Curved Path Quotes

The magic of the present moment that is warily stored in the granary of our memory may pop up at any time and usher us along the winding paths of our life, and light up the dead points in the dim curves of our journey. ("Voices of the sea") –

Cupping my cheeks, he exhaled a soft groan, and his lips scorched mine as he deepened the kiss until we both were breathless from its intensity. Daemon moved as close as he could with the chair between us. Gripping his arms, I held onto him, wanting him closer. The chair prevented all but our lips and hands from touching. Frustrating. Move, I ordered restlessly. It trembled under my foot, and then the heavy oak chair slid out from under me, dodging our leaning bodies. Unprepared for the sudden void, Daemon lurched forward, and I was unable to carry the unexpected weight. I collapsed backward, bringing Daemon along with me. The full contact of his body, flush against mine, sent my senses into chaotic overdrive. His tongue swept over mine as his fingers splayed across my cheeks. His hand slid down my side, gripping my hip as he urged me closer. The kisses slowed and his chest rose as he drank me in. With one last lingering exploration, he lifted his head and smiled down at me. My heart skipped a beat as he hovered over me with an expression that tugged deep in my chest. He moved his finger back up, along my cheek, trailing an invisible path to my chin. "I didn't move that chair, Kitten." "I know." "I'm assuming you didn't like where it was?" "It was in your way," I said. My hands were still curled around his arms. "I can see that." Daemon smoothed a fingertip over the curve of my bottom lip before taking my hand, pulling me up.

Whatever happened to our dreams? The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out ahead of us. We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us. And no, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of someday easing my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up. This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can: FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

we must follow our own path, and sometimes that path can be laden with bumps and curves and rivers to cross. but we cannot block the paths of our neighbors, for that is not our place. we can only seek to groom and shape our own.

First, the line of progress is never straight. For a period a movement may follow a straight line and then it encounters obstacles and the path bends. It is like curving around a mountain when you are approaching a city. Often if feels as though you were moving backwards, and you lose sight of your goal: but in fact you are moving ahead, and soon you will see the city again, closer by.

Think of something useless, and that's probably what I'll be doing. Listen, Virginia, we need to love the useless. We need to raise pigeons without a thought of eating them, plant rose bushes without expecting to pick roses, write without aiming at publication. We need to do things without expecting benefits in return. The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but it's in the curving paths that the best things are found. . . . We must love the useless, because there is beauty in uselessness.

Nothing irrevocable had yet been spoken, but there was only the barest margin of safety left them, each of them moving delicately along the outskirts of an open question, and, once spoken, such a question-as "Do you love me?" -could never be answered or forgotten. They walked slowly, meditating, wondering, and the path sloped down from their feet and they followed, walking side by side in the most extreme intimacy of expectation; their feinting and hesitation done with, they could only await passively for resolution. Each knew, almost within a breath, what the other was thinking and wanting to say; each of them almost wept for the other. They perceived at the same moment the change in the path and each knew then the other's knowledge of it; Theodora took Eleanor's arm and, afraid to stop, they moved on slowly, close together, and ahead of them the path widened and blackened and curved.

Then she understood that what she needed was the motion to a purpose, no matter how small or in what form, the sense of an activity going step by step to some chosen end across a span of time. The work of cooking a meal was like a closed circle, completed and gone, leading nowhere. But the work of building a path was a living sum, so that no day was left to die behind her, but each day contained all those that preceded it, each day acquired its immortality on every succeeding tomorrow. A circle, she thought, is the movement proper to physical nature, they say that there's nothing but circular motion in the inanimate universe around us, but the straight line is the badge of man, the straight line of a geometrical abstraction that makes roads, rails and bridges, the straight line that cuts the curving aimlessness of nature by a purposeful motion from a start to an end. The cooking of meals, she thought, is like the feeding of coal to an engine for the sake of a great run, but what would be the imbecile torture of coaling an engine that had no run to make? It is not proper for man's life to be a circle, she thought, or a string of circles dropping off like zeros behind him--man's life must be a straight line of motion from goal to farther goal, each leading to the next and to a single growing sum, like a journey down the track of a railroad, from station to station to--oh, stop it!

Today words curve around my vision, Stumbling from my parched core To soak again those strands of silence.

Now I dream of the soft touch of women, the songs of birds, the smell of soil crumbling between my fingers, and the brilliant green of plants that I diligently nurture. I am looking for land to buy and I will sow it with deer and wild pigs and birds and cottonwoods and sycamores and build a pond and the ducks will come and fish will rise in the early evening light and take the insects into their jaws. There will be paths through this forest and you and I will lose ourselves in the soft curves and folds of the ground. We will come to the water’s edge and lie on the grass and there will be a small, unobtrusive sign that says, THIS IS THE REAL WORLD, MUCHACHOS, AND WE ARE ALL IN IT.—B. TRAVEN. . . .

Latia returned, coming around the curve and stepping through the glass. "Yes, it's our path," she reported. "And it seems to be near the ogre fen." "Oh? How do you know?" Esk asked. "Oh, nothing specific. Trees twisted into pretzels, boulders cracked with hairy fist marks on them, dragons slinking about as if terrified of anything on two legs. Perhaps I am mistaken.

I squatted by the water as it flowed over the tumbled rocks, thought how far they must've come to have settled in the concrete channel, the stream clear and melodious, the smell of fresh water. I didn't want to think about my mother anymore. I'd rather think about the way the willows and the cottonwoods and palms broke their way through the concrete, growing right out of the flood control channel, how the river struggled to re-establish itself. A little silt was carried down, settled. A seed dropped into it, sprouted. Little roots shot downward. The next thing you had trees, shrubs, birds. My mother once wrote a poem about rivers. They were women, she wrote. Starting out small girls, tiny streams decorated with wildflowers. They were torrents, gouging paths through sheer granite, flinging themselves off cliffs, fearless and irresistible. Later, they grew fat servicable, broad slow curves carrying commerce and sewage, but in their unconscious depths catfish gorged, grew the size of barges, and in the hundred-year storms, they rose up, forgetting the promises they made, the wedding vows, and drowned everything for miles around. Finally they gave out, birth-emptied, malarial, into a fan of swamps that met the ocean.

Like a constantly rolling sphere, the Cycle of Life did not necessarily follow a straight line; it could curve into a better, brighter Path or a darker, bleaker Path, based on the force of choices made.

The mass of the sun curves space-time in such a way that although the earth follows a straight path in four-dimensional space-time, it appears to us to move along a circular orbit in three-dimensional space.

Nothing in these growth curves tells us what a tree should look like, only what trees have looked like. Every plant must find its own unique path to maturity. There

Season late, day late, sun just down, and the sky Cold gunmetal but with a wash of live rose, and she, From water the color of sky except where Her motion has fractured it to shivering splinters of silver, Rises. Stands on the raw grass. Against The new-curdling night of spruces, nakedness Glimmers and, at bosom and flank, drips With fluent silver. The man, Some ten strokes out, but now hanging Motionless in the gunmetal water, feet Cold with the coldness of depth, all History dissolving from him, is Nothing but an eye. Is an eye only. Sees The body that is marked by his use, and Time's, Rise, and in the abrupt and unsustaining element of air, Sway, lean, grapple the pond-bank. Sees How, with that posture of female awkwardness that is, And is the stab of, suddenly perceived grace, breasts bulge down in The pure curve of their weight and buttocks Moon up and, in swelling unity, Are silver and glimmer. Then The body is erect, she is herself, whatever Self she may be, and with an end of the towel grasped in each hand, Slowly draws it back and forth across back and buttocks, but With face lifted toward the high sky, where The over-wash of rose color now fails. Fails, though no star Yet throbs there. The towel, forgotten, Does not move now. The gaze Remains fixed on the sky. The body, Profiled against the darkness of spruces, seems To draw to itself, and condense in its whiteness, what light In the sky yet lingers or, from The metallic and abstract severity of water, lifts. The body, With the towel now trailing loose from one hand, is A white stalk from which the face flowers gravely toward the high sky. This moment is non-sequential and absolute, and admits Of no definition, for it Subsumes all other, and sequential, moments, by which Definition might be possible. The woman, Face yet raised, wraps, With a motion as though standing in sleep, The towel about her body, under her breasts, and, Holding it there hieratic as lost Egypt and erect, Moves up the path that, stair-steep, winds Into the clamber and tangle of growth. Beyond The lattice of dusk-dripping leaves, whiteness Dimly glimmers, goes. Glimmers and is gone, and the man, Suspended in his darkling medium, stares Upward where, though not visible, he knows She moves, and in his heart he cries out that, if only He had such strength, he would put his hand forth And maintain it over her to guard, in all Her out-goings and in-comings, from whatever Inclemency of sky or slur of the world's weather Might ever be. In his heart he cries out. Above Height of the spruce-night and heave of the far mountain, he sees The first star pulse into being. It gleams there. I do not know what promise it makes him.

Perhaps you think that there are sacred groves and cities of the gods along the way, temples displaying all the gifts of wealth? Not so: your path is full of lurking perils as well as images of savage beasts. “And if you hold this course unswervingly, you’ll find the horns of Taurus in your way, 110 the Archer and the gaping jaws of Leo, and Scorpio, whose long and curving arms sweep one way, while the curving arms of Cancer sweep broadly in the opposite direction.

I'm a seeker who writes about what I find. And maybe, on just the right day, I can help you flatten your learning curve. If I've got anything to say, it's this: you are the authority on you.

On the fifth night of our search, I see a plesiosaur. It is a megawatt behemoth, bronze and blue-white, streaking across the sea floor like a torpid comet. Watching it, I get this primordial deja vu, like I'm watching a dream return to my body. It wings towards me with a slow, avian grace. Its long neck is arced in an S-shaped curve; its lizard body is the size of Granana's carport. Each of its ghost flippers pinwheels colored light. I try to swim out of its path, but the thing's too big to avoid. That Leviathan fin, it shivers right through me. It's a light in my belly, cold and familiar. And I flash back to a snippet from school, a line from a poem or a science book, I can't remember which: 'There are certain prehistoric things that swim beyond extinction'.

XXVII" Naked, you are simple as a hand, smooth, earthy, small...transparent, round. You have moon lines and apple paths; Naked, you are slender as the wheat. Naked, Cuban blue midnight is your color, Naked, I trace the stars and vines in your hair; Naked, you are spacious and yellow As a summer's wholeness in a golden church. Naked, you are tiny as your fingernail; Subtle and curved in the rose-colored dawn And you withdraw to the underground world As if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores: your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves, And becomes a naked hand again.

Everything is always in motion. Every day, every moment, your life path is either curving upward, or curving downward. Growing up we heard five times as many nos as yeses. Life has a downward pull. People on the success curve live in responsibility. People on the failure curve live in blame. People on the success curve are pulled by the future. People on the failure curve are pulled by the past. No matter where you are, at any moment you can choose to step onto the success curve.

Now I'll never see him again, and maybe it's a good thing. He walked out of my life last night for once and for all. I know with sickening certainty that it's the end. There were just those two dates we had, and the time he came over with the boys, and tonight. Yet I liked him too much - - - way too much, and I ripped him out of my heart so it wouldn't get to hurt me more than it did. Oh, he's magnetic, he's charming; you could fall into his eyes. Let's face it: his sex appeal was unbearably strong. I wanted to know him - - - the thoughts, the ideas behind the handsome, confident, wise-cracking mask. "I've changed," he told me. "You would have liked me three years ago. Now I'm a wiseguy." We sat together for a few hours on the porch, talking, and staring at nothing. Then the friction increased, centered. His nearness was electric in itself. "Can't you see," he said. "I want to kiss you." So he kissed me, hungrily, his eyes shut, his hand warm, curved burning into my stomach. "I wish I hated you," I said. "Why did you come?" "Why? I wanted your company. Alby and Pete were going to the ball game, and I couldn't see that. Warrie and Jerry were going drinking; couldn't see that either." It was past eleven; I walked to the door with him and stepped outside into the cool August night. "Come here," he said. "I'll whisper something: I like you, but not too much. I don't want to like anybody too much." Then it hit me and I just blurted, "I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them." He was definite, "Nobody knows me." So that was it; the end. "Goodbye for good, then," I said. He looked hard at me, a smile twisting his mouth, "You lucky kid; you don't know how lucky you are." I was crying quietly, my face contorted. "Stop it!" The words came like knife thrusts, and then gentleness, "In case I don't see you, have a nice time at Smith." "Have a hell of a nice life," I said. And he walked off down the path with his jaunty, independent stride. And I stood there where he left me, tremulous with love and longing, weeping in the dark. That night it was hard to get to sleep.

...even those who care deeply for us cannot always see our big picture, the Grand Story Line that is destined to unfold before us. They are on their own journeys. And though their paths may run parallel to ours, each is singular in its curves and mileposts, unique in its destination. As much as others want the best for us, they do not necessarily understand God's best. He alone does.

A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek towards that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky’s stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off. At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp. There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch. The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea. All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin that it passes a faint pink light. It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve. I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I’ll not go northing this year. I’ll stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow’s fringes, hilltops and banksides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow’s seeded grasses and pokes it chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and the earthworms deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming.

What?" she'd muttered sleepily, pushing hair from her face as she blinked and focused her pretty green eyes his way. "You." Her finger trailed a torturously slow path down his chest, her lips curving lazily when he shuddered with pleasure. "What about me?" "You're my heart," he replied soflty.

An optimist was someone who believed that however complicated or random or odd a stretching curve might seem, if we had enough insight then we could understand the simple guiding principle from which it actually came. The concept then spread from mathematics to mean anyone who believes that such an optimal path can open up in life.

I hope that our paths would never diverge And that we don't get lost As we keep walking In my silence I sing the songs of your love I shine From the moment I met you

But fuck me, I wanna explore every curve and line and indent on his body. Learn it with my lips and tongue while it follows the paths my hands have already taken.

In general relativity, bodies always follow straight lines in four-dimensional space-time, but they nevertheless appear to us to move along curved paths in our three-dimensional space. (This is rather like watching an airplane flying over hilly ground. Although it follows a straight line in three-dimensional space, its shadow follows a curved path on the two-dimensional ground.)

Our house was a collection of silences, each room a mute, empty frame, each of us three oscillating bodies (Mom, Dad, me) moving around in our own curved functions, from space to space, not making any noise, just waiting, waiting to wait, trying, for some reason, not to disrupt the field of silence, not to perturb the delicate equilibrium of the system. We wandered from room to room, just missing one another, on paths neither chosen by us nor random, but determined by our own particular characteristics, our own properties, unable to deviate, to break from our orbital loops, unable to do something as simple as walking into the next room where our beloved, our father, our mother, our child, our wife, our husband, was sitting, silent, waiting but not realizing it, waiting for someone to say something, anything, wanting to do it, yearning to do it, physically unable to bring ourselves to change our velocities.

A younger brunette woman slides through the small crack before shutting it softly behind her.  I look down at my watch. Who is she and why is she twenty minutes late?  She clutches onto a neon pink Penny skateboard with one golden brown arm as she scans the packed room. I take advantage of her distraction to assess her. She’s beautiful in a way that makes it difficult to refocus my attention on the conversation at the front of the room.  I hate it yet I can’t look away. My eyes trace the curves of her body, drawing a path from her delicate throat to her thick thighs. The speed of my heart picks up.  I clench my hands into two fists, disliking the lack of control I have over my body.  Get ahold of yourself.

I had spent my whole life trying not to be like my mother. I had taken the opposite path and hurried along it, all the time looking over my shoulder instead of ahead, so that I failed to see how the path curved back again in the same direction.

When we think of the world's future, we always mean the destination it will reach if it keeps going in the direction we can see it going in now; it does not occur to us that its path is not a straight line but a curve, constantly changing direction.

Bailey feels oddly at ease. As though he is closer to the ground, but taller at the same time. His concerns about his future no longer weigh so heavily on him as he exits the tent, turning right down the curving path that winds between the striped tents.

space-time is not flat, as had been previously assumed: it is curved, or ‘warped,’ by the distribution of mass and energy in it. Bodies like the earth are not made to move on curved orbits by a force called gravity; instead, they follow the nearest thing to a straight path in a curved space, which is called a geodesic. A geodesic is the shortest (or longest) path between two nearby points. For example, the surface of the earth is a two-dimensional curved space. A geodesic on the earth is called a great circle, and is the shortest route between two points (Fig. 2.7). As the geodesic is the shortest path between any two airports, this is the route an airline navigator will tell the pilot to fly along. In general relativity, bodies always follow straight lines in four-dimensional space-time, but they nevertheless appear to us to move along curved paths in our three-dimensional space. (This is rather like watching an airplane flying over hilly ground. Although it follows a straight line in three-dimensional space, its shadow follows a curved path on the two-dimensional ground.)

Insight, then. Wisdom. The quest for knowledge, the derivation of theorems, science and technology and all those exclusively human pursuits that must surely rest on a conscious foundation. Maybe that's what sentience would be for— if scientific breakthroughs didn't spring fully-formed from the subconscious mind, manifest themselves in dreams, as full-blown insights after a deep night's sleep. It's the most basic rule of the stymied researcher: stop thinking about the problem. Do something else. It will come to you if you just stop being conscious of it... Don't even try to talk about the learning curve. Don't bother citing the months of deliberate practice that precede the unconscious performance, or the years of study and experiment leading up to the gift-wrapped Eureka moment. So what if your lessons are all learned consciously? Do you think that proves there's no other way? Heuristic software's been learning from experience for over a hundred years. Machines master chess, cars learn to drive themselves, statistical programs face problems and design the experiments to solve them and you think that the only path to learning leads through sentience? You're Stone-age nomads, eking out some marginal existence on the veldt—denying even the possibility of agriculture, because hunting and gathering was good enough for your parents. Do you want to know what consciousness is for? Do you want to know the only real purpose it serves? Training wheels. You can't see both aspects of the Necker Cube at once, so it lets you focus on one and dismiss the other. That's a pretty half-assed way to parse reality. You're always better off looking at more than one side of anything. Go on, try. Defocus. It's the next logical step.

Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was a small dream about time. I was dead, I guess, in deep black space high up among many white stars. My own consciousness had been disclosed to me, and I was happy. Then I saw far below me a long, curved band of color. As I came closer, I saw that it stretched endlessly in either direction, and I understood that I was seeing all the time of the planet where I had lived. It looked like a woman’s tweed scarf; the longer I studied any one spot, the more dots of color I saw. There was no end to the deepness and variety of the dots. At length, I started to look for my time, but, although more and more specks of color and deeper and more intricate textures appeared in the fabric, I couldn’t find my time, or any time at all that I recognized as being near my time. I couldn’t make out so much as a pyramid. Yet as I looked at the band of time, all the individual people, I understood with special clarity, were living at the very moment with great emotion, in intricate detail, in their individual times and places, and they were dying and being replaced by ever more people, one by one, like stitches in which whole worlds of feeling and energy were wrapped, in a never-ending cloth. I remembered suddenly the color and texture of our life as we knew it- these things had been utterly forgotten- and I thought as I searched for it on the limitless band, “that was a good time then, a good time to be living.” And I began to remember our time. I recalled green fields with carrots growing, one by one, in slender rows. Men and women in bright vests and scarves came and pulled the carrots out of the soil and carried them in baskets to shaded kitchens, where they scrubbed them with yellow brushes under running water…I saw may apples in forest, erupting through leaf-strewn paths. Cells on the root hairs of sycamores split and divided and apples grew striped and spotted in the fall. Mountains kept their cool caves, and squirrels raced home to their nests through sunlight and shade. I remembered the ocean, and I seemed to be in the ocean myself, swimming over orange crabs that looked like coral, or off the deep Atlantic banks where whitefish school. Or again I saw the tops of poplars, and the whole sky brushed with clouds in pallid streaks, under which wilds ducks flew, and called, one by one, and flew on. All these things I saw. Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remembered the life of my time with increasing feeling. At last I saw the earth as a globe in space, and I recalled the ocean’s shape and the form of continents, saying to myself with surprise as I looked at the planet, “Yes, that’s how it was then, that part there we called ‘France’”. I was filled with the deep affection of nostalgia- and then I opened my eyes.

