Jeremy Mattocks

Do things look bleak? Try a new point of view.

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”
-Neil Armstrong [source]

In many ways, our perspective determines the kind of world we live in. I’ll let Uncle Bob explain.

A healthy perspective (or “reality tunnel”) can make the world look bright and exciting; an unhealthy one can make a minor obstacles seem insurmountable. I know what it’s like to be stuck with a dismal, self-defeating outlook. But I’ve also learned it doesn’t have to be that way.

Our perspectives aren’t set in stone. We can widen, shift, and alter them. If we can change our point of view even slightly, our experience of the world can be profoundly enriched. With practice and an open mind, we can even try out completely different perspectives, each of which can teach us something valuable.

Let’s start with the easiest thing to take for granted: our own existence. The probability of you being you or me being me is staggeringly teensy. If you’re even around to read this, that means we both won the existential lottery. Hooray for us!

Yeah, I know. That doesn’t magically make your problems vanish. But the fact that we’re around to have problems in the first place is worth appreciating.

Our Slender Slice of Space

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
-Douglas Adams

Shifting our perspectives can also show us just how subjective some things are. Like size. On one hand, our entire solar system – not to mention our big-screen TVs – may seem profoundly tiny from a cosmic perspective.

On the other hand, there are whole worlds we’re just too big to see. Some things that seem boring or ugly are actually incredibly beautiful if you look close enough. Like ocean sand.

If you enjoy exploring the subjectiveness of spatial dimensions, just wait ’till you ponder the temporal one(s).

Our Stupid Sense of Time

In the brief 200,000 or so years we’ve been around, we’ve managed to figure out a few nifty tricks. Running water. Sewage. Medical science. Ben and Jerry’s.

Not bad for the cosmological equivalent of infants.

You see, the most basic life on earth appeared about 3 billion years ago, making it a fairly late development in a ~13 billion year-old universe. And on the timeline of life on earth, homo sapiens have just popped up.

It’s natural to dismiss this longer-term view of time as somehow less real than our own perception. But, considering the passage of time is subjective, it’s a meaningless objection after all. Years and seconds might be a fairly objective way to measure time, but how long a year feels is not.

What if we could perceive time differently? What amazing things might we discover that we couldn’t see before because our perception of time wasn’t just right?

How about the beauty of a single drop of water?

This glorious display of fluid dynamics happens all the time when it rains. It’s just too fast for our brains to process.

On the other side of the spectrum, the flowing movement of clouds is hauntingly gorgeous, but we ordinarily perceive time too quickly to notice.

The growth of a tree is easy to take for granted. But speed it up so we can watch it happen and a sprouting oak seed becomes awe-inspiring.

Bottom line: all we’re capable of experiencing is an infinitesimal sliver of what actually exists, and our tools for experiencing things in the first place are fundamentally limited.

The Real Value of Perspective-Swapping

As authoritative theories of everything, our perspectives are all worthless.

There are more knowable things about one mote of dust than we could glean from a lifetime of study. Furthermore, according to our current best theories on the physical operations of the universe, it is fundamentally impossible to know everything about the teensiest bit of matter.

Infinite lifetimes spent studying the simplest object could never yield perfect knowledge, so what could possibly justify certainty in any existential or metaphysical speculations based on a single lifetime of inquiry? Should we call it pride, madness, arrogance, sin nature, cognitive bias, or just the human ego at work? Doesn’t matter. We’re all pretty sure we’re right.

If we, instead, regard everyone’s perspectives (especially our own) as cursory observations of a vast mystery, every perspective would actually have value.

How do we learn more about a vast mystery we can only observe cursorily? If we have any respect for the empirical approach, we keep observing. If we’re wise enough, we also pool our resources and share our observations. We test the observations of others by looking from similar angles, poking with similar sticks, testing under similar conditions. Then we compare the results. And we don’t do it just once. We keep observing, sharing, and comparing without end because, little by little, we get a slightly clearer view of the big picture.

Contrast this with adhering to a single observation and rejecting the validity of any others. Which method is likely to reveal more accurate data about an object of study?

In other words, the less we cling to one perspective and the more we open our minds to new ones, the better our understanding of the great mystery will probably be. If your current perspective is making you unhappy, why cling to it anyway?

Of course, cynical or depressed personalities may believe their bleak view is the “real” or most accurate one. Maybe it is, maybe not. But I’m not asking anyone to give up their perspectives. I’m arguing against closing oneself off to exploring the alternatives. Try looking through someone else’s eyes, see if you can see what they see, and then decide. Even if you still think your perspective is more useful or accurate, it will probably be enhanced by the experience.

Make your world more beautiful

Luckily, it’s never been easier to try new perspectives. We’ve seen how our natural perception of space can be extended with microscopes and telescopes, and our experience of time can be augmented with time-lapse and high-speed photography. So too communication technologies (e.g. language, the Internet, blogging) allow us to swap perspectives on life, the universe, and everything. And the more we learn from the perspectives of others, the more things we can learn to love and appreciate, which makes our view of the world more beautiful.

What makes yours beautiful?

Readers seemed to like the last technique I wrote about, so I thought I’d share my favorite, time-tested technique for cultivating happiness and tranquility. And it’s still not booze.

“The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”
―Alan Wilson Watts

Anxiety of daily consciousness

Life can be stressful. Especially around the holiday season. But even in the quiet times, our minds are prone to wander off and get lost in internal mazes of unreality. We either revisit and reanalyze increasingly inaccurate memories of the past, or we fantasize about the future or our desires. Our attention jumps from one arising thought to another, loses interest, and then does it all over again. In doing so, it sacrifices awareness of the present moment.

It seems our brains evolved to busy themselves, so this all happens automatically. It’s quite natural, and in some cases even beneficial.

Except when it hurts us. When we continually lose sight of the present moment – the only thing we’re actually alive to experience – we become unhappy.

