It’s easy to feel intimidated because you’re not an expert on the Renaissance and you can’t quickly name the difference between the Baroque and the Rococo. But it all comes down to one thing: Your reaction is the one that counts. There is no value in mouthing the conventional wisdom. Identifying your reaction, in its emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions, is the whole point of the enterprise.

When Art Feels Too Much

Curators, professors, gallerists and critics have all devoted themselves to the study and appreciation of art. But the experts’ job is not to supply answers that you must commit to. They can instead help you, if you want, to come up with your own questions: "How was something made? What other artwork is relevant? Is there a hidden story or a backing idea that isn’t apparent?" Remember that an expert opinion is still an opinion. It’s not a judgment that you necessarily have to agree with. Once you realize that, you will likely find these experts extremely helpful.

Aren’t There Experts on This?

Want to find meaning and inspiration in art but aren’t sure where to start? Even if you’ve never set foot in a gallery before, we'll help you learn how to trust your inner critic, how to appreciate the big ideas and small details of a piece, and how to discover new art, both in and out of the museum.

Arts

How to Enjoy Art - A Year of Living Better Guides

There is no one dominant philosophy or ideology. Contemporary art is characterized by its global nature. It is also not media-dependent. The whole idea of art as a series of movements is "a modernist schema" more useful for scholars and others to understand the past than for artists working in the present.Today's art crosses boundaries in terms of discipline. For example, artists can be designers, focus on mass consumption, work in fashion or even collaborate with industrial designers.

There Are No Art Movements Today

﻿"Rather than offering answers, contemporary art asks questions."

We're all at least passingly familiar with the art movements of the past – impressionism, dada, pop, cubism – but what are today's movements called? Turns out, pinning them down is a bit tricky.

There Are No Art Movements Today, Says Michael Rooks of Atlanta's High Museum

Depending on who you ask and from which generation the word ‘rap’ will take on different meanings.<ul><li>Today rap means saying rhymes to the beat of music making it one of the four major elements within hip hop culture. Because the other elements (deejaying, breakdancing and graffiti) aren’t as widespread, the words Hip Hop and Rap have been used interchangeably over the years.</li><li>The word rap wasn’t always used to describe this activity. The act of rhyming to the beat of music was initially called emceeing. The term rap first became associated with Hip Hop around 1979.</li></ul>

Meaning Of The Term 'Rap'

The first song that associated rap with hip-hop music was called King Tim III [Personality Jock] by the Brooklyn based Fatback Band, which is considered Hip Hop’s first record.Opening lyrics: You just clap your hands then you stomp your feet/'Cause you're listenin' to the sound of the sure shot beat/ I'm the K-I-N-G the T-I-M/ King Tim III, and I am him/ Just me, Fatback, and the crew/ We doin' it all just for you/ We're strong as an ox and tall as a tree/ We can rock you so viciously/ We throw the highs in your eyes, the bass in your face/ We're the funk machines that rock the human race.

King Tim III: The First Rap Song (March, 1979)

The second song that associated the term Rap with Hip Hop was the song ‘Rapper’s Delight‘ by Sugar Hill Gang.Whereas “King Tim III” failed to cross over from any R&B activity into the mainstream, never cracking the Billboard Top 40, “Rapper’s Delight” became a worldwide smash.Opening lyrics: I said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie/ To the hip hip hop-a you don't stop the rock/ It to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie/ To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat/ Now what you hear is not a test: I'm rappin' to the beat/And me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet.

Platinum Seller ‘Rapper’s Delight‘ (1979)

In the late 50's early 60's, people in the black americam communities used to play a variety of rhyme word games:<ul><li>The Dozens: totally destroy somebody else with words, by insulting each other until one gives up (and dissing their mothers)</li><li>The Signifying: dissing your opponent or make them feel good; you had to know how to skillfully put words together so you could accurately express your feelings.</li></ul>The winner was determined by crowd reaction. But this was rapping just the same, rapping by another name.

The Grandparents of Rap: Rhyme Games

With respect to hip hop, it was characterized by one’s ability to syncopated to a beat. Ideally, an emcee rapped from the heart. His rhymes were spontaneous, not memorized or read aloud from a written document.Ideally a rap is a group of rhymes that are thrown together so everything has meaning. It reflects the here and now and ideally the lifestyle of the one rapping. Ultimately and historically an artist rapped for no one but himself. His rap was a call for attention to himself..

