“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Don’t let the toxic mixture of fear and laziness fuck with your goals, ambition and productivity.”

“I am not a graceful person.
I am not a Sunday morning or Friday sunset.
I am a Tuesday 2am,
I am gunshots muffled by a few city blocks,
I am a broken window during February.
My bones crack on a nightly basis.
I fall from elegance with a dull thud,
and I apologize for my awkward sadness.
I sometimes believe that I don’t belong around people,
that I belong to all the leap days that didn’t happen.
The way the light and darkness mix under my skin has become a storm.
You don’t see the lightning,
but you hear the echoes”