But it’s OK, because there are ways of slowing the racing mind and practicing awareness of the now. It’s pretty easy to get started. You don’t need a Guru, a yoga mat, a 10-week intensive course, a $1500 weekend retreat, or any bells or whistles. If you’re reading this right now, you have everything you need to get started.

Does it work?

Absolutely.

How to meditate

1. Find a quiet place
2. Sit down
3. Breathe naturally
4. Focus on your breathing, either on the movement of your abdomen or the sensation of the air moving through your nostrils
5. When you notice your mind wandering (as it will), gently and lovingly guide it back to your breathing

Start with just 10 minutes. Or 2 minutes, or whatever you can do. Don’t push yourself too hard. If it helps, try counting your breaths up to 10, then starting again at 1. It may surprise you how difficult counting 10 breaths can be. Or, if you want to keep the verbal center of your brain occupied, try mentally asking yourself “What is this?” on one breath, then reply “I don’t know” on the next.

If you’re going to make this a daily thing – something I’ve found enormously helpful – avoid setting your initial goal too high. This should be something you look forward to, not a chore you dread. If you make it too difficult, you’re more likely to just stop doing it. But if you make your goal attainable, you’re likelier to maintain your practice, and you may feel like going further.

Meditation is one of those things that can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, there’s plenty more to read about. Here are a few great starting points:

• How to Meditation: A Guide for Beginners (A Conscious Life)
• A Guide to Meditation for the Rest of Us (Lifehacker)
• A Simple, Illustrated, Guided Meditation
• Mindfulness With Jon Kabat-Zinn, from a class at Google
• Guided meditations from the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center

It’s normal and healthy to be upset when painful things happen. But when painful thoughts stick around or stupid self-defeating thoughts start occurring, it would be useful to get rid of them.

It’s OK because there’s a trick for weakening those painful thoughts: toss ‘em in the trash. Literally write your thoughts on scraps of paper, crumple them up, and throw them in the garbage can.

It sounds silly, but according to a series of experiments conducted earlier this year, it seems to work. Results indicate that you can write down your thoughts and, depending on what you do with the paper, empower them or de-power them. Brains are weird like that.

So I tried

I tried this trick and liked the results. Last night I cut some index cards into quadrants and started recording my recurring anxious or painful thoughts. One by one, I crumpled them into little paper balls and tossed them into my wastepaper basket.

I wound up with more wastepaper than I expected. So many repetitions of the same general anxieties, in the trash where they belong. It felt oddly liberating.

It also seems you can also empower helpful thoughts by writing them down and carrying them with you. So I wrote down a few simple things I’d like to remember, like “It’s OK to make mistakes” and “I’m not alone.”

Since we can trick our brain so easily, I decided to give my notes the trappings of importance in case it helped them stick better.

I call them my Epistles to Self – my own teensy personal canon. Today I clipped the Epistles together and stashed ‘em in my pocket.

Maybe my brain will appreciate the extra touch.

If you’re bothered by aching thoughts, give it a try. Write them down and throw them away. Then write the thoughts you want to enforce and carry them with you. See for yourself whether it works.

For the most part, we’ve put that ghastly talk about cutting PBS behind us. Which is great, because the majority thought it was a bad idea. Possibly because it didn’t make any sense. Thanks, America!

It would be easy to forget this nonsense and move on. Except this isn’t the first time someone’s gone hunting for oversized yellow fowl. Which reminds me of something we’ve all heard before.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana

(Others have said it similarly before and since, because those who cannot remember a quotation are condemned to paraphrase it.)

So let’s not forget a similar occasion when another powerful man threatened to cut PBS funding. The year was 1969, the man was then-president Richard Nixon, and the plan was to cut PBS’s budget by half. The situation looked bleak for public broadcasting. But it’s OK, because Fred Rogers saved the day in six minutes.

“I end [Mr. Roger's Neighborhood] by saying ‘You’ve made this day a special day by just you’re being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you. And I like you just the way you are.’ And I feel that if we, in public television, can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable we will have done a great service for mental health. I think that it’s much more dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings of anger – much more dramatic – than showing something of gunfire.”
-Fred Rogers

You don’t have to agree with me (or Fred) to see my point. History may repeat itself again, and we’ll probably face the same problems over and over. But great men and women like Mr. Rogers will always fight for what they believe is right. You may even be one of them.

I’ll leave you with Mr. Rogers singing “It’s You I Like” to Joan Rivers.

“Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased…” -Callahan’s Law

You know that thing you don’t like to talk about? That thing that makes you feel weird and alone? I have one, too. I suspect everyone does. And it’s OK because we’re not really alone after all.

My weird, lonely thing I don’t like to talk about is my depression. I’m going to talk about it anyway, because it’s good for me. Then I’ll tell you why I don’t feel alone anymore.

Chances are, you’ve already been affected by depression. About one in every ten people you meet suffers from it. Maybe you’re that one in ten, or maybe it’s a friend or a relative. Someone you love might be suffering from this rampant mental illness without you even knowing. Worst of all, maybe they haven’t told anyone. I can’t think of a better way to feel alone.

Those of us who somehow manage to keep working, moving, and pushing our way through life despite our little problem are called the walking depressed. We get by. Often we don’t like to call attention to our illness for fear of being stigmatized, or because we just don’t want to depress anyone else. On the good days, it’s easy to keep going as if everything is fine. But not so much on the days we feel like White from Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited.

Rage is really only for the good days. The truth is there’s little of that left. The truth is that the forms I see have been slowly emptied out. They no longer have any content. They’re shapes only… a train, a wall, a world, a man… a thing dangling in senseless articulation in a howling void, no meaning to its life, its words.
…
Your fellowship is a fellowship of pain and nothing more. And if that pain were collective instead of merely reiterative, the sheer weight of it would drag the world from the walls of the universe and send it crashing and burning down through whatever night it might yet be capable of engendering until it was not even ash.

Maybe you know the feeling.

