Blue Zones Quotes

Gratitude always comes into play; research shows that people are happier if they are grateful for the positive things in their lives, rather than worrying about what might be missing.

Drink without getting drunk Love without suffering jealousy Eat without overindulging Never argue And once in a while, with great discretion, misbehave

Today I choose to step outside of my comfort zone into my miracle.

If blue helmeted UN peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run.

I wake up in the morning and I see that flower, with the dew on its petals, and at the way it's folding out, and it makes me happy, she said. It's important to focus on the things in the here and now, I think. In a month, the flower will be shriveled and you will miss its beauty if you don't make the effort to do it now. Your life, eventually, is the same way.

For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

As time passed from solstice to mild solstice in those occluded zones of my early childhood, I played beneath the distracted majesty of my mother's blue-eyed gaze. With her eyes on me I felt as if I were being studied by flowers.

Blue had never believed in death until then. Not in a real way. It happened to other people, other families, in other places. It happened in hospitals or automobile crashes or battle zones. It happened--now she remembered Gansey's words outside Gwenllian's tomb--with ceremony. With some announcement of itself. It didn't just happen in the attic on a sunny day while she was sitting in the reading room. It didn't just HAPPEN, in only a moment, an irreversible moment. It didn't happen to people she had always known. But it did. And there would now forever be two Blues: the Blue that was before, and the Blue that was after. The one who didn't believe, and the one who did.

There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. It stood by a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat that they made people belch with melancholy even though the skies were blue... And in the depths of the city, beyond an old zone of ruined buildings that look like broken hearts, there lived a happy young fellow by name of Haroun, the only child of the storyteller Rashid Khalifa, whose cheerfulness was famous throughout that unhappy metropolis, and whose never-ending stream of tall, and winding tales had earned him not one but two nicknames. To his admirers he was Rashid the Ocean of Notions, as stuffed with cheery stories as the sea was full of glumfish; but to his jealous rivals he was the Shah of Blah.

Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile - Kamada Nakasato, 102-y/o-female fr. Okinawa

I found that when you are depressed, that’s when you do something for somebody else.

Our true selves are the selves we were before we twisted, bent, and beat ourselves into the shapes we had to take in order to please others: the shapes that we hate. Our true selves are the selves we would have been had no one tried to break or shame or change us. Our true selves are what those who actually love us see in us. Our true selves are who we have always been, even if they have been in hiding all this time. Our true selves are who we will, in that sheer blue zone above self-loathing, always be.

We have to reach out to kids sooner. Everybody needs to step outside of their comfort zone and become friends with someone who is different, no matter what that difference is. And we all have to do it much sooner then senior year of high school.

The practice of alchemizing suffering into meaningful art as well as social and political advancements has been one of African Americans’ greatest gifts to humanity. Many have followed their lead in this regard and that practice can make a lot of positive difference during this time of renewal and re-weaving.

It is a way now, approximately, of being at home. The forum has become one of the most consistent places of her life, like a familiar cafe that exists someone outside geography and beyond time zones. There are perhaps twenty regular posters on F:F:F:, and some muchlarger and uncounted number of lurkers. And right now there are three people in Chat. But there's no way of knowing exactly who until you are in there, and the chat room she finds not so comforting. It's strange even with friends, like sitting in a pitch-dark cellar conversing with people at a distance of about fifteen feet. the hectic speed, and the brevity of the lines in the thread, plus the feeling that everyone is talking at once, at counmter-purposes, deter her.

People are willing to be brave when they admit their smallness within the enormity of the world, and the best way to understand our smallness is to leave our comfort zones and start exploring, one foot in front of the other.

Scientific studies suggest that only about 25 percent of how long we live is dictated by genes, according to famous studies of Danish twins. The other 75 percent is determined by our lifestyles and the everyday choices we make.

In places where women have achieved gender equality, for instance, men tend to be happier than women. And in places where women are still not treated equally, women are often happier than men. Other studies have shown that, despite the popular belief that nobody wants to get older, most people actually get happier after a certain age.

midmorning. The sky steel blue and not a cloud in sight. His perch was atop a thirty-foot guard tower that had been built on the rocky pinnacle of a mountain, far above the timberline. From the open platform, he had a panoramic view of the surrounding peaks, the canyon, the forest, and the town of Wayward Pines, which from four thousand feet above, was little more than a grid of intersecting streets, couched in a protected valley. His radio squeaked. He answered, “Mustin, over.” “Just had a fence strike in zone four, over.” “Stand by.

Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile.

If blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs.

HARA HACHI BU

Begin by answering this question in a single, memorable sentence: Why do you get up in the morning?

The more things for which you develop a fondness the richer the life you live.

A doctor may know more than a peasant, but a peasant and a doctor know more together.

Can't I just say it's magic? - Charlie Blue

And as we shall see in forthcoming chapters, purpose and love are essential ingredients in all Blue Zone recipes for longevity.

Genuinely happy people do not just sit around being content. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings.

Before each meal she takes a moment to say hara hachi bu, and that keeps her from eating too much.” “Hara hachi bu?” I repeated. “It’s a Confucian-inspired adage,” Craig chimed in. “All of the old folks say it before they eat. It means ‘Eat until you are 80 percent full.

Walking five miles a day or more provides the type of low-intensity exercise that yields all the cardiovascular benefits you might expect, but it also has a positive effect on muscles and bones - without the joint-pounding damage caused by running marathons or triathlons.

I used to be very beautiful,” Kamada replied. “I had hair that came down to my waist. It took me a long time to realize that beauty is within. It comes from not worrying so much about your own problems. Sometimes you can best take care of yourself by taking care of others.

The United States, with all her time zones and logos, was the home to so many lonely souls, but none at that particular moment felt such an extraordinary loneliness as Blue Gene Mapother, who felt like someone had just signed the divorce papers that would separate himself from himself.

Milton's Eve! Milton's Eve! ... Milton tried to see the first woman; but Cary, he saw her not ... I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans, and that Eve was their mother: from her sprang Saturn, Hyperion, Oceanus; she bore Prometheus" -- "Pagan that you are! what does that signify?" "I say, there were giants on the earth in those days: giants that strove to scale heaven. The first woman's breast that heaved with life on this world yielded the daring which could contend with Omnipotence: the stregth which could bear a thousand years of bondage, -- the vitality which could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, -- the unexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality, which after millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceive and bring forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born: vast was the heart whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations; and grand the undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation. ... I saw -- I now see -- a woman-Titan: her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white as an avalanche sweeps from hear head to her feet, and arabesques of lighting flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like that horizon: through its blush shines the star of evening. Her steady eyes I cannot picture; they are clear -- they are deep as lakes -- they are lifted and full of worship -- they tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers: she reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands are joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. That Eve is Jehova's daughter, as Adam was His son.

If there was a God he reasoned it would have the same relation to us as we have to blades of grass. Do we make them grow? Yes in the sense that we water the lawn. Do we care for them and worry over them? Again as a lawn but not as individual blades. We don't give them names. We just want them to look nice and green. A God who created the earth would want it to look nice an blue from space. He would sit back after a long day of creating things and think to himself now that's what a planet should look like.

