Behind The Lens Quotes

Behind the camera, I was invisible. When I lifted it up to my eye it was like I crawled into the lens, losing myself there. and everything else fell away.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be 'interesting' to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely... by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria — which is our actual experience.

Cameras are a lifesaver for very shy people who have nowhere else to hide. Behind a lens they can disguise the fact that they have nothing to say to strangers.

I had taken the photograph from afar (distance being the basic glitch in our relationship), using my Nikon and zoom lens while hiding behind a fake marble pillar. I was hiding because if he knew I'd been secretly photographing him for all these months he would think I was immature, neurotic and obsessive. I'm not. I'm an artist. Artists are always misunderstood.(Thwonk)

Jade: "You’ve got to propel rock star, not Sons of Anarchy.” Dante: “Sons of what?” Jade: “Don’t you watch television?” Dante: “I only rent videos, and they all start with a P and end with a big O.

He looked at her and tried to discover behind her lascivious expression the familiar features that he loved tenderly. It was as if he were looking at two images through the same lens, at two images superimposed one on the other with one showing through the other. These two images showing through each other were telling him that everything was in the girl, that her soul was terrifyingly amorphous, that it held faithfulness and unfaithfulness, treachery and innocence, flirtatiousness and chastity. This disorderly jumble seemed disgusting to him, like the variety to be found in a pile of garbage. Both images continued to show through each other, and the young man understood that the girl differed only on the surface from other women, but deep down was the same as they: full of all possible thoughts, feelings, and vices, which justified all his secret misgivings and fits of jealousy. The impression that certain outlines delineated her as an individual was only a delusion to which the other person, the one who was looking, was subject--namely himself. It seemed to him that the girl he loved was a creation of his desire, his thoughts, and his faith and that the real girl now standing in front of him was hopelessly other, hopelessly alien, hopelessly ambiguous. He hated her.

got that dark, second-day stubble that gives him just the right amount of ruggedness. He looks like a perfect combination of a New York intellectual and a sexy Bear Grylls.

Photography saved my life by opening my eyes to the beauty that surrounds me each and everyday. Life look much richer from behind the lens.

He understood then that all his exploits as a reporter, the feats that had won him such recognition and fame, were merely an attempt to keep his most ancient fears at bay, a stratagem for taking refuge behind a lens to test whether reality was more tolerable from that perspective.

Ash had said that eyes were windows to a person's soul, but hers were the windows to his. ~ Dante

The beauty you see in others is the true reflection behind the lens of the real person you see in yourself.

I couldn't help but think, as I watched him, of the barrels of toxic fluids that had accrued behind Hal's bike shop where the scrub lining the railroad tracks had offered local companies enough cover to dump a stray contaner or two. Everything had been sealed up, but things were beginning to leak out. I had come to both pity and respect Len in the years since my mother left. He followed the physical to try to understand things that were impossible to comphrehend. In that, I could see, he was like me.

The Devil was once an Angel." ~ Kara

It's scary to show parts of yourself to someone else, but I like her having them. I'd give her everything, if I could, and I feel like she’d do the same for me.

There were two spacemen right behind us, holding some kind of weapons on us that I didn't recognize. They were bulky and ended in some kind of slanted lens thing. I kinda wanted to get shot with one, just to see what it did.

I met her eyes, and for the first time I perceived that there was something broken behind them, like a tiny crack in a diamond that becomes visible only when viewed through a magnifying lens; normally it is hidden by the brilliance of the stone.

The bullet smashed through the right lens of Winston’s glasses and slammed him back against the lounge wall. Ozzy was expressionless as his old friend slid down the wall leaving a smear of red behind him. Above his creased body, a gob of pale tissue clung onto the light switch. “Aw, Winston,” he said, “you did have a brain after all!

Seeing through the lens started to become a part of my day-to-day life and I focused on the everyday...I looked for beauty in things that often go unnoticed. The lens allowed me to see the beauty from behind the safe remove of a steel-and-leather-covered folding camera.

You think everyone pervs you."... "That's cos they do, and you're just jealous, cos I'm gorgeous and you're not." ~ conversation between Dante &Ash

You held me down and rammed me so hard I deep-throated you from the other end.

At least with the video class I'd be behind a lens instead of standing up in front of everyone where they could strip me down and evaluate me

Turn the TV off and read an inspiring book, it will make a difference behind the camera.

In a world of what ifs and endless possibilities, he and I are a definite yes.

She's the reason for all of my good days.

I want you more than I've ever wanted anyone else, Mae. In another world, you'd already be mine.

Every photo tells a story but remember this, there was a story teller behind the lens.

Being on that pitcher’s mound, it’s the one thing I’m really good at. The one thing I haven’t fucked up. And when I’m on the field, everything else fades away. You know?” He turned to look at me, his eyes craving understanding. I smiled and he continued. “It’s like my mind is clear when I’m out there. It’s not about my mom or my dad or the stupid shit I’ve done. It’s about me, the ball, and the batter. It’s the one place in the world where I feel like I’m in control. Like I have a say in what happens around me.” I stopped my head from nodding in agreement once I realized that I was doing it. “I feel that way when I’m taking pictures. Anything that I’m not seeing through my lens fades away in the background. And I get to frame my picture any way I choose. I get to dictate how it looks. What’s in it. What isn’t. Behind that lens I have complete control in how things are seen.” He smiled, his dimples indenting his cheeks. “You get it.

That's why you came here? To tell me you missed me?” “Among other things?” “Like?” “Like that I can't get you out of my head. I think about you, every second of every day. I've tried really fucking hard not to, but I can't stop, and I'm done pretending like I can. I'm weak, Maven, and you've ruined me. I never stood a chance when it came to you.

Everyone thinks his family is strange," Del said, scratching Scootie behind the ears, "but it's just that... because we're closer to the people we love, we tend to see them through a magnifying glass, through a thicker lens of emotion, and we exaggerate their eccentricities.

He bit his lip, feeling guilty for looking at her tits. He imagined ripping the bra's flimsy material , it was a travesty to cover those beauties. He loved burying his cock between her tits, using them to sandwich it as he rubbed himself to orgasm, giving her the only pearl necklace he could afford.~ Dante

Behind every beautiful things there's an ugly situation

She moved the gun to her breast, placing it over her heart-the treacherous thing the cause of all her troubles~ Kara

I will fight as I would for my last ounce of breath. Because she’s my all-in. Stephanie is my air. Stephanie is my heart. She’s everything vital to me.

Jarred: I’m so sorry, Steves. I was blinded by rage. I get

You don't need years to know you found the right person.

I'd do it again. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'm not learning from my mistakes because loving her isn’t a mistake. It's the easiest, surest thing.

