Book writing advices today? By pinning these quotes on your living room wall, bedroom closet, or office desk, you’ll always have something to look up to for motivation even when everything else doesn’t seem to be working out. But our 50 inspiring aesthetic quotes are not all about helping you appreciate your inner beauty or motivating you during adversity. Some of these quotes are also an embodiment of satire at its best. You can apply them on social media when you want to sound sarcastic, or in solemn conversations to wittily convey a deep and sensitive message. What’s more – you can even share these quotes with your near and dear ones as a reminder of how deeply you care about their existence.
Meditation has been around since ancient history. With science and technological advancements, we are only rolling towards the knowledge that was always there. Scientists today approach meditation as an all-around solution to lifestyle malfunctions and have put forth some mind-boggling evidence on how meditation rewires the neural channels to promote inner peace and equilibrium. Meditation promotes mental balance by controlling the “monkey mind” (Luders, Cherbuin, Kurth, 2015). Monkey Mind is a colloquial term for the brain activity known as the “Default Mode Network” (DMN). The DMN is responsible for what we think when we do not attend to anything specific. It causes the mind to wander and engage in non-targeted pieces of information that distracts us. Reduced DMN activity in the brain is the reason why meditators can remain more present-oriented and focused all the time.
One of the most interesting studies in the last few years, carried out at Yale University, found that mindfulness meditation decreases activity in the default mode network (DMN), the brain network responsible for mind-wandering and self-referential thoughts – a.k.a., “monkey mind.” The DMN is “on” or active when we’re not thinking about anything in particular, when our minds are just wandering from thought to thought. Since mind-wandering is typically associated with being less happy, ruminating, and worrying about the past and future, it’s the goal for many people to dial it down. Several studies have shown that meditation, through its quieting effect on the DMN, appears to do just this. And even when the mind does start to wander, because of the new connections that form, meditators are better at snapping back out of it.
I’m thinking about how desire is at the center of what it is to be alive and how desire is the root of all suffering. Love and poetry and romance are, like, the only place of enjoyment for me. When feminists like Shulamith Firestone criticize romantic love, namely heterosexual coupling, as a site of oppression, I agree. But sometimes it also feels like romantic love is the only site of release, or even a site of resistance, under capitalism. Maybe I feel this especially as a sex worker, when you’re selling a sense of love or romance for work, the romance “off work” can feel like a space of reclaiming. Yet the new poems are coming so easily, I don’t know if I can trust them. I haven’t gone back to check, but I think there’s only one hyacinth in Porn Carnival. And no one gets bored to death by what existential crises overtake a body in the organic co-op of whatever town Bard College is in. It isn’t that type of book. You get lines such as “these girls were at the wrong orgy,” titles such as “In the Heart-Shaped Jacuzzi of my Soul.” Which isn’t to say it’s all so… rowdy. On god, she reminds me most of Octavio Paz. Still, it’s a book about sex work, mainly. Find many more details at friendship is a priceless gift. Make it specific. Instead of Love, for example, write about “the love between my parents.” Then try making it even more specific: “the love between my parents and the silent ways it shows itself when they are eating dinner together.” Try relating it to a certain person, place, event. Love, Death, Anger, Beauty — these concepts do not occur in a vacuum. They are not grown in test tubes. They are experienced by individual people, in particular situations. And our deepest understanding of these concepts is at the human level, through the ways they touch us personally and the people around us. Creating this human connection will give your poem a stronger emotional power for your reader. And it puts your idea in a form where you can observe it carefully and discover aspects of it that have never been described before.
Rachel Rabbit White is a practicing hedonist. Everything in the poet, sex worker, and activist’s apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is highly pleasurable to look at, use, and touch. There’s a giant white stuffed tiger; the lights are all pink and blue. In the center of the living room is a stripper pole and a neon sign that says “Blue of Noon,” a reference to Georges Bataille’s erotic novella. Not unlike Bataille, Rabbit White is a student of romance, true love, and sex. Rabbit White lies on her side next to me in a baby blue slip dress and a pair of white fishnet leggings. Everything in her apartment feels purposeful, like her keenly observant writing. Much of her poetry centers around love and its complexities. For Rabbit White, who has multiple partners, that means loving more than one person at a time. It also means loving your craft, and appreciating good films and excellent writing.
Jackets at the ready – there’s a chill running through the Catacombes. This 3,000km (1,864-mile) network of tunnels runs under much of the city, containing the bones of six million people, including many who perished during the Revolutionary Terror. In these damp, cramped corridors, you’ll find the bones of Marat, Robespierre and their cronies packed in with wall upon wall of fellow citizens.
Feeling a little disconnected from those around you? Try compassion meditation. Lovingkindess meditation (sometimes called Metta) is a compassion-based meditation that enhances brain areas associated with mental processing and empathy. It also increases your sense of social connectedness. Not a hugging person? You just might become one after trying metta!