A trellis filled with roses arched above the patio, leading to a winding garden path made out of stones that Lucy wanted to skip along. Flowers in reds and pinks and whites and purples bloomed from the curved edges of the yard, so beautiful they reminded Lucy of something out of Eliza's paintings.

What else do you assess during these test drives?" He felt electricity, every nerve in his body firing at once, this attraction raw and unexpected. "Tires?" As one, they slowed a few feet before the sidewalk, stopping in the shadows as if neither of them wanted to step into the glare of the lights. She turned to face him, her gaze dipping to his shoes. "They do seem to be in good working order." "Suspension?" He took a step closer and heard her breath catch in her throat. "A little bit stiff." She licked her lips. "I think we're in for a rough ride." "Acceleration?" Jay shoved the warning voice out of his head and cupped her jaw, brushing his thumb over her soft cheek. Her gaze grew heavy and she sighed. Or was it a whimper? He could barely hear over the rush of blood through his ears. "A little too fast," she whispered, leaning in. She pressed one palm against his chest, and in that moment he knew she wanted him, too. "Maybe I should test the handling." Dropping his head, he brushed soft kisses along her jaw, feathering a path to the bow of her mouth as he slid one hand under her soft hair to cup her nape. He felt like he'd just trapped a butterfly. If he didn't hold on tight, she might fly away. "Or the navigation." She moaned, the soft sound making him tense inside. His free hand slid over her curves to her hip and she ground up against him, a deliciously painful pressure on his already-hard shaft. "Navigation it is." He breathed in the scent of her. Wildflowers. A thunderstorm. The rolling sea.

My mother once wrote a poem about rivers. They were women, she wrote. Starting out small girls, tiny streams decorated with wildflowers. They were torrents, gouging paths through sheer granite, flinging themselves off cliffs, fearless and irresistible. Later, they grew fat servicable, broad slow curves carrying commerce and sewage, but in their unconscious depths catfish gorged, grew the size of barges, and in the hundred-year storms, they rose up, forgetting the promises they made, the wedding vows, and drowned everything for miles around. Finally they gave out, birth-emptied, malarial, into a fan of swamps that met the ocean.

The fundamental theories of modern physics explain the world in jarringly counter-intuitive ways. For example, most non-physicists consider it self-evident that when you hold your arm out horizontally you can feel the force of gravity pulling it downwards. But you cannot. The existence of a force of gravity is, astonishingly, denied by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, one of the two deepest theories of physics. This says that the only force on your arm in that situation is that which you yourself are exerting, upwards, to keep it constantly accelerating away from the straightest possible path in a curved region of spacetime

...you must remember that the political development of the masses proceeds not in a direct line, but in a complicated curve. And is not this, after all, the essential movement of every material process? Objective conditions were powerfully impelling the workers, soldiers and peasants toward the banners of the Bolsheviks, but the masses were entering upon this path in a state of struggle with their own past, with their yesterday’s beliefs, and partly also with their beliefs of today. At a difficult turn, at a moment of failure and disappointment, the old prejudices not yet burnt out would flare up, and the enemy would naturally seize upon these as upon an anchor of salvation.

When you’re walking along a tricky, curving, unknown, surprising, obstacle-strewn path, you’d be a fool to keep your head down and look just at the next step in front of you. You’d be equally a fool just to peer far ahead and never notice what’s immediately under your feet. You need to be watching both the short and the long term—the whole system.

One of the most intriguing ideas in the developmental sciences over the past decades is the phenomenon of the “J-shaped curve.”19 While observing children learning to master new skills in dozens of domains (math, writing, the arts), psychologists noticed a surprising pattern: as a learner struggles to master difficult new challenges, there is often an initial decline in skill. Errors are made on tasks that previously seemed easy, and the learner feels more “stupid” than ever before. This is the dip that forms the middle part of the “J.” But it turns out that the “stupid mistakes,” in retrospect, were nothing more than growth errors. Once the learner gets past the dip, performance rises rapidly to new heights.

Now I dream of the soft touch of women, the songs of birds, the smell of soil crumbling between my fingers, and the brilliant green of plants that I diligently nurture. I am looking for land to buy and I will sow it with deer and wild pigs and birds and cottonwoods and sycamores and build a pond and the ducks will come and fish will rise in the early evening light and take the insects into their jaws. There will be paths through this forest and you and I will lose ourselves in the soft curves and folds of the ground. We will come to the water’s edge and lie on the grass and there will be a small, unobtrusive sign that says, THIS IS THE REAL WORLD, MUCHACHOS, AND WE ARE ALL IN IT.—B. TRAVEN.… Charles BowdenBlood Orchid     

The spiritual path is not a learning curve. It is a refresher course. You were born knowing. Then you were educated out of knowing. Now you need to be reeducated into remembering. The journey of enlightenment is not one of doing. It is of undoing. You must undo the debilitating illusions that have been laid over your majestic self. The goal of living is to become what you already are.

Through the uneven morning mist, she could make out the ruin of the monastery on the northern verge. The broken, roofless walls of outbuildings stretched south of the main ruins in a broken curve. Birches and a few young oaks had grown up where monks had likely once raised vegetables. The rest of the clearing was filled with grass and brambles cut through with newly blazed paths. Four lean-tos had been erected just beyond the stone fence of an overgrown graveyard.

Square astronaut, round hole. It’s the story of my life, really: trying to figure out how to get where I want to go when just getting out the door seems impossible. On paper, my career trajectory looks preordained: engineer, fighter pilot, test pilot, astronaut. Typical path for someone in this line of work, straight as a ruler. But that’s not how it really was. There were hairpin curves and dead ends all the way along. I wasn’t destined to be an astronaut. I had to turn myself into one.

The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out before us. We see the same things every day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us. And no, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of some day easing my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up. his is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can: FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

At her feet, a luminous path lit the way through the grassy field. It was made entirely from glow sticks; each of the radiant lights had been painstakingly set into the ground at perfect intervals, tracing a curved trail that shone through the darkness. Apparently, Jay had been busy. Near the water’s edge, at the end of the iridescent pathway and beneath a stand of trees, Jay had set up more than just a picnic. He had created a retreat, an oasis for the two of them. Violet shook her head, unable to find the words to speak. He led her closer, and Violet followed, amazed. Jay had hung more of the luminous glow sticks from the low-hanging branches, so they dangled overhead. They drifted and swayed in the breeze that blew up from the lake. Beneath the natural canopy of limbs, he had set up two folding lounge chairs and covered them with pillows and blankets. “I’d planned to use candles, but the wind would’ve blown ‘em out, so I had to improvise.” “Seriously, Jay? This is amazing.” Violet felt awed. She couldn’t imagine how long it must have taken him. “I’m glad you like it.” He led her to one of the chairs and drew her down until she was sitting before he started unpacking the cooler. She half-expected him to pull out a jar of Beluga caviar, some fancy French cheeses, and Dom Perignon champagne. Maybe even a cluster of grapes to feed to her…one at a time. So when he started laying out their picnic, Violet laughed. Instead of expensive fish eggs and stinky cheeses, Jay had packed Daritos and chicken soft tacos-Violet’s favorites. And instead of grapes, he brought Oreos. He knew her way too well. Violet grinned as he pulled out two clear plastic cups and a bottle of sparkling cider. She giggled. “What? No champagne?” He shrugged, pouring a little of the bubbling apple juice into each of the flimsy cups. “I sorta thought that a DUI might ruin the mood.” He lifted his cup and clinked-or rather, tapped-it against hers. “Cheers.” He watched her closely as she took a sip. For several moments, they were silent. The lights swayed above them, creating shadows that danced over them. The park was peaceful, asleep, as the lake’s waters lapped the shore. Across from them, lights from the houses along the water’s edge cast rippling reflections on the shuddering surface. All of these things transformed the ordinary park into a romantic winter rendezvous.

The weather was dazzling- a sunny Nova Scotia May day. We walked through the huge iron gates into the Public Gardens and ate our sandwiches and apples beside the duck pond. I kicked off my rubber boots and wiggled my toes in the sun as I watched the swans and yellow ducklings. The Gardens were immense, full of massive and intricate flowerbeds, winding paths, and strange exotic trees. There were statues, a splashing fountain, an elaborate round bandstand, and a little river with a curved bridge over it. Lovers strolled arm and arm, and children shrieked with laughter as they chased the pigeons.

Lightning glared in threatful illusions of proximity and quick shapes appeared in the road, leapt from ditch or tree in configurations antic and bizarre. Ghosts of mist rose sadly from the paving and broke in willowy shreds upon the hood, the windshield. One curve more. Behind him the rear window blackened, then the slow inexorable reach of lights crept out and fingered their way across the hillside off to his left, remarking scrub pines, ropes of limestone stretched in a yellow path like rows of somnolent sheep. When he reached the top of the hill the lights dropped away and the siren sounded again.

Nature is cyclical. It curves and revolves, with little use for linear ways… Adrienne Rich’s 1977 poem “Natural Resources” unlocked the title of the book. “My heart is moved by all I cannot save,” she writes. Ours too- and by all that we can. The work at hand is hard and uncertain, yet we find our warrior spirits, charge ahead, and care for one another every step of the way. We will stumble as we chart this unmapped path; let’s forgive our fallibility, safeguard our empathy, and lead with kindness as we go. In more poignant words from Adrienne Rich: There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors.

Chivalry looks good on you, ma'alor," he said, brushing a dark curl out of Robb's face. "And I hate that I like it." "Your flattery will only get you so far," Robb joked, trying to grin, but it turned sour and bitter. "I like you, but I have no right to say that. For what my mother did--for what I did. But...if there was a way for you to forgive me, no matter how long it takes, would you let me? Will you let me try to be worthy of you?" The question took Jax by surprise. He sat back, quite unable to find a response. I've seen you stars, he wanted to say, and this is impossible. All his life he'd thought that all fates flowed in a continuous, never-ending river, but now the current was disrupted, the path unsettled. They had changed the stars, and he was falling in love with a boy who should have died. Robb shifted, uncomfortable. "Or--or if you don't feel the same way--" "I'm sorry," Jax began, but when he looked into Robb's eyes, there were tears there. Alarmed, he quickly added, "No, no! That's not what I meant! I don't mean--" "I knew you wouldn't. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Tears curved down Robb's cheeks, and almost exasperated, Jax wiped them away. "I can't LIE, you insufferable Ironblood," he chided. "I'm apologizing because I can't forgive you right now, but that doesn't mean I don't want to kiss you, ma'alor. And it doesn't mean I don't like you. I do. I like you, but do you really want ME? Someone who can't touch other people? That's my reality. I'll never kiss you without seeing your fate. I'll never touch you without seeing how you'll die. Am I someone you could be happy with?" Robb's brow furrowed. "Screw fate. I'll tear down the stars for you." For HIM? Even though Jax had to wear gloves, and could never brush his lips against Robb's jawline without seeing the stars, never kiss Robb's ears, or traced the lines of his body, or feel the heat that pulsed just beneath his skin, hot and red and wanting. Jax felt his throat tighten as tears pooled at the edges of his eyes. He didn't cry. He never cried. Robb took Jax's hand, and kissed his gloved knuckles. "And lucky for you," Robb added, "I'm not planning to ever die, so you don't have to worry about my stars." He laughed. "You make being mad at you hard, ma'alor." "I plan on making it impossible," replied Robb, and raised an eyebrow. "What does ma'alor mean?" Jax chewed on his bottom lip. 'It means..." But he couldn't bear that sort of embarrassment, so he simply leaned into the Ironblood and kissed him. Savoring the moment, the unknowingness of it all. Until new images came flooding across his senses like a wave of darkness across the stars.

When the Thinker, said a third, treads the strenuous path as Adept, and seeks by a skilful application of his spiritual activities to reduce the Sum of Things to a simple enigmatic Figure, one might say 'Nature dances,' and when he describes in words the curves of her movements the Lover of Nature must admire this audacious undertaking, and rejoice too at the success of this human enterprise. The Adept reasonably esteems action highly. His existence is Action and Production by Knowledge and Will, and his Art consists in applying his tools to everything, in representing the world in his fashion. Hence the principle of his world is Action, and his world is his Art.

The Labyrinth Zeus himself could not undo the web of stone closing around me, I have forgotten the men I was before; I follow the hated path of monotonous walls that is my destiny. Severe galleries which curve in secret circles to the end of the years. Parapets cracked by the day’s usury. In the pale dust I have discerned signs that frighten me. In the concave evenings the air has carries a roar toward me, or the echo of a desolate howl. I know there is an Other in the shadows, whose fate it is to wear out the long solitudes which weave and unweave this Hades and to long for my blood and devour my death. Each of us seeks the other. If only this were the final day of waiting. - S.K.

Now I dream of the soft touch of women, the songs of birds, the smell of soil crumbling between my fingers, and the brilliant green of plants that I diligently nurture. I am looking for land to buy and I will sow it with deer and wild pigs and birds and cottonwoods and sycamores and build a pond and the ducks will come and fish will rise in the early evening light and take the insects into their jaws. There will be paths through this forest and you and I will lose ourselves in the soft curves and folds of the ground. We will come to the water’s edge and lie on the grass and there will be a small, unobtrusive sign that says, THIS IS THE REAL WORLD, MUCHACHOS, AND WE ARE ALL IN IT.—B. TRAVEN.… Charles Bowden Blood Orchid

Or one can visualize the process as follows: as the planet approaches the sun, its speed increases. It shoots past the sun, but as it does so, the clutching hand of gravity swings it round - as a running child grabbing at a maypole is swung around it - so that it now continues in the opposite direction. If its velocity on the approach-run had been exactly the amount required to prevent it from falling into the sun, it would continue in a circle. But as it was slightly greater, the receding run will carry it into an elongated path, which the planet pursues at slackening speed in the teeth of the sun's attraction, as it were, gradually curving inward; until, after passing the aphelion, the curve again approaches the sun and the whole cycle starts again.

We are all damaged now,’ said Arvida, watching the approach. ‘All but you.’ Yesugei sat back against the curve of the hull. ‘No living thing is undamaged.’ ‘Yet you still smile. You still believe.’ ‘So do the rest. They need to remember, that is all. For now, all they see is slow defeat. They forget they have been... magnificent. They fight alone when all others are lost or manning walls far away. They come at enemy out of the glare of the sun. They have made him halt, turn back, come after us. They have forsaken the world they loved, have let it pass into ruin, all for this.’ Yesugei thought of Qin Xa then, from whom there had never been a murmur of unbelief. ‘They will remember, before the end. Other Legions have failed this test – they let their souls change.

A fact, once discovered, leads an existence of its own, and enters into relations with other facts of which their discoverers have never dreamt. Apollonius of Perga discovered the laws of the useless curves which emerge when a plane intersects a cone at various angles: these curves proved, centuries later, to represent the paths followed by planets, comets, rockets, and satellites. One cannot escape the feeling [wrote Heinrich Herz] that these mathematical formulae have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers, that we get more out of them than was originally put into them. This confession of the discoverer of radio-waves sounds suspiciously like an echo of Kepler, echoing Plato, echoing Pythagoras: 'Methinks that all of nature and the graceful sky are set into symbols in geomatriam.

The path was a familiar one. Over the years she’d resided in Spindle Cove, Susanna must have walked it thousands of times. She knew each curve of the land, every last mottled depression in the road. More than once, she’d covered this distance in the dark of night with nary a misstep. Today, she stumbled. He was there, catching her elbow in his strong, sure grip. She hadn’t realized he was following so close. Just when she thought she’d regained her balance, his heat and presence unsteadied her all over again. “Are you well?” “Yes. I think so.” In an effort to dispel the awkwardness, she joked, “Mondays are country walks; Tuesdays, sea bathing…” He didn’t laugh. Nor even smile. He released her without comment, moving on ahead to take the lead. His strides were long, but she noticed he was still favoring that right leg. She did what a good healer ought never do. She hoped it hurt.

Nothing irrevocable had yet been spoken, but there was only the barest margin of safety left them; each of them moving delicately along the outskirts of an open question, and, once spoken, such a question-as “Do you love me?”-could never be answered or forgotten. They walked slowly, meditating, wondering, and the path sloped down from their feet and they followed, walking side by side in the most extreme intimacy of expectation; their feinting and hesitation done with, they could only await passively for resolution. Each knew, almost within a breath, what the other was thinking and wanting to say; each of them almost wept for the other. They perceived at the same moment the change in the path and each knew then the other’s knowledge of it; Theodora took Eleanor’s arm and, afraid to stop, they moved on slowly, close together, and ahead of them the path widened and blackened and curved.

His fingers unhooked from hers, following that same path up her arm, and then back down it again. The feeling was so distracting, so good, so sweet against her clammy skin. She didn't choose a piece from her repertoire; Etta gave herself over to the notes that started streaming through her mind, rising from somewhere deep inside of her. The melody of her heart had no name; it was quick, and light. It rolled with the waves, falling as the breath left his chest, rising as he inhaled. It was the rain sliding down the glass; the fog spreading its fingers over the water. The creaking of a ship's great body. The secrets whispered by the wind, and the unseen life that moved below. It was the flame against the candle. Nicholas's arm was a map of hard muscles and delicate sinews, heartbreakingly perfect. She wondered if he could hear her humming the piece against his skin over the droning roars overhead. Maybe. His free hand skimmed up her skin, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake. With the world blacked out around them, she could catalog all over her senses, capture this moment in the warm darkness forever. He brushed back the loose hair across her forehead, cheek, the corner of her lips, her jaw, and she knew it had to be the same for him, that they'd never been so aware of another person in their entire lives. She released his arm, and he drew it up around her, guiding both of them down so they were on their sides, their heads cushioned by the bag, his jacket drawn over them. Etta understood that here, in the darkness, they'd found a place beyond rules; a place that hung somewhere between the past and the future. This was a single moment of possibility. The clattering of the attack from above faded as he rested his forehead against hers, his thumb lightly stroking a bruise on her cheek. She traced his face - the straight nose, the high, proud cheekbones, the full curve of his lips. His hand caught her there, taking it in his own; he pressed a hard, almost despairing kiss to it. But when she tilted her face up, half - desperate with longing, her blood racing, Nicholas pulled back; and although Etta could feel him beside her, his heart pounding, his ragged breath, it was as if he had disappeared into the thundering dark.

Rafe clenched his teeth as he stood over Lady Rosslyn, taking in her tumble of fiery auburn curls, her fine-boned features, the sweep of her lashes, the curve of her lips. Reaching out a shaky hand, he brushed his fingers across that silken mass of hair with a whisper of a touch. He snatched back his hand with an inner curse. She was too fine to be handled by the likes of him. However, this business had to be done. Raising his index finger to his mouth, he pierced the digit with a fang, watching his blood bead up from the wound. Never in centuries had he imagined performing such an act. Carefully, Rafe held his finger above Lady Rosslyn’s parted lips, allowing his magical blood to drip into her mouth. In as low a voice as possible, he recited the words that would bind her to him for the rest of her life. “I, Rafael Villar, interim Lord of London, Mark this mortal, Cassandra Burton, as mine and mine alone. With this Mark I give Cassandra my undying protection. Let all others, immortal and mortal alike, who cross her path sense my Mark and know that to act against her is to act against myself and thus set forth my wrath, as I will avenge what is mine.” The

Once I had finished conducting business with Herr Kassl, I went in search of my sister. Käthe was easy to find, even in this sea of faces in the square. Her smiles were the broadest, her blue eyes the brightest, her pink cheeks the rosiest. Even her hair beneath that ridiculous hat shone like a bird of golden plumage. All I had to do was follow the path traced by the eyes of the onlookers in the village, those admiring, appreciative glances that led me straight to my sister at the center. For a moment, I watched her bargain and haggle with the sellers. Käthe was like an actress on the stage, all heightened emotion and intense passion, her gestures affected, her smiles calculated. She fluttered and flirted outrageously, carefully oblivious to the stares she drew like moths to the flame. Both men and women traced the lines of her body, the curve of her cheek, the pout of her lip. Looking at Käthe, it was difficult to forget just how sinful our bodies were, just how prone we were to wickedness. Born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward, or so saith Job. Clothed in clinging fabrics, with every line of her body exposed, every gasp of pleasure unconcealed, everything about Käthe suggested voluptuousness.

