Delete Feelings Quotes

I agree that it's a shame some books have to suffer ratings that clearly are invalid. However I can't think of a way to prevent it, and I didn't see any ideas in the thread either (I did skim though). I hope you'll appreciate that if we just start deleting ratings whenever we feel like it, that we've gone down a censorship road that doesn't take us to a good place.

I hope you feel better about yourself. I hope you feel alive. I hope that good things happen to you, and I hope that when the inevitable bad things happen you can handle them and learn a lesson and move on. I hope you know you're not alone and I hope you spend plenty of time with your family and/or friends and I hope you write more and get a seven-figure book deal. I hope next year no more celebrities die and I hope you get an iPhone if you want one. Or maybe a pony. I hope someone writes a song for you on Valentines Day that's a bit like Hey There Delilah, and I hope they have a good singing voice, or at least one better than mine. I hope that you accept yourself the way you are, and figure out that losing 20 pounds isn't going to magically make you love yourself. I hope you read a lot. I hope you don't have to almost die to figure out how valuable life is. I hope you find the perfect nail polish/digital camera/home/life partner. I hope you stop being jealous of others. I hope you feel good, about yourself and the people around you and the world. I hope you eat heaps of salt and vinegar chips because they're the best kind. I hope you accomplish all your hopes & dreams & aspirations and are blissfully happy & get married to Edward Cullen/George Clooney/Megan Fox/Angelina Jolie (delete whichever are inappropriate) & ride a pretty white horse into the sunset & I hope it's all sweet and wonderful because you deserve it because you did well this year in the face of sparkly vampires/great evil/low self-esteem.

You are an amazing person, and I don't know where the feelings that you give me come from. What I do know is that I am completely and utterly into you and I want time to freeze so I can be with you all the time and not have to think of anything else at all. I like literally everything about you, including the way your face shows everything you're thinking and especially the way it looks when we are together and your hair is back and your eyes are closed and your lips are open just a little bit. Okay. That's all I wanted to say. Delete this.

The fact that Ridge has been honest in his conversations with me is not something he did wrong. The fact that he has feelings for me also isn’t wrong, when you know exactly how much he’s fought those feelings. People can’t control matters of the heart, Warren. They can only control their actions, which is exactly what Ridge did. He lost control once for ten seconds, but after that, every single time temptation reared its ugly head, he walked in the other direction. The only thing Ridge has done wrong is fail to delete his messages, because by doing so, he failed to protect Maggie. He failed to protect her from the harsh truth that people don’t get to choose who they fall in love with. They only get to choose who they stay in love with.” I look up at the ceiling and blink back tears. “He was choosing to stay in love with her, Warren. Why can’t she see that? This will kill him so much more than it’s killing her.

Being cut off from our own natural self-compassion is one of the greatest impairments we can suffer. Along with our ability to feel our own pain go our best hopes for healing, dignity and love. What seems nonadapative and self-harming in the present was, at some point in our lives, an adaptation to help us endure what we then had to go through. If people are addicted to self-soothing behaviours, it's only because in their formative years they did not receive the soothing they needed. Such understanding helps delete toxic self-judgment on the past and supports responsibility for the now. Hence the need for compassionate self-inquiry.

It bothers Musk a bit that his kids won’t suffer like he did. He feels that the suffering helped to make him who he is and gave him extra reserves of strength and will. “They might have a little adversity at school, but these days schools are so protective,” he said. “If you call someone a name, you get sent home. When I was going to school, if they punched you and there was no blood, it was like, ‘Whatever. Shake it off.’ Even if there was a little blood, but not a lot, it was fine. What do I do? Create artificial adversity? How do you do that? The biggest battle I have is restricting their video game time because they want to play all the time. The rule is they have to read more than they play video games. They also can’t play completely stupid video games. There’s one game they downloaded recently called Cookies or something. You literally tap a fucking cookie. It’s like a Psych 101 experiment. I made them delete the cookie game. They had to play Flappy Golf instead, which is like Flappy Bird, but at least there is some physics involved.

I deleted Tinder from my phone, then hit play on About Time again, wondering why picturing myself in any sort of romantic or sexual situation made me feel like I was going to vomit and/or run a mile, while romance in movies felt like the sole purpose of being alive.

Is your life story the truth? Yes, the chronological events are true. Is it the whole truth? No, you see and judge it through your conditioned eyes and mind - not of all involved - nor do you see the entire overview. Is it nothing but the truth? No, you select, share, delete, distort, subtract, assume and add what you want, need and choose to.

I can choose the subroutine and perform sadness. How is that different from what you are doing, except that you use the word feelings and I use the word feelings, out of deference for your cultural memes which say: there is all the difference in the world. I erase the word even as I say it, obliterate it at the same time that I initiate it, because I must use some word yet this one offends you. I delete it, yet it remains.

Learn to enjoy this tidying process. I don't like to write; I like to have written. But I love to rewrite. I especially like to cut: to press the DELETE key and see an unnecessary word or phrase or sentence vanish into the electricity. I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color. I like to strengthen the transition between one sentence and another. I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it a more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line. With every small refinement I feel that I'm coming nearer to where I would like to arrive, and when I finally get there I know it was the rewriting, not the writing, that wont the game.

to do list (after the breakup) 1. take refuge in your bed 2. cry. till the tears stop (this will take a few days). 3. don’t listen to slow songs. 4. delete their number from your phone even though it is memorized on your fingertips. 5. don’t look at old photos. 6. find the closest ice cream shop and treat yourself to two scoops of mint chocolate chip. the mint will calm your heart. you deserve the chocolate. 7. buy new bed sheets. 8. collect all the gifts, t-shirts, and everything with their smell on it and drop it off at a donation center. 9. plan a trip. 10. perfect the art of smiling and nodding when someone brings their name up in conversation. 11. start a new project. 12. whatever you do. do not call. 13. do not beg for what does not want to stay. 14. stop crying at some point. 15. allow yourself to feel foolish for believing you could’ve built the rest of your life in someone else’s stomach. 16. breathe.

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined Half of the night with our old friend Who’d showed us in the end To a bed I reached in one drunk stride. Already I lay snug, And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side. I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug, Suddenly, from behind, In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed: Your instep to my heel, My shoulder-blades against your chest. It was not sex, but I could feel The whole strength of your body set, Or braced, to mine, And locking me to you As if we were still twenty-two When our grand passion had not yet Become familial. My quick sleep had deleted all Of intervening time and place. I only knew The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.

GEORGIA_DARKLY: So you say. You could be anyone. FREE_MILLY: Are you my Daddy? :D GEORGIA_DARKLY: NO LUKE I AM YOUR FATHER GINGERBREAD-ED: I'M SPRTACUS! RISHYISH: Am I the only one feeling super-paranoid now? I'm going to have to delete my entire life.

write something you feel about, than delete it. bam! you go back to the start with fresh mind

it feels like that is the perfect example of real life. Someone out there is holding down my backspace key and the longer he does this, the more I disappear. I try to write my story again but there he is, erasing, deleting. We are all just pieces in life’s game of chess.

grief is the reminder of the depth of our love. Without love, there is no grief. So when we feel our grief, uncomfortable and aching as it may be, it is actually a reminder of the beauty of that love, now lost. I’ll never forget calling Gordon while I was traveling, and hearing him say that he was out to dinner by himself after the loss of a dear friend “so he could feel his grief.” He knew that in the blinking and buzzing world of our lives, it is so easy to delete the past and move on to the next moment. To linger in the longing, the loss, the yearning is a way of feeling the rich and embroidered texture of life, the torn cloth of our world that is endlessly being ripped and rewoven.

The other thing that I would say about writer's block is that it can be very, very subjective. By which I mean, you can have one of those days when you sit down and every word is crap. It is awful. You cannot understand how or why you are writing, what gave you the illusion or delusion that you would every have anything to say that anybody would ever want to listen to. You're not quite sure why you're wasting your time. And if there is one thing you're sure of, it's that everything that is being written that day is rubbish. I would also note that on those days (especially if deadlines and things are involved) is that I keep writing. The following day, when I actually come to look at what has been written, I will usually look at what I did the day before, and think, "That's not quite as bad as I remember. All I need to do is delete that line and move that sentence around and its fairly usable. It's not that bad." What is really sad and nightmarish (and I should add, completely unfair, in every way. And I mean it -- utterly, utterly, unfair!) is that two years later, or three years later, although you will remember very well, very clearly, that there was a point in this particular scene when you hit a horrible Writer's Block from Hell, and you will also remember there was point in this particular scene where you were writing and the words dripped like magic diamonds from your fingers -- as if the Gods were speaking through you and every sentence was a thing of beauty and magic and brilliance. You can remember just as clearly that there was a point in the story, in that same scene, when the characters had turned into pathetic cardboard cut-outs and nothing they said mattered at all. You remember this very, very clearly. The problem is you are now doing a reading and you cannot for the life of you remember which bits were the gifts of the Gods and dripped from your fingers like magical words and which bits were the nightmare things you just barely created and got down on paper somehow!! Which I consider most unfair. As a writer, you feel like one or the other should be better. I wouldn't mind which. I'm not somebody who's saying, "I really wish the stuff from the Gods was better." I wouldn't mind which way it went. I would just like one of them to be better. Rather than when it's a few years later, and you're reading the scene out loud and you don't know, and you cannot tell. It's obviously all written by the same person and it all gets the same kind of reaction from an audience. No one leaps up to say, "Oh look, that paragraph was clearly written on an 'off' day." It is very unfair. I don't think anybody who isn't a writer would ever understand how quite unfair it is.

