“Constructive ideas (not wars) mark the forward progress of mankind. Art can change the world. Art is a communication that is more powerful and more real to any human being than any gun or war. It changes people’s opinions, style, ideas, and even sometimes people’s way of living. We should concentrate on art and peace, not hate and war. The day we can truly trust each other, there will be peace on Earth.” ~ Anonymous

“We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

“We do not need different individuals in power so much as we need a different kind of power in individuals.” ~ Michael Nagler, The Search for a Nonviolent Future

The Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.

Source: Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance – The New York Times

I believe the “we” have always been fighting stupidity just as the “they” have always been fighting it too, just a different sort or from a different angle. I saw a headline today about “left-leaning groups” lobbying Biden over the defense budget. When writing and reporting for possibly millions of eyeballs, why don’t we use true descriptive words — like progressive, or ethical, or peaceful, or socially just, or traditional, change-averse, anti-innovation, religious, whatever — when we refer to groups or people associated with certain values, rather than generalizing by saying they are “left” and “right?” Is it because we have lazily allowed ourselves (and the media) to assume that everyone knows what left and right means (“good” and “bad” probably mostly), depending on what side you’re on? Rhetoric. Semantics. Language. La Langue. They are more powerful forces than most realize and we need to deploy them specifically and with great care and attention.  ~ cjzurcher

https://www.russellnohelty.com/onlinewritersconference

It’s comforting to know that I’m one of millions who are having a difficult time truly understanding what it means that half the world is under stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 virus. There’s a feeling of solidarity with those millions that you can, or maybe that you must take for granted. I would think that feeling — the feeling of being a part of a global community that shares the feelings that you’re having — I would think that alone might help ease the feelings, whether they are feelings of fear, anxiety, dread, boredom, or a gazillion other things that are the result of the absolutely unimaginable effects that a microscopic molecule is having on all the human inhabitants of this blue planet of ours.

“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

He threw up his hands
& wrote the universe dont exist
& died to prove it.

The French poet Aragon said “By the time we learn to live, it is already too late.”

“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.” ~ James Baldwin

Why do we tend to let ourselves do only the things we think we’re good at, trained at, educated in, experienced with, experts at?

How do we do let go of this constraint? Why don’t we do it more often? And what happens when we do?

Which is to say: Don’t restrict yourself to doing only what you’re good at. Try doing something you yearn to do. Something that excites you. Something you may think you’re not good at but you’ve always wanted to try.