An existentialist guide to life, work, dating, and exercise

Some people are apparently totally cool with living in an absurd world. Presumably, these folks don’t experience existence as futile or see enthusiasm as foolish.

However, not all of us are so lucky or plucky, and so we’re left mustering up reasons to be and do even as we sense it’s all pointless. We can’t go on. We must go on. We’re already here.

- Quartzy

Growing up in the Wild Wild Country cult: ‘You heard people having sex all the time, like baboons’

In 1976, Noa Maxwell’s family joined Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s ‘free love’ commune, now the subject of a Netflix series. He talks about his ‘weirdo’ childhood, and his struggle to adjust to life outside.

- The Guardian

Underground LSD Palace

Delve into the life of Krystle Cole, a former stripper who lived in an underground LSD lab.

VICE's Hamilton Morris talks to an unlikely figure in psychotropic drug lore: Kansas-raised former goth stripper Krystle Cole, who lived in a subterranean missile silo converted into a luxurious LSD-manufacturing facility. She spent three years of her life running from the DEA, being held partially against her will and used as a guinea pig for strange new psychedelic chemicals. Eventually her friends­-turned-­captors were arrested and Krystle herself barely escaped incarceration. She now makes her living as a writer, sharing her experiences in books and on the web.

- Vice \ YouTube

Planet 13: the world's largest cannabis dispensary is in Las Vegas

A visit to the world’s largest cannabis dispensary.

At the very end of my tour of the world’s largest cannabis dispensary, CEO Bob Groesbeck takes me outside to see the lotuses. Sticking out from the top of the building are seven large plastic flowers, each with a neon green or orange core. It’s the middle of the day, so they look a little out of place, but Groesbeck assures me that it’s quite impressive at night when the entire complex is lit up and the petals change color. In fact, he says, the artist hired for the installation had created something similar for Burning Man.

- The Verge

Feel younger than you are? Here’s why you’re on to something good

Emile Ratelband made international headlines when he launched a controversial legal battle to change his official date of birth from March 1949 to March 1969, reflecting the fact that he feels 20 years younger. The story probably made some of us laugh, but who can blame him for wanting to share his year of birth with the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Jay-Z, Steffi Graf or even my good self?

The legal bid may be a first, but it is actually common to feel younger than we are. A 2018 study with 33,751 respondents showed that once people pass the pivotal age of 25, they typically rate their subjective age as younger than their chronological age. And this discrepancy grows as we get older – for every decade that passes, people tend to feel that have only gained five or six years. This is the equivalent to living Martian years as opposed to Earth years.

- The Conversation

We Need to Rethink Our Ideas About Aging

How old we are shouldn’t determine who we are.

There’s an old-school video game we all know in which you guide your little plumber along in a straight line. Once you pass a certain point, you can’t go back; only the path ahead can be rendered. Behind lies nothing but pixelated memories.

Now compare that to the huge scope of an open-world game. There’s ostensibly a main quest, but the real joy comes from exploration, from getting lost, from going back to revisit something in the light of newly acquired information or skills or just out of sheer curiosity.

- Medium

Good Grief!: The beguiling philosophy of Peanuts

Peanuts creator Charles M Schulz claimed his comic strips were “about nothing” – but according to a new exhibition, they had a seismic influence on society.

When I was growing up in the middle of nowhere in western Canada, I loved Charles M Schulz’s Peanuts comic strips. Their meditative, downbeat tone resonated with my understanding of life. They are comic strips full of the vulnerabilities of childhood: what satisfactions they offer us are subtle and hard-won – such as those of friendship.

- BBC

News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier

News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether.

- The Guardian

10 Pot Smokers Who Changed the World

We all know the common perception of marijuana users as glassy-eyed couch potatoes glued to the TV, giggling for no good reason and eating everything in sight. But not everyone who smokes reefer ends up lazy and absent-minded.

The psychoactive properties of cannabis have tremendous potential to stimulate creativity, imagination and ingenuity. The herb has been a source of inspiration to artists, philosophers, scientists, inventors, and visionaries in nearly every field of human endeavor.

Here is a list of such visionaries-under-the-influence, whose life and work has been so revolutionary as to profoundly shape the world we live in today.

- Excessively

This Weed Strain Was Designed Specifically To Make You Orgasm

One night, pot enthusiast Karyn Wagner smoked up with her partner before having what she later described as the best sex she’d ever had. "[Afterwards] I said, 'You know, honey, that was perfect. Save it for next time," Wagner recalls.