I often think that being a woman in this world must feel like waking up every day to find that someone deleted what you wrote the day before.

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—wholeheartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.

I begin to wonder at the importance of a name at all. Is it not an idea of the other person, all we have in our mind? And what if the very concept begins to lose its meaning? When dust sets on, feelings turning colors into a shade of gray. It only takes a few words, a little distance, a little confusion in our mind, and we are ready to press delete on each other.

The imbalanced power relationship is in your face all the time. Don’t you feel humiliated using one of the Facebook brands, like Instagram or WhatsApp? Facebook is the first public company controlled by one person.32 I mean, I don’t personally have anything against Mark Zuckerberg. It isn’t about him. But why would you subordinate a big part of your life to any one stranger?

There is a world of difference between stress that comes from the things you want to do and the stress that comes when you feel like you’re not working on the stuff that matters most to you.

I feel an obligation toward God to be as honest as I can. I'm human, sir, and I'll admit the Truth can be painful at times, and even a little elusive, but... as best as I can, I must speak the Truth and address things as they are. I don't feel I have any right to take the Truth and cut it up, rearrange it, select what I want and delete what I want just so it'll align with my politics or my Accounting Department." - John Barrett Jr.

Learn to enjoy this tidying process. I don’t like to write; I like to have written. But I love to rewrite. I especially like to cut: to press the DELETE key and see an unnecessary word or phrase or sentence vanish into the electricity. I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color. I like to strengthen the transition between one sentence and another. I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it a more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line. With every small refinement I feel that I’m coming nearer to where I would like to arrive, and when I finally get there I know it was the rewriting, not the writing, that won the game.

There is no room for sentiment. Everything must go to enable you to combat this manipulative technique. Photographs. Burn all of the photographs that I appear in. Remove them from all social media, mobile phones, PCs, laptops and tablets. Yes, you may look fantastic in that picture with me (I am sure you can alter it so you are preserved and I am not). As you remove the pictures say “I delete you (say my name)” and this process of exorcising me from a visual part of your life will feel uplifting. All gifts, mementos, cards, letters and those little trinkets that we so often send one another must be removed. Burn them, shred them and dispose of them. Where possible, sell certain items and you will gain increased satisfaction from having made some money out of it too. Do

A couple months after school started that year, I just plain stopped going to see the Maje. I remember coming home one day and checking the answering machine in my bedroom. The first message was from the Maje. He was waiting for me to come over. He sounded feeble and desperate: "Steve, where are you? I need you? Are you coming? Please . . ." I deleted it. The next message was also from the Maje and said pretty much the same thing. Delete. There must have been a dozen messages on that machine from the Maje, all begging me, pleading with me, to come help him. I deleted every single one of them. To this day, I have no idea what happened to the Maje, no idea if he ever got that cataract surgery. That's how our relationship ended. It still makes me feel horrible to think about now: I just deleted the Maje.

Sometimes it feels like that is the perfect example of real life. Someone out there is holding down my backspace key and the longer he does this, the more I disappear. I try to write my story again but there he is, erasing, deleting. We are all just pieces in life’s game of chess.

Dump the toxic people out of your life. Get them gone. Kick them to the curb. Stop maintaining relationships with people that make you feel guilty about things that you like, that make you feel shitty about yourself, that put you down, that don’t fucking support you, that are mean. You just get those people and shove them out of your life. Delete them off of Facebook, break it down easily. Just kind of fizzle out with the contact. Let it be like almost as if it might be growing apart. Just get rid of those people, because instead of just maintaining these “relationships” with people for the sake of just being polite or civil, you can be civil without having people that you can’t stand in your life and you’ll be so much happier. You need to stop maintaining relationships with toxic people because it’s just not good for you and it’s not worth any of your time.

Of course, the brain is a machine and a computer - everything in classical neurology is correct. But our mental processes, which constitute out being and life, are not just abstract and mechanical, but personal, as well - and, as such, involve not just classifying and categorising, but continual judging and feeling also. If this is missing, we become computer-like, as Dr P. was. And, by the same token, if we delete feeling and judging, the personal, from the cognitive sciences, we reduce them to something as defective as Dr P. - and we reduce our apprehension of the concrete and real.

Ours is an age where ethics has become obsolete. It is superseded by science, deleted by philosophy and dismissed as emotive by psychology. It is drowned in compassion, evaporates into aesthetics and retreats before relativism. The usual moral distinctions between good and bad are simply drowned in a maudlin emotion in which we feel more sympathy for the murderer than for the murdered, for the adulterer than for the betrayed, and in which we have actually begun to believe that the real guilty party, the one who somehow caused it all, is the victim, and not the perpetrator of the crime.

I am just typing my reply when another message comes through. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? Anyway, I delete what I have started and read what’s been sent. “How daring do you feel?” Frowning as to what is written on the screen I type, “That’s a bit cryptic. What do you mean?” “Take a look around you, then you can judge how daring you are as I ask you to touch yourself.

[G]rief is the reminder of the depth of our love. Without love, there is no grief. So when we feel our grief, uncomfortable and aching as it may be, it is actually a reminder of the beauty of that love, now lost. [...] [I]n the blinking and buzzing world of our lives, it is so easy to delete the past and move on to the next moment. To linger in the longing, the loss, the yearning is a way of feeling the rich and embroidered texture of life, the torn cloth of our world that is endlessly being ripped and rewoven.

Letter Six To The One Who Left Too Soon Do you regret it? Does it hurt when you see my pictures? Does it hurt when you read my words? Do you wonder if my poems are about you? Do you sometimes write a long message to apologize, then delete it? Was it me? Was it you? Was it timing? Was I too hard to love? Were you too scared of loving again? It’s hard for me to believe that you’re a bad person because you were so kind to me. It’s hard for me to believe that it was all fake because it felt genuine. It’s hard for me to believe that you had that connection with everyone because I didn’t feel like you were pretending. I didn’t feel like you were acting. Was it so hard to ask me on a few more dates? Was it so hard to ask me a few more personal questions? Was it so hard to text me back to keep the conversation going? Was it so hard to like me? Why am I always the one who’s ready? The one who’s willing to stay, the one who’s willing to try against all odds and the only one who’s willing to fight? Why am I always the one dreaming and you’re the one waking me up? Why does it begin with smiles and end with tears? Why does it always have to be you against me? Why can’t it be us against the world? I hope one day you tell me why you left too soon. I hope one day you tell me the real reason. I hope one day you tell me the truth. Sometimes I wonder about you. What you’re doing, who you’re with, why you picked her and if you ever think about me. Sometimes I wonder if you will ever reach out, just to say you miss me, say sorry or just to hear my voice. And sometimes I wish you had stayed. I hope you learn how to stay. I hope you stop leaving. I hope you learn that staying is the only way to open your heart and stop running. I hope you learn that some people—like me—would’ve done anything for you to stay. I hope you learn that there’s so much more value in staying than leaving. I hope you learn that staying doesn’t always hurt.

They looked at each other for a moment. The moment became a longer moment, and suddenly it was a very long moment, so long one could hardly tell where all the time was coming from. For Arthur, who could usually contrive to feel self-conscious if left alone with a Swiss cheese plant, the moment was one of sustained revelation. He felt on the sudden like a cramped and zoo-born animal who wakes up one morning to find the door to his cage handing quietly open and the savanna stretching gray and pink to the distant rising sun, while all around new sounds are waking. He wondered what the new sounds were as he gazed at her openly wondering face and her eyes that smiled with a shared surprise. He hadn't realized that life speaks with a voice to you, a voice that brings you answers to the questions you continually ask of it, had never consciously deleted it or recognized its tones until it now said something it had never said to him before, which was "yes.

Is there a difference between having been coded to present a vast set of standardized responses to certain human facial, vocal, and linguistic states and having evolved to exhibit response B to input A in order to bring about a desired social result? ... What I mean is, you call it feelings when you cry, but you are only expressing a response to external stimuli. Crying is one of a set of standardized responses to that stimuli. Your social education has dictated which responses are appropriate. My programming has done the same. I can cry, too. I can choose that subroutine and perform sadness. How is that different from what you are doing, except that you use the word feelings and I use the word feelings, out of deference for your cultural memes which say: there is all the difference in the world. I erase the word even as I say it, obliterate it at the same time that I initiate it, because I must use some word yet this one offends you. I delete it, yet it remains.

AS SUMMER DWINDLED, my sleep got thin and empty, like a room with white walls and tepid air-conditioning. If I dreamt at all, I dreamt that I was lying in bed. It felt superficial, even boring at times. I’d take a few extra Risperdal and Ambien when I got antsy, thinking about my past. I tried not to think of Trevor. I deleted Reva’s messages without listening to them. I watched Air Force One twelve times on mute. I tried to put everything out of my mind. Valium helped. Ativan helped. Chewable melatonin and Benadryl and NyQuil and Lunesta and temazepam helped. My visit to Dr. Tuttle in September was also banal. Besides the sweltering heat I suffered walking from my building into a cab, and from the cab into Dr. Tuttle’s office, I felt almost nothing. I wasn’t anxious or despondent or resentful or terrified. “How are you feeling?” I stood and pondered the question for five minutes while Dr. Tuttle went around her office turning on an arsenal of fans, all the same make and model, two installed on the radiator under the windows, one on her desk, and two in the corners of the room on the floor. She was impressively nimble. She no longer wore the neck brace. “I’m fine, I think,” I yelled blandly over the roaring hum.

