A Quote by Tom Robbins
Political activism is seductive because it seems to offer the possibility that one can improve society, make things better, without going through the personal ordeal of rearranging one's perceptions and transforming one's self.
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Feminist effort to end patriarchal domination should be of primary concern precisely because it insists on the eradication of exploitation and oppression in the family context and in all other intimate relationships. It is that political movement which most radically addresses the person – the personal – citing the need for the transformation of self, of relationships, so that we might be better able to act in a revolutionary manner, challenging and resisting domination, transforming the world outside the self.
Even as the government dominates the headlines, private entrepreneurs are busy every day working to improve products and services that improve our lives. They do it without taxing us or regulating us, or making us suffer through tedious elections or political debates. They make their products and offer them to us in a way that pleases the consuming public the most. We can choose whether we want them or not.
Activism is very seductive, and writing is painful and hard. It's very scary to have a death threat living over your head. Activism is very sustaining. But I don't view myself as a political person. I'm just someone who desperately wants to stay alive.
[T]here are, at bottom, basically two ways to order social affairs, Coercively, through the mechanisms of the state - what we can call political society. And voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations - what we can call civil society. ... In a civil society, you make the decision. In a political society, someone else does. ... Civil society is based on reason, eloquence, and persuasion, which is to say voluntarism. Political society, on the other hand, is based on force.
To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic.
I'm never going to walk away because I'll always have belief that I can improve players and make things better.
I knew that my newfound activism and feminism was going to improve my acting, because I was seeing things not just in very narrow, individual, kind of Freudian terms, but seeing them in a much broader, societal way that was going to deepen and enrich my talent.
I really believe that we have to work hard to make online education better and better, and eventually it's going to be really great. But like most of these things, it takes time to improve, to understand and to make things really good.
By creating a self-policing, self-reporting, sort of self-monitoring culture through law, through statute, and imposing that on the academic world, I think not only are we losing a significant measure of freedom in academic traditions and in our civil society, but we're actually making ourselves less competitive with every other country around the world that does not do that. Because that's where researchers are going to go and that's where academics are going to go. And ultimately, that's where breakthroughs are going to occur.
You can't talk about truth without talking about learning how to die because it's precisely by learning how to die, examining yourself and transforming your old self into a better self, that you actually live more intensely and critically and abundantly.
We can see an anthill or a roach or a flower or anything, but we have this frame where our mind recognizes an anthill and then moves on, without taking the opportunity to have the sense of awe that we could have if we really looked at it. The montage is about taking pieces of reality and rearranging them - creating new frames to make you have to stop and look at things in a fresh way. It's basically taking pieces of everyday reality and rearranging them to show people the magic that is inherent in all of these things already.
If you had a friend going through a lot, you wouldn't give them a hard time for going through it. You'd be like, it's ok you're going through it. So offer yourself the same grace and dignity that you'd offer to others.
I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.
Human character is never found "to enter into its glory," except through the ordeal of affliction. Its force cannot come forth without the offer of resistance, nor can the grandeur of its free will declare itself, except in the battle of fierce temptation.
Going through life without love is like going through a good dinner without an appetite -- everything seems so flat and tasteless.
In the next decade, I see Spanx going worldwide. Everywhere. No butt left behind. It's going to be all over the world and it's going to be an aspirational brand that transcends categories. There's so many things we can improve upon and make better.
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