Building Bonds Quotes

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Value your parabatai," he said. "For it is a precious bond. All love is precious. It is why we do what we do. Why do we fight demons? Why are they not fit custodians of this world? What makes us better? It is because they do not build, but destroy. They do not love, but hate only. We are human and fallible, we Shadowhunters. But if we did not have the capability to love, we could not guard humans; we must love to guard them. My parabatai, he loved like few ever could love, with all and everything. I see you are like that too; it burns more brightly in you than the fire of Heaven
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
Let our brain intuit what feelings are craving to express. If our mind catalyzes an uplifting bond with our emotions, both become brothers at arms, and build a realm of common sense. ( "Disruption" )
Erik Pevernagie
What follows is the first in a collection of tales, primarily of one tixie family, who recorded their exploits more than two thousand years ago. Originally written in their own language, these stories have been translated into modern English for the first time.
Jack Borden (The Vultures of Doom (The Tixie Chronicles Book 1))
The internet and online communication is the window into your world - but real life, in person communication / connection is the door.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
How do we start to rebuild a society where we don’t feel so alone and afraid, and where we can form healthier bonds? How do we build a society where we look for happiness in one another rather than in consumption?
Johann Hari (Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs)
You don't build a bond without being present.
James Earl Jones
We are not called to fight the battles of our fathers with a blind faith. We are called to examine their wars, and moreover, to discern whether their actions were sinful or just. Furthermore, we are called to decide whether to correct the errors of our fathers battles through either peace, war, or some combination of the two. We are not bonded to our fathers' fate, but rather called to build on their trespasses or triumphs for a better future.
Kent Marrero
Bonds, in essence, represent a powerful partnership between investors and issuers, a symbiotic relationship that fuels economic growth, empowers dreams, and builds a brighter future for all.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Bond ing: The Power of Investing in Bonds)
In theory, sure, Gregor could still go home. Pack up his three-year-old sister, Boots, get his mom out of the hospital, where she was recovering from the plague, and have his bat, Ares, fly them back up to the laudry room of their appartment building in New York City. Ares, his bond, who saved his life numerous times and who had had nothing but suffering since he had met Gregor. He tried to imagine the parting. "Well, Ares, it's been great. I'm heading home now. I know by leaving I'm completely dooming to annihilation everbody who's helped me down here, but I'm really not up for this whole war thing anymore. So, fly you high, you know?" Like that would ever happen.
Suzanne Collins (Gregor and the Code of Claw (Underland Chronicles, #5))
It was a confirmation of a connection that already existed. And it was a bond that extended far beyond the borders of a shared living space. We would have stayed together even without a marriage certificate . . . but I believed in the permanence it represented. It was a piece of paper you could build a life on.
Lisa Kleypas (Smooth Talking Stranger (Travises, #3))
It is not just a question of blowing up a building or shooting a prime minister. Such bourgeois horseplay is not contemplated. Our operation must be delicate, refined and aimed at the heart of the Intelligence apparat of the West.
Ian Fleming (From Russia with Love (James Bond, #5))
Differences of opinion may occur between husband and wife. But one's objective in marriage is never to win an argument, but to build an eternal relationship of love.
Russell M. Nelson (Accomplishing the Impossible: What God Does, What We Can Do)
We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together. In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities. We establish a divine bond with each other as we approach God together through family prayer, gospel study, and Sunday worship.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
When people live in a fair, caring society, where everyone has equal access to social goods, they don’t have to spend their time worrying about how to cover their basic needs day to day – they can enjoy the art of living. And instead of feeling they are in constant competition with their neighbours, they can build bonds of social solidarity.
Jason Hickel (Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World)
Fiction is empathy's gateway drug. It helps us feel for others when real-world caring is too difficult, complicated or painful. Because of this, it can restore bonds between people even when that seems impossible.
Jamil Zaki (The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World)
Indeed, laughter may be the shortest distance between two brains, an unstoppable infectious spread that builds an instant social bond.
Daniel Goleman (Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships)
Somehow the promise we had made on that piece of paper gave me more freedom than I’d ever known before. It allowed both of us to argue, to laugh, to risk, to trust—without fear. It was a confirmation of a connection that already existed. And it was a bond that extended far beyond the borders of a shared living space. We would have stayed together even without a marriage certificate . . . but I believed in the permanence it represented. It was a piece of paper you could build a life on.
Lisa Kleypas (Smooth Talking Stranger (Travises, #3))
Laughter is a glue too many underestimate. You can build a bond through happy moments that will see you through the sad ones.
Sarah M. Eden (Charming Artemis (The Lancaster Family, #5))
When a national government needs to raise funds for its various activities—be it building infrastructure, funding social programs, or managing its debt—it turns to the bond market. It issues government bonds, essentially borrowing money from investors in exchange for regular interest payments and the promise to repay the principal. at maturity.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Bond ing: The Power of Investing in Bonds)
Secrets carve us like water carves stone. On the surface nothing will shift, but things we cannot tell anyone chafe and consume us, and slowly our life settles around them, moulds itself into their shape. Secrets gnaw at the bonds between people. Sometimes we believe they can also build them: if we let another person into the silent space a secret has made within us, we are no longer alone there.
Emmi Itäranta (Memory of Water)
When a national government needs to raise funds for its various activities—be it building infrastructure, funding social programs, or managing its debt—it turns to the bond market.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Bond ing: The Power of Investing in Bonds)
But sometimes, when you’ve known someone for years and they build up this image of you, it’s hard to talk about things that mess with that image. It feels like you’d be breaking some bond of trust between you and that person by being different than you were before. I don’t just mean subtle, slow changes. I mean, like, the big things that they never saw coming.
Racquel Marie (Ophelia After All)
Unless we learn how to handle betrayal and the torturous, obsessional relationships that evolve out of treachery, we add to the betrayal of the planet. Trust is restored when we learn to trust ourselves and build trust with others. There is no other way.
Patrick J. Carnes (The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships)
By late October, after Cox had been fired, Kissinger’s anxieties about the President had become more acute. “Sometimes I get worried,” he said. “The President is like a madman.” Kissinger was deeply pessimistic. He had looked to the second Nixon administration as a once-in-a-century opportunity to build a new American foreign policy, to achieve new international structures based on unquestioned American strength, détente with the Soviets and China, a closer bond with Europe. It seemed no longer possible. Watergate was shattering the illusion of American strength, he said, and with it American foreign policy.
Carl Bernstein (The Final Days)
Parents raise children then grow old, and their children forget the things their old parents did for them, because their brains don’t remember before they grew selfish. There are buildings all over the world full of old people sitting around looking out of windows, full of hate for their selfish sons and daughters. And meanwhile, the selfish sons and daughters look out of their windows at their children playing and think how wonderful their unbreakable bond of love is between them and their children.
Craig Stone (How to Hide from Humans)
The thrill of working in this building, with its iconic globe on top, would never fade.
Gwenda Bond (Triple Threat (Lois Lane, #3))
authenticity ministers far more than put-togetherness. And vulnerability builds a far stronger bond than perfection.
Michele Cushatt (Undone: A Story of Making Peace With an Unexpected Life)
Trust is restored when we learn to trust ourselves and build trust with others. There is no other way. By
Patrick J. Carnes (The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships)
Only an income-producing possession, such as a stock, bond, or working piece of real estate is a true investment.
William J. Bernstein (The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio)
empirically well established. Sociological studies show that faith is strongly correlated with social bonding. Religious commitments encourage civic involvement and build social capital.
R.R. Reno (Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society)
This is what's known as the Cycle of Violence, where an explosion is followed by a period of remorse, then promises and pursuit, a false honeymoon stage, then a build-up in tension, a standover phase, and another explosion. Then kindness expressed during the false honeymoon stage may feel genuine to the abuser, but this reward phase - like every other part of the cycle - is still all about maintaining control. Periods of kindness, no matter how short, bond the victim to her abuser.
Jess Hill (See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Violence)
It is a luxury to romanticize blood, especially your own. It is a luxury to be able to fetishize violence, especially the violence that you inflict upon others. To use it as a bond, or to call it church, or to build an identity around it while knowing that everyone you can send home bloody will not come back for revenge.
Hanif Abdurraqib (They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us)
How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I would like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is. I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and yet I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms. No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, though not completely. And besides, where would I go? Would I establish another? I would not be able to establish it without the same faults, for they are the same faults I carry in me. And if I did establish another, it would be my Church, not the Church of Christ. I am old enough to know that I am no better than anyone else. …) The Church has the power to make me holy but it is made up, from the first to the last, only of sinners. And what sinners! It has the omnipotent and invincible power to renew the Miracle of the Eucharist, but is made up of men who are stumbling in the dark, who fight every day against the temptation of losing their faith. It brings a message of pure transparency but it is incarnated in slime, such is the substance of the world. It speaks of the sweetness of its Master, of its non-violence, but there was a time in history when it sent out its armies to disembowel the infidels and torture the heretics. It proclaims the message of evangelical poverty, and yet it does nothing but look for money and alliances with the powerful. Those who dream of something different from this are wasting their time and have to rethink it all. And this proves that they do not understand humanity. Because this is humanity, made visible by the Church, with all its flaws and its invincible courage, with the Faith that Christ has given it and with the love that Christ showers on it. When I was young, I did not understand why Jesus chose Peter as his successor, the first Pope, even though he abandoned Him. Now I am no longer surprised and I understand that by founding his church on the tomb of a traitor(…)He was warning each of us to remain humble, by making us aware of our fragility. (…) And what are bricks worth anyway? What matters is the promise of Christ, what matters is the cement that unites the bricks, which is the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit is capable of building the church with such poorly moulded bricks as are we. And that is where the mystery lies. This mixture of good and bad, of greatness and misery, of holiness and sin that makes up the church…this in reality am I .(…) The deep bond between God and His Church, is an intimate part of each one of us. (…)To each of us God says, as he says to his Church, “And I will betroth you to me forever” (Hosea 2,21). But at the same time he reminds us of reality: 'Your lewdness is like rust. I have tried to remove it in vain. There is so much that not even a flame will take it away' (Ezechiel 24, 12). But then there is even something more beautiful. The Holy Spirit who is Love, sees us as holy, immaculate, beautiful under our guises of thieves and adulterers. (…) It’s as if evil cannot touch the deepest part of mankind. He re-establishes our virginity no matter how many times we have prostituted our bodies, spirits and hearts. In this, God is truly God, the only one who can ‘make everything new again’. It is not so important that He will renew heaven and earth. What is most important is that He will renew our hearts. This is Christ’s work. This is the divine Spirit of the Church.
Carlo Carretto
Ben launched himself from the building. BEN! For the second time in two nights, I watched in horror as Ben sailed through the air. His arms pinwheeled as he dropped toward the shimmering inkblot below. Ben hit with a thunderous splash and disappeared beneath the water. Heart in my throat, I willed him to resurface. Ben. Ben, are you okay?! My bond with Ben grew fuzzy. Tenuous. Then it broke altogether. Frantic, I unleashed a swell of love for Ben I didn’t know existed. All my hopes and cares burst outward. In a split second, I bared my soul. The water rippled. I never knew you cared.
Kathy Reichs (Terminal (Virals, #5))
investors who pay attention to the economy can be more successful because they can take advantage of impending changes. While everyone else is focused on what’s happening right now, economically savvy investors can focus on what’s coming
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
To horses, everyday is a new day to survive. It's a natural instinct. They don't think of the past or the future, only the present. So in terms of trying to teach your horse or build a special bond, patience is the key to every stall's door.
Sheikha Hissa Hamdan Al Maktoum
You know how there’s that one person who stumbles into your life and you instantly have a connection with them? Someone who’s a genuinely good person. Someone you just know you can build a great bond with, and it doesn’t have to be in a romantic way either. It can be with someone you have no attraction to whatsoever, you just instantly recognize something in them and they in you. Like in another realm, in another life, you were meant to be together in some way. Whether with a mother, daughter, sibling, best friend, or romantic partner, it’s a strong, unexplainable connection between two individuals
E.L. Montes (Perfectly Damaged)
I'm going to speak to Aline,” Dread growls. He's still stomping across the floor. “All new hires will now need to complete a class about how every species bonds. I've run this place for almost fifty years and never once . . .” He snarls, shaking his head. “Not just new hires, every damn employee in the building is getting a 'How not to accidentally bond a demon' safety meeting.
Jillian West (The Monster's Den (A Monstrous World, #1))
Intimacy requires a slow, cumulative build of safety between people who agree to a relationship, an ongoing connection of care and concern. The performance of pain is essentially a form of bonding over trauma, and people can get addicted to their endorphins.
Lierre Keith (Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet)
Take a look at the plants. They come together and thrive peacefully in the garden or park. They lean on each other without trying to outdo one another. They serve as a sign that we can see beyond our differences and embrace each other in love while allowing our uniqueness to add color to our world. If plants can live in harmony and show their beauty to the world, we as humans can do much more.
Kemi Sogunle
Blaming others for your unhappiness is a habit that’s hard to give up because it triggers some happy chemicals. You feel important when you battle perceived injustice (serotonin), and you bond with others who feel similarly deprived (oxytocin). You get excited when you seek and find evidence that you have been denied your fair share of happiness (dopamine). You may even trigger endorphins by welcoming physical pain into your life as evidence of your deprivation. You keep building a circuit for seeking happiness by feeling wronged.
Loretta Graziano Breuning (Meet Your Happy Chemicals: Dopamine, Endorphin, Oxytocin, Serotonin)
Morgan then formed the U.S. Steel Corporation, combining Carnegie’s corporation with others. He sold stocks and bonds for $1,300,000,000 (about 400 million more than the combined worth of the companies) and took a fee of 150 million for arranging the consolidation. How could dividends be paid to all those stockholders and bondholders? By making sure Congress passed tariffs keeping out foreign steel; by closing off competition and maintaining the price at $28 a ton; and by working 200,000 men twelve hours a day for wages that barely kept their families alive. And so it went, in industry after industry—shrewd, efficient businessmen building empires, choking out competition, maintaining high prices, keeping wages low, using government subsidies. These industries were the first beneficiaries of the “welfare state.
Howard Zinn (A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present)
Attachment theory teaches us that true autonomy relies on feeling securely connected to other human beings. Current developments in the field of attachment science have recognized that bonded pairs, such as couples, or parents and children, build bonds that physiologically shape their nervous systems. Contrary to many Western conceptions of the self as disconnected and atomized, operating in isolation using nothing but grit and determination, it turns out that close-knit connections to others are in large part how we grow into our own, fully expressed, autonomous selves.
Nora Samaran (Turn This World Inside Out: The Emergence of Nurturance Culture)
There is something indescribably important about having that one person in your life who you absolutely bond with. You have an understanding of who they are and they have an understanding of who you are in a way that no-one can match. They are capable of providing a reality check, and just simply being non-negotiably there. There really is no substitute and if there's one thing I would wish for younger people that would upgrade the quality of their lives and make them more secure and more capable it would be that they find a person with whom they can build such a relationship, and build it.
Bret Weinstein
Why should we make love?” If the husband is honest, he will answer with something to the effect that making love relieves his sexual craving. But the answer of most wives is very different. She will say that sex helps her feel closer to her husband. For her, it is all about intimacy and emotional bonding.
Willard F. Harley Jr. (His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage)
Obsession. It starts with a spark. A flicker. At the strike of a match. Lying dormant in most of us, obsession feasts on the fumes, breathes in the smoky scent, curing around and in on itself. Building. We pet it, nurse it into existence. It is ours. All ours. A coveted perfection. And when it refuses to be ignored, it rages. It roars to life. A building inferno. Consuming. We are but pawns to its deceptive power. Though we attempt to guide it, caress it tenderly into a loving beauty, it can not be controlled. It’s a haunted, vengeful lover. Like a wildfire devouring life within it’s path, we can only follow it’s carnal trail.
Trisha Wolfe (With Visions of Red (Broken Bonds, #1))
Maybe the concept of friendship is already too colonized by liberalism and capitalism. Under neoliberalism, friendship is a banal affair of private preferences: we hang out, we share hobbies, we make small talk. We become friends with those who are already like us, and we keep each other comfortable rather than becoming different and more capable together. The algorithms of Facebook and other social networks guide us towards the refinement of our profiles, reducing friendship to the click of a button. This neoliberal friend is the alternative to hetero- and homonormative coupling: "just friends" implies a much weaker and insignificant bond than a lover could ever be. Under neoliberal friendship, we don't have each other's backs, and our lives aren't tangled up together. But these insipid tendencies do not mean that friendships are pointless, only that friendship is a terrain of struggle. Empire works to usher its subjects into flimsy relationships where nothing is at stake and to infuse intimacy with violence and domination.