Blue had never believed in death until then. Not in a real way. It happened to other people, other families, in other places. It happened in hospitals or automobile crashes or battle zones. It happened — now she remembered Gansey’s words outside Gwenllian’s tomb — with ceremony. With some announcement of itself. It didn’t just happen in the attic on a sunny day while she was sitting in the reading room. It didn’t just happen, in only a moment, an irreversible moment. It didn’t happen to people she had always known. But it did. And there would now forever be two Blues: the Blue that was before, and the Blue that was after. The one who didn’t believe, and the one who did.

The average American, however, by living a fast and furious lifestyle, pushes that accelerator too hard and too much.

Materialistic people, that is, are seldom the happiest people because they want too much.

Recent studies found bitter melon an “effective anti-diabetic” as powerful as pharmaceuticals in helping to regulate blood sugar.

Many age-related diseases are caused by an immune system out of balance. Excessive or unnecessary inflammation accelerates heart disease, bone loss,

A stranger is a friend i haven't met yet.

Knowing why we get up in the morning is one of the great antidotes to the downs in life,

As I continued through the streets, through the smoke of the burnings and the rubble of the fires and explosions--for during the chaos of the quarantine parts of the city had become something like war zones--my heart began to perceive that there was a wound in the material world that no amount of science could heal, that in fact science itself was only the helpful lie told to a dying man.

Finally, exasperated, I asked her if after 107 years she had any advice for younger people. She looked up at me, eyes flashing. “Yes,” she shot back. “Life is short. Don’t run so fast you miss it.

The Jumblies I They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea! And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, 'You'll all be drowned!' They called aloud, 'Our Sieve ain't big, But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig! In a Sieve we'll go to sea!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. II They sailed away in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they sailed so fast, With only a beautiful pea-green veil Tied with a riband by way of a sail, To a small tobacco-pipe mast; And every one said, who saw them go, 'O won't they be soon upset, you know! For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long, And happen what may, it's extremely wrong In a Sieve to sail so fast!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. III The water it soon came in, it did, The water it soon came in; So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet In a pinky paper all folded neat, And they fastened it down with a pin. And they passed the night in a crockery-jar, And each of them said, 'How wise we are! Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long, Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong, While round in our Sieve we spin!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. IV And all night long they sailed away; And when the sun went down, They whistled and warbled a moony song To the echoing sound of a coppery gong, In the shade of the mountains brown. 'O Timballo! How happy we are, When we live in a Sieve and a crockery-jar, And all night long in the moonlight pale, We sail away with a pea-green sail, In the shade of the mountains brown!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. V They sailed to the Western Sea, they did, To a land all covered with trees, And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart, And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart, And a hive of silvery Bees. And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws, And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws, And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree, And no end of Stilton Cheese. Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. VI And in twenty years they all came back, In twenty years or more, And every one said, 'How tall they've grown! For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone, And the hills of the Chankly Bore!' And they drank their health, and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast; And every one said, 'If we only live, We too will go to sea in a Sieve,--- To the hills of the Chankly Bore!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

I know you said we’re short-term companions and you will probably deny it until you’re blue in the face, but your friendship means a lot to me.” Like a goddamn dagger to the heart. I’ve been friend-zoned.

Birds were what became of dinosaurs. Those mountains of flesh whose petrified bones were on display at the Museum of Natural History had done some brilliant retooling over the ages and could now be found living in the form of orioles in the sycamores across the street. As solutions to the problem of earthly existence, the dinosaurs had been pretty great, but blue-headed vireos and yellow warblers and white-throated sparrows - feather-light, hollow-boned, full of song were even greater. Birds were like dinosaurs' better selves. They had short lives and long summers. We all should be so lucky as to leave behind such heirs.

The paper comes in plastic, a little thinner each week, a few more ads. Pretty soon there'll be no news. We'll be underwhelmed, over-bored & all storied out. The clouds ready to burst with our blue-skinned memories. Everyone with a blog, a website, an online store, dedicated server & two-dimensional quick-response-coded documentary made about their precious life. Our brains at maximum capacity, running optimization programs to recover what's left of our sanity. Still, we hope. We go see the latest blockbuster, buy the latest iPhone, zone out in front of our schizo-screens drinking jugs of moonshine corn syrup with our latent mutant meals. Facebook keeps us chained to our pasts, our posts, screwed in our seats... Scarecrows surrounded by night soil & spirits. Your acid shield may protect you from outside threat, but it'll never protect you from yourself.

RED HEAD Tight, inhibited, results-oriented, anxious, aggressive, over-compensating, desperate. BLUE HEAD Loose, expressive, in the moment, calm, clear, accurate, on task. It’s what tennis coach Nick Bollettieri calls the ‘centipede effect’. If a centipede had to think about moving all its legs in the right order, it would freeze, the task too complex and daunting. The same is true of humans. Red is what Suvorov called ‘the Dark’. It is that fixated negative content loop of self-judgement, rigidity, aggression, shut down and panic. Blue is what he called ‘the Light’ – a deep calmness in which you are on task, in the zone, on your game, in control and in flow. It applies to the military; it applies to sport; it applies to business. In the heat of battle, the difference between the inhibitions of the Red and the freedom of Blue is the manner in which we control our attention. It works like this: where we direct our mind is where our thoughts will take us; our thoughts create an emotion; the emotion defines our behaviour; our behaviour defines our performance. So, simply, if we can control our attention, and therefore our thoughts, we can manage our emotions and enhance our performance.

Now the evening's at its noon, its meridian. The outgoing tide has simmered down, and there's a lull-like the calm in the eye of a hurricane - before the reverse tide starts to set in. The last acts of the three-act plays are now on, and the after-theater eating places are beginning to fill up with early comers; Danny's and Lindy's - yes, and Horn & Hardart too. Everybody has got where they wanted to go - and that was out somewhere. Now everybody will want to get back where they came from - and that's home somewhere. Or as the coffee-grinder radio, always on the beam, put it at about this point: 'New York, New York, it's a helluva town, The Bronx is up, the Battery's down, And the people ride around in a hole in the ground. Now the incoming tide rolls in; the hours abruptly switch back to single digits again, and it's a little like the time you put your watch back on entering a different time zone. Now the buses knock off and the subway expresses turn into locals and the locals space themselves far apart; and as Johnny Carson's face hits millions of screens all at one and the same time, the incoming tide reaches its crest and pounds against the shore. There's a sudden splurge, a slew of taxis arriving at the hotel entrance one by one as regularly as though they were on a conveyor belt, emptying out and then going away again. Then this too dies down, and a deep still sets in. It's an around-the-clock town, but this is the stretch; from now until the garbage-grinding trucks come along and tear the dawn to shreds, it gets as quiet as it's ever going to get. This is the deep of the night, the dregs, the sediment at the bottom of the coffee cup. The blue hours; when guys' nerves get tauter and women's fears get greater. Now guys and girls make love, or kill each other or sometimes both. And as the windows on the 'Late Show' title silhouette light up one by one, the real ones all around go dark. And from now on the silence is broken only by the occasional forlorn hoot of a bogged-down drunk or the gutted-cat squeal of a too sharply swerved axle coming around a turn. Or as Billy Daniels sang it in Golden Boy: While the city sleeps, And the streets are clear, There's a life that's happening here. ("New York Blues")

If you’re around people who are more positive in general, you get more positive. On the other hand, when you’re unhappy and you’re bitching all the time, you’re not just affecting yourself, you’re affecting other people, too, and you’re also teaching them about how to act or not act.