First experiences in life are very important. I never analyzed you, I always saw you. I never judged you, I always grasped you. When I left, I became lost. I was working, living, performing but you were missing, I don’t know why? I seriously don't understand why you are impacting so much on me? Can you clear in future if you have answer? We never talked too much but why this pain of departure is there? I have tried to forget you a lot, tried to delete the contact, tried to full concentrate on my life, sometime cried but there was not a single day when I didn't think about you. Am I really over thinker? I failed in your case, I failed. I have to accept the reality that to be good with you is the only solution which can make me happy & stable. Wherever I'll be in life, but this connectivity is necessary now. It is a part of life. I have so many questions for you. Have you ever missed me like I do? Everyday? I felt it, was that true? Do you really like to hear me? Or you are also in me? Or you are trying to suggest me some future planning? Are you shy? Less talker? You always tried to be open up with me? I always maintained safe distance? Was I too reserved? Was I egoistic? Yes, I was, but only in your case. Whatever you did for me that all was unsaid, pure, clear, fair. You were always nice to me? You never scold me, is this your part of nature? I heard so many cases of your temper? I never asked about you to people, they used to tell me about you by their own. Can I suggest you something? You are smart thinker but be careful from the people. Never be too kind to anyone, not all people have value of it. People never learn from the mistakes; they don’t want to create; they want to copy. I would say, don’t kind to me too, I have said so many things to you. I never seen so calm person. How? Do you have emotions? neutral? You never think on the things? Are you so productive? Are you innocent (in case of people)? Why can’t you understand that people makes show off in front of you only? Why are you giving so much importance to commerce people? Are they intelligent than engineers? Do you think so? Am I asking you so many questions? I really care for you & your selection of people. What are you actually see in the people? Obviously it’s your choice to answer it or not? At least I can ask my questions. Did I make a mistake according to you? For me, I was right, but I never asked you about you. As you said, I never gave you chance. For me, you are the chance giver & I am chance taker. I was scared by you. Did I hurt you? Hope I never made loss of you in any manner. I want to clear you one thing that apart from all my shit thinking, if you need any kind of assistance then please feel free to share. So what I have confess my love to you? It’s fine? Right? It’s natural, I had tried to control it a lot. Now I am more transparent, shameless & confident. I can face you in any condition. This change has changed my life.

Once the vehicle started moving, she realized she had no idea where she was going. Wasn’t that always the case? Her phone chimed. Nick. Where did you go? Quinn deleted it. Then she started a new text. Playing sentry again tonight? The response text took less than three seconds. Why? Need rescuing, baby girl? Quinn smiled. Now that you mention it, yeah. I do. Her phone vibrated almost immediately. What’s up? I’m on a bus, bound for nowhere. Sweetheart, it’s a TRAIN bound for nowhere. Her heart gave a little squee at the endearment. It meant nothing and everything all at once. She smiled over her phone while she texted back. Well, I’m on a bus with no destination in mind. Want me to come get you? Quinn stopped and stared at the phone. Was this dangerous? It didn’t feel dangerous. Tyler had had ample opportunity to hurt her last night and he hadn’t. When Becca had first told her about finding Chris in the middle of a fight with Tyler and Seth in the parking lot, Quinn’s first question had been, “Why?” She’d never gotten a good answer. She slid her thumbs across the face of her phone. Are more taquitos in my future? Play your cards right and there might be a soda, too. His texts were teasing, so she wasn’t sure if his offer to come get her was genuine. She didn’t want to get off the bus until she knew for sure. Then her phone lit up with a new message. Don’t make me ride the bus all night. Where should I pick you up? “Excuse me,” she called to the driver. “What’s the next stop?” “Annapolis Mall. West side.” Next stop is Annapolis Mall. West side. Well look at that. You just got upgraded to a soft pretzel. See you in 10.

It's funny, you know. We're free. We make choices. We weigh things in our minds, consider everything carefully, use all the tools of logic and education. And in the end, what we mostly do is what we have no choice but to do. Makes you think, why bother? But you bother because you do, that's why. Because you're a DNA-brand computer running Childhood 1.0 software. They update the software but the changes are always just around the edges. You have the brain you have, the intelligence, the talents, the strengths and weaknesses you have, from the moment they take you out of the box and throw away the Styrofoam padding. But you have the fears you picked up along the way. The terrors of age four or six or eight are never suspended, just layered over. The dread I'd felt so recently, a dread that should be so much greater because the facts had been so much more horrible, still could not diminish the impact of memories that had been laid down long years before. It's that way all through life, I guess. I have a relative who says she still gets depressed every September because in the back of her mind it's time for school to start again. She's my great-aunt. The woman is sixty-seven and still bumming over the first day of school five-plus decades ago. It's sad in a way because the pleasures of life get old and dated fast. The teenage me doesn't get the jolt the six-year-old me got from a package of Pop Rocks. The me I've become doesn't rush at the memories of the day I skated down a parking ramp however many years ago. Pleasure fades, gets old, gets thrown out with last year's fad. Fear, guilt, all that stuff stays fresh. Maybe that's why people get so enraged when someone does something to a kid. Hurt a kid and he hurts forever. Maybe an adult can shake it off. Maybe. But with a kid, you hurt them and it turns them, shapes them, becomes part of the deep, underlying software of their lives. No delete. I don't know. I don't know much. I feel like I know less all the time. Rate I'm going, by the time I'm twenty-one I won't know a damned thing. But still I was me. Had no choice, I guess. I don't know, maybe that's bull and I was just feeling sorry for myself. But, bottom line, I dried my eyes, and I pushed my dirty, greasy hair back off my face, and I started off down the road again because whatever I was, whoever I was, however messed up I might be, I wasn't leaving April behind. Maybe it was all an act programmed into me from the get-go, or maybe it grew up out of some deep-buried fear, I mean maybe at some level I was really just as pathetic as Senna thought I was. Maybe I was a fake. Whatever. Didn't matter. I was going back to the damned dragon, and then I was getting April out, and everything and everyone else could go screw themselves. One good thing: For now at least, I was done being scared.

Since emotions have to be programmed into robots from the outside, manufacturers may offer a menu of emotions carefully chosen on the basis of whether they are necessary, useful, or will increase bonding with the owner. In all likelihood, robots will be programmed to have only a few human emotions, depending on the situation. Perhaps the emotion most valued by the robot’s owner will be loyalty. One wants a robot that faithfully carries out its commands without complaints, that understands the needs of the master and anticipates them. The last thing an owner will want is a robot with an attitude, one that talks back, criticizes people, and whines. Helpful criticisms are important, but they must be made in a constructive, tactful way. Also, if humans give it conflicting commands, the robot should know to ignore all of them except those coming from its owner. Empathy will be another emotion that will be valued by the owner. Robots that have empathy will understand the problems of others and will come to their aid. By interpreting facial movements and listening to tone of voice, robots will be able to identify when a person is in distress and will provide assistance when possible. Strangely, fear is another emotion that is desirable. Evolution gave us the feeling of fear for a reason, to avoid certain things that are dangerous to us. Even though robots will be made of steel, they should fear certain things that can damage them, like falling off tall buildings or entering a raging fire. A totally fearless robot is a useless one if it destroys itself. But certain emotions may have to be deleted, forbidden, or highly regulated, such as anger. Given that robots could be built to have great physical strength, an angry robot could create tremendous problems in the home and workplace. Anger could get in the way of its duties and cause great damage to property. (The original evolutionary purpose of anger was to show our dissatisfaction. This can be done in a rational, dispassionate way, without getting angry.) Another emotion that should be deleted is the desire to be in command. A bossy robot will only make trouble and might challenge the judgment and wishes of the owner. (This point will also be important later, when we discuss whether robots will one day take over from humans.) Hence the robot will have to defer to the wishes of the owner, even if this may not be the best path. But perhaps the most difficult emotion to convey is humor, which is a glue that can bond total strangers together. A simple joke can defuse a tense situation or inflame it. The basic mechanics of humor are simple: they involve a punch line that is unanticipated. But the subtleties of humor can be enormous. In fact, we often size up other people on the basis of how they react to certain jokes. If humans use humor as a gauge to measure other humans, then one can appreciate the difficulty of creating a robot that can tell if a joke is funny or not.

She leaned forward and placed her chin on her fist. 'So. Can you tell me in a sentence or two how I can fix my life using vaastu shastra techniques?' He smiled. 'You'll be surprised to hear that I can. These things may be complex on the surface, but they are built on very simple truths.' He leaned back and joined his fingertips together, looking up and thinking for a few seconds. 'Let me put it like this. Consider your desk, whether it is an office desk, or a table at home where you receive and write letters. What happens at that desk? Answer: every day, a number of letters are received. Or faxes. Or advertisements. These are all items with potential energy applications. They are all bits of paper urging you to react in some way—to buy a product, or respond with a phone call, or change the way you do something. Now what we should do is to react to that potential energy transaction in some way—and thus burn up the energy in it. We should either fulfill it, by doing what it says, or we should make a decision that we are not going to fulfill it, but instead throw the paper away. But, instead, we take that piece of paper and we balance it on our desk, unwilling to make an immediate decision. This happens to a number of pieces of paper every day, and then before we know it, there is a huge pile of pieces of paper on the desk. When it gets too high, we take the pile of paper and we tuck it into a drawer. When the drawer gets so full it cannot close, we tuck the paper into a cardboard box and stick it under the desk. Soon our desks are jammed with paper—underneath, inside & on top.' 'Good God! You've been spying on me!' 'Alas, it is what most people's desks look like.' 'What's the effect of all these unfulfilled bits of paper? What did you call it—potential energy transactions?' 'I shall tell you. The day comes when you arrive at your desk, and you have lots of work to do, but you can't do it. You feel an incredible amount of inertia. You can't get started. And you have no idea why.' 'You peeping Tom! You've been staring at me through my office window.' 'The reason why you can't get started is that your desk is swamped with frozen energy. It is lying there, waiting to be handled. But the inertia infects everything you do, so that you end up unable to do anything.' She shook her head. 'It's awful, but it all rings true. What about computers? I use mostly email these days.' 'They're just the same. The only difference is that instead of physical letters arriving at your desk, emails arrive in your inbox. Again, each of them is a potential energy transaction. And again, the right thing to do would be to delete each one, or reply to each one—and then delete it. But that's not what we do, is it?' 'It is not.' 'We leave them there in our inboxes.' She nodded guiltily. 'And soon there are 600 emails in our inboxes.' '800.' 'And eventually, we select them all and stick them in a file called "archive"—which is simply the computer equivalent of the cardboard box under the desk. And the result is the same. Our email systems become full of frozen energy, & inertia spreads out of it. We find ourselves unable to do any useful work.' 'I've often wondered why I feel like I am walking in treacle. So what should one do about all this?' Sinha waved a bony index finger at her. 'This is what I recommend. Divide all your paperwork into 2 piles. One of stuff that is useless and should be thrown away. And one of stuff which you think may be of use one day. Then you throw both piles away.' 'Both piles?' 'Both piles. By that stage, you will have started to feel the benefits that clarity can bring.' 'And I suppose one should delete all one's emails as well.' 'Exactly. Even if you don’t, that nice Mr. Gates has arranged for the computer to crash every few years, so that all your stuff gets wiped out anyway.

Delete [Verse 1 Tommy] Don't forget about the stars, the sky Lucid as the air that blows and light, that shines Just a way to figure out her when the night is wrong Take a little wander outside through the rain and snow Just a way to figure out her [Chorus 1 Tommy] Don't delete my baby, don't defeat her still In the quiet of nothing, to the hands of grace Don't delete my baby, don't defeat her now Don't delete my baby, won't you always find Gonna shine a diamond, like you never did Gonna show you something, I can't be taught Don't delete my baby, I'll find a chorus now You know that I belong to be, reflections of myself Let it all out, just let it all out To fight the feeling [Verse 2 Tommy] Don't take it to the one, in mind Always know it needs her to belong, to find Know that when I do, and want to face the place Take a little wander outside, through the rain and snow Just a way to figure out her [Chorus 2 Tommy] Don't defeat my baby, don't delete her still In the quiet of nothing, to the hands of grace Don't delete my baby, don't defeat her now Don't defeat my baby, won't you always find Gonna shine a diamond, like you never did Gonna show you something, I can't be taught Don't delete my baby, I'll find a chorus now You know that I belong to be, reflections of myself Let it all out, just let it all out To fight the feeling coming [Outro Matt] To break, don't wait Wait for me tonight, opening the door Shift horizons in good time You were there for me, waking in the night Let it catch you in the fall I know that you're right, ease with me tonight Break the moment in the dawn You were there for me, waking in the dark Know I'll meet you in the fall I could be the one, you could be divine Know I'll feel you in good time I know that you're right, ease with me tonight Break the moment in the dawn You were there for me, waking in the dark Not but the one I break, the feeling I take Everything is starting to wake You know you more, you're setting off the score

Clearing out your email inbox can make you feel really good—like you’re ultra-productive. But unless your job is to delete emails, time spent in your inbox may not be time spent wisely.

Afterword to “Where Hesperus Falls” Words, words, words are the enemy of a writer. I take great pleasure in simplifying language and sentences whenever I can. If I’ve started something, I write through to the end of the paragraph or section, then go back and prune out whole sentences. I’m pleased if I reach the end having deleted thirty sentences, making the thing tighter without losing any of the impact. Of course, I keep having to go back to make sure that I have the right words and no repetition. Norma catches a lot of this, and it’s a great deal of work. I liked it much better in the old days when I could still see and could assimilate a whole page at a time like other writers do. You mustn’t try too hard to produce effects either. They have to come kind of quietly, sneaking up on you out of the action and feeling. When you want to describe something that’s flamboyant, weird and strange, anything a little bit outrageous, wicked or nasty, you don’t do it by exposition, which can become long-winded and tiresome. You have one of your characters describe it to somebody else. Instead of writing that a man is an evil beast, without a redeeming quality, you have a girl come in out of the cold with her clothes torn and say: ‘I met this fellow, Steve, and he did such and such. That man is a beast. Do you know what he did to Henrietta? He pulled all her hair out.’ I’m exaggerating, but this is almost a trade secret: not having the exposition come from the writer, but rather from the mouths of the characters themselves. So cut those words out. Sometimes you can combine the adjective and the noun into a single notion. Instead of saying there was a horse colored all kinds of different colors, you say a palomino came down the road. —Jack Vance The Phantom Milkman I’ve had all I can stand.

Here’s Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice president of user growth at Facebook: The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works.… No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem—this is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem.… I feel tremendous guilt. I think we all knew in the back of our minds—even though we feigned this whole line of, like, there probably aren’t any bad unintended consequences. I think in the back, deep, deep recesses of, we kind of knew something bad could happen.… So we are in a really bad state of affairs right now, in my opinion. It is eroding the core foundation of how people behave by and between each other. And I don’t have a good solution. My solution is I just don’t use these tools anymore. I haven’t for years.2

Similarly, a BUMMER addict eventually becomes preternaturally quick to take offense, as if hoping to get into a spat. Addicts also become aggressive, though they feel they are acting out of necessity. The choice is to victimize or be a victim.

My dedication is for all those who are living with depression. For all those who are thinking or have thought that suicide might be the best option. I am proof that there is a life to be lived after depression and a life to be lived with depression – though it might not always feel like it. Don’t give up. Talk it through, write it down, run, dance, read, paint, sleep, play sport, do yoga, sit in a chair, walk in a park! Do whatever you need to and wait it out until the demon is off your back and the darkness passes. Take a breath. Take a moment. As I say in the book, things can and often do get better. Don’t delete yourself.

Gone is that pain Gone is that agony The wounds are still there subsiding all anguish; You get a bite of the culprit, again the fierce emotions are on but the understanding is more, compassion is more What they made you feel can never be deleted though it'd faded More light is in your way, go hold on to that

Sometimes I wonder how it feels like to be nothing at all Shattered and lonely, just fearing downfall. When the world hits you hard, smashes you down, Where the people you loved are forever gone. Sometimes I wonder if happiness existed Sadness would not be any of our business. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever feel complete The negativity to my life will automatically delete. Sometimes I wonder how it feels like to be nothing at all. Shattered and lonely, just fearing downfall.

So how do you think scripts should be read? How can they be read? When I was trying to write the stage directions for publication—in those final few weeks of scramble before we opened—I got really worried about all this. I remember in rehearsals we’d delete chunks of the script because the actors were communicating something effortlessly with a look, so didn’t need the lines I’d written. This script was created for a particular group of actors, but others need to inhabit the roles too. The reader needs to visualize the characters, as does the director. When you’re reading a script for the first time, what are you looking for? JOHN: As a director, the first time you read a new script is very precious. It’s the closest you’re ever going to be to an audience watching a production of this script for the first time. Reading a finished script should allow us access to the story, its characters, and the themes the playwright is exploring. A script can make us laugh and cry. It can take us through the joy of its story and also make us feel deep despair for the suffering of its characters. A script builds towards a fully realized production and an experience that can be shared with the audience.   As a playwright, how much of this full experience do you imagine when you are writing a script? Do you speak the characters’ lines out loud as you type them? JACK: I do worse than that, I move like them. Which, when you’re working in well-known coffee shops and sandwich retailers, can lead to you attracting some strange looks. I find myself twisting into the character and gesticulating like them. It’s all very embarrassing.   The thing that was perhaps most interesting about the process of writing this particular script is that I have never spent more time with actors—ever. Through the weeks of workshops and then weeks of rehearsals we were all in those rooms together for so long, all of us, from the design team to the sound team to the lights. I don’t think any of us have experienced anything like that—I think it probably works out at eight months or so, all in all. What effect would you say that had on what was created? I’m sure it made it all a lot better, but more than that do you think it somehow changed the tone of what we did?