Carla Bergman (Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times (Anarchist Interventions))
Many new investors, eager to see quick profits, need to develop the patience and research skills necessary for successful long-term investing.
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
I trusted hands that only knew how to break; now I build my own strength from their ashes.
RAZRIFF SHARIFF AHMAD (Broken Bonds By Caelum1infernum)
Floods lit the other half of the building.
Gwenda Bond (Girl on a Wire (Cirque American, #1))
I'll take the sound of a full throttle purr over the thump of a wagging tail any day.
Arden Moore (Happy Cat, Happy You: Quick Tips for Building a Bond With Your Feline Friend)
Building on a bond is bankable. Building on bitterness is bankrupt.
T.F. Hodge (From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence)
Learning is earning.
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
A good working environment helps ensure that we can build the bonds of trust required for effective cooperation.
Simon Sinek (Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't)
Love needs no passport, no translation. It is the language we all understand, the bond we all deserve, and the bridge we all can build.
Adel Hafez (Pathway to Joy and Success: A journey of the heart... where joy awakens, and success finds its soul.)
In part this is an intimacy disorder, for as soon as she starts to recommit to the relationship, he starts distancing himself. The intensity begins to build again. He feels trapped or jealous or possessive or something else that distances him from her. Imagine that a relationship is a circle. For true intimacy to take place, both must stay in the circle at the same time.
Patrick J. Carnes (The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships)
For my happy relationships...they are truly formulated in a deeply intimate, trust-BUILT, character-tested, place in my conscience. I consider my friends in the Spirit and TRUTH as divinely chosen ones, plus the way I communicate this reality is by the way I love them inaction. They share in the experience of my authentic happiness, by ethereal invitation, and not by mere coincidence.
Dr Tracey Bond
The emphasis on doing everything together, rather than on the individualistic 'I can do it myself, thank you,' creates strong bonds to family and community. Decisions are made within the group setting.
Synnove Mitchell
queer people have developed other ways to create bonds with partners, to parent, to reimagine those structures that have cast them aside. Whatever shape it takes, they build a home and a family of their own.
Melissa Faliveno (Tomboyland: Essays)
Diversification, the easy accessibility of funds, and having a skilled professional money manager working to make your investment grow are the three most prominent reasons that mutual funds have become so popular.
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
The kind of trust that is necessary to build a great team is what I call vulnerability-based trust. This is what happens when members get to a point where they are completely comfortable being transparent, honest, and naked with one another, where they say and genuinely mean things like “I screwed up,” “I need help,” “Your idea is better than mine,” “I wish I could learn to do that as well as you do,” and even, “I’m sorry.” When everyone on a team knows that everyone else is vulnerable enough to say and mean those things, and that no one is going to hide his or her weaknesses or mistakes, they develop a deep and uncommon sense of trust. They speak more freely and fearlessly with one another and don’t waste time and energy putting on airs or pretending to be someone they’re not. Over time, this creates a bond that exceeds what many people ever experience in their lives and,
Patrick Lencioni (The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business)
Some of our underlying motives include:fn1 ■ Conserve energy ■ Obtain food and water ■ Find love and reproduce ■ Connect and bond with others ■ Win social acceptance and approval ■ Reduce uncertainty ■ Achieve status and prestige
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones)
Love forms bonds between us, but not to hold us back. They're meant to save us if we fall, or help us all climb higher. Yes, things break beyond repair sometimes, but we can always build anew. If our fire ever fades, it just takes a single spark to set it off again. No matter how dark things get, we can all help light the way. We can make this life beautiful for ourselves and for each other. And we all deserve to be here, whatever shape or color we come in.
Coldwood
the utilities and services sectors tend to perform well during an economic downturn; and as that downturn segues into a full recession, the technology, cyclicals, and industrial sectors will start to flourish. As the economy begins
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
I’m afraid, good Zav, that you’ll never star in a romance novel. In those, the women are always falling for the hunky billionaire who somehow manages to develop six-pack abs while working eighty hours a week to build his software company.
Lindsay Buroker (Battle Bond (Death Before Dragons, #2))
In the early months of World War II, San Francisco's Fill-more district, or the Western Addition, experienced a visible revolution. On the surface it appeared to be totally peaceful and almost a refutation of the term “revolution.” The Yakamoto Sea Food Market quietly became Sammy's Shoe Shine Parlor and Smoke Shop. Yashigira's Hardware metamorphosed into La Salon de Beauté owned by Miss Clorinda Jackson. The Japanese shops which sold products to Nisei customers were taken over by enterprising Negro businessmen, and in less than a year became permanent homes away from home for the newly arrived Southern Blacks. Where the odors of tempura, raw fish and cha had dominated, the aroma of chitlings, greens and ham hocks now prevailed. The Asian population dwindled before my eyes. I was unable to tell the Japanese from the Chinese and as yet found no real difference in the national origin of such sounds as Ching and Chan or Moto and Kano. As the Japanese disappeared, soundlessly and without protest, the Negroes entered with their loud jukeboxes, their just-released animosities and the relief of escape from Southern bonds. The Japanese area became San Francisco's Harlem in a matter of months. A person unaware of all the factors that make up oppression might have expected sympathy or even support from the Negro newcomers for the dislodged Japanese. Especially in view of the fact that they (the Blacks) had themselves undergone concentration-camp living for centuries in slavery's plantations and later in sharecroppers' cabins. But the sensations of common relationship were missing. The Black newcomer had been recruited on the desiccated farm lands of Georgia and Mississippi by war-plant labor scouts. The chance to live in two-or three-story apartment buildings (which became instant slums), and to earn two-and even three-figured weekly checks, was blinding. For the first time he could think of himself as a Boss, a Spender. He was able to pay other people to work for him, i.e. the dry cleaners, taxi drivers, waitresses, etc. The shipyards and ammunition plants brought to booming life by the war let him know that he was needed and even appreciated. A completely alien yet very pleasant position for him to experience. Who could expect this man to share his new and dizzying importance with concern for a race that he had never known to exist? Another reason for his indifference to the Japanese removal was more subtle but was more profoundly felt. The Japanese were not whitefolks. Their eyes, language and customs belied the white skin and proved to their dark successors that since they didn't have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered. All this was decided unconsciously.
Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1))
People forge bonds in places that have healthy social infrastructures—not because they set out to build community, but because when people engage in sustained, recurrent interaction, particularly while doing things they enjoy, relationships inevitably grow.
Eric Klinenberg (Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life)
Bond slowly, wearily bent his head and looked at the ground between his spread hands. It was the girl, Tilly. She was watching the buildings below. She had a rifle – a rifle that must have been among the innocent golf clubs – ready to fire on them. Damn and blast the silly bitch!
Ian Fleming (Goldfinger (James Bond, #7))
The key to true wealth is putting your money to work for you. Practically speaking, that means spending money on income-producing assets that will supply cash and continue to grow in value over time. The most common assets used to build wealth include: • Stocks • Bonds • Real estate
Michele Cagan (Budgeting 101: From Getting Out of Debt and Tracking Expenses to Setting Financial Goals and Building Your Savings, Your Essential Guide to Budgeting (Adams 101 Series))
Most people nowadays would not consider love as related in any way to truth. Love is seen as an experience associated with the world of fleeting emotions, no longer with truth. But is this an adequate description of love? Love cannot be reduced to an ephemeral emotion. True, it engages our affectivity, but in order to open it to the beloved and thus to blaze a trail leading away from self-centredness and towards another person, in order to build a lasting relationship; love aims at union with the beloved. Here we begin to see how love requires truth. Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life. Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or redeem it from the fleeting moment in order to create life and bear fruit.
Pope Francis (Lumen Fidei: The Light of Faith)
If we think of alcohol, for instance, as disabling negative barriers to cooperation (lying, suspicion, cheating), we have to also see its positive role in building affiliative, pair bond–like emotional ties between members of the group through the stimulation of endorphins and serotonin.
Edward Slingerland (Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization)
[The question] is no longer: How do we stop addiction through threats and force, and scare people away from drugs in the first place? It becomes: How do we start to rebuild a society where we can form healthier bonds? How do we build a society where we look for happiness in one another rather than consumption?
Johann Hari
The greatness of a profession lies, perhaps, first of all, in the bond it creates between men: there is only one true luxury, and that is human relationships. By working only for material goods, we build our own prison. We lock ourselves up, solitary, with our ash money that provides nothing that is worth living.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Wind, Sand and Stars)
Unlike acts of war or catastrophic storms, pandemic-causing pathogens don’t build trust and facilitate cooperative defenses. On the contrary, due to the peculiar psychic experience of new pathogens, they’re more likely to breed suspicion and mistrust among us, destroying social bonds as surely as they destroy bodies.
Sonia Shah (Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Coronaviruses and Beyond)
Ethical leaders care deeply about those they lead, and offer them honesty and decency, commitment and their own sacrifice. They have a confidence that breeds humility. Ethical leaders know their own talent but fear their own limitations — to understand and reason, to see the world as it is and not as they wish it to be. They speak the truth and know that making wise decisions requires people to tell them the truth. And to get that truth, they create an environment of high standards and deep consideration —“love” is not too strong a word—that builds lasting bonds and makes extraordinary achievement possible. It would never occur to an ethical leader to ask for loyalty.
James B. Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
ETIENNE DELANCARRE Domingo Salvard,” said Sabetha, reading out loud from the lantern-lit plaque beside the building’s street entrance. “Master solicitor, bonded law-scribe, authorized notary, executor of wills and estates, Vadran translator and transcriber. Fortunes assured, justice delivered, enemies confounded. Reasonable rates.” Locke
Scott Lynch (The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3))
Irrational loyalty exists when customers are so dedicated to a certain brand that their lives would be diminished if that product disappeared. Irrational loyalty means customers wouldn't even consider using an alternative brand; they'd feel like they were cheating. The way brands build irrational loyalty among their customers is by bonding emotionally.
Deb Gabor (Irrational Loyalty: Building a Brand That Thrives in Turbulent Times)
As we’ll see, the 4% Roman rate of return is about the same as the aggregate return on capital (when stocks and bonds are considered together) in the U.S. in the twentieth century, and perhaps even a bit more than the aggregate return expected in the next century. (The 4% Roman rate was gold-based, so the return was a real, that is, after-inflation, return.) The
William J. Bernstein (The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio)
A Day Away We often think that our affairs, great or small, must be tended continuously and in detail, or our world will disintegrate, and we will lose our places in the universe. That is not true, or if it is true, then our situations were so temporary that they would have collapsed anyway. Once a year or so I give myself a day away. On the eve of my day of absence, I begin to unwrap the bonds which hold me in harness. I inform housemates, my family and close friends that I will not be reachable for twenty-four hours; then I disengage the telephone. I turn the radio dial to an all-music station, preferably one which plays the soothing golden oldies. I sit for at least an hour in a very hot tub; then I lay out my clothes in preparation for my morning escape, and knowing that nothing will disturb me, I sleep the sleep of the just. On the morning I wake naturally, for I will have set no clock, nor informed my body timepiece when it should alarm. I dress in comfortable shoes and casual clothes and leave my house going no place. If I am living in a city, I wander streets, window-shop, or gaze at buildings. I enter and leave public parks, libraries, the lobbies of skyscrapers, and movie houses. I stay in no place for very long. On the getaway day I try for amnesia. I do not want to know my name, where I live, or how many dire responsibilities rest on my shoulders. I detest encountering even the closest friend, for then I am reminded of who I am, and the circumstances of my life, which I want to forget for a while. Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, lovers, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops. If we step away for a time, we are not, as many may think and some will accuse, being irresponsible, but rather we are preparing ourselves to more ably perform our duties and discharge our obligations. When I return home, I am always surprised to find some questions I sought to evade had been answered and some entanglements I had hoped to flee had become unraveled in my absence. A day away acts as a spring tonic. It can dispel rancor, transform indecision, and renew the spirit.
Maya Angelou (Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now)
But Israel’s God was different. He was definite, and his character was immutably fixed. And they were to love him for it with everything they had. They were to love him with all their heart. In the seat of their deepest dreams and desires, in the place where they wrestled with their sorrows and clung to flickering hopes, they were to love him. They were to love him with all their soul. In the place that made each individual unique, in the inner court of the mind where decisions were made, in the forming of the bonds between friends and lovers, as well as in the coming together of a community, they were to love him. They were to love him with all their might. In the outward expressions of the passions and decisions of the heart and soul, in the places where men’s thoughts turned to action and resolve turned to progress, they were to love him. In their creativity and in their learning, in their working and in their resting, in their building up and in their tearing down, they were to love him. They were to love him as whole people, in all their weakness and in all their strength. On their best days and on their worst, in the darkest hours of their loneliest nights, and at the tables of their most abundant feasts, they were to love him. This was the heart of Israel’s religion: love. Only divine love made sense of the world. This love went beyond a mere feeling. This love was doctrine. Israel’s story was a story of being kept, and the only reasonable response was to love the Keeper.
Russ Ramsey (Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative)
This is what I would want to tell my teenage self. You have to turn now to all the other wounded people around you, and find a way to connect with them, and build a home with these people, together - a place where you are bonded to one another and find meaning in your lives together. We have been tribeless and disconnected for so long now. It's time for us all to come home.
Johann Hari
Ethical leaders never ask for loyalty. Those leading through fear—like a Cosa Nostra boss—require personal loyalty. Ethical leaders care deeply about those they lead, and offer them honesty and decency, commitment and their own sacrifice. They have a confidence that breeds humility. Ethical leaders know their own talent but fear their own limitations—to understand and reason, to see the world as it is and not as they wish it to be. They speak the truth and know that making wise decisions requires people to tell them the truth. And to get that truth, they create an environment of high standards and deep consideration—“love” is not too strong a word—that builds lasting bonds and makes extraordinary achievement possible. It would never occur to an ethical leader to ask for loyalty.
James B. Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
The way I feel about you, Jacinda...I know you feel it, too." He stares at me so starkly, so hungrily that I can only nod. Agree. Of course, I feel it. "I do," I admit. But I don't understand him. Don't get why he should feel this way about me. Why should he want me so much? What do I offer him? Why did he save me that day in the mountains? And why does he pursue me now? When no girl spiked his interest before? "Good," he says. "Then how about a date?" "A date?" I repeat, like I've never heard the word. "Yeah. A real date. Something official. You. Me. Tonight. We're long overdue." His smile deepens, revealing the deep grooves on the sides of his cheeks. "Dinner. Movie. Popcorn." "Yes." The word slips past. For a moment I forget. Forget that I'm not an ordinary girl. That he's not an ordinary boy. For the first time, I understand Tamra. And the appeal of normal. "Yes." It feels good to say it. To pretend. To drink in the sight of him and forget there's an ulterior reason I need to go out with him. A reason that's going to tear us apart forever. Stupid. Did you think you might have a future with him? Mom's right. Time to grow up. He smiles. Then he's gone. Out the door. For a second, I'm confused. Then he's at my door, opening it, helping me out. Together we walk through the parking lot. Side by side. We move only a few feet before he slips his hand around mine. As we near the front of the building, I see several kids hanging out around the flagpole. Tamra with her usual crowd. Brooklyn at the head. I try to tug my hand free. His fingers tighten on mine. I glance at him, see the resolve in his eyes. His hazel eyes glint brightly in the already too hot morning. "Coward." "Oh." The single sound escapes me. Outrage. Indignation. I stop. Turn and face him. Feel something slip, give way, and crumble loose inside me. Set free, it propels me. Standing on my tiptoes, I circle my hand around his neck and pull his face down to mine. Kiss him. Right there in front of the school. Reckless. Stupid. I stake a claim on him like I've got something to prove, like a drake standing before the pride in a bonding ceremony. But then I forget our audience. Forget everything but the dry heat of our lips. My lungs tighten, contract. I feel my skin shimmer, warm as my lungs catch. Crackling heat works its way up my chest. Not the smartest move I've ever made.
Sophie Jordan (Firelight (Firelight, #1))
My primary objective in the demanding, unforgiving mountain terrain was to build small-unit leaders focused on brilliance in the basics. Small units of a dozen men operating together, facing conditions that demanded every ounce of physical strength, bred trust in one another. Day by day, I saw my squads physically harden, develop tighter bonds, and grow in confidence as we built from the ground up.
Jim Mattis (Call Sign Chaos)
One of the remarkable things about Life After Life is the way that this formal experimentation is combined with a consistently involving plot. It is as if the writing of B. S. Johnson had been crossed with the better novels of Anthony Trollope. An entire world emerges but shows itself again and again in different lights. It’s an unusual book in many ways: in part a tribute to England and to the resilience of the English character revealed under the stress of wartime; in part a book about love that doesn’t contain a love story but instead celebrates the bond between siblings. It’s a book full of horror vividly described, as in the repeated image of a dress with human arms still inside it, seen in a bombed building. Yet the most memorable passages are those which describe the prewar English countryside before suburbia encroached upon “the flowers that grew in the meadow beyond the copse—flax and larkspur, buttercups, corn poppies, red campion and oxeye daisies.” Above all, it’s a book about the act of reading itself. As you read it, it asks you to think about your expectations of plot and outcome. The reader desires happiness for certain characters, and Atkinson both challenges and rewards that tendency.
