Taken from a short and sweet book of insights about life, love and loss by Mary McEvoy…
As life goes on, the clothesline diminishes again, families part, spouses leave or die. The clothesline now displays a gender specific wardrobe of perhaps an adventurous widow, or an ordered man on his own in neat contentment. I don’t find this sad because it just means life goes on and has many phases, and each phase has its meaning and purpose. It must be lived and so many people live it so well.
But what strikes me most about the clothes on the line is their fragility. They are like us who wear them, ordinary, lovely, mundane and heroic, blown and buffeted, animated by that which we cannot see.
Ordinary Beauty: Meaningful Moments in Everyday Life by Mary McEvoy
What your home says about you Copyright Content Catnip 2018
Read more: Ordinary Beauty: Meaningful Moments in Everyday Life by Mary McEvoy
An enchanting book filled with rich and nourishing insights and micro stories that speaks in a universal and relatable way about how we can appreciate everyday beauty of the world. McEvoy talks about the various different small miracles that occur to give hope, light and comfort in an ever-increasingly fraught and fractured world. This book came along at the right time for me and I devoured it. This is a perfect night time reference book for when you are too tired to pick up a novel or some non-fiction that requires brain power.
This week we learn how to love ourselves for being neurodiverse, we visit a cosy Tasmanian cottage, chomp down on a calming train ticket, enjoy a cute Polish claymation and hear some medieval Japanese tidbits of wisdom. Jump on cowboys and cowgirls we’re riding side-saddle through your imagination.
Learning and seeing the world differently comes with unique strengths
Much is said about being neurodiverse and ‘different’ in this world for a variety of reasons, and a lot of pathologising goes on. Yet – here’s an infographic which highlights the unique strengths of being a little different. Found via Twitter
Never Too Small: Tasmanian cottage
I’ve always loved cosy, small cottages that are well designed, private and yet have a feeling of openness to nature and the outdoors. This old Tasmanian cottage was transformed by an architect into a modern, warm and cosy home and I am practically drooling by the zen-like simplicity, elegance and cosiness of this place. This is one of my favourite channels on YouTube.
Before you get excited and book a holiday in Berlin, it’s not the THC part of the plant which will make you high. Instead it’s a few drops of hemp oil, which is known to have a calming effect and to promote wellbeing. Still I would rather this than a plastic swipe card and it sounds like ‘just the ticket’ to ease commuter anxiety. Yeah I had to say that…sorry. Via The Happy Broadcast and Deutsch Welle.
Streets of Kyoto by The Kyoto Connection
Disappear into a serene world of anime and soothing vibes with this lovely ambient song.
Do you fancy staring at a scrolling and endlessly moving fantastical feast which includes post-apocalyptic cities and dinosaurs. You don’t need to look any further…
The Zoomquilt was created a long time ago (in terms of the internet) in 2004. The project was started by Nikolaus Baumgarten and emerged from a scene of people creating collaborative artworks over the internet in the early 2000’s – the digital art group iCE.
Atacama, Chile is the mysterious land of geoglyphs or gigantic ancient land paintings. We are still not 100% sure of what they mean but we can take a guess. Could they be symbols and landing strips for aliens to beam down and pick us up when the world becomes unliveable? Found via Interesting as Fuck on Reddit.
Miś Uszatek: “Nowy Kolega”
Who doesn’t enjoy vintage stop motion animations with cute Polish animals and dramatic storylines? They’re speaking slowly and clearly enough for me to understand as well hehe
A photographer took a photo before and after she told these people they are beautiful
Their faces light up like lanterns, tell someone they are beautiful today.
Stunning surreal kings and queens by Polish artist Tomek Setowski
Tomek Setowski was born in Czestochowa in Kracow, Poland. As a child he was extraordinary sensitive, creating his first painting when he was only three years old.
He studied the history of art at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Czestochowa Pedagogical University and has exhibited in the best Polish galleries, France, Germany and New York.
In 2000, he opened his The Museum of Imagination in his home town. He wanted to create an ivory tower to escape daily life. The place holds many treasures and secrets is a funfair of art, surprising people with the myriad of amazing objects.
His paintings are in a number of important private and museum collections, including the Muzeum Morskie in Gdansk. He has held over 60 individual exhibitions including at the Burij Al Arab, Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation and Emirate Towers.
Yoshida Kenkō (1283 – 1350) was a Japanese Buddhist monk and poet, best known for his posthumously published collection of short statements and essays known as Essays in Idleness or The Harvest of Leisure that demonstrate the essence of the Way in Buddhism.