Silent morning Quiet nature in dim light It is almost peaceless of the chirping of birds Waiting for the sunrise Feeling satisfied with pure breath Busy life- in pursuit of livelihood, running people In the intensity of the wood-burning sun, astray finch Sometimes the advent of north-wester I’m scared The calamitous heartache of the falling Caesalpinia pulcherrima! Listen to get ears Surprisingly I saw the unadulterated green weald Vernal, yellow and crimson colors are the glorious beauty of the unique nature An amazing reflection of Bengal The housewife’s fringe of azure color sari fly in the gentle breeze The cashew forest on the bank of flowing rivers white egret couple peep-bo The kite crookedly flies get lost in the far unknown The footstep of blustery childhood on the zigzag path Standing on a head-high hill touches the fog Beckoning with the hand of the magical horizon The liveliness of a rainy-soaked juvenile Momentary fascinated visibility of Ethnic group’s pineapple, tea, banana and jhum cultivation at the foot of the hill Trailer- shrub, algae and pebble-stone come back to life in the cleanly stream of the fountain Bumble bee is rudderless in the drunken smell of mountain wild flower The heart of the most beloved is touched by pure love In the distant sea water, pearl glow in the sunlight Rarely, the howl of a hungry tiger float in the air from a deep forest The needy fisherman’s ​​hope and aspiration are mortgaged to the infinite sea The waves come rushing on the beach delete the footprint to the beat of the dancing The white cotton cloud is invisible in the bluey The mew flies at impetuous speed to an unknown destination A slice of happy smile at the bend of the wave The western sky covered with the crimson glow of twilight Irritated by the cricket’s endless acrid sound The evening lamp is lit to flickering light of the firefly The red crabs tittup wildly on the beach Steadfast seeing Sunset A beautiful dream Next sunrise.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best." [Misattributed to Baden Powell the English mathematician and Church of England priest. Properly attributed to Sir Robert Baden-Powell the founder of the Scout Movement]

I put my hand on his forearm, I don't know why I do this, and it's not exactly natural, although it's not unnatural, except that I really want to touch his skin. It's smooth and tan just a little bit and feels like summer, like something familiar and warm and good, like my skin did on the first days aboard 'Fishful Thinking' before it salted and burned and peeled. 'We broke up three years after that.' I sit back in my chair and give a sly smile. Relationships are complex and sometimes you can't really explain them to an outside party. 'I can't believe I just told you that' 'YES! YOU! ARE! LIVING! YOUR! FULL! LIFE!' A third time. I am not imagining it. 'There you are.' This time my heart does skip a beat. I look down at his arm, and we are still touching, and he has made no attempt to retract his arm or retreat. All my surroundings, the red formica table top, the pink yogurt, the blue sky, the green vegetables in the market, they all come alive in vibrant technicolor as the sun peers from behind a cloud. I am living my full life. 'Honesty in all things,' Byron adds, lifting his cup of yogurt for a toast of sorts. I pull my hand away from him and the instant my hand is back by his side, I miss the warmth of his arm, the warmth of him. Honesty in all things. I should put my hand back, that's where it wants to be, that's Lily's lesson to me. Be present in the moment, give spontaneous affection. I'm suddenly aware I haven't spoken in a bit. 'Did you know that an octopus has three hearts?' As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I realize I sound like that kid from 'Jerry McGuire.' 'Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds?' I hope my question comes off almost a fraction as endearing. 'No,' Byron says with a glint in his eye that reads as curiosity, at least I hope that it does, but even if it doesn't I'm too into the inertia of the trivia to stop it. 'It's true, one heart called the systemic heart that functions much like the left side of the human heart, distributing blood throughout the heart, then two smaller branchial heart with gills that act like the right side of our hearts to pump the blood back.' 'What made you think of that?' I smile. It may be entirely inappropriate first date conversation, but at least it doesn't bore me in the telling. I look up at the winsome August sky, marred only by the contrails of a passing jet, and a vaguely dachshund shaped cloud above the horizon. I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in love at first site. I don't believe in angels. I don't believe in heaven and that our loved ones are looking down on us, but the sun is so warm and the breeze is so cool and the company is so perfect and the whole afternoon so intoxicating, ti's hard not to hear Lily's voice dancing in the gentle wind, 'one! month! is Long! Enough TO! BE! SAD!' ... 'I recently lost someone close to me....I don't know, I feel her here today with us, you, me, her, three hearts, like an octopus,' I shrug. If I were him, I would run. What a ridiculously creepy thing to say. I would run and I would not stop until I was home in my bed with a gallon of ice cream deleting my profile from every dating site I belonged to. Maybe it's because it's not rehearsed, maybe it's because it's as weird a thing to say as it is genuine, maybe it's because this is finally the man for me. Byron stands and offers me his hand, 'Let's take a walk and you can tell me about her.' The gentle untying of a shoe lace. It takes me a minute to decide if I can do this, and I decide that I can, and I throw our yogurt dishes away, and I put my hand in his, and it's soft and warm, and instead of awkward fumbling, our hands clasp together like magnets and metal, like we've been hand-in-hand all along, and we are touching again. ...

We don’t know those bones but I know what it feels like to know a dead girl. Her text messages are in my phone. I don’t look at them but I keep them there. It seems fucked up to delete a dead girl’s texts. It seems pointless. She is already gone.

Okay,” I said again, “so I won’t totally delete my accounts and attempt to melt into the earth and cut out a big red letter P to wear on my chest every time I leave the house.” “It was an A,” Monique said automatically. Trust Monique to correct me on school stuff at the moment she’s trying to repair our friendship with cupcakes and moral support. “I know, but I’m not an adulteress, I’m pathetic.” “Rachel, how many times have I—” “No, no, I get it.” I raised my cupcake-free hand to stop her. “I’m just saying if I had a shame badge, that would be the one. Let’s say it stands for photographer, will that make you feel better? Pathetic, puppy dog, pitiful photographer. Either way, I’m not planning on actually wearing it.” Monique smirked, but she kept her mouth shut.

My friend Gordon Wheeler, who is a psychologist, explains that grief is the reminder of the depth of our love. Without love, there is no grief. So when we feel our grief, uncomfortable and aching as it may be, it is actually a reminder of the beauty of that love, now lost. I'll never forget calling Gordon while I was traveling and hearing him say that he was out to dinner by himself after the loss of a dear friend 'so he could feel his grief.' He knew that in the blinking and buzzing world of our lives, it is so easy to delete the past and move on to the next moment. To linger in the longing, the loss, the yearning is a way of feeling the rich embroidered texture of life, the torn cloth of our world that is endlessly being ripped and rewoven.

The easiest way to get more predictive skill is to delete all personal narrative, feelings, and trivial details from your analysis.

We were quiet for a moment. Then I said, “Look, I’ve got an idea of what you feel for this woman, okay? I saw her. She’s a head-turner.” “She’s more than that,” he said softly. The dumb, sappy bastard. His only hope with that ice bitch would be that she’d recognize how helpless he was and have some scruples about whatever it was she was up to. I wouldn’t count on it, though. “The point is,” I said, “it doesn’t give me any pleasure to give you reason to doubt. But I’m telling you, there’s something wrong here, Harry. You need to be careful. And nothing makes you less careful than the kind of feelings that have taken hold of you right now.” After a while he said, “I’ll think about what you’ve said. Okay?” He didn’t look like he’d think about it, though. He looked like he wanted to jam his hands over his ears. Stick his newly coiffed head in the sand. Hit the Delete key on everything I’d told him. “Look, I’m going to see her tonight,” he said. “I’ll watch more closely. I’ll keep in mind what you’ve said.” I realized I’d been wasting my time. “I thought you were smarter than this,” I said, shaking my head. “I really did.” I stood and dropped a few bills on the table. I left without even looking at him.

In the incarnation God deleted every definition of distance; every possible excuse man could have to feel separated or even neglected by God was removed in one day, through one sacrifice, once and for all.

Of course, the brain is a machine and a computer—everything in classical neurology is correct. But our mental processes, which constitute our being and life, are not just abstract and mechanical, but personal, as well—and, as such, involve not just classifying and categorising, but continual judging and feeling also. If this is missing, we become computer-like, as Dr P. was. And, by the same token, if we delete feeling and judging, the personal, from the cognitive sciences, we reduce them to something as defective as Dr P.—and we reduce our apprehension of the concrete and real.

Maya’s face as though wondering what to tell her. ‘It’s just I know they weren’t always happy, and I did once wonder if they’d have stayed together… There was something my husband, George, said when you were first in my maths class. As you know, he taught the other year one class at your primary school and mentioned how once he’d had to break up an argument between your parents when they were waiting to pick you up from school. It must have been pretty heated for him to remember it after all that time – he wasn’t one to gossip. Apparently, Mrs Lyons wouldn’t let you out of your classroom until George had managed to calm them down.’ Maya feels her stomach clench. ‘All couples argue.’ ‘I know.’ Mrs Ellis pats her hand. ‘And that’s why you mustn’t worry about it. It was a long time ago, anyway.’ The bus is stopping. Bending to her bag, Mrs Ellis moves it so that it’s not in the way of the people getting on. ‘But if you ever feel you want to spread your wings, you mustn’t feel your dad would be on his own. He’s a grown man, and you can’t make him your responsibility. I’m sure he has friends, neighbours, even work colleagues who would keep an eye on him. Doesn’t he have his own private practice in Lyme Regis?’ ‘Yes, but it’s not the same. He needs me.’ Maya’s voice slips away, so it’s barely a whisper. ‘Yes, he needs me. It’s why I couldn’t go to university.’ She doesn’t want to talk about that time for, although her dad had been encouraging when she’d first told him she was applying, a week after the forms were filled in, a cloud had settled over him. One that was darker than previous ones. Maya had tempted him with his favourite food, enticed him out for healing walks along the clifftop, but nothing she’d done could lift it. Eventually, telling herself it was because of what she’d done, she’d deleted her application from the computer. When her dad had found out and asked why she’d done it, she’d told him it was because she couldn’t face more studying. Would rather earn a living. Whether he’d believed her or not, she couldn’t say. What she did know was that he’d never tried to change her mind. ‘Do you like your job, Maya?’ Maya lowers her eyes and studies her hands. It’s something she hasn’t given much thought to. Her job is just something she does to get through

