Hi, I'm Vaidehi.

Meaningful advice at a time when I’m struggling to figure out how to fit everything that’s important to me into the 24 hours I have each day, and feeling lousy about my inability to do so in general. #1, #2, #4, #6 are particularly relevant. 

Also, in case I haven’t said it yet, my love for Merlin Mann’s brain literally knows no bounds. ^^;

grantimatter:

Rules of engagement. I think I may need to make these a wallpaper or transcribe them onto a Post-It or something.

Remind me about it tomorrow, OK?

[via girldefective: iateabee]

Excerpt from Jeanette Winterson: Sexing the Cherry. pp. 121 - 123. 

She wrote this in 1989, but Jeanette Winterson was way ahead of her time. Love this passage from Sexing the Cherry, an altogether wonderful, amazing book.

still upside down:

Having actively started to think about the possibility of doing my own thing one day, and what I could do by myself to make a living, I think I’m going to incorporate this very important criterion into my plans - pajamas mandatory. :D BOO corporate slavedom. 

animalstalkinginallcaps:

GOOD MORNING. I HOPE YOU’RE NOT ALARMED BUT MY LOVE FOR YOU HAS BEGUN TO MANIFEST AS A SMALL CLOUD OF SLIGHTLY DIFFUSED LIGHTS THAT HOVER IN THE AIR ABOUT MY BODY. IT APPEARS THEY WILL DANCE WHEN YOU OPEN A TIN OF WHISKAS.

… WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE MY LOVE LIGHTS DANCE?

Last one, stopping now. ^^;

animalstalkinginallcaps:

HEY.

HEY DRUNKY.

HEY, DRUNKY, SERIOUSLY. YOU CAN’T SLEEP HERE.

SERIOUSLY, THAT’S MY TOILET BUSH AND I REALLY HAVE TO GO.

Adorable! :) This whole blog is a ray of sunshine in a day of internetting that otherwise made me want to stab things indiscriminately and vigorously.

Made more wallpapers. :) 

More resolutions (2560x1440, 1366x768, 1280x1024) available on my flickarr. 

Texture credit: yunyunsarang on deviantart.

Quote inspired by this tweet from thingsweforget. 

The No. 1 Creative Habit

In a word: solitude.

Creativity flourishes in solitude. With quietness, you can hear your thoughts, you can reach deep within yourself, and you can focus. Of course, there are lots of ways to find this solitude.

Felicia Day—actress (…)
Day says makes “sure to be creative first thing in the morning, before doing anything for the outside world, really sets the day up for me. It makes it feel that creating is my job, not answering emails.”

I’m not a morning person person by any stretch of the imagination, but I like what she says about being creative first thing in the morning. Its kind of like stocking up on happy vibes before heading off to a job that may not be exactly what you want it to be. And when you step into work each day, you’d have that knowledge that there is something out there that’s entirely your own, that you made and have complete control over.

And in a world where more and more things are out of the control of the individual, that knowledge is so important and precious.

Facebook status update by Alfian Sa’at

And yet, things seem more hopeless and bleak than ever.

Made a wallpaper a while ago, just thought I’d plonk it up here. It’s at only one resolution right now, but feel free to lemme know if you want it in other sizes. :) 

Daily Haiku on Love by Tyler Knott Gregson (via tylerknott)

What a beautiful haiku. :) Reminds me of the ocean.

tommyxvx:

notnaturallyevil:

Walmart, Target, Hanes, Macy’s Linked to Jordan “RapeFactory”

DO NOT SUPPORT THESE COMPANIES

Read Article

If you haven’t seen the recent reports.

Ugh, stomach-turning stuff. This is how our clothes and other products remain so cheap. What’s a “steal” for us is actually stealing a whole lot more from other, less empowered groups of people. Capitalism is just a fucked up, exploitative system that not only breeds, but also rewards scumbags like this. And all we can do is “stop buying clothes from these companies” to do our bit to help the situation, rather than smash the managers’ fondling, groping fingers to a bloody pulp with a rusty hammer; and those of the government officials who turn a blind eye to this, too. If you have the stomach for it, some interview transcripts are available in this report. 