The marriage of a Jewish son is a bittersweet prospect. There is relief, always, that he has navigated the tantalizing and plentiful assemblies of non-Jewish women to whom the children of the Diaspora are inevitably exposed: from the moment he enters secondary school there is the constant anxiety that a blue-eyed Christina or Mary will lure him away from the tribe. Jewish men are widely known to be uxorious in all the most advantageous ways. And so each mother fears that, whether he be short and myopic, boorish or stupid or prone to discuss his lactose intolerance with strangers, whether he be blessed with a beard rising almost to meet his hairline, he is still within the danger zone. Somewhere out there is a shiksa with designs on her son. Jewish men make good husbands. It is the Jewish woman's blessing as a wife, and her curse as a mother.

People are willing to be brave when they admit their smallness within the enormity of the world, and the best way to understand our smallness is to leave our comfort zones and start exploring, one foot in front of the other. When we go on an adventure, we’d better understand where we truly belong.

When I picture you happy, I see you with your own apartment somewhere outside of the palace and a desk where you can write anthologies of queer history. And I’m there, using up your shampoo and making you come to the grocery store with me and waking up in the same damn time zone with you every morning.

Integrate at least three of these items into your daily diet to be sure you are eating plenty of whole food. 1. Beans—all kinds: black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, black-eyed peas, lentils 2. Greens—spinach, kale, chards, beet tops, fennel tops 3. Sweet potatoes—don’t confuse with yams. 4. Nuts—all kinds: almonds, peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, cashews 5. Olive oil—green, extra-virgin is usually the best. Note that olive oil decomposes quickly, so buy no more than a month’s supply at a time. 6. Oats—slow-cook or Irish steel-cut are best. 7. Barley—either in soups, as a hot cereal, or

The average American now consumes 46 slices of pizza, 200 pounds of meat, and 607 pounds of milk and other dairy products, and washes it down with 57 gallons of soda pop a year. We consume 8,000 teaspoons of added sugar and 79 pounds of fat annually. We eat 4.5 billion pounds of fries and 2 billion pounds of chips a year.

Not if you’ve been where we have. Forty years ago, in Südwest, we were nearly exterminated. There was no reason. Can you understand that? No reason. We couldn’t even find comfort in the Will of God Theory. These were Germans with names and service records, men in blue uniforms who killed clumsily and not without guilt. Search-and-destroy missions, every day. It went on for two years. The orders came down from a human being, a scrupulous butcher named von Trotha. The thumb of mercy never touched his scales.” “We have a word that we whisper, a mantra for times that threaten to be bad. Mba-kayere. You may find it will work for you. Mba-kayere. It means ‘I am passed over.’ To those of us who survived von Trotha, it also means that we have learned to stand outside our history and watch it, without feeling too much. A little schizoid. A sense for the statistics of our being. One reason we grew so close to the Rocket, I think, was this sharp awareness of how contingent, like ourselves, the Aggregat 4 could be—how at the mercy of small things…dust that gets in a timer and breaks electrical contact…a film of grease you can’t even see, oil from the touch of human fingers, left inside a liquid-oxygen valve, flaring up soon as the stuff hits and setting the whole thing off—I’ve seen that happen…rain that swells the bushings in the servos or leaks into a switch: corrosion, a short, a signal grounded out, Brennschluss too soon, and what was alive is only an Aggregat again, an Aggregat of pieces of dead matter, no longer anything that can move, or that has a Destiny with a shape—stop doing that with your eyebrows, Scuffling. I may have gone a bit native out here, that’s all. Stay in the Zone long enough and you’ll start getting ideas about Destiny yourself.

baseball. The intestines may fill up completely with blood. The lining of the gut dies and sloughs off into the bowels and is defecated along with large amounts of blood. In men, the testicles bloat up and turn black-and-blue, the semen goes hot with Ebola, and the nipples may bleed. In women, the labia turn blue, livid, and protrusive, and there may be massive vaginal bleeding. The virus is a catastrophe for a pregnant woman: the child is aborted spontaneously and is usually infected with Ebola virus, born with red eyes and a bloody nose. Ebola destroys the brain more thoroughly than does Marburg, and Ebola victims often go into epileptic convulsions during the final stage. The convulsions are generalized grand mal seizures—the whole body twitches and shakes, the arms and legs thrash around, and the eyes, sometimes bloody, roll up into the head. The tremors and convulsions of the patient may smear or splatter blood around. Possibly this epileptic splashing of blood is one of Ebola’s strategies for success—it makes the victim go into a flurry of seizures as he dies, spreading blood all over the place, thus giving the virus a chance to jump to a new host—a kind of transmission through smearing. Ebola (and Marburg) multiplies so rapidly and powerfully that the body’s infected cells become crystal-like blocks of packed virus particles. These crystals are broods of virus getting ready to hatch from the cell. They are known as bricks. The bricks, or crystals, first appear near the center of the cell and then migrate toward the surface. As a crystal

Read. You should read Bukowski and Ferlinghetti, read Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, and listen to Coltrane, Nina Simone, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Son House, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Miles Davis, Lou Reed, Nick Drake, Bobbie Gentry, George Jones, Jimmy Reed, Odetta, Funkadelic, and Woody Guthrie. Drive across America. Ride trains. Fly to countries beyond your comfort zone. Try different things. Join hands across the water. Different foods. New tasks. Different menus and tastes. Talk with the guy who’s working in construction on your block, who’s working on the highway you’re traveling on. Speak with your neighbors. Get to know them. Practice civil disobedience. Try new resistance. Be part of the solution, not the problem. Don’t litter the earth, it’s the only one you have, learn to love her. Care for her. Learn another language. Trust your friends with kindness. You will need them one day. You will need earth one day. Do not fear death. There are worse things than death. Do not fear the reaper. Lie in the sunshine but from time to time let the neon light your way. ZZ Top, Jefferson Airplane, Spirit. Get a haircut. Dye your hair pink or blue. Do it for you. Wear eyeliner. Your eyes are the windows to your soul. Show them off. Wear a feather in your cap. Run around like the Mad Hatter. Perhaps he had the answer. Visit the desert. Go to the zoo. Go to a county fair. Ride the Ferris wheel. Ride a horse. Pet a pig. Ride a donkey. Protest against war. Put a peace symbol on your automobile. Drive a Volkswagen. Slow down for skateboarders. They might have the answers. Eat gingerbread men. Pray to the moon and the stars. God is out there somewhere. Don’t worry. You’ll find out where soon enough. Dance. Even if you don’t know how to dance. Read The Four Agreements. Read the Bible. Read the Bhagavad Gita. Join nothing. It won’t help. No games, no church, no religion, no yellow-brick road, no way to Oz. Wear beads. Watch a caterpillar in the sun.