Kate Atkinson (Life After Life)
Recent psychological research on grief favors meaning making over closure; accepts zigzagging paths, not just linear stages; recognizes ambiguity without pathology; and acknowledges continuing bonds between the living and the dead rather than commanding decathexis. But old ideas about grief as a linear march to closure still hold powerful sway. Many psychologists and grief counseling programs continue to consider “closure” a therapeutic goal. Sympathy cards, internet searches, and friendly advice often uphold a rigid division between healthy grief that the mourner “gets over” and unhealthy grief that persists. Forensic exhumation, too, continues to be informed by these deeply rooted ideas. The experiences of grief and exhumation related by families of the missing indicate something more complex and mysterious than “closure.” Exhumation heals and wounds, sometimes both at once, in the same gesture, in the same breath, as Dulce described feeling consoled and destroyed by the fragment of her brother’s bones. Exhumation can divide brothers and restore fathers, open old wounds and open the possibility of regeneration—of building something new with the “pile of broken mirrors” that is memory, loss, and mourning.
Alexa Hagerty (Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains)
Somer cannot give voice to her real fears. That she will lose Asha, even a little bit. That the bond she’s worked so hard to build will be tainted by this ghost. This, after all, is the outcome she has tried to avoid all along—why she hasn’t wanted to go back to India, why she’s never encouraged Asha’s questions about the adoption. It is at the core of almost every decision she has made since Asha came into their lives.
Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Secret Daughter)
when you are an attentive, attuned, and responsive caregiver to these little ones, you’re literally weaving together this powerful three-part association—you’re building a healthy root system for the Tree of Regulation. Furthermore, as we talked about earlier, these bonding experiences create the infant’s worldview about humans. A consistent, nurturing caregiver builds an internal view that people are safe, predictable, and caring. Oprah:
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
There is nothing more magical than love. It’s invisible but the strongest of all bonds. It can’t be weighed and measured by science, but it’s the only sure thing that exists in the world. It can build or break a person or a civilization, yet it has to be nurtured and carefully tended by individuals. It has the strength to endure all tests and all time, but it is also the most tender and gentle thing life has to offer. I’m so glad I found it.
Lisa Aldridge (Dangerous Impressions (Dangerous Impressions #1))
Attachment occurs after bonding takes place; the two processes are inseparable. Attachment begins in the first few months of life, but it is the continuous presence of the mother in the first eighteen months that is the first step in building a deep and lasting sense of emotional security in a child. This security forms the basis of a child’s sense of self for the rest of her life. Bonding is putting the pieces together and attachment is gluing them in place.
Erica Komisar (Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters)
In that moment, something else occurred to me: The “leader of the free world,” the self-described great business tycoon, didn’t understand leadership. Ethical leaders never ask for loyalty. Those leading through fear – like a Cosa Nostra boss- require personal loyalty. Ethical leaders care deeply about those they lead, and offer them honesty and decency, commitment and their own sacrifice. They have a confidence that breeds humility. Ethical leaders know their own talent but fear their own limitations-to understand and reason, to see the world as it is and not as they wish it to be. They speak the truth and know that making wise decisions requires people to tell them the truth. And to get that truth, they create an environment of high standards and deep consideration – “love” is not too strong a word – that builds lasting bonds and makes extraordinary achievement possible. It would never occur to an ethical leader to ask for loyalty.
James B. Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
People who create successful strategic relationships demonstrate 10 essential character traits:    1. Authentic. They are genuine, honest, and transparent. They are cognizant of (and willing to admit to) their strengths and weaknesses.    2. Trustworthy. They build relationships on mutual trust. They have a good reputation based on real results. They have integrity: their word is their bond. People must know, like, and trust you before sharing their valuable social capital.    3. Respectful. They are appreciative of the time and efforts of others. They treat subordinates with the same level of respect as they do supervisors.    4. Caring. They like to help others succeed. They’re a source of mutual support and encouragement. They pay attention to the feelings of others and have good hearts.    5. Listening. They ask good questions, and they are eager to learn about others—what’s important to them, what they’re working on, what they’re looking for, and what they need—so they can be of help.    6. Engaged. They are active participants in life. They are interesting and passionate about what they do. They are solution minded, and they have great “gut” instincts.    7. Patient. They recognize that relationships need to be cultivated over time. They invest time in maintaining their relationships with others.    8. Intelligent. They are intelligent in the help they offer. They pass along opportunities at every chance possible, and they make thoughtful, useful introductions. They’re not ego driven. They don’t criticize others or burn bridges in relationships.    9. Sociable. They are nice, likeable, and helpful. They enjoy being with people, and they are happy to connect with others from all walks of life, social strata, political persuasions, religions, and diverse backgrounds. They are sources of positive energy.   10. Connected. They are part of their own network of excellent strategic relationships.
Judy Robinett (How to be a Power Connector)
As more and more work is done by machines, people can spend more time on other activities. Not just leisure and amusements, but also on the deeper satisfactions that come from invention and exploration, from creativity and building, and from love, friendship, and community. ... If the first machine age helped unlock the forces of energy trapped in chemical bonds to reshape the physical world, the real promise of the second machine age is to help unleash the power of human ingenuity.
Erik Brynjolfsson
It’s good to be alone, for a few hours to be exempt from all the complicated bonds, all the conflicts, great and small, all the demands and expectations, wills and desires that build up between people, and which after only a short time become so densely intertwined that the room for reflection and for action are both restricted. If everything that stirs between people made a sound, it would be like a chorus, a great murmur of voices would rise from even the faintest glimmer in the eyes.
Karl Ove Knausgård (Om høsten (Årstidsencyklopedien, #1))
It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power, but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of it; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavour to its one roast with the burnt souls of many generations. Knowledge, instructing the sense, refining and multiplying needs, transforms itself into skill and makes life various with a new six days' work; comes Ignorance drunk on the seventh, with a firkin of oil and a match and an easy 'Let there not be' - and the many-coloured creation is shrivelled up in blackness. Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him by wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy dark as a buried Babylon. And looking at life parcel-wise, in the growth of a single lot, who having a practiced vision may not see that Ignorance of the true bond between events, and false conceit of means whereby sequences may be compelled - like that falsity of eyesight which overlooks the gradations of distance, seeing that which is afar off as if it were within a step or a grasp - precipitates the mistaken soul on destruction?
George Eliot (Daniel Deronda)
The guard smirked at me, and again I wondered at all the minutes and hours and days that I’d spent on meaningless encounters like this one. I wanted to say to the little white man, “Listen, brother, we’re not enemies. I just want to go up in an elevator like anybody else. You don’t need to worry about me. It’s the men that own this building that are making you poor and uneducated and angry.” But I didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t have heard me. I couldn’t free either one of us from our bonds of hatred.
Walter Mosley (Blonde Faith (Easy Rawlins #11))
it was England that shone as Hamilton’s true lodestar in public finance. Back in the 1690s, the British had set up the Bank of England, enacted an excise tax on spirits, and funded its public debt—that is, pledged specific revenues to insure repayment of its debt. During the eighteenth century, it had vastly expanded that public debt. Far from weakening the country, it had produced manifold benefits. Public credit had enabled England to build up the Royal Navy, to prosecute wars around the world, to maintain a global commercial empire. At the same time, government bonds issued to pay for the debt galvanized the economy, since creditors could use them as collateral for loans. By imitating British practice, Hamilton did not intend to make America subservient to the former mother country, as critics claimed. His objective was to promote American prosperity and self-sufficiency and make the country ultimately less reliant on British capital. Hamilton wanted to use British methods to defeat Britain economically.
Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton)
Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, which affected the Anglo-American settlers' quest for wealth in building plantations worked by enslaved Africans. They lobbied the Mexican government for a reversal of the ban and gained only a one-year extension to settle their affairs and free their bonded workers - the government refused to legalize slavery. The settlers decided to secede from Mexico, initiating the famous and mythologized 1836 Battle of the Alamo, where the mercenaries James Bowie and Davy Crockett and slave owner William Travis were killed.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, #3))
Imagine you live on a planet where the dominant species is far more intellectually sophisticated than human beings but often keeps humans as companion animals. They are called the Gorns. They communicate with each other via a complex combination of telepathy, eye movements & high-pitched squeaks, all completely unintelligible & unlearnable by humans, whose brains are prepared for verbal language acquisition only. Humans sometimes learn the meaning of individual sounds by repeated association with things of relevance to them. The Gorns & humans bond strongly but there are many Gorn rules that humans must try to assimilate with limited information & usually high stakes. You are one of the lucky humans who lives with the Gorns in their dwelling. Many other humans are chained to small cabanas in the yard or kept in outdoor pens of varying size. They are so socially starved they cannot control their emotions when a Gorn goes near them. The Gorns agree that they could never be House-Humans. The dwelling you share with your Gorn family is filled with water-filled porcelain bowls.Every time you try to urinate in one,nearby Gorn attack you. You learn to only use the toilet when there are no Gorns present. Sometimes they come home & stuff your head down the toilet for no apparent reason. You hate this & start sucking up to the Gorns when they come home to try & stave this off but they view this as evidence of your guilt. You are also punished for watching videos, reading books, talking to other human beings, eating pizza or cheesecake, & writing letters. These are all considered behavior problems by the Gorns. To avoid going crazy, once again you wait until they are not around to try doing anything you wish to do. While they are around, you sit quietly, staring straight ahead. Because they witness this good behavior you are so obviously capable of, they attribute to “spite” the video watching & other transgressions that occur when you are alone. Obviously you resent being left alone, they figure. You are walked several times a day and left crossword puzzle books to do. You have never used them because you hate crosswords; the Gorns think you’re ignoring them out of revenge. Worst of all, you like them. They are, after all, often nice to you. But when you smile at them, they punish you, likewise for shaking hands. If you apologize they punish you again. You have not seen another human since you were a small child. When you see one you are curious, excited & afraid. You really don’t know how to act. So, the Gorn you live with keeps you away from other humans. Your social skills never develop. Finally, you are brought to “training” school. A large part of the training consists of having your air briefly cut off by a metal chain around your neck. They are sure you understand every squeak & telepathic communication they make because sometimes you get it right. You are guessing & hate the training. You feel pretty stressed out a lot of the time. One day, you see a Gorn approaching with the training collar in hand. You have PMS, a sore neck & you just don’t feel up to the baffling coercion about to ensue. You tell them in your sternest voice to please leave you alone & go away. The Gorns are shocked by this unprovoked aggressive behavior. They thought you had a good temperament. They put you in one of their vehicles & take you for a drive. You watch the attractive planetary landscape going by & wonder where you are going. You are led into a building filled with the smell of human sweat & excrement. Humans are everywhere in small cages. Some are nervous, some depressed, most watch the goings on on from their prisons. Your Gorns, with whom you have lived your entire life, hand you over to strangers who drag you to a small room. You are terrified & yell for your Gorn family to help you. They turn & walk away.You are held down & given a lethal injection. It is, after all, the humane way to do it.
Jean Donaldson (The Culture Clash)
Everyone has a role in the labor of birthing a new America. If you find yourself in harm’s way right now, then it is not necessarily your role to listen to the people who are terrorizing you. Or to tend to any kind of wound in them. Your primary responsibility is to survive, find safety, and tend to the wounds they inflict on you—to build bonds with people who are willing to wonder about you, grieve with you, and fight with and for you. In finding ways to breathe, you are creating the kind of energy and joy that can sustain us all in the struggle. That is your act of revolutionary love.
Valarie Kaur (See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love)
This special moment takes the two pianists—master and student—someplace that no one else can go. The French call this sort of sharing, this meeting of minds, complicité, and the word captures perfectly the special bond that instantly develops as two pianists explore together the edge of music. If chamber music can be likened to a conversation, with a constant give-and-take, a joining and separating of the voices, this is all simultaneity, more like a duo of dancers who perform exactly the same figurations. By some remarkable chemistry a momentum builds that puts the two pianists in perfect concurrence.
Thad Carhart (The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier)
Lives to Serve Before I Sleep (The Poem) Lives to serve before I sleep, 'cause service is my salvation; Wounds to heal before I sleep, 'cause time is wailing for absolution; Bridges to build before I sleep, 'cause too many walls are raised already; Peoples to unite before I sleep, 'cause civilization is trembling and walking unsteady. Shackles to shatter before I sleep, 'cause corruption festers in the stagnant norm; Labels to erase before I sleep, 'cause they've only confused our global dorm; Sects to humanize before I sleep, 'cause segregation has weakened the human bond; Blades to burn before I sleep, 'cause they've turned the world into a bloody pond. Tears to wipe before I sleep, 'cause the society is lost in fun; Homes to heal before I sleep, 'cause ego has wrecked the nests a ton; Biases to alleviate before I sleep, 'cause bigotry has outweighed compassion; Purity to pour before I sleep, 'cause all are chasing petty gratification. Spirits to lift before I sleep, 'cause the minds are running dry; Gods to build before I sleep, 'cause orthodoxy makes humanity cry; Wars to end before I sleep, 'cause no life is expendable and puny; Humans to raise before I sleep, 'cause where humans act human there reigns harmony.
Abhijit Naskar (Lives to Serve Before I Sleep)
theory and science are: 1. From the cradle to the grave, human beings are hardwired to seek not just social contact, but also physical and emotional proximity to special others who are deemed irreplaceable. The longing for a “felt sense” of connection to key others is primary in terms of the hierarchy of human goals and needs. Humans are most acutely aware of this innate need for connection at times of threat, risk, pain, or uncertainty. Threats that trigger the attachment system may be from the outside or the inside, for example, troubling construals of rejection by loved ones, negative images or concrete reminders of one’s own mortality (Mikulincer, Birnbaum, Woddis, & Nachmias, 2000; Mikulincer & Florian, 2000). In relationships, shared vulnerability builds bonds, precisely because it brings attachment needs for a felt sense of connection and comfort to the fore and encourages reaching for others. 2. Predictable physical and/or emotional connection with an attachment figure, often a parent, sibling, longtime close friend, mate, or spiritual figure, calms the nervous system and shapes a physical and mental sense of a safe haven where comfort and reassurance can be reliably obtained and emotional balance can be restored or enhanced.
Susan M. Johnson (Attachment Theory in Practice: Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with Individuals, Couples, and Families)
Why are women so ungenerous to other women? Is it because we have been tokens for so long? Or is there a deeper animosity we owe it to ourselves to explore? A publisher...couldn't understand why women were so loath to help each other.... The notion flitted through my mind that somehow, by helping..., I might be hurting my own chances for something or other -- what I did not know. If there was room for only one woman poet, another space would be filled.... If I still feel I am in competition with other women, how do less well-known women feel? Terrible, I have to assume. I have had to train myself to pay as much attention to women at parties as to men.... I have had to force myself not to be dismissive of other women's creativity. We have been semi-slaves for so long (as Doris Lessing says) that we must cultivate freedom within ourselves. It doesn't come naturally. Not yet. In her writing about the drama of childhood developments, Alice Miller has created, among other things, a theory of freedom. in order to embrace freedom, a child must be sufficiently nurtured, sufficiently loved. Security and abundance are the grounds for freedom. She shows how abusive child-rearing is communicated from one generation to the next and how fascism profits from generations of abused children. Women have been abused for centuries, so it should surprise no one that we are so good at abusing each other. Until we learn how to stop doing that, we cannot make our revolution stick. Many women are damaged in childhood -- unprotected, unrespected, and treated with dishonesty. Is it any wonder that we build up vast defences against other women since the perpetrators of childhood abuse have so often been women? Is it any wonder that we return intimidation with intimidation, or that we reserve our greatest fury for others who remind us of our own weaknesses -- namely other women? Men, on the other hand, however intellectually condescending, clubbish, loutishly lewd, are rarely as calculatingly cruel as women. They tend, rather, to advance us when we are young and cute (and look like darling daughters) and ignore us when we are older and more sure of our opinions (and look like scary mothers), but they don't really know what they're doing. They are too busy bonding with other men, and creating male pecking orders, to pay attention to us. If we were skilled at compromise and alliance-building, we could transform society. The trouble is: we are not yet good at this. We are still quarrelling among ourselves. This is the crisis feminism faces today.
