“Sometimes I think we live through things only to be able to say that it happened. That it wasn’t to someone else, it was to me. Sometimes we live to beat the odds. It can all end, even when you least want it to. The important thing in life is to believe that while you’re alive, it’s never too late. No matter how bad things look, they look better awake than they do asleep. When you die, there’s only one thing you want to happen. You wanna come back.” — Jack Starks, The Jacket
Somebody asked me: ‘What do you do? How do you write, create?’ You don’t, I told them. You don’t try. That’s very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It’s like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks, you make a pet out of it.
Today, it would have been Carl Sagan’s 81st birthday (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996).
Here’s one of his most important messages to humanity from the episode 8 of Cosmos “Journeys in Space and Time.”
When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lampost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: “it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks.” And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it.
When I read this letter of Van Gogh’s it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about *design* and *balance* and getting *interesting planes* into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest *acedemical* tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on.
But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it.
And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care.
Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit
Jökulsárlón, Seljalandsfoss, and Goðafoss. More images from our time in Iceland. We spent a few months working as tour guides at a cave. On our weekends, we were allowed time to explore the beautiful country.
PornHub is offering a $25,000 scholarship to college students. No, the application has nothing to do with porn.
Pornhub doesn’t just care about your — ahem — leisure activities, it also cares about your education.
The adult website’s latest endeavor involves giving out a $25,000 scholarship to college students all over the world as part of its campaign, Pornhub Cares — and no, the application actually has nothing to do with porn, sex or any kind of “favors” you can think of.
Instead, interested applicants must write a 1000-1500 word essay answering the following question: “How do you strive to make others happy?” Along with the essay, applicants have to submit a 2-to-5 minute video that “elaborates on the good work that you do and anything else that you might want to say.”
Whether that good work involved porn or Pornhub is totally up to you — although something tells us that’s not the kind of material Pornhub is after.
However, the campaign website states that the scholarship will go to one lucky applicant with a GPA of 3.2 or higher, and they can be declared literally any major in college. “Whether you are studying medicine, botany, paranormal psychology, or anything in between, application is open to all fields of study,” the website says.
The website also goes further into its selection criteria, just in case anyone is unclear about whether they should be sending in that homemade sex tape or not. Criteria is as follows:
“1. What is it that you do to make others happy. We’re looking for standout, compelling examples of students who pay it forward.
2. Leadership abilities. Are you on student council? Do you mentor? Or do people just naturally gravitate towards you because you’re awesome? Tell us about it.
3. Creativity in approach. Originality always scores bonus points.”
Finally, years of watching porn might actually turn out to be financially beneficial. While costs can vary by major, CollegeBoard.com reported an average cost of “$31,231 at private colleges, $9,139 for state residents at public colleges and $22,958 for out-of-state residents attending public universities,” per year. So $25,000 would definitely be a blessing for most students out there.
As with all things related to Pornhub, you have to be over 18 to apply, plus you have to be currently enrolled at a post-secondary educational institution and be able to submit a résumé and official school transcript.
All submissions must be received via the Pornhub Cares website by Oct. 31, 2015. Then, you can let the money roll in.
I have been back for two months, now. When I left, Houston stayed behind. It kept its heat to itself. It kept its anger and anguish to itself. It created new stories, by itself. Life in Auckland was strange, and though it was an entirely new source of conflict and strife, I was away from Houston. Slipping back in place was not hard. I did not have my old job straightaway, but that matter soon resolved itself. We did not have a home, but a friend selflessly offered her couches. In a month's time, we will be leaving again, to work in Iceland until August. It is an opportunity I never imagined having. Leaving the first time made me feel ghostlike. I feel as though leaving the second will only make it more so.
Qui vult intellegere virtutem huius civitatis, intellegat vim caritatis. Ipsa est virtus quam nemo vincit. Huius ignem nulli fluctus saeculi, nulla flumina tentationis exstinguunt. De hac dictum est: Valida est sicut mors dilectio. Quomodo enim mors quando venit, resisti ei non potest, quibuslibet artibus, quibuslibet medicamentis occurras; violentiam mortis vitare non potest, qui mortalis natus est: sic contra violentiam caritatis mundus nil potest.
- in psalmum 47 enarratio
He who wishes to understand the strength of the city of God, let him understand the force of love. Love is that power which no one can overcome. No wave of the world, no flood of tribulation can extinguish its fire. It’s said that love is as strong as death, as when death comes, it is irresistible, whatever means and whatever medicines you may come up with.
Born mortal, you cannot escape the violence of death. Just so, against the violence of love, the world has no power.
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