When we keep something so private, it’s easy to forget how common our suffering is. Here are six things I’ve found helpful for defeating the mistaken notion that I’m alone. They may also be applicable to your lonely struggle. If you’re into it, give ‘em a try.

1. Find a hero

If you suffer from depression, you’re in good company. There’s no shortage of great men and women throughout history who’ve struggled with profound melancholia. American presidents Abraham Lincoln and Calvin Coolidge come to mind, as do explorer Meriwether Lewis, physicist par excellence Isaac Newton, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

Here are a few more artists and thinkers who’ve fought against the sadness.

Comedians: Maria Bamford, Jim Carrey, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman

Writers: T.S. Eliot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Charles Dickens, Raymond Chandler, Herman Melville, J. K. Rowling, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut

Actors: Jon Hamm, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Laurie, Owen Wilson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Philosophers: John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault

Composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Musicians: Morrissey, Thom Yorke, Billy Corgan

Filmmakers: Akira Kurosawa, Charlie Kaufman, Woody Allen

Knowing these men and women did great works despite (or perhaps because of) their depression is like extra-strength anti-hopelessness. If you think your deep, dark secret prevents you from doing something heroic, I challenge you to make your own list of heroes who’ve been there first.

2. Find art

Art is more than just paintings of horses. Art can connect us with our fellow humans, teach us new ideas, and help us discover meaning in our lives. No matter what our secret struggle is, we can find solace and timeless fellowship in some magnificent piece of art.

One of my favorite media is the web comic, and there are plenty of excellent, autobiographical ones that address depression. Here are a few of my favorites.

• Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
• Akimbo comics by B. Patrick
• Depression Comix by Clay
• DAR by Erika Moen
• Bellen! by Box Brown

If I were you, I’d read through all of these series. But since you’re you and I’m not you, and maybe you don’t actually like comics as much as I do, I’d recommend at least reading those first two.

There’s also music. Do you like music? Of course you do. If you can’t find a song about your secret struggle, you haven’t looked hard enough. Here are my top three coping-with-depression jams.

“Medicine” by Daughter

“Something is Squeezing My Skull” by Morrissey

“A Better Place, A Better Time” by Streetlight Manifesto

And it would be totally irresponsible of me not to mention my favorite YouTube video series, Tales of Mere Existence.

Give it a shot. Find some art that you can relate to.

3. Find support

Talking helps. If you know someone who cares about you, someone you can trust, being open and honest about what you’re going through will feel fantastic. It can be scary to share those secret struggles, but you will almost always be happy that you did.

While your family and friends can make up an excellent support network, sometimes it’s helpful to reach out a little further. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of support groups you can connect with. Here’s a great list for some of our more widespread secret struggles.

Can’t make it to a meeting? Face-to-face interaction is usually more beneficial, but in a pinch there are online options at SupportGroups.com.

4. Find a spiritual path

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” -Albert Camus (as translated in Lyrical and Critical Essays)

I’m not saying “find Jesus.” Unless you’re into that sort of thing. But find something that connects you with:

• Humanity, living beings, and the rest of the cosmos
• A greater meaning and context for your life than the daily grind
• A community of kindred spirits
• A body of wisdom passed down from those who’ve gone before you
• Methods for putting all this into practice

Obviously I’m using the term “spiritual” liberally. This connecting, contextualizing, wizening practice could mean anything from Buddhism to basketball. I couldn’t tell you which path to take if I wanted to. I just know that once you start walking, the journey is usually quite rewarding.

I could be described as a secular humanist, but I’m an oddball. I prefer not to limit my sources of potential wisdom and joy. Through my own research and experience, I’ve come to believe that every spiritual and philosophical tradition has something useful to offer. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a Universalist or a Perennialist, but I do think every tradition that’s stood the test of time must have something valuable to say, and I enjoy picking and choosing the bits I like.

Some practices I’ve found enormously beneficial are mindfulness and insight meditations of the Buddhist traditions, just about any form of yoga, and t’ai chi ch’uan. I’ve also heard great things about dance and martial arts.

And if we’re talking about putting our lives into a greater context, no one does it like Carl Sagan.

We’re made of star stuff, man.

5. Find a professional

If there’s an entire industry of professionals educated and trained to help you with your specific problem, you can’t really be alone. Plus everyone’s in therapy these days. According to a 2004 poll, one in four American adults sought treatment from a mental health professional within the previous two years. Makes sense. I’ve never met anyone so healthy that they couldn’t benefit from a little therapy.

If you’d like to find the right therapist for you, start by reading this Jezebel post: How to Find a Therapist.

6. Write about it

You don’t have to blog. You don’t have to publish anything. Just putting your feelings into a written language and getting them out works wonders to combat the feeling of being alone. And if you do decide to share your writing, you might help someone else feel less alone. If you’re afraid of others knowing about your inner demons, you can always publish anonymously.

Maybe something on this blog has helped you shake the utterly groundless illusion that you’re all alone. Maybe not. But it has helped me. Why not give it a try? I invite you to leave a comment about why you might feel alone and/or what you do that helps. Anonymity is always an option.

Thanks for reading.

A few powerful corporations might rule the media and just about everything else, but only because we let them.

It’s hard not to believe that greed rules the world. With just a modicum of investigation, we can uncover countless horror stories about corporate power and its myriad abuses. It may seem like there’s nowhere left to spend our money without indirectly funding one atrocity or another. But it’s OK, because there are ethical options, and we so-called consumers have the ability to change everything.

This isn’t a complicated, controversial, or new idea. We simply have to remember three facts:

1. Corporations depend on our money
2. We can change the corporate sphere and shape policies by making informed decisions about where we spend our money
3. We already have everything we need to start exercising this power

Want to grab a hot cuppa but don’t want your money going to a behemoth chain? Delocator will help you find independent alternatives in your area. You can search for local sources of coffee, entertainment, and then some.

Want to find a local co-op where you can feel good about shopping? Find.coop will help you, there.