One solution might be to liken the path of the light beam through a changing gravitational field to that of a line drawn on a sphere or on a surface that is warped. In such cases, the shortest line between two points is curved, a geodesic like a great arc or a great circle route on our globe. Perhaps the bending of light meant that the fabric of space, through which the light beam traveled, was curved by gravity. The shortest path through a region of space that is curved by gravity might seem quite different from the straight lines of Euclidean geometry. There was another clue that a new form of geometry might be needed. It became apparent to Einstein when he considered the case of a rotating disk. As a disk whirled around, its circumference would be contracted in the direction of its motion when observed from the reference frame of a person not rotating with it. The diameter of the circle, however, would not undergo any contraction. Thus, the ratio of the disk’s circumference to its diameter would no longer be given by pi. Euclidean geometry wouldn’t apply to such cases. Rotating motion is a form of acceleration, because at every moment a point on the rim is undergoing a change in direction, which means that its velocity (a combination of speed and direction) is undergoing a change. Because non-Euclidean geometry would be necessary to describe this type of acceleration, according to the equivalence principle, it would be needed for gravitation as well.

The next morning was the second time Kate awoke in Rohan's bed since her arrival at the castle. But unlike that first bewildering day, this time, when she opened her eyes to the morning sunlight flooding his chamber, he was the first lovely thing she saw, right there beside her. In no hurry to arise, they stayed peacefully abed together. She passed a dreamy spell stroking her drowsing lover's bare back in tender affection. What a long, majestic line it was that flowed from the bulky ridge of his shoulder down to the sleek, lean curve of his lower back. Of course, he had more scars on him than one body ought to bear, she thought, but he was not inclined to answer her mild inquiries about them. "What happened here?" she murmured, tracing what appeared to be a saber scar along his rib cage. Lying on his stomach, his face resting on his folded arms, he feigned an in-between state of sleepy inattention, though he was clearly enjoying her touch. "Hm?" She saw through his evasion but forgave him with a knowing smile. Whatever trouble he had been in, it hadn't killed him. That was all that mattered. She leaned closer and kissed all his old hurts. Her light kisses soon followed the same path her admiring hands had taken, until at length, he rolled onto his backhand showed her the regal evidence of her effect on him. He drew her closer, wanting to make love again, but she was still sore from her first time and softly pleaded his forbearance. With a husky chuckle at her reluctant denial, he stole a kiss, gave her a ruefully doting look, then arose in all his magnificent naked glory to order a bath for both of them.

Perhaps..." Resuming his rake's persona, investing every movement with languid grace, he shifted forward, closer. Held her gaze. "You could teach me what it is you need." He let his gaze drift from her eyes to her lips. "I've always been considered a fast learner, and if I'm willing to learn, to devote myself to the study of what you truly want..." Her lips parted slightly. He raised his gaze once more to her eyes, to the stormy blue. Read her interest, knew he had her undivided attention. Inwardly smiled. "If I swear I'll do all I can to meet your requirements, shouldn't you accept the...challenge, if you like, to take me as I am and reshape me to your need?" Holding her gaze, resisting the urge to lower his to her tempting lips, he raised a hand, touched the backs of his fingers to her cheek in a tantalizingly light caress. "You could, if you wished, take on the challenge of taming the ton's foremost rake, of making me your devoted slave...but you'd have to work at it, make the effort and take the time to educate me-arrogantly oblivious male that I am-all of which will be much easier, facilitated as it were, by us marrying. After all, nothing worthwhile is ever attained easily or quickly. If I'm willing to give you free rein to mold me to your liking, shouldn't you be willing to engage?" She was thinking, considering he could see it in her eyes. She was following his arguments, her mind following the path he wanted it to take. Shifting his fingers to lightly frame her chin, he held her face steady as if for a kiss. "And just think," he murmured, his eyes still locked with hers, his lips curving in a practiced smile, "of the cachet you'll be able to claim as the lady who captured me.

You invest so much in it, don't you? It's what elevates you above the beasts of the field, it's what makes you special. Homo sapiens, you call yourself. Wise Man. Do you even know what it is, this consciousness you cite in your own exaltation? Do you even know what it's for? Maybe you think it gives you free will. Maybe you've forgotten that sleepwalkers converse, drive vehicles, commit crimes and clean up afterwards, unconscious the whole time. Maybe nobody's told you that even waking souls are only slaves in denial. Make a conscious choice. Decide to move your index finger. Too late! The electricity's already halfway down your arm. Your body began to act a full half-second before your conscious self 'chose' to, for the self chose nothing; something else set your body in motion, sent an executive summary—almost an afterthought— to the homunculus behind your eyes. That little man, that arrogant subroutine that thinks of itself as the person, mistakes correlation for causality: it reads the summary and it sees the hand move, and it thinks that one drove the other. But it's not in charge. You're not in charge. If free will even exists, it doesn't share living space with the likes of you. Insight, then. Wisdom. The quest for knowledge, the derivation of theorems, science and technology and all those exclusively human pursuits that must surely rest on a conscious foundation. Maybe that's what sentience would be for— if scientific breakthroughs didn't spring fully-formed from the subconscious mind, manifest themselves in dreams, as full-blown insights after a deep night's sleep. It's the most basic rule of the stymied researcher: stop thinking about the problem. Do something else. It will come to you if you just stop being conscious of it. Every concert pianist knows that the surest way to ruin a performance is to be aware of what the fingers are doing. Every dancer and acrobat knows enough to let the mind go, let the body run itself. Every driver of any manual vehicle arrives at destinations with no recollection of the stops and turns and roads traveled in getting there. You are all sleepwalkers, whether climbing creative peaks or slogging through some mundane routine for the thousandth time. You are all sleepwalkers. Don't even try to talk about the learning curve. Don't bother citing the months of deliberate practice that precede the unconscious performance, or the years of study and experiment leading up to the gift- wrapped Eureka moment. So what if your lessons are all learned consciously? Do you think that proves there's no other way? Heuristic software's been learning from experience for over a hundred years. Machines master chess, cars learn to drive themselves, statistical programs face problems and design the experiments to solve them and you think that the only path to learning leads through sentience? You're Stone-age nomads, eking out some marginal existence on the veldt—denying even the possibility of agriculture, because hunting and gathering was good enough for your parents. Do you want to know what consciousness is for? Do you want to know the only real purpose it serves? Training wheels. You can't see both aspects of the Necker Cube at once, so it lets you focus on one and dismiss the other. That's a pretty half-assed way to parse reality. You're always better off looking at more than one side of anything. Go on, try. Defocus. It's the next logical step. Oh, but you can't. There's something in the way. And it's fighting back.

Newton had bequeathed to Einstein a universe in which time had an absolute existence that tick-tocked along independent of objects and observers, and in which space likewise had an absolute existence. Gravity was thought to be a force that masses exerted on one another rather mysteriously across empty space. Within this framework, objects obeyed mechanical laws that had proved remarkably accurate—almost perfect—in explaining everything from the orbits of the planets, to the diffusion of gases, to the jiggling of molecules, to the propagation of sound (though not light) waves. With his special theory of relativity, Einstein had shown that space and time did not have independent existences, but instead formed a fabric of spacetime. Now, with his general version of the theory, this fabric of spacetime became not merely a container for objects and events. Instead, it had its own dynamics that were determined by, and in turn helped to determine, the motion of objects within it—just as the fabric of a trampoline will curve and ripple as a bowling ball and some billiard balls roll across it, and in turn the dynamic curving and rippling of the trampoline fabric will determine the path of the rolling balls and cause the billiard balls to move toward the bowling ball. The curving and rippling fabric of spacetime explained gravity, its equivalence to acceleration, and, Einstein asserted, the general relativity of all forms of motion.92 In the opinion of Paul Dirac, the Nobel laureate pioneer of quantum mechanics, it was “probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made.” Another of the great giants of twentieth-century physics, Max Born, called it “the greatest feat of human thinking about nature, the most amazing combination of philosophical penetration, physical intuition and mathematical skill.

Just last week I was telling a dear friend how I'd rather not exist in a world where toxic thrives. There are so much enmity plaguing this creed, how we hurt others because we think our idea of faith is supreme, how our interpretation of knowledge is above theirs, how every little whisper we turn into a howl. We forget that only He knows. Our existence are but mysteries; who are we to scar, to burn, to leave marks, to solve this enigma for others, to play God. The Friday prayer sermon just this afternoon, spoke to me in such illuminating affirmations. Knowledge, especially in faith, is akin to Light. Light binds, not divides. We seek light not out of fear of the darkness but at a promise to gain clarity. This is our intimate journey, how we move towards that Light is ours to make. Like a blind man, like moths at night, a child yearning, just do not stand in their paths, my friend. Your forehead kisses the same Earth like they do, your knees bend the same curve, and each night, your spine collapses just the same. Do not be the lips that question an arm sleeved with tattoos or hair uncovered by cloth or sins not yours, instead be lips that observes silence, kindness and always, prayers for all. I hope your heart does not make space for words like "Kafir", "infidel", "shirk" and instead be a room with gardens and an ocean of calmness. Even our Beloved won't be a judge for another being; Let God You seek knowledge not to draw boundaries between yourself and others, you seek for this overwhelming gravity of unknowing needs you to always be finding ways to be closer to Him. You seek knowledge to know Him not to make known to others. You have every right to continue seeking, to have your palms heavenwards every night begging to be illuminated. This is your deeper conversation, go on, just you and God.

There is no need, I think, of further examples to show that the concept of rta is a libido-symbol like sun, wind, etc. Only, rta is less concretistic and contains the abstract element of fixed direction and regularity, the idea of a predetermined, ordered path or process. It is, therefore, a kind of philosophical libido symbol that can be directly compared with the Stoic concept of heimarmene. For the Stoics heimarmene had the significance of creative, primal heat, and at the same time it was a predetermined, regular process (hence its other meaning: “compulsion of the stars”).104 Libido as psychic energy naturally has these attributes too; the concept of energy necessarily includes the idea of a regulated process, since a process always flows from a higher potential to a lower. It is the same with the libido concept, which signifies nothing more than the energy of the life process. Its laws are the laws of vital energy. Libido as an energy concept is a quantitative formula for the phenomena of life, which are naturally of varying intensity. Like physical energy, libido passes through every conceivable transformation; we find ample evidence of this in the fantasies of the unconscious and in myths. These fantasies are primarily self-representations of energic transformation processes, which follow their specific laws and keep to a definite “path.” This path is the line or curve representing the optimal discharge of energy and the corresponding result in work. Hence it is simply the expression of flowing and self-manifesting energy. The path is rta, the right way, the flow of vital energy or libido, the predetermined course along which a constantly self-renewing current is directed. This path is also fate, in so far as a man’s fate depends on his psychology. It is the path of our destiny and of the law of our being.

I will invest my heart's desire and the work of my hands in things that will outlive me. Although it grieves me that houses are burning, I have fallen in love with freedom regardless, and the entitlement of a woman to get a move on, equipped with boots that fit and opinions that might matter. The treasures I carry closest to my heart are things I can't own: the curve of a five-year-old's forehead in profile, and the vulnerable expectation in the hand that reaches for mine as we cross the street. The wake-up call of birds in a forest. The intensity of the light fifteen minutes before the end of day; the color wash of a sunset on mountains; the ripe sphere of that same sun hanging low in a dusty sky in a breathtaking photograph from Afghanistan. In my darkest times I have to walk, sometimes alone, in some green place. Other people must share this ritual. For some I suppose it must be the path through a particular set of city streets, a comforting architecture; for me it's the need to stare at water until my mind comes to rest on nothing at all. Then I can go home. I can clear the brush from a neglected part of the garden, working slowly until it comes to me that here is one small place I can make right for my family. I can plant something as an act of faith in time itself, a vow that we will, sure enough, have a fall and a winter this year, to be followed again by spring. This is not an end in itself, but a beginning. I work until my mind can run a little further on its tether, tugging at this central pole of my sadness, forgetting it for a minute or two while pondering a school meeting next week, the watershed conservation project our neighborhood has undertaken, the farmer's market it organized last year: the good that becomes possible when a small group of thoughtful citizens commit themselves to it...Small change, small wonders - these are the currency of my endurance and ultimately of my life.

Lottie pressed her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder. She had to stop him now, before her will was completely demolished. “No. Please stop. I’m sorry.” His hand slid from her blouse, and he touched her damp lips with his fingers. “Have I frightened you?” he whispered. Lottie shook her head, somehow resisting the urge to curl into his embrace like a sun-warmed cat. “No… I’ve frightened myself.” For some reason her admission made him smile. His fingers moved to her throat, tracing the fragile line with a sensitivity that made her breath catch. Tugging the peasant blouse back up to her shoulder, he retied the frayed ribbon that secured the neckline. “Then I’ll stop,” he said. “Come— I’ll take you to the house.” He stayed close to her as they continued through the forest, occasionally moving to push a branch out of the way, or taking her hand to guide her over a rough place on the path. As familiar as she was with the woods of Stony Cross Park, Lottie had no need of his assistance. But she accepted the help with demur. And she did not protest when he paused again, his lips finding hers easily in the darkness. His mouth was hot and sweet as he kissed her compulsively… swift kisses, languid ones, kisses that ranged from intense need to wicked flirtation. Drugged with pleasure, Lottie let her hands wander to the thick dishevelment of his hair, the iron-hard nape of his neck. When the blistering heat rose to an untenable degree, Lord Sydney groaned softly. “Charlotte…” “Lottie,” she told him breathlessly. He pressed his lips to her temple and cuddled her against his powerful body as if she were infinitely fragile. “I never thought I would find someone like you,” he whispered. “I’ve looked for you so long… needed you…” Lottie shivered and dropped her head to his shoulder. “This isn’t real,” she said faintly. His lips touched her neck, finding a place that made her arch involuntarily. “What’s real, then?” She gestured to the yew hedge that bordered the estate garden. “Everything back there.” His arms tightened, and he spoke in a muffled voice. “Let me come to your room. Just for a little while.” Lottie responded with a trembling laugh, knowing exactly what would happen if she allowed that. “Absolutely not.” Soft, hot kisses drifted over her skin. “You’re safe with me. I would never ask for more than you were willing to give.” Lottie closed her eyes, her head spinning. “The problem is,” she said ruefully, “I am willing to give you entirely too much.” She felt the curve of his smile against her cheek. “Is that a problem?” “Oh, yes.” Pulling away from him, Lottie held her hands to her hot face and sighed unsteadily. “We must stop this. I don’t trust myself with you.” “You shouldn’t,” he agreed hoarsely. -Lottie & Nick

One day, because I was bored in our usual spot, next to the merry-go-round, Françoise had taken me on an excursion – beyond the frontier guarded at equal intervals by the little bastions of the barley-sugar sellers – into those neighbouring but foreign regions where the faces are unfamiliar, where the goat cart passes; then she had gone back to get her things from her chair, which stood with its back to a clump of laurels; as I waited for her, I was trampling the broad lawn, sparse and shorn, yellowed by the sun, at the far end of which a statue stands above the pool, when, from the path, addressing a little girl with red hair playing with a shuttlecock in front of the basin, another girl, while putting on her cloak and stowing her racket, shouted to her, in a sharp voice: ‘Good-bye, Gilberte, I’m going home, don’t forget we’re coming to your house tonight after dinner.’ That name, Gilberte, passed by close to me, evoking all the more forcefully the existence of the girl it designated in that it did not merely name her as an absent person to whom one is referring, but hailed her directly; thus it passed close by me, in action so to speak, with a power that increased with the curve of its trajectory and the approach of its goal; – transporting along with it, I felt, the knowledge, the notions about the girl to whom it was addressed, that belonged not to me, but to the friend who was calling her, everything that, as she uttered it, she could see again or at least held in her memory, of their daily companionship, of the visits they paid to each other, and all that unknown experience which was even more inaccessible and painful to me because conversely it was so familiar and so tractable to that happy girl who grazed me with it without my being able to penetrate it and hurled it up in the air in a shout; – letting float in the air the delicious emanation it had already, by touching them precisely, released from several invisible points in the life of Mlle Swann, from the evening to come, such as it might be, after dinner, at her house; – forming, in its celestial passage among the children and maids, a little cloud of precious colour, like that which, curling over a lovely garden by Poussin,15 reflects minutely like a cloud in an opera, full of horses and chariots, some manifestation of the life of the gods; – casting finally, on that bald grass, at the spot where it was at once a patch of withered lawn and a moment in the afternoon of the blonde shuttlecock player (who did not stop launching the shuttlecock and catching it again until a governess wearing a blue ostrich feather called her), a marvellous little band the colour of heliotrope as impalpable as a reflection and laid down like a carpet over which I did not tire of walking back and forth with lingering, nostalgic and desecrating steps, while Françoise cried out to me: ‘Come on now, button up your coat and let’s make ourselves scarce’, and I noticed for the first time with irritation that she had a vulgar way of speaking, and alas, no blue feather in her hat.

Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was a small dream about time. I was dead, I guess, in deep blank space high up above many white stars. My own consciousness had been disclosed to me, and I was happy. Then I saw far below me a long, curved band of color. As I came closer, I saw that it stretched endlessly in either direction, and I understood that I was seeing all the time of the planet where I had lived. It looked like a woman’s tweed scarf; the longer I studied any one spot, the more dots of color I saw. There was no end to the deepness and variety of dots. At length I started to look for my time, but, although more and more specks of color and deeper and more intricate textures appeared in the fabric, I couldn’t find my time, or any time at all that I recognized as being near my time. I couldn’t make out so much as a pyramid. Yet as I looked at the band of time, all the individual people, I understood with special clarity, were living at that very moment with great emotion, in intricate, detail, in their individual times and places, and they were dying and being replaced by ever more people, one by one, like stitches in which wholly worlds of feeling and energy were wrapped in a never-ending cloth. I remembered suddenly the color and texture of our life as we knew it- these things had been utterly forgotten- and I thought as I searched for it on the limitless band, “that was a good time then, a good time to be living.” And I began to remember our time. I recalled green fields with carrots growing, one by one, in slender rows. Men and women in bright vests and scarves came and pulled the carrots out of the soil and carried them in baskets to shaded kitchens, where they scrubbed them with yellow brushes under running water. I saw white-faced cattle lowing and wading in creeks. I saw May apples in forests, erupting through leaf-strewn paths. Cells on the root hairs of sycamores split and divided, and apples grew spotted and striped in the fall. Mountains kept their cool caves and squirrels raced home to their nests through sunlight and shade. I remembered the ocean, and I seemed to be in the ocean myself, swimming over orange crabs that looked like coral, or off the deep Atlantic banks where whitefish school. Or again I saw the tops of poplars, and the whole sky brushed with clouds in pallid streaks, under which wild ducks flew with outstretched necks, and called, one by one, and flew on. All these things I saw. Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remember the life of my time with increasing feeling. At last I saw the earth as a globe in space, and I recalled the ocean’s shape and the form of continents, saying to myself with surprise as I looked at the planet, “yes, that’s how it was then, that part there was called France.” I was filled with the deep affection of nostalgia- and then I opened my eyes. We all ought to be able to conjure up sights like these at will, so that we can keep in mind the scope of texture’s motion in time.