Erica Jong (Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir)
Raising Nedda was painful in ways he hadn’t anticipated, as though a cord connected them, its pull as strong as any chemical bond. One day, it would break and she would leave. Eleven was a spectacular age. Her brain was blooming, her mind ripe for learning. She was building new cells to contain everything she learned, forging new neural pathways, and each day she was different, a little more, a little brighter. All the while, his brain was wearing down; every brain over twenty-five was. Nedda was at the point of infinite potential, the moment where genius was born. What an incredible thing it would be to hold on to that precise moment.
Erika Swyler (Light from Other Stars)
We don't get to move from puppy love straight to the golden years of a decades-old marriage, where every joke and wrinkle is a testament to the enduring strength of your bond. First we have to really learn each other. And, in doing so, we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves in the context of that most wonderful, enriching, confounding entity: a committee relationship. It's not always as dreamy or exhilarating as falling in love. But this stage isn't about champagne and sweet nothings; it's about bricks and mortar. The idea is to build a solid foundation for your love - hopefully one that will serve you for many years to come.
Ellen McCarthy (The Real Thing: Lessons on Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter's Notebook)
Parenting is truly an exercise in patience, so be patient as you implement these ideas. Many times you may feel frustrated if your child does not respond the way you would like them to. Be calm and be positive. The essential thing is to be positive and to build a strong bond of connection with your child. When parents and children love, trust and respect each other, they can easily handle frustrating moments. So let love be your guiding principle as you teach your child to develop the skill set and mindset to raise their grades in school and position themselves for opportunities in college, scholarships, career and life. Let’s go Above & Beyond…
Nicoline Ambe (Above & Beyond: How To Help Your Child Get Good Grades In School, And Position Them For Success In College, Career & Life)
Because after all,” Bob said, “any wealth gained by a person beyond what he can produce by his own labor must have come at the expense of nature or at the expense of another person. Look around. Look at our house, our car, our bank accounts, our clothes, our eating habits, our appliances. Could the physical labor of one family and its immediate ancestors and their one billionth of the country’s renewable resources have produced all this? It takes a long time to build a house from nothing; it takes a lot of calories to transport yourself from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Even if you’re not rich, you’re living in the red. Indebted to Malaysian textile workers and Korean circuit assemblers and Haitian sugarcane cutters who live six to a room. Indebted to a bank, indebted to the earth from which you’ve withdrawn oil and coal and natural gas that no one can ever put back. Indebted to the hundred square yards of landfill that will bear the burden of your own personal waste for ten thousand years. Indebted to the air and water, indebted by proxy to Japanese and German bond investors. Indebted to the great-grandchildren who’ll be paying for your conveniences when you’re dead: who’ll be living six to a room, contemplating their skin cancers, and knowing, like you don’t, how long it takes to get from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh when you’re living in the black.
Jonathan Franzen (Strong Motion)
He also said, "the soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death. They hold through time so that yesterday's love is part of today's and the confidence in tomorrow's love is also part of today's. And when one dies, the memory lives in the other, and is warm and breathing. And when both die-I almost believe, rationalist though I am-that somewhere it remains, indestructible and eternal, enriching all of the universe by the mere fact that once it existed." And he also wrote: "At various times of life, we find ourselves with a handful of blocks of different sizes and shapes, out of which we can build some aspect of life, and it behooves us to build it as beautifully as we can ...
Isaac Asimov (It's Been a Good Life)
who could blame them if they said "the hell with the rest of the world." Let somebody else buy the bonds. Let somebody else build or repair foreign dams, or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes." When the railways of France, and Germany, and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of 'em are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They'll come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they're entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke. This year's disasters -- with the year less than half-over -- has taken it all. And nobody, but nobody, has helped. -  Gordon Sinclair via Radio Broadcast June 5, 1973 from Ontario, Canada
David Nordmark (America: Understanding American Exceptionalism (America, democracy in america, politics in america Book 1))
Now you are divesting your energy from that familiar past and predictable future. You are no longer firing and wiring the same circuits in the same way, and you are no longer regulating and signaling the same genes in the same way by feeling the same emotions. If you keep doing this process, you are continuously calling all that energy back to you by breaking the energetic bonds that keep you connected to your past-present reality. This happens because you are taking your attention and your energy off your outer world and placing it instead on your inner world, and you’re building your own electromagnetic field surrounding your body. Now you have available energy that you can use to create something new.
Joe Dispenza (Becoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon)
The message of EFT is simple: Forget about learning how to argue better, analyzing your early childhood, making grand romantic gestures, or experimenting with new sexual positions. Instead, recognize and admit that you are emotionally attached to and dependent on your partner in much the same way that a child is on a parent for nurturing, soothing, and protection. Adult attachments may be more reciprocal and less centered on physical contact, but the nature of the emotional bond is the same. EFT focuses on creating and strengthening this emotional bond between partners by identifying and transforming the key moments that foster an adult loving relationship: being open, attuned, and responsive to each other.
Sue Johnson (Hold Me Tight: Your Guide to the Most Successful Approach to Building Loving Relationships)
Modern armies no longer line up in neat rows and charge each other from opposite sides of a battlefield. Strangely, however, they still train that way, for example, during marching drills. This practice is useful, it turns out, not to prep for actual battle conditions, but to build trust and solidarity among soldiers in a unit. Our species, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, is wired to form social bonds when we move in lockstep with each other.48 This can mean marching together, singing or chanting in unison, clapping hands to a beat, or even just wearing the same clothes. In the early decades of the 20th century, IBM used corporate songs to instill a sense of unity among their workers.49 Some companies in Japan still use these practices today.
Kevin Simler (The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life)
Fiat-money! Let the State 'create' money, and make the poor rich, and free them from the bonds of the capitalists! How foolish to forego the opportunity of making everybody rich, and consequently happy, that the State's right to create money gives it! How wrong to forego it simply because this would run counter to the interests of the rich! How wicked of the economists to assert that it is not within the power of the State to create wealth by means of the printing press!- You statesmen want to build railways, and complain of the low state of the exchequer? Well, then, do not beg loans from the capitalists and anxiously calculate whether your railways will bring in enough to enable you to pay interest and amortization on your debt. Create money, and help yourselves.
Ludwig von Mises (The Theory of Money and Credit)
Amiability: Diplomats must strive to build and maintain cordial personal relations with officials of the government to which they are accredited. Amiability on the surface, no matter how strained relations may be beneath it, keeps open channels of communication that can be vital to the resolution of issues between states when the time to resolve them is at hand. Amity, cross-cultural: "There is a mutual bond of amity and brotherhood between man and man over all the world ... Nor is it distance of place that makes enmity, enmity makes distance. He therefore that keeps peace with me, near or remote, of whatever nation, is to me as far as all civil and human offices an Englishman and a neighbor ... This is gospel." — John Milton, 1649 Anger: Never get angry except on purpose.
Chas W. Freeman Jr. (The Diplomat's Dictionary)
This was the engine of doom.” He’d draw a picture of several towers of debt. The first tower was the original subprime loans that had been piled together. At the top of this tower was the triple-A tranche, just below it the double-A tranche, and so on down to the riskiest, triple-B tranche—the bonds Eisman had bet against. The Wall Street firms had taken these triple-B tranches—the worst of the worst—to build yet another tower of bonds: a CDO. A collateralized debt obligation. The reason they’d done this is that the rating agencies, presented with the pile of bonds backed by dubious loans, would pronounce 80 percent of the bonds in it triple-A. These bonds could then be sold to investors—pension funds, insurance companies—which were allowed to invest only in highly rated securities.
Michael Lewis (The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine)
Thus we challenge, we hope, we fall. Thus we ponder, we test, we stall. Thus we learn, we break, we crawl. Thus we grow, we learn, walk tall. Here we try, we cope, & believe. Here we fail, we win, we achieve. Here we love, we bond, we need. Here we travel, we see, we breed. In faith of another we build and plan. In faith of another, we trust both good & bad. in faith of another we lay bare the minds mad. In faith of another we invest no part of sad. Let the marks you leave on me not be scars. Let the marks you leave on me be bright as the stars. Let these marks never become my eternal bars. Let these marks mirror those of the love of our Gods. May my presence bring hope and never harm. May my light shine boldly with pure solid charm. May you always remember the smile in my palm. May my kiss of wisdom grow wildflowers in calm.
Daleen Van Tonder
Crossover' is a word scientists use to describe dolphins' soaring over seas, their traveling so free and fast, so high-spirited and almost effervescent that their sleek bodies barely skim the waves. The suggestion of splashes from tail and pectoral leaves a luminous wake across the water. For these crossover miles, the dolphins, like their human terrestrial mammal kin, belong more to the element of air than the sea.... Held in [the dolphins'] fluid embrace, I pulled my arms close against my sides and our communal speed increased... Racing around the lagoon, I opened my eyes again to see nothing but an emerald underwater blur. And then I remembered what I had either forgotten long ago or never quite fully realized. This feeling of being carried along by other animals was familiar. Animals had carried me all my life. I was a crossover--carried along in the generous and instructive slipstream of other species. And I had always navigated my life with them in mind, going between the human and animal worlds--a crossover myself. By including animals in my life I was always engaging with the Other, imagining the animal mind and life. For almost half a century, my bond with animals had shaped my character and revealed the world to me. At every turning point in my life an animal had mirrored or influenced my fate. Mine was not simply a life with other animals, but a life because of animals. It had been this way since my beginning, born on a forest lookout station in the High Sierras, surrounded by millions of acres of wilderness and many more animals than humans. Since infancy, the first faces I imprinted, the first faces I ever really loved, were animal.
Brenda Peterson (Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals)
It was in Cleveland that Magic Slim became the most successful pornographic film producer in America. His training center was a key link in a human trafficking supply chain stretching from the former Soviet Republics in Eastern Europe to the United States. Trafficking accounts for an estimated $32 billion in annual trade with sex slavery and pornographic film production accounting for the greatest percentage. The girls arrived at Slim’s building young and naive, they left older and wiser. This was a classic value chain with each link making a contribution.  Slim’s trainers were the best, and it showed in the final product. Each class of girls was judged on the merits. The fast learners went on to advanced training. They learned proper etiquette, social skills and party games. They learned how to dress, apply makeup and discuss world events.  Best in-class were advertised in international style magazines with code words. These codes were known only to select clients and certain intermediaries approved by Slim. This elaborate distribution system was part of Slim’s business model, his clients paid an annual subscription fee for the on-line dictionary. The code words and descriptions were revised monthly.  An interested client would pay an access fee for further information that included a set of professional  photographs, a video and voice recordings of the model addressing the client by name.  Should the client accept, a detailed travel itinerary was submitted calling for first class travel and accommodation.  Slim required a letter of understanding spelling out terms and conditions and a 50% deposit. He didn’t like contracts, his word was his bond, everyone along the chain knew that. Slim's business was booming.
Nick Hahn
Racial privilege does more than merely damage the unlucky individuals who are its victims. When enforced by government and backed by law, it tears at the very fabric of the social order, regardless of whom it benefits. The wounds that the principle of separate-and-unequal inflicts on the community are incomparably greater than the damages incurred by individuals or the benefits that accrue to them. Building racial bias into the framework of the nation compromises the neutrality of the law that governs us all. It corrupts the standards that make a diverse community possible, and creates a racial spoils system that is the antithesis of the American dream, which was Martin Luther King’s dream as well. By corrupting the principle of neutrality, racial privilege breaks the common bond between America’s diverse communities and undermines the trust that makes the nation whole.
David Horowitz (Black Skin Privilege and the American Dream)
Social infrastructure is not "social capital" -- a concept commonly used to measure people's relationships and interpersonal networks -- but the physical conditions that determine whether social capital develops. When social infrastructure is robust, it fosters contact, mutual support, and collaboration among friends and neighbors; when degraded, it inhibits social activity, leaving families and individuals to fend for themselves. Social infrastructure is crucially important, because local, face-to-face interactions -- at the school, the playground, and the corner diner -- are the building blocks of all public life. People forge bonds in places that have healthy social infrastructures -- not because they set out to build community, but because when people engage in sustained, recurrent interaction, particularly while doing things they enjoy, relationships inevitably grow.
Eric Klinenberg (author)
This conditioning of children to fear nonconformity and blindly obey ensures continued obedience as adults. The difficult task of learning how to make moral choices, how to accept personal responsibility, how to deal with the chaos of human life is handed over to God-like authority figures. The process makes possible a perpetuation of childhood. It allows the adult to bask in the warm glow and magic of divine protection. It masks from them and from others the array of human weaknesses, including our deepest dreads, our fear of irrelevance and death, our vulnerability and uncertainty. It also makes it difficult, if not impossible, to build mature, loving relationships, for the believer is told it is all about them, about their needs, their desires, and above all, their protection and advancement. Relationships, even within families, splinter and fracture. Those who adopt the belief system, who find in the dictates of the church and its male leaders a binary world of right and wrong, build an exclusive and intolerant comradeship that subtly or overtly shuns and condemns the “unsaved.” People are no longer judged by their intrinsic qualities, by their actions or capacity for self-sacrifice and compassion, but by the rigidity of their obedience. This defines the good and the bad, the Christian and the infidel. And this obedience is a blunt and effective weapon against the possibility of a love that could overpower the dictates of the hierarchy. In many ways it is love the leaders fear most, for it is love that unleashes passions and bonds that defy the carefully constructed edifices that keep followers trapped and enclosed. And while they speak often about love, as they do about family, it is the cohesive bonds created by family and love they war against.
Chris Hedges (American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America)
And yes, many of us became fathers to fully understand what it means to be a father. Albert Einstein once said: "Every man is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will spend the rest of its life believing that its stupid." To the men who never let other people’s metrics of success become the yardstick with which they measure theirs. It is no coincidence that we are diagrammatically represented by a circle with an arrow on the edge that points out. To all of us who may not always be "there" so that we can always "be there", To every hunter, every fighter, every missionary, To every planter and tiller of a garden of eden, To every warrior, conqueror of territories, every man always going out so he can bring something home. To every provider and protector of his family. Every defender of his domain and representative of God in the lives of his dependants. To every man that choose character over caliber, Every Major General, Lord of the Rings, Lion of the Tribe of his house. To every correcter with a shout, Every tough and tender 9-ribbed carrier of his cross. For every skill, strength, qualification and effort that we put into building meaningful relationships with our women, bonds with our children, and shield through tough times. For every ‘crave’ for success without substituting values. For the unconditional love, unflinching sacrifice, and diehard determination to go places our parents never imagined for themselves. To those who happily lead, as though money, fame and power didn’t exist. To those who stand tall and sit straight, Who understand that it doesn't take a 6-figure to be a Father figure. Happy Father's Day to every man who understands the responsibility and deserves the title. *Happy Father's Day to You and Me.*
Olaotan Fawehinmi (The Soldier Within)
Love cannot be reduced to an ephemeral emotion. True, it engages our affectivity, but in order to open it to the beloved and thus to blaze a trail leading away from self-centredness and towards another person, in order to build a lasting relationship; love aims at union with the beloved. Here we begin to see how love requires truth. Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life. Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or redeem it from the fleeting moment in order to create life and bear fruit.