I am drenched in life and dehydrated from living.

You can hang on to that pain of the past, of what you used to be, or you can recognise that sometimes life doesn't go the way you want it to. You find a new way to get what you want.

And I think a lot of the time, people get caught up in the ever after part of being happy. What's wrong with just being happy right here, right now? None of us can control the future.

Her smile is soft and slow, and it lights up her whole face. There are wrinkles on her nose. There's a gleam in her eye, and she looks happy. I'd like to make her smile like that again.

All the air has been sucked out of the room, nothing but extinguished embers from a kindled fire left behind. “You’re a beautiful woman, Maggie. I’d be an idiot to hope for anything else.

He’d covered the lens with a piece of blue painter’s tape. But rumors abounded that computers made in the past two years, which his had been, contained a second, hidden camera—a so-called Orwell eye—that looked out from behind the screen.

You are the most irritating person I've ever met!. You have no logic; all you are is a stupid neurotic woman. You don't deserve that face. I should carve it up to make it as ugly as your personality, so I won't want to fuck you every time I see you. ~ Saul

With a tug, I pulled Len off his knees, wrapped my arms around him, and hugged him close. Behind his back, I flashed a middle finger of defiance I hoped Cupid saw high up on Mount Olympus. Fuck soul mates. Fuck Grayson. Fuck Cupid. I was keeping the ring.

Time is a bitch. Imagine how different life would be if we had the ability to pause it and correct our mistakes or pick a different path after knowing the consequences of our actions. That's why we have to enjoy where we are right now; there's no going back.

Start a daily routine of looking at yourself in the mirror through a lens of unconditional love, appreciation, admiration and respect....Connect with the soul behind the image of you in the mirror. Look upon yourself with complete adoration, acceptance and non- judgement.

Like Oz, life is full of beauty and horror. Whether you’re in the magical realm or the so-called civilized one, you can look at the world around you and see both things at almost any time. But what being in Oz taught me is that no matter how horrific a situation may be, no matter how devastating or scary or chaotic, there is still always beauty in the colors of it all, even in the grays. As I look back on the last four years of my life, on everything that led me to the place where my life changed forever for a second time, I might think I wasted too many crucial years perceiving my world through a lens that leeched the color from everything I set my eyes on, but now I can forgive myself for my mistakes and maybe even be grateful for the trials I’ve faced. After all, a rainbow only comes out when it rains. The most spectacular rainbows are set against a backdrop of a half dark sky where gray clouds hover and rain batters the surface of the earth, but the horizon is clear and bright—a pure, radiant blue surrounding a shining golden sun. When I’m in Oz, that rainbow is who I am—a vivid, radiant spectrum of colors with a clear bright landscape ahead only made more rich-hued and vibrant by the darkness that lies behind it.

Graduating college isn’t the end, getting married isn’t the end, even death isn’t the end. All those things are just the beginnings of new stories, maybe happening outside my creative lens. It’s not up to us to tell a complete story – that’s not possible. Our job is to tell the story we see. Anything else has to be left to the imagination.

In preference-speak, Judging means this type prefers to have decisions (aka judgments) behind them (settled). They feel more comfortable once the decision, whatever it is, is made. In preference-speak, Perceiving means “preferring to take in information.” Perceivers prefer to postpone decisions in order to stay open to new information as long as possible.

TIME TO SACRIFICE TAURUS This is the night of union when the stars scatter their rice over us. The sky is excited! Venus cannot stop singing the little songs she's making up, like birds in the first warm spring weather. The North Star can't quit looking over at Leo. Pisces is stirring milky dust from the ocean floor. Jupiter rides his horse near Saturn, "Old man, jump up behind me! The juice is coming back! Think of something happy to shout as we go. "Mars washes his bloody sword, puts it up, and begins building things. The Aquarian water jar fills, and the Virgin pours it generously. The Pleiades and Libra and Aries have no trembling in them anymore. Scorpio walks out looking for a lover, and so does Sagittarius! This is not crooked walking like the Crab. This is a holiday we've been waiting for. It is finally time to sacrifice Taurus and learn how the sky is a lens to look through. Listen to what's inside what I say. Shams will appear at dawn; then even night will change from its beloved animated darkness to a day within this ordinary sweet daylight.

From Preach’s time as a prison chaplain, before he joined the Atlanta PD, he knew the true horror of incarceration was not the loss of freedom, but the daily choices one was forced to make to survive. Navigating the jungle without becoming one of the animals. Most people that landed behind bars—not all, but most—had disadvantaged upbringings and poor choices to blame. It was prison that turned them into criminals.

By December 1975, a year had passed since Mr. Harvey had packed his bags, but there was still no sign of him. For a while, until the tape dirtied or the paper tore, store owners kept a scratchy sketch of him taped to their windows. Lindsey and Samuel walked in the neighboorhood or hung out at Hal's bike shop. She wouldn't go to the diner where the other kids went. The owner of the diner was a law and order man. He had blown up the sketch of George Harvey to twice its size and taped it to the front door. He willingly gave the grisly details to any customer who asked- young girl, cornfield, found only an elbow. Finallly Lindsey asked Hal to give her a ride to the police station. She wanted to know what exactly they were doing. They bid farewell to Samuel at the bike shop and Hal gave Lindsey a ride through a wet December snow. From the start, Lindsey's youth and purpose had caught the police off guard. As more and more of them realized who she was, they gave her a wider and wider berth. Here was this girl, focused, mad, fifteen... When Lindsey and Hal waited outside the captain's office on a wooden bench, she thought she saw something across the room that she recognized. It was on Detective Fenerman's desk and it stood out in the room because of its color. What her mother had always distinguished as Chinese red, a harsher red than rose red, it was the red of classic red lipsticks, rarely found in nature. Our mother was proud of her ability fo wear Chinese red, noting each time she tied a particular scarf around her neck that it was a color even Grandma Lynn dared not wear. Hal,' she said, every muscle tense as she stared at the increasingly familiar object on Fenerman's desk. Yes.' Do you see that red cloth?' Yes.' Can you go and get it for me?' When Hal looked at her, she said: 'I think it's my mother's.' As Hal stood to retrieve it, Len entered the squad room from behind where Lindsey sat. He tapped her on the shoulder just as he realized what Hal was doing. Lindsey and Detective Ferman stared at each other. Why do you have my mother's scarf?' He stumbled. 'She might have left it in my car one day.' Lindsey stood and faced him. She was clear-eyed and driving fast towards the worst news yet. 'What was she doing in your car?' Hello, Hal,' Len said. Hal held the scarf in his head. Lindsey grabbed it away, her voice growing angry. 'Why do you have m mother's scarf?' And though Len was the detective, Hal saw it first- it arched over her like a rainbow- Prismacolor understanding. The way it happened in algebra class or English when my sister was the first person to figure out the sum of x or point out the double entendres to her peers. Hal put his hand on Lindsey's shoulder to guide her. 'We should go,' he said. And later she cried out her disbelief to Samuel in the backroom of the bike shop.