Sophia counted six clangs of the bell before Mr. Grayson jolted fully awake. He looked up at her, startled and flushed. As though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. She smiled. Rubbing his eyes, he rose to his feet. “Will I shock you, Miss Turner, if I remove my coat?” Sophia felt a twinge of disappointment. When would he stop treating her with this forced politesse, maintaining this distance between them? How many tales of passionate encounters must she spin before he finally understood that she was no less wicked than he, only less experienced? Perhaps it was time to take more aggressive measures. “By all means, remove your coat.” She tilted her eyes to cast him a saucy look. “Mr. Grayson, I’m not an innocent schoolgirl. You will have to try harder than that to shock me.” His lips curved in a subtle smile. “I’ll take that under advisement.” She watched as he shook the heavy topcoat from his shoulders and peeled it down his arms. He draped the coat over the back of a chair before sitting back down. The damp lawn of his shirt clung to his shoulders and arms. A pleasant shiver rippled down to Sophia’s toes. “It doesn’t suit you anyway,” she said, loading her brush with paint. He gave her a bemused look as he unknotted his cravat and pulled it loose. She inwardly rejoiced. Now, if only she could convince him to do away with his waistcoat…” “The coat,” she explained, when his eyebrows remained raised. “It doesn’t suit you.” “Why not? Is the color wrong?” The sudden seriousness in his tone surprised her. “No, the color is perfectly fine. It’s the cut that’s unflattering. That style is tailored to gentlemen of leisure, lean and slender. But as you are so fond of telling me, Mr. Grayson, you are no gentleman. Your shoulders are too broad for fashion.” “Is that so?” He chuckled as he undid his cuffs. Sophia stared as he turned up his sleeves, baring one tanned muscled forearm, then the other. “What style of garments would best suit me, then?” “Other than a toga?” He rewarded her jest with an easy smile. Sophia dabbed at her canvas, pleased to be making progress at last. “I think you need something less restrictive. Something like a sailor’s garb. Or perhaps a captain’s.” “Truly?” His gaze became thoughtful, then searching. “And even dressed in plain seaman’s clothes, would you still find me handsome enough? In my own way?” “No.” She allowed his brow to crease a moment before continuing. “I should find you surpassingly handsome. In every way.” She mixed paint slowly on her palette and gave him a coy look. “And what of my attire? If you had your way, how would you dress me?” “If I had my way…I wouldn’t.” A thrill raced through Sophia’s body. Her cheeks burned, and her eyes dropped to her lap. She forced her gave back up to meet his. Now was not the moment to lose courage. Nothing held sway over a man’s intentions like jealousy. “Gervais once kept me naked for an entire day so he could paint me.” He blinked. “He painted a nude study of you?” “No. He painted me. I took off my clothes and stretched out on the bed while he dressed me in pigment. Gervais called me his perfect, blank canvas. He painted lavender orchids here”-she traced a small circle just above her breast-“and little vines twining down…” She slid her hand down and noted with delight how his eyes followed its path. “I feigned the grippe and refused to bathe for a week.” Desire and jealous rage warred in his countenance, yet he remained as immobile as one of Lord Elgin’s marble sculptures. What would it take to spur the man into action?

Her enormous eyes were staring straight into his silver ones. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t let go of her hand. He couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it. He was lost in those blue-violet eyes, somewhere in their mysterious, haunting, sexy depths. What was it he had decided? Decreed? He was not going to allow her anywhere near Peter’s funeral. Why was his resolve fading away to nothing? He had reasons, good reasons. He was certain of it. Yet now, drowning in her huge eyes, his thoughts on the length of her lashes, the curve of her cheek, the feel of her skin, he couldn’t think of denying her. After all, she hadn’t tried to defy him; she didn’t know he had made the decision to keep her away from Peter’s funeral. She was including him in the plans, as if they were a unit, a team. She was asking his advice. Would it be so terrible to please her over this? It was important to her. He blinked to keep from falling into her gaze and found himself staring at the perfection of her mouth. The way her lips parted so expectantly. The way the tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her full lower lip. Almost a caress. He groaned. An invitation. He braced himself to keep from leaning over and tracing the exact path with his own tongue. He was being tortured. Tormented. Her perfect lips formed a slight frown. He wanted to kiss it right off her mouth. “What is it, Gregori?” She reached up to touch his lips with her fingertip. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest. He caught her wrist and clamped it against his pumping heart. “Savannah,” he whispered. An ache. It came out that way. An ache. He knew it. She knew it. God, he wanted her with every cell in his body. Untamed. Wild. Crazy. He wanted to bury himself so deep inside her that she would never get him out. Her hand trembled in answer, a slight movement rather like the flutter of butterfly wings. He felt it all the way through his body. “It is all right, mon amour,” he said softly. “I am not asking for anything.” “I know you’re not. I’m not denying you anything. I know we need to have time to become friends, but I’m not going to deny what I feel already. When you’re close to me, my body temperature jumps about a thousand degrees.” Her blue eyes were dark and beckoning, steady on his. He touched her mind very gently, almost tenderly, slipped past her guard and knew what courage it took for her to make the admission. She was nervous, even afraid, but willing to meet him halfway. The realization nearly brought him to his knees. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and the silver eyes heated to molten mercury, but his face was as impassive as ever. “I think you are a witch, Savannah, casting a spell over me.” His hand cupped her face, his thumb sliding over her delicate cheekbone. She moved closer, and he felt her need for comfort, for reassurance. Her arms slid tentatively around his waist. Her head rested on his sternum. Gregori held her tightly, simply held her, waiting for her trembling to cease. Waiting for the warmth of his body to seep into hers. Gregori’s hand came up to stroke the thick length of silken, ebony hair, taking pleasure in the simple act. It brought a measure of peace to both of them. He would never have believed what a small thing like holding a woman could do to a man. She was turning his heart inside out; unfamiliar emotions surged wildly through him and wreaked havoc with his well-ordered life. In his arms, next to his hard strength, she felt fragile, delicate, like an exotic flower that could be easily broken. “Do not worry about Peter, ma petite,” he whispered into the silken strands of her hair. “We will see to his resting place tomorrow.” “Thank you, Gregori,” Savannah said. “It matters a lot to me.” He lifted her easily into his arms. “I know. It would be simpler if I did not. Come to my bed, chérie, where you belong.

What is called nature is certainly not a spirit at work in things whose aim is to resolve problems by "the most simple means"--but neither is it simply the projection of a power of thought or determination present in us. It is that which makes there be, simply, and at a single stroke such a coherent structure of a being, which we then laboriously express in speaking of a "space-time continuum," of "curved space," or simply of "the most determinate path" of the anaclastic line. Nature is that which establishes privileged states, the "dominant traits" ( in the genetic sense of the word) which we try to comprehend through the combination of concepts--nature is an ontological derivation, a pure "passage," which is neither the only nor the best one possible, which stands at the horizon of our thought as a fact which there can be no question of deducing. This facticity of nature is revealed to us in the universe of perception.

The race across the mountain continued, but the mountains still glowed when it was their time to glow. They still cried when it was time for rain. And they still told you stories, if you only knew how to listen to them. But I was no longer one of those who knew how to listen … who knew how to laugh and cry with them … I was an athlete … I was an alpinist. I spoke of walls and overhangs. I ran and trained and counted my ascents. I fell prey to the folly of categorization, adding up points, comparing myself to others and making myself poorer and poorer. I was turning into a shallow and stupid craftsman. All I saw were numbers, summit heights, sizes of walls, estimations of difficulty. I only saw Roman and Arabic numerals, commas and plus and minus signs. My hands and legs were strong and unstoppable but my head became empty and my heart no longer beat faster because it was being overwhelmed by beauty – only because of physical effort. My path was rapidly turning downhill while the curve of my success continued to rise. One climb became indistinguishable from another. I functioned like a well-oiled machine that will continue to run on empty if no one stops it. And thus the wheels of my machine kept turning without purpose, faster and faster, until my children reminded me that the birds in the forest were still singing.” Excerpt From: Bernadette McDonald. “Alpine Warriors.

Not Yet” mindset, as described by Carol Dweck: “I heard about a high school in Chicago where students had to pass a certain number of courses to graduate, and if they didn’t pass a course, they got the grade ‘Not Yet.’ And I thought that was fantastic, because if you get a failing grade, you think, I’m nothing, I’m nowhere. But if you get the grade ‘Not Yet’, you understand that you’re on a learning curve. It gives you a path into the future.

When you find your path, and you find your one, there’s no reason for drama. When you’re ready to accept it into your life, happiness is right there waiting for you.

She felt that, before she went back, she must slip along the pasture fence and explore a certain path which she saw entering the grove of spruce and maple further down. She did—and found that it led straight into Fairyland,—along the bank of a wide, lovely brook—a wild, dear, little path with lady-ferns beckoning and blowing along it, the shyest of elfin June-bells under the firs, and little whims of loveliness at every curve. She breathed in the tang of fir-balsam and saw the shimmer of gossamers high up in the boughs, and everywhere the frolic of elfin lights and shadows. Here and there the young maple branches interlaced as if to make a screen for dryad faces—Emily knew all about dryads, thanks to her father—and the great sheets of moss under the trees were meet for Titania’s couch. “This is one of the places where dreams grow,” said Emily happily.

My eyes trace the curves of her body, drawing a path from her delicate throat to her thick thighs.

1249 A.D. The Keeper pulled the illuminated manuscript from its hiding place and spread it on the stone hearth. The golden border caught the fire's light, and its reflection looked like an eye flashing open. At once the illusion vanished, but something else caught the Keeper's attention, and the shock of it took his breath away. Within the enlarged first letter, the miniature of the goddess unlocking the jaws of hell had changed; her beauty was gone, replaced by the cruel gaze of a Follower. Was this another change the Scroll had wrought upon itself, or had someone tampered with its magic again? The Keeper dipped his paintbrush in brown pigment and began drawing a tree on the parchment, curving its limbs over and around the calligraphy until the words were hidden in a maze of twisting branches. For centuries he had devoted himself to uncovering this forbidden knowledge, and now he had assumed the duty of protecting it. He wished he could follow the Path, but the Prophecy was clear; only the child of a fallen goddess and an evil spirit could follow the steps without fear of the Scroll's curse. Many had died trying to use its magic, but that wasn't the reason the Keeper now kept it hidden, denying its existence. A dangerous transformation had taken place. The Scroll had somehow come to life, as if the words written on the parchment had infused it with an instinct for survival. He could feel it now, alert and suspicious beneath his fingers. When it was no longer watching him, he dropped his brush, grabbed a reed pin, dipped it into the glutinous black ink, and wrote one final instruction on the last page. His deception awakened whatever lived within the manuscript. Intense light shot through him with deadly force, binding his existence to that of the Secret Scroll for all time.

Through her open front door as I turn down my path her face peeks out as I walk back. There’s the noise of the start of the New Year countdown from ten seconds to midnight and I have the sudden urge to turn around, run back down the path and scoop her into my arms, press her soft curves against me and kiss her, hard. 
Instead I hurry my pace to get inside and check on my little brother and grandmother. 
Happy New Year.

timelike curve is a path through spacetime that never strays beyond the cone of space accessible at the speed of light. In other words, it’s a path that a spacecraft could follow (an ordinary, non-Star-Trek-warp-drive kind of spacecraft). When influenced by an intense gravitational field, the light cone tips toward warped space (a.k.a., gravity). Enough tipping and the timelike curve twists back on itself, eventually into a complete circle. It’s what astrophysicists call a closed timelike curve, or CTC.

Closed timelike curves come in several forms but they all have one startling characteristic in common: a portion of the path points backward in time. Any spacecraft following that portion of the CTC path would end up in the past. Crazy, but theoretically true and mathematically proven.

Second by second. His hands trace my curves through my dress before finding bare skin along my back, leaving a scorching path that continues down the backs of my thighs. I’m lost in him.

The path now is steep as hell—the new curve we’re on demands downright disruptive emissions cuts” of as much as 50 percent a decade. As the geophysicist Michael Mann put it, “what would have been a bunny slope was now a double black diamond.” That means, Steffen explained, that “climate action can no longer be orderly, gradual, or even continuous with our expectations

For a man with a plan, there is but one path. For one with none, limitless options open up. A myriad roads appeared in front of him. Curving in and out, they each seemed to flutter their lashes to lure him into an embrace.

When the curve of their neck suddenly becomes the only path you want to take. When their lips are your longitude and the unique swirl of color in the center of their irises is your latitude. And every part of you knows that as long as they’re breathing you have a reason to stay alive.

I don’t know what to say,” I uttered. He lifted a shoulder. “There is nothing to say, Evelyn. I wouldn’t take back my friendship with Delilah even if I could. I thought I’d been careful with her feelings, but I hadn’t been careful enough, which I regret.” He heaved a long sigh. “I wasn’t going to ask you for more than you can give.” “I don’t know what I can give…” “But you know you can’t give me anything.” I rubbed the aching hollowness in my chest. “This shouldn’t matter. We don’t know each other.” He scoffed, and it wasn’t the nicest sound. “Just because you haven’t been paying attention to me doesn’t mean I haven’t paid attention to you.” He was right, of course. Beyond Delilah’s crush and his subsequent rejection, Ivan had not been on my radar. He’d had to put himself in my path for me to notice him, and I had no idea how long he’d been noticing me. His mouth curved into a smile that wasn’t at all happy. “It’s all right. I understand now. I’ll leave you alone.” “You don’t have to leave me alone, it’s just—” “No.” He shook his head. “No, I have to leave you alone.

**Verse 1:** When the storms roll in, and the skies turn black, I plant my feet, ain't no turning back. The winds may howl, the floods may rise, But I've got a fire that never dies. **Chorus:** Resilience, it's my middle name, Through the thunder and the rain. I bend, I don't break, I stand tall, With resilience, I'll weather it all. **Verse 2:** Life's thrown curves, knocked me off my track, But like a boomerang, I always come back. Scars on my skin, stories they tell, Of a survivor's heart that knows no farewell. **Chorus:** Resilience, it's the song I sing, In the face of everything. I bend, I don't break, I stand tall, With resilience, I'll outlast it all. **Bridge:** There's a strength that grows, with every fall, A voice that rises, above it all. I'm not just a number, I'm not just a name, I'm resilience, in this life's game. **Chorus:** Resilience, it's the path I choose, With every challenge, I refuse to lose. I bend, I don't break, I stand tall, With resilience, I'll conquer it all. **Outro:** So let the records show, let the story be told, Of a spirit unbroken, a will untold. With resilience, I'm uncontainable, Unstoppable, and unbreakable. May this song inspire strength and determination in anyone facing adversity. Keep standing tall!

He soon laid eyes on the enemy again – warriors of Lorgar’s Legion, advancing through the unnatural dusk with raw confidence, surrounded by the spectral flicker of half-instantiated daemonkind. Their armour was carved with words of power, decorated with the bones and the flesh of those they had slain, their helms deformed into outstretched maws, or serpent’s mouths, or the leer of some Neverborn warp prince. Their cantrips stank and pulsed around them, making the natural air recoil and mist shred itself into appalled ribbons. They were engorged with their veil-drawn power, sick on it, their blades running with new-cut fat and their belts hung with severed scalps. For all that, they were still warriors, and they detected Valdor’s presence soon enough. Nine curved blades flickered into guard, nine genhanced bodies made ready to take him down. He raced straight into the heart of them, lashing out with his spear, slicing clean through corrupted ceramite. The combined blades danced, snickering in and out of one another’s path as if in some rehearsed ritual of dance-murder, all with the dull gold of the lone Custodian at its centre. A poisoned gladius nearly caught his neck. A fanged axe-edge nearly plunged into his chest. Long talons nearly pulled him down, ripe to be trodden into the mire under the choreo graphed stamp of bronze-chased boots. But not quite. They were always just a semi-second too slow, a fraction too predictable. The gap between the fighters was small, but it remained unbridgeable. His spear slammed and cut, parried and blocked, an eye-blink ahead of the lesser blades, a sliver firmer and more lethal in its trajectory, until black blood was thrown up around it in thick flurries and the lens-fire in the Word Bearers’ helms died out, one by one. Afterwards, Valdor withdrew, breathing heavily, taking a moment to absorb the visions he had been gifted with each kill. Lorgar’s scions were little different to the true daemons in what they gave him – brief visions of eternal torment, wrapped up in archaic religious ciphers and a kind of perpetually forced ecstasy. They were steeped in some of the purest, deepest strands of Chaos, wilfully dredging up the essence of its mutating, despoiling genius and turning it, through elaborate tortures, into a way of war. To fight them was to be reminded, more acutely than with most others, of the consequences of defeat.

They smiled and shook hands, then led Pickett back up the dock and along gracefully curving paths of crushed shell, punctuated by marble benches set into the foliage, heavy with tropical flowers. They climbed a set of marble stairs, went down another pathway, climbed again. Despite the sun, it was cool under the palms, and a gentle but constant breeze stirred the flower-fragrant air. Now and then, Pickett spied buildings between the trees: alabaster marble, like every other structure. Here and there a peacock strutted across the walk, and huge parrots stared down at them from bottlebrush trees.

This is the Rocketship Growth Rate—the precise pace at which a startup must grow to break out. How do you calculate this rate of growth? First, by setting a goal of exceeding a billion dollars of valuation—thus being in a position to achieve an IPO—and working backward. Hitting a $1 billion valuation generally requires at least $100 million in top-line recurring revenue annually, based on the rough market multiple of 10x revenue. You’d want to hit that in 7–10 years, to sustain the engagement of the key employees and also reward investors who often work in decade-long time cycles. These two goals—revenue and time—work together to create an overall constraint. Neeraj Agarwal, a venture capitalist and investor in B2B companies, first calculated this growth rate by arguing that SaaS companies in particular need to follow a precise path to reach these numbers:64 Establish great product-market fit Get to $2 million in ARR (annual recurring revenue) Triple to $6 million in ARR Triple to $18 million Double to $36 million Double to $72 million Double to $144 million SaaS companies like Marketo, Netsuite, Workday, Salesforce, Zendesk, and others have all roughly followed this curve. And the rough timing makes sense. The first phase, in which the team initially gets to product/market fit, takes 1–3 years. Add on the time to reach the rest of the growth milestones, and the entire process might take 6–9 years. Of course, after year 10, the company might still be growing quickly, though it’s more common for it to be growing 50 percent annualized rather than doubling. The argument is that products with network effects both can see higher growth rates as they tap into the various network forces I’ve discussed, and can compound these growth rates for a longer period of time—and looking at the data, I think that’s generally true.

Or we can encounter the square as tangential to our sinuous spiral curve - a temporary container for a part of our life’s path. These hates and these attachments we feel are the square’s edges for us at any given moment. As we spiral we see them as limits that give shape; we approach these old feelings-thoughts and accept them, touch them and let them touch us without fear, because we know they are merely the limit of a spiral path that runs at a tangent to those ‘hard lines.’ In time, those old attachments and hates will seem like such a small square compared to the new regions we explore.

