I need to take a little break. I will be back sooner than later. Until then, take care. :)

(Source: pusheen)

(Source: we-simply-are)

be-strong-in-love:

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” - John Hope Franklin

(by ashlynne.herrin)

— Albert Einstein (via ikenbot)

(Source: thejess0)

theatlantic:

What We Know Now About How to Be Happy

Are “happy” people set up differently to begin with? For example, their physiologies seem to be different from those of less happy people, with lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, reduced inflammatory biomarkers, and even changes in the wiring of the brain. All of these differences might make happy people better able to deal with the adverse events that life throws at them, and less likely to feel the effects of stress, which takes a toll on everybody’s health. The happiness-health relationship is at the very least a two-way street.

But what is happiness in the first place? Is it about seeking out activities that make us feel good - indulging a fancy car or going out for a satisfying dinner - or does it have to do with a deeper sense of personal satisfaction over the course of a lifetime?

Read more. [Image: skippyjon/Flickr]

explore-blog:

“That opting out [of creativity] that happens in childhood … moves in and becomes more ingrained by the time you get to adult life.”

IDEO’s David Kelley on how to build your creative confidence. Also see Jonah Lehrer on how creativity works and some reasons we opt out of it as adults.

poptech:

The Fine Art of Gross and Amazing Liquid-Based Video Experiments

Kim Pimmel, a software developer and filmmaker, shares psychedelic outtakes from Compressed, his series of short, abstract experimental videos.

(via theatlanticvideo)

staceythinx:

Japanese artist Mika Aoki uses the ethereal quality of glass to get us to look differently at subjects like viruses, reproduction and the origins of life.

fastcodesign:

Big Bloom, a magnifying vase that supersizes your flowers

(Source: sunass)

zitterberg:

kehlet:

Into the White 

If anyone isn’t already following Maja-Lisa Kehlet you are really missing out on some amazing art here.

Raise awareness. #arttherapyhelpstoo

theatlantic:

A Crackdown in Crayon: Bahrain’s Children Draw Their Country’s Crisis

An endless cycle of peaceful protest and violent crackdown has endured for now 15 months in Bahrain, the tiny Arab island nation where a U.S.-backed Sunni minority rules over a Shia-majority population. Less visible than the geopolitics (Saudi Arabia has sent troops in support of the monarchy, which it sees as a bulwark against Shia Iran), the complicated dilemma for the Obama administration, or the lives and struggles of the democracy activists who refuse to give up, are the children of Bahrain.

Human Rights First, a U.S.-based NGO that has worked heavily in Bahrain since the Arab Spring began over a year ago, recently launched a project called Through Children’s Eyes to check in with Bahrain’s children and attempt to understand how the country’s conflict is affecting them. Two local activists who work with Human Rights First — and who are now both in prison on political charges — “asked some children who had been directly affected by the crackdown to draw whatever was in their minds.”

[Image: Maryam, age 7, told activists that the drawing portrayed her and her sister running to help their uncle, who was shot in the head by security forces. Graphic images of his body were broadcast widely in Bahrain after the incident. The Pearl Monument again appears, frowning.]

Read more.

buildingmarkets:

wifeofwrath:

Pashtun poetry has long been a form of rebellion for Afghan women, belying the notion that they are submissive or defeated. Landai means “short, poisonous snake” in Pashto, a language spoken on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The word also refers to two-line folk poems that can be just as lethal. Funny, sexy, raging, tragic, landai are safe because they are collective. No single person writes a landai; a woman repeats one, shares one. It is hers and not hers. Although men do recite them, almost all are cast in the voices of women. “Landai belong to women,” Safia Siddiqi, a renowned Pashtun poet and former Afghan parliamentarian, said. “In Afghanistan, poetry is the women’s movement from the inside.”

- Eliza Griswold

Read the whole article! 

(Source: blancaamore)