8 great anti-hacks to fundamentally change your life

I love the way this article thinks.

It’s perspective. The kind of perspective that requires variety, and discursive thinking, and morning runs during sunrise. The kind of perspective that requires new experiences, reflection, and carefree conversations with friends….

…There are no perspective hacks. None. You just have to suck it up, live a little, and wallow in the mud of life. You have to get your hands dirty with this beautiful business of living. You have to question, meditate, and fail often. You simply have to make space for perspective and hope that it will come eventually. You have to spend time in a manner that would seem self-indulgent to most.

In my view, perspective is the king of all anti-hacks

“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.” - Howard Thurman

I just rewatched The Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind again, and I still love it. It’s such a pretty film and so so good. It asks the question; is it better to have loved, or to have never loved at all?

Many people wish they could erase the memories of past failed relationships, thinking that the pain, hurt, anger and so forth can be removed with it. But really, is it better?

I guess it’s hard to admit that relationships have to have the good and bad times, if you delve past the raw moments near the end. The mess, the tears, the hurt, the pain, the complications and the stale sensations - when you reach those precious moments from the beginning. The chase, the tiny small memories where you were laughing and smiling and felt on top of the world. Are those memories really worth the sacrifice to save yourself a little heartache?

And some people let their past haunt them, and stop them from ever moving on into a relationship thinking it will go the same way, that through means of your personality alone it is already destined to fail from the start - what can be different this time round that will make it last compared to the last time round? But if you never try, then you will never know? Is the risk of trying worth the possibility of something amazing?

Though I want to know, if two people were in a relationship and it went wrong, and then their memories were both erased of the whole thing - would they naturally still be drawn to each other again anyway? Do people become drawn together no matter what? Or is it all circumstantial? That everything has to be just right for people to be drawn and attracted to one another?

Maybe it’s a mixture of both, as in circumstances have to allow two people to get together, yet at the same time it would be nice (and very romanticist of me) to think that certain people will always been drawn towards one another eventually.

PS. My favourite photo I’ve seen today, it’s amazing…

Reptile by NIN is such an awesome track.

So today was good, I ended up being awoken early by text messages galore. But I guess that wasn’t so bad because I decided to head to the beach on a random whim. Because there was not a single cloud in the sky and hey, maybe some sea air would sort out my illness?

(more…)

Good things

• I get paid tomorrow yay!
• The mansun track has grown on me somewhat
• I am now done work-wise for the week, cool
• I feel like baking lots
• Only 7 days ^_^
• I think today went okay, but I don’t want to jinx myself. I’m kinda not sure…

Bad things

• The cold is awful, my appetite is fucked, been coughing, blowing my nose and bunged up all day. Also randomly overheating since I’m probably running a temperature. Quite worn out and shite.
• I can’t actually taste anything. For my lunch I had salad, quiche and new potatoes - and I couldn’t taste sod all. So much in fact I get some mustard and eat it with my potatoes just so I had some sort of flavour. (Must note that I actually dislike mustard, apart from a tiny bit on a hotdog or burger with some ketchup)
• I also have no sense of smell (obvious fact because I’ve already mentioned the taste thing)
• On my way to town this morning I couldn’t BELIEVE it that on a roundabout that never had any problems was fucked up cause they were doing some sort of road works and there was TRAFFIC LIGHTS?! Though it stressed me out I was alright for time
• I stuck a nice big paper cut on my finger at work :(
• I get paid but my pay is CRAP, less hours and all yes, but it’s just not enough for my current debt demands. Sigh.
• I got a long wait till I find out if I did okay :/

I feel like watching a film again, I rewatched about three quarters of Velvet Goldmine last night and I still love it, I must-must buy the soundtrack sometime.

My brain has also been ticking a bit over some stuff I read in the Derren Brown book. It’s fascinating to understand how the psychology of pulling off a magic trick and all these subconscious quirks of the mind and the body. I love how things work and go together. Though it has made me wonder if everything extraordinary can be explained with a logic, then is there anything left that can’t be explained? That is just so other worldly that no sense of logic can comprehend it. I like this idea, I don’t mean God or religion as such. I just mean like mother nature, and karma, and harmony and balance. How everything links and works together.

*sniffle sniffle*

*sneeze*

The sky looks pretty today.

You’re out there somewhere.

4am, I just woke up at 4AM.

In the olden days this would be the time I would go to bed.

I can’t believe it still, I mean it’s darker outside now than it was when I crawl into bed at 10pm…

Le sigh, people are filled with sadness lately. Whereas it’s usually me that feels sad all the time, but lately I’ve been feeling a bit more optimistic. A little carefree. This reminds me of the last few time I’d see Amy, and she told me how I was glowing, and how I seem I don’t know…a lot more happier with things. It was weird to hear her say that because I had felt like shit for such a long time, that I had felt hopeless and that I lived in fear that I was doomed to never do all the things I wanted to do. That I was a burden to my family. That compared to my friends, who had all moved on and had remotely established some form of life moving on from being at uni, I was still winging it on per hour paid jobs, never really having any hope for a career nor having any hope of travelling either.

And I kept thinking this is over, this was my be all and end all of my entire life, living like this. But it’s not over, it’s not over until I say it’s over. Because I know I’ll get there eventually, I’m just a bit slow off the mark as my past shows.

I wish my friends could feel happy. It makes me sad when there aren’t magic words or gestures I can do that would help make things better.

I wonder if you are naturally an unhappy and pessimistic person, can you really be the same person if you’re no longer miserable?

Right time to serve some crazy stupid people who have decided to queue outside a store for it to open at 5am. Wish me luck.

Stranded here on planet earth
It’s not much but it could be worse
Everything’s free here, there’s no crowds

Winter lasted five long years
No sun will come again I fear
Chemical harvest was sown

And I will wait for you
Until the sky is blue
And I will wait for you
What else can I do?

A spaceship from another star
They ask me where all the people are
What can I tell them?

I tell them I’m the only one
There was a war but I must have won
Please take me with you.

- Porcupine Tree

This song is beautiful, it’s always been beautiful to me since I first heard it…it makes me think of how much humanity is pretty much doomed, we are just one big tragedy waiting to happen…And that really every person’s life is just a number of accidents that occur and fit together in some unusual but magical way.

Isn’t it strange, the idea that we mould everyone else’s destiny’s around us, as much as they are carving your own, despite the fact we are under the illusion that we have the ultimate control of it all. But no, maybe we’re not driven by a fixed fate or destiny, but really if you think about it, our paths are actually alive themselves, ever growing, changing; our paths have their own evolution. I can’t imagine how you could travel into the future as such, the past yes, but the future…surely if you arrived the entire reality would be constantly shifting and changing at such a rate the whole thing would be just a big blur as the past changes based on some person changing their mind, then changing it back. Then again if you actually went to the future, then it would have already happened, but as if you weren’t in it, so if you went back and lived to expect the same then maybe the future would never be the same as the one you visited because you are now in it, so your presence would have the knock on effect of reality, and therefore slightly twist the future.

Anyhow, regardless, I am beginning to see that nothing ultimately matters, but the affect of your existence does. Without knowing it, one small action or decision you make today or tomorrow could be destroying someone’s life, or is in fact making them the happiest person in the world. There’s something really magical and scary about that thought. However, we live in a selfish world, and no one really remembers this, or thinks of others, they just think of themselves. Everyone is guilty of this in some way, even myself. And that is why I think we are doomed.

But fuck it, the world is a horrible place, but there are just too many beautiful things in it to make you really hate it.