The Art Of Rappin'

Culture and Society

A Definition Of The Term Rap

"I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures... I divide the world into the learners and non-learners."

Mindsets are just beliefs; powerful ones, but they’re just something in your mind, and you can change them.Just by being aware of the two mindsets (fixed and growth), you can start thinking and reacting in different ways. It’s also important to realize that even if people have a fixed mindset, they’re not always in that mindset. Many people have elements of both.

Mindsets are powerful beliefs

<ul><li>Having a fixed mindset means believing that your qualities are carved in stone. This creates an urgency to prove yourself all the time.</li><li>People with a fixed mindset expect ability to show up on its own before any learning takes place. </li><li>Some of us are formed in this mindset from childhood. As soon as children become able to assess themselves, some of them become afraid of challenges. They become afraid of not being smart.</li></ul>

The fixed mindset

<ul><li>The growth mindset is the belief that abilities can be cultivated through effort. Everyone can change and grow through application and experience. </li><li>This is the mindset that allows people to succeed during challenging times.</li><li>People with a growth mindset seek challenge; the bigger the challenge, the more they stretch. For them, even geniuses have to work hard for their achievements.</li></ul>

The growth mindset

The growth mindset shows that people can change, but it doesn’t tell you how much change is possible or how long change will take.The growth mindset also doesn’t mean everything that can be changed should be changed. We all need to accept some of our imperfections, especially the ones that don’t really harm our lives or the lives of others.

The growth mindset and change

People with a fixed mindset usually say the ideal partner would:<ul><li>Put them on a pedestal.</li><li>Make them feel perfect.</li><li>Worship them.</li></ul>People with the growth mindset hope their ideal partner is someone who would:<ul><li>See their faults and help them to work on them.</li><li>Challenge them to become a better person.</li><li>Encourage them to learn new things.</li></ul>

Mindsets in relationships

<ul><li>The fixed mindset says that tests or experts can tell us what our potential is, what we’re capable of, what our future will be: you can simply measure the fixed ability right now and project it into the future.</li><li>The idea that one evaluation can measure you forever is what creates urgency for those with a fixed mindset: they must succeed perfectly and immediately.</li><li>But many of the most accomplished people of our era were considered by experts to have no future.</li></ul>

Having "potential"

When people with a fixed mindset usually try to prove that they’re special. The problem is when special begins to mean better than others.People who believe in fixed traits feel an urgency to succeed, and when they do succeed, they feel and display a sense of superiority because their victory means that they (and their traits) are better than the rest of the people.

The fixed mindset and entitlement

<ul><li>For the fixed mindset, failure is transformed from an action (I failed) to an identity (I am a failure). For people with this mindset, failure can define them in a permanent way. And they might try to repair their self-esteem by assigning blame or making excuses.</li><li>Failure can be a painful experience for the growth mindset too. But it doesn’t define people. It’s a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from.</li></ul>

Mindsets and failure

From the point of view of the fixed mindset, effort is only for people with deficiencies. Needing it casts a shadow on your ability. Effort also leaves you with no excuses. Without effort, you can always say, “I could have been ...” But once you try, you can’t say that anymore.

Effort is terrifying for the fixed mindset

<ul><li>For the rest of your life, seek constructive criticism, even when you're tempted to create a world in which you're perfect.</li><li>Is there something in your past that you think measured you? A test score, being fired from a job or being rejected? Focus on that thing and feel all the emotions that go with it.</li><li>Look honestly at your role in it, but understand that it doesn’t define your intelligence or personality.</li><li>Next time you feel low, put yourself in a growth mindset: think about learning, challenge, confronting obstacles.</li><li>See effort as something positive.</li><li>Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but were afraid you weren’t good at? Make a plan to do it.</li></ul>

How to grow your mindset

Reveals how established attitudes affect all aspects of one's life, explains the differences between fixed and growth mindsets, and stresses the need to be open to change in order to achieve fulfillment and success.

Psychology

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

"It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living. It's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety."

A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. And the dominant type of snobbery that exists nowadays is job snobbery. You encounter it within minutes at a party when you get asked, "What do you do?" Depending on your answer, they decide how much attention you deserve from their part.

Job Snobbery

Never before have expectations been so high about what human beings can achieve with their lifespan.&nbsp;We're told, from many sources, that anyone can achieve anything.

