dalaih

[dalaih]

"no matter who we are or where we live,

deep inside we all feel incomplete.

it's like we have lost something and need to get it back.

just what that something is,

most of us never find out.

and of those who do,

even fewer manage to go out and look for it"

-forty rules of love, Elif Shafak

[dalaih]

Jodi Picoult // Elif Shafak

[dalaih]

And empathy, yes empathy, is what makes us human

This is how we have come to have “intellectual” debates in the age of hyper-information, fast consumption and instant gratification. No time to listen. You must shout. No time to learn. You must preach. No time for humility. You must fly high on hubris... Because this is our world now: Empathy is weakness, ignorance is strength. Arrogance is cool, hostility is sexy. Disrespect is bold, rudeness is trendy. War is all the rage and so is rivalry... Unless, that is, we refuse to play the game and choose instead to break the chain. Unless we realise and remember that there was, and there still is, another way. Another way to communicate. Another way to connect. Another way to exist... Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Kindness is strength. Love is our universal language. Ignorance is not sexy. Arrogance is awfully boring. War is not peace and has never been. And empathy, yes empathy, is what makes us human.

— Elif Shafak, from "Empathy is Weakness, Ignorance is Strength, War is Peace" (elifshafak.Substack.com, January 12, 2025) (via Last Tambourine)

[dalaih]

Elif Shafak, “The Bastard of Istanbul.”

[dalaih]

One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it is left behind.

Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

[dalaih]

“Nothing in this world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.”

— The Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maugham (b. 25 January 1874)

[dalaih]

Ada Limón, “To Be Made Whole”, On Being with Krista Tippett

[dalaih]

[dalaih]

to love someone is firstly to confess: i'm prepared to be devastated by you.

[dalaih]

Matt Haig // How to Stop Time

[dalaih]

"Life is so fragile, a successful surgery, a black ice patch, a simple virus, any one of these could have been enough to end you. And what would be the point? What would be the point of being alive if you were dead? What would be the point of being alive if you were not living it?"

- Matt Haig, "How to Stop Time"

[dalaih]

The world is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn't very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more? How do you sell an anti-ageing moisturiser? You make someone worry about ageing. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind. To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own non upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business.

Matt Haig

[dalaih]

"I read and read and read with an intensity I’d never really known before. I mean, I’d always considered myself to be a person who liked books. But there is a difference between liking books and needing them. I needed books."

―Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

[dalaih]

“No one will understand you. It is not, ultimately, that important. What is important is that you understand you.”

— Matt Haig, The Humans

[dalaih]

23 march 2024

[dalaih]

“يعزّ عليّ حينَ أديرُ عيني أفتشُ في مكانكَ لا أراكا”

— بهاء الدين زهير المصدر: خلِّدها - مقولات عن الفقد

[dalaih]