Want to buy a used book without contributing to the demise of local and independent bookstores? You can support the little guys and keep the market competitive by taking advantage of these Amazon alternatives.

Want to see convenient, categorized rankings of corporations according to key ethical standards so you can make wise decisions about where to spend those dollars? Look no further than Better World Shopper.

Motivated to take further action? What a mensch! There’s no shortage of ways you can contribute your time, energy, and money to making the changes you want to see in the world. Corporate Accountability International’s Take Action page is a great place to start. Why not pitch in a few bucks?

Even easier: stop buying crap you don’t need that won’t make you happier anyway.

Snack lovers recently said their goodbyes to the Hostess products they once took for granted. Goodbye Zingers. Goodbye Ho-Hos, Ding-Dongs, and those adorable cream-filled things with the icing squiggles…

…which are called CupCakes. (What a silly name.)

But it’s OK because we’re resilient. Our species has survived hurricanes, plagues, holocausts, and even the dreaded Candiru. Somehow, we’ll find the courage to survive the end of the Twinkie  as we know it.

In case you’re still not feeling better, here are five good things that can come of this cake-tastrophe:

1. The little guys can profit

Through the strange alchemy of supply and demand, golden sponge cake with creamy filling has been transmuted into a substance more valuable than gold. Anyone who has Twinkies lying around – like every supermarket and convenience store – is making out like a bandit.

Hours after Twinkie-maker Hostess announced its plans to close its doors forever, people flocked to stores to fill their shopping baskets with boxes of the cream-filled sponge cakes …

Late Friday and Saturday, the opportunists took to eBay and Craigslist. They began marketing their hoard to whimsical collectors and junk-food lovers for hundreds — and in some cases — thousands of dollars. That’s a fat profit margin, when you consider the retail price for a box of 10 Twinkies is roughly $5. [Daily News]

Considering the shelf-life of your average pre-packaged snack cake, your investment could have plenty of time to mature.

2. Snack manufacturers can profit

Oh, did I mention we’ll still have Twinkies anyway?

Because we will. Hostess is selling its brands, which means Twinkies will simply be manufactured by another company. And whoever scoops up the Hostess intellectual properties – I’ll tell you later why I hope it’s Nabisco – will profit immensely from their new brand equity. With one good deed, they could also win the public’s affection, ride an enormous wave of free publicity, and make even madder stacks of cash.

Let’s suppose Nabisco buys the Twinkies brand and plans to launch their new product line while the hype is still insane. They could just buy some of the original Hostess factories at liquidated prices. After all, they’re already equipped to make Twinkies. And if Nabisco’s already buying the old factories, why not turn the sudden need for new manpower into publicity gold by hiring the old workers? Swooping in and giving downtrodden factory employees their jobs back in the middle of a recession sounds like a great way to make headlines, Facebook posts, Reddit threads, and office conversation. Not to mention mad stacks of cash.

3. Hostess fans can snack happy

Sometimes you don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone. While carbohydrates and lipids are tasty on their own, scarcity is the most potent flavor enhancer. With the end of Hostess, the fleeting pleasure of sponge cake and cream will be that much sweeter. And the best part is, this perceived scarcity is illusory; those tasty treats will soon be readily available once again, and the general consensus on snack cakes will return to vague disinterest. Ahh, the comfortable familiarity of the status quo.

4. New products can be tasted

Well, almost everything will go back to normal. There is one difference we can count on: the inevitable snack spin-offs. For example, if I get my wish and Nabisco acquires the Twinkie brand, America will finally have Oreo Twinkies. Children, stoners, dentists, gym owners, and the odd blogger with a sweet tooth will rejoice.

5. Snackers can try something else

Those old Hostess snacks probably aren’t going away anytime soon. But even if they were, we have plenty of other options. Maybe you’d enjoy something locally produced, healthy, and every bit as sweet and delicious? How about a fruit?

Related articles

• A Eulogy for Hostess
• Op-Ed Contributor: Goodbye to My Twinkie Days
• How we reacted to #Hostess bankruptcy
• Twinkies Selling for $100 on Ebay While a Petition is Seeking to Bail Twinkies Out

It’s OK because money can buy happiness, you can afford it, and it’s available just about anywhere. No, I’m not talking about booze.

This part has been blogged to death already, but just in case there are still any misconceptions floating around, let’s get them out of the way right now.

• More money does not mean more happiness.
• Buying stuff might make you feel good momentarily, but it usually does not contribute to lasting happiness because of a little thing called hedonic adaptation. In essence, the human mind will quickly get used to just about anything, after which we wind up taking anything for granted.
• Giving money to charity is the easiest way to convert dollars to happiness.

Now for the bad news: debt increases suffering in a big way. Not only is it a huge source of stress (anyone really need a link for that?), but it can also cause health problems. That mind-body link can be such a double-edged sword.

This is the It’s OK Because blog, so you knew more good news would follow, didn’t you? No, it’s still not booze! Stop guessing that!

It’s OK, because you can do something to help debtors and buy yourself an extra slice of happiness pie at the same time. It’s called Rolling Jubilee, and it’s brought to you by the passionate folks of Occupy Wall Street. In fact, Rolling Jubilee just celebrated with a launch party earlier today.

More info at: RollingJubilee.org

Two happiness tickets for the price of one? Beat that, Black Friday. I’m no Oprah, but this is definitely one of my new favorite things.

Via Upworthy.com

Related articles

• Rolling Jubilee: How Occupy Wall Street aims to bail out the 99%
• Occupy Wall Street campaigners buy-up debt to abolish it

It’s OK because, thanks to the hard work of people who care, we’ve saved several species from endangerment and even brought a few back from the brink of extinction. And with the same compassion and willingness to act, we can do it again.

For instance, there’s the case of the Black-Footed Ferret, a species that was very nearly wiped from the face of the planet. We turned just 18 of these cuties…

…into 600 of ‘em in only 20 years.

