Natalie Portman for V Magazine

She is just superior.

via// justjared

Life-size.

jonna pohjalainen




via// youmightfindyourself

...

"Does she know you love her?" "Of course." I paused. The obstacle seemed unreal to me. "If you love her," I said, "you'll love somebody else someday." - Plath

Practice makes perfect... 10,000 hours of practice to be exact.

If you want to get better at something–say writing or playing tennis–there are a ton of ways to build your skills:

You can take a class. Wake up every morning at 6am and meditate. Read books. Interview experts. Get an entry-level job in the field. Be a genius.

Yet, no matter what asymptotic magic tricks you stumble upon, there’s no substitute for good, old-fashioned practice makes perfect. True experts–the real-deal human beings who shake things up in the world–are not simply shrewd managers of super-advanced strategies for success. And though it certainly helps, they aren’t always gifted with lucky breaks early on, either. And they’re rarely geniuses. More than anything else, experts are hard-working people who practice a lot.

I love this bit from Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers. (Get the book, by the way. You’ll read it in two days.):

The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimal level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.

The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert–in anything,” writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin.

“In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again…No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery…...This is true even of people we think of as prodigies."

I frequently hear folks talk about people they view as successful with a sense of awe and disbelief. They say things like, “X is just…a genius” Or “I don’t understand how they do it…it’s just, like, effortless.” This language signals a sad, weird projection of our deepest and worst fears: that success only comes to the naturally gifted, lucky few. We then convince ourselves to tap out.

There is a kernel, but only a kernel, of truth in this fear: Gifted folks have an easier time, and therefore experience more rewards, to begin with. In instances where early, more frequent rewards motivate people to practice, the cycle of greatness is self-perpetuating. But the idea that the majority of experts even fit into the “gifted and talented” category is preposterous and damaging. I call shenanigans.

If you really want to go there, it’s possible for anyone to achieve get-famous mastery in 5 years, assuming you work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Or, if you’re like me and prefer a more moderate rendering of the lesson: Set up conditions so that you can practice often, and you’ll get where you want to be–no matter how late in the game you join.


//via Tiffany Jones (Second & Park)

Self Therapy (All roads lead back to you)

i started blogging at the end of my freshman year at USC, which was in 2000. i recorded my life on and off for about six years, took a break for about two, and then have since tried to get back on it. in the present day and time, i feel that i really should write more, consistently, and write more about me. its the best outlet, and i feel blessed that i had a want and need to blog way back at the start of it all because really, memory doesn't always serve you well when you need it to.

like how sometimes you forget who you are, where you came from, and most importantly what you're made of. i've found that life will inevitably be harsh and beating like that. not always, but at times. and the strength of your self-character can often be forgotten after just a few defeats. then you read something you wrote a while ago, and its the most God-honest reminder you can have that everything is in fact going to be okay. because back then you were going through it, like, really going through it, and in the here and now you can't even remember what "it" was.

here's an entry i wrote when i was 19. young and foolish and wise and troubled and strong and beautiful and free. i was all those things. i am all those things. i should know by now that even if i feel defeated at times, i do triumph. and note to self: try to remember that in the end, you always triumph.




"cuts for luck and scars for freedom"

at work my nail broke and i cut my hand in some mysterious way that i have yet to figure out. and like my hands now, micro-scarred with odd lines and shapes of dark spots, i myself am feeling a bit unpretty. what is it that's happening around me that i'm not seeing because i'm always tucked away at work? I JUST DON'T GET IT.

but you know what i haven't been realizing lately? that the worst pain, suffering, and sadness in the world brings about the most wisdom and priceless experience ever. and if you can survive those midnight hours where you're laying in bed looking out the window and analyzing things a million times too many, and still manage to get yourself out of bed each day and LIVE, then fuckin' a, you're gaining more wisdom by the second. this is what i forget to remember, that i've been engulfed in sadness before, and yet beyond that i've had some brilliant days. ride the wave, flow with the go... and you know that when you're caught out in deep water, the journey back to shore is a long, exhausting period in which at times you just would rather float in the water forever but the salty spray of the ocean keeps stinging your face, so you keep going and going and when you finally reach the shore it's all been just a bad dream. and reality is a good dream come true. well i'm just thinking random illogical thoughts that flow from my brain to my fingers in irratic waves.

a nice quote: "Justice? Justice is a delusion you wil not find on this or any other sphere. And wisdom? Wisdom is no part of dreams. Though dreams are a part of the sum of each life's experiences, it is the only wisdom that matters. But revelation? That is the province of dream."


"Subject: Being Twenty Something

They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like.

You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones.

What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job...and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't.

One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused.

Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.

One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself.....and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

Send this to your twenty-something friends...maybe it will help someone feel like they aren't alone in their state of confusion. You are not alone."



well? what are you waiting for? go send it! wait...you mean, you don't feel that way? wait, you mean, the sun is always shining on your side of the world? aren't you l-u-c-k-y.

well, i don't need luck, remember?
cuts for luck and scars for freedom.







(...who knew?)

Because you have to let go sooner or later.

"Truthfulness always brings salvation even if it causes one‘s death, for man tastes death through truthfulness only once, whereas in each and every lie is a different kind of death. "

(I quote this to bring light to not only the importance of truthfulness to those you love, but also truthfulness to yourselves.)

Today I feel like I've woken up from some kind of walking coma, only to see that everything I saw before never truly existed. Never was real. Or maybe it once existed but for a brief and fleeting moment. You have to be careful with those brief and fleeting moments. You can build your whole life around them, pretending that they are forever, or were meant to be forever, but in fact are so temporal.

Truth. The truth is that the truth lasts forever. You can hide it from everyone but you can't hide it from yourself, and so it lives forever in you. In your conscience, in your life's history. The truth of the kind of person you are, the values you believe in, whom you really love, if you even know what love is, truth about the ones that love you back, of your actions and decisions that no one may ever know about, the lies you tell and the regrets you have, the people you have deceived and hurt, those whom have deceived and hurt you. All those innermost secrets that we rarely share or even want to acknowledge in ourselves and others, they exist and live in the truth. Truth always survives, and sometimes you want to push it down and keep it down where no one can see, where even you can't see, so you forget its there, so you can create your own "truth", but it always rises to the surface, persistent and unfazed, floating in the ether of your mind.

The truth can be your prisoner, or it can set you free. How do you choose to live....... how will I choose to live?

To get you through the hard times, to help you sift through it all.

"You'll be surprised to know how far you can go from the point where you thought it was the end."
"The biggest mistake of my life is that I said yes, when I had to say no."
"Love can only be what you want it to be."
"Wherever there is a grain of loyalty there is a glimpse of freedom." - Algernon Charles Swinburne
"Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life" - Napoleon Hill
"When rebuilding trust, don't ever break a promise that you've made. If you do, it shows that even on your best behavior, you cannot be trusted."


Will sleep on this.