The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. 🌻
-Milan Kundera, Ignorance ...

#wednesdaywisdom #QuotesAboutLife
1. push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start at 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sunrise.
2. push yourself to fall asleep earlier - start at 11pm, then at 10pm, then 9pm.
3. get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. sit and eat it and do nothing else.
4. stretch. start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. roll your head. stretch your fingers. stretch everything.
5. buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, coffees, what you need to do that day. no detail is too small.
6. strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. make your bed in full.
7. organize your room. fold all your clothes (and bag what you don’t want), clean your mirror, your laptop, vacuum the floor. light a beautiful candle.
8. push yourself to go for a walk. take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised how many smile back. bring your dog and observe the dog’s behaviour. realize you can learn from your dog.
9. think long and hard about what interests you. crime? sex? boarding school? long-forgotten romance etiquette? find a book about it and read it. there is a book about literally everything.
10. let cars merge into your lane when driving. pay double for parking tickets and leave the second one in the machine. stick your tongue out at babies. compliment people on their cute clothes. challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. then two. then a week. walk with a straight posture. look people in the eye. ask people about their story. talk to acquaintances so they become friends.
11. lie in the sunshine. daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn’t a thing. open your eyes. take small steps to make it happen for you.
-Emma Elswo ...

“People will kill you over time, and how they’ll kill you is with tiny, harmless phrases, like: ‘be realistic.’”

— Dylan Moran ...

When I was a child, it was clear to me that life was not worth living if we did not know love. I wish I could testify that I came to this awareness because of the love I felt in my life.
But it was love’s absence that let me know how much love mattered.
- All About Love, Bell Hooks ...

Some warriors don't create noise. Sometimes they are awake late at night, making sure no one will hear them, they are made out of unspoken words. They simply bleed in silence and still wear the bravest smile you can never doubt. Some warriors are made with hidden bruises and you cannot tell. They are simply warriors that you may not know for they chose to fight silently and still survive the next morning.

-- Clau Blanco

Art https://pin.it/3oBYssE ...

...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return.

And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be,  be wise, and that you will always be kind. 🧡🧡🌻🌻
- @neilhimself ...

#CurrentlyReading
I went book shopping after a very long time and this was one of the books that I brought. Was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a Malyalam translation. Have you read this one? Let me know your thoughts without spoilers. What are you reading today?
.
.
.
.
Book: Acid
Author: Sangeetha Sreenivasan
Paperback, 386 pages

Published first in Malayalam by DC Books, Kottayam, 2016
First published in English by Penguin Random House India 2018

.
Synopsis: Life is a brief, waking dream-but who casts the spell?

Two striking women, Kamala and Shaly, helm an unusual household, fuelled by their intense, tempestuous romance in a rapidly changing Bangalore. Downstairs, Kamala's sons take care of each other in their own way-the twins are bound together by an early accident that paralysed Shiva, making Aadi his brother's caretaker. Beautiful Shaly is the object of more than one person's affections-and she, too, has a complicated past.

When Kamala's mother dies, she returns to Kerala-to an ancestral house of horrors which lies next to the cremation grounds in Cochin's outlying reaches: a place which, nevertheless, is home. However, nothing can prepare her for the devastation that ensues in this lyrical, hallucinatory trip of a story.

Utterly gripping and powerfully unsettling, Sangeetha Srinivasan's phenomenal debut subverts received ideas about society, individuality and motherhood. Acid unravels the secrets that lurk beneath the surface oif our lives, and marks the entry of a searing new voice in the Indian literary landscape. ...

You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.

Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life ...