I watched a documentary over the weekend that’s so simple in its premise, but so mind-boggling and humbling in terms how amazing a message it is. It’s a curated film consisting of footage shot by people all over the world on 24 July, 2010. Some of the footage is so familiar, some of it feels like it’s from another universe. And yet, every single frame is magical in its ability to capture the quintessentially human nature of all our lives, good or bad. 

It’s very intense to see such a broad range of experiences packed into such a short film. Everything from childbirth to cow slaughter to a mass stampede, everywhere from war zones in Afghanistan to suburban American homes to untarnished natural landscapes in central Asia. 

I think what this film shows us is something we all know on a subliminal level, but forget, when we jump to conclusions, judge others and believe that our needs and wants are more important than anything else. It shows us that there are so many lives being lived in so many places - our own everyday geographies are just such a small, small piece of such a great big puzzle. Our lived realities are so complex, and so ephemeral that we can barely hope to learn who we are in a lifetime, let alone presume to have others (and what they should and shouldn’t do) all figured out. And chances are, whatever we’re going through, there’s someone else that’s going through something similar who we can reach out to, or there’s someone else going through something much worse, reminding us to appreciate what we have. 

I don’t know how this film does it - it reminds us that the world is an intensely beautiful and magical place, and yet shows us the ugliest possible side of the human race; it makes us feel like the world is so big and vast, full of so many things to learn and explore, and yet it shows us that some things, like love, inspiration, motivation, sorrow, pain, hunger, despair, hope, and fury are common to us all, no matter who or where we are. It makes it feel an inexplicable sense of kinship with every loved one, every stranger, and every non-human living being on this planet, and yet it makes us feel so hopelessly, acutely small and alone. 

The entire film is available for free on YouTube, legally too! 

The Night Rained by xcode on Flickr.

I went for a walk in the downpour tonight - it was wonderful. I’d been feeling bogged down by a lot of negativity and angst and stress this week, and standing in the street with my face turned up to the rain made everything better, washed everything away ,somehow, at least for a bit.

(photo isn’t mine, it’s from Flickr Creative Commons)

A personal appeal from Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris

I think this is so wonderfully phrased. Gonna donate some money to Wikipedia when I get home - I wiki stuff at least 3-5 times every day, it’s the least I can do. Also, go him for focusing on the why!

I started out making this post in the quote category, and then realised I had pasted more than half the article into the quote field. This is a wonderful, heartfelt piece on losing ourselves to the daily grind, and having the courage to let go and walk away from that. It very nicely expresses how soul-killing losing yourself to work can be, and even though it’s terrifying, how reviving it can be to break away from that cycle.

I’m very grateful to be working for a cause that I believe in, but I think we all find ourselves feeling burnt-out, disillusioned and lost every now and then. This piece contains some uplifting words for when we do find ourselves in that space.

And because I can’t resist, here’s a short quote. But read the whole thing anyway.

What I’m coming to realize is that the places you don’t walk away from in this life won’t take the shape of office buildings or your first grown-up apartment in [Long Island City/Bushwick/Hoboken]. They won’t be fabricated of glass and concrete, and they won’t have a zip code attached. They’ll be those edgeless institutions unbeholden to geography: unconditional friendship, the safety of conversation, and the places that feel like home — genuinely, and not in some socially constructed way — even if they are 3,000 miles from where you were born and raised. They’ll be the places where your dreams have been alternately incubated, dashed, and brought to life again. The places that stay under your skin and under your fingernails. They’ll be the places that — even if you do stray for a while — will be right there where you left them, waiting for you when you’re ready to take your life back.

Well, pepper spray causes tissue inflammation, which means it can damage your eyes or swell your airways shut. There’s plenty of scientific evidence that pepper spray can cause respiratory failure, especially in people with conditions like asthma, and it’s been implicated in a number of deaths in police custody.

The dangers of pepper spray are well-established enough, says Blum, that any police department should know about them. Which means that if police really did force pepper spray directly down students’ throats (where the windpipe is, if you’re keeping track at home), they may — or should — have known they could end up killing someone.

Pepper spray is not messing around

If true, the part that disgusts me most is that they attacked students who were already curled up trying to defend themselves, and could have in no reasonable way be perceived as violent/a threat. The gesture just reeks of being drunk on power, and feeling invincible and unaccountable because of weapons and shields - it reeks of pure evil.