Luddite Teens, Journaling, Letters from Prison, etc.
In which I remain open to the world.
🎹 Good morning.
👍 Words to live by in re: to what I am doing here, blogging, social media, etc: “Other people’s opinions about what I do here are absolutely none of my business.”
🗓️ Why does February (usually) have 28 days?
🤯 Dazed and Confused takes place over a day in 1976, and was released in 1993. If a movie like that came out today, it would take place in 2008. As Jason Kottke pointed out, basically Superbad (only set a year later). Same math: Smashing Pumpkins, “1979,” released right now, would open “Shakedown, 2009.”
🎧 An album I love every week, in no particular order, figuring by year’s end I’ll have what would constitute my top 50.
(5/50) Modest Mouse, The Moon & Antarctica: Two isolated, cold, lonely places. As introspective as it is sad as it is funny.
🌆 Unusual, given his work, but Frank Lloyd Wright once drafted a proposal for a mile-high skyscraper. “He envisioned skyscrapers like this built here and there throughout the countryside, taking the place of cities. That way, everyone could live in a suburban paradise, surrounded by green space and ample daylight.”
📔 “No excuse for me not to.” Evie Riski, who turned 100 last month, has not missed a single day of writing since her first diary entry on Jan. 1, 1936.
🧠 There are health benefits to journaling. “There are the obvious benefits, like a boost in mindfulness, memory and communication skills. But studies have also found that writing in a journal can lead to better sleep, a stronger immune system, more self-confidence and a higher I.Q.”
📵 A piece on luddite, phoneflippin’, zine makin’ teens. “Three years after starting a club meant to fight social media’s grip on young people, many original members are holding firm and gaining new converts.”
✍️ Turning suffering into strength. “Just before dawn on May 29, 1979, the Czechoslovakian State Security Police barged into the home of the playwright, essayist, and poet Václav Havel, dragged him out of bed, and threw him in a municipal jail along with ten other members of the Committee to Defend the Unjustly Prosecuted — a human rights movement formed to bring to light cases of people harassed and imprisoned for speaking up against the dictatorship.” Letters to Olga collects correspondence to his wife over the course of his wrongful four-year imprisonment:
“I’ve discovered that in lengthy prison terms, sensitive people are in danger of becoming embittered, developing grudges against the world, growing dull, indifferent and selfish. One of my main aims is not to yield an inch to such threats, regardless of how long I’m here. I want to remain open to the world, not to shut myself up against it; I want to retain my interest in other people and my love for them. I have different opinions of different people, but I cannot say that I hate anyone in the world. I have no intention of changing in that regard. If I did, it would mean I had lost.”
❤️ Happy Valentine’s Day. Keep that Hoping Machine running.
Love,
Luke