“Wisdom lies in understanding your own limits, and swiftly relinquishing what lies beyond reach. “
“It harms a man more to wound his heart than to hurt his body.”
“Even people who seem eminently intelligent will judge others yet have no knowledge of themselves. It makes no sense to lack self-knowledge while understanding those around you. He who knows himself must be said to be the man of real knowledge”
What if negative ideas around human nature are actually a form of pluralistic ignorance? Could our fear that most people are out to maximise their own gain be borne of the assumption that that’s what other’s think? And then we adopt a more cynical view, when, deep down most of us are yearning for a life of more kindness and solidarity?
Like hatred, trust can also be contagious. Trust often begins when someone dares to go against the flow. Someone who is initially seen as unrealistic and naive.
A hopeful history of humanity? During the time of COVID, climate change and mass animal extinction? However, there was a kernel of hope within me that really wanted for this concept to be true. This book delivers exactly what it says on the cover, it painstakingly uncovers the potential that humans have for creating love and beauty, instead of war and destruction. It’s superb and I recommend it wholeheartedly!
It turns out we like things when we have the opportunity to pine for them in anticipation and also to think about them fondly as a memory. ‘Liking’ something happens on a continuum of past, present and future according to the fascinating book about tastes, You May Also Like by Tom Vanderbilt.
Even as you are looking forward to something, you are looking backward at the memory of the last time you enjoyed it. As Pascal once lamented, The present is never our end. The past and the future seem to dominate our thoughts. Perhaps it is the simple fact that the past and the future last longer than the present. We try and ‘live for the moment’, but how long is that moment before it’s already a memory. That so many people photograph their memorable meals speaks not only to how fleeting the experience may be, but to how photographing it helps to actually make it memorable
You May Also Like by Tom Vanderbilt
Read the review: You May Also Like by Tom Vanderbilt
Ever wondered why you like some things and dislike others? The answers may surprise you. ‘You May Also Like’ is a bubbly, effervescent, fun, erudite and informative book that I managed to breeze through in only one evening. It was so incredible that I bookmarked almost every second or third page. It’s just one of those books. Each page gives you an AHA moment of recognition (as Oprah would say). It turns out that our unique pastimes, preferences and peccadilloes are not as specific to you as an individual as you may have thought!
Are you yearning to know what your grandpa’s eau de toilette smelled like? Perhaps you want to see a deer from Star Wars, different coloured carrots, rotund cats…whatever you’re after, you can find it in edition #81 of interesting things…
They are called Xiongmoa which means ‘bear that looks like a cat’ in Chinese. The giant panda was once close to extinction but populations have bounced back in 2020 due to reforestation and conservation campaigns.
According to Reddit’s comments, the orange ones still win out over other varieties in terms of sweetness and flavour. Still – I would love to try the other colours to experience what they taste like. Via Reddit
The Saiga Antelope looks like an animal straight out of Star Wars! They are a critically endangered species of ungulate that live across a vast area of the Eurasian Steppe spanning from the Carpathian mountains to Mongolia. During the Pleistocene they used to live in the Americas (via the land bridge at this time in the Bering Strait) along with the UK (via the Doggerland land bridge). Demand for the Saiga Antelope’s horn for Chinese Medicine has pushed them to the brink of extinction. Although recent efforts in 2021 by the Kazakhstan government to crackdown on poaching have seen their numbers rise from 334,000 to 842,000. I am so happy to see these guys coming back!
I propose that mankind shares a common reality, just beyond the range of normal sight. The images are emotions, those which are unseen but felt… unheard but known. There are moments when we have acute awareness of existence… like the feeling of exultation when one stands on the edge of a mountain, or the top of a crescent moon. Each man’s physical adventure is unique, but the abstract language of feelings, and our realization of existence is our shared experience. My paintings are part of my personal adventure. Memory simplifies the setting. I no longer see the mountains edge, but I do see the feelings it stirred.
Art is a tradition that helps define who we are and brings us a vision of who we can become. My painting is my expression and request for a more beautiful, peaceful and harmonious world.
I hope you enjoyed this brief foray into a magical wonderland, where dogs smile up at you as you walk by and there is no war. Please feel free to leave a comment below if you liked it…
Humans instinctively understand the organic imperfections of the human face, however we experience a ‘visual shock’ when we see severe disfigurement. Taken from the fascinating book ‘You May Also Like’ by Tom Vanderbilt.