Pope Francis (Lumen Fidei: The Light of Faith)
Morning brought out a deeper sort of white from the changeless snows capping the peaks on either side of the valley, which, later, in the midday sun, would become blinding splinters. A pastoral bell echoed across the sky, dappled with flocks of small solid clouds, while unseen birds found themselves, yet again, unable to break their bondage to their two or four notes. The air was laced with the scent of water, stone, and the long-dead things that, darkly, were finding their way back to life deep under the dew-soaked dirt. During that unpopulated hour, the buildings ceased to be objects of artifice and industry to reveal the nature fossilized in them and come forth in their mineral presence. The breeze dissolved in stiller air; the treetops, so green they were black against the blue, stopped swaying. And for a moment, there was no struggle and all was at rest, because time seemed to have arrived at its destination. Harold Vanner, 'Bonds
Hernan Diaz (Trust)
Unchopping a Tree. Start with the leaves, the small twigs, and the nests that have been shaken, ripped, or broken off by the fall; these must be gathered and attached once again to their respective places. It is not arduous work, unless major limbs have been smashed or mutilated. If the fall was carefully and correctly planned, the chances of anything of the kind happening will have been reduced. Again, much depends upon the size, age, shape, and species of the tree. Still, you will be lucky if you can get through this stages without having to use machinery. Even in the best of circumstances it is a labor that will make you wish often that you had won the favor of the universe of ants, the empire of mice, or at least a local tribe of squirrels, and could enlist their labors and their talents. But no, they leave you to it. They have learned, with time. This is men's work. It goes without saying that if the tree was hollow in whole or in part, and contained old nests of bird or mammal or insect, or hoards of nuts or such structures as wasps or bees build for their survival, the contents will have to repaired where necessary, and reassembled, insofar as possible, in their original order, including the shells of nuts already opened. With spider's webs you must simply do the best you can. We do not have the spider's weaving equipment, nor any substitute for the leaf's living bond with its point of attachment and nourishment. It is even harder to simulate the latter when the leaves have once become dry — as they are bound to do, for this is not the labor of a moment. Also it hardly needs saying that this the time fro repairing any neighboring trees or bushes or other growth that might have been damaged by the fall. The same rules apply. Where neighboring trees were of the same species it is difficult not to waste time conveying a detached leaf back to the wrong tree. Practice, practice. Put your hope in that. Now the tackle must be put into place, or the scaffolding, depending on the surroundings and the dimension of the tree. It is ticklish work. Almost always it involves, in itself, further damage to the area, which will have to be corrected later. But, as you've heard, it can't be helped. And care now is likely to save you considerable trouble later. Be careful to grind nothing into the ground. At last the time comes for the erecting of the trunk. By now it will scarcely be necessary to remind you of the delicacy of this huge skeleton. Every motion of the tackle, every slightly upward heave of the trunk, the branches, their elaborately reassembled panoply of leaves (now dead) will draw from you an involuntary gasp. You will watch for a lead or a twig to be snapped off yet again. You will listen for the nuts to shift in the hollow limb and you will hear whether they are indeed falling into place or are spilling in disorder — in which case, or in the event of anything else of the kind — operations will have to cease, of course, while you correct the matter. The raising itself is no small enterprise, from the moment when the chains tighten around the old bandages until the boles hands vertical above the stump, splinter above splinter. How the final straightening of the splinters themselves can take place (the preliminary work is best done while the wood is still green and soft, but at times when the splinters are not badly twisted most of the straightening is left until now, when the torn ends are face to face with each other). When the splinters are perfectly complementary the appropriate fixative is applied. Again we have no duplicate of the original substance. Ours is extremely strong, but it is rigid. It is limited to surfaces, and there is no play in it. However the core is not the part of the trunk that conducted life from the roots up to the branches and back again. It was relatively inert. The fixative for this part is not the same as the one for the outer layers and the bark, and if either of these is involved
W.S. Merwin
At the heart of every child is the need for play. Play is important for creativity, learning, and interacting with peers. But it’s also the way children communicate. If we want to show our children we love them, we need to play with them. Play is the magical portal to connection. Playing with our children isn’t about enjoying the activity as much as it is about connecting with them. Much as with love languages or personality types, understanding how our children play is critical. Author and psychologist Lawrence J. Cohen, the author of Playful Parenting, wrote, “Play is important, not just because children do so much of it, but because there are layers and layers of meaning to even the most casual play.” He pointed out the various layers of a father and son playing catch—from developing hand-eye coordination and the joy of learning a new skill to the bonding time the two are sharing. “The rhythm of the ball flying back and forth is a bridge,” Cohen wrote, “reestablishing a deep connection between adult and child; and comments like ‘good try’ and ‘nice catch’ build confidence and trust.
Ainsley Arment (The Call of the Wild and Free: Reclaiming Wonder in Your Child's Education)
In return for receiving the Congo, the Belgian government first of all agreed to assume its 110 million francs’ worth of debts, much of them in the form of bonds Leopold had freely dispensed over the years to favorites like Caroline. Some of the debt the outmaneuvered Belgian government assumed was in effect to itself—the nearly 32 million francs worth of loans Leopold had never paid back. As part of the deal, Belgium also agreed to pay 45.5 million francs toward completing certain of the king’s pet building projects. Fully a third of the amount was targeted for the extensive renovations under way at Laeken, already one of Europe’s most luxurious royal homes, where, at the height of reconstruction, 700 stone masons, 150 horses, and seven steam cranes had been at work following a grand Leopoldian blueprint to build a center for world conferences. Finally, on top of all this, Leopold was to receive, in installments, another fifty million francs “as a mark of gratitude for his great sacrifices made for the Congo.” Those funds were not expected to come from the Belgian taxpayer. They were to be extracted from the Congo itself.
Adam Hochschild (King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa)
I nod slowly again, and then say, “And how much of that wealth have you personally used to house and feed and clothe and protect and teach members of your community? How much of that money have you given to the Gifted community? People that are completely separate and different to your own, but who may have requirements that are not being met?” She frowns deeper at me and blusters, “We live in a society in which people are responsible for taking care of themselves. I owe them nothing.” I nod slowly to her. “Yes, and my community is at war with itself, as well as members of your own community who have chosen to pick a side. So, instead of running away with my money to somewhere safer, I have chosen to stay and protect as many people as I can. I've put my money where my mouth is. I will not be told by some half-bred hick that I am incapable of doing my job. Someday, when you choose a cause that actually means something to you, and you do put your money behind it, then maybe I'll listen. But I don't foresee that day coming anytime soon, do you?” Her mouth opens and shuts a few times as she gapes at me like a fish, and I give her one last decisive nod as I skirt around her and out of the building,
J. Bree (Forced Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #4))
THE GLOBE | Unlocking the Wealth in Rural Markets Mamta Kapur, Sanjay Dawar, and Vineet R. Ahuja | 151 words In India and other large emerging economies, rural markets hold great promise for boosting corporate earnings. Companies that sell in the countryside, however, face poor infrastructure, widely dispersed customers, and other challenges. To better understand the obstacles and how to overcome them, the authors—researchers with Accenture—conducted extensive surveys and interviews with Indian business leaders in multiple industries. Their three-year study revealed several successful strategies for increasing revenues and profits in rural markets: Start with a good distribution plan. The most effective approaches are multipronged—for example, adding extra layers to existing networks and engaging local partners to create new ones. Mine data to identify prospective customers. Combining site visits, market surveys, and GIS mapping can help companies discover new buyers. Forge tight bonds with channel partners. It pays to spend time and money helping distributors and retailers improve their operations. Create durable ties with customers. Companies can build loyalty by addressing customers’ welfare and winning the trust of community leaders.
Anonymous
In the wake of the Cognitive Revolution, gossip helped Homo sapiens to form larger and more stable bands. But even gossip has its limits. Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings. Even today, a critical threshold in human organisations falls somewhere around this magic number. Below this threshold, communities, businesses, social networks and military units can maintain themselves based mainly on intimate acquaintance and rumour-mongering. There is no need for formal ranks, titles and law books to keep order. 3A platoon of thirty soldiers or even a company of a hundred soldiers can function well on the basis of intimate relations, with a minimum of formal discipline. A well-respected sergeant can become ‘king of the company’ and exercise authority even over commissioned officers. A small family business can survive and flourish without a board of directors, a CEO or an accounting department. But once the threshold of 150 individuals is crossed, things can no longer work that way. You cannot run a division with thousands of soldiers the same way you run a platoon. Successful family businesses usually face a crisis when they grow larger and hire more personnel. If they cannot reinvent themselves, they go bust. How did Homo sapiens manage to cross this critical threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of millions? The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination. Churches are rooted in common religious myths. Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be crucified to redeem our sins. States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland and the Serbian flag. Judicial systems are rooted in common legal myths. Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they both believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights – and the money paid out in fees.
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
...That, however, was not what our scholar was concerned to prove; for he maintained that the Great Wall alone would provide for the first time in the history of mankind a secure foundation for a new Tower of Babel. First the wall, therefore, and then the tower. His book was in everybody's hands at that time, but I admit that even today I cannot quite make out how he conceived this tower. How could the wall, which did not form even a circle, but only a sort of quarter- or half-circle, provide the foundation for a tower? That could obviously be meant only in a spiritual sense. But in that case why build the actual wall, which after all was something concrete, the result of the lifelong labor of multitudes of people? And why were there in the book plans, somewhat nebulous plans, it must be admitted, of the tower, and proposals worked out in detail for mobilizing the people's energies for the stupendous new work? There were many wild ideas in people's heads at that time -- this scholar's book is only one example -- perhaps simply because so many were trying to join forces as far as they could for the achievement of a single aim. Human nature, essentially changeable, unstable as the dust, can endure no restraint; if it binds itself it soon begins to tear madly at its bonds, until it rends everything asunder, the wall, the bonds, and its very self.
Franz Kafka (The Great Wall of China)
It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly Considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of it; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavor to its one roast with the burned souls of many generations. Knowledge, instructing the sense, refining and multiplying needs, transforms itself into skill and makes life various with a new six days' work; comes Ignorance drunk on the seventh, with a firkin of oil and a match and an easy ‘Let there not be,’ and the many-colored creation is shriveled up in blackness. Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy dark as a buried Babylon. And looking at life parcel-wise, in the growth of a single lot, who having a practiced vision may not see that ignorance of the true bond between events, and false conceit of means whereby sequences may be compelled - like that falsity of eyesight which overlooks the gradations of distance, seeing that which is afar off as if it were within a step or a grasp - precipitates the mistaken soul on destruction?
George Eliot (Daniel Deronda)
On the eve of my move to New York, my parents sat me down to talk. “Your mother and I understand that we have a certain responsibility to prepare you for life at a coed institution,” said my father. “Have you ever heard of oxytocin?” I shook my head. “It’s the thing that’s going to make you crazy,” my mother said, swirling the ice in her glass. “You’ll lose all the good sense I’ve worked so hard to build up in you since the day you were born.” She was kidding. “Oxytocin is a hormone released during copulation,” my father went on, staring at the blank wall behind me. “Orgasm,” my mother whispered. “Biologically, oxytocin serves a purpose,” my father said. “That warm fuzzy feeling.” “It’s what bonds a couple together. Without it, the human species would have gone extinct a long time ago. Women experience its effects more powerfully than men do. It’s good to be aware of that.” “For when you’re thrown out with yesterday’s trash,” my mother said. “Men are dogs. Even professors, so don’t be fooled.” “Men don’t attach as easily. They’re more rational,” my father corrected her. After a long pause, he said, “We just want you to be careful.” “He means use a rubber.” “And take these.” My father gave me a small, pink, shell-shaped compact of birth control pills. “Gross,” was all I could say. “And your father has cancer,” my mother said. I said nothing. “Prostate isn’t like breast,” my father said, turning away. “They do surgery, and you move on.” “The man always dies first,” my mother whispered.
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
Staying at Home during this lockdown period is the right time to find your life purpose within Ba Ga Mohlala family/clan. This is an opportunity to know yourself better and to understand what motivates and feeds your mind and your soul, and also to find out as to where you fit in the bigger Ba Ga Mohlala family/clan. All members of each family/clan possess characteristics, abilities, and qualities specific to that family/clan. It is up to the family/clan to distinguish itself amongst other families/clans. Ba Ga Mohlala has become an institution to build cooperation in order to build and forge unity for social and economic benefits for Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng in general. An institution is social structure in which people cooperate and which influences the behavior of people and the way they live. intelligence and assertiveness comes to us as our nature, it is in our blood (DNA) and all there is for us to do is to nature it and it will shine, otherwise it will gather dust and rust in us. The key of brotherhood and sisterhood is that brothers and sisters carry the same genetic code. Together, united, they carry the legacy of their forefathers. Our bond (through our shared blood/DNA) as Ba Ga Mohlala family/clan is our insurance for the future. As Ba Ga Mohlala we can have our own Law firms, Auditing Firms, Doctors's Medical Surgeries, Private School, Private Clinics or Private Hospital, farms and lot of small to medium manufacturing, service, retail and wholesale companies and become self relient. All it takes to achieve that is unity, willpower and commitment.
Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala
167. Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis).129 Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus. This has nothing to do with fostering an aesthetic relativism130 which would downplay the inseparable bond between truth, goodness and beauty, but rather a renewed esteem for beauty as a means of touching the human heart and enabling the truth and goodness of the Risen Christ to radiate within it. If, as Saint Augustine says, we love only that which is beautiful,131 the incarnate Son, as the revelation of infinite beauty, is supremely lovable and draws us to himself with bonds of love. So a formation in the via pulchritudinis ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith. Each particular Church should encourage the use of the arts in evangelization, building on the treasures of the past but also drawing upon the wide variety of contemporary expressions so as to transmit the faith in a new “language of parables.”132 We must be bold enough to discover new signs and new symbols, new flesh to embody and communicate the word, and different forms of beauty which are valued in different cultural settings, including those unconventional modes of beauty which may mean little to the evangelizers, yet prove particularly attractive for others. 168.
Pope Francis (Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel)
Hamilton argued that the security of liberty and property were inseparable and that governments should honor their debts because contracts formed the basis of public and private morality: “States, like individuals, who observe their engagements are respected and trusted, while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.”The proper handling of government debt would permit America to borrow at affordable interest rates and would also act as a tonic to the economy. Used as loan collateral, government bonds could function as money—and it was the scarcity of money, Hamilton observed, that had crippled the economy and resulted in severe deflation in the value of land. America was a young country rich in opportunity. It lacked only liquid capital, and government debt could supply that gaping deficiency. The secret of managing government debt was to fund it properly by setting aside revenues at regular intervals to service interest and pay off principal. Hamilton refuted charges that his funding scheme would feed speculation. Quite the contrary: if investors knew for sure that government bonds would be paid off, the prices would not fluctuate wildly, depriving speculators of opportunities to exploit. What mattered was that people trusted the government to make good on repayment: “In nothing are appearances of greater moment than in whatever regards credit. Opinion is the soul of it and this is affected by appearances as well as realities.” Hamilton intuited that public relations and confidence building were to be the special burdens of every future treasury secretary.
Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton)
I have done it! exclaimed Saphira. She arched her neck and loosed a jet of blue and yellow flame into the upper reaches of the building. I know my true name! She spoke a single line in the ancient language, and the inside of Eragon’s mind seemed to ring with a sound like a bell, and for a moment, the tips of Saphira’s scales gleamed with an inner light, and she looked as if she were made of stars. The name was grand and majestic, but also tinged with sadness, for it named her as the last female of her kind. In the words, Eragon could hear the love and devotion she felt for him, as well as all the other traits that made up her personality. Most he recognized; a few he did not. Her flaws were as prominent as her virtues, but overall, the impression was one of fire and beauty and grandeur. Saphira shivered from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail, and she shuffled her wings. I know who I am, she said. Well done, Bjartskular, said Glaedr, and Eragon could sense how impressed he was. You have a name to be proud of. I would not say it again, however, not even to yourself, until we are at the…at the spire we have come to see. You must take great care to keep your name hidden now that you know it. Saphira blinked and shuffled her wings again. Yes, Master. The excitement running through her was palpable. Eragon sheathed Brisingr and walked over to her. She lowered her head until it was at his level. He stroked the line of her jaw, and then pressed his forehead against her hard snout and held her as tightly as he could, her scales sharp against his fingers. Hot tears began to slide down his cheeks. Why do you cry? she asked. Because…I’m lucky enough to be bonded with you. Little one.
Christopher Paolini (Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle, #4))
Sociological research has shown that the maximum 'natural' size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings...How did Homo sapiens manage to cross this critical threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of millions? The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination. Churches are rooted in common religious myths. Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be crucified to redeem our sins. States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland and the Serbian flag. Judicial systems are rooted in common legal myths. Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they both believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights – and the money paid out in fees. Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
We had little money but didn’t think of ourselves as poor. Our vision, if I can call it that, was not materialistic. If we had a concept about ourselves, it was egalitarian, although we would not have known what that word meant. We spoke French entirely. There was a bond between Cajuns and people of color. Cajuns didn’t travel, because they believed they lived in the best place on earth. But somehow the worst in us, or outside of us, asserted itself and prevailed and replaced everything that was good in our lives. We traded away our language, our customs, our stands of cypress, our sugarcane acreage, our identity, and our pride. Outsiders ridiculed us and thought us stupid; teachers forbade our children to speak French on the school grounds. Our barrier islands were dredged to extinction. Our coastline was cut with eight thousand miles of industrial channels, destroying the root systems of the sawgrass and the swamps. The bottom of the state continues to wash away in the flume of the Mississippi at a rate of sixteen square miles a year. Much of this we did to ourselves in the same way that a drunk like me will destroy a gift, one that is irreplaceable and extended by a divine hand. Our roadsides are littered with trash, our rain ditches layered with it, our waterways dumping grounds for automobile tires and couches and building material. While we trivialize the implications of our drive-through daiquiri windows and the seediness of our politicians and recite our self-congratulatory mantra, laissez les bons temps rouler, the southern rim of the state hovers on the edge of oblivion, a diminishing, heartbreaking strip of green lace that eventually will be available only in photographs.
