#the big idea

[justforbooks]

What’s the real key to a fulfilling life?

For centuries, we’ve pursued happiness and meaning. But what does that leave out?

What if I told you that we could all be rich? Not in dollars or pounds, yen or rupees, but a completely different type of currency. A currency measured in experiences, adventures, lessons learned and stories told. Social psychologists, have dedicated their research careers to a simple, but universal question: what makes for a good life, and how can we achieve it? For much of human history, we have been presented with two possibilities: pursuing a life of happiness, or a life of meaning. Each of these paths has its benefits and proponents, but decades of psychological research have also revealed their limits.

The current cultural conception of happiness, for example, can work against us finding fulfilment. Historically, happiness tended to be defined as the result of “good luck” and “fortune”. Today many expect it to come from individual effort and success. But this, in turn, makes unhappiness and negative emotions such as sadness or anger seem like personal failures.

Ask the Danes and Finns, who consistently rank among the happiest people in the world, what their secret is and they’ll tell you this: lower your expectations and be content with what you have. It is a recommendation backed by plenty of evidence. Paradoxically, happiness is easier to achieve if you don’t want too much of it. We assume that the big things in life will make us happy: a wedding, a promotion or a new car. They do, but not for long. Studies show that we adapt to our new conditions more quickly than you might think, something psychologists call the “hedonic treadmill”. Instead, it’s the daily walks with your dog, the weekly coffee with your best friend and the monthly romantic dinner with your partner that provide a more enduring happiness. It sounds good, doesn’t it? But it leaves something out. It’s a bit like being a college student who only takes easy courses to be sure of getting good grades. Might there be more to life than simple pleasures and cosy comfort?

Then there’s the meaningful life. We often imagine that meaning flows from trying to change the world, à la Steve Jobs, Greta Thunberg or Mother Theresa. The pressure to realise this kind of grand vision can be immensely taxing, and feels out of reach for most of us. Once again, the research shows that lowering your sights and focusing on the little things can offer a more achievable sense of meaning. Often people find it in routines like taking care of family, volunteering in the community or maintaining a religious practice.

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. But there is also a dark side to the pursuit of meaning: researchers have found that it can encourage people to draw sharp lines between those who belong in their group and those who don’t. The rituals and love that bind us to our chosen way of life can come at the expense of compassion for those unlike us. Rightwing authoritarians and members of terrorist organisations, for example, tend to report leading more meaningful lives.

None of this is to say that happy or meaningful lives cannot be a good ones. But both models fail to capture the breadth of human experience. What of curiosity, ambition and exploration? Or failure and resurgence? Thinking about what happiness and meaning leave out, and the traps they can set us, led psychologists to sketch out a third route to fulfilment: psychological richness. A psychologically rich life is one filled with diverse, unusual and interesting experiences that change your perspective; a life with twists and turns; a dramatic, eventful life instead of a simple and straightforward one; a life with multiplicity and complexity; a life with stops, detours and turning points; a life that feels like a long, winding hike rather than many laps of the same racing circuit. Such experiences can kickstart the psychological immune system, making us more resilient. Not only that, embracing the pursuit of psychological richness can make us less prone to regret: it matters less if the thing you did went wrong. You did it regardless, and chalked up another experience.

A life of psychological richness is also accessible to everyone, whatever their circumstances. In times of illness, bereavement or financial ruin, happiness or meaning can seem out of reach. A mindset focused on richness is able to incorporate these disasters into the tapestry of life, confident in the knowledge that things will change again soon.

In any case, a psychologically rich life can have meaning and happiness as its byproduct. Take Linda, a taxi driver from Riverside, California. Her life has been psychologically rich by any standards: she gave birth to two of her grandchildren as a surrogate for her daughter, whose medical condition made it dangerous to deliver a baby. She finds happiness in regular visits to her children and grandchildren and finds meaning in her previous career as a public servant and the donation of one of her kidneys to her ex-husband. In her retirement, she drives part-time because she enjoys conversations with her customers, and it funds her annual travel abroad.

In the end, perhaps no one said it better than Eleanor Roosevelt: “The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear”.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[chaptertwo-thepacnw]

the big idea |1917|

[littlehorrorshop]

How I react to minor inconveniences.

Harold Lloyd in The Big Idea (1917)

[danidoodels]

Ace being the family service dog is my roman empire

[prlssprfctn]

Dick is kind of a big brother who knows what effect he has on his siblings's friends, and he never misses an opportunity to make himself look even cooler in their eyes. But Jason? Oh, Jason has no idea that people even consider him pretty and interesting.

It pisses his siblings even more.

Jason, on his bike, with the most insane face card: Hey, Replacement, hop on. We have work to do.

Kon, twirling his hair: Is your brother, like... free?

Bernard: Yeah, on Friday

Tim, with his eye twitching: I will kill you.

Jason, absolutely unaware of what is going on: ??? WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO

***

Jon, waving enthusiastically at Jason, who passes by kitchen: Jason is so cool!

Damian: ...

Jon: And kind!

Damian: Calling Todd kind is definitely a choice.

Jon: But he read me a bedtime story the last time I was staying here 😕

Damian, frowning: ...