Every inch, Ivy," he whispers against them. I open my eyes and smile. My arms wind around his neck, holding him close. "You said that once, before your last game. But you never really told me what it means." Gray's hands move to my waist. "Before you, it meant I'll fight for every inch of yardage, never give up until I'm in the end zone. But now?" His blue eyes meet mine. "It means I'll fight for every inch of you. That I love every inch of you.

Roadie Girl Ya' rockin' that deep V wheelset, fucsia yellow blue fixie flip-floppin' your hubs for the Thursday night social ride as ya' blast after a snack at the bottom of the wall pickin' a line pogoin' the washboards slalomin' between vultures powerslidin' the deep corners smokin' the powder run jet roadie girl, jet! ya' in the zone now nobody but nobody can touch ya' cuz ur a force of nature brazen-brakeless-breathless the fastest freakin' chick on Planet Dirt.

In this I was like Elstir, who, unable to leave his studio on certain spring days when the knowledge that the woods were full of violets made him desperate to see some, would send his portress to buy a bunch of them; then, his heart melting, almost hallucinating, he would see not the table on which he had placed the small botanical specimen, but all the carpet of the undergrowth where formerly, in their thousands, he had seen the twisting stems bending under their blue, beak-like blossoms; his eyes created an imaginary zone, marked off in his studio by the pure scent of the evocative flower.

Astounding, really, that Michel could consider psychology any kind of science at all. So much of it consisted of throwing together. Of thinking of the mind as a steam engine, the mechanical analogy most ready to hand during the birth of modern psychology. People had always done that when they thought about the mind: clockwork for Descartes, geological changes for the early Victorians, computers or holography for the twentieth century, AIs for the twenty-first…and for the Freudian traditionalists, steam engines. Application of heat, pressure buildup, pressure displacement, venting, all shifted into repression, sublimation, the return of the repressed. Sax thought it unlikely steam engines were an adequate model for the human mind. The mind was more like—what?—an ecology—a fellfield—or else a jungle, populated by all manner of strange beasts. Or a universe, filled with stars and quasars and black holes. Well—a bit grandiose, that—really it was more like a complex collection of synapses and axons, chemical energies surging hither and yon, like weather in an atmosphere. That was better—weather—storm fronts of thought, high-pressure zones, low-pressure cells, hurricanes—the jet streams of biological desires, always making their swift powerful rounds…life in the wind. Well. Throwing together. In fact the mind was poorly understood.

The infamous South Col awaited me over the top. I longed to see this place I had heard and read so much about. The highest camp in the world at twenty-six thousand feet--deep in Everest’s Death Zone. I had always winced at the term Death Zone. Mountaineers are renowned for playing things down, yet mountaineers had coined the phrase--I didn’t like that. I put the thought aside, pulled the last few steps over the spur, and the gradient eased. I turned around and swore that I could see halfway around the world. A think blanket of cloud was moving in beneath me, obscuring the lower faces of the mountain. But above these, I could see a vast horizon of dark blue panned out before me. Adrenaline filled my tired limbs, and I started to move once more. I knew I was entering another world.

Lady Isabeau was tall for a woman, nearly as tall as Molly, but slender where Molly was stout, with a smooth immobile face that looked as if it had been carved from ivory, pale and serene. Hob stared at her: glossy black hair bound about the brows with a broad white linen fillet and partly concealed by a veil that draped down her neck; dark eyes beneath dark brows plucked thin; unsmiling lips, full and well-shaped. There was so little expression on her face, and its beauty was so unworldly, that Hob had a moment when he thought her an apparition, or a graven figure. “Blanche comme la neige,” came to his mind, a song Molly had taught him, “belle comme le jour.” The thinnest of scars ran from her hairline down her forehead, divided her left eyebrow, and curved along her cheek to the corner of her mouth, and seemed at once to augment her beauty and to reinforce its carven stillness, as if some wright's chisel had slipped in the course of fashioning her visage. A linen band of the sort known as a barbette ran down from the fillet at her temples and passed under her chin, framing her face, and rendering her features all the more austere. Her gown was a muted purple; heavy embroidery of red and blue circled its neckline, and it was gathered by a zone of gray silk, sewn with pearls, that circled her hips. From this belt depended a silver ring, as wide around as a big man's fist. On the ring was a bunch of black iron keys, of varying sizes: the symbol and reality of her standing as administrator of the household. As she spoke, she fiddled with the keys as though they were prayer beads; they gave off a continual muted clink, just barely audible to Hob above the rumble of voices, the thuds and thumps of plank tabletops settling onto their trestles.

I guess you’ll have to try to do something with F’s moon now. Presumably it’s dead. Or even try E.” He looked up at it, big in the blue sky. “Well, no. It’s too big. Too heavy.” Two minutes later: “Maybe you can just keep living on the ship, and stock up on whatever you run out of, from here and from E. Terraform F’s moon if you can. Or maybe you can resupply and get to another system entirely. I seem to recall there’s a G star just a few more light-years out.” Long silence. Then: “But you know, I bet they’re all like this one. I mean, they’re either going to be alive or dead, right? If they’ve got water and orbit in the habitable zone, they’ll be alive. Alive and poisonous. I don’t know. Maybe they could be alive and we live with them and the two systems pass each other by. But that doesn’t sound like life, does it? Living things eat. They have immune systems. So that’s going to be a problem, most of the time anyway. Invasive biology. Then on the dead worlds, those’ll be dry, and too cold, or too hot. So they’ll be useless unless they have water, and if they have water they’ll probably be alive. I know

