Never really breaking up - dating in the digital age

On exes: 

“So I tried a few different things—the best is MuteTweet, which for the most part keeps him out of my timeline.” Celia blocked him on Gchat, removed him from her Facebook feed, and installed a web-browser plug-in called Ex-Blocker, which makes sure no reference to the supplied names appears in Firefox or Chrome. For those who want to erase history, KillSwitch crawls your Facebook photos, videos, and wall posts, systematically deleting anything that mentions your ex. For those who lack willpower, Ex Lover Blocker activates a phone tree of your best friends when you call your ex. (If you try to work around it, Ex Lover Blocker resorts to public shaming on your Facebook wall.) There’s even something called Eternal Sunshine, which removes unwanted status updates from your Facebook feed.

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The Czech novelist Milan Kundera coined the phrase “the lightness of being” in 1984’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He meant it as a counterpoint to “the heaviest of burdens,” Nietzsche’s idea of eternal return: “If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus was nailed to the cross,” he wrote. “It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make.” 

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Stephen Colbert on grief

PLAYBOY: They were on a commercial airliner that crashed while landing in thick fog. Your brothers were both teenagers, and your father was taking them to Connecticut to enroll them in private school. How did you make sense of their deaths?

COLBERT: Things didn’t seem that important anymore. Nothing seemed that important anymore. My mother said to me—and I think she said this to all my brothers and sisters—she urged me to look at everything in the light of eternity. In other words, it doesn’t matter what I wear. I just wear the uniform of my youth. I wear an oxford-cloth shirt and khakis. What does it matter? What does it matter what I wear?

PLAYBOY: As a 10-year-old boy who just lost his dad, that advice helped you?

COLBERT: Sure, absolutely.

PLAYBOY: It’s been almost four decades since it happened. Does the grief dissipate?

COLBERT: No. It’s not as keen. Well, it’s not as present, how about that? It’s just as keen but not as present. But it will always accept the invitation. Grief will always accept the invitation to appear. It’s got plenty of time for you.

PLAYBOY: “I’ll be here.”

COLBERT: That’s right. “I’ll be here when you need me.” The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size. It is not the size of you. It is its own size. And grief comes to you. You know what I mean? I’ve always liked that phrase He was visited by grief, because that’s really what it is. Grief is its own thing. It’s not like it’s in me and I’m going to deal with it. It’s a thing, and you have to be okay with its presence. If you try to ignore it, it will be like a wolf at your door.

after the party, beyond the city

cruel, kind