James Lee Burke (The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux #22))
Body of Christ EPHESIANS 4 I therefore,  ma prisoner for the Lord, urge you to  nwalk in a manner worthy of  othe calling to which you have been called, 2with all  phumility and  qgentleness, with  rpatience,  sbearing with one another in love, 3eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in  tthe bond of peace. 4There is  uone body and  vone Spirit—just as you were called to the one  whope that belongs to your call— 5 xone Lord,  yone faith,  zone baptism, 6 aone God and Father of all,  bwho is over all and through all and in all. 7But  cgrace was given  dto each one of us  eaccording to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8Therefore it says, f“When he ascended on high  ghe led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” [1] 9( hIn saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into  ithe lower regions, the earth? [2] 10He who descended is the one who also  jascended  kfar above all the heavens, that he might  lfill all things.) 11And  mhe gave the  napostles, the prophets, the  oevangelists, the  pshepherds [3] and teachers, [4] 12 qto equip the saints for the work of ministry, for  rbuilding up  sthe body of Christ, 13until we all attain to  tthe unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,  uto mature manhood, [5] to the measure of the stature of  vthe fullness of Christ, 14so that we may no longer be children,  wtossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in  xdeceitful schemes. 15Rather,  yspeaking the truth in love, we are to  zgrow up in every way into him who is  athe head, into Christ, 16 bfrom whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped,  cwhen each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Anonymous (Holy Bible: English Standard Version (ESV))
Learning to meditate helped too. When the Beatles visited India in 1968 to study Transcendental Meditation at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, I was curious to learn it, so I did. I loved it. Meditation has benefited me hugely throughout my life because it produces a calm open-mindedness that allows me to think more clearly and creatively. I majored in finance in college because of my love for the markets and because that major had no foreign language requirement—so it allowed me to learn what I was interested in, both inside and outside class. I learned a lot about commodity futures from a very interesting classmate, a Vietnam veteran quite a bit older than me. Commodities were attractive because they could be traded with very low margin requirements, meaning I could leverage the limited amount of money I had to invest. If I could make winning decisions, which I planned to do, I could borrow more to make more. Stock, bond, and currency futures didn’t exist back then. Commodity futures were strictly real commodities like corn, soybeans, cattle, and hogs. So those were the markets I started to trade and learn about. My college years coincided with the era of free love, mind-expanding drug experimentation, and rejection of traditional authority. Living through it had a lasting effect on me and many other members of my generation. For example, it deeply impacted Steve Jobs, whom I came to empathize with and admire. Like me, he took up meditation and wasn’t interested in being taught as much as he loved visualizing and building out amazing new things. The times we lived in taught us both to question established ways of doing things—an attitude he demonstrated superbly in Apple’s iconic “1984” and “Here’s to the Crazy Ones,” which were ad campaigns that spoke to me. For the country as a whole, those were difficult years. As the draft expanded and the numbers of young men coming home in body bags soared, the Vietnam War split the country. There was a lottery based on birthdates to determine the order of those who would be drafted. I remember listening to the lottery on the radio while playing pool with my friends. It was estimated that the first 160 or so birthdays called would be drafted, though they read off all 366 dates. My birthday was forty-eighth.
Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
We have learned in the course of this investigation that the libido which builds up religious structures regresses in the last analysis to the mother, and thus represents the real bond through which we are connected with our origins. When the Church Fathers derive the word religio from religare (to reconnect, link back), they could at least have appealed to this psychological fact in support of their view.71 As we have seen, this regressive libido conceals itself in countless symbols of the most heterogeneous nature, some masculine and some feminine—differences of sex are at bottom secondary and not nearly so important psychologically as would appear at first sight. The essence and motive force of the sacrificial drama consist in an unconscious transformation of energy, of which the ego becomes aware in much the same way as sailors are made aware of a volcanic upheaval under the sea. Of course, when we consider the beauty and sublimity of the whole conception of sacrifice and its solemn ritual, it must be admitted that a psychological formulation has a shockingly sobering effect. The dramatic concreteness of the sacrificial act is reduced to a barren abstraction, and the flourishing life of the figures is flattened into two-dimensionality. Scientific understanding is bound, unfortunately, to have regrettable effects—on one side; on the other side abstraction makes for a deepened understanding of the phenomena in question. Thus we come to realize that the figures in the mythical drama possess qualities that are interchangeable, because they do not have the same “existential” meaning as the concrete figures of the physical world. The latter suffer tragedy, perhaps, in the real sense, whereas the others merely enact it against the subjective backcloth of introspective consciousness. The boldest speculations of the human mind concerning the nature of the phenomenal world, namely that the wheeling stars and the whole course of human history are but the phantasmagoria of a divine dream, become, when applied to the inner drama, a scientific probability. The essential thing in the mythical drama is not the concreteness of the figures, nor is it important what sort of an animal is sacrificed or what sort of god it represents; what alone is important is that an act of sacrifice takes place, that a process of transformation is going on in the unconscious whose dynamism, whose contents and whose subject are themselves unknown but become visible indirectly to the conscious mind by stimulating the imaginative material at its disposal, clothing themselves in it like the dancers who clothe themselves in the skins of animals or the priests in the skins of their human victims.
C.G. Jung (Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 5: Symbols of Transformation (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung))
Since emotions have to be programmed into robots from the outside, manufacturers may offer a menu of emotions carefully chosen on the basis of whether they are necessary, useful, or will increase bonding with the owner. In all likelihood, robots will be programmed to have only a few human emotions, depending on the situation. Perhaps the emotion most valued by the robot’s owner will be loyalty. One wants a robot that faithfully carries out its commands without complaints, that understands the needs of the master and anticipates them. The last thing an owner will want is a robot with an attitude, one that talks back, criticizes people, and whines. Helpful criticisms are important, but they must be made in a constructive, tactful way. Also, if humans give it conflicting commands, the robot should know to ignore all of them except those coming from its owner. Empathy will be another emotion that will be valued by the owner. Robots that have empathy will understand the problems of others and will come to their aid. By interpreting facial movements and listening to tone of voice, robots will be able to identify when a person is in distress and will provide assistance when possible. Strangely, fear is another emotion that is desirable. Evolution gave us the feeling of fear for a reason, to avoid certain things that are dangerous to us. Even though robots will be made of steel, they should fear certain things that can damage them, like falling off tall buildings or entering a raging fire. A totally fearless robot is a useless one if it destroys itself. But certain emotions may have to be deleted, forbidden, or highly regulated, such as anger. Given that robots could be built to have great physical strength, an angry robot could create tremendous problems in the home and workplace. Anger could get in the way of its duties and cause great damage to property. (The original evolutionary purpose of anger was to show our dissatisfaction. This can be done in a rational, dispassionate way, without getting angry.) Another emotion that should be deleted is the desire to be in command. A bossy robot will only make trouble and might challenge the judgment and wishes of the owner. (This point will also be important later, when we discuss whether robots will one day take over from humans.) Hence the robot will have to defer to the wishes of the owner, even if this may not be the best path. But perhaps the most difficult emotion to convey is humor, which is a glue that can bond total strangers together. A simple joke can defuse a tense situation or inflame it. The basic mechanics of humor are simple: they involve a punch line that is unanticipated. But the subtleties of humor can be enormous. In fact, we often size up other people on the basis of how they react to certain jokes. If humans use humor as a gauge to measure other humans, then one can appreciate the difficulty of creating a robot that can tell if a joke is funny or not.
Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)
In Andhra, farmers fear Naidu’s land pool will sink their fortunes Prasad Nichenametla,Hindustan Times | 480 words The state festival tag added colour to Sankranti in Andhra Pradesh this time. But the hue of happiness was missing in 29 villages along river Krishna in Guntur district. The villagers knew it was their last Sankranti, a harvest festival celebrated to seek agricultural prosperity. For in two months, more than 30,000 acres of fertile farmland would be acquired for a brand new capital planned in collaboration with Singapore. The Nara Chandrababu Naidu government went about the capital project by setting aside the Centre’s land acquisition act and drawing up a compensation package for land-owning and tenant farmers and labourers. Many are opposed to it, and are not keen on snapping their centuries-old bond with their land and livelihood. In Penumaka village, Nageshwara Rao, 50, fears the future as he does not possess a tenancy certificate that could have brought some relief under the compensation package. “The entire village is against land-pooling but we hear the government is adamant,” Rao says, referring to municipal minister P Narayana’s alleged assertion that land would be taken with or without the farmers’ consent. Narayana is supervising the land-pooling process. “Naidu says he would give us Rs 50,000 per year in lieu of annual crops. We earn that much in a month here,” villager Meka Koti Reddy says. To drive home the point, locals in Undavalli village nearby have put up a board asking officials to keep off their lands that produce three crops a year. Unlike other parts of Andhra Pradesh, the water-rich land here is highly productive yielding 200 varieties of crops. Some farmers are also suspicious about the compensation because Naidu is yet to deliver on the loan-waiver promise. They are now weighing legal options besides seeking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to retain their land. While the villagers opposing land-pooling are allegedly being backed by Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party, those belonging to the Kamma community — the support base for Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party — are said to be cooperative.  It is also believed that Naidu chose this location over others suggested by experts to primarily benefit the Kamma industrialists who own large swathes of land in Krishna and Guntur districts. But even the pro-project villagers cannot help feel insecure. “We are clueless about where our developed area would be. What if the project is not executed within Naidu’s tenure? Is there a legal recourse?” Idupulapati Rambabu of Mandadam says. This is despite Naidu’s assurance on January 1 at nearby Thulluru, where he launched the land-pooling process, asking farmers to give land without any apprehension. He said the deal in its present form would make them richer than him in a decade. “We are not building a mere city but a hub of economic activity loaded with superior infrastructure that is aimed at generating wealth. This would be a win-win situation for all,” Naidu tells HT. As of now, villages like Nelapadu struggling with low soil fertility seem to be winning from the package.
Anonymous
To see how we separate, we first have to examine how we get together. Friendships begin with interest. We talk to someone. They say something interesting and we have a conversation about it. However, common interests don’t create lasting bonds. Otherwise, we would become friends with everyone with whom we had a good conversation. Similar interests as a basis for friendship doesn’t explain why we become friends with people who have completely different interests than we do. In time, we discover common values and ideals. However, friendship through common values and ideals doesn’t explain why atheists and those devout in their faith become friends. Vegans wouldn’t have non-vegan friends. In the real world, we see examples of friendships between people with diametrically opposed views. At the same time, we see cliques form in churches and small organizations dedicated to a particular cause, and it’s not uncommon to have cliques inside a particular belief system dislike each other. So how do people bond if common interests and common values don’t seem to be the catalyst for lasting friendships? I find that people build lasting connections through common problems and people grow apart when their problems no longer coincide. This is why couples especially those with children tend to lose their single friends. Their primary problems have become vastly different. The married person’s problems revolve around family and children. The single person’s problem revolves around relationships with others and themselves. When the single person talks about their latest dating disaster, the married person is thinking I’ve already solved this problem. When the married person talks about finding good daycare, the single person is thinking how boring the problems of married life can be. Eventually marrieds and singles lose their connection because they don’t have common problems. I look back at friends I had in junior high and high school. We didn’t become friends because of long nights playing D&D. That came later. We were all loners and outcasts in our own way. We had one shared problem that bound us together: how to make friends and relate to others while feeling so “different”. That was the problem that made us friends. Over the years as we found our own answers and went to different problems, we grew apart. Stick two people with completely different values and belief systems on a deserted island where they have to cooperate to survive. Then stick two people with the same values and interests together at a party. Which pair do you think will form the stronger bond? When I was 20, I was living on my own. I didn’t have many friends who were in college because I couldn’t relate to them. I was worrying about how to pay rent and trying to stretch my last few dollars for food at the end of the month. They were worried about term papers. In my life now, the people I spend the most time with have kids, have careers, are thinking about retirement and are figuring out their changing roles and values as they get older. These are problems that I relate to. We solve them in different ways because our values though compatible aren’t similar. I feel connected hearing about how they’ve chosen to solve those issues in a way that works for them.
Corin
There is a discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. "These are differing evils, but they are common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows. "But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. "Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again. "Our answer is to rely on youth - not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress. It is a revolutionary world we live in; and this generation at home and around the world, has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived. "Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. "These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. "Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.
Robert F. Kennedy
Classical liberalism has been reproached with being too obstinate and not ready enough to compromise. It was because of its inflexibility that it was defeated in its struggle with the nascent anticapitalist parties of all kinds. If it had realized, as these other parties did, the importance of compromise and concession to popular slogans in winning the favor of the masses, it would have been able to preserve at least some of its influence. But it has never bothered to build for itself a party organization and a party machine as the anticapitalist parties have done. It has never attached any importance to political tactics in electoral campaigns and parliamentary proceedings. It has never gone in for scheming opportunism or political bargaining. This unyielding doctrinairism necessarily brought about the decline of liberalism. The factual assertions contained in these statements are entirely in accordance with the truth, but to believe that they constitute a reproach against liberalism is to reveal a complete misunderstanding of its essential spirit. The ultimate and most profound of the fundamental insights of liberal thought is that it is ideas that constitute the foundation on which the whole edifice of human social cooperation is Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition constructed and sustained and that a lasting social structure cannot be built on the basis of false and mistaken ideas. Nothing can serve as a substitute for an ideology that enhances human life by fostering social cooperation—least of all lies, whether they be called "tactics," "diplomacy," or "compromise." If men will not, from a recognition of social necessity, voluntarily do what must be done if society is to be maintained and general well-being advanced, no one can lead them to the right path by any cunning stratagem or artifice. If they err and go astray, then one must endeavor to enlighten them by instruction. But if they cannot be enlightened, if they persist in error, then nothing can be done to prevent catastrophe. All the tricks and lies of demagogic politicians may well be suited to promote the cause of those who, whether in good faith or bad, work for the destruction of society. But the cause of social progress, the cause of the further development and intensification of social bonds, cannot be advanced by lies and demagogy. No power on earth, no crafty stratagem or clever deception could succeed in duping mankind into accepting a social doctrine that it not only does not acknowledge, but openly spurns. The only way open to anyone who wishes to lead the world back to liberalism is to convince his fellow citizens of the necessity of adopting the liberal program. This work of enlightenment is the sole task that the liberal can and must perform in order to avert as much as lies within his power the destruction toward which society is rapidly heading today. There is no place here for concessions to any of the favorite or customary prejudices and errors. In regard to questions that will decide whether or not society is to continue to exist at all, whether millions of people are to prosper or perish, there is no room for compromise either from weakness or from misplaced deference for the sensibilities of others. If liberal principles once again are allowed to guide the policies of great nations, if a revolution in public opinion could once more give capitalism free rein, the world will be able gradually to raise itself from the condition into which the policies of the combined anticapitalist factions have plunged it. There is no other way out of the political and social chaos of the present age.
