A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.
—Unknown
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
— Mary Oliver
Forget your perfect offering.
There’s a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
— Leonard Cohen
The Power of Play
Actor and comedian Charlie Todd causes bizarre, hilarious, and unexpected public scenes: Seventy synchronized dancers in storefront windows, “ghostbusters” running through the New York Public Library, and the annual no-pants subway ride. In this TED talk, he shows how his group, Improv Everywhere, uses these scenes to bring people together through the power of humor and play.
Leonard Cohen remembers his Zen Master:
“I never really understood
what he said
but every now and then
I find myself
barking with the dog
or bending with the irises
or helping out
in other little ways.”
—Leonard Cohen (2006). Book of Longing.
I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.
—Georgia O’Keefe
All human evil comes from this:
a man’s being unable to sit still in a room.
— Blaise Pascal
Using art to turn the world inside out
JR, a semi-anonymous French street artist, uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting photos of the human face across massive canvases. In this talk, he talks about his wish to use art to turn the world inside out.
I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.
—Saul Bellow
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
— Mahatma Gandhi