A person whom questions the purpose behind enduring life strafed with pain and self-doubt must construct a self-rescue plan. Does a demoralized person discover contentment and a meaningful life through expanded intellectual studies or by becoming engrossed in living deeply connected to nature? Should I seek personal conquest and eradication of ugly segments of my persona or merger and unification of the irrational splinters of a fragmented and traumatized personality? How does a person express what it means to be human? How does a person locate the incandescent flash of their flesh? If I shout into the wind with all my might, will responsive people hear my wild cry? Will placing pen to paper buffet the cantos of a troubled mind, expose the operatic musings of a madman’s ranting song, or will looking at each day through the diverse lens of both detachment and solipsism ignite an illuminating shaft of wisdom to grace the sinkhole of a fallen man?

Diversity is what happens when you have representation of various groups in one place. Representation is what happens when groups that haven’t previously been included, are included. Intersectionality is what happens when we do everything through the lens of making sure that no one is left behind. More than surface-level inclusion, or merely making sure everyone is represented, intersectionality is the practice of interrogating the power dynamics and rationales of how we can be together.

I've always said I don't date because I'm focused on football. I don't want any distractions or things that will interfere with my job. But lately, I realise that's not true - you're the biggest distraction of all and I'm having the best season of my career. I think I've been using excuses because I just hadn't found the right thing yet. Because when I look at you, Maven, I'm alive for the first time in years. I feel like I was made for you, and I feel like you were made for me too. I'm all in on this. On you.

Your view, no matter how breathtaking and beautiful or how grim and dismal, is not the full scope of reality. Whatever is seen—all that can be measured or documented or quantified with the five physical senses or through the lens of your current emotional state—is not all that is meant to be seen. The physical cannot fully grasp the comprehensiveness of the spiritual. God’s work is behind the scenes, beyond all the obvious readouts. If we limit the scope for our hopefulness to what’s immediately visible, we’ll get an inaccurate reading on any scenario we’re seeking to evaluate. Believers must live by faith, by believing what they cannot yet see.

Why do you hate the idea of being with yourself so much that ‘the time you spend with yourself is now considered as loneliness Why we fear loneliness. The fear of loneliness was injected into our minds since we were kids. We have learned that the kid who eats alone, sits alone, and has no friends is pathetic. In every book or movie, the kid who is eating alone, and has no friend is always featured as a weak character who needs to be saved. It’s not pathetic to be alone. I realized that we don’t hate being alone. We hate to believe that we are left behind. Being alone is a part of life. But being lonely means viewing yourself from the lens of sympathy and misery. When you look at yourself through the lens of loneliness, you feel insecure and left out. Being alone doesn’t mean you are lonely. Being alone means YOU ARE WITH YOURSELF. Stop romanticizing your life , one day someone will come to save you, rescue you, or rather fall in love with you. The problem with this is that you CHOOSE to believe that YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH to change your life all by yourself. You rely your hope on someone who doesn’t exist. After college, you don’t make friends. You just network. You just try to be nice to people so you are not left behind (mostly). We don’t want people to think that no one chose us so what do we do? We start becoming like an ideal version of whom everyone loves. We start saying YES to things that we hate. But step by step, as we become like everyone else, we go far away from who we truly are. Loneliness is not when you don’t have people around. Loneliness occurs when you cannot find yourself inside you. The moment you feel the loss of your real self, that’s when loneliness makes a home inside you. “There are some days when you miss yourself more than you have ever missed anyone else. Solitude is my home , Loneliness was my cage. Imagine Yourself as a computer and see how you have opened different tabs of your personality for each person you meet. New person, new tab. Perhaps, that's the reason your real personality has crashed.

Do you know what I think about when I wake up? I think about how happy you make me. How wonderful you are with my daughter and how you love her like she's yours. I think about your kindness and patience. Your selflessness and your sense of humour. I think about how forever with you doesn't sound long enough. I wonder how in the world today is going to be better than yesterday, because yesterday was the best day of my life. And it always is. You are my greatest joy, and there's not a single thing I'd change about you. You are perfect. You are perfect for me. You are... You are the sun and you're the stars, and even on the worst days, when we're mad at each other or tired or frustrated, it's still going to be a good day, because you'll be by my side.

Roebuck and Chapman stand behind a seated woman wearing a hospital gown and the bulky steel apparatus on her head. She is pale and crying. The front of her gown is dark with a brownish vomit stain. The skin around her eyes is similarly dark as well as puffy. The eyes themselves appear haunted. Behind her, the men grin. Roebuck pops a champagne bottle and pours Chapman a splash in a Dixie cup. He leans to pour a little for the woman, which stays untouched on the table in front of her. He takes his own swig directly from the bottle. Gloria Flick walks on-screen holding up a sign on which she scrawled WE DID IT! The seated woman stops crying. Eyes glassy and deranged, she looks directly into the camera lens while the researchers go on celebrating. Her face shines with madness as it stretches into a broad, lunatic grin.

Under a Torremolinos Sky (Psalm 116)8 For Jim The first thing I notice is not the bed, oddly angled as all hospital beds are nor the pillowcase, covered in love notes. Not the table filled with pill bottles nor the sterile tools of a dozen indignities. I’ll notice these things later, on my way out perhaps. But first, my wide-angle lens pulls narrow, as eyes meet eyes and I am seen. How is it, before a word is spoken, you make me know I am known and welcome? What can I give back to God for the blessings he’s poured out on me? I’ll lift high the cup of salvation—a toast to God! You smile behind the plastic that keeps you alive, and as I rest my hand on your chest we conspire together to break the rules. The rhythm of your labored breathing will decide our seconds, our minutes, our hours. Tears to laughter and back again always in that order and rightly so. We bask under a Torremolinos sky and hear the tongues of angels sing of sins forgiven long before the world was made. I’ll pray in the name of God; I’ll complete what I promised God I’d do, and I’ll do it together with his people. Talk turns to motorcycles and mortuaries, to scotch and sons who wear their father’s charm like a crown, daughters who quicken the pulse with just a glance. Time flies and neither of us has time to waste. I’ll make a great looking corpse, you say because we of all people must speak of these things, because we of all people refuse to pretend. This doesn’t bring tears—not yet. Instead a giggle, a shared secret that life is and is not in the body. Soul, you’ve been rescued from death; Eye, you’ve been rescued from tears; And you, Foot, were kept from stumbling. Your chest still rises and falls but you grow weary, my hand tells me so. It’s too soon to ever say goodbye. When it’s my turn, brother, I will find you where the streets shimmer and tears herald only joy where we wear our true names and our true faces. Promise me, there, the dance we never had. When they arrive at the gates of death, God welcomes those who love him. Oh, God, here I am, your servant, your faithful servant: set me free for your service! I’m ready to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice and pray in the name of God. I’ll complete what I promised God I’d do, and I’ll do it in company with his people, In the place of worship, in God’s house, in Jerusalem, God’s city.

