Gorgeous envy
What marriage does to happiness, the myth of essential news and the anti-vote poppin' in Pennsylvania.
STICKY THINGS Edition VI— material that’s stuck with me:
On INSTAGRAM & TIKTOK … See you there.
THE LIFE GORGEOUS : “A woman can spend her whole life in real or imagined competition with her friends, finding herself in the gaps between them. Especially in the game of looks, there is no excellence that is not another woman’s inadequacy, no abundance that does not mean lack … There’s nothing like the ‘pleasure of a pretty woman leaning on the arm of an ugly one,’ knowing herself enhanced … Beauty opens like a trapdoor, to second chances, the benefit of the doubt, a job you’re unqualified for, someone who will marry you, if you so require. The cost may be a life out of touch. The plain woman operates under fewer illusions, always a little closer to the truth.” — Grazia Sophia Christie, “My Beautiful Friend.” LINK
ARE YOU LISTENING?: “My job, as a listener, is partially to pay attention to how I’m resonating to what’s being said, and to reflect that resonance outwards. Perhaps most of what I’m hearing lands in me with a dull thud. But almost whoever I’m listening to, there is something that will resonate. Perhaps it’s a person’s unexpected facets emerging, or a moment of emotional fluorescence. Whatever it is, if I notice even a little flicker of energy inside me, and I respond—with a question, or even just a smile—I’ve given my dance partner the information they need to be interesting to both of us.” — Sasha Chapin on resonant listening. LINK
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS: One 15-year study of more than 24,000 Germans found that those who got married and stayed married were happier than the unmarried ones to begin with, and any happiness boost they got