Urban Girl

[libertarianhumanitarian]

…when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: There needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own period. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.

—John Stuart Mill, On Liberty [1859]

[bayanbahloul-blog]

There is almost no area of life which we cannot transform according to our own desires if we want something badly enough, if we have faith in it, and if we work for it with all our hearts. It is not too much to say that every bad situation is a result of apathy, of lack of planning, of individuals who think, “After all, it’s not my business.”

Eleanor Roosevelt 

[bayanbahloul-blog]

Eleanor Roosevelt on the Power of Personal Conviction and Our Individual Responsibility in Social Change

“In the long run there is no more liberating, no more exhilarating experience than to determine one’s position, state it bravely, and then act boldly. Action brings with it its own courage, i…

“A democracy is made up of one man and one and one and — ad infinitum. But each man is responsible for what he does. Government is people. The ultimate triumph of the democratic system depends on the individual use of democratic principles. We are not a faceless mass. As individuals, we can influence our government at every level. But we must accept this responsibility. We must know what we think and speak out, even at the risk of unpopularity. In the final analysis, a democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are.“

[bayanbahloul-blog]

Those who prefer their principles over their happiness, they refuse to be happy outside the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness. If they are happy by surprise, they find themselves disabled, unhappy to be deprived of their unhappiness.

Albert Camus

[bayanbahloul-blog]

If those whom we begin to love could know us as we were before meeting them … they could perceive what they have made of us.

Albert Camus

[hiddenarchitecture]

Urban Extension Project - Vienna, Austria - 1858

[bayanbahloul-blog]

Happily, there are other studies that tell us the real truth about the health benefits of marriage, which is that the benefits have nothing to do with marriage at all. Because those studies have shown that staying in an unhappy marriage is the worst thing you can do for your health and for your children. So, better health is a direct result of healthy relationships. You don’t need a spouse. You just need someone you can trust. You need someone you can talk to. You need someone who will celebrate your wins and grieve your losses. You need someone who can forgive you. You need someone who will show up, no questions asked, and walk with you through every unexpected twist and turn life throws your way.

Meredeth Grey, S14 E24

[bayanbahloul-blog]

We define ourselves by our actions, but that doesn't mean we have to live by that definition. We can change our own story. We can refuse to accept the way people define us. We can work like hell to escape a bad reputation, only to wonder if we succeeded. It can be hard to shake mistakes of the past. They'll always come back to haunt us. But one thing we never do, we don't stop, we don't quit. We get up and rejoin the fight.

Meredith Grey, S14 E21

[bayanbahloul-blog]

The writer Susan Sontag gave birth to her son, David Rieff, in 1952. After his mother died in 2004, David found this still-relevant list of parenting tips, written when he was seven, in one of her journals. 1. Be consistent. 2. Don’t speak about him to others (e.g., tell funny things) in his presence. 3. Don’t praise him for something I wouldn’t always accept as good. 4. Don’t reprimand him harshly for something he’s been allowed to do. 5. Daily routine: eating, homework, bath, teeth, room, story, bed. 6. Don’t allow him to monopolize me when I am with other people. 7. Always speak well of his pop (no faces, sighs, impatience, etc.). 8. Do not discourage childish fantasies. 9. Make him aware that the grown-up world is none of his business. 10. Don’t assume that what I don’t like to do (bath, hair wash), he won’t like either.

https://www.rd.com/advice/parenting/susan-sontag-parenting-tips/

[bayanbahloul-blog]

“Nothing is mysterious, no human relation. Except love “ 

[bayanbahloul-blog]

But there is something more, beyond the desire of advanced society to recapture what was once a regular experience of heightened fear and response. Susan Sontag wrote in her 1966 essay ‘The Imagination of Disaster’ that ‘we live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror.’ Sontag was writing in the 1960s, under the fear of worldwide nuclear holocaust and William Whyte’s nightmare of the deadened ‘organization man.’ The fears today are somewhat different. Rightly or wrongly, we don’t fear nuclear world war the way we once did. But we have our fears of dramatic catastrophe — terrorism, West Nile virus, avian flu, global warming and the angry natural phenomena it is producing. And though we don’t worry about the banality of everyday life, we do fear the insecurity of work, and the powerful, invisible forces of globalization. The workings of the global economy — moving capital and jobs dramatically around the globe according to decisions made on the Internet and in corporate headquarters — feel as inevitable and unstoppable as bad weather.

Susan Sontag

[iamdetour303]

[architorturedsouls]

Shangqiu Museum / Atelier Li Xinggang ph: Zhi Xia

[bayanbahloul-blog]

“In central Arizona, there exists an experimental town called Arcosanti. It’s built on the principles of arcology, which combines architecture and ecology to envision a city that works in tandem with the Earth’s resources. In this short documentary, The Atlantic goes inside this distinctive urban space to understand how Arcosanti plans to reconstruct how humans envision cities.”

[doppleganger-rental]

[bayanbahloul-blog]

Saul Steinberg, View of the World from Ninth Avenue, 1976 “If you’re leaving New York, you ain’t going nowhere.”

[bayanbahloul-blog]

Compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry.”

E.B. White, 1949, Here Is New York,