And now tell me"-in the end I could not restrain myself "how did you manage to know?" "My good Adso," my master said, "during our whole journey I have been teaching you to recognize the evidence through which the world speaks to us like a great book. Alanus de Insulis said that omnis mundi creatura quasi liber et pictura nobis est in speculum and he was thinking of the endless array of symbols with which God, through His creatures, speaks to us of the eternal life. But the universe is even more talkative than Alanus thought, and it speaks not only of the ultimate things (which it does always in an obscure fashion) but also of closer things, and then it speaks quite clearly. I am almost embarrassed to repeat to you what you should know. At the cross roads, on the still-fresh snow, a horse's hoofprints stood out very neatly, heading for the path to our left. Neatly spaced, those marks said that the hoof was small and round, and the gallop quite regular --and so I deduced the nature of the horse, and the fact that it was not running wildly like a crazed animal. At the point where the pines formed a natural roof, some twigs had been freshly broken off at a height of five feet. One of the blackberry bushes where the animal must have turned to take the path to his right, proudly switching his handsome tail, still held some long black horsehairs in its brambles. ... You will not say, finally, that you do not know that path leads to the dungheap, because as we passed the lower curve we saw the spill of waste down the sheer cliff below the great south tower, staining the snow; and from the situation of the crossroads, the path could only lead in that direction." "Yes," I said, "but what about the small head, the sharp ears, the big eyes...?" "I am not sure he has those features, but no doubt the monks firmly believe he does. As Isidore of Seville said, the beauty of a horse requires that the head be small, siccum prope pelle ossibus adhae rente, short and pointed ears, big eyes, flaring nostrils, erect neck, thick mane and tail, round and solid hoofs.' If the horse whose passing I inferred had not really been the finest of the stables, stableboys would have been out chasing him, but instead, the cellarer in person had undertaken the search. And a monk who considers a horse excel lent, whatever his natural forms, can only see him as the auctoritates have described him, especially if" and here he smiled slyly in my direction-"the describer is a learned Benedictine." "All right," I said, "but why Brunellus?" "May the Holy Ghost sharpen your mind, son!" my master exclaimed. "What other name could he possibly have? Why, even the great Buridan, who is about to become rector in Paris, when he wants to use a horse in one of his logical examples, always calls it Brunellus This was my master's way. He not only knew how to read the great book of nature, but also knew the way monks read the books of Scripture, and how they thought through them. A gift that, as we shall see, was to prove useful to him in the days to follow. His explanation, moreover, seemed to me at that point so obvious that my humiliation at not having discovered it by myself was surpassed only by my pride at now being a sharer in it, and I was almost congratulat ing myself on my insight. Such is the power of the truth that, like good, it is its own propagator. And praised be the holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ for this splendid revelation I was granted.

I was standing in a parking lot, the roof above me cracking and splitting apart, the place about to collapse. The roar of a crowd sounded from beyond the building and I ran to a barred window, looking outside where the Lunar Brotherhood were rioting. Ryder was being dragged through them and I fought with the bars to try and get out, my magic failing me as I bellowed his name. They stabbed him, shouting traitor as they made him bleed, dragging him to a huge stone statue of a Centaur rearing up and pointing to the stars. They wound a vine over its outstretched arm and strung Ryder up and the mob worked to rip him to pieces in a bloody execution. “No!” I cried, panic consuming me as I sought out other paths, ways to avoid this fate, but they were closing in, so many of them curving back onto this one. “How do I save him?” I demanded of the stars as I tried to find a way out. “This day will come,” they whispered inside my head. “How do I stop it?” I begged. “You cannot,” they answered. “Please, I’ll do anything,” I said in desperation. “You will see this come to pass, Gabriel Nox, son of fate,” they answered. “I can’t, I won’t let it happen,” I insisted as my heart began to crack in my chest. “How can I make sure he doesn’t die?” “You ask the wrong questions,” they answered, their voices seeming to slip away into the distance. “What’s the right question?” I begged, feeling them leaving me behind with the weight of this unthinkable destiny laid out before me. They disappeared from my mind like a dying wind and my anxiety flared. “How do I save him?” I cried, but they were gone and I stood alone in an endless expanse of white, too bright to see anything beyond it. I squinted against the light, struggling to focus and suddenly the world shifted. I stood at the base of a dark mountain in Alestria and up ahead of me was a hooded figure leading the Black Card behind them up a rocky path. I could sense the very time and date this would happen. It was one week away on the full moon. King was going to hold a ritual larger than they ever had before. And that would be our chance to strike. But if we failed, I didn’t hold out much hope for the people of Solaria.

After traversing the open plain, the road led through a grove of young ebony trees, where guinea-fowls and a hartebeest were seen; it then wound, with all the characteristic eccentric curves of a goat-path, up and down a succession of land-waves crested by the dark green foliage of the mango, and the scantier and lighter-coloured leaves of the enormous calabash. The depressions were filled with jungle of more or less density, while here and there opened glades, shadowed even during noon by thin groves of towering trees.

After traversing the open plain, the road led through a grove of young ebony trees, where guinea-fowls and a hartebeest were seen; it then wound, with all the characteristic eccentric curves of a goat-path, up and down a succession of land-waves crested by the dark green foliage of the mango, and the scantier and lighter-coloured leaves of the enormous calabash. The depressions were filled with jungle of more or less density, while here and there opened glades, shadowed even during noon by thin groves of towering trees. At our approach fled in terror flocks of green pigeons, jays, ibis, turtledoves, golden pheasants, quails and moorhens, with crows and hawks, while now and then a solitary pelican winged its way to the distance.

After traversing the open plain, the road led through a grove of young ebony trees, where guinea-fowls and a hartebeest were seen; it then wound, with all the characteristic eccentric curves of a goat-path, up and down a succession of land-waves crested by the dark green foliage of the mango, and the scantier and lighter-coloured leaves of the enormous calabash. The depressions were filled with jungle of more or less density, while here and there opened glades, shadowed even during noon by thin groves of towering trees. At our approach fled in terror flocks of green pigeons, jays, ibis, turtledoves, golden pheasants, quails and moorhens, with crows and hawks, while now and then a solitary pelican winged its way to the distance. Nor was this enlivening prospect without its pairs of antelope, and monkeys which hopped away like Australian kangaroos; these latter were of good size, with round bullet heads, white breasts, and long tails tufted at the end. We arrived at Kikoka by 5 P.M., having loaded and unloaded our pack animals four times, crossing one deep puddle, a mud sluice, and a river, and performed a journey of eleven miles. The settlement of Kikoka is a collection of straw huts; not built after any architectural style, but after a bastard form, invented by indolent settlers from the Mrima and Zanzibar for the purpose of excluding as much sunshine as possible from the eaves and interior. A sluice and some wells provide them with water, which though sweet is not particularly wholesome or appetizing, owing to the large quantities of decayed matter which is washed into it by the rains, and is then left to corrupt in it. A

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These entities, angelic, or of other nature and origins have been called forth through deep resonance in your soul. They are here to support and honor your specific makeup and the particular life missions and themes you came to experience and alchemize within your system. Opening to them may be likened unto you purchasing a car which is designed specifically to hug and support every curve of your body, and it being designed in a way that every switch or control in the vehicle is in the very place which works best for you. The smell of the interior is specifically enlivening to your senses, the headlights offer different unique clarity and views, the tires adjust for all weather patterns and conditions. You feel held and have the tools to go on any adventure and explore. In saying this, we are not implying that knowing your guides will remove all pain or suffering from this experience of life, for there are specific pains and sufferings that we have chosen to step into for our highest understanding and maturation. Under the nurturance and care of our guides, we may be held and lovingly nudged down the path to our own reconciliation and joy.

Clouds that curve mean a path that swerves.

Her brow furrowed as blood filled her mouth. She looked down, and I followed the path of her gaze, seeing the long, curved talons piercing her midsection. My head snapped up, and I stared into the blood-red eyes of one of the Irvikuva. He smiled triumphantly at me over her head, displaying a mouth full of pointed black teeth. “Liam?” she gurgled. I was too slow. Dianna’s fingertips brushed mine as she was yanked into the thick brush and out of sight.

What happens to a billiard ball, say, if you shoot it through a wormhole at its slightly younger self, trying to deflect it off course? A physicist at the Russian Space Institute in Moscow named Igor Novikov worked out the math that would govern a trans-temporal, suicidal (or at least self-inhibiting) billiards game (a sort of cross between billiards and Russian roulette), and he discovered something remarkably reassuring: physical law would actually prevent the billiard ball from inhibiting its past self. In fact, a principle of self-consistency would govern a wormhole-riddled universe. Even if an object could enter a wormhole at some time point B and emerge earlier, at some time point A, it could never actually interfere with its own entry into the wormhole at that later time point B.7 Two of Thorne’s students checked and found that Novikov was right: a time-traveling billiard ball cannot take the place of its younger self.8 (According to physicist Nick Herbert, it is analogous to the exclusion principle discovered by Wolfgang Pauli, which prevents any two electrons from occupying the same states simultaneously—a principle that ultimately makes the world built of tiny probabilistic particles solid.9) More recently, the physicist Seth Lloyd designed and actually conducted such an experiment using a photon and what he called a quantum gun—essentially shooting the photon a few billionths of a second back in time to interfere with its past self. He discovered he couldn’t. “No matter how hard the time-traveler tries, she finds her grandfather is a tough guy to kill.”10 This does not mean that time travel is impossible. Quite the contrary. It means that the time-traveling object encounters and interacts with its earlier self in precisely such a way that its later entry into the wormhole is facilitated rather than impeded. In other words, all possible paths of a billiard ball entering a wormhole would, upon exiting the wormhole earlier, nudge itself into the mouth of the wormhole later, thus completing the causal tautology, or what physicists call the closed-timelike curve. These days, quantum physicists like Lloyd use the idiom of postselection, a kind of informational-causal Darwinism that ensures that the only information that survives its journey into the past is information that does not foreclose its origins in the future. It’s not like there’s a Causality Police stepping in now and again to prevent grandfather paradoxes from occurring, or that time travelers need to step gingerly in the past to avoid disturbing things (a common trope in time-travel stories)—although they may in fact find that funny paranormal experiences impede them in ways they hadn’t expected. Guns might misfire at a crucial moment, for instance. (There’s nothing keeping you from trying to kill your grandfather.) But mainly, it is that time travelers from the future who survive their journey into the past are the ones whose actions somehow lead to the identical future from which they will have been sent back. Time loops, in other words.

THERE is a place in front of the Royal Exchange where the wide pavement reaches out like a promontory. It is in the shape of a triangle with a rounded apex. A stream of traffic runs on either side, and other streets send their currents down into the open space before it. Like the spokes of a wheel converging streams of human life flow into this agitated pool. Horses and carriages, carts, vans, omnibuses, cabs, every kind of conveyance cross each other's course in every possible direction. Twisting in and out by the wheels and under the horses' heads, working a devious way, men and women of all conditions wind a path over. They fill the interstices between the carriages and blacken the surface, till the vans almost float on human beings. Now the streams slacken, and now they rush amain, but never cease; dark waves are always rolling down the incline opposite, waves swell out from the side rivers, all London converges into this focus. There is an indistinguishable noise—it is not clatter, hum, or roar, it is not resolvable; made up of a thousand thousand footsteps, from a thousand hoofs, a thousand wheels—of haste, and shuffle, and quick movements, and ponderous loads; no attention can resolve it into a fixed sound. Blue carts and yellow omnibuses, varnished carriages and brown vans, green omnibuses and red cabs, pale loads of yellow straw, rusty-red iron cluking on pointless carts, high white wool- packs, grey horses, bay horses, black teams; sunlight sparkling on brass harness, gleaming from carriage panels; jingle, jingle, jingle! An intermixed and intertangled, ceaselessly changing jingle, too,of colour; flecks of colour champed, as it were, like bits in the horses' teeth, frothed and strewn about, and a surface always of dark-dressed people winding like the curves on fast-flowing water. This is the vortex and whirlpool, the centre of human life today on the earth. Now the tide rises and now it sinks, but the flow of these rivers always continues. Here it seethes and whirls, not for an hour only, but for all present time, hour by hour, day by day, year by year.

A unicorn stepped onto the path. Kiela gasped. Caz breathed, "Whoa." It was like moonlit water, so bright that tears sprang into Kiela's eyes as she looked at it. Shaped like a dreamer's idea of a horse, the unicorn was slender and graceful--- closer to a line drawing than an in-the-flesh creature. Its neck curved like a wave, with its mane as the sea foam. The longer Kiela looked at it, the more she saw that it wasn't as white as the moon, it was iridescent, like mother-of-pearl, with purples and reds and blues that swirled through its silvery white hide. Its horn was a slender spiral of gold. It regarded them with ocean-blue eyes.

Unlike man, woman is not utilitarian. She was not created as a block of muscle and bone. She has form and delicate shape. She is curves and hips, soft skin and bright lips. Even more than her body, her soul is beauty. The lights in her eyes dazzle when she smiles. And the world stops to notice.

You take lessons on how to better swing a golf club or a tennis racket, or to learn the proper techniques for shooting a basketball or throwing a curve ball, but what about running?

Her whole body shook as big, fat drops slid down her cheeks. Mortified, she covered her face as though she could hide her wailing. Strong arms enveloped her and Mitch pulled her close. She gave one thought to protest, and then sank into the warm, solid strength of his chest. He was big and broad, so different from what she was used to. The thought made her cry harder. She should push him away, but instead she curled closer. Needing him. She was the most wicked kind of woman. There’d be no escaping hell now. All those years of penance washed away by one night of rash behavior. Mitch kissed her temple, rubbing his hands over her bare skin. That he let her cry, and didn’t start lecturing her on emotional outbursts, made her want to crawl into him and never let go. He swayed them both, murmuring nonsense and tracing slow, soothing circles over her back. “Come on now, Princess. Tell me what’s wrong so I can help you.” She hiccupped into his shirt while she clung to him as though he were her life vest on a sinking ship. A great gush of air was followed by a hiccup. She blurted her very pressing and very embarrassing need. “I-I h-have to go to the b-b-bathroom.” The gentle sway stopped. A rumble in his chest was followed by a cough. He was trying not to laugh. The jerk. She sobbed harder: great heaping wails straight from the pit of her stomach. Now that she was on a roll, she keened pitifully, “A-and m-m-y f-feet hurt.” “It’s okay.” His tone was most definitely amused. “Why didn’t you go?” Now came the worst confession. “M-my dress i-is too b-big.” “Well, take it off.” Did he think she was an idiot? “I c-can’t get it off.” With a fresh batch of hysterics, her shoulders trembled as she buried her face in his T-shirt, now wet with tears. No one at the store had mentioned she’d need a crew of people to go to the bathroom, and now a stranger had to undress her. She hiccupped. They really should mention these kinds of details at the time of purchase. He ran his fingers down a million tiny buttons from the blades of her shoulders to the curve of her ass. “It’s okay. We can take care of this.” “B-but,” she cried. The thought almost unbearable. She was being tested. How was she supposed to be good when she had to disrobe in front of the most gorgeous man alive? “You’ll s-see me almost n-naked.” When he said nothing, fresh tears welled in her eyes. He probably thought she was propositioning him. Surely women threw themselves at him all the time. He rubbed her bare arms. “I’m thirty-four, Princess. I’ve seen a naked woman before.” “But you haven’t seen me.” No one had seen her—well, except Steve, but he hardly even counted. “I’m twenty-eight, and only one guy has seen me. And he isn’t like you. Why can’t you be someone else?” “Like who?” He trailed a path over her bare skin, creating a rush of tingles up and down her spine. She burrowed closer, some of her hysterics finally calming as his soothing but intoxicating presence worked its charm. “You’re not Mister Rogers, you know.” “You can trust me, Maddie. I won’t attack.” Ha!

a flagstone path curved into the darkness of space toward… who knows where? I knew—that’s knew—I had to follow that path.

Every time you hop down to a new curve, you have the opportunity to recalibrate the metrics by which you gauge yourself. Just as a business moves from the messiness of start-up life to codifying process in order to scale, as you start to identify the metrics that measure what matters to you deeply, you'll be able to lock and load, then barrel up the y-axis of success. I don't know how you'll define success. Mine is best described by paraphrasing Samuel Johnson: the ultimate result of all ambition is to be happy at home. As you look to tip the odds of success in your favor, beware the undertow of the status quo—current stakeholders in your life and career, including family members, may encourage you to just keep doing what you are doing. The metrics you've always used to measure yourself are comfortable, and so are your established habits; performing well on your current path is practically automatic. You can almost convince yourself that staying put is the right thing. But there really is no such thing as "standing still."14 The "use it or lose it" principle applies to our brain cells just as it does to the muscles in our bodies. Neuroplasticity has a reverse function. Connections recede through lack of activation, while continual stimulation of neural pathways keeps them healthy and active, including—and especially—when you step back, down, or sideways.

The drive for Quinn Buckley’s mansion appeared. She turned into the entranceway and came to a black wrought-iron gate with a small box standing at window level to her left. She opened the window and stuck her head out. “Taylor Jackson to see Mrs. Buckley, please.” There was no verbal acknowledgment, but after a few moments the massive gate creaked open. As Taylor maneuvered her car through the gates onto a narrow path, a deciduous forest swallowed her, beckoning and forbidding. The drive meandered through the woods for a few hundred feet. As she rounded a curve, the estate sprang into view. Even by Belle Meade standards, the property was massive. The plantation-style house was a white two-story washed-brick colonial with substantial columns forming a protected area that had been made into an elegant front porch. Four stone chimneys danced toward the sky. East and west wings abutted the main residence, and Taylor could see a separate five-car garage with a transom covered in ivy that led into the east wing. The west meandered into the woods, the architect finding natural beauty within his design. Black shutters blinked mournfully and the air seemed heavier as Taylor drove closer, as if the house itself was grieving. She

Stone paths meandered through flowers and shrubs to meet at a clear pool in the center. Around the perimeter, shops sat at the base of the largest trees, and stairs curved up the trunks behind them to a few homes built up in the canopy,

If you spin around and stretch your arm while holding a hammer, you’re exerting centripetal force to make the object follow a curved path. But you’ll feel the hammer pulling your hand from your body. That is centrifugal—a coercion in the opposite direction.

In the twenty-first century, the winners will be those who stay ahead of the change curve, constantly redefining their industries, creating new markets, blazing new trails, reinventing the competitive rules, challenging the status quo. To use Charles Handy’s words, it will be those who ‘invent the world’, not those who respond to it. Of course, it requires far less effort to follow in the tracks of the leader than it does to find your own migration path to the future, and there was a time when this was an option. But not any more. Tomorrow’s global markets will show no mercy to the me-too crowd.

She smiled up at him, her precise expression inscrutable in the shadows, and Jake found his gaze drawn to the inviting curve of her lips. His thoughts swiftly took a more intimate turn as his imagination led him down a path he knew was best left untrod. And it didn’t help his resolve when she didn’t look away. He reached up and fingered a loose curl at her temple and heard her breath quicken. He leaned closer, cupping the side of her face, all but able to taste her kiss and the softness of her lips. “Captain Winston, I—” She took a hasty step backward, her breath coming hard. “I’d best be getting inside. It’s late, after all.” The fullness of the moment and of what he’d been about to do hit him brick hard. “Mrs. Prescott—” Jake winced. “Please. Forgive me, ma’am. I—” “There’s nothing to forgive, Captain.” Her smile was brief and unconvincing. “Good night.” Far more hastily than he would’ve liked, she slipped in through the kitchen door and closed it behind her. Wishing he could recall the last moment and do it differently, he strode back to his cabin. It wasn’t until later that evening, flipping through his sketchbook, that he realized just how much of his thoughts this woman occupied. Just as she did the pages of his notebook. More than was wise, he knew, given his circumstances. And hers.