It was common knowledge at one prominent women’s brand I worked for that the reason they didn’t have more women of color, specifically Black women, on their legacy magazine covers was because they didn’t sell as well. For a business enterprise, and a financially struggling one at that, the editorial strategy to routinely flood the covers with normatively sized straight white women was presented as necessary business, and not a deeply racist lens. But this is where I’ve encountered capitalism to be at its most damaging: it provides an all-encompassing language to code racism, heterosexism, and classism as something else—to establish distance between these deeply coursing prejudices and the unavoidable realities of running a business. This distance insulates. It establishes an alternative reality in which testimonials, diversity reports, investigations, and data analysis on representation don’t resonate because making money is the ultimate objective above all else. But that’s all the more reason why the impetus to drive profits also needs to be aligned and analyzed in endeavors against oppression. Because the drive to make money, more money, more money than your competitors, more money than you made last year, more money than projected for the following year is an enduring vehicle for suppression.

Cataract Treatment Advanced by Laser Eye Surgery It is estimated that half of individuals aged 65 and above will grow a cataract at some period in their life. A cataract is an eye condition that may be hazardous to your eyesight. In a healthy eye, there's a clear lens which enables you to focus. For those who have a cataract, the lens slowly deteriorates over a long period of time. Your vision can be blurry as the cataract develops, until the whole-of the lens is muddy. Your sight will slowly get worse, becoming blurry or misty, which makes it tough to see clearly. Cataracts can occur at any age but generally develop as you get older. Cataract surgery involves removing the cataract by emulsifying the lens by sonography and replacing it with a small plastic lens. This artificial lens is then stabilised within your natural lens that was held by the same lens capsule. The results restore clear vision and generally wholly remove the significance of reading glasses. However, years following the surgery, patients can occasionally experience clouding of their sight again. Vision can become blurred and lots of patients have issues with glare and bright lights. What is truly happening is a thickening of the lens capsule that holds the artificial lens. Medically this is known as Posterior Lens Capsule Opacification. This thickening of the lens capsule occurs in the back, meaning natural lens cells develop across the rear of the lens. These cells are sometimes left behind subsequent cataract surgery, causing problems with the light entering the-eye and hence problems with your vision. Laser Eye getlasereyesurgery.co.uk y Treatment Lasers are beams of power which may be targeted quite correctly. Nowadays the technology will be used increasingly for the purpose of rectifying the vision of patients after cataract operation. The YAG laser is a focused laser with really low energy levels and can be used to cut away a small circle shaped area in the lens capsule which enables light to once again pass through to the rear of the artificial lens. A proportion of the lens capsule is retained in order to keep the lens in place, but removes enough of the cells to let the light to the retina. If you want to read more information, please Click Here

Blaming therapy, social work and other caring professions for the confabulation of testimony of 'satanic ritual abuse' legitimated a programme of political and social action designed to contest the gains made by the women's movement and the child protection movement. In efforts to characterise social workers and therapists as hysterical zealots, 'satanic ritual abuse' was, quite literally, 'made fun of': it became the subject of scorn and ridicule as interest groups sought to discredit testimony of sexual abuse as a whole. The groundswell of support that such efforts gained amongst journalists, academics and the public suggests that the pleasures of disbelief found resonance far beyond the confines of social movements for people accused of sexual abuse. These pleasures were legitimised by a pseudo-scientific vocabulary of 'false memories' and 'moral panic' but as Daly (1999:219-20) points out 'the ultimate goal of ideology is to present itself in neutral, value-free terms as the very horizon of objectivity and to dismiss challenges to its order as the "merely ideological"'. The media spotlight has moved on and social movements for people accused of sexual abuse have lost considerable momentum. However, their rhetoric continues to reverberate throughout the echo chamber of online and 'old' media. Intimations of collusion between feminists and Christians in the concoction of 'satanic ritual abuse' continue to mobilise 'progressive' as well as 'conservative' sympathies for men accused of serious sexual offences and against the needs of victimised women and children. This chapter argues that, underlying the invocation of often contradictory rationalising tropes (ranging from calls for more scientific 'objectivity' in sexual abuse investigations to emotional descriptions of 'happy families' rent asunder by false allegations) is a collective and largely unarticulated pleasure; the catharthic release of sentiments and views about children and women that had otherwise become shameful in the aftermath of second wave feminism. It seems that, behind the veneer of public concern about child sexual abuse, traditional views about the incredibility of women's and children's testimony persist. 'Satanic ritual abuse has served as a lens through which these views have been rearticulated and reasserted at the very time that evidence of widespread and serious child sexual abuse has been consolidating. p60

Feeling each move carefully, Len climbed, hilt of the sword held in one hand blade hanging point down. A wet and dripping Rose King hovered above him. Being dripped on wasn't nearly as distracting as the constant sight of his watch on his left wrist. He wanted to look and see how much of the allotted hour he had left. He resisted the urge. He didn't want to risk having this knowledge affect his judgment. They had no time for speed born mistakes. The shaft they climbed down amplified the slightest sound sending it reverberating up and down its length. The slight clank of the sword against the iron rungs of the ladder became enormous. The click of Rose King's chattering teeth reverberated like castanets. Len stepped on a rung. The next second he found himself grappling for security as the rung moved then broke loose. The racket as the metal bar fell rang up and down the narrow oblong space like a pair of dropped cymbals. He looked down. They were approximately ten feet up from the bottom of the well. If he had fallen he would not have been hurt badly if at all. Discovery, however, had a danger all its own. Frozen in place, both he and Rose listened. Something large was down there. It was something large that dragged as it walked. As if investigating the source of the clatter, this something stopped by the grate at the bottom, blocking off the light. Twice there was a rushing of sound as if some huge bellows was blowing air into the grate then pulling it out. The thing seemed to move away from the grate. When he was sure it was well away from the opening Len began again to climb down. The nearer the grate the more he and Rose began to hear something beyond the ominous sounds of large animal. Len thought he knew what it was, but kept silent. He was about to jump the last three feet when a pain wracked cry echoed through the space on the other side of this new grate and up the stone well. Len jumped to the ground. A second later Rose was behind him. Wishing desperately they had more than one weapon between them, Len pushed hard at the grate, rushing through the space as fast as the cramped size of the opening would allow. They were in a large round open torch lit space with a high domed brick ceiling. To their left was an exit to a dark hallway blocked by a barred door; to their right, a curved cave like opening with what looked like a barred gate that could be raised or lowered. On the other side of the room was a barred wall with a door closing off the cell where Tyrone lay. Between them and their goal was a large, reptilian creature. "What the hell is that?" Rose gasped softly. Len swallowed hard and licked his dry lips. It was mad and at the same time made complete sense. "It’s just what it looks like, Major," he whispered. "It's a dragon.

