Thought.is

But the irony of it all is that we crave meaning from our art so much that we are willing to ascribe significance to beauty even when it is undeserved.

How does white privilege and “poverty tourism” factor into the decision to travel? Should we take traveling so lightly? How much power does travel really have?

It’s amazing to think that the man who gave us characters like Jay Gatsby, Rosemary Hoyt, and Amory Blaine had already begun to perfect his craft before his first period high school bell ever rang.

The password for entry into the elite class is no longer “monarchy,” it’s “meritocracy.” Put another way, success is based on your A-levels, not your surname.

Well, the trouble with this kind of passive activism (indeed, it seems oxymoronic) is that it won’t change anything.

A few years back, Stephen Hawking famously told the Guardian, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail… There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

What so few people seem to realize is that it’s not the story itself that matters. It’s the feelings that a truly unique story can conjure and how much their words and photos can stir your imagination.

By quoting someone you are also making a statement about yourself – you are aligning yourself with their values. Those who quote Hemingway are paradigmatically different from those who quote Fitzgerald. Those who quote Twain’s travel observations might think it crass to also quote Anthony Bourdain’s.