#listserve

via the listserve, February 11, 2018 

“Gravy is an afterlife social media platform that allows you to continue to connect after you cross to the other side.  By installing Gravy’s proprietary deep learning algorithms in all your current social media accounts, our app aggregates the entirety of your data into an AI replica of you that can continue to create, share, and connect with friends and family in perpetuity.

Gravy operates on a freemium model.  Once you’ve built your Gravy profile, browse the Gravy store and check out our constantly-growing of in-app content.  Choose your own skins, themes, add-ons, soundscapes, and page layouts.  We’re even offering reduced prices for our full CGI-suit VR pack, which allows users to create custom avatars that will be fully interactive once a user’s account activates.

Until now, death has meant the end of your social media presence.  You can’t engage with content if you’re not alive!  What will happen to the sum of your online activity once you cross the great divide of mortality?  Nothing will happen.  Your accounts will sit inactive like monuments to a static past in which you were alive, signposts to nowhere.  Your vibrant online life of today will stand forgotten like the ivy-festooned relics of yesterday, mere oddities on the roadside of life.  That’s why we made Gravy.

Create a free account today.  See where it takes you.  And think of the possibilities. Tomorrow might be the first day of the rest of your death.  Don't be content for it to end there.

I’m part of the Listserve, an email list that allows one member everyday to deliver an email to the entire list. I don’t know how many people there are on the Listserve, but I’ve heard it’s  somewhere close to a million.

Anyway, I got a particularly good one today - filled with little nuggets of wisdom that make you look at bit differently at the world or at least nod your head in agreement and consideration:

Hi!

My name is Eloísa Valdes (AKA Helewidis). I'm a 30 years old girl from Portugal who studied Anthropology and now wants to change her gears into the world of Comp.Sci.. I love comics, sci-fi, beta-testing, photography & social media and this is what I was eager to share with the Listserve for ages:

-> #Smilography

About 5 years ago my grandma heard on the news there weren't many pictures of people smiling. She asked me to change that reality.

How could I refuse a grandma's request? I immediately made a tumblr, a deviantART group and the #Smilography hashtag on G+ (which is where this project still runs kinda on its own).

I'm now asking the Listserve to join and help me change that!

Please use the #Smilography tag whenever you post a photo of a smiling person (be it on Instagram, G+ or Tumblr) and, together, we'll bring the world more smiles.

I'll try my best to keep up with you and replying, etc. Thank you! This is that part of the email where I show you an old poem of mine:

"Caution - Wet Floor"

I never stood a chance.

My lower extremities perform, faced with the slipperiness of it all. The crowd expects a fall for the Grand Finale. Satisfaction ensues. My lower limbs end the dance with a plié and I feel equilibrium abandoning my company.

The floor is merciless - as always. It hits me with the force of gravity and my weight combined. Math isn’t an ally.

The impact leaves a wound and I lick it. It’s bittersweet. It smells like alcohol.

I was offered a different kind of inebriation that night: an Eau de Cologne composed of delight with a top note of injury. I learned to use it every day and to be eager for it.

The sum of all the caution signs in the world couldn’t have prepared me for this love.

May, 2010

-> For my photography, blogging, writings & more yadda, yadda, yadda follow me: 

. Eloísa V. on G+ 

. @eloisavaldes (instagram, twitter, tumblr, Ello, steam...)

-> Casa da Pirralha 

If you understand Portuguese you may like my blog Casa da Pirralha, where I write about lots of stuff, do some reviews; share my arts&crafts tutorials and upcycling projects!

- Shoutout to Diogo Shini Resende who gave me his Lottery "ticket"! TY!

Eloísa Valdes [email protected] Coimbra, Portugal

P.S.: Bow ties are cool! ;)

I do so many things. Too many things, I thought.

I love music. I’ve been a musician since I was 12. I love writing. I’ve had a job as both a copywriter and contributing writer for over a year. I love photography. I take pictures on some kind of camera everyday.

But if you asked me what my passion is, I wouldn’t know where to begin. I spent a long time believing that I needed to discover my ‘passion' before I could meaningfully pursue something, frustrated by the feeling that I couldn’t discover a single, ‘true’ passion.

That’s because, unfortunately, I also love cliches like “find your passion.” An idea that I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about lately is pursuing your curiosities, rather than finding your passion. 
I’ve always found that the best way for me to find clarity and focus is to do, rather than to think. 

 Translating thoughts into tangible actions is the only way that I’ve been able to give myself a clear understanding about what excites me and what drags me down. About what I could see myself doing as a career, and what I could see myself quickly getting tired of.  

 This is how I’ve subconsciously lived for the last 22 years of my life and, until recently, I’ve always felt that I was doing something wrong. That I was aimlessly pursuing everything I was interested in, or curious about, instead of focusing on discovering a single ‘passion.'

Following a curiosity opens you to a world of experiences that consciously pursuing a passion doesn’t allow for.  

A favourite quote from an article I recently had the privilege of editing summarizes my thoughts perfectly: "It’s only through doing that you get the clear signals you need for making next-step decisions." -Gloria Eid