There is one brain response that never falters – severe disfigurement. And so Bacon’s ‘Visual Shock’ as he calls it seems to tap into this innate response. The visual shock may be something acutely felt, much in the same way as when looking at disfigured images of another sort – perfectly symmetrical faces. Human faces naturally have a kind of asymmetry. All beauty hath some strangeness in its proportion’ said Francis Bacon. When you look at computer generated portraits of perfectly symmetrical faces you can feel a tickle in the brain.
You May Also Like by Tom Vanderbilt
Read the review: You May Also Like by Tom Vanderbilt
Ever wondered why you like some things and dislike others? The answers may surprise you. ‘You May Also Like’ is a bubbly, effervescent, fun, erudite and informative book that I managed to breeze through in only one evening. It was so incredible that I bookmarked almost every second or third page. It’s just one of those books. Each page gives you an AHA moment of recognition (as Oprah would say). It turns out that our unique pastimes, preferences and peccadilloes are not as specific to you as an individual as you may have thought!
Prepare to have your mind blown a few times in a delightful way by this book. It’s really refreshing to read something science-y that is not afraid to delve into the ‘Twilight Zone’ so to speak.
It’s difficult to put this book into the category of science and non-fiction as it’s so much more. Kripal delves into mystical questions about the nature of reality and consciousness and it could easily be thought of as a spiritual book too.
Kripal is a brave scientist in that he questions the scientific method of knowledge discovery itself. He categorically does not believe everything can be explained by science and materialist views of the world alone. Instead he argues that the the world is a profoundly strange place with a lot of unanswerable questions.
We are all in a way caught, immediately in a fundamental paradox that will never be resolved by studying more objects. I see no way around it. At some point we will have to ‘turn around’ and look back into the mirror itself. More radical still, we will have to become the mirror, mirroring us.
Dr Jeffrey Kripal, The Flip
Some things are just coincidences and others are far more significant
This is an argument for the paranormal and the fringes ( that are so often ridiculed) of mainstream science. Kripal brings together examples of well-known and respected scientists from history who explain their paranormal experiences.
“When we study or try and understand consciousness, what is essentially happening is that consciousness is attempting to become conscious of consciousness. The mirror is trying to mirror, become aware of itself” ~ Jeffrey Kripal. Credit: Mirrored sky landscapes by Japanese photographer Shota
One could write a very big book or even a small library of books, on all of the scientists, engineers and medical professionals who have either reported robust anomalous phenomena or found them to be of extraordinary scientific significance.
Jeffrey Kripal: The Flip
Kripal also argues that the humanities are as equally important to life as the sciences which is really something that made me happy. It’s something I always felt to be true in my heart that the humanities is simply the other side of the same coin as science.
Why is it that we in the modern West seem to know so much about the Cosmos but very little about consciousness? I think the answer is simple. The material cosmos is studied as a collection of observed objects “out there.” These objects in space are measured, and their behaviour can often be controlled and predicted with mathematical models. Not so with consciousness. When we study or try and understand consciousness, what is essentially happening is that consciousness is attempting to become conscious of consciousness. The mirror is trying to mirror, become aware of itself.
Significantly, the mirror is a classical trope of comparative mystical literature in both the West and Asia.
Jeffrey Kripal: The Flip
A 3D visualisation of all the space junk and satellites out there in the stratosphere
According to the fascinating book about preferences and tastes, ‘You May Also Like’ by Tom Vanderbilt, museums help us see the odd and remarkable in everyday objects. They also give us cues about the boundaries of art.
“The fact that art is not something we see everyday is what makes it extraordinary. This is why we head to museums. Not just to look at things that have been recognised as art, but to actually see them. Rituals as the anthropologist Mary Douglas observed are a kind of frame separating some experience from the everyday. A museum, like a painter’s frame calls attention to what is inside of it and sets the boundaries for where the art ends. We go inside to look at special things and to breathe in the ‘Empyrean air’. We go to look at them in special ways, freed from the normal concerns and limitations.”
Researchers found that the more paintings a museum housed, the less time patrons spent looking at any one of them.
Where paintings are hung can matter more than their inherent quality of attracting visitor attention. In one experiment in a Swiss museum, a painting was moved from the middle of a room to the corner and views went from 217 to 17.
People don’t like to read long wall text. The optimal is three ‘chunks’ of 50 words.