He nestled into his lover's arm, gripping onto him tight, feeling like he'd won his heart, but lost his soul.

I drove to the bar Theodosha had called from and parked on the street. The bar was a gray, dismal place, ensconced like a broken matchbox under a dying oak tree, its only indication of gaiety a neon beer sign that flickered in one window. She was at a table in back, the glow of the jukebox lighting her face and the deep blackness of her hair. She tipped a collins glass to her mouth, her eyes locked on mine. “Let me take you home,” I said. “No, thanks,” she replied. “Getting swacked?” “Merchie and I had another fight. He says he can’t take my pretensions anymore. I love the word ‘pretensions.’” “That doesn’t mean you have to get drunk,” I said. “You’re right. I can get drunk for any reason I choose,” she replied, and took another hit from the glass. Then she added incongruously, “You once asked Merchie what he was doing in Afghanistan. The answer is he wasn’t in Afghanistan. He was in one of those other God-forsaken Stone Age countries to the north, helping build American airbases to protect American oil interests. Merchie says they’re going to make a fortune. All for the red, white, and blue.” “Who is they?” But her eyes were empty now, her concentration and anger temporarily spent. I glanced at the surroundings, the dour men sitting at the bar, a black woman sleeping with her head on a table, a parolee putting moves on a twenty-year-old junkie and mother of two children who was waiting for her connection. These were the people we cycled in and out of the system for decades, without beneficial influence or purpose of any kind that was detectable. “Let’s clear up one thing. Your old man came looking for trouble at the club today. I didn’t start it,” I said. “Go to a meeting, Dave. You’re a drag,” she said. “Give your guff to Merchie,” I said, and got up to leave. “I would. Except he’s probably banging his newest flop in the hay. And the saddest thing is I can’t blame him.” “I think I’m going to ease on out of this. Take care of yourself, kiddo,” I said. “Fuck that ‘kiddo’ stuff. I loved you and you were too stupid to know it.” I walked back outside into a misting rain and the clean smell of the night. I walked past a house where people were fighting behind the shades. I heard doors slamming, the sound of either a car backfiring or gunshots on another street, a siren wailing in the distance. On the corner I saw an expensive automobile pull to the curb and a black kid emerge from the darkness, wearing a skintight bandanna on his head. The driver of the car, a white man, exchanged money for something in the black kid’s hand. Welcome to the twenty-first century, I thought. I opened my truck door, then noticed the sag on the frame and glanced at the right rear tire. It was totally flat, the steel rim buried deep in the folds of collapsed rubber. I dropped the tailgate, pulled the jack and lug wrench out of the toolbox that was arc-welded to the bed of the truck, and fitted the jack under the frame. Just as I had pumped the flat tire clear of the puddle it rested in, I heard footsteps crunch on the gravel behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short, thick billy club whip through the air. Just before it exploded across the side of my head, my eyes seemed to close like a camera lens on a haystack that smelled of damp-rot and unwashed hair and old shoes. I was sure as I slipped into unconsciousness that I was inside an ephemeral dream from which I would soon awake.

For a few seconds, remembered Rosa, Charly Cruz’s gaze altered, as if he were trying to see where her father was going with all this. Charly Cruz, as we’ve already said, was a relaxed man, and for those few seconds, although his poise and natural calm were unshaken, something did happen behind his face, as if the lens through which he was observing her father, Rosa remembered, had stopped working and he was proceeding, calmly, to change it, an operation that took less than a fraction of a second, but during which his gaze was necessarily left naked or empty, vacant, in any case, since one lens was being removed and another inserted, and both operations couldn’t be carried out simultaneously, and for that fraction of a second, which Rosa remembered as if she had invented it herself, Charly Cruz’s face was empty or it emptied, and the speed at which this happened was startling, say the speed of light, to put it in exaggerated but nevertheless roughly accurate terms, and the emptying of the face was complete, hair and teeth included, although to say hair and teeth in the presence of that blankness was like saying nothing, all of Charly Cruz’s features emptied, his wrinkles, his veins, his pores, everything left defenseless, everything acquiring a dimension to which the only response, remembered Rosa, could be vertigo and nausea, although it wasn’t.

Dr. Len recommends going inside, to wherever you feel hurt by a particular person or issue, and then saying each of these four statements with as much feeling as possible—thinking through the real reasons why you genuinely feel this way: “I love you. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.”27

Within several minutes, we’re at the front of the line. I assume we’re going to keep walking, but the young English couple in front of us has me take their picture, and then they offer to take ours. I open my mouth to decline, but Bruno bursts out with a “Grazie!” and unhooks the camera from my neck, handing it to the woman. He leads me to the bench and we sit, the sides of our legs touching. My stomach clenches. This is the kissing bench. Not a single couple before us has smiled for the camera. They kiss for the camera. My eyes lock on the lens like a deer in the headlights. I force a smile, a big one, with teeth. My head nearly vibrates with the strain. This is fine. We’re going to break the trend and smile. Absolutely no kissing. The woman lifts my camera to her face. “One, two--” On two, Bruno reaches behind me and cups the back of my head in his hand, turning me to face him. His other hand is on my cheek. His lips press onto mine. The camera clicks. “WOOOOOO!” echoes around us. One person claps. Bruno pulls away but stares into my eyes for a moment before hopping up and getting my camera back for me. My head is spinning. I’ve been kissed. In Italy. By an Italian! I remain seated, stupefied, until a couple shoos me away for their turn, and soon we’re walking the next section of the path along with the English couple. Bruno chats with them--heavy accent enforced--but their words turn to garble. All I hear is He kissed me. Bruno I-don’t-even-know-how-to-pronounce-his-last-name kissed me! And it was short. Too short. No. Too long. Shouldn’t have happened. Chiara will kill us if she finds out. But she won’t find out. I’ll hide the picture from her. I’ll delete the picture! No, I have to show Morgan. And I want proof for myself. I’ll just make sure Chiara doesn’t see it. It only happened because it’s what you do at the kissing bench when you’re sitting next to the hottest Italian boy you’ve ever seen. I just have to stay away from that bench.