Oskar Schell: My father died at 9-11. After he died I wouldn't go into his room for a year because it was too hard and it made me want to cry. But one day, I put on heavy boots and went in his room anyway. I miss doing taekwondo with him because it always made me laugh. When I went into his closet, where his clothes and stuff were, I reached up to get his old camera. It spun around and dropped about a hundred stairs, and I broke a blue vase! Inside was a key in an envelope with black written on it and I knew that dad left something somewhere for me that the key opened and I had to find. So I take it to Walt, the locksmith. I give it to Stan, the doorman, who tells me keys can open anything. He gave me the phone book for all the five boroughs. I count there are 472 people with the last name black. There are 216 addresses. Some of the blacks live together, obviously. I calculated that if I go to 2 every Saturday plus holidays, minus my hamlet school plays, my minerals, coins, and comic convention, it's going to take me 3 years to go through all of them. But that's what I'm going to do! Go to every single person named black and find out what the key fits and see what dad needed me to find. I made the very best possible plan but using the last four digits of each phone number, I divide the people by zones. I had to tell my mother another lie, because she wouldn't understand how I need to go out and find what the key fits and help me make sense of things that don't even make sense like him being killed in the building by people that didn't even know him at all! And I see some people who don't speak English, who are hiding, one black said that she spoke to God. If she spoke to god how come she didn't tell him not to kill her son or not to let people fly planes into buildings and maybe she spoke to a different god than them! And I met a man who was a woman who a man who was a woman all at the same time and he didn't want to get hurt because he/she was scared that she/he was so different. And I still wonder if she/he ever beat up himself, but what does it matter? Thomas Schell: What would this place be if everyone had the same haircut? Oskar Schell: And I see Mr. Black who hasn't heard a sound in 24 years which I can understand because I miss dad's voice that much. Like when he would say, "are you up yet?" or... Thomas Schell: Let's go do something. Oskar Schell: And I see the twin brothers who paint together and there's a shed that has to be clue, but it's just a shed! Another black drew the same drawing of the same person over and over and over again! Forest black, the doorman, was a school teacher in Russia but now says his brain is dying! Seamus black who has a coin collection, but doesn't have enough money to eat everyday! You see olive black was a gate guard but didn't have the key to it which makes him feel like he's looking at a brick wall. And I feel like I'm looking at a brick wall because I tried the key in 148 different places, but the key didn't fit. And open anything it hasn't that dad needed me to find so I know that without him everything is going to be alright. Thomas Schell: Let's leave it there then. Oskar Schell: And I still feel scared every time I go into a strange place. I'm so scared I have to hold myself around my waist or I think I'll just break all apart! But I never forget what I heard him tell mom about the sixth borough. That if things were easy to find... Thomas Schell: ...they wouldn't be worth finding. Oskar Schell: And I'm so scared every time I leave home. Every time I hear a door open. And I don't know a single thing that I didn't know when I started! It's these times I miss my dad more than ever even if this whole thing is to stop missing him at all! It hurts too much. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll do something very bad.

In 1498, Vasco da Gama the Portuguese navigator explored this eastern coast of Africa flanking the Indian Ocean. This led him to open a trade route to Asia and occupy Mozambique to the Portuguese colony. In 1840, it came under the control of the Sultan of Zanzibar and became a British protectorate in 1895, with Mombasa as its capital. Nairobi, lying 300 miles to the northwest of Mombasa is the largest city in Kenya. It became the capital in 1907 and is the fastest growing urban area in the Republic having become independent of the United Kingdom on December 12, 1963 and declared a republic the following year on December 12, 1964. Kenya is divided by the 38th meridian of longitude into two very different halves. The eastern half of Kenya slopes towards the coral-backed seashore of the Indian Ocean while the western side rises through a series of hills to the African Shear Zone or Central Rift. West of the Rift, the lowest part of a westward-sloping plateau contains Lake Victoria. This, the largest lake in Africa, receives most of its water from rain, the Kagera River and countless small streams. Its only outlet is the White Nile River which is part of the longest river on Earth. Combined, the Blue Nile and the White Nile, stretches 4,160 miles before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea.

What we need is a Tools to Help You Co-habit With Your Suffering Day. I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, though, here are my tools. Share. They might help others. Talk. Don’t keep it to yourself. There’s a great saying in Narcotics Anonymous: an addict alone is in bad company. Let people in. It’s scary and sometimes it can go wrong, but when you manage to connect with people, it’s magic. Let people go. (The toxic ones.) They don’t need to know – just gently withdraw. Learn to say no. I struggled so much with this, but when I started to do it, it was one of the most liberating things that ever happened to me. Learn to say yes. As I’ve got older, I’ve become quite ‘safe’. I am trying more and more to take myself out of my comfort zone. Find purpose. It can be anything – a charity, volunteering … Accept that Life is a roller coaster. Ups and downs. Accept yourself. Even the bits you really don’t like – you can work on those. No one is perfect. Try not to judge. If I’m judging people, it says more about where I am than about them. It’s at that point that I probably need to talk to someone … Music is a mood-altering drug. Some songs can make you cry, but some can make you really euphoric. I choose to mostly listen to the latter. Exercise. There is science to back me up here. Exercise is a no-brainer for mood enhancement. Look after something. Let something need you for its survival. It doesn’t have to be kids. It can be an animal, a houseplant, anything. And last but not least … Faith. I’m not sure what I believe in, but I do feel that when I pray, my prayers are being heard. Not always answered, but heard. And that’s enough.

against the velvet rope force fields that kept everyone without an invitation at bay. As I walked toward the entrance, the crowd bombarded me with a mix of insults, autograph requests, death threats, and tearful declarations of undying love. I had my body shield activated, but surprisingly, no one took a shot at me. I flashed the cyborg doorman my invitation, then mounted the long crystal staircase leading up into the club. Entering the Distracted Globe was more than a little disorienting. The inside of the giant sphere was completely hollow, and its curved interior surface served as the club’s bar and lounge area. The moment you passed through the entrance, the laws of gravity changed. No matter where you walked, your avatar’s feet always adhered to the interior of the sphere, so you could walk in a straight line, up to the “top” of the club, then back down the other side, ending up right back where you started. The huge open space in the center of the sphere served as the club’s zero-gravity “dance floor.” You reached it simply by jumping off the ground, like Superman taking flight, and then swimming through the air, into the spherical zero-g “groove zone.” As I stepped through the entrance, I glanced up—or in the direction that was currently “up” to me at the moment—and took a long look around. The place was packed. Hundreds of avatars milled around like ants crawling around the inside of a giant balloon. Others were already out on the dance floor—spinning, flying, twisting, and tumbling in time with the music, which thumped out of floating spherical speakers that drifted throughout the club. In the middle of all the dancers, a large clear bubble was suspended in space, at the absolute center of the club. This was the “booth” where the DJ stood, surrounded by turntables, mixers, decks, and dials. At the center of all that gear was the opening DJ, R2-D2, hard at work, using his various robotic arms to work the turntables. I recognized the tune he was playing: the ’88 remix of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” with a lot of Star Wars droid sound samples mixed in. As I made my way to the nearest bar, the avatars I passed all stopped to stare and point in

What exogenous causes are shifting the allocation of moral intuitions away from community, authority, and purity and toward fairness, autonomy, and rationality? One obvious force is geographic and social mobility. People are no longer confined to the small worlds of family, village, and tribe, in which conformity and solidarity are essential to daily life, and ostracism and exile are a form of social death. They can seek their fortunes in other circles, which expose them to alternative worldviews and lead them into a more ecumenical morality, which gravitates to the rights of individuals rather than chauvinistic veneration of the group. By the same token, open societies, where talent, ambition, or luck can dislodge people from the station in which they were born, are less likely to see an Authority Ranking as an inviolable law of nature, and more likely to see it as a historical artifact or a legacy of injustice. When diverse individuals mingle, engage in commerce, and find themselves on professional or social teams that cooperate to attain a superordinate goal, their intuitions of purity can be diluted. One example, mentioned in chapter 7, is the greater tolerance of homosexuality among people who personally know homosexuals. Haidt observes that when one zooms in on an electoral map of the United States, from the coarse division into red and blue states to a finer-grained division into red and blue counties, one finds that the blue counties, representing the regions that voted for the more liberal presidential candidate, cluster along the coasts and major waterways. Before the advent of jet airplanes and interstate highways, these were the places where people and their ideas most easily mixed. That early advantage installed them as hubs of transportation, commerce, media, research, and education, and they continue to be pluralistic—and liberal—zones today. Though American political liberalism is by no means the same as classical liberalism, the two overlap in their weighting of the moral spheres. The micro-geography of liberalism suggests that the moral trend away from community, authority, and purity is indeed an effect of mobility and cosmopolitanism.202

