Simply Existing

(Disclaimer: I myself am just an introvert, not an activist) Should you be an activist at all? Earlier this week, I read a piece from 1849 called  Civil Disobedience,  by Henry David Thoreau. To summarize, it mostly speaks to the importance of protest in the form of civil disobedience, or breaking laws that you believe to be immoral. I’m quite sure that everyone has something in politics they care about, and some are worth fighting for. That’s why activism is a thing. However, I also completely understand if you’d prefer to stay out of it, whether it be because of burnout or stress.     What are you comfortable with doing? This made me think, what about the introverts? I'm sure most introverts would not want to tell the IRS that they're not going to pay their taxes and going to protests may also be overwhelming. So, I thought I'd try to help in that department. In Quiet, by Susan Cain, she explains how most introverts are “high-reactive” which means we resp...

 Why is Sympathy important?               It is our instinct to be self-centered; To do what is in our own best interest. However, living this way can be extremely draining and lonely. In David Foster Wallace’s speech, This is Water, He states that a self-centered life is like being “lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation.” To combat this, he proposes that we constantly remind ourselves that the strangers in our lives could be going through hard times. Not necessarily to act on that awareness, but to simply know that we aren’t the only ones with problems. This reframes the sense of frustration you feel when, say, the lunch line is really long. I agree with Wallace on this, but I also want to address something to be careful of when doing this.   Compassion, not Comparison               While it is bene...

It’s not just you.               Do you ever feel like life is rushing past you? Like you can’t remember how long it’s been? Well, you’re definitely not the only one feeling that way. On that note, it’s also not (necessarily) your fault that this is happening. It’s actually largely due to the way our brains view the passage of time in different circumstances. There are two main reasons why life seems to be going so fast: The “shutter speed” of your brain, and the experiences you are going through.   How your brain works               One of the reasons why you may feel like life is too fast is the speed at which mind processes images. The older you get, the more wear and tear your brain cells accumulate, leading you to process images slower (only by a little bit though). Think of it like a camera. If a camera takes video at 20 fps, but is still p...

  What is negative space anyway?               Negative space is something that is all around us. It exists in art, photography, architecture, and even music! Simply put, negative space is the space that is not filled by the subject of a painting or sound of a note. When you are aware of negative space, you’ll start to notice how most things can be split into positive and negative space.               In art, not many pieces especially play into the use of positive and negative space, but it’s still present. However, pieces that utilize positive and negative spaces cause the viewer to not know where one image ends and the other begins. For example, M.C. Escher’s Sky and Water II. Why do we see images in negative space?               What these pieces of art are largely playing into is...