Read the review: You May Also Like by Tom Vanderbilt
Ever wondered why you like some things and dislike others? The answers may surprise you. ‘You May Also Like’ is a bubbly, effervescent, fun, erudite and informative book that I managed to breeze through in only one evening. It was so incredible that I bookmarked almost every second or third page. It’s just one of those books. Each page gives you an AHA moment of recognition (as Oprah would say). It turns out that our unique pastimes, preferences and peccadilloes are not as specific to you as an individual as you may have thought!
Did you know that if you contemplate the following items you may find your heart relieved of weight and stress. Or you may feel confused or intrigued…in any case you should not take while pregnant or with alcohol. Hope you enjoy…
According to research, being kind to strangers releases feel-good hormones in your brain which gives you a ‘helpers’ high’ and it also helps to make other people feel good too.
These tiny islands called Hallige are sometimes less than few 100 meters in diameter with only 15-20 people on each island. Only the houses are on elevated areas and if there’s heavy flooding then only the houses can be saved from the floods.
Streets in these places aren’t possible and so the rail lines with the self-made tiny trains are the only connection between the islands. You only need to be 15 years old to drive these tiny trains. The tiny trains running on dykes between the islands are the only connection to the other islands or the mainland. The little trains are used for everything: Transport, passenger transfers…and also for fun!
Blue icebergs develop from older, deep glaciers which have undergone tremendous pressure experienced for hundreds of years. The process releases and eliminates air that was originally caught in the ice by falling snow. Therefore, icebergs that have been formed from older glaciers have little internal air or reflective surfaces. When long wavelength light (i.e. red) from the sun hits the iceberg, it is absorbed, rather than reflected. The light transmitted or refracted through the ice returns as blue or blue-green.
I have been locked away in my prison for longer than I care to admit. Not because of some outside force keeping me in, but because I never cared to leave it in the first place.
The world and all who inhabit it have left me feeling nauseous, anxious, and riddled with fear. I had never even considered my loved ones worth fighting for, worth seeing, and I knew that it was killing me.
Little by little, slowly every day. My time here was running out. When I awoke this morning something hit me. This feeling… that this is my last day. I knew that I had to try and say goodbye before I vanished for good.
I owed them that much. I owed them an explanation as to why their love for me meant nothing. I was finally ready to face the judgement of living, but I never got the chance. I stepped outside into a world that had also given up.
The sky had lost it’s hue. The sun escaped. What little love was left in this world had vanished, and the only thing that filled my lungs was dread. I couldn’t help but breath it all in.
A force that was threatening our very existence loomed on the horizon. A force that I was familiar with. I knew all to well what this energy was, and what little I could do to stop it. It seemed that the world now felt what I felt, and any dream of finding peace was no longer an option. I betrayed my life and in turn all life betrayed me.
I know that it’s too late for me to change the course of my existence, but if you’re reading this it’s not too late for you. Don’t let this energy consume us all, don’t let us vanish into darkness.
If your chest feels heavy be sure to open your heart, or else you’ll end up like me.
New research: Time doesn’t exist…we make our own time!
Experiencing time is one of the weird parts of our lives. Often, there’s just not enough of it. Other days, there’s way too much time on our hands. And no matter what, it keeps going forward, like an inexorable tugboat, pulling us through emotional experiences and physical transformations. We are left with memories of what has been, unable to change anything, unable to jump forward and see what’ll happen next.
Yet, such a common experience of time may not be what it appears to be. A new paper published in the October issue of the Annalen der Physik, known for publishing Albert Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity, argues that time is not some force outside of us, but rather a phenomenon created by the observer. Basically, you make your own time.
Listening to this makes me feel energised and like I can take on the world…
Learn how to swear in Mandarin
This woman embodies how I feel about Russia and Ukraine war and also many other things. I wish I could tell people to fuck off with this much passion all the time. I’ll let her do it for me!
One leading theory by Daniel Berlyne is that our liking of things such as music follows an inverted U shaped graph, based on the factor of complexity. We prefer and like things less the more simple or complex they are. The sweet spot for most people is somewhere in the middle.
You May Also Like by Tom Vanderbilt
One electronic music channel to rule to them all
Read the review: You May Also Like by Tom Vanderbilt
Ever wondered why you like some things and dislike others? The answers may surprise you. ‘You May Also Like’ is a bubbly, effervescent, fun, erudite and informative book that I managed to breeze through in only one evening. It was so incredible that I bookmarked almost every second or third page. It’s just one of those books. Each page gives you an AHA moment of recognition (as Oprah would say). It turns out that our unique pastimes, preferences and peccadilloes are not as specific to you as an individual as you may have thought!
Content Catnip 
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