We are known by the footprints we leave are you leaving paths to success? ~Janiece Rendon

You are on the right path, keep going forward what you need will find you. ~Janiece Rendon Transition Strategist

To cease, to sleep, to replace this intermittent consciousness with better, more melancholy things uttered in secret to a stranger! … To cease, to flow, fluid as a river, as the ebb and flow of a vast sea along coasts seen in a night in which one could really sleep! … To cease, to be unknown and external, the stirring of branches in remote avenues, the tenuous falling of leaves that one senses without hearing them fall, the subtle sea of distant fountains, and the whole indistinct world of gardens at night, lost in endless complexities, the natural labyrinths of the dark!… To cease, to end once and for all, but yet to survive in another form, as the page of a book, a loose lock of hair, a swaying creeper outside a half-open window, insignificant footsteps on the fine gravel on the curve of a path, the last twist of smoke high above a village as it falls asleep, the idle whip of the waggoner stopped by the road in the morning … Absurdity, confusion, extinction -anything but life …

The moment we designate the used or maligned as a state with generative capacity, our reality expands. President John F. Kennedy once mentioned an old saying that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. 4 Failure is an orphan until we give it a narrative. Then it is palatable because it comes in the context of story, as stars within a beloved constellation. Once we reach a certain height we see how a rise often starts on a seemingly outworn foundation. The gift of failure is a riddle. Like the number zero, it will always be both the void and the start of infinite possibility. The arc is one for which there are few perfect words. Its most succinct summary may come from the wisdom in seventeenth-century poet and samurai Mizuta Masahide’s haiku: “My barn having burned down / I can now see the moon.” When we take the long view, we value the arc of a rise not because of what we have achieved at that height, but because of what it tells us about our capacity, due to how improbable, indefinable, and imperceptible the rise remains. There are advantages to certain opportunities, including their seeming opposite, that make our path as curved and as precise as an arrow’s course.

Now walking out onto the upper deck to find Minerva sailing steadily eastward on calm seas, Daniel is appalled that anyone ever doubted these matters. The horizon is a perfect line. The sun a red circle tracing a neat path through the sky and proceeding through an orderly series of color changes: red, yellow, white. Thus nature. Minerva, the human world, is a family of curves. There are no straight lines here. The decks are slightly arched, to shed water and supply greater strength. The masts flexed, impelled by the thrust of the sails, but restrained by webs of rigging, curved grids like Isaac’s sundial lines. Of course, wherever wind collects in a sail or water skims around the hull, it follows rules that Bernoulli has set down using the calculus, Leibniz’s version. Minerva is a congregation of Leibniz curves, navigating according to Bernoulli rules, across a vast mostly water-covered sphere whose size, precise shape, trajectory through the heavens and destiny were all laid down by Newton.

WISDOM By A DREAM" It was a dream, but a lesson too.. Neither it was fake, nor could say true... Bitter but the better, it was meant for... Wisdom was there, to ripe from the core... Flood waters was all around there, but me was firm... Wasn't any divine power in me, but holding by arm.... Who was holding my hand, this one also a being... But it left my hand, in sake of some thing... I have been floated away, from an end... But It turns its direction, as there was a curve bend... But suddenly I was stuck, middle of the way... Thought there is something for me, that let me stays... Innocence or what, a stupendous madness in me... Things taking advantages, and letting me free... What's the Tendency of beings, I didn't have that idea.. How to find it or which is the criteria... But this wisdom, had granted by the God... It was the way, he used on me to taught.. Still I'm flaunting in same but the path comes always new... Still stopped by things, but now me having a VIEW.. -Samar Sudha

An easy direct calculation shows that d dt exp[!g(t)][$(t) ! a] = 0, so, indeed, exp[!g(t)][$(t) ! a] = $(0) ! a. Taking t = 1, exp[!2"in($; a)][$(1) ! a] = $(0) ! a, or, exp[!2"in($; a)] = 1, which implies that n($; a) is indeed integral. The function is obviously continuous, and being integer, it is constant on connected components. Clearly also, it tends to 0 as a tends to +, so it is identically 0 on the unbounded component. ! The next result is an immediate corollary of the invariance of path integrals of analytic functions under homotopy.Proposition. If $0 and $1 are paths which are homotopic in C \ {a} for some point a, then n($0; a) = n($1; a). Cauchy’s Integral Formula. Let $ a piecewise smooth curve in a region G which is null homotopic there, and let f be an analytic function on G. Then n($; a)

It was as if I was right there with Magellan, following every curve of his pen as he wrote down his words to his beloved ones confiding his secret. I had become the ink, and the tip was tattooing my path. I was going to follow his dream, but still, I wished I knew why” – Celma Ribeiro

I had finally become aware of how much I was capable of, how little I had to lose, and how deep into Douglas's soft sand I had sunk. Magellan's letters, which Douglas had recited, had become part of my being. It was as if I was right there with Magellan, following every curve of his pen as he wrote down his words to his beloved ones confiding his secret. I had become the ink, and the tip was tattooing my path. I was going to follow his dream, but still, I wished I knew why.

-It is possible to vastly compress most learning. In a surprising number of cases, it is possible to do something in 1-10 months that is assumed to take 1-10 years. -The more you compress things, the more physical limiters become a bottleneck. All learning is physically limited. The brain is dependent on finite quantities of neurotransmitters, memories require REM and non-REM (NREM) sleep for consolidation, etc. The learning graph is not unlike the stress-recovery-hyperadaptation curves of weight training. -The more extreme your ambition, just as in sports, the more you need performance enhancement via unusual schedules, diet, drugs, etc. -Most important: due to the bipolar nature of the learning process, you can forecast setbacks. If you don't, you increase the likelihood of losing morale and quitting before the inflection point.

In a TEDx talk,9 Dweck said: I heard about a high school in Chicago where students had to pass a certain number of courses to graduate, and if they didn’t pass a course, they got the grade “Not Yet.” And I thought that was fantastic, because if you get a failing grade, you think, I’m nothing, I’m nowhere. But if you get the grade “Not Yet” you understand that you’re on a learning curve. It gives you a path into the future.

When space-time is curved, even the straightest possible paths acquire bumps and wiggles, because they must adapt to changes in the local geometry. Putting these ideas together, we say that bodies respond to the metric field. These bumps and wiggles in a body's space-time trajectory-in more pedestrian language, changes in its direction and speed-provide, according to general relativity, an alternative and more accurate description of the effects formerly known as gravity.

the cloud revolved to reveal its massive head, black and goatish, with a snout the size of a car and horns like curved swords forged of serrated bone. But the worst of it was the eyes, rows of eyes the color of congealed milk lining the snout and brow of the thing, rolling along divergent paths, scrolling black hourglass pupils.

every hunting trip his father’s men had pursued. Lad, don’t want you dying like your brother, you’re the last son of the Storm family lineage, and all.  Finding nothing all day, he scanned the muddy ground for tracks, kicking away needles and sticks. Off to the corner of his eye he spotted an indentation in the wet leaves. He strode over and bent down, flipping his hair away from his eyes for a better look. A thrill raced through him at the sight of fresh tracks. He raised his head and studied a sloshing stream blanketed with a soft mist, and squinted at a path illuminated by the four moon sisters. This was his kill.  “Did you find something?” said Mara, his best friend. She wore sage-green hunting pants and a ridiculously frilly white lace top, why, he had no idea. She was funny like that. As she came alongside, she raised her big brown eyes in concern, and glanced at the tracks. She chewed a cinnamon stick and frowned.  He grunted in response and pointed a short spear with a menacing, curved blade at the stream. This was his hunt and even though he’d failed to even bag anything as big as a deer, he swore he’d do whatever it took to bring it back home to father. Mara shook her head, the movement stubborn and terse, her short, brown hair slashing along her neck. “It’s too late. I’m serious, don’t look at me with those oh-please-Mara eyes of yours.”   “But the prints are fresh, an hour old at the most—”  “What are you trying to prove? We’ve been

Jake played the message again, catching the details this time. She was leaving the kids to him? Leaving them here? He swiped the phone off the table, and it hit the wall with a thump. This wasn’t what he wanted. Yes, he wanted the kids, but not at Meridith’s expense; they needed her. He needed her. Hadn’t she listened to his messages? Didn’t she know he loved her? If only he could make her believe it. How had his resolve to get the kids ended in such disaster? With him losing Meridith, with her losing the kids and going back to her lonely life clear across the country. Or would it be lonely? Now that the kids were out of the picture, was she planning to reunite with Stephen? That thought set him on a disturbing path that winded and curved its way to an ugly dead end. Would Meridith go back to that after what they’d shared? It seemed inconceivable. He had to do something. Something to make Meridith see how sorry he was. To see that he loved her, that they belonged together, all of them. The

I guess there’s nothing else to say.” “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said, crooking a finger. “Come here.” Her throat went dry, and her heart gave a thud. On instinct, she shook her head. His expression turned ruthlessly intent. “Maddie, I’ve been thinking about that mouth of yours for almost twenty-four hours straight. You don’t think I’m going to let you go without touching you, do you?” Had it only been one day? How was that even possible? It seemed as though a lifetime had passed since she’d run out on her wedding. “Um . . .” She swallowed hard and squeaked out, “Yes?” A long pause filled with sexual awareness so thick it practically coated the air. How did he do it, flip the mood? Only moments ago, she’d felt bereft, but with one wicked glance she’d forgotten everything dogging her. “I’ll tell you what.” He smiled, and it was so filled with cunning that the fine hairs on her neck rose in anticipation. “Tell me you won’t regret it and we can end things right here with a friendly pat on the back.” “I-I d-don’t know what you mean,” she lied, loving and hating the direction the conversation had taken. “Do I need to spell it out?” “No?” The word was a question instead of the statement she’d intended. “You want to take care of yourself, right?” She nodded, sensing a trap but unable to stop playing into his hands. He leaned close, placing his elbow on the console, taking up every spare inch of breathing room. “You’re ready to ditch the good Catholic girl and start doing what you want?” The strange mixture of lust and irritation he evoked pulled in her stomach. “Well, when you put it that way.” The curve of his lips held a distinct sexual tilt. “If you get out of this car untouched, tell me you won’t lie in bed late at night and regret it. Tell me you won’t wonder and wish you’d done things differently.” Her pulse hammered and her throat dried up, leaving her unable to breathe, let alone speak. He stroked a path over the line of her jaw, and Maddie forced her eyes to stay open instead of fluttering closed from sheer desire. Why did it feel like an eternity since he’d touched her? Even more troubling, why did his hands feel so right? The slightly rough pads of his fingers trailed down the curve of her neck, leaving an explosion of tingles coursing through her. “And remember, Princess,” he said, in a deep rumble of a voice that vibrated through her as though he were her own personal tuning fork. “Lying is a sin.” She gasped, sucking in the last available bit of air left in the car. “That’s a low blow.” He gave a seductive laugh, filled with heat and promise and the kind of raw passion she’d always dreamed about. “I’m not above playing dirty.” A sly smirk as he rubbed a lazy circle over skin she hadn’t known was sensitive. “In fact, I think you prefer it that way.” “I do not!” Her heart beating far too fast, she clutched at the credit card hard enough to snap it in two. “Liar.” He slipped under the collar of her T-shirt to wrap a possessive hand around the nape of her neck. “I’m waiting.” She gritted her teeth to keep from moaning. How did one man feel so good? Hot and sinful. Irresistible. She whispered, “For what?” “My answer,” he said, inching closer. Their mouths mere inches away. She swallowed hard. The truth sat on the tip of her tongue, and for once in her life, she decided to speak it instead of stuffing it back down. “I’d regret it.” “Exactly,” he said, the word a soft breath against her skin. The pad of his thumb brushed over her bottom lip, sliding over the dampness until it felt swollen. Needy. “I can’t live with myself unless I’ve tasted this mouth.” This

Would you like to see where I will build your house, m’lady?” She grinned. “You mean our house?” He mirrored her smile. “Aye.” Taking her hand, he led her along the path to the mouth of the River Coe. They stood on a curved peninsula high above the river where it would be free from floods. Hugh spread his arms wide and looked across Loch Leven. “The hills of Glencoe will be our backdrop, the river of the Coe will be our music, and our galleys will sail through the water of the Leven to Loch Linnhe and out to sea. Mark me, my love, Clan Iain Abrach will rebuild, and will once again rule these lands.” He looked into her eyes and saw joy there. “And you will be my queen.

Just ahead, the path was drenched in a puddle that could not be bypassed. The men walked through fearlessly. Colonel Andrews took Miss Charming’s hand and helped her step across. Mr. Nobley placed his hands around Jane’s waist and lifted her over. As he set her down, their bodies were much nearer than was seemly in the early nineteenth century. They held still for a breath, their faces close together. He smelled good enough to kiss. Her thoughts raged--I hate him and he hates me. It’s perfect! Isn’t it? Of course, he isn’t real. Wait, am I supposed to be falling for someone or avoiding it? What was it again, Aunt Caroline? He was the first to step back. She turned away, and there was Martin. She’d forgotten Martin. Off and on, she realized now, she’d been forgetting the entire real world in order to let herself sink into the fantasy. He was on his knees among some rosebushes. His face was shaded by his cap, but she could feel his eyes on her. As the party started to walk again, Martin rose and removed his cap as though the walkers were a funeral barge. None of the others seemed to notice his presence, and they disappeared into the full trees that leaned over the path. Martin took a step forward. “Jane, can we talk?” She realized that she was still standing there, staring at him, as though begging to be rejected again. She started to walk away. “Martin, no, I can’t. They’re waiting for me, they’ll see.” “Then meet me later.” “No, I’m done playing around.” She left him, that awkward line buzzing around her head like a pesky insect. And Jane though, Done playing around, she says, as though she’s not wearing a bonnet and bloomers. Then she saw that Mr. Nobley had stopped to wait for her. His eyes were angry, but they weren’t on her. She looked back. Martin had lowered his hat and thrust his hands back into the upturned earth. Her heart was teeter-tottering precariously, and she almost put out her arms to balance herself. She didn’t like to see them together, Martin, the luscious man who’d made her laugh and kept her standing on real earth, and Mr. Nobley, who had begun to make the fake world feel as comfortable as her own bed. She stood on the curve of the path, her feet hesitating where to go.

Weaving and winding around the curves and grooves in its path as it embraced the riverbed and gushed over it with glee and excitement. The water inside gurgled as if all the drops within it were communicating with each other and telling each other how amazing it was to be alive.

ON A WARM, drowsy afternoon in early September, Ed Murrow, Vincent Sheean, and Ben Robertson, a correspondent for the New York newspaper PM, stopped at the edge of a field several miles south of London. The three had spent the day driving down the Thames estuary in Murrow’s Talbot Sunbeam roadster, enjoying the sun and looking for dogfights between Spitfires and Messerschmitts. Their search had been fruitless, and they stopped to buy apples from a farmer. Stretching out on the field to eat them, they drowsily listened to the chirp of crickets and buzzing of bees. The war seemed very far away. Within minutes, however, it returned with a vengeance. Hearing the harsh throb of aircraft engines, the Americans looked up at a sky filled with wave after wave of swastika-emblazoned bombers that clearly were not heading for their targets of previous days—the coastal defenses and RAF bases of southern England. Following the curve of the Thames, they were aimed straight at London. In minutes the sky over the capital was suffused with a fiery red glow; black smoke billowed up into a vast cloud that blanketed much of the horizon. When shrapnel from antiaircraft guns rained down around the American reporters, they dived into a nearby ditch, where, stunned, they watched the seemingly endless procession of enemy aircraft flying north. “London is burning. London is burning,” Robertson kept repeating. Returning to the city, they found flames sweeping through the East End, consuming dockyards, oil tanks, factories, overcrowded tenements, and everything else in their path. Hundreds of people had been killed, thousands injured or driven from their homes. Under a blood-red moon, women pushed prams piled high with their salvaged belongings. That horrific evening marked the beginning of the Blitz: from September 7 on, London would endure fifty-seven straight nights of relentless bombing. Until then, no other city in history had ever been subjected to such an onslaught. Warsaw and Rotterdam had been heavily bombed by the Germans early in the war, but not for the length of time of the assault on London. Although

The ant had not crawled very much farther along the formation. It had hoped, after crawling out of the “–” depression, to find a pleasurable “9,” but instead it encountered a “2,” with a comfortable initial curve but a sharp turn at the end that was as fearsome as that of the “7.” The premonition of an uncertain future. The ant continued onward to the next trough, a closed shape: “0.” The path seemed like part of a “9,” but it was a trap. Life needed smoothness, but it also needed direction. One could not always be returning to the point of origin. This, the ant understood. Although there were still two more troughs up ahead, it had lost interest. It turned vertically again.

The king and Osric had vanished, gone ahead around the curve, and Hild walked alone-they all walked alone-along the inwardly spiralling path painted with tales, the characters from songs she had heard in hall all her life, songs of music and magic, of heroes and beginnings.

Another way to use blitzscaling to create a lasting competitive advantage is to be the first to climb a steep learning curve. Some opportunities, such as self-driving cars, require you to solve hard, complex problems. The more rapidly you scale, the more data you have to drive learning (or train machine learning), which improves your product, making it easier to scale further in the market while your competitors who have just begun to learn lag far behind.

Yet despite these offensive reasons to scale, the most common driver of blitzscaling is the threat of competition. Even without competition, you would still want to achieve first-scaler advantage and climb the learning curve, but you might prefer the less risky fastscaling approach to growth. Ask yourself, “Can somebody else realize this opportunity before me?” If the answer is yes, moving faster probably reduces the risk of competition more than it raises the risk of failure. The more intense the competition, the faster you should try to move.

You’ve got to keep your personal learning curve ahead of the company’s growth curve.

Getting to market fast allows you to start getting the feedback you need to improve it. Any product that you’ve carefully refined based on your instincts rather than real user reactions and data is likely to miss the mark and will require significant iteration anyway. The ideal is a tight OODA loop—observe, orient, decide, act—over and over again. Speed really matters, and launching early lets you climb the learning curve to a great product faster.

We round a curve in the path, and I stumble in surprise. A familiar shape is silhouetted ahead against the pastel sky.

She was confident of her skills, but “How would I take them and make the transition to the not-for-profit sector? What’s even out there? How do I get a foot in the door? There’s no clear path here.

Honus took out his healing kit, and set a pot of water to boil. “When the water’s ready,” he said, “I’ll tend your wound.”   Yim touched the cut on her chin. “Is it bad?”   Honus peered at it in the firelight. “No, but you’ll have a scar.”   Yim smiled wryly. “I’m catching up with your collection.”   “I’m keeping apace with you,” replied Honus.   For the first time, Yim noticed that Honus’s shirtsleeve was torn and blood-soaked. She gasped. “Honus! Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”   “I didn’t wish to trouble you. Besides, it’s not deep.” He rolled up his right sleeve to reveal a bloody gash on his forearm.   When the water boiled, Honus poured some into a wooden bowl and added powder from a vial in his healing kit. After cleaning the blood from Yim’s face, he wetted a cloth with the solution in the bowl. “This will sting,” he said.   “I remember,” replied Yim. She winced as the solution foamed inside her cut. Glimpsing the concern in Honus’s eyes, she tried to hide her pain. She took a deep breath and said, “I’m glad that’s over.”   Honus cleaned the gash on his arm with the same solution, then asked, “Would you stitch my wound closed? I’d rather not do it left-handed.”   “I’ll try,” said Yim, “but I’ve never done the like before.”   “It’s not hard, and I’m certain your dainty fingers will do finer work than Theodus’s thick ones ever managed.”   “Before you malign his stitching, you should compare it to mine,” said Yim. “As a girl, I was more adept with goats than needlework.”   “Then pretend I’m a goat.”   Honus took out a curved needle and a strand of gut from his kit and dipped them in the cleansin g solution. He declined Yim’s suggestion to prepare a brew for his pain, stating he wanted to stay alert. When Yim nervously sewed his wound, he was absolutely stoic. He guided her stitching calmly, tensing only slightly each time the needle pierced his flesh. The only evidence of his pain was the deep breath he took when Yim was done. Honus gazed at his stitches and smiled. “You underestimate your skill.”   “I’m glad you’re so easily pleased,” Yim replied. “The woman who raised me would’ve made me tear out the seam and restitch it.”   Honus winced. “Let’s talk of food, instead,” he said quickly. “Perhaps this would be a good night to have that cheese we were saving.”   “To celebrate our new scars?’   “To celebrate we’re both alive.