Ludwig von Mises (Liberalism: The Classical Tradition)
If I as Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala take my family, my brothers and sisters, myself, and our children, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable small business. If I take my extended family both maternal and partenal, my aunts and uncles and my cousins, myself, and our children, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable medium business. If I take Ba Ga Mohlala family in general, including aunts, uncles, and grandchildren, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable Big Business business. If I take Banareng clan including aunts, uncles, and grandchildren, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable multinational business. YET, we are not able to do that because of lack of unity, and the lack of unity is caused by selfishness and lack of trust. At the moment what we have is majority of successful independent individuals running their individual successful, profitable and sustainable small businesses and successful individuals pursuing their own fulfilling careers. If ever we want to succeed as families and one united clan, we need to start by addressing the issue of trust, and selfishness. Other than that, anything that we try to do to unite the family will fail. And to succeed in addressing the issue of trust, and selfishness, we must first start by acknowledging that we are related. We must start by living and helping oneanother as relatives, we must first start by creating platforms that will overtime make us to reestablish our genetic bond, and also to build platforms where we can do that. So, let us grab the opportunity to use existing platforms and build new ones, to participate, contribute positively, and add our brothers and sisters, our cousins, and other extended family members to those platforms as a way towards building unity, unity of purpose, purpose of reclaiming our glory and building a legacy. Unity of empowering ourself and our communities. Unity of building a successful and sustainable socioeconomic livelihood for ourselves and our communities. We will keep on preaching this gospel of being self sustainable as Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng in general, until people start to stop and take notice, until people start listening and acting, we will keep on preaching this gospel of being self sustainable as Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng in general, until people take it upon themselves and start organizing themselves around the issue of social and economic development as a family and as a clan, until people realize the importance of self sufficiency as a family and as a clan. In times of election, the media always keep on talking about the election machinery of the ruling parties in refence to branches of the ruling parties which are the power base of those ruling parties. Luckily as Ba Gs Mohlala, we also have Ba Ga Mohlala branches across the country as basic units in addition to family, and extended family units. So, let us use those structures as basic units and building blocks to build up Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng to become successful forces which will play a role in socioeconomic sphere locally, regionally, provinvially, nationally, and internationally. To build Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng to be a force to reckon with locally, provinvially, nationally, and internationally. The platforms are there, it is all up to us, the ball is in our court as a collective Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng. It must become a norn and a duty to serve the family and the clan, it must become a honour to selflessly serve the family and the clan without expecting anything in return. ALUTA !!!!!!!! "Struggle of selfsuffiency must continue
Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala
For unknown ages after the explosive outpouring of matter and energy of the Big Bang, the Cosmos was without form. There were no galaxies, no planets, no life. Deep, impenetrable darkness was everywhere, hydrogen atoms in the void. Here and there, denser accumulations of gas were imperceptibly growing, globes of matter were condensing-hydrogen raindrops more massive than suns. Within these globes of gas was kindled the nuclear fire latent in matter. A first generation of stars was born, flooding the Cosmos with light. There were in those times, not yet any planets to receive the light, no living creatures to admire the radiance of the heavens. Deep in the stellar furnaces, the alchemy of nuclear fusion created heavy elements from the ashes of hydrogen burning, the atomic building blocks of future planets and lifeforms. Massive stars soon exhausted their stores of nuclear fuel. Rocked by colossal explosions, they returned most of their substance back into the thin gas from which they had once condensed. Here in the dark lush clouds between the stars, new raindrops made of many elements were forming, later generation of stars being born. Nearby, smaller raindrops grew, bodies far too little to ignite the nuclear fire, droplets in the interstellar mist on their way to form planets. Among them was a small world of stone and iron, the early Earth. Congealing and warming, the Earth released methane, ammonia, water and hydrogen gases that had been trapped within, forming the primitive atmosphere and the first oceans. Starlight from the Sun bathed and warmed the primeval Earth, drove storms, generated lightning and thunder. Volcanoes overflowed with lava. These processes disrupted molecules of the primitive atmosphere; the fragments fell back together into more and more complex forms, which dissolved into the early oceans. After a while the seas achieved the consistency of a warm, dilute soup. Molecules were organized, and complex chemical reactions driven, on the surface of clay. And one day a molecule arose that quite by accident was able to make crude copies of itself out of the other molecules in the broth. As time passed, more elaborate and more accurate self replicating molecules arose. Those combinations best suited to further replication were favored by the sieve of natural selection. Those that copied better produced more copies. And the primitive oceanic broth gradually grew thin as it was consumed by and transformed into complex condensations of self replicating organic molecules. Gradually, imperceptibly, life had begun. Single-celled plants evolved, and life began generating its own food. Photosynthesis transformed the atmosphere. Sex was invented. Once free living forms bonded together to make a complex cell with specialized functions. Chemical receptors evolved, and the Cosmos could taste and smell. One celled organisms evolved into multicellular colonies, elaborating their various parts into specialized organ systems. Eyes and ears evolved, and now the Cosmos could see and hear. Plants and animals discovered that land could support life. Organisms buzzed, crawled, scuttled, lumbered, glided, flapped, shimmied, climbed and soared. Colossal beasts thundered through steaming jungles. Small creatures emerged, born live instead of in hard-shelled containers, with a fluid like the early ocean coursing through their veins. They survived by swiftness and cunning. And then, only a moment ago, some small arboreal animals scampered down from the trees. They became upright and taught themselves the use of tools, domesticated other animals, plants and fire, and devised language. The ash of stellar alchemy was now emerging into consciousness. At an ever-accelerating pace, it invented writing, cities, art and science, and sent spaceships to the planets and the stars. These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do, given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution.
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
We might believe these behaviors are part of the child’s genetic temperament. Temperament is a factor; however, brain research indicates that although nature provides the raw materials for brain development, nurture is the architect. How we interact with our children profoundly shapes their brains. We literally custom design our children’s brains. Many of the behaviors we see can be traced to the original bonding experience between children and their caregivers. As daunting as it may seem, there is hope. Just as children are forgiving, so, too, is the brain—especially in the early years. The brain can be shaped and reshaped by each new experience; like a house that gets dirty, a good cleaning is all it needs. I Love You Rituals are designed to strengthen the bond between an adult and a child and, in turn, reestablish the child’s sense of security. This secure base then frees the child to explore the world with greater willingness and success. It also builds healthy ties between the adult and child, increasing the child’s willingness to be cooperative.
Becky A. Bailey (I Love You Rituals)
REST IN THE STILLNESS of My Presence while I prepare you for this day. Let the radiance of My Glory shine upon you as you wait on Me in confident trust. Be still, and know that I am God. There is both a passive and an active side to trusting Me. As you rest in My Presence, focusing on Me, I quietly build bonds of trust between us. When you respond to the circumstances of your life with affirmations of trust, you actively participate in this process.
Sarah Young (Jesus Calling Morning and Evening, with Scripture References: Yearlong Guide to Inner Peace and Spiritual Growth (A 365-Day Devotional) (Jesus Calling®))
Last but not least, you can notice and compliment someone else’s behavior. This is the best way to converse with kids. Instead of noticing when they do something wrong, try celebrating positive behavior. It’ll go a long way toward furthering communication with them and deepening your bond.
Debra Fine (The Fine Art of Small Talk: How to Start a Conversation, Keep It Going, Build Networking Skills and Leave a Positive Impression!)
Home isn't a building," he said as soon as their eyes met. "Home is . . ." He cast about as if searching for words. "It's like a bond. It's a place you feel safe; it's the people who make it that way.
Nicki Pau Preto (Heart of Flames (Crown of Feathers, #2))
Building societies that thrive in the age of AI will require substantial changes to our economy but also a shift in culture and values. Centuries of living within the industrial economy have conditioned many of us to believe that our primary role in society (and even our identity) is found in productive, wage-earning work. Take that away and you have broken one of the strongest bonds between a person and his or her community. As we transition from the industrial age to the AI age, we will need to move away from a mindset that equates work with life or treats humans as variables in a grand productivity optimization algorithm. Instead, we must move toward a new culture that values human love, service, and compassion more than ever before.
Kai-Fu Lee (AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order)
In their heroic efforts-going door to door to register voters, sitting down at lunch counters, and marching to freedom songs-I saw the possibility of practicing the values my mother taught me; how you could build power not by putting others down but by lifting them up. This was true democracy at work-democracy not as a gift from on high, or a division of spoils between interest groups, but rather democracy that was earned, the work of everybody. The result was not just a change in material conditions, but a sense of dignity for people and communities, a bond between those who had once seemed far apart.
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
Paul is applying to marriage a general principle about the Christian life—namely, that all Christians who really understand the gospel undergo a radical change in the way they relate to people. In Philippians 2: 2–3, Paul says bluntly that Christians should “in humility consider others better than [them] selves.” Notice that he doesn’t say that we should unrealistically try to believe that all others are better than us in every way. That would be nonsense. Rather, we should consider and count the interests of others as more important than our own. Elsewhere he says that we should not “please ourselves” but rather should “please our neighbor, for his own good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself” (Romans 15: 1–3). Paul goes so far as to tell Christians to be douloi of one another (Galatians 5: 13)—literally bond-servants. Because Christ humbled himself and became a servant and met our needs even at the cost of his own life, now we are like servants—but to one another.
Timothy J. Keller (The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God)
Build your brother.
Lailah Gifty Akita
Strange as it may seem — and irrational as it would be in a more logical system of world diplomacy — the dollar glut is what finances America’s global military build-up. It forces foreign central banks to bear the costs of America’s expanding military empire. The result is a new form of taxation without representation. Keeping international reserves in dollars means recycling dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bills — U.S. government debt issued largely to finance the military spending that has been a driving force in the U.S. balance-of-payments deficit since the Korean War broke out in 1950. [...] “China National Offshore Oil Corporation go home” is the motto when foreign governments try to use their sovereign wealth funds (central bank departments trying to figure out what to do with their dollar glut) to make direct investments in American industry, as happened when China’s national oil company sought to buy Unocal in 2005.[...] So Europeans and Asians see U.S. companies pumping more dollars into their economies not only to buy their exports (in excess of providing them with goods and services in return), not only to buy their companies and commanding heights of privatized public enterprises (without giving them reciprocal rights to buy important U.S. companies), and not only to buy foreign stocks, bonds and real estate. The U.S. media neglect to mention that the U.S. Government spends hundreds of billions of dollars abroad — not only in the Near East for direct combat, but to build military bases to encircle the rest of the world, and to install radar systems, guided missile systems and other forms of military coercion, including the “color revolutions” that have been funded all around the former Soviet Union.
Michael Hudson (The Bubble and Beyond)
how you could build power not by putting others down but by lifting them up. This was true democracy at work—democracy not as a gift from on high, or a division of spoils between interest groups, but rather democracy that was earned, the work of everybody. The result was not just a change in material conditions but a sense of dignity for people and communities, a bond between those who had once seemed far apart.
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
In his book-length review of the executive functions, Dr. Russell Barkley (2012) explored the reasons that these skills evolved in humans in the first place. He makes the compelling case that it was the selection pressures associated with humans living in larger groups of genetically unrelated individuals, which made it selectively advantageous to have good self-regulation skills. That is, these abilities became more important to survival as humans became more interdependent with and reliant on dealings with people who were not family. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and executive dysfunction continue to have effects on the myriad relationships and social interactions in daily life. These connections include romantic and committed relationships/marriage, relationships with parents, siblings, children, and other relatives, friendships, and interactions with employers, coworkers, and customers. The executive functions in relationships also figure in the capacity for empathy and tracking social debt, that is, the balance of favors you owe others and favors owed to you. The ability to effectively organize behavior across time in goal-directed activities gains you “social collateral.” That is, the more you deliver on promises and projects, the more that you will be sought out by others and maintain bonds with them. Some of the common manifestations of ADHD and executive dysfunction that may create problems in relationships include: • Distractibility during conversations • Forgetfulness about matters relevant to another person • Verbal impulsivity—talking over someone else • Verbal impulsivity—saying the “wrong thing” • Breaking promises (acts of commission, e.g., making an expensive purchase despite agreeing to stay within a household budget) • Poor follow-through on promises (acts of omission, e.g., forget to pick up dry cleaning) • Disregarding the effects of one’s behavior on others (e.g., building up excessive debt on a shared credit card account) • Poor frustration tolerance, anger (e.g., overreacting to children’s behavior) • Lying to cover up mistakes • Impulsive behaviors that reduce trust (e.g., romantic infidelity)
J. Russell Ramsay (The Adult ADHD Tool Kit)
Throughout this book we’ll gradually build an argument that many individuals should consider an automatic approach to investing by relying primarily on mutual funds—specifically index mutual funds, which try to do nothing more than mimic the performance of the stock and bond markets in general.
Gary Belsky (Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them: Lessons from the Life-Changing Science of Behavioral Economics)
Western countries are rarely in budget surplus and thus end up building debt over the cycle.The increase of the debt-to-GDP ratio is a fundamentally negative development for the lower and middle classes. The debt acts as a transfer of wealth from average taxpayers to the better off. The mechanism of this wealth transfer is relatively simple, as the interest paid to finance payment to the bond holders is funded by the general budget. Thus, bondholders, by definition people with savings, receive payments financed by the tax collected from the general population. Effectively, the debt sucks in a percentage of income revenues and spits it back out to wealthy savers in the form of interest payments.
Jean-Michel Paul (The Economics of Discontent: From Failing Elites to The Rise of Populism)
Connection: building social bonds between teammates, coaches, and support staff
John O'Sullivan (Every Moment Matters: How the World's Best Coaches Inspire Their Athletes and Build Championship Teams)
The historical reason we chant the Buddhist sutras is to honor our earliest ancestors in the practice. The first Buddhists didn't trust the written word to be a good carrier of their teachings. So for the first two hundred years or so, the Buddha's teachings were not written down; they were memorized. In order to do this, the monks gathered and recited Buddha's words. We still do that today, even though it's all also available in written form now. This is because we've found that chanting the words together helps us remember them better than just reading them by ourselves. These activities also have a deeper purpose in helping to build a feeling of community. When people do activities together they feel more kinship with each other. When we chant we do other things like hit a wooden fish to keep time, burn incense, bow, and so forth. This active stuff, with all its movements and coordination, helps bond the group.
Brad Warner (Don't Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master)
The revolution is about relationships. Whether it is betrayal by seduction, terror, power, intimacy, or spirit, exploitation is simply no longer acceptable. We’ve surveyed centuries of damage, and we know better. We need to move toward a culture of mutuality and respect. We can build our relationships on the basis of our competencies, needs, and care. Men and women need to share power and privilege. All of us must commit to the nurturing of children.
Patrick J. Carnes (The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships)
Want to conquer youth culture? Embrace the power of genuine connections. De-influencing isn't new; it's simply cutting through the BS of overloaded influencer-pushed ads. Build long-term bonds with talent who are true 'part of their community and have a seat at the decision making table for yours, and watch your brand reign supreme.
Gregg L. Witt
There’s only one activity that stimulates the brain to produce all seven at the same time, and that’s the ecstatic state of flow. The shortest way there is deep, alpha-driven meditation. When you blend all seven into a single cocktail, the result is euphoria. Let’s see: What might a combination of the first letters of each drug look like? Serotonin, Oxytocin, Norepinephrine, Dopamine, Anandamide, Nitric oxide, and Beta-endorphin? Just for fun, let’s combine them, and call our cocktail’s special blend SONDANoBe. This is the magic formula that, produced inside our own bodies in the proper ratios, bathes the brain in the chemicals of ecstasy. GETTING HIGH ON YOUR OWN SUPPLY When I meditate, I can feel the moment when each drug in the cocktail kicks in. First, I use EFT tapping and release any and every negative thought, emotion, and energy. This drops my level of cortisol, along with suppressing the high beta brain waves of stress. I now have a molecular substrate in my brain upon which I can build a deep and focused meditative experience. Next, I close my eyes and focus. Dopamine kicks in as I anticipate the delicious hormone and neurotransmitter drug cocktail I’m about to be rewarded with. The dopaminergic reward system of my brain fires up and the “body learning” of how to meditate—stored in my basal ganglia, which memorize frequently performed actions—comes online. Ingredient one. My mind starts to wander. My email inbox. The morning’s first meeting. The laugh line of the movie I watched last night. An overdue deadline. Damn, I’m way out of the zone already, cortisol rising, and I haven’t been meditating more than 5 minutes. Dopamine brings me back to focus, aided by norepinephrine. I’m motivated. I want Bliss Brain more than I want an endless loop of the Me Show. I return to center. Cortisol drops. Ahhh, I’m back. Norepinephrine stimulates my attention. Ingredient two. Then I realize that my body is uncomfortable. I have a twinge in my right knee. My lower back hurts. My tummy’s rumbling because it’s empty. I consciously shift my wandering mind back into focus. Back in sync, my neurons secrete beta-endorphin, which masks the pain. The discomfort drops away, and being in a body feels wonderful. Ingredient three. I tune in to each of the archetypal strands that guide me. Mother Mary. Kwan Yin. Healing. Strength. Beauty. Wisdom. I imagine myself meditating in a field of a million saints. I’m lost in Bliss Brain, as serotonin, the satisfaction drug, kicks in. Ingredient four. I feel one with the universe. Oxytocin starts to flow, as I bond with everything. Ingredient five. That releases nitric oxide and anandamide. Ingredients six and seven.
Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
Empathy is the bridge that connects hearts, enabling us to walk in each other's shoes and build the bonds of understanding that transcend differences.
Samuel Asumadu-Sarkodie
What accounts for family conflict? Generally, it is a misalignment between how family members view their relationships and the roles that they each play—in other words, mismatched expectations. For example, parents tend to see the benefit of family bonds primarily in terms of shared love; children generally view the benefit in terms of exchanges of assistance. According to research, fathers report higher levels of involvement in the relationship than their kids perceive.[5] Similarly, children tend to think that they are doing more to help than their parents think they are.[6] All of this creates resentment, which is only natural when people you love fail to meet your expectations; it is exacerbated when the other party doesn’t even seem to notice.
Arthur C. Brooks (Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier)
Never forget that truth. This world was built to silence you. Don’t let it claim your voice.” I swallowed thickly. “Perhaps someone should tear such a world down and build a new one.
Casey L. Bond (Valor)
Ecopsychology attributes our separation from nature to our collective history (shifting from earth-based to industrial and technological societies) and our individual histories—the lack of healthy bonding with nature, including other people, that we received as children. As human beings living within Earth, it is incredibly important to remember that we are animals. Much of our Western paradigm keeps us alienated from this realization, placing humans in a special category separate from nature. Yet we are animals living among a vast community of living beings. When I was diving into the topic of narcissism, I recalled that some of the early ecopsychology writers briefly touched on narcissism as a cause for materialistic overconsumption in US culture. In a groundbreaking essay from 1995, “The All-Consuming Self,” the ecopsychologists Mary E. Gomes and Allen D. Kanner (building on the work of the psychologist Philip Cushman) stated, “American consumer habits reflect both the grandiose and the empty side of narcissism. In terms of the arrogant false self, Americans feel entitled to an endless stream of new consumer goods and services.”[5] Of course, the various things that we buy are sourced from finite materials from Earth and create an irreversible impact on ecological systems. Our vast consumption is essentially destroying Earth, including ourselves; our sense of entitlement to things—our narcissism—is at the heart of this.
