Stumbling on Happiness (2007)

This is not a book on how to be happier. It is quite the opposite. Daniel Gilbert explained how people are not happy like they thought they would be.

Happiness is a product of actions which require calculated prediction. How can we predict? We imagine. We imagine if we choose plan A over plan B, how would our lives be. Then we choose to act according to our expected utility associated with consequences of both plans.

Imagination, however, contains three shortcomings. First is realism error. We fail to imagine every feature and consequence of a future event. We choose to act from too little our brain can be aware of. The second shortcomings is presentism. The imagination of the future is based on today's materials. But well.... What makes us happy today might not make us happy tomorrow. We are rolling stones with a tendency of thinking we are trees. The third shortcoming is rationalization. Imagination is a drama bitch. Bad things are not as bad. It is why people who experienced pains/tragic life events can much happier than who didn't. Resilience cures sadness.

All in all, what should we do to be happ(ier)? 1. Prefeeling is important. You feel right then you do it right. Stop imagining and expecting too much.

2. Seeking advice from everyone. Most people think we are unique. No, uniqueness is a mainstream diva (not real and never speak truly). Scrape off all the thinking that you are different, you are unique. Solutions are all around us and many tackle your difficulties. Copy them and you will do just fine

The Philosophy of Dress - Oscar Wilde (1885)

This is his article for The New York Tribune in 1885. What intrigued Wilde was Pre - Raphaelite art which depicted natural and classical subjects. "Good dress" should drape in robes of simplistic design. Here are some of his words of wisdom:

1. Fashion is merely a form of ugliness so absolutely unbearable that we have to alter it every six months!

2. The beauty of a dress depends entirely and absolutely on the loveliness it shields, and on the freedom and motion that it does not impede.

3. Beauty is always organic, and comes from within, and not from without, comes from the perfection of its own being and not from any added prettiness.

4. Fashion rests upon folly. Art rests upon law. Fashion is ephemeral. Art is eternal.

5. A fashionable dress there is far too much "shaping"; the very wealthy of course will not care, but it worth while to remind those who are not millionaire that the more seams the more shabbiness.

6. A well – made dress is a simple dress that hangs from the shoulders, that takes its shape from the figures and its folds from the movement of the girls who wears it, and what I mean by a badly made dress is an elaborate structure of heterogeneous material, etc.

7. That each separate article of apparel is to be suspended from the shoulders always, and never from the waist.

Kurt Cobain Journal (2003)

Kurt Cobain recording in Hilversum Studios in the Netherlands on Nov. 25, 1991.

Kurt is the man to remember. He is a genuine artist who conquered his fears and angers in the most self-destructive manner. The journal expressed his loathe toward the mainstream, journalism and politics and his unbearable love for Courtney Love, his daughter and music as a form of art.

1. When I’m really bored I … laydown and think for a while until I fall into a semi-hypnotic state of sub-consciousness, some call it day dreaming, some call it just fucking spacing out. But I feel like I’m not here and it doesn’t matter because I’m sick of putting myself in boring situation and conversation, just everyday basic sitcom happenings, some call it thinking but when in this particular state of mind I forgot to think and it becomes strictly observatory.

2. I don’t work on songs quite as intensely as in the past. You know why??? Television. Television is the most evil thing on our planet. Go right now to your TV and toss it out the window, or sell it and buy a better stereo.

3. My lyrics are a big pile of contradictions. They are split down the middle between very sincere opinions and feelings that I have and sarcastic and hopefully humorous rebuttals towards cliché bohemian ideas that have been exhausted for years. …. I like to be passionate and sincere, but I also like to have fun and act like a dork.

4. Words suck…Words aren’t as important as the energy derived from music, especially live…. Music is ENERGY. A mood, atmosphere. FEELING.

5. I use bits and pieces of others personalities to form my own.

6. I have met many minds able to store and translate a pregnantly large amount of information, yet they haven’t had an once of talent for wisdom or appreciation of passion.

7. I purposely keep myself naïve and away from earthly information because it’s the only way to avoid jaded attitude. Everything I do is internal subconscious because you can’t rationalize spirituality.

8. Rock is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing, and playing what you want. Nirvana means freedom from pain and suffering in the external world and that close to my definition of punk rock.

9. I like to have strong opinion with nothing to back them up with besides my primacy sincerity.