According to Wikipedia the following species have increased in population size enough to be taken off the endangered species list, thanks to the Endangered Species Act:

• Bald Eagle (increased from 417 to 11,040 pairs between 1963 and 2007); removed from list 2007
• Whooping Crane (increased from 54 to 436 birds between 1967 and 2003)
• Kirtland’s Warbler (increased from 210 to 1,415 pairs between 1971 and 2005)
• Peregrine Falcon (increased from 324 to 1,700 pairs between 1975 and 2000); removed from list
• Gray Wolf (populations increased dramatically in the Northern Rockies, Southwest, and Great Lakes)
• Gray Whale (increased from 13,095 to 26,635 whales between 1968 and 1998); removed from list (Debated because whaling was banned before the ESA was set in place and that the ESA had nothing to do with the natural population increase since the cease of massive whaling [excluding Native American tribal whaling])
• Grizzly bear (increased from about 271 to over 580 bears in the Yellowstone area between 1975 and 2005); removed from list 3/22/07
• California’s Southern Sea Otter (increased from 1,789 in 1976 to 2,735 in 2005)
• San Clemente Indian Paintbrush (increased from 500 plants in 1979 to more than 3,500 in 1997)
• Red Wolf (increased from 17 in 1980 to 257 in 2003)
• Florida’s Key Deer (increased from 200 in 1971 to 750 in 2001)
• Big Bend Gambusia (increased from a couple dozen to a population of over 50,000)
• Hawaiian Goose (increased from 400 birds in 1980 to 1,275 in 2003)
• Virginia Big-Eared Bat (increased from 3,500 in 1979 to 18,442 in 2004)
• Black-Footed Ferret (increased from 18 in 1986 to 600 in 2006)

Grizzly bears! Sea otters! Wolves! Sorry we almost destroyed you guys. But look, we’re a relatively young species, and we’re still learning how to play well with others. And for what it’s worth, it wasn’t too long ago that we almost went extinct, ourselves. Yes way.

How Humans Almost Went Extinct 72,000 Years Ago by GeoBeats

But let’s be clear: there’s still so much work to be done and so many animal species that need saving. But it’s OK, because you can help. And if you think helping with a small donation or act of kindness doesn’t feel awesome, try it and learn how wrong you are.

Related articles

• Yellowstone grizzly bears increase in number
• Would You Pay $11 to Save Every Animal on the Endangered Species List?
• 10 Of The Cutest Endangered Species
• Biotechnicians Hope Future Cloning Will Save Endangered Animals

It’s OK because there are plenty of good reasons to feel optimistic about the future, and Larry Brilliant is here to explain them.

We could fit more text in this. Don’t say we can’t. ‘Cause we can.

We’ve nearly reached the halfway point in our snowy adventure. Twists and turns await!

As you may have noticed, we couldn’t quite pop out the next page of Snow Day this week. Talon offers this comic as an explanation. I, for one, don’t buy it. Despite the vomit. So much vomit.

I love Walter’s expression in that last panel.

My goodness, look at all this continuity. Disgusting. Part 4 will (hopefully) be up on Thursday.

I hope this is starting to pique your interest. Part 3 will be up on Tuesday.

Page 1 of our new It Gets Worser short story: Snow Day. Page 2 on Thursday.

The song, by the way, is the Cherrytree Sessions version of Poker Face.

Someone you’ve never met has died. How does that make you feel? Clearly, the rational response is to talk only about that death for the next week, or at least until Charlie Sheen does something weird again. Spoiler alert: we’re all going to die. On a cosmic scale, we’re going to die very, very soon. [...]

A Prayer Emerald City Comicon, we give you thanks for reminding us what tremendous nerds we are. Sometimes we forget the heights of nerdom to which we’ve ascended in this life. Thanks be to KC Green, Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub, Evan Dahm, Gordon McAlpin, Aaron Diaz, Doug TenNapel, and the saintly patience of someone we [...]

I bet you think that’s a stuffed bear. Ha! Let’s have an informal poll. Who do you suppose Mitch is pretending to destroy? (Note: “everyone” is an acceptable answer.) Speaking of destroying things, have you played Minecraft? Ten minutes in, I’m ready to give up my entire life and career just to play the game. [...]

Trust us. The less said about this one, the better.

This is the stupidest script I’ve ever written. I mentioned this idiotic gag idea, and Talon laughed, and then I couldn’t talk him out of it, and now here we are. “No, dude!” he said, “It’s gonna be awesome!” “No, dude,” I replied. “It’s gonna be stupid.” “Seriously! I can make it work! It’s visual [...]

The question we ended last comic with remains unanswered. If anything, the question is somehow less answered. This anti-answered question has even spawned its own child questions, namely “Just what was the question?” and “Why am I reading this?” The singular answer to all these questions will be revealed in the next comic.* However, each [...]

This one is actually based on a true story. It happened one day at a Starbucks. (Shut up! I had a gift card!) Talon and I overheard a man’s order and immediately burst into laughter. We couldn’t help it. It was too absurd to exist in this universe. Just when I thought it couldn’t get [...]

Walter’s Public Image This boy is angry. He’s tired of the world and everyone in it. He claims his obvious intellectual superiority causes him agony, like his skull is full of bees buzzing around. There is nothing that interests Walter, nothing that makes him feel any emotion other than cynical angst tempered by a growing [...]

I would like to put aside my usual commentary for today’s comic to make a couple of personal notes. The above comic has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. It was just a funny exchange of absurdity I wrote up on Thursday, long before any of this mess started. The comic is not, [...]

Merry Christmas, dear reader. Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas? Are you now left with that hollow feeling, that sense that the having doesn’t justify all that wanting? Do you now envy your tree, now barren of gifts and still standing unchanged? Have you considered Buddhism? Of course not. That’s why you’re going [...]

This is my last page. Here lie my final, abandoned thoughts.