Jeanine M. Canty (Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet)
Parental rejection is defined as the failure or inability of a parent to act in a way that sustains or respects a child’s attachment bond.
Lauren Douglas (Defiant No More: The Unconventional Guide to Help Your Children Overcome Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Anger, Build Good Relationships and Grow Self Esteem (Parenting Plan))
Nowadays when I attempt to spook Lilly, she looks at me as if to say, “Nice try. But no.
Krystal Kelly (Speaking the Horse Language: How to unlock the hidden messages we send our horses in order to build an unshakable bond.)
Love should increase over time, not start at a high," she said. "Real love is developed over time. It's about learning to trust, bond, and build a family together, with or without children. So I'm in favor of not overthinking yourself to death in the beginning. Women, especially, tend to rule people out too quickly.
Lori Gottlieb (Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough)
They shared elaborate fantasies about raping and murdering me, discussing the pros and cons of each. They talked about how to break into all of my accounts to try to find more ways to invade my privacy. They bragged about victories like flooding my game's page with hatred and nude photos of me and went so far as to create guides to share tactics on how best to ruin my life. They even orchestrated plans to donate to various charities specifically to make themselves look like concerned citizens and not a mob of people trying to get me killed. They build friendships and bonded with each other by reinforcing their dedication to the righteous cause of taking me down, reminding themselves at every turn but they were the good guys.
Zoe Quinn (Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate)
As their eyes connect, there is a sparkle that energizes them both. They look forward to being together because they desire the special closeness they share. When the shared bond is governed by fear, anxiety builds as the time approaches to be together. Fear can also develop from being apart. The fear bonds and love bonds we experience during formative years determine the way we motivate ourselves. When fearful, we threaten ourselves with what will happen if we do not get to work on time, lose weight, save money, or keep our partner from getting mad. We think about things that could go wrong. We worry, feel guilty, run from shame, and blame others. We become emotionally paralyzed. We operate way under our potential.
E. James Wilder (Living From The Heart Jesus Gave You: 15th Anniversary Study Edition)
Let me tell you something. When you look back, knowing you don’t have much time left, you don’t regret the money you didn’t make or the empires you didn’t build. You regret the time you didn’t give your loved ones.
Lee Tobin McClain (The Wedding Bond (Sacred Bond Friends and Family #2))
It’s the close emotional bond we have with our children that makes them want to live lives we, their parents, can respect.
Stephen F. Arterburn (Understanding and Loving a Person with Depression: Biblical and Practical Wisdom to Build Empathy, Preserve Boundaries, and Show Compassion (The Arterburn Wellness Series))
Siamangs—large black members of the gibbon family—swing high up in the tallest trees of the Asian Jungle. Every morning, the male and female burst into spectacular duets. Their song begins with a few loud whoops, which gradually build into ever louder, more elaborate sequences. Amplified by balloonlike throat sacs, the sound carries far and wide. I have heard them in Indonesia, where the whole forest echoed with their sound. The siamangs listen to one another during breaks. Whereas most territorial animals need only to know where their boundaries run and how strong and healthy their neighbors are, siamangs face the added complexity that territories are jointly defended by pairs. This means that pair-bonds matter. Troubled pairs will be weak defenders, while bonded pairs will be strong ones. Since the song of a pair reflects their marriage, the more beautiful it is, the more their neighbors realize not to mess with them. A close-harmony duet communicates not only “stay out!” but also “we’re one!” If a pair duets poorly, on the other hand, uttering discordant vocalizations that interrupt one another, neighbors hear an opportunity to move in and exploit the pair’s troubled relationship.
Frans de Waal (Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?)
Travel Bucket List 1. Have a torrid affair with a foreigner. Country: TBD. 2. Stay for a night in Le Grotte della Civita. Matera, Italy. 3. Go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Queensland, Australia. 4. Watch a burlesque show. Paris, France. 5. Toss a coin and make an epic wish at the Trevi Fountain. Rome, Italy. 6. Get a selfie with a guard at Buckingham Palace. London, England. 7. Go horseback riding in the mountains. Banff, Alberta, Canada. 8. Spend a day in the Grand Bazaar. Istanbul, Turkey. 9. Kiss the Blarney Stone. Cork, Ireland. 10. Tour vineyards on a bicycle. Bordeaux, France. 11. Sleep on a beach. Phuket, Thailand. 12. Take a picture of a Laundromat. Country: All. 13. Stare into Medusa’s eyes in the Basilica Cistern. Istanbul, Turkey. 14. Do NOT get eaten by a lion. The Serengeti, Tanzania. 15. Take a train through the Canadian Rockies. British Columbia, Canada. 16. Dress like a Bond Girl and play a round of poker at a casino. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 17. Make a wish on a floating lantern. Thailand. 18. Cuddle a koala at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Queensland, Australia. 19. Float through the grottos. Capri, Italy. 20. Pose with a stranger in front of the Eiffel Tower. Paris, France. 21. Buy Alex a bracelet. Country: All. 22. Pick sprigs of lavender from a lavender field. Provence, France. 23. Have afternoon tea in the real Downton Abbey. Newberry, England. 24. Spend a day on a nude beach. Athens, Greece. 25. Go to the opera. Prague, Czech Republic. 26. Skinny dip in the Rhine River. Cologne, Germany. 27. Take a selfie with sheep. Cotswolds, England. 28. Take a selfie in the Bone Church. Sedlec, Czech Republic. 29. Have a pint of beer in Dublin’s oldest bar. Dublin, Ireland. 30. Take a picture from the tallest building. Country: All. 31. Climb Mount Fuji. Japan. 32. Listen to an Irish storyteller. Ireland. 33. Hike through the Bohemian Paradise. Czech Republic. 34. Take a selfie with the snow monkeys. Yamanouchi, Japan. 35. Find the penis. Pompeii, Italy. 36. Walk through the war tunnels. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. 37. Sail around Ha long Bay on a junk boat. Vietnam. 38. Stay overnight in a trulli. Alberobello, Italy. 39. Take a Tai Chi lesson at Hoan Kiem Lake. Hanoi, Vietnam. 40. Zip line over Eagle Canyon. Thunderbay, Ontario, Canada.
K.A. Tucker (Chasing River (Burying Water, #3))
You don’t talk to her, Trey. In fact, you don’t bother with her at all. You claimed her, brought her here, solidified the mating, and then handed her safety over to Tao. Look, I get that this is only supposed to be a temporary thing and so there’s no need for you both to build a bond, but it’s more than that. You purposely avoid her. You never touch her—don’t try to tell me that’s not driving your wolf crazy.
Suzanne Wright (Feral Sins (The Phoenix Pack, #1))
I have never understood the misguided attitude of most people to heavy, fleshy women, who are generally considered ugly. Surely, in the generous abundance of their flesh, their broad dips and curves and gradual inclines - bodies where the questing lover may wander freely and unhindered; where he can stop and rest, or turn a corner and discover some hidden recess - surely these magnificent women have a marked superiority over those of a more conventional build? They have so much more to offer!
Ruskin Bond (The Sensualist)
Things that she might evaluate include: Was this friend there for me this year? Did we have fun bonding times this year? Does this friend frequently use our time together to complain about her life but then do nothing about it? Do we still have similar interests? Do I look forward to spending time with her? Do I feel energized or drained after spending time with her?
Rachel Rodgers (We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power)
Expert relationship counseling in Delhi: Rekindle love, resolve conflicts, and build stronger bonds. Empathetic guidance for couples in need.
peysuh Bhatia
Romance is the best way to begin a relationship and is a bridge to a more mature commitment. But we should not be surprised that it does not last. It is a phase that builds a bond, but it is not a mature bond in itself. Nature designed romance to bring people together to mate, to propagate the species, and to support one another. In this phase the sexual energy is high, and so is the adrenaline. However, continued high adrenaline levels lower our immune response and eventually undermine our health. Thus, in the best interests of our health, romance lasts only as long as is needed for sex and procreation to occur.
David Richo (亲密关系的重建)
Auto towing is about more than hooking a car up to a towing truck, with Towing Spring Pros its about making sure that every car on the road gets to where they’re going. Towing Spring Pros has been a part of the Spring community and proudly they have helped to build up the services provided for Spring drivers. Establishing their honest pricing policy and making sure they are fully licensed and bonded, Towing Spring has put their best foot forward in making a name for the auto-towing services in Spring! Whether you need emergency towing services or roadside assistance their 24/7 dispatch service will get them to your side. Give is a call (832) 919-8783 and get the best towing & roadside help in Spring, TX and nearby areas.
Towing Spring Pros
Unlike male-female bonding, which excludes competing loyalties, male bonding is inclusive and builds small groups of men into effective fighting units. The brawling, drinking, athletic rough-house, vulgarity, and sexual braggadocio of young men in groups, incomprehensible to most women, are the rituals that cement the male bond. Young men in groups often risk death rather than be thought “screw ups” by their companions and male authority figures, another aspect of male bonding important in combat and incomprehensible to most women.
Michael Levin (Feminism and Freedom)
The awareness of mortality casts a bittersweet shadow over the vibrancy of life and love. We exist in a state of impermanence, where beauty fades and connection dissolves. Yet, it is precisely this impermanence that imbues life with its preciousness and love with its urgency. In the face of oblivion, love becomes a defiant act, a bridge we build across the chasm of the ephemeral, a testament to the enduring power of connection in a fleeting existence." The quote's appreciation for love in the face of life's fleeting nature echoes Epicurean ideals. This emphasizes the existentialist concept of living in a finite world and the absurdist notion of creating meaning in the face of nothingness. It highlights love as a way to transcend the impermanence of life and forge a connection that defies the inevitable. The concept of finding meaning and beauty in a world wracked by impermanence aligns closely with the philosophy of Epicurus. Epicureanism emphasizes living a virtuous and pleasure-filled life while minimizing pain. Though often misinterpreted as mere hedonism, Epicurus also stressed the importance of intellectual pursuits, close friendships, and facing mortality with courage. Unfortunately, Epicurus himself didn't write any essays or novels in the traditional sense. Most of his teachings were delivered in letters and discourses to his students and followers. These were later compiled by others, most notably Hermarchus, who helped establish Epicurean philosophy. The core tenets of Epicureanism are scattered throughout various ancient texts, including: *Principal Doctrines: A summary of Epicurus' core beliefs, likely compiled by Hermarchus. *Letter to Menoeceus: A letter outlining the path to happiness through a measured approach to pleasure and freedom from fear. *Vatican Sayings: A collection of sayings and aphorisms attributed to Epicurus. These texts, along with Diogenes Laërtius' Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers, which includes biographical details about Epicurus, provide the best understanding of his philosophy. Love is but an 'Ephemeral Embrace'. Life explodes into a vibrant party, a kaleidoscope of moments that dims as the sun dips below the horizon. The people we adore, the bonds we forge, all tinged with the bittersweet knowledge that nothing lasts forever. But it's this very impermanence that makes everything precious, urging us to savor the here and now. Imagine Epicurus nudging us and saying, "True pleasure isn't a fleeting high, it's the joy of sharing good times with the people you love." Even knowing things end, we can create a life brimming with love's connections. Love becomes an act of creation, weaving threads of shared joy into a tapestry of memories. Think of your heart as a garden. Love tells you to tend it with care, for it's the source of connection with others. In a world of constant change, love compels us to nurture our inner essence and share it with someone special. Love transcends impermanence by fostering a deep connection that enriches who we are at our core. Loss is as natural as breathing. But love says this: "Let life unfold, with all its happy moments and tearful goodbyes. Only then can you understand the profound beauty of impermanence." Love allows us to experience the full spectrum of life's emotions, embracing the present while accepting impermanence. It grants depth and meaning to our fleeting existence. Even knowing everything ends, love compels us to build a haven, a space where hearts connect. It's a testament to the enduring power of human connection in a world in flux. So let's love fiercely, vibrantly, because in the face of our impermanence, love erects a bridge to something that transcends the temporary.
Monika Ajay Kaul
GEORGE LUCAS: We were building sandcastles, and he was musing about how what he really wanted to do was a James Bond film. He’d gone to the producers and asked them if he could do it and said he would only do it if he could bring Sean Connery back. They didn’t want to do that, so Steve backed off. I turned to him and said, “I have the perfect film for you. It’s basically James Bond.” I told him the story of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Jeanine Basinger (Hollywood: The Oral History)
The word band is quite similar to the word bond. Have you thought about that? A band is a bond between people. A band can emerge unexpectedly, when you talk or suddenly say the same things, or mention the same references. You harmonize in conversation, create rhythm. That's the beginning. We can dive into that beat; the beat is more alive than we are. Our hearts might stop beating in the end, but the pulse of that heartbeat will continue to symbolize time, breath, life, even after we're gone. It's that simple. All we can do to feel alive is to dive into the beat, take part in it. Some might call it dancing, but the beat doesn't necessarily build up to something regular; it's changeable, and we let go and follow it, it's there, a shadow cast both by ourselves and by eternity, continuing to spread.
Jenny Hval (Girls Against God)
and every time they try to make you feel unworthy… just go towards yourself. choose to love yourself more. and build such an unshakable bond with your worth that there’s just nothing anyone can ever do to take you away from it.
butterflies rising (wild spirit, soft heart)
will ruin your reputation. The second is that if you create curiosity or loss aversion, you have to make sure the experience of attending is worth it or people will feel tricked like they do from a bad clickbait article. When engaging, build around the IKEA effect so participants will invest group effort. This will have them bond more to each other and you or your brand. To instill the membership values, try to apply the peak-end rule so people develop a strong
Jon Levy (You're Invited: The Art and Science of Connection, Trust, and Belonging)
I say “counterfeit” because when we see someone who we don’t like, we disagree with, or is outside our group stumble, fall, or fail, it’s tempting to celebrate that suffering together and to stir up collective emotion. That kind of bonding might feel good for a moment, but nothing that celebrates the humiliation or pain of another person builds lasting connection.
Brené Brown (Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience)
Don't try to time the market. Buy what you need now.
Rick Van Ness (Why Bother With Bonds: A Guide To Build All-Weather Portfolio Including CDs, Bonds, and Bond Funds--Even During Low Interest Rates (How To Achieve Financial Independence))
The fishing, like hockey, was another way he bonded with the men in the community. He only wished the bishop could see the benefits of building relationships. As a result of their trust, the men came to him when they had problems and listened when he shared God’s truth. He’d witnessed numerous souls repent of wandering away from God and place their hope in Him.
Jody Hedlund (A Bride of Convenience (The Bride Ships, #3))
Stocks are property, yes Bonds are property, yes Machines, land, buildings are property, yes A job is property, no nix, nah, nah
Carl Sandburg (The People, Yes)
My recommendations for investors in the accumulation phase of their lives, working to build their wealth, focused on a stock/bond mix of 80/20 for younger investors and 70/30 for older investors. For investors starting the post-retirement distribution phase, 60/40 for younger investors, 50/50 for older investors.
John C. Bogle (The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns)
Christian faith entails care and respect for all persons, and respect for their dignity means listening to their interpretations of the human good. Further, Christian love calls for the building of the bonds of solidarity among all persons, and solidarity requires efforts to understand those who are different, to learn from them, and to contribute to their understanding of good life as well.
David Hollenbach (The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics (Moral Traditions))
Relationship elements with the strongest correlation to successful therapeutic outcomes (Norcross, 2010) Useful questions for building relationships at an individual and team level Empathy “Involves entering the private, perceptual world of the other” and “communicating that understanding back to the client in ways that can be received and appreciated” (p. 118). How well do you really listen (listening like they are the most important person in the world)? Do you listen to the whole person (beyond their words)? How well do you sensitively communicate back your understanding of how you think the other person is feeling (feeling with another)? Alliance “The quality and strength of the collaborative relationship” (p. 120) How strong is your emotional bond to the other person? What can you do to strengthen it? What could be getting in the way of a stronger bond? Cohesion (in groups) “The forces that cause members to remain in the group” (p. 121) How do you help the team develop cohesion? What do you do that decreases team cohesion? What could you do more of to develop team cohesion? Goal Consensus and Collaboration “The therapist and client journey together toward a mutual destination” (p. 122) Does the relationship have a joint overriding purpose from which goals can be derived? What do you want to achieve together that you cannot do separately? What would success for this relationship look like? Adapted from Norcross (2010: 118–25)
Lucy Widdowson (Building Top-Performing Teams: A Practical Guide to Team Coaching to Improve Collaboration and Drive Organizational Success)