Point is

Sem título: Tecelar (Untitled: Weaving) , 1956 - Lygia Pape

Neck up

-Youngjun Koo

Sock pop

- Justin Bridges

Penny Lane

-Justin Bridges

Desire

Absence, element and new light.

Thumos

 ...a chariot (representing the soul) is pulled by a rebellious dark horse (symbolizing man’s appetites) and a spirited white horse (symbolizing thumos). The charioteer, or Reason, is tasked with harnessing the energy of both horses, getting the disparate steeds into sync, and successfully piloting the chariot into the heavens where he can behold Truth and become like the gods."

Thumos plays a role in both the emotional and evaluative parts of that equation. As we mentioned last time, the task of Reason as the “charioteer” is to take stock of his own desires, and those of his two horses, and then to choose to satisfy only his best and truest ones – those that lead to virtue and arête, or excellence. Reason’s ally in this task is his white horse, or thumos, which can be trained to help make this kind of judgment.

The way to best make use of thumos is “simple:” directing it towards its natural aims – that which is noble and fine, honorable and excellent. Plato believed that thumos was made to “fight on behalf of what seems to be just,” and the Greeks saw this force of the soul as essential in making moral choices. In the poetry of Bacchylides, Apollo declares that the way to “delight thumos” is by “doing holy acts…for this is the highest of gains.”

In order to get thumos to pursue noble aims, Plato argued, you had to teach it to respond to Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. This can be done, I believe, by learning to use, and finely tuning your innate radar for such things. When you encounter what is Good, you can feel it resonate in your soul and swell your heart. Interestingly, one of the functions the Greeks assigned to thumos was the producer of “reverent awe.” The proof that something is Good is that it helps make you a better man – it bears good fruit. The more your thumos picks up on these signals, and responds to them, the better it gets at doing so, and as this virtuous cycle continues, your thumos grows ever stronger and you progress as a man.

Thumos does not simply draw you to that which is good, it inspires you to fight for it. Thumos’ natural home is the battlefield. Its most essential nature is that of an aid to courage, strength, and indomitability for the warrior in combat. But its spur to fight operates off the battlefield as well. It drives a man to stand up for his ideals, cherished causes, and moral choices. It also fuels his desire for recognition, honor, and status – the drive to become the best of the best in any arena of competition – whether sports, profession, or even simply life itself. In any situation where you choose not to back down from your beliefs and goals despite opposition, and refuse to give in when others try to crush you, thumos is by your side.

-"Got Thumos?" - The Art of Manliness

"I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil."

-A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway.

Lserz

-Tommy Ton

Cheeky much

When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.

Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

The Life of Jack London as a Case Study in the Power and Perils of Thumos — #8: Success at Last

 
“Reading the works of men who had arrived, he noted every result achieved by them, and worked out the tricks by which they had been achieved — the tricks of narrative, of exposition, of style, the points of view, the contrasts, the epigrams; and of all these he made lists for study. He did not ape. He sought principles. He drew up lists of effective and fetching mannerisms, till out of many such, culled from many writers, he was able to induce the general principle of mannerism, and, thus equipped, to cast about for new and original ones of his own, and to weigh and measure and appraise them properly. In similar manner he collected lists of strong phrases, the phrases of living language, phrases that bit like acid and scorched like flame, or that glowed and were mellow and luscious in the midst of the arid desert of common speech. He sought always for the principle that lay behind and beneath. He wanted to know how the thing was done; after that he could do it for himself. He was not content with the fair face of beauty. He dissected beauty in his crowded little bedroom laboratory…and, having dissected, and learned the anatomy of beauty, he was nearer being able to create beauty itself.”

Press

-.L. (Ling)

I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes; on my face they are still together. Warsan Shire

Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it - that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

-Stephen Fry

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don’t much care where--" said Alice.

"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.

"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland