They fired a guy I was working with today. I never particularly liked him, he was one of the more bro-tastic loud backslapping people there, but I sympathized with him at some level – and he loved to travel and talk about places he’s been to – and who am I to judge him for how he chose to be. My manager, who had to do the firing, was pretty shaken, too. I am glad I never had to fire anyone (except one particularly bad consultant, at the Old Company), and I hope I never will.

It is strange and unsettling to see someone you see and talk to every day – more often than your parents and most of your friends – disappear from your life just like that. I could reach out and have a drink or coffee – if I wanted to – but we really have little in common, and it wouldn’t change the fact that tomorrow his things at his desk will disappear, and I will never see or hear of him again.

Maybe he will take the time to take a year off and do a gap year in his early 30s – and come back changed, and better for it.

Went to Harlem yesterday for R’s family thing but as usual I found a way to pretend to be somewhere else. Also, the Southern food restaurant was full of French and German tourists from tour buses.

Eight hours of sleep are not enough, according to leading sleep research scientist – Quartz

People should be able to sleep like they’re able to get healthcare. This also means making our work environments more conducive to sleep. For optimum productivity, we need around eight hours of sleep, right? But that doesn’t have to be in one go. Maybe I’ll get a little less than that during the night, and then I’ll take a 20-to-30-minute power nap at midday. There’s a siesta for a reason! New Yorkers oftentimes try to pound through with coffee and whatever, but giving in to your natural circadian rhythm during that afternoon lull might be a good thing. We weren’t made to produce for eight hours straight.

sovietpostcards:

Vintage Soviet children’s books about space

newyorker:

“Sometimes a movie you love fuses privately with your identity, no matter how distant the world of the movie may be from your life.”

— Rachel Kushner, “Finding Yourself in Film”

The key to getting up at 4am and not feeling like a total wreck all day is – doing it on your own accord and having something to look forward to, preferably not something you do every day.
Having uninterrupted sleep immediately prior is nice, too, as is general lack of sleep deprivation for the preceding 2-3 years.

Also – preventative ibuprofen.

Things found on 5am walks

Precipice

texnessa:

delgrosso:

Patton Oswalt closed his most recent stand-up performance – 2017’s “Annihilation” – with something his late wife Michelle McNamara used to say: “It’s chaos. Be kind.”

That phrase ingrained itself in me the first time I heard him speak it, and it’s something I try to think about every day.

But it’s hard. Goddamn, lately it is just so hard. We’re losing people – good, special people – to the horrors of depression and suicide. People who have been putting that kindness into the world deciding, for whatever reasons, that they simply can’t stay in it any longer. Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain had rich, fascinating and unique lives, and yet something inside them – something dark and heavy and seemingly impossible to overcome – drove them to leave this world by their own hand. To most people, it’s almost impossible to fathom.

But I know what that feeling is like. I’ve struggled with crippling depression and anxiety for my entire adult life, and I am all too familiar with the kind of hopelessness that leads to moments like those. I’ve always managed to step away from the precipice, but unless you have been there looking over the edge yourself, you simply can’t understand. And there’s still such widespread stigma attached to admissions of mental illness that it’s difficult for those of us who suffer to talk about it to anyone but our closest people. I’m uncomfortable sharing this about myself publicly right now, but it’s something I feel must be talked about.

In discussions of suicide I hear people say things like, “That’s the coward’s way out,” or “How selfish of them,” or “But they had so much to live for.” And while those are all seemingly logical things for a neurotypical person to think, logic isn’t in the driver’s seat when you’re overcome with despair. If you’re trying to help a friend or loved one going through a depressive episode, pointing out all the things they have going for them or trying to fix what you perceive as the problem is likely to make them feel worse, not better. I know we all have that instinct to be the “fixer,” but often times all a depressed person wants is to just know that you are there. Be present. Give empathy. Acknowledge that they are hurting.

The hellish Zeitgeist of 2018 is getting to us all, in obvious ways and in more insidious ways that we’re not even yet realizing, and I know even people who are not usually prone to sadness or depression are feeling it. So please, talk to one another. Have empathy. Help each other. And if you’re hurting, even a little bit, please talk to someone. I’m begging you. All of my friends and family are creative people, and creatives tend to be sufferers in some degree or another. But we are needed right now. We have to make our art and tell our stories and move the culture forward even when it hurts, if not for ourselves then for each other.

I promise anyone reading this that if you are ever at that place and have no one else to talk to, you pick up that goddamn phone and text or message or call me. Please. You are never, ever alone.

It’s chaos. Be kind.

Read the fuck out of this of the day.

crookedindifference:

“You know what’s great about New York? The threshold for citizenship as a New Yorker is actually pretty short. If you come to New York and you still like it two years after you arrived here, and you still think it’s great and you’re having a good time and you haven’t been just totally ground down and go limping back to wherever the fuck you came from, you know what? You’re in!”
– @anthonybourdain, 2011 https://ift.tt/2kV0wjA

fuckyeahfluiddynamics:

In “Liquid Calligraphy,” artist Rus Khasanov’s letters dissolve once he draws them. At first, the white ink spreads in narrow fingers, probably driven by a combination of surface tension gradients, capillary action, and simple diffusion. But then, in flashes, the letters morph faster and flow outward. My best guess is that each jump is a spray from a bottle full of a low surface tension liquid like alcohol. The spray triggers faster outflows than before, like those seen when a strong difference in surface tension activates the Marangoni effect. It’s a beautiful and different artistic take on these important fluid forces. Check out more of his videos here or enjoy high-resolution stills and wallpapers in this style from his Behance page. (Image and video credit: R. Khasanov; submitted by TBBQoC)