To kick off another new week, we’re sharing recent pieces published elsewhere, along with the excerpts that moved us to highlight them here on The Wisdom Daily. Don’t miss these thought-provoking perspectives on singer Nina Simone, toys and dolls created for surveillance, the ultimate day-off indulgence and more. Whatever’s transpiring in your life, may you find the words of wisdom you need.
?1. Play It Again, Simone
“This resurgence in Nina Simone’s legacy may be due in part to the fact that several political and societal themes from the Civil Rights era are experiencing a renaissance. It might also be that we’ve finally found the time to which Simone belongs… Perhaps the present-day fascination with Simone stems from our desire for an artist who will again articulate a message that powerful and provocative.”
– Amy Eason in “Nina Simone’s Lingering Spell” (Soundcheck)
2. One for the Books
“Why is everyone so quick to write bookstores’ obituary? What is this cultural obsession with obsoletism? Perhaps it’s just in our bones – that technology always wins. We learn it as toddlers: We are trained, and have been for many generations, that ‘progress’ is an unassailable good and that clinging to the past is na?ve and pathetic. Thus we are programmed from the start to believe that technology is the biggest dog in every fight.”
– Jeremy Hawkins, in “Bookstores Won’t Go the Way of Video Stores” (Electric Literature)
3. What We Choose to Honor
“In the days and months ahead, there will probably be many more national and local conversations about the iconography of oppression, and whether or not there should be a wholesale removal of despicable symbols like the Confederate flag and the renaming of schools and streets that bestow honor upon dishonorable people. And that is as it should be.”
– Kristin Iverson, in “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever: Institutionalized Racism in Brooklyn Today” (Brooklyn Magazine)
4. Go About Your Business
“When you ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, chances are 75% of them will say an actor, musician or athlete. After all, these are the kind of people they see gaining notoriety. Only recently have entrepreneurs started to become idolized and receive rock star-like status.”
– Jared Hecht, in “Why Millennials Are Turning to Entrepreneurship as a Career Choice” (Mic)
5. Surveillance State of Mind
“Companies invent new technologies and bring them to market. Consumers occasionally react, and if sufficient numbers react loudly enough, government regulators investigate and mandate changes. There’s a sense that this is the correct process, that more aggressive regulation would crush innovation before inventors could show us the benefits of their new ideas. But this is a model in which regulation is a very modest counterweight… So long as a product is on the market, it’s engaged in persuading people that a new type of behavior is the new normal.”
– Ethan Zuckerman, in “Beware the Listening Machines” (The Atlantic)
6. The Great Indoors
“The perfect day cannot be forecast. We wake up with moods that are as tangible as a gentle breeze or high noon’s heat… Sunny days can be seized. They can also give you cancerous sunburn. So don’t feel guilty over shutting out a beautiful day after a long week of work. That’s why they invented windows.”
– Matt Patches, in “Staying Indoors on a Sunny Day…” (Esquire)
Image credit: NinaSimone.com
Here at The Wisdom Daily (TWD), we feature spiritual insights on daily life, designed to help improve and enhance our relationships with ourselves, our families and the world around us.