Sometimes I like to read really long articles about esoteric subjects, but these past two weeks I’ve been squirreling away more useful, practical reads. I did find lots of nuggets of utility and insight — I hope you find something in them as well.
+ The ‘Busy’ Trap – Everyone I know (including myself) is busy! But this piece takes apart this idea, so common to our modern culture, and lets us see what a misnomer it is! The truth is, we probably all need to be a bit more idle and unproductive, really.
+ Why Frank Ocean’s Coming Out is More Significant than Anderson Cooper’s – An interesting, thought-provoking piece about the intersection of race and sexuality. I say big yays to both Cooper and Ocean, and to living and loving as fully and openly as possible!
+ Don’t Indulge. Be Happy – A paean to moderation and how a little forced scarcity can increase the intensity of certain pleasures.
+ I Used to Love Her But I Had to Flee Her – I love reading “Why I Left New York” stories, especially since I left NYC awhile ago.
+ Are We Stripping Modern Books Bare? – An interesting perspective on modern books’ increasingly emphasis on plot and a certain pace of storytelling. I read this with a keen eye to my own writing and craft, of course, which has gotten more traditional and interested in questions of rhythm and action. I think for me, personally, it comes from the realization that 1. I am not an avant-gardist or experimentalist or even all that “literary” when I write fiction — I am interested in character and stories and voice; 2. plotting and storytelling are good disciplines that keep my writing ship sailing smoothly; and 3. it aligns nicely with my own personal tastes. But it’s interesting to consider it from a more cultural standpoint.
+ Katy Perry’s Film: Lessons from a Scorpio: Now THIS is how I like my life advice!
+ Mental Health Minute: What Your Breathing Patterns Can Tell You About Your Emotional State – I gotta admit, deliberately slowing down my breathing does shift my inner state and peace of mind, even for a few minutes!
+ How Goals and Good Intentions Can Hold Us Back – I think this is something that’s good to hear: a reminder that it’s enjoying the process of reaching a goal or fulfilling an intention that keeps us going.
+ Sanitized, Pasteurized & Sterilized: The neutering of my blog – I’ve been writing on the Internet for a long, long time, so I read this account of Twinkie Chan’s evolution and it resonated. I think of all my past blogs and how open and searching they were, and while I love my space here, it definitely took some time for me to explore what I was using it for and therefore “tailor” my writing. But I do miss the sense that Internet writing was an “unadulterated” space for awhile, one where I’d write about everything and anything under the sun without regard for audience or users or pageviews or bounce rate or whatever. I know a lot of people here are also long-time bloggers: what do you think?
Tags: sparks
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I am a writer, secret hippie and subversive romantic. I write 