Bobby ran up on the deck and skidded to a stop in front of them. “It’s time for the Kowalski Fourth of July Football Game of Doom!” Cat laughed and pushed herself out of her seat. “We’ll talk about this some other time, Emma. Go have fun.” “I’m not sure I want to play football. Especially if there’s doom involved,” she said, but Bobby grabbed her hand and dragged her off the deck. They were divvied up into teams roughly by size, each with an assortment of men, women and children. Emma was on Sean’s team, which was good. She’d just hide behind him, because the only thing she knew about football was that it involved a lot of hitting. It only took a few plays to see that the Kowalskis played by their own rules and the few they had were fluid. Mostly they served to ensure the smaller kids didn’t get plowed over, victims of the adults’ competitive streak. Five minutes into the game, Emma somehow ended up with the ball. She squealed and looked around for somebody—anybody—to hand it off to, but there was nobody. Well, there was Danny, but he was doubled over in laughter. “Run, Emma,” Lisa yelled. She ran in the direction her friend was frantically waving her hand, but she only went a few feet before two very strong arms wrapped around her waist and then she was falling. Luckily, she landed on a body instead of the ground. “I love football,” Mitch said, grinning up at her. Emma grimaced and managed to get one of her knees on solid ground so she could push herself to her feet. He was quicker and freed himself to stand and help her up. “They should give you the ball more often,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling and the grin so like Sean’s—but not quite as naughty—in full force. “Hands off my girl,” Sean told him, pulling on Emma’s elbow. “You should do a better job of blocking for her. “Let’s go,” Brian shouted. The very next play, Mitch intercepted Mike’s pass to Evan and turned to run toward the other end zone. He was halfway there when Sean took him down hard. They hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud that made Emma wince, and came up pushing and shoving. When Sean drew back his arm to throw the first punch, Mary blew her whistle from the sidelines. “Boys! Enough!” Instead of heading straight for the huddle, Sean walked to Emma and pulled her into his arms for a hard, almost punishing caveman kiss that made her skin sizzle and her knees go wobbly. Then he glared at his brother for a few long seconds and went back to his team, leaving Emma standing there breathless and discombobulated.

Flynn lived in a shiny glass apartment tower on the water in Melbourne. The building looked like hundreds of mirrors reflecting the bright blue sky. He lived at the top of the high-rise. Kope and I stepped off the elevator and looked down the hall at Flynn’s door. We’d been silent. Nodding to each other, we sent our hearing into the apartment. With a quiet gasp, I yanked my auditory sense back to normal. Flynn was busy with company at the moment. Very busy. Kope made a low sound and closed his eyes, shaking his head as if to clear away the sounds he’d heard. My face heated and I shifted from foot to foot, fighting back the nervous smile that always wanted to surface at inappropriate times. I found a small sitting area around the corner with glass walls overlooking the city. We sat, taking in the view. When my stupid urge to smile finally settled, I braved another look at Kope and pointed to myself, using my new, limited sign-language skills to tell him I’d listen. Given the new information about his inclination for lust, it was only fair. I quickly looked away, embarrassed by the crassness of the situation. I wasn’t going to listen the whole time. I’d just pop in for a quick check. Ten minutes passed. Still busy. Half an hour passed. Busy. Forty-five minutes passed. I shook my head to let Kope know they were still at it. He fidgeted and paced, out of his normal, calm comfort zone. An hour and ten minutes passed, and I took a turn at stretching my legs. I was getting hungry. I thought we’d be through with our talk by this time. We could interrupt Flynn, but I didn’t want him to freak out in front of somebody. We needed his guest to leave so we could talk alone. At the hour and a half mark, Kope checked his watch and looked at me. I sent my hearing into the room. Oh, they weren’t in the bedroom anymore. Finally! I wiggled my hearing around until it hit the sound of running water. A shower. This was a good sign. But wait . . . nope. I shook my head, eyes wide. Was this normal? Kope did something uncharacteristic then. He grinned, giving a little huff through his nose. This elicited a small giggle from me and I pressed both hands over my mouth. It was too late, though. At this point, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I could feel the crazy, unfortunate amusement rising. I jumped up and ran as spritely as I could to the stairwell with Kope on my heels. We sprinted down several flights before I fell back against the wall, laughter bubbling out. It went on and on, only getting worse when Kope joined in with his deep chuckling, a joyful rumble.

THE DIET-GO-ROUND LOW-CALORIE DIETS Diets began by limiting the number of calories consumed in a day. But restricting calories depleted energy, so people craved high-calorie fat and sugar as energizing emergency fuel. LOW-FAT DIETS High-calorie fats were targeted. Restricting fat left people hungry, however, and they again craved more fats and sugars. FAKE FAT Synthetic low-cal fats were invented. People could now replace butter with margarine, but without calories it didn’t deliver the energy and satisfaction people needed. They still craved real fat and sugar. THE DIET GO-ROUND GRAPEFRUIT DIETS Banking on the antioxidant and fat-emulsifying properties of grapefruit, dieters could eat real fat again, as long as they ate a grapefruit first. But even grapefruits were no match for the high-fat American diet. SUGAR BLUES The more America restricted fat in any way to lose weight, the more the body rebounded by storing fat, and craving and bingeing on fats and sugars. Sugar was now to blame! SUGAR FREE High-calorie sugars were replaced with no-calorie synthetic sweeteners. The mind was happy but the body was starving as diet drinks replaced meals. People eventually binged on excess calories from other sources, such as protein. HIGH-PROTEIN DIETS The new diet let people eat all the protein they wanted without noticing the restriction of carbs and sugar. Energy came from fat stores and dieters lost weight. But without carbs, they soon experienced low energy and craved and binged on carbs. HIGH-CARB DIETS Carb-craving America was ripe for high-carb diets. You could now lose weight and eat up to 80 percent carbs—but they had to be slow-burning, complex carbs. Fast-paced America was addicted to fast energy, however, and high-carb diets soon became high-sugar diets. LOW CHOLESTEROL The combination of sugar, fat, and stress raised cholesterol to dangerous levels. The solution: Reemphasize complex carbs and reduce all animal fats. Once again, dieters felt restricted and began craving and bingeing on fats and sugars. EXERCISE Diets weren’t working, so exercise became the cholesterol cure-all. It worked for a time, but people didn’t like to “work out.” Within 25 years, no more than 20 percent of Americans would do it regularly. VEGETARIANISM With heart disease and cancers on the rise, red meat was targeted. Vegetarianism came into fashion but was rarely followed correctly. People lived on pasta and bread, and blood sugars and energy levels went out of control. GRAZING High-carb diets were causing energy and blood sugar problems. If you ate every 2 hours, energy was propped up and fast-paced America could keep speeding. Fatigue became chronic fatigue, however, with depression and anxiety to follow. FOOD COMBINING By eating fats, proteins, and carbs separately, digestion improved and a host of digestive, energy, and weight problems were helped temporarily. But the rules for what you could eat together led to more frequent small meals. People eventually slipped back to their old ways and old problems. THE ZONE Aimed at fixing blood sugar levels, this diet balanced intake of proteins, fats, and carbs. It worked, but again restricted certain kinds of carbs, so it didn’t last, and America was again craving emergency fuel. COFFEE TO THE RESCUE Exhausted and with a million things to do, America turned to legal stimulants like coffee for energy. But borrowed energy must be paid back, and many are still living in debt. FULL CIRCLE Frustrated, America is turning to new crash diets and a wave of high-protein diets. It is time to break this man-made cycle with the simplicity of nature’s own 3-Season Diet. If you let nature feed you, you will not starve or crave anything.