She always felt calmer behind the lens, knowing it created a barrier between her and the world. When people looked at the camera lens, they became self-aware and ceased to notice her.

It was that time of day, or night, that happens only a few weeks a year at a certain hour in certain parts of the American West. The sun sets behind mountains but the cloudless sky that is more than cloudless, it is lens clear – clear as the clearest water - holds the light entirely, holds it in a bowl of pale blue as if reluctant to let it go. The light refines the edges of the ridges to something honed and the muted colors of the pines on the slopes, the sage-roughened fields, the houses in the valley – the colors pulse with the pleasure of release, as if they know that within the hour they too will rest.

When he gazed deeply into the night sky, he felt as if he were seeing but a reflection of himself. That his own eyes were but windows in which the Everything was looking through and experiencing itself. Learning about itself. Exploring itself through the lens of the human experience.

I smiled. “Hey, ‘Eve,’” I said. “Think you’ve got some uninvited guests.” Now they were on three monitors. Teams of men in uniform black, huddled down behind riot shields, forcing their way into the Enclave lobby. A tear-gas grenade exploded on one camera, blanketing the lens in white smoke. On the parking lot view, a swarm of police cruisers ringed the building. “Oh, hey,” I said. “Looks like the whole Vegas Metro SWAT division is here. Plus the FBI, Homeland Security, and probably the IRS for good measure.” Lauren shook her head wildly. Her plants quivered. “What? How? They have no reason to be here, no evidence against me!

What was required was a new story, a new history told through the lens of our struggle. I had always known this, had heard the need for a new history in Malcolm, had seen the need addressed in my father’s books. It was in the promise behind their grand titles—Children of the Sun, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Kushite Empire, The African Origins of Civilization. Here was not just our history but the history of the world, weaponized to our noble ends.

This may be a hard concept to grasp but: your writing is not you. The writing might present a version of you, yes, but seen through a lens, in the same way that an actor is not the person behind the role but rather the character he or she is playing. Do you see the difference?

They paused at a table bearing a collection of magic lanterns, small embossed tin lamps with condensing lenses at the front. There was a slot for a hand-painted glass slide just behind the lens. When the lamp was lit, an image would be projected on a wall. Rohan insisted on buying one for Amelia, along with a packet of slides. “But it’s a child’s toy,” she protested, holding the lantern by its wire handle. “What am I to do with it?” “Indulge in pointless entertainment. Play. You should try it sometime.” “Playing is for children, not adults.” “Oh, Miss Hathaway,” he murmured, leading her away from the table. “The best kind of playing is for adults.

Drunk minds speak sober thoughts, right?

The art of news photography is creating compelling, graphic compositions that communicate environment and emotion. Strung together, they take the viewer on a progression of discovery until the mystery is revealed.

I had the dream again. I was leaning in the back corner of the elevator in my building looking down at the bundle of keys in my hand. Below my hand were the blurred outlines of my black leather lace-up boots and my frayed black jeans. There was ink all over my legs from the screen-printers in my shop. There was ink on the skin beneath the rips at my knee and my thigh where the rough edge of my work table had worn through... The detail was vivid, but there was an ethereal sparkle to everything around the edges. The periphery washed out of focus as if I was looking through a narrow lens... Then the elevator stopped and the door opened. A woman climbed on board. Her face was concealed behind large sunglasses. The realism of the dream became unsteady and I lost grip. The images became fleeting close-ups, stills, and sensations. She was looking at me and my heart began to race... A part of me worried that I was drunk and about to make an embarrassing pass at some poor woman from my building. But when I reached for her, she reached for me too... She pulled my hand down and then the elevator began to plummet. I realized I didn’t have much time. I was surrounded by her scent and warmth... I was so overwhelmed with the sensuality of everything that I lost myself in her... Then I watched her eyes fade into the blackness of my apartment as I woke up.

I was honored and pleased that she was confiding in me in this fashion. I met her eyes, and for the first time I perceived that there was something broken behind them, like a tiny crack in a diamond that becomes visible only when viewed through a magnifying lens; normally it is hidden by the brilliance of the stone. I wanted to know what it was, what had caused her to create the pearl of which she had spoken. But I thought it would be presumptuous of me to ask; such things are revealed by a person when and to whom they choose. So I attempted to convey through my expression alone my desire to understand her and said nothing further.

This story created a sensation when it was first told. It appeared in the papers and many big Physicists and Natural Philosophers were, at least so they thought, able to explain the phenomenon. I shall narrate the event and also tell the reader what explanation was given, and let him draw his own conclusions. This was what happened. A friend of mine, a clerk in the same office as myself, was an amateur photographer; let us call him Jones. Jones had a half plate Sanderson camera with a Ross lens and a Thornton Picard behind lens shutter, with pneumatic release. The plate in question was a Wrattens ordinary, developed with Ilford Pyro Soda developer prepared at home. All these particulars I give for the benefit of the more technical reader. Mr. Smith, another clerk in our office, invited Mr. Jones to take a likeness of his wife and sister-in-law. This sister-in-law was the wife of Mr. Smith's elder brother, who was also a Government servant, then on leave. The idea of the photograph was of the sister-in-law. Jones was a keen photographer himself. He had photographed every body in the office including the peons and sweepers, and had even supplied every sitter of his with copies of his handiwork. So he most willingly consented, and anxiously waited for the Sunday on which the photograph was to be taken. Early on Sunday morning, Jones went to the Smiths'. The arrangement of light in the verandah was such that a photograph could only be taken after midday; and so he stayed there to breakfast. At about one in the afternoon all arrangements were complete and the two ladies, Mrs. Smiths, were made to sit in two cane chairs and after long and careful focussing, and moving the camera about for an hour, Jones was satisfied at last and an exposure was made. Mr. Jones was sure that the plate was all right; and so, a second plate was not exposed although in the usual course of things this should have been done. He wrapped up his things and went home promising to develop the plate the same night and bring a copy of the photograph the next day to the office. The next day, which was a Monday, Jones came to the office very early, and I was the first person to meet him. "Well, Mr. Photographer," I asked "what success?" "I got the picture all right," said Jones, unwrapping an unmounted picture and handing it over to me "most funny, don't you think so?" "No, I don't ... I think it is all right, at any rate I did not expect anything better from you ...", I said. "No," said Jones "the funny thing is that only two ladies sat ..." "Quite right," I said "the third stood in the middle." "There was no third lady at all there ...", said Jones. "Then you imagined she was there, and there we find her ..." "I tell you, there were only two ladies there when I exposed" insisted Jones. He was looking awfully worried. "Do you want me to believe that there were only two persons when the plate was exposed and three when it was developed?" I asked. "That is exactly what has happened," said Jones. "Then it must be the most wonderful developer you used, or was it that this was the second exposure given to the same plate?" "The developer is the one which I have been using for the last three years, and the plate, the one I charged on Saturday night out of a new box that I had purchased only on Saturday afternoon." A number of other clerks had come up in the meantime, and were taking great interest in the picture and in Jones' statement. It is only right that a description of the picture be given here for the benefit of the reader. I wish I could reproduce the original picture too, but that for certain reasons is impossible. When the plate was actually exposed there were only two ladies, both of whom were sitting in cane chairs. When the plate was developed it was found that there was in the picture a figure, that of a lady, standing in the middle. She wore a broad-edged dhoti (the reader should not forget that all the characters are Indians), only the upper half of her