I’ve long since run out of worthy material. I’ve spat out all my brittle bones. My tongue will be the last to go, so I’ll still speak when there’s nothing left to say. I’ve nothing else to lose, not even an absence to mourn. I’ve surrendered all of my lamentations. What’s left between this and “end” is all I have to give before the last punctuation I’ll ever mark.

The Librarian has had more lovers than I’ve had friends. I saw her after-hours by the 5th shelf cuddling up with a paperback. It was just a few minutes past closing, and she was already hidden away in the Western corner, intimate with tonight’s sweetheart. There she would stay until the library opened the next morning. She rarely left for the night anymore. Behind each ear was a ball-point pen, red on the left, black on the right. Her fingers were long and thin, wearing fingernails that clacked when they collided, like ten typewriter keys.

I watched her beckon each word from its page. She opened herself to every line, whether violent and vivid or soft and serene. She entwined with the flesh of the language, satisfying each sentence until they were spent and discarded. How I long to be those words she loved. How I wish to be discarded.

I trembled with desire and jealousy. After the third chapter of the evening, I could take no more. I set my desperate plan into motion. Between shelves of cookbooks whose titles are irrelevant (she never read cookbooks), I began my metamorphosis.

I opened the journal I’d been carrying for the last twenty years. The pages were pristine; I had needed no words until now, but now I needed them all. I started by spitting out each one I knew. They fluttered into the air like moths. I caught them smack between the thick, lined pages. But words wouldn’t be enough, so I sputtered out the lines I knew, the quotes, poems, the proverbs, the parables, the verses. I emptied myself of my memories. Some caught in my throat, thick and swollen with thoughts I’ve never spoken. Some I could barely keep down if I tried, so eager they were to escape their long confinement. I choked on a few dense hunks of verbiage. Then I started coughing up invented ones. Slowly I grew on the pages and receded from myself.

I ran out of new things to say. Then I ran out of new ways to say them. But some muscle and tendon remained with me, hanging limp from the space where my skeleton once was. It wasn’t complete. It wasn’t all of me; it wasn’t enough to be taken only in part. So I began inventing new pieces, new building blocks of language—new words from my skin, new forms from my blood.

Here I lay, an empty mass releasing the final remnants of its humanity. In these moments to come, I’ll fully become my book, and my book will become me. Nothing more will be left of my body; there will be nothing more to say.

In time, maybe she’ll find me on the floor, and, if she finds anything worth loving, she’ll love me as she loved all her literary partners. If she won’t find her favorite passages in me, at least she’ll find my best. I wonder which phrases will be remembered. If I’m lucky, something I’ve said will stay with her.

If someone finds this before her, please leave it somewhere she might come across it.

My darling, if you ever read this, you’ve given me the only thing I’ve always wanted: to be wholly read, to dwell in your mind with the phantoms of every story and fact you’ve had before me.

If I’ve written anything before now, it’s all been stripped from me and forgotten; this is my all and my ending. This is the last line of me you’ll ever read. The last words. The End.

On May 2nd the so-called doomsday meteor decelerated and entered a leisurely orbit around Earth, third planet of the Sol system. This was at first surprising to Earth’s residents because they thought it impossible. A few were genuinely disappointed.

The scientific community’s immediate response was akin to a collective double-take. The experts were now more baffled than they were when the inexplicably fast celestial bullet was first discovered shooting across outer space, then officially denied, then double-checked, then neither confirmed nor denied, then triple-checked, then cursed, and finally confirmed with an unfortunate press conference. But the new consensus among the experts was that, unless the laws of physics had another change of heart, it was once again safe to make long term financial investments.
There was a measurable increase in carbon dioxide levels as the populace of civilized Earth simultaneously sighed in profound relief, then concluded that this global near-death experience was simply “one of those things.” The cosmos had feigned a punch and humankind flinched.

Before anyone paid much notice, optimists crawled out from their bunkers and governments broke their desperate alliances without so much as a handshake.

Now the second space race had a reason to begin. Forty-plus countries clawed and shoved for a better look at the new neighbor. The first-place astronauts’ reports were clear. In one of those rare moments in human history, the most outrageous explanation turned out to be correct: the meteor was an artificial construct of alien design. It was unresponsive to all communication attempts, and its hull was impenetrable. All waited in awe for its next move.
For forty-nine years of declining awe, the alien craft did the very thing everyone really expected but least wanted: it remained silent. The human race, having been such a good sport about everything, was exasperated. They called the craft “Voyeur.” Bitter jokes were told about Voyeur almost every day on human television networks.

On December 5th, after the “Close Call” generation began dying off (insulted but still secretly craving some sign of acknowledgement), a radio signal was finally received. After forty-nine years of ultimately disappointing hoaxes, this new signal was officially confirmed by all the first-world governments to be a genuine broadcast originating from the alien craft.

The signal was looped twelve times before it ceased, each iteration containing a message repeated in every modern language. To the starry-eyed children, lonely astronomers, and doubt-filled religionists of Earth, it sounded like a love poem.

“Don’t be afraid. You are not alone.”

There was weeping, singing, and prayer in the streets. Most believed this was the beginning of a brand new volume in human history. The next few months were filled with celebration and revelry. Parades were held, parties were thrown, debts were forgotten, and transgressions were forgiven. Perhaps more honestly than any generation before, these humans believed it was the best time to be alive. Voyeur was interested in us after all.

On December 8th, without leaving so much as a note, the probe shot off in the same direction from whence it came. Later generations recorded the event as just “one of those things.” But for many, knowing someone else was there was enough.

Michelle faced a canvas splattered with purple and red. If there was meaning hidden in the mess of oil paint, it was the most trivial thing in the world to her at this moment. Her eyes were unfocused, as if to soften the turbulence through an obscuring haze of disinterest. Her eyes were often unfocused these days.