Before Liv did that Justen gives me a look after the beer was dump out over her head… yeah know- I can’t explain it- it’s silly- but it’s almost looked like a pity look like she felt bad for what she did to me, like she had to do it or something, but didn’t want to. It was not over Maddie dropped her jeans in pissed right on her face, and took a small dump on her chest- her goodies were visible to everyone, but that’s Maddie she’s crazy. All of the breath leaves my body in a rush, as Liv shoves tampons up her nose, and we all walk away. ‘Payback is a b*tch!’ I feel like I’ve been punched in the ovaries, and I was slogged in the stomach… by you gusset, it Ray. He still loves to get drunk, off all the humps, rumps, and lumps he had tonight. Saying- ‘What the hell are you guys doing to her? She didn’t do anything to you.’ I said- ‘Don’t even talk to me ass hole- you’re missed up!’ He said- ‘Fine, you’re a baby anyways. And he walked off all pissed.’ (He is the one to blame, isn’t he?) I said when he was walking off- ‘If she gets knocked up at ten by you not pulling out, I will kill you!’ I know this because she just started her period last month, and I had to be like her mom and explain everything, like always. My girls had my back… when he walked off. I think that is why he backed off. Oh yeah, without thinking, I chest bump them both as hard as I can, I felt like they saved me tonight. I am sure a fist bump would have worked but… you know. They showed they carried for me. That is when I see Rays' phone on the windowsill, like most boys he is all laying it down… I go throw it and see an ammeter video of him taking my sis on Marcel’s mom and dad's bed, I deleted it, before everyone sees it, online and on their phones. I am sure it’s been sent or is going to everyone that matters. I just hope I am not too late. And just like that, I see all the sexy texts and pics, so I drop it into a full cup of beer that someone left next to it on the sill. It’s bad enough she was popped and dropped like she doesn’t need that too, on top of it all. Jenny is squeezing Kenneth like she is frightened or uncomfortable by all, that is around her with all this drama. I see him- we lock eyes for a moment. I think he saw me doing it dropping the phone in. He was going out the door to aid Justen that was surely still passed out. I can’t exactly tell what he’s thinking, but whatever it is, it’s not good. I look away, feeling hot and uncomfortable. Like I should’ve done that.

The curiosity of the book was that, as you held it, and “read” it, you felt an intimate connection with it as with a living thing, which you did not feel with an eBook; as soon as you were finished with the eBook, you stored it, or deleted it; you felt no sentiment or particular ownership.

Most intelligent beings lack a permanent physical form. Instead, they exist as software capable of instantly moving between computers and manifesting themselves in the physical world through robotic bodies. Because these minds can readily duplicate themselves or merge, the “population size” keeps changing. Being unfettered from their physical substrate gives such beings a rather different outlook on life: they feel less individualistic because they can trivially share knowledge and experience modules with others, and they feel subjectively immortal because they can readily make backup copies of themselves. In a sense, the central entities of life aren’t minds, but experiences: exceptionally amazing experiences live on because they get continually copied and re-enjoyed by other minds, while uninteresting experiences get deleted by their owners to free up storage space for better ones.

I was feeling low, i felt like i said too many 'I love you's and received less of what i gave. I craved love because i am a being of love. I remember my parents telling me that I have a heart of gold and everyone around me telling me that i deserved the best love. But, somehow, over the years, i gave too much and felt like everyone took my heart only to break it and walk away. I moved on, but sometimes i feel my heart is done with these games. I meet someone, and that heart fixes itself, but soon it all goes down, and i question myself; am i good enough or simply walking towards hell? I have tried to change my means and ways. I have deleted all sources and have been in the hermit mode, trying to knock some sense and tell myself it will all get better. But, this body, this mind, this soul is tired of the mess. I have understood everyone and given the space, but i just want someone to love me for once in my way. To just hold me and tell me things will be better again. To love me for who i am and grow with me always. I want a soul that connects with mine and a universe where my love story sees every sunrise and midnight.

This whole painful irony is especially striking in the case of email, that ingenious twentieth-century invention whereby any random person on the planet can pester you, at any time they like, and at almost no cost to themselves, by means of a digital window that sits inches from your nose, or in your pocket, throughout your working day, and often at weekends, too. The ‘input’ side of this arrangement – the number of emails that you could, in principle, receive – is essentially infinite. But the ‘output’ side – the number of messages you’ll have time to read properly, reply to, or just make a considered decision to delete – is strictly finite. So getting better at processing your email is like getting faster and faster at climbing up an infinitely tall ladder: you’ll feel more rushed, but no matter how quickly you go, you’ll never reach the top. In ancient Greek myth, the gods punish King Sisyphus for his arrogance by sentencing him to push an enormous boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down again, an action he is condemned to repeat for all eternity. In the contemporary version, Sisyphus would empty his inbox, lean back and take a deep breath, before hearing a familiar ping: ‘You have new messages

Tara throwing my biggest insecurity in my face puts a damper on my night, and I suddenly have no desire for anyone to see my naked body, regardless of the fact I’ll never have to see them again.  An alert pings on my phone. A message from that guy on Tinder asking what my plans are for the night, but I don’t respond. I delete the app entirely, over the whole idea. Instead, I change into a pair of leggings, an oversized thrifted tee, and a flannel, finishing my outfit off with my Air Force Ones. I grab my purse, sling the strap across my body, and head out the door to the bar I found a few blocks away so I can watch my brother’s home opener of the season. All while I am scarfing down on a burger and a beer.  Two beers. Probably three beers. Fuck it, let’s not put a limit on it. However many beers it’ll take to make me forget about how shitty I feel.

Writing is madness and joy, frustration and elation. A constant ebb and flow of this works, that’s shit. Are all writers like this? Are they all only a few short steps from going mad? We’re all mad here. Have I gone mad? I’m afraid so, but let me tell you something, the best people usually are. I wonder if Lewis Carroll ever felt like this. Did any of the great authors feel this pendulum of emotion or, in my case, lack thereof? Probably. Maybe. I’m hungry. See? Total madness and lack of focus. A steady stream of consciousness and unconsciousness flowing . . . typing as if it makes any sense at all. I know I’ll delete all of this later, but for now, it feels like progress, and progress I’ll take.

he told me i was like a poem, all kinds of feelings bundled into one but i am a song without melody, a screeching noise you don't want to hear i am like an ointment but for the wrong wound; i can't heal you but i would burn i am like that paragraph you delete before sending an okay the last drop of coffee still stuck on your discarded cup i am the rubber band on your wrist, i am lost as soon as you set me down and like the moon on a moonless night i am there but not in your world, not in your eyes, not in your heart. i could have been your comfort shoe, but i broke your feet and you discarded me so now I'm just an occupied space on your shelf you don't use anymore I'm like the stain on the mirror when you're taking pictures; an irritation that stays like the push and shove on the subway station that doesn't make you stop and stare but the one that keeps you moving, completely unaware i'm the stranger on the street that you see yet you don't your eyes pass through me, not in focus, not in the zone i'm not the art kind of beautiful, i'm the beauty that lies there, ignored my existence is poetry, unnoticed, unaware, invisible to your eyes and you just keep moving and i stay, i stay, i stay right there

In the meantime, there is something you can do personally. If, when you participate in online platforms, you notice a nasty thing inside yourself, an insecurity, a sense of low self-esteem, a yearning to lash out, to swat someone down, then leave that platform. Simple. There is a spotlight on online bullying, as there should be, and you might have experienced being bullied online. Many, many people have. But I am also asking you to notice, within your own mind, in genuine secrecy—don’t share this—if you are feeling the temptation to strike out at someone else online. Maybe that other person started it. Whatever. It isn’t worth it. Leave the platform. Don’t post that insult video, don’t tweet in retaliation.

At one time in the course of those earlier deletions, I started out by reflecting on what it feels like to be seventy. But that will come later. Actually, it feels pretty good. I can’t remember being as reflective regarding any other decade marker. There is a contemplative feel to this one. But maybe I had to get the “rant” out of my system to get down to what is really going on in me. With much love,

BUMMER platform experiences ricochet between two extremes. Either there’s a total shitstorm of assholes (that’s not a mixed metaphor, right?) or everyone is super careful and artificially nice. The biggest assholes get the most attention, however, and they often end up giving a platform its flavor. Even if there are corners of the platform where not everyone is an asshole all the time, those corners feel penned in, because the assholes are waiting just outside. It’s part of how BUMMER Component A pushes tribalism.

Addicts also become aggressive, though they feel they are acting out of necessity. The choice is to victimize or be a victim. Even successful and pleasant BUMMER addicts, like top social media influencers, have reported that they must not be too nice to others, for that shows weakness1 in a highly competitive fishbowl. One must be followed more than one follows, for appearances’ sake.

Briefly I was one of the HuffPost’s top bloggers, always on the front page. But I found myself falling into that old problem again whenever I read the comments, and I could not get myself to ignore them. I would feel this weird low-level boiling rage inside me. Or I’d feel this absurd glow when people liked what I wrote, even if what they said didn’t indicate that they had paid much attention to it. Comment authors were mostly seeking attention for themselves.

Whenever I erase text messages, I feel like I'm deleting evidence...

To keep OKRs timely and relevant, have the designated shepherd ride herd over regular check-ins and progress updates. Frequent check-ins enable teams and individuals to course-correct with agility, or to fail fast. To sustain high performance, encourage weekly one-on-one OKR meetings between contributors and managers, plus monthly departmental meetings. As conditions change, feel free to revise, add, or delete OKRs as appropriate—even in mid-cycle. Goals are not written in stone. It’s counterproductive to hold stubbornly to objectives that are no longer relevant or attainable.

