š
Iāve generally recommended interior designer Beata Heuman, but her book is also excellent. A lovely excerpt that touched me:
There's a lot of joy in expressing one's individuality. It is freeing. It can be exhilarating. It can also be pretty irresistible when you see the unabashed, true character of another individual. It may be very different from yours, but it is all the more alluring for it.
Although we have all wished to be someone else at some point, we can't actually be anything but what we are. Having the confidence not only to accept that, but celebrate it through self-expression, in all its strangeness and randomness, is to me the zest of life.
Related Recs
š
I read and stared at every page of this book in the first few days I lived in the new little home-behind-my-studio, a very emotionally intense time. I had been a long time fan of the interdisciplinary design studio, BlessĀ ā wore their clothes, coveted their objects ā Ā withoutĀ reallyĀ understanding the scope of what they do. I think this happens with all of us artists who donāt fit cleanly into a category ā Ā itās a lot to expect people to understand every nuance of your intentions. But a book can do it; I really got it. The book set the tone for how I was living and thinking in this new space and this new chapter of my life ā which I am thinking might be the whole second half until the end.
Apr 30, 2024
šŖ³
Yes I realize this is far more than one book, but I read all of these stories in very close succession & I believe they shaped me into the guy I am today. These are all very sensitive-young-man-core, but what can I say? I was a sensitive young man.
I have a very complicated relationship with Mother & Father. When I was first introduced to Kafka, it was like meeting my soulmate. I donāt have it in me to go into much detail at this moment, but being condemned to death by drowning for failing an aging father who can sense a deeply felt resentment; waking up one day to find youāve turned into a disgusting bug after sacrificing so much for a family that cares so littleā these are ideas that deeply rattled & resonated with me personally at the age that I read them. I resolved to try to live differently.
Death of Ivan Ilych was simply further exhortation for me to not live my life according to convention, to pursue wealth, status, family life for their own sakes. I think every single one of us has it in us to become an Ivan Ilych without even realizing. I was totally rapt & manic upon finishing this one I still am today, to some degree.
Portrait of the Artist really spoke to me as well. When Stephen looks at his father & realizes heās a fool, and that he wants to be nothing like him. The moment when he sees the girl in the water & he becomes so horny he decides to dedicate his life to the pursuit of beauty, to aesthetics, to being an artist. The entire ending segment written as first person journal entries filled me with a lot of hope.
Emerson is the man. Great way to shock the materialist reductionist, the comformist, the busybody, & the consistent, conventional company man out of your system. Probably made me a more annoying person when alls said & done. Oh well.
May 12, 2024
āŖļø
Cute & pithy subversion of āwherever you go, there you areā, the mantra that basically ruled my life for three years. Gave me recognition of agency that I sorely needed when surrendering myself to my circumstances and making peace with everything just wasnāt cutting it.
Happens to be the title of a short essay from All Things Are Too Small by Becca Rothfeld, an essay collection that turned me upside down, held me by the ankle, and shook me until a whole bunch of unquestioned Goods fell right out of my worldview, including (the subject of this essay!!) western meditation and the self control in pursuit of indifference that is its ultimate stated aim.
This essay in particular I think goes on for a little too long but hey!! Excess and indulgence in all things sex and love and thought and beauty and worldly items - each are handled completely separately and thoughtfully and wittily and I canāt blame her for making the words and passages themselves as lush and voluminous as their subjects reportedly ought to be. If you read it (I hope you do!!!) itāll change the way and depth in which you think about Something and it wonāt even be the thing you expect
Aug 8, 2024
Top Recs from @leen
This is a spiritual experience for me
Jan 27, 2024
Iāve tested this rec over many lovely months and feel very confident making it. :)
Feb 14, 2025
ā£ļø
Itās the sixth love language
May 15, 2024