Thought.is

In a Gallup poll from August 2013, only 2% of Americans said that “Poverty/Hunger/Homelessness” was one of “the most important problems facing this country today.”

According to Grunfeld, a poor woman in a coffee shop didn’t write the Harry Potter series; instead, a team of writers and advertisers came together to create a meticulously crafted, hyper-slick franchise with wide appeal

Stanford professor Sean F. Reardon found that since the 1960s, the difference in exam scores between rich and poor students has grown by 40%. As far as college completion rates, the difference between rich and poor students has grown by 50% over the last 30 years.

An ugly, lonely boy who supposedly has a curse over him as a result of his great-great-grandfather stealing the shoes of Clyde “Sweet Feet” Livingston, Stanley Yelnats is just one of many pathetic characters in Sachar’s novel.

Unfortunately, rather than attacking these big questions with our immense resources, we have settled on dealing with small, banal issues — issues that don’t force us to our face our mortality, our cosmic insignificance, and the sorts of depressing realizations that come with exploring the big questions.

We’ve incorporated our “quirks” into our personal branding as best we can. Twitter bios read: “lover of English tea,” “surfer guy,” “leadership guru,” “waffle aficionado,” “fluent in sarcasm,” “future cat lady,” “obsessed with books,” “world traveler,” and on and on.

“I sat staring out the window today. Life passing me by. My memories my companion.”

Everyone works together to create the daily chaos that fuels a city, not unlike the rapid industrialization that first bred the pioneering flâneurs in the mid-19th-century.

Besides just bigger audiences, there’s a reason Phoenix and Daft Punk sing in English.