That night proved to be life-changing — for Wagner's sex life and her entrepreneurial life. Her company is now selling a special strain, Sexxpot, which Wagner says is specifically designed to help women attain incredibly pleasurable orgasms.

- Refinery29

L'apocalypse selon Joe Beef

La superficialité des médias sociaux, le grotesque en politique, le mensonge, les dépendances... Nous vivons une époque inquiétante, croient les restaurateurs David McMillan et Frédéric Morin. Sous la plume de l'auteure Meredith Erickson, ils tentent de nous diriger vers la lumière avec leur deuxième livre, Joe Beef - Survivre à l'apocalypse.

«Plus qu'un autre livre de recettes», peut-on lire en sous-titre de l'ouvrage Joe Beef - Survivre à l'apocalypse. En effet, comme L'art de vivre selon Joe Beef, paru en 2011, le deuxième opus du restaurant de la Petite-Bourgogne se lit comme le manifeste d'une cuisine et d'une restauration vraies, réfléchies, parfaitement uniques.

- La Presse

Le plaisir perdu du cinéma érotique

Que sont les films érotiques devenus? Discussion avec des spécialistes qui sont aussi des fans, le tout accompagné de quelques découvertes dans nos archives.

Histoire d'O, Le dernier tango à Paris, les nombreux films de la série Emmanuelle... Au milieu des années 80, lorsque Bleu nuit est arrivée à TQS, les films érotiques (ou les films contenant de l'érotisme) des années 70 et 80 ont fait leur entrée à la télévision généraliste.

- La Presse

Mort du compositeur Francis Lai

Le compositeur et musicien Francis Lai est mort à l'âge de 86 ans, a annoncé hier le maire de Nice Christian Estrosi.

Francis Lai avait reçu l'Oscar de la meilleure musique de film en 1970 pour Love Story. Il a collaboré à plusieurs reprises avec Claude Lelouch, et ce, dès 1966 avec Un homme et une femme.

Francis Lai - Scène d'amour (de "Bilitis")


- La Presse

The Truth About New York’s Legendary ‘Mole People’

Two decades after NYC sought to relocate its infamous tunnel-dwelling denizens, a years-long investigation reveals a few hardy souls still toiling and thriving beneath the city.

- Narratively

19 Unbelievable Pictures From The Early Years Of The NYC Subway

On Oct. 27, 1904, New York City's first subway line opened to the public and the Big Apple has never been the same since.

- BuzzFeed

Boxed In: Life Inside The “Coffin Cubicles” Of Hong Kong

Photographer Benny Lam has documented the suffocating living conditions in Hong Kong’s subdivided flats, recording the lives of these hidden communities.

These small, wooden boxes of 15 sq ft, are known as ‘coffin cubicles’. Cage homes are minuscule rooms lived in by the poorest people in the city. Over the last 10 years, the number of cage homes made of wire mesh has decreased, but they’ve been replaced by beds sealed with wooden planks. The tenants are different ages and sexes – all unable to afford a small cubicle, which would allow more room to stand up

- Design you Trust

Our fiction addiction : Why humans need stories

From fireside folk tales to Netflix dramas, narratives are essential to every society – and evolutionary theorists are now trying to figure out why.

- BBC

In Wanderlust, Toni Collette Gets Serious About Sex

Wanderlust begins with a longtime married couple in the throes of bad sex that doesn’t end well. Joy (Toni Collette) was recently in a bicycling accident and hasn’t been in the mood for a while. Alan (Steven Mackintosh) thinks she’s just making excuses and is actually no longer attracted to him. Later in that first episode, after each has a sexual encounter outside their marriage, Joy proposes something: What if they try seeing other people — purely for physical reasons — but remain happily married to each other? They can maintain a stable relationship, keep their family unit together, and still get some on the side. It’s a marital fantasy, but maybe they can make it work?

- Vulture

A strong libido and bored by monogamy: the truth about women and sex

When a heterosexual couple marries, who’s likely to get bored of sex first? The answer might surprise you…

What do you know about female sexuality? Whatever it is, chances are, says Wednesday Martin, it’s all wrong. “Most of what we’ve been taught by science about female sexuality is untrue,” she says. “Starting with two basic assertions: that men have a stronger libido than women, and that men struggle with monogamy more than women do.”

- The Guardian