It's about devotion and obsession. It's ALWAYS about devotion and obsession. And hunger. It's love with teeth.

one thing i need to start living by is “become the thing that you want” if i want friends who throw themed parties maybe i should start throwing those parties. if i want someone who writes me love letters maybe i should start writing letters for the people i love. if i want to hang out at museums and pretty cafes maybe i should invite my friends to these places. and maybe even then i won’t find the kind of people i want to be around. but then i would have become the exact person i want to be around. and maybe that’s good enough.

Huge shout to my friend from an undergraduate philosophy program who started working out every single day, not for health benefits or to become conventionally attractive or whatever, but because -- and this is a direct quote -- he was concerned that otherwise he might "become lost in the world of signs and forget the things they signify". I have thought about this every single time that I've worked out since.

courageous to refuse to numb yourself with distractions. to be an active participant of life, sensitive to all emotions.

We will NOT be stressing over people in 2024 when we could be studying and absorbing so much knowledge, learning the piano, taking up horseback riding, upgrading our skincare routines, reading so many more books, spending so much more time off our phones, giving the love rejected by some people to others who want it and return it in kind, learning music theory, taking up a language (French for me), saving up to travel, developing financial literacy, focusing on our goals, revamping our fashion sense, getting good at photography, carrying a camera everywhere w us, expanding our music knowledge, working out more consistently, and learning so many more recipes