Above us, the aurora was bleeding. I stood frozen. The long ribbons of white unfurled all the way to the ground, growing filmier as they went. The green and blue of the aurora was unaffected. It was as if something were drawing the silvery whiteness to earth, like fingers pulling paint down a canvas, to a place just beyond the curve of the mountain---less than a mile away.

And blow me down if he didn’t see, on the path right in front of him, a hoopoe. … but the first time I saw one in Africa, I had much the same feeling as Mr Malik was having now. It was one of happy elation. There is something about the shape of the bird, with its long curved beak and clown’s crest, and the colour of the bird, with its bright russet plumage speckled with bands of black and white - there is even something about the very name of the bird - that just cheers you up. Forget the bluebird of happiness, give me a hoopoe every time.

The only solution to this problem is to shed my attachments and redefine my desires. To do so is my path to enlightenment—and my second curve.

The path of destiny isn’t a straight line. It is curved, chaotic, often hidden, and there are endless forks where you make the decisions that lead you to yourself.

We're one of the three Solar Courts,' he said, motioning for me to sit with a graceful twist of his wrist. 'Our nights are far more beautiful and our sunsets and dawns are exquisite, but we do adhere to the laws of nature.' I slid into the upholstered chair across from him. His tunic was unbuttoned at the neck, revealing a hint of the tanned chest beneath. 'And do the other courts choose not to?' 'The nature of the Seasonal Courts,' he said, 'is linked to their High Lords, whose magic and will keeps them in eternal spring, or winter, or fall, or summer. It has always been like that- some sort of strange stagnation. But the Solar Courts- Day, Dawn, and Night- are of a more... symbolic nature. We might be powerful, but even we cannot alter the sun's path or strength. Tea?' The sunlight danced along the curve of the silver teapot. I kept my eager nod to a restrained dip of my chin. 'But you will find,' Rhysand went on, pouring a cup for me,' that our nights are more spectacular- so spectacular that some in my territory even awaken at sunset and go to bed at dawn, just to live under the starlight.

then a small stream just above the bottom of the canyon. There are good campsites in this area. Cross the bridge over the Middle Fork of the Swan River and go right for 50 feet on Middle Fork Road at mile 17.1 (10,203). The Colorado Trail diverges left into the woods onto a single-track trail. The trail crosses a small stream and curves right in the next 2 miles. Reach the North Fork of the Swan River and marshy bottom at about mile 19.4, crossing on a raised walkway and bridge, beyond which there is good camping. The trail turns right (east) and then curves left as it follows the perimeter of the camping area. Cross a road at mile 19.7 (9,981). Go right at an intersection at mile 20.1 (10,067). From here, the trail begins to climb out of the drainage. Keystone Ski Resort eventually comes into view along the high point of the ridge to the northeast. Where the trail twice intersects the West Ridge Loop Trail (from Keystone Gulch), first at mile 22.6 (11,114) and then at mile 23.8 (11,022), stay left. After a long descent on a series of switchbacks, the trail intersects Red Trail at mile 26.1 (10,035) and goes to the left again. After dropping into a small valley and passing a power line, take a right at the fork at mile 27.5 (9,973). Cross Horseshoe Gulch at mile 28.8 (9,458) and follow the trail as it heads north with camping 0.2 mile ahead. Intersect and go left at Blair Witch Trail at mile 29.4 (9,458). Intersect and go left at Hippo Trail at mile 29.7 (9,700). Descending with Breckenridge coming in view, at a switchback intersect Campion Trail at mile 31.8 (9,240), and go left. Reach neighborhood and pond at mile 31.9 (9,200). Cross Swan River on a bridge, then cross Revette Drive where one could park for a few hours. At mile 32.5 (9,203), cross CO Hwy 9 adjacent to where the free Summit Stage bus stops. Go right (north) on bike path, cross Blue River on a bridge, and reach Gold Hill Trailhead at mile 32.7 (9,197). Follow the bike path for 0.2 mile until reaching the Gold Hill Trailhead on the left and the end of Segment 6 at mile 32.9 (9,197).

It was her way of loving me, of trying to redirect my steps and shift my affections away from the strivings of this world and back toward the kingdom of heaven. And yet even those who care deeply for us cannot always see our big picture, the Grand Story Line that is destined to unfold before us. They are on their own journeys. And though their paths may run parallel to ours, each is singular in its curves and mileposts, unique in its destination. As much as others want the best for us, they do not necessarily understand God’s best. He alone does.

Faintly rattled, Delphine rounded a curve in the path and found herself at the edge of clearing, the trees pulling back from a carpet of verdigris grass. They gave up the wildness of the wood here, tamed into symmetrically intertwined branches whose openings revealed more pale paths into the forest. The diffuse light of the forest concentrated here, as though emanating from hidden gas lamps. Delphine toed the boundary of what she now saw was an enormous fairy ring. A structure of pure white rose from the center of the ring, the beams arching like the bones of a cathedral, the space between filled with delicate filigree of brittle white. Windows like translucent dragonfly wings shone under cornices carved like birds and flowers and trailing vines. A castle, Delphine thought, or a church--- all the same emphasis and gravitas translated here, and something stranger and deeper.

My back curves over my soft belly. My shoulders are shaking. I’m broken and folded over and sobbing. My dignity dissolves into snot and dribble. I feel wretched. I'm so sick of being scared. I could howl at the moon in my misery. Looking up through my veil of tears, I see it behind a cloud shaped like a wolf's head with its muzzle raised. Silently it howls above me. Oh great — a cloud is mocking me. Life is actually taking the piss out of me while I’m having a breakdown. It’s not even doing it behind my back. It’s up there in the fucking sky. I must be a mess if even God is mocking me.

Two appendages lowered from a port in the ceiling and passed a few feet from his face: they were complex, robotic hands, a left and a right. They were sleek in design, and had a flat-black finish. One of them positioned itself near Will's outstretched hand, and a glistening, curved blade popped out of one of its fingertips—the thumb. It moved in slowly, and all Will could do was watch as it approached. He felt cold metal touch his skin, and the blue-metallic blade slowly sliced its way under his left thumbnail, vibrating as it moved. It dug in about half way to the cuticle, and stopped. His thumb throbbed and burned at the same time, and the pressure mounted even though the blade remained still. After about five minutes, it continued on its path to the nail bed, and paused. His legs and arms twitched uncontrollably, but the blade remained stationary. A few minutes later, another blade popped out from the mechanical hand, and slowly carved a path under his left index fingernail. It took another five, long minutes to reach the nail bed. Will screamed sporadically, his voice diminishing to a raspy whisper, as the procedure was repeated for each of his fingers. After about two hours, the machine had finished inserting blades into the ten nail beds, and the program paused as the pressure in his fingertips increased. The fluid that oozed from under his nails had gone from blood to a clear liquid, and he heard it drip on the floor. Just as Will's nerves were beginning to settle, the bladed, mechanical fingers started to tap. Tap tap tap ... the machine played a tune of pain. Every muscle in his body convulsed with each minute percussion of the blades. After what seemed like an eternity, the program reached a final phase: the twisting of the blades. Will whimpered pitifully, continually on the verge of passing out.

So either closed timelike curves can’t exist, or big macroscopic things can’t travel on truly closed paths through spacetime—or everything we think we know about thermodynamics is wrong.

But imagine that, instead of light cones tilting inward toward a singularity and creating a black hole, we had a spacetime in which light cones tilted around a circle, as shown in Figure 23. Clearly this would require some sort of extremely powerful gravitational field, but we’re letting our imaginations roam. If spacetime were curved in that way, a remarkable thing would happen: We could travel on a timelike path, always moving forward into our future light cone, and yet eventually meet ourselves at some moment in our past. That is, our world line could describe a closed loop in space, so that it intersected itself, bringing us at one moment in our lives face-to-face with ourselves at some other moment.

Even at the cutting edge of modern physics, partial differential equations still provide the mathematical infrastructure. Consider Einstein’s general theory of relativity. It reimagines gravity as a manifestation of curvature in the four-dimensional fabric of space-time. The standard metaphor invites us to picture space-time as a stretchy, deformable fabric, like the surface of a trampoline. Normally the fabric is pulled taut, but it can curve under the weight of something heavy placed on it, say a massive bowling ball sitting at its center. In much the same way, a massive celestial body like the sun can curve the fabric of space-time around it. Now imagine something much smaller, say a tiny marble (which represents a planet), rolling on the trampoline’s curved surface. Because the surface sags under the bowling ball’s weight, it deflects the marble’s trajectory. Instead of traveling in a straight line, the marble follows the contours of the curved surface and orbits around the bowling ball repeatedly. That, says Einstein, is why the planets go around the sun. They’re not feeling a force; they’re just following the paths of least resistance in the curved fabric of space-time.

If Lady Beatrice left the ring for her descendant... she would need proof, a way of knowing for certain who that person is. I reach my arms out to my sides and brush my hands against the hedge walls, just as I did two weeks ago with Sebastian. The hedges once again change color, my hands painting them a vivid periwinkle. But this time the dirt path beneath my feet also begins to glow with an ethereal yellow light. I gasp as the light beneath my feet winds forward... leading me. I pick up speed, keeping my hands on either side of the hedge walls as I run, following the twists and turns of the glowing path before me. And at last I am in a place I've never been---a curving corner of the Maze highlighted by a bed of hydrangeas, the only flowers I've encountered within. Dad's words from years ago return to me. "...remember the hydrangeas. When you see them, that means you're close." My breath catches. This must be the Maze's center.

It was so obvious, I saw her controlling tears and walk down the path in the weakest times of pain. Still when she saw the small kid waving at her from a school bus window, or the old couple realised you as the blossomed flower yesterday but today you are all dry leaf.. the postman delivers a letter on the corner of the road and everything collapses to the ground. When she couldn’t move on with all the people around her, she was selective with the people choose to be around her. She had realised life is too big to think about people who don’t care a laugh. She held her eyes up in the breeze to the chirping birds she could only smile at the nature at her host of tear. When you lose the curve on your lips.. the chaos of life drags you down.. keep smiling!

Einstein brilliantly realized that it would be possible to patch together a comprehensive theory of gravity from free falling reference frames, treating each as it were at rest. Within each framework, he noted, each object would move in a straight line unless deflected by external forces. However, when viewed from another framework, those straight lines might appear curved. That is why we see bodies taking curved paths because of gravity- because we are viewing their motion from our framework, not theirs.

Something drew her attention. Her eyes narrowed as if to bring a distant object into focus. "I have a new sense,” she realized. “I feel myself standing on the surface of a vast library.” She turned in a circle, scanning the featureless blue plain. “I feel the presence of well-ordered data.” She reached out, and to Kona’s surprise, a curving side path appeared in response to her beckoning gesture. Files sprang up on the path, each one a thin, vertical pane large enough to step into. The first file in the stack showed a branching map of the library with all its major sections neatly labeled.

Neither Duncan nor I could see how to solve that problem by pure mathematics, so we used a computer to simulate the morph on networks of large but manageable size, starting from pristine rings with 1,000 nodes and 10 links per node. To chart the structural changes in the middle ground, we graphed both the average path length and the clustering as functions of the proportion of links that were randomly rewired. What we found amazed us. The slightest bit of randomness contracted the network tremendously. The average path length plummeted at first—with only 1 percent rewiring (meaning that only 1 out of every 100 links was randomized), the graph dropped by 85 percent from its original level. Further rewiring had only a minimal effect; the curve leveled off onto a low-lying plateau, indicating that the network had already gotten about as small as it could possibly get, as if it were completely random. Meanwhile, the clustering barely budged. With 1 percent rewiring, the clustering dropped by only 3 percent. Connections were being yanked out of well-ordered neighborhoods, yet the clustering hardly noticed. Only much later in the morph, long after the crash in path length, did clustering begin to drop significantly.

one another, find themselves washed by various different currents, and see their straight lines change into the flat trajectories of bullets, their curves into skids, their closed lines into the flights of boomerangs out and back or the paths of circuits, this is the fault of the spectator alone—craving metaphorical equivalences, or perhaps just learning to read—who projects onto the printed characters a flood of forces that is his alone but is nevertheless enough to give life to these depthless signs locked in a two-dimensional typographical world. On the one hand,

OvO Dimensions: A New Era of Parkour Platforming OvO Dimensions is the newest chapter in the legendary OvO game series, taking the fast-paced parkour gameplay fans love and pushing it into a multidimensional adventure from doodle-jump.co . Whether you’re new to OvO or a veteran of precision platformers, OvO Dimensions will challenge your reflexes, puzzle-solving skills, and ability to think across space and time. What is OvO Dimensions? OvO Dimensions is a 2D platformer that introduces a unique twist—dimensional switching. While classic OvO games focused on agility and timing, this installment adds depth by letting players hop between alternate dimensions to bypass obstacles, solve environmental puzzles, and uncover hidden routes. Each dimension is styled with its own visuals, music, and physics, making transitions not only a gameplay feature but a key part of the game’s identity. This multi-layered design forces players to think beyond traditional movement, creating a rewarding learning curve that constantly evolves. Core Features of OvO Dimensions Dimension Shifting: Instantly switch between two or more versions of the same level. Tight Controls: Responsive parkour mechanics like wall-jumping, sliding, and dashing remain as sharp as ever. Puzzle Platforming: Combine speed and strategy to navigate traps, moving platforms, and spatial challenges. Visual Variety: Each dimension features distinct art styles, ranging from minimalistic neon themes to rich, futuristic landscapes. Sound Design: A dynamic soundtrack that shifts with your dimensional changes, enhancing immersion and tension. How OvO Dimensions Evolves the Series The original OvO was praised for its clean mechanics and precision-based gameplay. OvO Dimensions builds on that with added complexity, smarter level design, and layered exploration. For players familiar with earlier OvO titles, you’ll immediately feel at home—but you’ll also face new mechanics that test your adaptability and logic. Where earlier games rewarded speed, OvO Dimensions rewards awareness. Sometimes the best move isn’t jumping forward—it’s switching dimensions to find an entirely different path. This new mechanic turns every level into a mental and physical puzzle. Who Should Play OvO Dimensions? If you enjoy games like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, or Geometry Dash, OvO Dimensions will fit right into your collection. It’s built for players who love tight control, fast movement, and challenging mechanics that demand both reaction and reasoning. It’s also ideal for fans of the original OvO series who want something familiar yet refreshing. The dimension-switching system is intuitive but deep, providing hours of gameplay and replayability for those chasing 100% completion. Conclusion: A Must-Play for Platformer Fans OvO Dimensions is more than just a sequel—it's a bold evolution of the OvO formula. With refined mechanics, dimensional gameplay, and visually stunning design, it offers a fresh experience in a genre that thrives on challenge and creativity. If you're ready to shift your perspective and test your limits, OvO Dimensions is the game for you. Master the jump. Master the shift. Master the dimensions.

Art is born in attention. Its midwife is detail. Art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that is because pain serves to focus our attention onto details (for instance, the excruciatingly beautiful curve of a lost lover’s neck). Art may seem to involve broad strokes, grand schemes, great plans. But it is the attention to detail that stays with us; the singular image is what haunts us and becomes art. Even in

The truth is, everything is curved. There is no true straight line. Everything is always, constantly changing. Including your life. You are on a journey called your life path, and that path is not a straight line, but a curve. As you walk your path, it is always, every moment of every day, curving either upward or downward. It may seem to you that today is much like yesterday. It isn’t. It’s different. Every day is. Appearances can be deceiving; in fact, they almost always are. There may be times when things seem to be on a steady, even keel. This is an illusion: in life, there is no such thing as staying in the same place. There are no straight lines; everything curves. If you’re not increasing, you’re decreasing.

Out of the brown mouth into a slanted easterly rain they head south along the shore, pushed toward it on a light chop, all but the pilot huddling under plastic sheeting that covers lumber, nails, window casings and plantains - the women sharing a seat, Reese behind them and the boatman behind him in a narrow-running balance. The land retreats as the dory crosses a wide bight toward the next point, rising and dropping on larger waves while a seaside village of thatch and palm passes thin and blurry in the drizzled distance. Two miles later another village appears, much the same but longer along the curve and then, past the point, the coast is tangled in mangrove, grass and sea grape. The passengers peer out of the plastic at a rain-erased horizon as the dory slices and slows in equal measure and the boatman bails with a cut jug the rolling puddle at his feet.

An unusually large, rare, golden wolf trotted out of the timberline, circled the area warily, and sat down on its haunches only feet from Jacques. It watched him steadily with its strange golden eyes, completely unafraid. It seemed not to be affected by the fire, the lightning, or the Carpathian male. Jacques watched the animal equally intently, certain he was facing more than a wolf. The creature did not make an attempt to use the common mental path to communicate. It simply watched him, taking in the bizarre scene, the golden eyes never wavering. A humorless smile curved Jacques’ hard mouth. “If you are looking for action tonight, I am too tired to oblige you, and far too hungry.” The wolf’s shape contorted, stretched, shimmered in the smoke of the fire, and soon a large, heavily muscled man was facing Jacques. His long, shaggy mane of hair was blond, his eyes golden, his body perfectly balanced. “You are Jacques, brother to Mikhail. I heard you were dead.” “That is the story going around,” Jacques assented warily. “You have no memory of me? I am Julian, brother to Aidan. I have been away these last long years. The far-off mountains, the places without people, are my home.” “The last I heard, you were fighting wars in distant lands.” “When the mood is upon me, I fight where it is needed,” Julian agreed. “I see you do also. The vampire lies dead, and you are pale beyond imagination.” Jacques’ smile was grim. “Do not allow my color to fool you.” “I am no vampire yet, and if ever I fear turning, I will go to Aidan, and he will destroy me if I cannot do so myself. If you wish to take blood, then I offer it freely. The healer knows me; you can ask him if I am a reliable resource.” There was the slightest of smiles, a self-mocking humor. “What are you doing in these parts?” Jacques asked suspiciously. “I was traveling through, on my way to the United States, when I heard the butchers were back, and I thought I would make myself useful to our people for a change.” Jacques found himself admiring Julian’s answers. This was a man not in the least worried about anyone’s opinion or impression of him. He was self-contained, at ease with himself. It didn’t bother him at all that Jacques was suspicious, that he was firing questions at him. Healer, hear me. I have need of blood, and this one before me, Julian, the golden twin, has said you will vouch for him. No one can vouch for one such as Julian. He is a loner, a law unto himself, but his blood is untainted. If Julian turns, it will be Aidan or I who hunts him, no others. Avail yourself of what he offers. “Did he give me a good recommendation?” Julian’s smile was frankly sardonic. “The healer never gives good recommendation. You are not his favorite, but he agrees there would be no harm.” Julian laughed softly, put his wrist to his mouth and bit, then casually reached out to offer his life-giving fluid to Jacques. “I am too much like him, a loner, one who studies too much. I dabble in things better left alone. I fear Gregori has given up on me.” He didn’t sound worried about it.