(Damian, later that day: Why did you read bedtime story to Jon and not me.)

***

Jason: Why Tim's and Damian's friends keep fucking glaring at me? Or stumble when I am around? What tf am I doing wrong?

Dick, trying to hide his laughter: Eh, no idea

Bruce, absentmindedly: I, actually, have the same problem when I am around other people

Alfred, amused: No DNA test required, that's for sure

[chez-cinnamon]

What if Pomni seeks out comfort from Kinger bc of the last episode?? Finale !!

It is DONE !!

Everyone is so fun to draw I cannot.......... /pos

[chiptrillino-art]

something stranger and more wonderful

(ID in ALT text)

my art for @faux-fires (ao3 Link) fic "something stranger and more wonderful"

beta red by @ranilla-bean (ao3 Link) for this years @zukkabigbang2024 event. its truly a beautiful fic. Keeping you on your toes while reading. making you worry about sokka exposed to the whims of nature and zuko, all alone.

big thank you to reikah and rana for all the handholding during this project! And stoping me form overthinking details.

[corviiids]

my top bit of advice going into the new year: compliment people. especially strangers. literally everyone you interact with if you can. when you buy coffee in the morning compliment the barista's tattoos. when you're chatting with a coworker tell them that by the way you like their outfit. always find something they've chosen to do on purpose. nail polish, jewellery, tattoos, hair colour/style, statement accessory, outfit, etc are all good bets. things people hope will be noticed. things that aren't too personal so it doesn't make them uncomfortable (eg probably not their physical features). i've gotten into the habit of scanning everyone i talk to for something about them that i think is cool so i can tell them. it's a great habit because it makes me notice people and realise just how many neat little details there are in people's presentation of themselves that might pass me by if i wasn't paying attention. and it brings out so much joy. you'd be surprised how much it disarms people to receive an unexpected compliment from someone they don't know. it is the most sincere smile you will see all day long. it feels nice to make people happy but it also means you win the social interaction. establish dominance by complimenting a stranger's earrings and disappearing into the fog

[elfgrove]

New Things to Beware on the Internet

On May 3rd, Google released 8 new top-level domains (TLDs) -- these are new values like .com, .org, .biz, domain names. These new TLDs were made available for public registration via any domain registrar on May 10th.

Usually, this should be a cool info, move on with your life and largely ignore it moment.

Except a couple of these new domain names are common file type extensions: ".zip" and ".mov".

This means typing out a file name could resolve into a link that takes you to one of these new URLs, whether it's in an email, on your tumblr blog post, a tweet, or in file explorer on your desktop.

What was previously plain text could now resolve as link and go to a malicious website where people are expecting to go to a file and therefore download malware without realizing it.

Folk monitoring these new domain registrations are already seeing some clearly malicious actors registering and setting this up. Some are squatting the domain names trying to point out what a bad idea this was. Some already trying to steal your login in credentials and personal info.

This is what we're seeing only 12 days into the domains being available. Only 5 days being publicly available.

What can you do? For now, be very careful where you type in .zip or .mov, watch what website URLs you're on, don't enable automatic downloads, be very careful when visiting any site on these new domains, and do not type in file names without spaces or other interrupters.

I'm seeing security officers for companies talking about wholesale blocking .zip and .mov domains from within the company's internet, and that's probably wise.

Be cautious out there.

[chloesimaginationthings]

The Aftons are a very normal FNAF couple

[soldrawss]

Something something 16yo 2k12 Mikey gets sucked into a portal and sent into the RISE universe and ends up helping raise the RISE kiddos AU

[faerie-fang]

naruto’s cats omg guys don’t stareee

[sweeneydino]

Whoops, wrong parent.

He sure did

[frownyalfred]

in the realm of like, rich kid problems, I want to someday read/write a fic where Nightwing is slowly establishing himself as a full-fledged JL member and everyone is relieved because finally, there's a nice Bat on the Watchtower who doesn't just shoot down their plans and deny their mission requests. but. while Nightwing is kind, and polite, and charming in all the ways the Bat isn't, he's still Dick Grayson. and Dick Grayson grew up as a very rich kid's suddenly very rich kid, which is to say while Bruce might not take it personally, Dick has been fending off people almost his entire life who were trying to use him for his Dad's money. which is to say, I think once Nightwing is on board and the relationship between him and Batman is at least somewhat well-known, there is suddenly a rush of younger, less-experienced members trying to take advantage of Nightwing, mistaking that kindness and openness for willingness to either voluntarily, or involuntarily, infringe upon and cross Batman's clear-cut boundaries. bribing Dick for a better monitor shift with Batman is one thing (it doesn't really work, Dick can't bribe Bruce with much as it is) but trying to convince Nightwing to lie to Batman? to go against him? his dad? the man who pulled him up when he had nothing and gave him meaning again? that man?? and then comes the inevitable, chilling realization, that while Nightwing might wear a different mask, might wear an open smile on the Watchtower and with friends off-shift, there are some lines he won't cross, same as Bruce. he won't, sure as the sun rises and the rot rolls off the Gotham Harbor in the morning.

[housecow]

rolls for days!!!