Adam moved in behind Len, the other three trailing on the path. When they got to the door, Len stepped aside and let Adam use the key. Jersey the dog rushed toward them, nails clacking on the hardwood, but, perhaps sensing something wasn’t quite right, her greeting was muted and perfunctory. Jersey quickly sized up the situation and slinked back to the kitchen. The

PRACTICE: Seeing Life through the Lens of Needs To familiarize yourself with this way of paying attention, dedicate a period of time—an hour, a day, or more—to practice viewing yourself and others through the lens of human needs. As your day unfolds, consider what needs you are trying to meet with your choices. As you observe others, consider: What matters to this person? What might be motivating them? Someone getting on a bus, agitated on a phone call, waving goodbye—what needs are they trying to meet? Extend this inquiry to conversations you overhear, coworkers chatting, the news, and so on. Behind each statement, what matters? What might this person need? When is it easiest to identify possible needs? When is it more challenging? Notice the effect of attending to your own and others’ experience in this way.

A sure thing in a world full of maybes.

But it seems to me that Hedy, her history, and her creation may have even greater symbolic importance. The manner in which her contribution to this world-changing device was largely lost—or ignored—for decades reflects the pervasive marginalization of women’s contributions, a problem that is both historical and modern. Whether Hedy’s work in spread-spectrum technology was purposefully disregarded or unconsciously forgotten, it appears that imbedded in that oversight were misconceptions about her abilities—about all women, really. Faulty assumptions about women’s capabilities, stemming in part from the conscripted roles into which they’d been slotted, has caused many to think more narrowly about the manner in which the past has been shaped. But unless we begin to view historical women through a broader, more inclusive lens—and rewrite them back into the narrative—we will continue to view the past more restrictively than it likely was, and we risk carrying those perspectives over into the present. Perhaps if Hedy’s society had viewed her not simply as a blindingly beautiful creature, but as a human being with a sharp mind capable of significant contributions, they might have learned that her interior life was more interesting and fruitful than her exterior. Her invention might have been accepted by the navy when she offered it, and who knows what impact that might have had on the war? If only people had been willing to look behind “the only woman in the room” to examine the person she was beneath, they might have seen a woman capable of greatness, and not only on the screen.

Rainbows after rain. Cheesy, ‘better days are ahead’ kind of thing.

A photo is a pause button on life, but a true artist behind the lens captures the essence of what's happening.

No one tells you how hard it is to be a parent, and no one tells you how hard it is to be a single parent.

blown scheme for assassination, with Len and myself apparently cast for the principal roles.” Beurton was enthusiastic. “What could be easier than to put a time bomb in an attaché case along with our coats and, having had an early lunch, abandon the lot in the hope that the bomb would blow Hitler and his entourage, snugly lunching behind the deal boarding, into eternity?” An alternative method—“assassination in its more traditional character”—would be to shoot Hitler as he passed through the restaurant and hope his inattentive bodyguards were too slow to intervene. The only problem with this second plan was that it was suicidal. Ursula and Beurton shared the conviction that killing Hitler was not only possible, but a moral imperative. “Neither of us believed in the effectiveness of terrorist attacks on individuals,” she wrote. “But there were some people we considered so dangerous and bestial that we were both prepared to break the rules.” Foote was not nearly so keen. He too wanted Hitler dead. He just didn’t want to die himself. Beurton might be a stranger to fear, but Foote was not.

Leave the train!” More soldiers meet Fez and his loyal companion, “This way,” one shouts, “step into the circle!” Fez glances down, at a large circle scribed into the ground, and walks into the centre with Gnash skittering in behind him, at which point he addresses the soldiers. “Did you know the philosopher Gurdjieff wrote about his encounters with the Yezidis—how he once saw a Yezidi boy distraught, struggling to break out of a circle drawn in the ground by other boys. Try as he might the boy just couldn’t step outside of the circle. The other boys teased and taunted him until Gurdjieff erased part of the circle, whereby the boy was able to escape. Perhaps the philosopher wants us to think carefully about the Yezidis—perhaps you should think carefully about me.” Out of the floor a circular glass wall made of toughened glass shoots up, stopping at a circular lip in the ceiling, trapping them like a ship in a bottle. “A prison—how quaint, never been in a prison before. When do I get my medication?” No one answers, but Fez spies a security camera in the ceiling and stares into its lens. “You think that I think you can’t hear me, but I know that you don’t know I can.” “What’s he on about?” one of the operators asks in the control room. “Something about us hearing him.

It was that time of day, or night, that happens only a few weeks a year at a certain hour in certain parts of the American West. The sun sets behind mountains but the cloudless sky that is more than cloudless, it is lens clear -clear as the clearest water - holds the light entirely, holds it in a pale blue as if reluctant to let it go. The light refines the edges of the ridges to something honed, and the muted colors of the pines on the slopes, the sage-roughened fields, the houses in the valley - the colors pulse with the pleasure of release, as if they know that within the hour they too will rest.

Strange's sessions. What he saw in Batman...the grief...the fear...the manipulation...and ego. The final monster. He said it again and again. Strange's take--his lens on Batman. In his mind, the biggest fault behind Batman is ego. And the ego that drives him would come from a child. But Strange got it wrong. He read the book, but he didn't understand. All the monstrous faults he saw in Batman--they're not faults. They're fuel.

I’m afraid I’ll never be good enough. That I missed out on the opportunity to be the best version of myself, and everything else is just going to be second best.

