"3:45" by Alisha Liu

CalArts animation student Alisha Liu created a gentle, optimistic short film called "3:45." I will say that I do what the young character in this film does, but instead of seeing one side or the other, I usually see both...at the same time...macro and micro...welcome to my head...

https://alishaliu.com/

Ikigai

From Wikipedia:

Ikigai (生き甲斐, pronounced [ikiɡai]) is a Japanese concept that means "a reason for being." It is similar to the French phrase Raison d'être. Everyone, according to Japanese culture, has an ikigai. Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self. Such a search is important to the cultural belief that discovering one's ikigai brings satisfaction and meaning to life.[1] For some, it might be work, hobbies and raising children.

The term ikigai compounds two Japanese words: iki (wikt:生き) meaning "life; alive" and kai (甲斐) "(an) effect; (a) result; (a) fruit; (a) worth; (a) use; (a) benefit; (no, little) avail" (sequentially voiced as gai) "a reason for living [being alive]; a meaning for [to] life; what [something that] makes life worth living; a raison d'etre".

In the culture of Okinawa, ikigai is thought of as "a reason to get up in the morning"; that is, a reason to enjoy life. In a TED Talk, Dan Buettner suggested ikigai as one of the reasons people in the area had such long lives.

The word ikigai is usually used to indicate the source of value in one's life or the things that make one's life worthwhile. Secondly, the word is used to refer to mental and spiritual circumstances under which individuals feel that their lives are valuable. It's not linked to one's financial status[5]. Even if a person feels that the present is dark, but they have a goal in mind, they may feel ikigai. Behaviours that make us feel ikigai are not actions we are forced to take—these are natural and spontaneous actions.

In the article named Ikigai — jibun no kanosei, kaikasaseru katei ("Ikigai: the process of allowing the self's possibilities to blossom") Kobayashi Tsukasa says that "people can feel real ikigai only when, on the basis of personal maturity, the satisfaction of various desires, love and happiness, encounters with others, and a sense of the value of life, they proceed toward self-realization."

Words To Live By

I have been saying this for years...it's kind of my motto.

The Journey

“You know so much, it's making you cry
You refuse to talk but you think like mad”
--David Bowie, Love Is Lost

“The realization that life is taking its course, even without you, is an intense human experience; it shows the finiteness of personality.”
--Mark Manders

“Living life means we bear the traces of its passage across us, and our passage through it.”
--Alexander Fury, fashion journalist

“The truth is, of course, that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.”
--David Bowie

"Jorka"

"'Jorka' is the story for those left behind. For those who still feel the presence of the dead and who try to make sense of what happened."

http://www.illuster.nl/

The Meaning

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.
You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
—Albert Camus

"Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning."
—Joseph Campbell

"Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded."
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself."
—Erich Fromm