Despite Of All The Things That Happened Quotes

It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, "Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He didn't love me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll---then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.

Despite how hard we tried to fight it, all of those things happened between us because our feelings for each other are becoming so much stronger than our desire. Desire is easy to fight. Especially when the only weapon desire possesses is attraction. It’s not so easy when you’re trying to win a war against the heart.

Learning After some time, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and imprisoning a soul; You learn that love does not equal sex, and that company does not equal security, and you start to learn…. That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises, and you start to accept defeat with the head up high and open eyes, and you learn to build all roads on today, because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans… and the future has its own way of falling apart in half. And you learn that if it’s too much even the warmth of the sun can burn. So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you. And you learn that you can actually bear hardship, that you are actually strong, and you are actually worthy, and you learn and learn…and so every day. Over time you learn that being with someone because they offer you a good future, means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past. Over time you comprehend that only who is capable of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing you can bring you all happiness. Over time you learn that if you are with a person only to accompany your own solitude, irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again. Over time you learn that real friends are few and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later, will find himself surrounded only with false friendships. Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of anger continue hurting throughout a lifetime. Over time you learn that everyone can apologize, but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls. Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshly it is very likely that your friendship will never be the same. Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends, you cry for those you let go. Over time you realize that every experience lived, with each person, is unrepeatable. Over time you realize that whoever humiliates or scorns another human being, sooner or later will suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold. Over time you learn to build your roads on today, because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist. Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happen causes the finale to be different form expected. Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future, but the moment you were living just that instant. Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you, you’ll yearn for those who walked away. Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness, say you love, say you miss, say you need, say you want to be friends, since before a grave, it will no longer make sense. But unfortunately, only over time…

I'm going to ask you to remember the prostituted, the homeless, the battered, the raped, the tortured, the murdered, the raped-then-murdered, the murdered-then-raped; and I am going to ask you to remember the photographed, the ones that any or all of the above happened to and it was photographed and now the photographs are for sale in our free countries. I want you to think about those who have been hurt for the fun, the entertainment, the so-called speech of others; those who have been hurt for profit, for the financial benefit of pimps and entrepreneurs. I want you to remember the perpetrator and I am going to ask you to remember the victims: not just tonight but tomorrow and the next day. I want you to find a way to include them -- the perpetrators and the victims -- in what you do, how you think, how you act, what you care about, what your life means to you. Now, I know, in this room, some of you are the women I have been talking about. I know that. People around you may not. I am going to ask you to use every single thing you can remember about what was done to you -- how it was done, where, by whom, when, and, if you know -- why -- to begin to tear male dominance to pieces, to pull it apart, to vandalize it, to destabilize it, to mess it up, to get in its way, to fuck it up. I have to ask you to resist, not to comply, to destroy the power men have over women, to refuse to accept it, to abhor it and to do whatever is necessary despite its cost to you to change it.

There is a huge body of evidence to support the notion that me and the police were put on this earth to do extremely different things and never to mingle professionally with each other, except at official functions, when we all wear ties and drink heavily and whoop it up like the natural, good-humored wild boys that we know in our hearts that we are..These occasions are rare, but they happen — despite the forked tongue of fate that has put us forever on different paths...

Despite the variety and the differences, and however much we proclaim the contrary, what the media produce is neither spontaneous nor completely “free:” “news” does not just happen, pictures and ideas do not merely spring from reality into our eyes and minds, truth is not directly available, we do not have unrestrained variety at our disposal. For like all modes of communication, television, radio, and newspapers observe certain rules and conventions to get things across intelligibly, and it is these, often more than the reality being conveyed, that shape the material delivered by the media.

Is there an answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people?...The response would be…to forgive the world for not being perfect, to forgive God for not making a better world, to reach out to the people around us, and to go on living despite it all…no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened.

I can’t lie to you and tell you that standing in front of someone and offering them your soul and having them reject you is not gonna be one of the worst things that ever happens to you. You will wonder for days or weeks or months or years afterward what it is about you that was so wrong or broken or ugly that they couldn’t love you the way you loved them. You will look for all the reasons inside yourself that they didn’t want you and you will find a million. Maybe it was the way you looked in the mornings when you first woke up and hadn’t showered. Maybe it was the way you were too available, because despite what everyone says, playing hard to get is still attractive. Some days you will believe that every atom of your being is defective somehow. What you need to remember, as I remembered as I watched Grace Town leave, is that you are extraordinary.

Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It is like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. Things will go where they are supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it is time for them to be hurt. Life is like that.

Because men believe it’s their right to tell women how to live. They tell us who to marry, what to wear, when to go out and when to stay. Some men beat their wives, and no one speaks a word about it. But despite all the power they hold over us, they feel powerless against our kind. We resist. We cause things to happen. We interfere with their plans, with what they think is the natural order. That frightens them. Men hate being afraid, so they hate us instead.

