#imp

To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group--a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project. ↗

— Cornel West

#critical-reflection #improve #individuality #jazz #jazz-freedom-fighter

The idea that we can actually have an impact on places more or less instantly, too, by responding in some way or not responding, I think, also makes it true. ↗

— Peter Singer

#also #i #i think #idea #impact

I am so far as I am aware not at all influenced by dramatists, expect for Shakespeare, who I have to say, it is impossible not to be influenced by if you hold language to be the major element of theatre. ↗

— Howard Barker

#aware #dramatists #element #expect #far

Refrain to-night; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence, the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either master the devil or throw him out With wondrous potency. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#priorities #self-control #self-improvement #uprightness #change

When the pain of being the same becomes greater than the pain of being different, you change. ↗

— Deepak Chopra

#self-improvement #spiritual #change

I think music needs to be presented in a way so that kids can grasp songs, dances, simple music that's associated with some particular defining moment in human experience. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#dances #defining #defining moment #experience #grasp

that was bad; i shouldn't have done that to prevent you from entering a catatonic state i am going to maintain a calm facial expression with crinkly eyes and an overall friendly demeanor i believe in a human being that is not upset i believe if you are working i should not be insane or upset--why am i ever insane or upset and not working? i vacuumed the entire house this morning i cleaned the kitchen and the computer room and i made you a meat helmet with computer paper the opportunity for change exists in each moment, all moments are alone and separate from other moments, and there are a limited number of moments and the idea of change is a delusion of positive or negative thinking your hands are covering your face and your body moves like a statue when i try to manipulate an appendage if i could just get you to cry tears of joy one more time ↗

— Tao Lin

#impermanence #indifferent-universe #meat-helmet #productivity #sadness

No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking. ↗

— J. P. Morgan

#concrete #difficulty #element #essential #form

You can’t change the road you traveled from a child, but you can certainly take a different road for the journey into your future. ↗

— Shamarion Whitaker

#self-improvement-book #change

Classifying depression as an illness serves the psychiatric community and pharmaceutical corporations well; it also soothes the frightened, guilty, indifferent, busy, sadistic, and unschooled. To understand depression as a call for life-changes is not profitable. Stagnation is not a medical term. The 17.5 million Americans diagnosed as suffering a major depression in 1997 were mostly damned. (Psychobiological examinations confuse cause and symptom.) Deficient serotonergic functioning, ventral prefrontal cerebral cortex, dis-inhibition of impulsive-aggressive behavior, blah blah blah: the medical lexicon boils emotion from human being. Go take a drug, the doctor says. Pain is a biochemical phenomenon. Erase all memory. ↗

— Antonella Gambotto-Burke

#biochemical-phenomenon #cause-and-symptom #disinhibition #doctors #drugs