For the past twenty-three minutes Michelle had been shuffling about the gallery on auto-pilot. She stopped at each piece for just the right amount of time to appear contemplative and learned, provided she looked the part. And she did. Each strand of hair was in its place, as were the accessories: sassy librarian glasses, cosmopolitan cashmere jacket, canvas book bag, all placed with the intention of looking just like the woman she wanted to be. She even lost those extra winter pounds. So why did she still feel so misshapen?

Michelle would never confess to spending sixty-eight minutes on her ensemble, to trying on four different outfits before settling on this one. Nor would she admit to putting a new copy of Lolita back on the shelf of the bookstore eighty-nine minutes ago when she found a more “authentic” looking copy in the bargain books bin. She kept these secrets because she believed there were more important things. The more intensely she scrutinized these details, the guiltier she felt. Elsewhere in time and space, vast and superior things began and ended with no concern as to how long Michelle admired a sculpture or whether or not she lost those ten pounds. If only the minutia would stop screaming in her head.

Two and a half million light years away, a star known only to a handful of astronomers by an arbitrary alphanumeric catalog designation began to die. Though it had arguably been dying since its nuclear fusion process first began, it only recently realized that it would rather not die at all.

The complex chemical reaction of life is, from one perspective, a constant and inevitable expenditure of one’s remaining breaths. However conservatively one chooses to spend them, everyone will run out eventually. There is no precise moment at which the process of deterioration begins. In the face of this knowledge, life is either the most precious thing or the most irrelevant.

The star knew it would burn for another twelve thousand years before it became too heavy for itself. Michelle will die just as slowly over the next fifty-three years, and at the end, their lives will seem equally short.

While the star was burning away the last of its mortality in a losing fight with entropy, Michelle wondered why living was inherently good. She realized she no longer knew. Maybe she never did. There were bigger things to think about, Michelle told herself. While Michelle considered her own insignificance, her body gradually accumulated genetic imperfections and infertile cells that would no longer divide, and the star’s thoughts suddenly turned to tiny things like hydrogen molecules and planets.

“Are time and space too arbitrary to be important in death?” the star wondered. And so, guided only by random chance, it fixed its ancient and perfect gaze on a dim blue planet nestled in one galaxy out of over 185.6 billion. There, crawling with two legs of meat on a crusty ball of molten rock, looking at a painting and dreaming of unattainable perfection despite its impending nonexistence, the star found unique companionship. There was something fascinating and tremendous about this tiny being, this momentary configuration of jumbled atoms and energy that once belonged to other, even older stars that had now been extinguished.

“Little creature,” it called across space, “will you comfort me in my final hour? Will you love me even though I am a star bigger than the sun around which your planet revolves, and have no sense of fashion?”

Michelle replied: “My dear star, will you love me though I am so insignificant and have never finished Lolita?”
“I will love you until I go dark,” the star answered.

And it occurred to them both that non-existence might be just as artificial and arbitrarily measured as existence had been.

Twelve thousand years later, the star died of gravitational exhaustion. Only a handful of astronomers made note of this, for Michelle had died 11,947 years earlier. The star’s light stopped reaching Earth about 2.5 million years after Michelle’s death. Somewhere in heaven an arguable number of angels with perfect wings debated about how many pins could fit into the head of a human being. Michelle spent exactly fifteen seconds more imagining such a scene while gazing at the painting in front of her before finally moving on to spend another seventy-six seconds staring at a van Gogh reproduction. But who’s counting?

Perfect Man hatched from a purple egg. He sniffed the air then gingerly scratched his genitals.

“Behold!” cried the Scientist. “The Perfect Man, perfect in every way!”

“Will it do the dishes?” asked the Scientist’s Wife.

“Perfect by nature, my dear! He needs perfect education, perfect upbringing and socialization!”

Perfect Man began to suck on his big toe.

“Don’t mind that. Just one of the quirks of creating Perfect Man instead of Perfect Baby.”

“You needn’t have been so hasty,” said the Scientist’s Wife. “Why doesn’t he look more like Robert Redford in his prime?”

The Scientist scowled. “I thought he would look more like me.”

Perfect Man probed his mouth with a finger. Then he screeched and relieved himself on the carpet.

“What perfect vocal cords! What a perfect bowel movement!”

The Scientist’s Wife frowned. “Does it do any tricks?”

The Scientist shrugged.

“What about a wife? A Perfect Woman to propagate the perfect race?”

Perfect Man began to hoot and roll about in his immaculate excrement.

“Don’t say that sort of thing. You’re getting him too excited.”

“What a perfectly useless creature,” said the Scientist’s Wife. “I suppose I can just teach it to wash the dishes.”

“But my dear, you already have a perfectly good dishwasher.”

“I bet it’s a good listener.”

“I already gave you the perfect houseplant.”

The Scientist’s Wife snubbed her nose at the Perfect Man. He, in reply, stuck out his tongue. The two giggled and continued making faces.

“Stop that!” shouted the Scientist, stomping and waving his arms in the air. “You’ll ruin him for good!”

The Scientist’s Wife rolled her eyes. “What else is there to do with a Perfect Man?”

Orange
Imagine a world in which only orange exists. There are two ways: either imagine a world painted over, or imagine it stripped of every other color. The latter I prefer, though few fruits would exist, only half of my sister’s tabby would remain, and every writing instrument would be a colored pencil. With blue sky gone, the orange sun would expand to fill the space. I would bask in its brilliant glow, if only I were orange.

White
Try to imagine nothing. You’ll imagine either pure black or pure white. I imagine the difference between nihilism and monism in no less certain terms. No one imagines grey.

Silver
I imagine every unfulfilled wish as a coin, a token of want. My pockets burst for want of infinity: unanswered questions, unaffordable purchases, and unmade phone calls. I’ll never have enough, so silver stays in my pocket with the lint and crumpled receipts. Desire for everything is debilitating. Desire to desire nothing gets me nowhere.

Invisible
I am obsessively envious of monomaniacs. I admire their focus and conversational limitation. Knowing nothing, I parrot their words and miss the singular essence. There is an invisible veil of sanity keeping me from myself. I keep it marked with a dotted line.