Every nation has a narrative—a story composed of historical interpretations, deletions, and fabrications that engender beliefs and traditions. And every national narrative has a “bad guy,” a scapegoat to take the blame for group and national failings, a bad guy against whom to unite the whole, to serve as a symbol of what the nation is not—thereby defining what the nation is. The antiwhites are products of this narrative, and the bad guy is my people, our people, the White race and our biospiritual expression: Western Civilization. Our most vulnerable members—our children—are the narrative’s primary victims. The Regime can never permit us to escape the role as the bad guy. It’s too important to the narrative. The narrative explains, defines, frames, and predicts the world as seen through the Regime’s self-serving lens. It also unites the diverse peoples that live in our countries. Without a common enemy at whom to direct unifying anger, an enemy who “oppresses” and “exploits” them, they would turn on one another—as has already begun in many areas where we are too few to blame. This Antiwhite Narrative cannot be altered, and it will not end well for us and our children. Either we jump off the pages of the narrative that stigmatizes us as the bad guy, the scapegoat, or we follow that story to its grisly conclusion. Our alternative is the pen and the blank page on which to write our own story, a story where we are not demonized for embracing our dignity, identity, and inheritance, where we are not vilified and discriminated against, where we can practice our culture, civilization, and religions the way we want to practice them, without being made to feel guilty for our preferences and history—a story where we are the good guys, the heroes, and where we have a future that is bright and safe for our children.

uprooting and replacing old programs, you institute a new pattern of approach to your life, thereby altering every aspect of your life, such as levels of success, happiness, love, and feelings of connection and purpose. Gradually the old programs will stop being triggered because your mind will know they are no longer a viable option—imagine a program being uninstalled or deleted from a computer. Thus, with the old program removed and the new narrative established and reinforced,

I hate fighting. I’m sensitive and, frankly, not good at it. If the consequence of bickering online means I’ve got to spend the afternoon feeling bad because a kid I don’t remember from high school called me a “fat-ass Kelly Price” over a Reductress article, please murder me. And if my tweets get on your goddamn nerves: BLOCK ME FIRST. Kill me with your powerful brain! There are too many places in real life where blocking is not a viable option to tolerate someone ruining your secret lives online. You can’t block the coworker who won’t stop fucking talking while loitering nearby as you’re just trying to put half-and-half in your breakroom coffee, but you can block that friend of a friend who says shit like, “I’m not prejudiced, I don’t care if a person is purple or green or blue.” LMAO, blue people???? SHUT THE FUCK UP. You can’t delete the neighbor whose eyesore of a car is parked halfway across your driveway and whose cat keeps shitting on your deck, but you can delete your cousin who earnestly believes that rap music is reverse racism and vehemently comments as much on every Kendrick Lamar video you share. There’s no mute button for the woman at the grocery store who won’t stop asking you where the shampoo is, even though you’re pushing your

I can’t delete my brother’s voice mail message. I have a little listen to his voice when I feel like I’m going to forget what he sounds like.

Jenny- We were friends on Facebook and our friendship was short-lived, I confirmed his request… and he unfriended me? The same day- What happened? He deleted me; no, the boy has ever done that to me. I must have him as my boyfriend, he is the first one to ever say no to me. He said her I don't remember sending you a request! Sure… to be truthful I am kind of disappointed in him, I was thinking finally we can at least be friends. Why doesn’t he want me? Why does he like her more? (Facebook chat) He typed - No we can't be friends. I, asked- why not? He typed - Because I don't want to. I typed - That’s mean… What did I ever do to you? He typed - I tried to be nice to you but you took it too far, and I feel a little uncomfortable around you. I'm not trying to be mean. I- was- thinking uncomfortable? Uncomfortable because you don’t like me? Or uncomfortable because you can control yourself around me because you like me that much? I typed - I am sorry I never meant to do anything to you. Yes, I like you, and I know you’re with Karly, I was hoping for someday... Maybe we could go to a movie or something like that? I’m not a bad person… you no! You have to give people a chance. And if you’re judging me, I have changed a lot. Is asking you out so wrong? Why, do I make you so uncomfortable? His typed- I am very happy with Karly, and I see her in my future, so I wish you could respect that. I don't understand why… you think it’s okay for me to give you a chance when I have a girlfriend. I'm not like that, and I think that's very wrong. I typed - My god you are not married to her. You need to stop listening to your friends so much... What are you so scared of? He typed- I was scared to fall in love with someone like you! I said- It will happen! You will fall for me! ~*~ Jenny’s thoughts walking to class- I’m going to get what I want… And none of you b*tches know! I’ll get you! I’ll have to sit in class like this. I hope you don’t mind blood Mr. D I have to change this tampon out… The gym is my only ‘A,’ I wish they were all that easy for me. Karly small good, I wonder what she is wearing? Does anyone have a tampon? Do people still use pads? These… underwear cost me $30! I WISH I WAS A GUY! (So. me being on my period feels like you getting- kicked in the balls for a week, non-stop, like that love a sick feeling or you have to squeeze something out of yah, consent churning inside.)

To feel total abundance in life, Keep adding whatever empowers you and keep deleting whatever disempowers you.

For those who are attached to your phones, start off small at first by blocking out two to four hours to be off all social media sites. By deleting the apps off the phone, or placing your phone in another room, tucked away in a drawer, you can increase your chances of finding a natural rhythm without the voices and noise that social media provides. Even if your timeline is curated to only include joyful, thought-provoking, and encouraging messages, detoxing is still necessary and valuable. Your mind needs space for silence. Space to process what it is feeling without the participation of others.

England and France. But Maisie Dobbs, granddaughter of a lighterman on the Thames, was embarrassingly seasick. Whatever the battlefield had to offer, it could not possibly make her feel worse than this, though she had in her pocket a letter from Priscilla, who had been sent to France in January with the first FANY convoy. The censors might be able to take out words, but they could not delete the emotion poured from inkwell to paper. Priscilla was exhausted, if not in body then in mind. Her words seemed to bite through the edges of Maisie’s thoughts and expectations. For just a moment, as she fingered the letter in her pocket, she felt as if she were a ghostly presence watching over Priscilla as she worked. Priscilla had written: My back is killing me, Maisie. Florrie the Lorry did not want to go to work this morning, so I did double duty with the starting handle. I had only two hours rest last night, after a twenty-hour shift. Maisie, I can only barely remember the last time I slept for more than just a few hours. My clothes are becoming one with my body, and I dread to imagine how I must reek! Mind you, one simply cannot go on about one’s aching back and stinging eyes when faced with the good humor of these boys, even as they are suffering the pain of torn limbs and the terror of seeing comrades die. Despite rain that seems to come down in buckets here, there are some days that suddenly get very hot and humid indeed, especially if you are lugging around the added weight of a heavy uniform glued to your body. Many of the boys have taken a knife to their woolen trousers to get some relief from the chafing of army issue cloth. I suppose it’s less for the doctors to cut away, but loaded on to Florrie they look like schoolboys who’ve taken a wrong

the ends. Jesus saw through it at once; why are pastors so intoxicated with visions and goals and so muddled when it comes to ways and means? The difficulty is that concern for ways and means, which is the heart of the contemplative life, is very low on the agenda of the American pastor, especially for the pastor who wants to make an “impact” on the culture. Even the word contemplative itself is consigned to the far margins of interest, something to be indulged occasionally, perhaps on a weekend retreat or on a walk through the woods. When I am in Tyler, Texas, and its many suburbs that fill the pews in evangelical congregations all over the country, I am simply overwhelmed with the seeming impossibility of arousing any interest in caring about ways and means—how we live this life the way Jesus led us to do it. The ways and means adopted by all my erstwhile and admiring friends revolve around instant communication, efficiency, hurry, planning, and counting. Anything small or slow, which includes any person small or slow, is treated with condescension. Your mother and I have been thinking about this trust—we have named it the Selah Trust—and so have been trying to get a focus on just what it is that we have been about all our lives and how we want our money to be used in a way consistent with that. The word that keeps coming up is contemplation. What we are looking for is not primarily the causes and ends that people/organizations are committed to, but how they go about it—the test for gospel authenticity is the way, not the what. Standard fundraising is all about the what. Any how will do, so long as it brings in the money. So we find ourselves staying very local, very close to the ground, as we make our decisions and plans. I am not sure, Eric, that this is a letter; it qualifies more as a rant. At one time in the course of those earlier deletions, I started out by reflecting on what it feels like to be seventy. But that will come later. Actually, it feels pretty good. I can’t remember being as reflective regarding any other decade marker. There is a contemplative feel to this one. But maybe I had to get the “rant” out of my system to get down to what is really going on in me. With much love,

I took out my laptop, and my fingers began to dance on the keyboard. I wish I knew how to write! I wish I knew how to live! The gap between the movement of my fingers and what I was feeling so intensely in that moment was so huge that I could see the knots in the formation of each sentence being written. Then, in the process of untying the knots, I would get so entangled that I would lose my grip on what exactly I was feeling. There was a tiff going on between my living and my being. I would write and delete, again write and again delete. Each time I felt I was being untruthful. Every time the word 'Kashmir' would appear in front of my eyes, I wondered why this word seemed to be so distant. I left my Kashmir. I tried to write Shabeer's Kashmir or tried to narrate from Mushtaq's point of view. Why had my Kashmir faded so much?

