor.  But I’m always myself, no matter what, because I’m confident in the man that I am.  As a true gentleman should be.

There are 7 Points to Lojong, which consist of the 59 Slogans. These slogans or aphorisms are listed below, translated by the Nalanda Translation Committee under the direction of Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. ^[6]
ONE: The preliminaries, which are the basis for dharma practice

1. First, train in the preliminaries.

TWO: The main practice, which is training in bodhicitta.

Absolute Bodhicitta

2. Regard all dharmas as dreams.

3. Examine the nature of unborn awareness.

4. Self-liberate even the antidote.

5. Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence.

6. In postmeditation, be a child of illusion.

Relative Bodhicitta

7. Sending and taking should be practiced alternately. These two should ride the breath.

8. Three objects, three poisons, three roots of virtue.

9. In all activities, train with slogans.

10. Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself.

THREE: Transformation of Bad Circumstances into the Way of Enlightenment

11. When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi.

12. Drive all blames into one.

13. Be grateful to everyone.

14. Seeing confusion as the four kayas is unsurpassable shunyata protection.

15. Four practices are the best of methods.

16. Whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation.

FOUR: Showing the Utilization of Practice in One's Whole Life

17. Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions.

18. The mahayana instruction for ejection of consciousness at death is the five strengths: how you conduct yourself is important.

FIVE: Evaluation of Mind Training

19. All dharma agrees at one point.

20. Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one.

21. Always maintain only a joyful mind.

22. If you can practice even when distracted, you are well trained.

SIX: Disciplines of Mind Training

23. Always abide by the three basic principles.

24. Change your attitude, but remain natural.

25. Don't talk about injured limbs.

26. Don't ponder others.

27. Work with the greatest defilements first.

28. Abandon any hope of fruition.

29. Abandon poisonous food.

30. Don't be so predictable.

31. Don't malign others.

32. Don't wait in ambush.

33. Don't bring things to a painful point.

34. Don't transfer the ox's load to the cow.

35. Don't try to be the fastest.

36. Don't act with a twist.

37. Don't make gods into demons.

38. Don't seek others' pain as the limbs of your own happiness.

SEVEN: Guidelines of Mind Training

39. All activities should be done with one intention.

40. Correct all wrongs with one intention.

41. Two activities: one at the beginning, one at the end.

42. Whichever of the two occurs, be patient.

43. Observe these two, even at the risk of your life.

44. Train in the three difficulties.

45. Take on the three principal causes.

46. Pay heed that the three never wane.

47. Keep the three inseparable.

48. Train without bias in all areas. It is crucial always to do this pervasively and wholeheartedly.

49. Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.

50. Don't be swayed by external circumstances.

51. This time, practice the main points.

52. Don't misinterpret.

53. Don't vacillate.

54. Train wholeheartedly.

55. Liberate yourself by examining and analyzing.

56. Don't wallow in self-pity.

57. Don't be jealous.

58. Don't be frivolous.

59. Don't expect applause.

http://inoyan.narod.ru/kaleidoskop.swf

Studious John Horner,
Of Latin no scorner,
In the second declension did spy
How nouns there are some
Which ending in um
Do not make their plural in i.
Jack and Jill
Have studied Mill,
And all that sage has taught, too.
Now both promote
Jill’s claim to vote,
As every good girl ought to.
– Harper’s, quoted in William T. Dobson, Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities, 1882

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. Chapter IV Of Speech

  By this it appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge to examine the definitions of former authors; and either to correct them, where they are negligently set down, or to make them himself. For the errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds, and lead men into absurdities which at last they see, but cannot avoid without reckoning anew from the beginning, in which lies the foundation of their errors. From whence it happens that they which trust to books do as they that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not; and at last, finding the error visible and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which to clear themselves, but spend time in fluttering over their books, as birds that, entering by the chimney and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber, flutter at the false light of a glass window for want of wit to consider which way they came in. So that in the right definition of names lies the first use of speech, which is the acquisition of science; and in wrong, or no definitions, lies the first abuse; from which proceed all false and senseless tenets: which make those men that take their instruction from the authority of books and not from their own meditation to be as much below the condition of ignorant men as men endued with true science are above it. For between true science and erroneous doctrines ignorance is in the middle. Natural sense and imagination are not subject to absurdity. Nature itself cannot err; and as men abound in copiousness of language, so they become more wise, or more mad, than ordinary. Nor is it possible without letters for any man to become either excellently wise, or, unless his memory be hurt by disease or ill constitution of organs, excellently foolish. For words are wise men’s counters—they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.

terry de gunzberg

http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/video/archive/2010/08/06/video--terry-de-gunzburg-s-make-up-tutorial.htm

the offshore pirate, f. scott fitzgerald

Le Lac, Lamartine

Ainsi, toujours poussés vers de nouveaux rivages,
Dans la nuit éternelle emportés sans retour,
Ne pourrons-nous jamais sur l'océan des âges
Jeter l'ancre un seul jour ?

Ô lac ! l'année à peine a fini sa carrière,
Et près des flots chéris qu'elle devait revoir,
Regarde ! je viens seul m'asseoir sur cette pierre
Où tu la vis s'asseoir !

Tu mugissais ainsi sous ces roches profondes,
Ainsi tu te brisais sur leurs flancs déchirés,
Ainsi le vent jetait l'écume de tes ondes
Sur ses pieds adorés.