For someone who is fifty pounds overweight, losing three to five pounds over half a year is a frustrating drop in the bucket. Accordingly, a stock response to these studies has been to declare exercise futile for trimming your waist. Before we entirely dismiss the weight control benefits of walking, the most fundamental type of endurance physical activity, let’s examine the major arguments behind this contention through the lens of evolutionary anthropology. The first is the specter of compensatory mechanisms, notably fatigue and hunger. If I walk ten thousand extra steps, I’ll be more tired and hungry, so I’ll rest and eat more to recoup lost calories. From an evolutionary perspective, these urges make sense. Because natural selection ultimately favors those who can allocate as much energy as possible to reproduction, our physiology has been tuned over millions of generations to hoard energy, especially fat. Further, because almost no one until recently was able to become overweight or obese, our bodies primarily sense if we are gaining or losing weight rather than how much excess fat we have. Whether you are skinny or stout, negative energy balance—including dieting—causes a starvation response that helps us restore energetic equilibrium or, better yet, gain weight so we can shunt more energy toward reproduction.35 It’s unfair, but losing ten pounds elicits food cravings and the desire to be inactive regardless of whether one is skinny or obese.

Pray for your child Parents who are suffering pain and grief in their relationship with a rebellious child tend to interpret things through the lens of their pain and grief. This is understandable because we are emotional beings, but it is not helpful for healing the relationship and does not facilitate godly prayer. Prayer should not become a digest of our desire for our child’s change, and the ways that we are hurt and grieved. When that happens, prayer becomes more about us than the lost and needy child. Certainly, prayer for our own or our spouse’s agony over rebellious children is appropriate as we struggle with these emotions, but even in those appropriate personal seasons of prayer, God’s comfort and provision of Christ for our loss must be our focus. Pray that you will be freed from your preoccupation with your own devastation so that you can see clearly to pray for specific needs in your child. Think about the misery, lostness, guilt, and loneliness behind your child’s growling and disrespect. As you pray for the hold of sin to be broken in your child’s heart, pray that this weary, heavy-laden sinner will find rest for his hurting soul. Pray that God’s Spirit will bless your efforts to disarm your child’s sense of justification for their thoughts or feelings against you as you do the work of listening and asking for forgiveness. Pray that God will do that awakening work that only he can do by his Spirit, to authenticate the truth of the gospel to your child’s heart. Pray that you will have the endurance and confidence in God to see this process through, regardless of how long you must endure.

When an eyeball is longer than normal from front to back, the incoming rays of light focus in front of the retina instead of on the retina. This condition is known as myopia or nearsightedness. In this situation, a pupil can see near objects (for example, his or her textbook), but viewing objects at a distance—the chalkboard—may be problematic. If the eyeball is too short, the image will focus behind the retina. This condition is commonly referred to as hyperopia or farsightedness. A child with hyperopia typically has no problem seeing distant objects but encounters difficulty seeing near objects. Hyperopia is the most common refractive error in children (Geddie, Bina, & Miller, 2013). myopia Elongation of the eye that causes extreme nearsightedness and decreased visual acuity. hyperopia Change in the shape of the eye, which shortens the light ray path and causes farsightedness. In the case of astigmatism, one or more surfaces of the cornea or lens (the eye structures that focus incoming light) are not spherical (shaped like the side of a basketball) but cylindrical (shaped like the side of a football). As a result, there is no distinct point of focus inside the eye but, rather, a smeared or spread-out focus.

A clanking sound came from behind us. I glanced over my shoulder. No fewer than fifty Knights of Crystallia were rushing down the hallway in our direction. “Gak!” I cried. “Alcatraz, would you stop saying—” Bastille looked over her shoulder. “GAK!

The concept of beauty changes with a camera. Some ordinary people come alive behind the lens. Something about the way the light hits them, and suddenly they are utterly beautiful. Haggard, craggy lines can be wondrous. Utterly breathtaking faces can fall oddly flat.

Adults with ADHD as a group have often experienced more than their fair share of disappointments and frustrations associated with the symptoms of ADHD, in many cases not realizing the impact of ADHD has had on them. When you reflect on a history of low grades, forgetting or not keeping promises made to others, repeated exhortations from others about your unfulfilled potential and the need to work harder, you may be left with a self-view that “I’m not good enough,” “I’m lazy,” or “I cannot expect much from myself and neither can anyone else.” The end result of these repeated frustrations can be the erosion of your sense of self, what is often called low self-esteem. These deep-seated, enduring self-views, or “core beliefs” about who you are can be thought of as a lens through which you see yourself, the world, and your place in the world. Adverse developmental experiences associated with ADHD may unfairly color your lens and result in a skewed pessimistic view of yourself, at least in some situations. When facing situations in the here-and-now that activate these negative beliefs, you experience strong emotions, negative thoughts, and a propensity to fall into self-defeating behaviors, most often resignation and escape. These core beliefs might only be activated in limited, specific situations for some people with ADHD; in other cases, these beliefs color one’s perception in most situations. It should be noted that many adults with ADHD, despite feeling flummoxed by their symptoms in many situations, possess a healthy self-view, though there may be many situations that briefly shake their confidence. These core beliefs or “schema” develop over the course of time from childhood through adulthood and reflect our efforts to figure out the “rules for life” (Beck, 1976; Young & Klosko, 1994). They can be thought of as mental categories that let us impose order on the world and make sense of it. Thus, as we grow up and face different situations, people, and challenges, we make sense of our situations and relationships and learn the rubrics for how the world works. The capacity to form schemas and to organize experience in this way is very adaptive. For the most part, these processes help us figure out, adapt to, and navigate through different situations encountered in life. In some cases, people develop beliefs and strategies that help them get through unusually difficult life circumstances, what are sometimes called survival strategies. These old strategies may be left behind as people settle into new, healthier settings and adopt and rely on “healthy rules.” In other cases, however, maladaptive beliefs persist, are not adjusted by later experiences (or difficult circumstances persist), and these schema interfere with efforts to thrive in adulthood. In our work with ADHD adults, particularly for those who were undiagnosed in childhood, we have heard accounts of negative labels or hurtful attributions affixed to past problems that become internalized, toughened, and have had a lasting impact. In many cases, however, many ADHD adults report that they arrived at negative conclusions about themselves based on their experiences (e.g., “None of my friends had to go to summer school.”). Negative schema may lay dormant, akin to a hibernating bear, but are easily reactivated in adulthood when facing similar gaffes or difficulties, including when there is even a hint of possible disappointment or failure. The function of these beliefs is self-protective—shock me once, shame on you; shock me twice, shame on me. However, these maladaptive beliefs insidiously trigger self-defeating behaviors that represent an attempt to cope with situations, but that end up worsening the problem and thereby strengthening the negative belief in a vicious, self-fulfilling cycle. Returning to the invisible fences metaphor, these beliefs keep you stuck in a yard that is too confining in order to avoid possible “shocks.

Hawaiian sunset becomes the focal point of the entire eastern wall.