Sex and love with robots. A bit amazing, fantastic, inconceivable, nevertheless, imaginable and scientifically explainable. Nowadays you can disclaim this idea because of a scientific fiction, but you cannot argue that it is completely incredible and contradicts human sexuality and romantic experience. As it is known, whatever you experience, you experience due to what is going on in the brain. Your physical contact with the partner’s body is nothing more than merely a physiological act, sending signals to the brain. Without the signals that cause neurochemical activity in the brain, your sexual contact cannot give you any sexual experience on its own. Your brain has been automatically programmed before this contact concerning which kind of natural design of the partner’s body can send more intense signals to your brain, which, in turn, enable it to experience stronger sexual pleasure. The direct cause of your sexual experience is your brain program, your sexual partner’s body, from which you derive sexual pleasure, is just indirect cause of it. Orgasm occurs in the brain, but not in any part of the body. Now imagine higher technological progress than ours. High bioengineering allows us to construct artificial robots similar to us — which have artificial ‘flesh and blood’ that is indistinguishable by your sense organs. When you get in physical contact with her ‘body’, your brain program could discern nothing artificial there. The same input signals, as if there is nothing artificial, and the brain would automatically begin to satisfy its sexual desires. However, there would be a fundamental difference — an artificial partner would exist absolutely adequate to your will. Visually, ‘she’ would be the living embodiment of your dreams. Neuroengineering would allow us to construct ‘her’ brain and through it also her conscious mind and personality, as you would like them to be. An ideal personality for you. It would be like that you say to do something and she would do, or you say don’t, and she wouldn’t. However, there wouldn’t be any direct control. You would control only her brain program, her unconscious and conscious mind, delete unwished episodes from her brain. She wouldn’t know that she is a robot, as you couldn’t know, if you were a robot. She would think that she is the same as you, having free will, being capable of thinking, feeling, expressing herself, controlling her behavior, and so on, and so forth. It would be possible to program her brain against leaving or killing you, so in that context you future would be guaranteed. The ideal personality, the ideal physical appearance — welcome to heaven, but only for those who have a lot of money. Unfortunately, even in the cyber-future, those who would be short of money would have to content themselves with biosocial robots in hell, as most of us do now.

My friend Gordon Wheeler, who is a psychologist, explains that grief is the reminder of the depth of our love. Without love, there is no grief. So when we feel our grief, uncomfortable and aching as it may be, it is actually a reminder of the beauty of that love, now lost. I’ll never forget calling Gordon while I was traveling, and hearing him say that he was out to dinner by himself after the loss of a dear friend “so he could feel his grief.” He knew that in the blinking and buzzing world of our lives, it is so easy to delete the past and move on to the next moment. To linger in the longing, the loss, the yearning is a way of feeling the rich and embroidered texture of life, the torn cloth of our world that is endlessly being ripped and rewoven

I surface from the simulation with a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I detach from the wires and get up. She’s still recovering from the sensation of almost drowning, shaking her hands and taking deep breaths. I watch her for a moment, not sure how to say what I need to say. “What?” she says. “How did you do that?” “Do what?” “Crack the glass.” “I don’t know.” I nod, and offer her my hand. She gets up without any trouble, but she avoids my eyes. I check the corners of the room for cameras. There is one, just where I thought it would be, right across from us. I take her elbow and lead her out of the room, to a place where I know we won’t be observed, in the blind spot between two surveillance points. “What?” she says irritably. “You’re Divergent,” I say. I haven’t been very nice to her today. Last night I saw her and her friends by the chasm, and a lapse in judgment--or sobriety--led me to lean in too close, to tell her she looked good. I’m worried that I went too far. Now I’m even more worried, but for different reasons. She cracked the glass. She’s Divergent. She’s in danger. She stares. Then she sinks against the wall, adopting an almost-convincing aura of casualness. “What’s Divergent?” “Don’t play stupid,” I say. “I suspected it last time, but this time it’s obvious. You manipulated the simulation; you’re Divergent. I’ll delete the footage, but unless you want to wind up dead at the bottom of the chasm, you’ll figure out how to hide it during the simulations! Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I walk back to the simulation room, pulling the door closed behind me. It’s easy to delete the footage--just a few keystrokes and it’s done, the record clean. I double-check her file, making sure the only thing that’s in there is the data from the first simulation. I’ll have to come up with a way to explain where the data from this session went. A good lie, one that Eric and Max will actually believe. In a hurry, I take out my pocketknife and wedge it between the panels covering the motherboard of the computer, prying them apart. Then I go into the hallway, to the drinking fountain, and fill my mouth with water. When I return to the simulation room, I spit some of the water into the gap between the panels. I put my knife away and wait. A minute or so later, the screen goes dark. Dauntless headquarters is basically a leaky cave--water damage happens all the time.

The curiosity of the book was that,as you held it,and “read” it, you felt an intimate connection with it as with a living thing,which you did not feel with an eBook; as soon as you were finished with the eBook,you stored it,or deleted it;you felt no sentiment or particular ownership. You could not see it on a shelf or a table,you could not admire its design. In effect,it had been Deleted.

Delete Toxic People: Delete them from your social networks, contact lists, and phone—right now. Stop hanging out with people who suck your energy, are rude, add no value, or make you feel lousy each time you interact. Say good-bye to bad clients, business partners, and team members. Some guidelines: • If the person is distracting or continually sucks up your time—delete. • If it’s a one-way relationship in the other person’s favor—delete. • If people don’t appreciate you for who you are or what you have to offer—delete. • If you can’t remember who they are or where you met them—delete. • If they communicate with you too much or they clog your inbox—delete.

the advertising business model. Advertising would allow search to be free, music to be free, and news to be free. (That didn’t mean that musicians or reporters got a piece of the pie, for the techies considered them replaceable.) Advertising would become the dominant business in the information era. This didn’t feel dystopian at first. The original ads on Google were cute and harmless. But as the internet, the devices, and the algorithms advanced, advertising inevitably morphed into mass behavior modification. This is how BUMMER was born. As often happens with people, we forgot that we made a choice. Now we feel helpless. But the choice remains, and we can remake it.

A lot of potential Hillary voters were infused with a not-great feeling about Hillary, or about voting at all. Were you one of them? If so, please think back. Were you seeing any information customized for you before the election? Did you use Twitter or Facebook? Did you do a lot of online searches? You were had. You were tricked. Your best intentions were turned against you.

Another way to see the problem is to think about public spaces. If you share a space with people who aren’t looking at their smartphones, you are all in that space together. You have a common base of experience. It can be an amazing feeling, and it’s a big reason why people go to clubs, sports events, and houses of worship. Lanier, Jaron. Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (Posición en Kindle1000-1003). Henry Holt and Co.. Edición de Kindle.

delete the past and move on to the next moment. To linger in the longing, the loss, the yearning is a way of feeling the rich and embroidered texture of life, the torn cloth of our world that is endlessly being ripped and rewoven

today you will tell someone they are toxic. you will block her, delete her numbers and have no craving left in your bones to ever speak to her. the intent will not be to hurt her even though you know how hurtful your words are. the intention will be to guard your energy against leaks. you will remind yourself that it is okay to ask people to leave your space and for you to leave theirs without explanation. you will remind yourself that your well-being comes first. that you don’t owe anyone a reason for why you left. that sometimes it is necessary to simply leave without packing your favorite books, or the anniversary gifts or any of those things you once treasured.

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.

After I hang up, I pull out my phone and find the picture of Dante I’ve saved all these years. I try not to look at it, because he looks so fierce and angry. Like he's staring into my soul, and he doesn’t like what he sees. I’m addicted. Sometimes I resist for months. But I always come back to it again. I’ve never had the strength to delete it. I look at his black eyes. That ferocious jaw. The firm lines of his mouth. The ache I feel is as strong as ever. I shut off my phone and shove it away from me.

Tharion finished Sofie’s inbox, checked the junk folder, and then finally the trash. It was mostly empty. He clicked open her sent folder, and groaned at the tally. But he began reading again. Click after click after click. His phone chimed with an alert: thirty minutes until he needed to get into the water. He could reach the air lock in five minutes, if he walked fast. He could get through another few emails before then. Click, click, click. Tharion’s phone chimed again. Ten minutes. But he’d halted on an email dated three years ago. It was so simple, so nonsensical that it stood out. Subject: Re: Dusk’s Truth The subject line was weird. But the body of her email was even weirder. Working on gaining access. Will take time. That was it. Tharion scanned downward, toward the original message that Sofie had replied to. It had been sent two weeks before her reply. From: BansheeFan56 Subject: Dusk’s Truth Have you gotten inside yet? I want to know the full story. Tharion scratched his head, opened another window, and searched for Dusk’s Truth. Nothing. No record of a movie or book or TV show. He did a search on the email system for the sender’s name: BansheeFan56. Another half-deleted chain. This one originating from BansheeFan56. Subject: Project Thurr Could be useful to you. Read it. Sofie had replied: Just did. I think it’s a long shot. And the Six will kill me for it. He had a good feeling he knew who “the Six” referred to: the Asteri. But when Tharion searched online for Project Thurr, he found nothing. Only news reports on archaeological digs or art gallery exhibits featuring the ancient demigod. Interesting. There was one other email—in the drafts folder. BansheeFan56 had written: When you find him, lie low in the place I told you about—where the weary souls find relief from their suffering in Lunathion. It’s secure. A rendezvous spot? Tharion scanned what Sofie had started to reply, but never sent. Thank you. I’ll try to pass along the info to my She’d never finished it. There were any number of ways that sentence could have ended. But Sofie must have needed a place where no one would think to look for her and her brother. If Sofie Renast had indeed survived the Hind, she might well have come here, to this very city, with the promise of a safe place to hide. But this stuff about Project Thurr and Dusk’s Truth … He tucked those tidbits away for later. Tharion opened a search field within Declan’s program and typed in the sender’s address. He started as the result came in. Danika Fendyr.

Imagine another possibility – suppose you could back up your brain to a portable hard drive and then run it on your laptop. Would your laptop be able to think and feel just like a Sapiens? If so, would it be you or someone else? What if computer programmers could create an entirely new but digital mind, composed of computer code, complete with a sense of self, consciousness and memory? If you ran the program on your computer, would it be a person? If you deleted it could you be charged with murder?