(Source: John Pearson)
Confession: I'd never heard of Anais Nin until I started reading Brain Pickings. I picked up her volume 5 diary at the end of 2012 and devoured it -- it's as if I found a kindred spirit in her writing.
She thinks and experiences life in a way I'd like to. Her words are poetic, thoughtful and deep -- I want to underline every sentence.
I've now completed 3 out of 7 diaries, and I'm trying to prolong the experience, reading other books in between. I haven't felt this way since I was consumed by Milan Kundera in college -- obsessively buying book after book.
If you're an idealist - a dreamer - a creator - a seeker, I highly recommend Anais Nin (especially volume 2). Here's a few of my favorite quotes to pique your interest.
"I do not dare to look at the people too closely, for they seem a bit artificial, like robots, parts of concrete and electric wiring. A million windows, high voltage, pressure, vitamin-charged, the city of tomorrow, and the people of tomorrow who cannot be human beings, and who, perhaps knowing it, come to Dr. Rank to weep and complain for the last time, for they too may be a vanishing race." - on her visit to NYC to practice as a psychotherapist
"Everyone gets a cramp, physical or mental, when playing roles. Cramps of the soul, cramps of the body, arthritis of the emotions"
"Paris, New York, the two magnetic poles of the world. Paris a sensual city which seduced the body, enlivened the senses, New York unnatural, synthetic; Paris-New York, the two high tension magnetic poles between life, life of the senses, of the spirit in Paris, and life of action in New York."
"I think in all this I am motivated by such a passion for life that the idea of not moving is for me a death concept. I shiver when people boast of having been born in the same bed in which they hope they will die."
"Introspection is a devouring monster. You have to feed it with much material, much experience, many people, many places, many loves, many creations, and then it ceases feeding on you."
"Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous."
"I never thought of that. I am attracted by unconventionality. When I become 'normal,' what will become of my art of dressing? I don't really want to be normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and unconventional traits"
"The men who built America were the genuine physical adventurers in a physical world. This world once built, we need adventurers in the realm of art and science. If we suppress the adventure of the spirit, we will have the anarchist & the rebel, who will burst out from too narrow confines in the form of violence and crime."
(Source: Debbie Millman)
PS - In case you're interested in reading:
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