Un soir, t'en souvient-il ? nous voguions en silence ;
On n'entendait au loin, sur l'onde et sous les cieux,
Que le bruit des rameurs qui frappaient en cadence
Tes flots harmonieux.

Tout à coup des accents inconnus à la terre
Du rivage charmé frappèrent les échos ;
Le flot fut attentif, et la voix qui m'est chère
Laissa tomber ces mots :

" Ô temps ! suspends ton vol, et vous, heures propices !
Suspendez votre cours :
Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices
Des plus beaux de nos jours !

" Assez de malheureux ici-bas vous implorent,
Coulez, coulez pour eux ;
Prenez avec leurs jours les soins qui les dévorent ;
Oubliez les heureux.

" Mais je demande en vain quelques moments encore,
Le temps m'échappe et fuit ;
Je dis à cette nuit : Sois plus lente ; et l'aurore
Va dissiper la nuit.

" Aimons donc, aimons donc ! de l'heure fugitive,
Hâtons-nous, jouissons !
L'homme n'a point de port, le temps n'a point de rive ;
Il coule, et nous passons ! "

Temps jaloux, se peut-il que ces moments d'ivresse,
Où l'amour à longs flots nous verse le bonheur,
S'envolent loin de nous de la même vitesse
Que les jours de malheur ?

Eh quoi ! n'en pourrons-nous fixer au moins la trace ?
Quoi ! passés pour jamais ! quoi ! tout entiers perdus !
Ce temps qui les donna, ce temps qui les efface,
Ne nous les rendra plus !

Éternité, néant, passé, sombres abîmes,
Que faites-vous des jours que vous engloutissez ?
Parlez : nous rendrez-vous ces extases sublimes
Que vous nous ravissez ?

Ô lac ! rochers muets ! grottes ! forêt obscure !
Vous, que le temps épargne ou qu'il peut rajeunir,
Gardez de cette nuit, gardez, belle nature,
Au moins le souvenir !

Qu'il soit dans ton repos, qu'il soit dans tes orages,
Beau lac, et dans l'aspect de tes riants coteaux,
Et dans ces noirs sapins, et dans ces rocs sauvages
Qui pendent sur tes eaux.

Qu'il soit dans le zéphyr qui frémit et qui passe,
Dans les bruits de tes bords par tes bords répétés,
Dans l'astre au front d'argent qui blanchit ta surface
De ses molles clartés.

Que le vent qui gémit, le roseau qui soupire,
Que les parfums légers de ton air embaumé,
Que tout ce qu'on entend, l'on voit ou l'on respire,
Tout dise : Ils ont aimé !

The Highwayman, Noyes

                                        PART ONE
                                                 I
    THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
    The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
    The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
    And the highwayman came riding—
                      Riding—riding—
    The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
                                                 II
    He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
    A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
    They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
    And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
                      His pistol butts a-twinkle,
    His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
                                                 III
    Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
    And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
    He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
    But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
                      Bess, the landlord's daughter,
    Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
                                                 IV
    And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
    Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
    His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
    But he loved the landlord's daughter,
                      The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
    Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—
                                                 V
    "One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
    But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
    Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
    Then look for me by moonlight,
                      Watch for me by moonlight,
    I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."
                                                 VI
    He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
    But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
    As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
    And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
                      (Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
    Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.
 
                                        PART TWO
                                                 I
    He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
    And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
    When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
    A red-coat troop came marching—
                      Marching—marching—
    King George's men came matching, up to the old inn-door.
                                                 II
    They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
    But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
    Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
    There was death at every window;
                      And hell at one dark window;
    For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
                                                 III
    They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
    They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
    "Now, keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
                      She heard the dead man say—
    Look for me by moonlight;
                      Watch for me by moonlight;
    I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!
                                                 IV
    She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
    She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
    They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
    Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
                      Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
    The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
                                                 V
    The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
    Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
    She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
    For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
                      Blank and bare in the moonlight;
    And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain .
                                                 VI
        Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
    Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
    Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
    The highwayman came riding,
                      Riding, riding!
    The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!
                                                 VII
    Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
    Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
    Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
    Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
                      Her musket shattered the moonlight,
    Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.
                                                 VIII
    He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
    Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
    Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
    How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
                      The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
    Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
                                                 IX
    Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
    With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
                      Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
                  *           *           *           *           *           *
                                                 X
    And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
    When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
    When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
    A highwayman comes riding—
                      Riding—riding—
    A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
                                                 XI
    Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
    He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
    He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
    But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
                      Bess, the landlord's daughter,
    Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Ode to a Nightingale, Keats

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
    My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
    One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
    But being too happy in thine happiness,—
        That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
            In some melodious plot
    Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
        Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
    Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
    Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
    Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
        With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
            And purple-stained mouth;
    That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
        And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
    What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
    Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
    Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
        Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
            And leaden-eyed despairs,
    Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
        Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
    Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
    Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
    And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
        Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
            But here there is no light,
    Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
        Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
    Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
    Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
    White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
        Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
            And mid-May’s eldest child,
    The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
        The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
    I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
    To take into the air my quiet breath;
        Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
    To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
        While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
            In such an ecstasy!
    Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
          To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
    No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
    In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
    Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
        She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
            The same that oft-times hath
    Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
        Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
    To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
    As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
    Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
        Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
            In the next valley-glades:
    Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
        Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?