Overwhelming Career Expectations

A meritocratic society is one in which, if you've got talent and energy, and skill, you will get to the top, nothing should hold you back. The problem is, if you believe in this system, you'll also believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there. So, your position in life comes to seem not accidental but merited and deserved. And that makes failure seem much more crushing.

Failure In The Meritocratic Society 

"We are the first society to be living in a world where we don't worship anything other than ourselves. We think very highly of ourselves, and so we should; we've put people on the Moon, done all sorts of extraordinary things. And so we tend to worship ourselves. Our heroes are human heroes. That's a very new situation."

You can't have it all. So any vision of success has to admit what it's losing out on, where the element of loss is. And the thing about a successful life is that a lot of the time, our ideas of what it would mean to live successfully are not our own.

You Can't Be Successful At Everything

"When we think about failing in life, when we think about failure, one of the reasons why we fear failing is not just a loss of income, a loss of status. What we fear is the judgment and ridicule of others."

A kinder, gentler philosophy of success | Alain de Botton - YouTube

Gabrielle Chanel is known as the designer who popularised trousers, making them a key piece in women's wardrobes.She broke down sartorial codes by borrowing elements of men's fashion, such as pockets and tweed, and erased waistlines and bustlines to create androgynous silhouettes.&nbsp;

Coco Chanel and the societal and gender norms

The two-piece ensemble, instantly recognizable as signature Chanel, remains a staple in the modern woman's luxury wardrobe nearly 70 years after it was first introduced to the world, and is plagiarised frequently in cheap versions by high-street brands.

The Chanel iconic tweed suit

"Fashion is something that makes changes visible and contributes to change."

"Here is a woman who created her own company in the early 20th Century, was a super-successful businesswoman, who never married, and fought for her own economic freedom. She may not have called herself a feminist, but she made huge contributions to women's history in the 20th Century."

comfort, ease, and liberty were the guiding principle that would dominate Chanel's life’s work; this was unheard of in fashion until then, and especially in a world of haute couture.

Comfort, ease, and liberty

How comfort and freedom became chic in France a century ago – and still are today. Vivian Song explores the progressive work of Coco Chanel.

The French icon who revolutionised women's clothes

"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."

"And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about."

“If you had to say anything it's would be this: whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.”

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”

“Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.”

“Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars.”

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.”

“Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.”

“Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.”

“Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe.”

“A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.”

“If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Each person feels pain in his own way, each has his own scars.”

“When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.”

“Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside.”

Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. As their parallel odysseys unravel, cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since World War II. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle - one of many which combine to create an elegant and dreamlike masterpiece. 'Wonderful... Magical and outlandish' Daily Mail 'Hypnotic, spellbinding' The Times 'Cool, fluent and addictive' Daily Telegraph

My Favourite Quotes From Books

Kafka on the Shore

"Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly."

Humans seem to be happy just as long as they have something in the future to look forward to, whether this is a good time tomorrow or an eternal life beyond physical death.

Tying Our Happiness To Future Events

In order to really enjoy the pleasures of life, we need to face the painful parts, too.Pain and pleasure take turns: constant pleasure is a stimulus that must either lose strength or grow. And this growth will either harden the sense buds with its friction, or turn into pain. The more we are capable to love a person and feel good in their presence, the greater must be our heartache and grief at their death, or in separation.

The Pain And Pleasure Spectrum

The real problem doesn't come from feeling pain the in moment, but from the way we use memory and anticipation.The object or event we fear is not always something happening in the immediate future. It may be the problem of next month’s bills, a social or natural disaster, or even death. It may even be something from the past, a memory that torments the present and makes us feel bitterness or guilt.

"Spoilers" Of The Present

So, rather than feeling anxious about it, accept this insecurity as a part of life by being aware of the present moment. This will help you find peace and contentment.We have no reassurance regarding what the future will bring and even the best predictions are still just that, predictions, matters of probability rather than certainty. All we know for sure is that every person will experience some kind of pain and death. If we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are clearly not adapted to living in a world where accidents will happen, no matter how hard we try to avoid them, and where everybody dies at the end.

There Is No Security In Life

We think that making sense out of life means we have in some way to fit the sequence of events into a rigid framework.Life is meaningful to us if we can understand it in terms of fixed codes, rules and law. But if this is what “making sense out of life” means, we have set ourselves the impossible task of "making fixity out of flux."

