On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

I have been seeing videos of Juno this morning - esp from her first month. So full of life so full of wonder and then came across a write up on the author of above book.

I know it's hard. The world is on fire. Metaphorically, and figuratively. However, it has always been on fire. There has never been a single author that had the immense luxury of writing at a time of absolute peace.

And so, choosing this work, you are entering a lineage of despair. And it's up to you to turn the sentence into a medium from which we can understand each other and make something new out of this.

It's so much easier to market rage than care. Gentleness and openness are so squishy and squirmy! It reminds me of the cloying Pass It On ad campaign, whose aim is to "promote good values." This sort of shit makes me want to punch "good values" in the face, and with good reason. Everyone knows these ads are vacuous, ineffective shit. They only endure because billionaires have wild ideas about absolution. By contrast, you can tap into someone's insecurities with astonishing ease.  In his interview with the New York Times Magazine, Vuong points to the American obsession with dynamic stories of change, of heroes and anti-heroes, of happy endings and character evolution. But "American life is often very static," he says. "You drive the same car, people live in the same apartment, but it doesn't mean their lives are worthless." Most of our lives are that way, too. Apart from a few seismic events, we live our lives and live our lives and live our lives and keep living them, usually without the promise of glory or recognition. "I've been interested in this idea of kindness without hope"