Culture
“Accounting for What Matters” by Wendy Priesnitz:
“Aside from allowing academic and personal freedom, life learning is about living more mindfully – acting altruistically (instead of earning gold stars or the approval of authority figures), respecting individuals for who they are rather than how much money they make or how many degrees they have, overturning discrimination, working cooperatively, and learning about and improving the world by living in and acting on it. The kids who are growing up in that way should be able to solve many problems.”
“The false and harmful rhetoric of family life vs. work life” by yours truly
Cute Overload on the U.S. elections
Craft
How-To: Linoleum Print Cards & Invites at Craft
“budgeting for your creative habit” at Scoutie Girl. I have to squint real hard on this one… For one thing, the “budget” and notes thing isn’t how I roll (It’s how Ralph rolls though, and it appears to work okay). Also, those mentioned “cash-eating demons” for some people I know are things like rent and utility bills. And maybe this is why I’ve started thinking a lot more about gifting and donating some of my work – I want to create opportunity for other people to feed their souls. I do, however, wholeheartedly agree wtih this: “When your expenditures don’t line up with your values, you get that icky I-ate-too-much-ice-cream feel in your stomach. And it’s hard to shake.”
calaveras, dia de los muertos – beautifully-done in polymer clay with hand-painted detail.
Viewing/Reading/Listening
New on Masterpiece Theatre – “Sherlock” (can watch online)
Good documentaries (links go to the titles on Netflix instant): Awful Normal, Man On Wire, and I Have Never Forgotten You
Cat Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook (but I will be getting my copy through Jackson Street Books)
“One Kiss Can Lead To Another” – a great mini-anthology!
Quotes
This one comes via Mamapoekie:
When we adults think of children, there is a simple truth which we ignore: childhood is not preparation for life; childhood is life. A child isn’t getting ready to live; a child is living. The child is constantly confronted with the nagging question, “What are you going to be?†Courageous would be the youngster who, looking the adult squarely in the face, would say, “I’m not going to be anything; I already am.†We adults would be shocked by such an insolent remark, for we have forgotten, if indeed we ever knew, that a child is an active participating and contributing member of society from the time he is born. Childhood isn’t a time when he is molded into a human who will then live life; he is a human who is living life. No child will miss the zest and joy of living unless these are denied him by adults who have convinced themselves that childhood is a period of preparation. How much heartache we would save ourselves if we would recognize the child as a partner with adults in the process of living, rather than always viewing him as an apprentice. How much we would teach each other… adults with the experience and children with the freshness. How full both our lives could be. A little child may not lead us, but at least we ought to discuss the trip with him, for after all, life is his and her journey too. – Professor T. Ripaldi
I love to slowly make my way through your links as the week goes by, such a treat.
Just had to say that I thought for a moment that the cat book was a vintage book I used to have on the same topic, complete with directions for performing surgeries both minor (draining aural hematomas) and major (spays!).
Mamapoekie’s quote at the bottom about childhood being life and not prep for life hit home. I’m still trying to figure out what I will do when I grow up, and I wonder whether some of this inability to move ahead is stuck in the inability to see myself as anything other than what I have been for the majority of my life — an unfinished project. Like I have to be all “done” in order to have “arrived”. Using a lot of common-culture terms as shorthand here, but I think you follow.
I wonder how many other adults get stuck in this way or how many of those who are “real adults” secretly feel as if they are “playing grownup”.
@Carrie
Wow, that book sounds incredible! Spaying is like $125 at our vet (there are free clinics but I tend to refer my even-more-strapped friends to those) and we have two cats who need it soon. But I don’t think I’m up for the task! Although I WOULD feel bad-ass if I could pull it off.
@christina
Not only that – in that our attitudes towards childhood as “preparatory” and malformed or stunted severely limits our power to self-actuate and to know one IS alive and worthwhile now – I also think it encourages us to always look for external validation of Goodness or Success. Hence the many people who have enough money to feed themselves and their families but are having their souls sucked out of their bodies – stuck in lifestyles and jobs they don’t want, or have more stuff than they want, or have over-identified with their “stuff”, and.or feel a vague since of restlessness, “trapped”, etc. I consider this endemic in American life.