From Sardinia to a place a little closer to home, Loma Linda, California, (where the life expectancy is 10 years longer than the national average!) residents of these blue zones are said not only to eat fresh, locally grown or homegrown foods in most instances, but they walk everywhere, laugh with friends often, value and prioritize their family, and celebrate their elders too.

This going-out-of-the-comfort-zone is not for sissies.

Eat well, stress less, move more, and love more.

I reflect on Bicycle Bob Silverman, who prodded and pushed Montreal into being one of the best biking cities in the world. I think about Dan Buettner and the Blue Zones gang, who’ve shown entire cities of people how to live healthier and longer lives. I think about Bea Johnson, who through her passion and pint jar of trash has changed the way thousands of us view our garbage. I think about Dr. June McCarroll in California and Dadarao Bilhore in India – on their hands and knees – painting center lines and filling potholes, one by one, to make our roads safe. These are people so passionate about changing some sliver of the world that they just rolled up their sleeves and dug in. They forged ahead without job title, majority vote, business card, salary, office, or political affiliation. Writer Thomas Friedman refers to these people as “leaders without authority.” Where do we find more? Well, we can start by taking a selfie. And listening to a pair of voices from the past. Alexis de Tocqueville – a man absolutely smitten by democracy in America – reminds us that one of the beauties of living in a democracy is that policies aren’t decreed from on high by “church and state” but from the bottom up, by “village and congregation.” And anthropologist Margaret Mead expounds, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Research shows that attending faith-based services four times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy.

Cecelia is standing behind me, her pale blue eyes boring into me, wearing a white frilly dress that makes her look like a little doll. And by doll, I’m of course talking about that creepy talking doll in The Twilight Zone that murders people.

The fog was disappearing before their eyes. It was completely gone from the embankment and in the distance it was thinning, melting away and showing the rounded bristly peaks of the hills. Here and there between the hills could be seen the mottled surface of the stagnant swamps, covered with sparse thickets of willows, and the horizon, beyond the hills, was filled with bright yellow explosions of mountain peaks, and the sky above them was clear and blue. Arthur looked back and gasped with awe. Redrick looked too. In the east the mountains looked black, and over them the familiar green wash of color billowed and shone iridescently—the Zone's green dawn.

If you are called to roll with a jiu-jitsu instructor, rolling means rolling. He may toy with you. He may decline to tap you. But he expects you to do your best to defend yourself and to attack him. When an instructor’s body can no longer do what his mind tells it to, then he does not roll with students in this way, but provides wisdom and leadership appropriate to his rank and age. Students also adjust their intensity level appropriately to the training context. It is not inconceivable that a strong young blue belt could tap Helio Gracie out in 1999. He would pay a high and painful price for the glory of doing it however. There is a reason for age, weight, belt, and gender categories in competitions.

The five generally accepted blue zones are the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, the island of Sardinia in Italy, Ikaria in Greece, Okinawa in Japan, and Loma Linda, California, in the United States.

The foundation of the Blue Zones Food Guidelines is “See that your diet is 95%–100% plant-based.” Vegetables are emphasized (especially leafy greens), along with fruits, whole grains, and legumes.

The list ends with “Retreat from meat,” noting that blue zones centenarians only eat about 2 oz or less of meat about five times per month.2393

He’s surrounded by a phalanx of UN security officers in crisp blues. They’re not in the uniforms of their home countries, as the UN military forces always are, but instead represent UN Headquarters itself. They’re lined up in a tight formation around the secretary-general – Asian faces, African faces, Nordic faces, all equally clean, sharp, disciplined. It’s scary and thrilling. It looks like a cinematic image of the future, the living embodiment of a New World Order.

The building is buzzing. Offices overflow with staff from every corner of the earth. Soldiers in colorful military uniforms move with martial discipline but stop smartly in the hall to let secretaries wrapped in Cambodian silk pass. Police in blue berets brief earnest young lawyers in khakis. Everyone has a military-issue radio glued to their ear. It looks like it could be a colonial administration in India or Kenya, except instead of British rule, it’s the whole world, and instead of imperial occupation, we’ve invaded in the service of peace.

The beaches in Dubai are well-known for their cleanliness and tranquility. While many individuals enjoy a relaxing weekend at the beach, thrill-seekers prefer to participate in thrilling water sports. Jet skiing is one of Dubai's most popular water activities, and adventure seekers love to try it. Do you want to know what the most extraordinary Dubai marine adventures are? What is the best method to see this magnificent city? There is plenty to do in this city-state of the UAE, and we have several fun aquatic activities for you to enjoy while on vacation or to live in the Emirates! How about a Jet Ski Ride along the Dubai waterfront? It can be done with your family, as a couple, with friends, or by yourself. We jet ski around all of Dubai's most famous attractions, skyscrapers, and landmarks. All of our Jet Ski trips include a stop at the luxury Burj Al Arab hotel, which is constructed into the sea, where you can have fun and receive a photo souvenir of Dubai. Jet skiing in Dubai is unquestionably the most acceptable way to see the city and have a good time during your vacation. Dubai Yacht Rental Experience When it comes to a luxury Boat Party in Dubai for those who can afford it, the pleasure and adventure that Yachts can provide cannot be overstated. Yachting is, without a doubt, the most beautiful sport on the planet. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to splash around in the ocean's deep blue waves and lose yourself in an environment that is both soothing and calming to the soul. The sensation you get from a yacht requires a whole new set of words to explain it. It's a fantastic experience that transports people to another zone while also altering their mental state. People who have the advantage of owning private yachts go sailing to have a relaxing excursion and clear their minds whenever they feel the need. Those who cannot afford to purchase a yacht can enjoy the thrill of cruising from one coastal region to the other by renting an economical Dubai yacht. It is not a challenging task to learn to sail. Some people believe that yachting can only be done by experts, which is a ridiculous misconception. Anyone willing to acquire a few tactics and hints can master the art of yachting. READ MORE About Dubai Jet Ski: Get lost in the tranquility of blue waters while waiting to partake in action. With the instructor sitting right behind you, you’ll learn astonishing stunts and skills for riding a Jet ski. This adventure will take your excitement to a new level of adventure in the open sea. While sailing past the picturesque shorelines of the islands, take in stunning views of prominent Dubai monuments such as the Burj Al Arab and more. About the activity: Jumeirah Beach is the meeting site for this activity. You have the option of riding for 30 minutes or 60 minutes Jet Ski around the beaches while being accompanied at all times by an instructor, as your safety is our top priority. Begin your journey from the marina and proceed to the world-famous Burj-Al-Arab, a world well known hotel, for a photo shoot. where you may take as many pictures as you want

Positive psychology offers several evidence-based strategies for improving our well-being, including mindfulness, meditation, cultivating gratitude, developing resilience, learning to savor experience, and so on.