Making Sense Out Of Life

The brain is in pursuit of happiness, and because it is much more preoccupied with the future than the present, it sees happiness as an assurance of a future with pleasures, that must be cramped into the span of a few years.And the “brainy” economy is a remarkable vicious circle that need to fabricate more and more pleasures or otherwise it will collapse: it must provide a constant stimulation for the ears, eyes, and nerve ends through neverending streams of noise and visual distractions. These streams of stimulants are created to produce even more cravings, and these cravings drive us to do that has nothing interesting for us, apart from the money it pays (which we use to get more stuff in an attempt to persuade us that happiness lies just around the corner if we will buy one more thing.)

The Happiness Consumerism

We usually don't trust the “snap” solutions our wandering minds find, but the truth is that these easy and almost unconscious solutions is what the brain is supposed to deliver.When it's functioning the right way, the brain is the highest form of “instinctual wisdom.” And because of that, it should work without articulating the process or knowing “how” it does it.

Instinctual Wisdom

There is a viewpoint from which the “rationalization” of life is not rational. The brain is clever enough to see the vicious circle which it has made for itself. But it can't do nothing about it.You may acknowledge that worrying brings no benefits, but that doesn't stop you from worrying; instead, you worry even more for being unreasonable. Calling a negative feeling bad names doesn’t help you to get rid of it.

Rationalizing Life

If a problem can be solved, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing.Doing something about a problem that you don't understand is like trying to clear away darkness by thrusting it aside with your hands.

Understanding Comes Through Awareness

Being aware of life means experiencing it as it is in the present moment, without judgments or ideas about it.You have to see and feel what you are "experiencing as it is, and not as it is named".

What Awareness Is

Memories are abstract things: they symbolize knowledge about things rather than of things. Memory never captures the core and the tangible reality of an experience."It is, as it were, the corpse of an experience, from which the life has vanished. What we know by memory, we know only at secondhand. Memories are dead because fixed."

Memories Never Truly Succeed In “Catching” Reality

<ol><li>Compare it with the memories of other experiences, to name and define it. This is to interpret it in accordance with the the past.</li><li>Be aware of it as it is, forget past and future, let the present be all, and thus do not even stop to think, "I am happy.”</li></ol>Both ways are somehow useful. But they correspond to the difference between knowing a thing by words and knowing it immediately.

The Two Ways Of Understanding An Experience

Silence is the only way to discover something new to talk about. The person constantly talking, without stopping to look and listen, is repeating himself over and over again.The same thing happens with thinking, which is really silent talking. Thinking is by nature not open to the discovery of anything new - the only novelties it brings are simply the result of moving old ideas around and rearranging them. When thoughts stop, the mind is open to see a problem as it is (not as we verbalize it) and this opens the path to real understanding.

Giving Power To Silence

"If we are open only to discoveries which will accord with what we know already, we may as well stay shut. (...) It is in vain that we can predict and control the course of events in the future, unless we know how to live in the present. It is in vain that doctors prolong life if we spend the extra time being anxious to live still longer. It is in vain that engineers devise faster and easier means of travel if the new sights that we see are merely sorted and understood in terms of old prejudices. It is in vain that we get the power of the atom if we are just to continue in the rut of blowing people up."

We live in an age of unprecedented anxiety. Spending all our time trying to anticipate and plan for the future and to lamenting the past, we forget to embrace the here and now. We are so concerned with tomorrow that we forget to enjoy today. Drawing from Eastern philosophy and religion, Alan Watts shows that it is only by acknowledging what we do not—and cannot—know that we can learn anything truly worth knowing. In The Wisdom of Insecurity, he shows us how, in order to lead a fulfilling life, we must embrace the present—and live fully in the now. Featuring an Introduction by Deepak Chopra.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Andreea Ciocan
@andreea

How to Enjoy Art - A Year of Living Better Guides

There Are No Art Movements Today, Says Michael Rooks of Atlanta's High Museum

A Definition Of The Term Rap

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

A kinder, gentler philosophy of success | Alain de Botton - YouTube

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Andreea Ciocan@andreea

How to Enjoy Art - A Year of Living Better Guides

There Are No Art Movements Today, Says Michael Rooks of Atlanta's High Museum

A Definition Of The Term Rap

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

A kinder, gentler philosophy of success | Alain de Botton - YouTube

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Andreea Ciocan
@andreea