goodness gracious

the measure of a great life is not how well loved you are, but how well you love others

[art]

Submitted by @abigailk:

A professional’s description of my personality

[icanread]

[destroymylife]

[thatkindofwoman]

“I go from being half in love with you, and wanting you to be with me always, and know everything about me, to the extreme of wildness and aloofness.”

— Virginia Woolf, from a letter to Leonard Woolf written c. May 1912

[screenshotsofdespair]

[screenshotsofdespair]

[gooodnesssgracious]

"A good breakfast and a podcast could do it"

-pt when asked if there's anything that could replace the immediate pleasure of speedballs

[visual-poetry]

by nathan coley (+)

[oldfarmhousefallfeatures]

“I think there is a certain age, for women, when you become fearless. It may be a different age for every woman, I don’t know. It’s not that you stop fearing things: I’m still afraid of heights, for example. Or rather, of falling — heights aren’t the problem. But you stop fearing life itself. It’s when you become fearless in that way that you decide to live. Perhaps it’s when you come to the realization that the point of life isn’t to be rich, or secure, or even to be loved — to be any of the things that people usually think is the point. The point of life is to live as deeply as possible, to experience fully. And that can be done in so many ways.”

— Theodora Goss (via jenmyers)

I personally think after you reach that certain age, you’ve come to the realization (finally) you’ve had nothing else to lose+the who really cares anyway attitude!

[screenshotsofdespair]

[sicknare]

[syntacked]

[oupacademic]

“[I]t is the rare fortune of these days that you may think what you like and say what you think.”

— Tacitus, Book 1.1 of The Histories

[driverdaily]

HBO GIRLS Truth or Dare

[humansofnewyork]

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard about the accident at South By Southwest a few years back.  A car plowed into a crowd of pedestrians.  Four people died.  Twenty-five were injured.  I was the twenty-fifth.  I broke my back and neck in four places.  The driver was fleeing from the police in a stolen car.  He was twenty-one years old.  His name was Rashad.  A lot of people in my life thought he should get the death penalty.  But I never had strong feelings about it.  Maybe I disconnected from my emotions.  Maybe it’s just my personality.  But I mostly just felt sad that he’s so young and he’ll be in jail for the rest of his life.  Recently I looked up the address of his prison.  I purchased a PO Box.  And I wrote him three letters.  I’ve held onto them for months without sending them.  I guess I’m struggling with the fact that empathy is a privilege.  I’m still alive.  I’m still able to walk.  There are people who lost more than me who might be upset that I’m showing him any compassion at all.  But I find it curious that I know nothing about somebody who had such a profound impact on my life.  All three letters begin the exact same way: ‘We’ve never met, but we were in the same place at the same time.’  I’m not sure what I’m looking for.  I just figure there’s something to be said.  And I’d like to figure out what that is.”

[gooodnesssgracious]

"I guess I'm struggling with the fact that empathy is a privilege."

[sartorialadventure]

This cartoon from 1959 really got it.

[historicaltimes]

The Statue of Liberty’s head, on exhibit at the 1878 Paris World’s Fair

via reddit