According to scientists who have studied the five Blue Zones, the keys to longevity are diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life (an ikigai), and forming strong social ties—that is, having a broad circle of friends and good family relations.

Cannonau

Now the incoming tide rolls in; the hours abruptly switch back to single digits again, and it’s a little like the time you put your watch back on entering a different time zone. Now the buses knock off and the subway expresses turn into locals and the locals space themselves far apart; and as Johnny Carson’s face hits millions of screens all at one and the same time, the incoming tide reaches its crest and pounds against the shore. There’s a sudden splurge, a slew of taxis arriving at the hotel entrance one by one as regularly as though they were on a conveyor belt, emptying out and then going away again.

We pulled into the so-called safe zone, next to a pair of tow teams that had sidelined themselves, and as King reached past me to untether his camera case and assemble his housing, I started at Jaws. At about 40 feet, this wasn't the biggest day on record, but somehow that diminished nothing. The wave was breathtaking. As it rose, its face opened up to the cliffs and its lip curled over a full-bellied barrel. Except for the luminous glints of turquoise at its peak, the wave was sapphire blue, gin clear, and flecked with white. If heaven were a color it would be tinted like this. You could fall into this water and happily never come out and you could see it forever and never get tired of looking. Jaws did not permit its spectators to daydream about being someplace else, to feel bored or irritated or jaded. Watching it was an instant antidote to petty problems. There could be no confusion about who called the shots out here, at this gorgeous, haunted, heavy, lush, primordial place, with all its unnameable blues and its ability to nourish you and kill you at the same time. There was unspeakable power at Jaws, but it was the beauty that got me.

You ever choked? You know what I mean, fumbled at the goal line, stuck your foot in your mouth when you were trying to ask that girl on a date, had a brain freeze on the final exam you were totally prepared for, lipped out a three-foot putt to win the golf tournament, or been paralyzed by the feeling of “Oh my god life can’t get any better, do I really deserve this?” I have. What happens when we get that feeling? We clench up, get short of breath, self-conscious. We have an out-of-body experience where we observe ourselves in the third person, no longer present, now not doing well what we are there to do. We become voyeurs of our moment because we let it become bigger than us, and in doing so, we just became less involved in it and more impressed with it. Why does this happen? It happens because when we mentally give a person, place, or point in time more credit than ourselves, we then create a fictitious ceiling, a restriction, over the expectations we have of our own performance in that moment. We get tense, we focus on the outcome instead of the activity, and we miss the doing of the deed. We either think the world depends on the result, or it’s too good to be true. But it doesn’t, and it isn’t, and it’s not our right to believe it does or is. Don’t create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a blue ribbon, a winning score, a great idea, the love of our life, euphoric bliss, who are we to think we don’t deserve these fortunes when they are in our grasp? Who are we to think we haven’t earned them? If we stay in process, within ourselves, in the joy of the doing, we will never choke at the finish line. Why? Because we aren’t thinking of the finish line, we’re not looking at the clock, we’re not watching ourselves on the Jumbotron performing. We are performing in real time, where the approach is the destination, and there is no goal line because we are never finished. When Bo Jackson scored, he ran over the goal line, through the end zone, and up the tunnel . The greatest snipers and marksmen in the world don’t aim at the target, they aim on the other side of it. When we truly latch on to the fact that we are going to die at some point in time, we have more presence in this one. Reach beyond your grasp, have immortal finish lines, and turn your red light green, because a roof is a man-made thing.

the keys to longevity are diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life (an ikigai), and forming strong social ties—that is, having a broad circle of friends and good family relations. Members of these communities manage their time well in order to reduce stress, consume little meat or processed foods, and drink alcohol in moderation.1 They don’t do strenuous exercise, but they do move every day, taking walks and working in their vegetable gardens. People in the Blue Zones would rather walk than drive. Gardening, which involves daily low-intensity movement, is a practice almost all of them have in common.

According to scientists who have studied the five Blue Zones, the keys to longevity are diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life (an ikigai), and forming strong social ties—that is, having a broad circle of friends and good family relations. Members of these communities manage their time well in order to reduce stress, consume little meat or processed foods, and drink alcohol in moderation.1 They don’t do strenuous exercise, but they do move every day, taking walks and working in their vegetable gardens. People in the Blue Zones would rather walk than drive. Gardening, which involves daily low-intensity movement, is a practice almost all of them have in common.

Run with a lasting endurance in this great race with the assurance that you'll eventually get your prize. Move through the trials with wisdom, and grow spiritually stronger through them, see beyond your natural eyes. See beyond the temporal storms that appear in various forms, and look ahead to the clear blue sky. Christ will give you all that you need to go forward and to succeed, the final hour is drawing nigh. Very soon we will be leaving with all of those who are believing, we'll be taking our heavenly flight. So take the Gospel to the people, passed the comfort-zone of the steeple, and try to get them to see the Light.

fruіtѕ, vegetables, gоаt’ѕ mіlk, sheep’s сhееѕе аnd оlіvе оіlѕ. Mеаt is соnѕumеd оn ѕресіаl occasions and саrbѕ ѕuсh as breads аrе consumed оnlу mоdеrаtеlу. A glаѕѕ or two of lосаl red wine іѕ commonly enjoyed dаіlу wіth fооd, too!

In the “blue zones”—those places around the world where people live longest and are healthy beyond our wildest imaginings—there are three things you see across the board: lots of movement in daily life, a sense of purpose, and communal living. Build and cultivate your community. Have people over.

I chuckled and ran my hand up her smooth calf, rubbing the muscle. I pictured that delicate ankle on my shoulder where I could kiss it, run my palm down the outside of her thigh, pull down those light-blue lace panties…

The third component of this assault remained unreachable. The last word from the Belgorod-class submarine was when it vanished under the polar ice cap, sailing its thirty-thousand-ton bulk toward the search zone. Its code name was Siniykit, chosen for the largest oceangoing creature—the blue whale—which was fitting as the submarine was nearly two hundred meters in length. The boat needed to be that large to hold its arsenal of six massive Poseidon 2M39 torpedoes. The stealth weapons were the latest in Russia’s underwater arsenal, tested for the first time in 2023. The bus-size weapons were more drones than torpedoes, capable of remote operation, with a range of ten thousand kilometers. Powered by a nuclear reactor, the torpedoes were capable of carrying up to a 100-megaton payload. Such beasts were designed as a second-strike nuclear option, to devastate a coastline and trigger a radioactive tsunami. It was the reason the boat had earned its nickname the “Doomsday Sub.