Violet
I don’t remember your name, but I remember your words and the color you covered yourself with. Monotonous music moved us into unnecessary ambiguity, as if we could have no other purpose. I wanted to want only one thing, to want you. I touched violet and tried to picture you without, but I imagined only gray. My answers were black and white: no action, no time, no effort, no silver, no desire, no thing. In only one color, the concept loses meaning.

This post was written by one of our freelancers for Bonanza’s now-defunct Bags Blog. Immediately below is the post as it was delivered to me. The version below that shows the edits I made. If you want to see my mark-up, you can download a PDF version of the .docx file here.

Original Version

With our recent feature on cross-body and messenger purses, it’s only fitting we chat about how to wear these bags. Despite their utilitarian reputation, these styles can go casual chic and even downright trendy. Cross-body bags are making their way into every aspect of our lives! If you’re looking for guidance for wearing these versatile styles, read on for a crash course.

At Work

You’ll want your bag to be sophisticated and chic for work. A cross-body bag won’t mesh with every occupation, but it may make catching a cab, getting the kids in the car, or riding the subway a lot easier. It also gives you instant access to your cash and your metro card without rummaging through your huge work tote. You want the bag to be balanced—especially if you’re carrying another bag for your laptop or work necessities—so keep the size small to medium. Look for rich colors like red, navy and green, which will play off the neutrals that most of us wear to the office. Leather is the way to go, but tweed or houndstooth cross-body bags also look office appropriate during the cold weather months.

On the Weekend

Nothing says “weekend” like a cross-body bag. It’s a simple way to take what you need with you without feeling weighed down. If you’re the active woman who jets out the door on Saturday morning to hit spin class, the grocery store, the bank and everywhere else your errands take you, a cross-body bag makes those tasks easy to do in style. If your style is quite casual, you should choose a slightly more upscale bag. This means a leather or leather-like bag with noticeable hardware. This will elevate your casual outfit and give it a polished feel. Throw on a T-shirt, jeans, and ballet flats, then add your sleek cross-body bag to instantly breathe new life into this basic outfit. If you’re one that goes for a more casual chic look on the weekend, your cross-body bag can be a bit more subdued. Pebbled leather, twill, or even a tweed messenger bag fits the bill when you’re wearing a pulled-together weekend outfit like a pea coat, skinny jeans and knee-high boots.

Edited Version

We recently featured cross-body and messenger purses on The Bags Blog, so now is a perfect time to chat about how to wear them! Despite their dirty reputation as utilitarian bags, cross-body and messenger styles can look casual chic and even trendy—if you know how to rock them! If you’re looking for guidance, read on for a crash course on putting these versatile styles to work for you.

Work Wear

Above all, work bag needs to look sophisticated. A cross-body won’t mesh with every occupation, but it might make catching a cab, getting the kids in the car, or riding the subway easier. Wearing a cross-body style also gives you instant access to your essentials, like cash and your metro card, without rummaging through your huge work tote. You want the bag to be balanced—especially if you’re carrying another bag for your laptop or work necessities—so stick with a small or medium size. Look for bags in rich colors like red, navy blue, or green, which will play off the neutrals most of us wear to work. Leather is optimal, but tweed or houndstooth cross-body bags are also great office-appropriate options during the colder months.

On the Weekend

What shouts “weekend” like a cross-body bag? It’s a simple way to take what you need without feeling weighed down. If you’re the active woman who jets out the door on Saturday morning to hit spin class, the grocery store, the bank, and then everywhere else your errands take you, a cross-body bag would be a stylish way to make life easier. If you’re all about the casual look, choose a slightly more upscale bag. This means a leather or leather-like bag with eye-catching hardware. These touches of elegance will elevate your outfit from passé to polished. Throw on a T-shirt, jeans, and ballet flats, then add your sleek cross-body bag to instantly breathe new life into a basic outfit.

If you prefer a casual chic look on the weekend, your cross-body bag can be a touch more subdued. Pebbled leather, twill, or even a tweed messenger bag fits the bill when you’re wearing a pulled-together weekend outfit. Try a pea-coat, skinny jeans, and knee-high boots.

6000+ Magic The Gathering Cards with Rares

I had this friend in middle school – let’s call him Gary.

I’ll always remember my fateful battle with Gary. He showed me that, sometimes, collectable card games are just another way for the kid with the highest allowance to make everyone else feel terrible about themselves. In the course of one card battle, I lost my idealistic notions about a pure game in a world of haves and have-nots. With each card Gary played, I understood more fully the simple truth that life is not fair. The price of victory in Magic: The Gathering was too great.

So much of war depends on economic forces. When one’s deck has been cobbled together from a few allowance-sapping booster packs and a birthday present from grandma while one’s opponent keeps a walk-in closet full of shoe-boxes brimming with arcane powers, one knows how little strategy will affect the outcome of this battle.

Did you have a Gary to contend with? Is my story your story? Let’s change that. For $165, you can give your inner child the feeling of total power they’ve been craving. And when you tire of rolling around in your bed of game cards and laughing maniacally, I have one last suggestion: high stakes rematch. Your Gary is but one Facebook search away.

$165.00 OBO

The Best of Elvis on Vinyl

Some things in life are universally loved. Here’s two of ‘em: Elvis Presley and vinyl. Both have the right combination of timelessness, universal acclaim, and icon-status in American culture. Winning the sincere affection of the world is not easy to do, but today’s find has done it twice over. And it’s a Best of collection.

If you already have the Best of Elvis in your collection, you’re looking at the safest gift imaginable. You can know nothing about your gift recipient and still be reasonably certain they’ll love it. A chocolate fountain risks allergies, a pot of gold raises suspicion, and a lifetime subscription to National Geographic requires a fairly high degree of literacy. A record containing the very best of Elvis Presley is almost impossible not to love.

$350.00 OBO

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