Mantra of Geometry In Wheeler's poem, "matter" is a little too poetic. Matter can have several properties (for example, electric charge), but the curvature of space-time responds only to the total density of energy and momentum. So we should say instead: Energy-momentum tells space-time how to curve. Also, forces other than gravity influence how matter moves. Those forces will lead to deviations from the straightest possible (geodesic) paths. What we should say is therefore: Space-time tells energy-momentum what straight is (in space-time). And so, putting it all together: Energy-momentum tells space-time how to curve. Space-time tells energy-momentum what straight is (in space-time). And now comes the Core Theory of electromagnetism: Electric charge tells electromagnetic property space how to curve. Electromagnetic property space tells electric charge what straight is (in electromagnetic property space). And of the weak force: Weak charge tells weak property space how to curve. Weak property space tells weak charge what straight is (in weak property space). And of the strong force: Strong charge tells strong property space how to curve. Strong property space tells strong charge what straight is (in strong property space). In the full Core Theory, including all four forces, matter has four kinds of properties: energy momentum, electric charge, weak charge, and strong charge. Particles of matter propagate through a more complex space than Wheeler allowed for, which includes electromagnetic, weak, and strong property spaces atop ordinary space-time. But matter follows, according to the Core, the same yin principle, adapted to this more complex environment: Keep going as straight as you can!

impressions barrage, Lee could no longer grasp the meaning of Vivian's voice as it went on and on explaining things like "crystal cells," "selenoid cells," "grey matter pyramidal cells," powered somehow by atomic fission, "nerve loops" and "synthesis gates" which were not to be confused with "analysis gates" while they looked exactly the same…. Apart from this at least one half of his mental and physical energy had to be expanded in suppressing nausea and bracing himself against the gyrations which still jerked his feet from under him and made friction disks of his shoulders as his body swayed from side to side. All of a sudden he felt that he was being derailed. There was an opening in the plastics wall of the cylinder; a curved metal shield like the blade of a bulldozer jumped into his path, caught him, slowed down his momentum and delivered him safely at a door marked "Apperception-Center 24." It opened and within its frame there stood an angel neatly dressed in the uniform of a registered nurse. "There," said the angel, "at last. How did you like your little Odyssey through The Brain, Dr. Lee?" Lee pushed a hand through the mane of his hair; it felt moist and much tangled up. "Thanks," he said. "It was quite an experience. I enjoyed it; Ulysses, too, probably enjoyed his trip between Scylla and Charybdis—after it was over! It's Miss Leahy, I presume." The reception room where he

On cool autumn nights, eels hurrying to the sea sometimes crawl for a mile or more across dewy meadows to reach streams that will carry them to salt water.” These are adult eels, silver eels, and this descent that slid down my mind in the fall from a long spring ascent the eels made years ago…sometimes as high as 8,000 feet above sea level. There they lived without breeding “for at least 8 years.” In the late summer of the year they reached maturity, they stopped eating, and their dark color vanished. They turned silver; now they are heading to the sea. Down streams to rivers, down rivers to the seas, south in the North Atlantic where they meet, they are returning to the Sargasso Sea, where, in floating sargassum weed in the deepest waters of the Atlantic, they will mate, release their eggs, and die. This, the whole story of eels at which I have just hinted, is extravagant to the extremes, and food for another kind of thought, a thought about the meaning of such wild, incomprehensible gestures. Imagine a chilly night and a meadow; balls of dew droop from the curved grass. All right: the grass at the edge of the meadow begins to tremble and sway. Here come the eels. The largest are five feet long. They stream into the meadow, sift between grasses, veer from your path. There are too many to count. All you see is a silver slither, like twisted ropes of water falling roughly…If I saw that sight, would I live? If I stumbled across it, would I ever set foot out of my door again? Or would I be seized to join that compelling rush, would I cease eating, and pale, and abandon all to start walking?

The sun set and the moon rose parchment yellow, the marks on its surface like traces of lead someone had tried to rub away. Li Du walked alone on the path to the mountain. A painter could have captured it well: a defeated curve of shoulders at odds with a determined stride against a mountain that filled the sky.” - p 83

In the 16th century, it was widely believed by scientists that projectiles, like cannonballs fired toward an enemy, fell straight down after they reached their apex, because gravity pulled them down in a linear fashion, as specified by Aristotle. Practitioners (in this case, soldiers) said that this theory was nonsense: cannonballs followed a curved path. They knew, because they were busy knocking down castles. Not until Descartes' work in the 17th century would mathematicians admit that they (and Aristotle) had been wrong.

Where am I?" He did not answer immediately. Since entering the room, he had kept his focus locked on her face. But Lily watched as the direction of his gaze slid down her body. His perusal was slow and comprehensive, sliding over her breasts and continuing past the curve of her hips and down her bare legs beyond the short hem of her shift. Though he revealed nothing in his stony expression, there was something in the gleam of his blue-black eyes that brought a delicate quiver to Lily's belly. She glanced at his hands where they fell at his sides. He held them tensely extended, his long fingers spreading wide, before he clenched them into tight fists as he finished his slow review of her body. By the time the path of his perusal made its way back to her face, Lily was breathless and hot with a different kind of fear and... something else. "You are in my bedroom." The intimate depth of his voice struck Lily with an acute force. Her head spun, and her legs collapsed. As she tensed for a collision with the floor, she was swept up in strong arms. The fire raging beneath her skin flared with bright intensity as Lord Harte scooped his arms beneath her legs and around her back to lift her high against his chest. It took only a few short moments for him to set her back on the bed. He released her abruptly to flip the bedcovers over her, then turned and strode away. Lily was left with the striking impressions of his body's warmth, the strength of his arms around her, the woodsy scent of his skin, the brush of his embroidered waistcoat felt through the muslin of her shift, and then the sight of his broad back as he walked away, putting the entire distance of the room between them.

In today’s economy, change is a fact of life. We cannot cling to what’s worked and hope for the best. We need a trusty scythe to carve a path ahead of the curve.

Thus for adepts the principle of equally maintaining concentration and insight is not a matter of effort; it is spontaneous and effortless, with no more particular time frame. When seeing and hearing, they are just so; when defecating and urinating, they are just so; when conversing with people, they are just so; whatever they are doing, walking, standing, sitting, reclining, speaking, silent, rejoicing, raging, at all times and in everything they are thus, like empty boats riding the waves, going along with the high and the low, like a river winding through the mountains, curving at curves and straight at straits, without minding any state of mind, buoyantly going along with nature today, going along with nature buoyantly tomorrow, adapting to all circumstances without inhibition or impediment, neither stopping nor fostering good or evil, simple and straightforward, without artificiality, perception normal.

Blindly, Grace pushed away from the velvet-lined wall... Right into the path of a giant as tall and as hard as an oak. A firm hand caught her about the waist as strong fingers captured her wrists. She blinked the sting of unshed tears from her eyes to find herself entangled not with an oak, but with a man possessed of dark brown hair and dangerous golden eyes. A wry smile curved his lips as the orchestra began the opening strains of a waltz.

McKenna knelt in front of her husband, loving the way he looked at her. “So it was no surprise to me this morning when they asked you. I believe it was an answer to my prayers, Wyatt.” He shook his head, a faint smile seeping through his seriousness. “I’ve got to stop you from praying that prayer for me, woman.” He traced the curve of her cheek, then wove a path down her neck. She loved the way he touched her in intimate moments like this, when they were alone. But even more, she loved the way she felt inside when he did.

An unusually large, rare, golden wolf trotted out of the timberline, circled the area warily, and sat down on its haunches only feet from Jacques. It watched him steadily with its strange golden eyes, completely unafraid. It seemed not to be affected by the fire, the lightning, or the Carpathian male. Jacques watched the animal equally intently, certain he was facing more than a wolf. The creature did not make an attempt to use the common mental path to communicate. It simply watched him, taking in the bizarre scene, the golden eyes never wavering. A humorless smile curved Jacques’ hard mouth. “If you are looking for action tonight, I am too tired to oblige you, and far too hungry.” The wolf’s shape contorted, stretched, shimmered in the smoke of the fire, and soon a large, heavily muscled man was facing Jacques. His long, shaggy mane of hair was blond, his eyes golden, his body perfectly balanced. “You are Jacques, brother to Mikhail. I heard you were dead.” “That is the story going around,” Jacques assented warily. “You have no memory of me? I am Julian, brother to Aidan. I have been away these last long years. The far-off mountains, the places without people, are my home.” “The last I heard, you were fighting wars in distant lands.” “When the mood is upon me, I fight where it is needed,” Julian agreed. “I see you do also. The vampire lies dead, and you are pale beyond imagination.” Jacques’ smile was grim. “Do not allow my color to fool you.” “I am no vampire yet, and if ever I fear turning, I will go to Aidan, and he will destroy me if I cannot do so myself. If you wish to take blood, then I offer it freely. The healer knows me; you can ask him if I am a reliable resource.” There was the slightest of smiles, a self-mocking humor. “What are you doing in these parts?” Jacques asked suspiciously. “I was traveling through, on my back to the United States, when I heard the butchers were back, and I thought I would make myself useful to our people for a change.

An unusually large, rare, golden wolf trotted out of the timberline, circled the area warily, and sat down on its haunches only feet from Jacques. It watched him steadily with its strange golden eyes, completely unafraid. It seemed not to be affected by the fire, the lightning, or the Carpathian male. Jacques watched the animal equally intently, certain he was facing more than a wolf. The creature did not make an attempt to use the common mental path to communicate. It simply watched him, taking in the bizarre scene, the golden eyes never wavering. A humorless smile curved Jacques’ hard mouth. “If you are looking for action tonight, I am too tired to oblige you, and far too hungry.

It was funny, he thought, how the ruins of the past shaped everything that came after. It seemed to work on all levels; one of the truths of the universe. Back in the ancient days, when humanity still lived entirely down a well, the paths laid down by Roman legions had become asphalt and later ferroconcrete without ever changing a curve or a turn. On Ceres, Eros, Tycho, the bore of the standard corridor had been determined by mining tools built to accommodate the trucks and lifts of Earth, which had in turn been designed to go down tracks wide enough for a mule cart’s axle.

Then she turned and pointed to Matsu's newly built wooden bridge. It was an exact replica of the original, its ascending and descending curves forming a perfect arch. "Matsu once told me the bridge represented the samurai's difficult path from this world to the afterlife. When you reach the top of the bridge, you can see your way to paradise. I feel as if the past few days have given me a glimpse of that. To simply live a life without fear has been a true paradise.

She is about to close the book and return it to the desk when she catches sight of a face passing on the flickering pages. She leafs her way back until she finds it again- not an entire face, but a section; an eye, the sweep of a cheekbone, the curved line of a neck observed from side-on; all illustrated as if seen in the reflection of a small, oval mirror. A car-wing mirror. She peers at the page more closely, breath held in her chest as the moment returns to her: sitting in Charles's new car, Jack scrunched in the back and Lillian in the front, a peacock barring their path. It is exactly how he would have seen her reflected back at him in the wing-mirror. As with the other drawings, the accuracy is remarkable. She is amazed at his ability to recall the smallest details. There is the pearl stud at her earlobe and the almost indiscernible beauty spot above her lip. Yet the more closely she studies the sketch, the more she is discomforted. It isn't just the precision of the pencil lines conjuring her on the paper- butt more the expression he has captured- a certain wistfulness she hadn't known she wore so plainly. The portrait feels so intimate; almost as if he had laid her bare on the page. She continues to leaf through the sketches and finds a second portrait. This time she is seated in the drawing room, her face turned to the window, the skirt of her dress falling in a fan to to the floor. A third reveals her standing on the terrace, leaning against the balustrade, a long evening dress sweeping about her legs. The night of the party. The next page shows just her arm, identifiable by a favorite diamond bracelet dangling at the wrist. The last is of her head and shoulders, viewed from behind, the curves of her neck rising up to a twisted knot of hair. Looking at the images she isn't sure how she feels; flattered to be seen, to be deemed worthy of his time and attention, though at the same time a little uncomfortable at the intimacy of his gaze and at the thought of having been so scrutinized when she hadn't even known he was watching her.

Too late, she saw the figure at the bottom of the stairs--the figure starting up as she was running down. Caught by the momentum, she didn’t even have time to shout a warning before the two of them collided full force. “Whoa! You trying to kill me or just yourself?” Miranda reeled from the blow. As a pair of arms steadied her, she staggered back and gazed up at the young man blocking her way. He was easily six feet tall--long and lean in his muddy workboots, worn T-shirt, and jeans low on his hips. The curved hollows of his cheeks were accentuated by strong, high cheekbones, and she could see taut ridges of sinewy muscle along the length of both arms. His skin looked naturally tan. He had thick waves of jet-black hair tousled almost to his shoulders, and his sensuous lips were pressed hard into a frown. He reminded her of some wild gypsy. Once her initial shock had passed, Miranda was furiously annoyed. “What’s wrong with you? It’s not like you didn’t see me coming. Why didn’t you get out of my way?” “And let you fall?” His eyes reflected mock horror. They were the blackest eyes she’d ever seen. “But I’m so much more comfortable to land on than the driveway, yeah?” The driveway, like so many back roads around town, was a narrow, rutted path of crushed oyster shells. Miranda’s anger turned down a notch. “You could’ve warned me,” she muttered. Her heart had stopped pounding, though she still felt seriously shaken. “How long have you been out here?” He wasn’t frowning at her now. His face was calm and expressionless, which was almost more unnerving. “I’m not stalking you, if that’s what you mean.

Catherine drew out an object wrapped in soft cloth. Gently she unwrapped a new pair of spectacles made of silver... gleaming and perfect, the oval lenses sparkling. Marveling at the workmanship, she drew a finger along one of the intricate filigreed earpieces, all the way to the curved tip. "They're so beautiful," she said in wonder. "If they please you, we'll have another pair made in gold. Here, let me help you..." Leo gently drew the old spectacles off her face, seeming to savor the gesture. She put the new ones on. They felt light and secure on the bridge of her nose. As she looked around the room, everything was wonderfully detailed and in focus. In her excitement, she jumped up and hurried to the looking glass that hung over the entryway table. She inspected her own glowing reflection. "How pretty you are," Leo's tall, elegant form appeared behind hers. "I do love spectacles on a woman." Catherine's smiling gaze met his in the silvered glass. "Do you? What an odd preference." "Not at all." His hands came to her shoulders, lightly fondling up to her throat and back again. "They emphasize your beautiful eyes. And they make you look capable of secrets and surprises- which, as much as we know, you are." His voice lowered. "Most of all I love the act of removing them- getting you ready for a tumble in bed." She shivered at his bluntness, her eyes half closing as she felt him pull her back against him. His mouth went to the side of her neck. "You like them?" Leo murmured, kissing her soft skin. "Yes." Her head listed to the side as his tongue traced a subtle path along her throat. "I... I don't know why you went to such trouble. It was very kind." Leo's dark head lifted, and he met her drowsy gaze in the looking glass. His fingers went to the side of her throat, stroking as if to rub the feel of his mouth into her skin. "I wasn't being kind," he murmured, a smile touching his lips. "I merely wanted you to see clearly." I'm beginning to, she was tempted to tell him, but Poppy returned to the apartment before she was able.

Nothing sprang up at him in his youth that declared the presence of God, but when he studied mathematics in high school and college, one principle arrested his attention: central tendency, the great force drawing natural phenomena toward moderation and away from extremes. Some birch trees are tall at maturity and some are short, but most are a middle height. A cat can give birth to any number of kittens from one to eight in a typical litter, but more kittens are born to litters of four than any other litter size. The differences fall quite smoothly along a bell curve. Scientific consensus was that all genetic traits, except of course those that had been intentionally altered, including human height, weight, intelligence, etc. were so distributed. It was like nature did what Brodt had one day in the breakroom heard Sanayah call "choosing the middle path." Was central tendency a law of nature or a law of God, or were they the same thing?

She studied his face, the chiseled lines and valleys, the square chin and solid jaw. There was something different this morning, but she couldn’t quite figure… “You shaved,” she blurted out, feeling like an idiot the instant the words let her mouth. His lips curved up. She remembered exactly the way they felt pressing into hers and a little sliver of heat trickled into her belly. “Believe it or not, I shave every once in a while.” “You look good.” God, did he. If she’d thought he was handsome before, now she realized how disturbingly attractive he was. “Do I?” A hint of color crept beneath the bones in his cheeks. “Then I guess I’ll have to do it more often.” He glanced down at the metal detector. “How’s it going? Found anything yet?” “Not yet. I don’t think I’ve quite got the hang of this thing, but tomorrow we clean out the sluice box. Hopefully, something will turn up then.” He nodded, began to look off toward his house like he wanted to escape. Or maybe only part of him wanted to leave. She gathered her courage and plunged in. “I still say I owe you for your very timely rescue. How about supper?” “Supper?” “Just a neighborly sort of thing. If you don’t already have plans, that is. I was thinking maybe tomorrow evening.” He looked uncertain, torn in some way. “Well, I…yeah, tomorrow night sounds all right.” “You won’t attack me again, will you?” she teased just to make him feel at ease, and he relaxed a little. “Not unless you ask me real nice.” Her own smile turned wobbly. Surely she could trust herself--couldn’t she? “Okay, then. Supper tomorrow evening. Seven o’clock okay?” “Fine. I’ll see you at seven.” He started walking toward the path leading back to his house. “By the way,” she called after him, “how is it you always seem to know what I’m doing over here?” He turned to her and actually grinned. “Binoculars. A good woodsman always knows what’s going on around him.” Her mouth dropped open. “Binoculars! You’ve been watching me with binoculars?” Call kept on walking. “They come in real handy up here,” he said over one wide shoulder. “You ought to get yourself a pair.” Charity sputtered, opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again and simply stood there fuming. Binoculars! She watched him disappear down the trail, so amazed she couldn’t get a single ugly name past her lips.

The last stretch of our walk was along a curving gravel path that wound through lawns, shrubs, trees, and different-shaped patches of bare earth. Living in the country would be more convenient if they would repeal the law against paths that go straight from one place to another place.

Now step outside spacetime and look in at what happens there. Histories of individuals are paths through the block. If they curve back upon themselves to form closed loops then we would judge time travel to occur. But the paths are what they are. There is no history that is ‘changed’ by doing that. Time travel allows us to be part of the past but not to change the past. The only time-travelling histories that are possible are self-consistent paths. On any closed path there is no well-defined division between the future and the past.

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But like so many things in Japan, behind the façade lay another view. So it was only after I had hiked into the woods far from the bridge that I found a fluttering world of persimmon, ocher, scarlet, and cabernet secreted away in a mossy garden of curving stone paths. When it began to rain, the colors deepened and the leaves, shaped like a baby's hands, spiraled down onto the plush green carpet and sleek dark rocks.

Imagine we’re in a spaceship moving steadily through space and we throw a ball across the ship from side to side. It will move in a straight line, because both the ball and the ship are moving forwards at the same speed. But if the ship accelerates, the ball’s path will become curved, as the ship moves ahead more quickly. The straight line path has become curved from the viewpoint of the ship. Similarly, Einstein reasoned, a straight line path in space would be curved by gravity.

So, for instance, even though the Earth is travelling in a straight line through space, space itself is curved, so the planet orbits the bowling ball of the Sun. It is a simple, but astonishing observation. Planets move in straight lines. There really is no force pulling them into an orbit. It’s just that the space their straight line path runs through gets twisted.

A company might employ different types of scaling at different points in its life cycle. The canonical sequence that companies like Google and Facebook have gone through begins with classic start-up growth while establishing product/market fit, then shifts into blitzscaling to achieve critical mass and/or market dominance ahead of the competition, then relaxes down to fastscaling as the business matures, and finally downshifts to classic scale-up growth when the company is an established industry leader. Together, this sequence of scaling generates a classic “S-curve” of growth, with slower initial growth followed by rapid acceleration, eventually easing its way into a gentle plateau.

When I looked up, I found myself at the edge of a rolling expanse of grass and trees. It wasn't a forest, but as I wandered deeper, following a concrete path that led in soft, sloping curves, I could feel the scents changing. Even though it was still winter, there was life here. I spotted a Douglas fir and went to it, putting my nose deep into the crags of its bark. Hey, you, I whispered. I could feel my breath warming the trunk, surrounding my face. I made my way from one tree to the next, greeting each, inhaling spruce and cedar, cherry and apple, and some I didn't yet know. When it started to get dark, I found the trail again and headed back to the hostel. I had more buses in my future, but I carried the scent of sap with me on my fingertips.