Tell me in the comments below and I will design some cool merchandise around it. 💝 ...

Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair.

When it comes, it degrades one’s self and ultimately eclipses the capacity to give or receive affection. It is the aloneness within us made manifest, and it destroys not only connection to others but also the ability to be peacefully alone with oneself.

Love, though it is no prophylactic against depression, is what cushions the mind and protects it from itself. Medications and psychotherapy can renew that protection, making it easier to love and be loved, and that is why they work.

- The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, Andrew Solomon ...

A room without books is like a body without a soul. ❤️❤️
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
📸 - @rkrkrk ...

There’s a misconception that grief only happens when we lose people.This is not true. We can grieve circumstances, relationships, missed opportunities.In fact, sometimes when you find yourself plagued with waves of emotion from sadness to melancholy you may be grieving yourself.

The version of yourself that you might have been if things had been different, or if only you had said something, or if someone had stood up for you. 🌻🌻
—thesoftestrevolution.tumblr.com #ToBeVulnerablyHonest ...

nobody is irrelevant. nobody is invisible. your neighbors know your name and see you set off to school or work or the backyard everyday, sometimes with a spring in your step and sometimes with hunched over shoulders. there was this one time some stranger pointed you out to their friends and said 'that’s the haircut I want' or 'I have that shirt, too' or 'they go to my school.'

someone has admired the way you carry yourself or gave a presentation or even the way you’re so polite when you first meet a person. you’ve made comments or jokes that have stuck in minds of overhearers and eavesdroppers. when old classmates of yours think back to kindergarten or fourth grade or sophomore year they remember you and have an opinion of you. you’ve made recommendations of songs and restaurants and even cookie brands and actually introduced people to their all-time favorites. the cashier at the grocery store knows exactly what laundry detergent your household uses, or even if you don’t do your laundry at all.

you can never be irrelevant. there’s pieces of you everywhere, in a dozen lives, in a hundred dreams, in a million memories. maybe it’s true that you don’t have any friends, and you have a sucky relationship with your family or no family at all and no-one ever checks up on you, and you’re really very lonely, but that doesn’t determine your worth. you do. and so do the billions of small attributions you’ve already made to the world, both long-term and short-term. so thank you.
—slfcare.tumblr.com ...

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.
– Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre ...

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 ...