Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 241

“This is the first time we’ve been away from her...

“This is the first time we’ve been away from her newborn sister.”

“I need a dog.”

“I need a dog.”

“I’ve spent the last 32 years studying the evolution of nine...

“I’ve spent the last 32 years studying the evolution of nine types of fish from the Embiotocidae family in the northern Pacific. I think it’s about time to retire.”
“What will you do when you retire?”
“Probably study a new type of fish in a different place.”

“I just have this phone because I like small phones. It’s not...

“I just have this phone because I like small phones. It’s not really a good symbol of conservation. Conservation isn’t some huge sacrifice. It doesn’t mean you can’t have nice things. I’ve got a nice flat screen TV at home, great furniture, a sauna, sporting goods, and all the clothes I can wear. Conservation just means that you aren’t constantly getting rid of perfectly good stuff to replace it with stuff that you don’t need. A perfect table is perfect for hundreds of years. You don’t need a new one every couple years. Our culture is called ‘materialistic,’ but that’s not even correct, because ‘materialism’ implies that we value our possessions. And we don’t. We get rid of them, then we destroy Africa to get more shit that nobody needs. There’s no more pressing problem right now than the depletion of the earth. The earth can tolerate a lot of punishment, but if there isn’t a change in the way we consume, there is no way it can survive. We will gladly give money help people in need. But we can’t equate the act of conservation with helping billions of people for generations to come.”

“I’m the assistant manager at a nice restaurant. I’m happy...

“I’m the assistant manager at a nice restaurant. I’m happy with my job, but I work thirteen hours a day and I’m not able to save a lot of money. My wife is a beautiful woman, and sometimes I feel guilty that she chose me. I feel a lot of responsibility for some of the stress she’s under. She could have been with a much wealthier man. Instead she’s having to worry about whether we have enough money to have kids.”

“My older brother died of AIDS in 1990. He lived with me...

“My older brother died of AIDS in 1990. He lived with me during his last four years and I took care of him. It was hard for him because he was so proud. He wouldn’t let me wheel him outside because he didn’t want people to see him. He didn’t want to let me feed him. If he fell down, he wouldn’t call for me. He was like that even when we were kids. One time when he was ten years old, he fell on the street and cut his arm open on a piece of glass. He had to go to the hospital to get stitches, and I cried about it more than he did. But toward the end of his life, late at night, I’d hear him crying in the bathroom. The first time it happened I knocked on the door. But he wiped his eyes and acted like nothing was wrong. So after that I didn’t knock any more.”

“I stay out until midnight every night because I don’t want to...

“I stay out until midnight every night because I don’t want to go home. We had a good marriage for 17 or 18 years, but then he started becoming frightened and paranoid. He began to think that people were watching him. Over the years it has gotten worse and worse. He let all my parakeets loose last March. Then he sold all my jewelry and furniture and artwork. Then in November he killed my dog. She was an old Rottweiler. She wasn’t in the best health but she certainly wasn’t dying. He just called me at the theater and said: ‘I took your dog to the hospital. She’s dead.’ Part of me feels sorry for him because he’s so broken, but the cruelty is overwhelming. I just keep thinking about how scared my dog must have been.”

“Nepal is my home, and my family and community are there. The...

“Nepal is my home, and my family and community are there. The country needs educated people like me to rebuild, but there isn’t much opportunity for those who return. The recent earthquake made me very sad that I’m not there. But then again, a part of me was happy I’m not.”

“America seemed a lot easier when I was looking at it...

“America seemed a lot easier when I was looking at it from Honduras.”

“We’d been together for a couple years. One night I asked him...

“We’d been together for a couple years. One night I asked him if he ever thought about our future together, and he said ‘not really.’ So we broke up. He started dating someone new. I unfollowed him on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. The other day he came over for the first time in months and fixed my remote control. So I started following him again. When he got the notification, he asked me why I had unfollowed him in the first place. I didn’t know how to say: ‘Because it hurts to see pictures of you being happy without me.’”