In time, when we became adults, we might look back on this pain and loneliness as a funny thing, perfectly ordinary, but—but how were we expected to get by, to get through this interminable period of time until that point when we were adults? There was no one to teach us how. Was there nothing to do but leave us alone, like we had the measles? But people died from the measles, or went blind. You couldn't just leave them alone. Some of us, in our daily depressions and rages, were apt to stray, to become corrupted, irreparably so, and then our lives would be forever in disorder. There were even some who would resolve to kill themselves. And when that happened, everyone would say, Oh, if only she had lived a little longer she would have known, if she were a little more grown up she would have figured it out. How saddened they would all be. But if those people were to think about it from our perspective, and see how we had tried to endure despite how terribly painful it all was, and how we had even tried to listen carefully, as hard as we could, to what the world might have to say, they would see that, in the end, the same bland lessons were always being repeated over and over, you know, well, merely to appease us.

Yet despite all these things we know to be true- despite the preponderance of evidence showing the mental and emotional distress people demonstrate in violent and harassing environments- we still have no name for what happens to women living in a culture that hates them.

My spirituality is most active, not in meditation, but in the moments when: I realize God may have gotten something beautiful done through me despite the fact that I am an asshole, and when I am confronted by the mercy of the gospel so much that I cannot hate my enemies, and when I am unable to judge the sin of someone else (which, let’s be honest, I love to do) because my own crap is too much in the way, and when I have to bear witness to another human being’s suffering despite my desire to be left alone, and when I am forgiven by someone even though I don’t deserve it and my forgiver does this because he, too, is trapped by the gospel, and when traumatic things happen in the world and I have nowhere to place them or make sense of them but what I do have is a group of people who gather with me every week, people who will mourn and pray with me over the devastation of something like a school shooting, and when I end up changed by loving someone I’d never choose out of a catalog but whom God sends my way to teach me about God’s love.

And that all the things that had happened in their lives had not hurt them in any essential way, despite what they may have believed at times.

This obsession is a curious thing. Sometimes wonder about the merits of devoting so much of myself to a singular climbing objective. Much of the time it beats me down, leaves me hanging my head in despair. But then there are the moments that bring me to life. When excitement wells up inside my chest in a way that doesn’t happen in every day life. Today my fingertips were cracked and bleeding. I made no progress despite great conditions. Now I am on the ground and can hardly contain my excitement to get back on the wall. It’s a crazy rollercoaster and I owe my family and partners a great deal for encouraging me through it all.

Part of the problem was that I couldn't seem to get past the fact that I hadn't tried to escape from Kas. Even in France, when he'd left me on my own for several days, I'd carried on working [as a prostitute] and doing all the things he'd told me to d. And although I knew that it was because of the fear he'd so carefully and deliberately instilled in me, I still felt as though I'd somehow colluded in what had happened to me - despite knowing, deep down, that nothing could have been further from the truth.

Despite what film and music would have women believe, the guys are all hopeless when it comes to the female orgasm. They learn sex from watching porn, where giving the camera a good view is the goal and no one really cares if it works for the girl, because she'll pretend it's awesome regardless. Sex happens up close, and inside, not at camera's length. Guys seem to forget that.

When the mere act of being in a D/s relationship or engaging in BDSM activities reaches a societal tipping point where it is no longer simply socially unacceptable, it becomes borderline criminal, an amazing thing will begin to happen. Some Warrior Princess Submissives will drop their stealth cloaks and step out of the shadows to defend the lifestyle and the Dominants that they love. They will do this, despite their intense fears and despite a whole host of other very real hardships that will ensue because they are, above all else, loyal to their Dominants. They will do it because they are righteous crusaders who aren't afraid to fight the good fight, no matter how unpopular or untenable their positions might seem. They will do it because they are the only ones who can.

That’s how life is. Things happen. Lives get broken. Some people never can put themselves back together. I wondered if she would. I wondered if I would. . . . But what was that old saying my dad loved so much? The best revenge is forgetting. I clearly hadn’t forgotten a thing. Despite all my efforts.

I took a little walk outside for a while. I was surprised that I wasn't feeling what I thought people were supposed to feel under the circumstances. May be I was fooling myself. I wasn't delighted, but I didn't feel terribly upset, perhaps because we had known for a long time that it was going to happen. It's hard to explain. If a Martian(who, we'll imagine never dies except by accident) came to Earth and saw this peculiar race of creatures-these humans who live about seventy or eighty years, knowing that death is going to come--it would look to hi like a terrible problem of psychology to live under those circumstances, knowing that life is only temporary Well, we humans somehow figure out how to live despite this problem: we laugh, we joke, we live. The only difference for me and Arlene was, instead of fifty years, it was five years. It was only a quantitative difference--the psychological problem was just the same. The only way it would have become any different is if we had said to ourselves, "But those other people have it better, because they might live fifty years." But that's crazy. Why make yourself miserable saying things like, "Why do we have such bad luck? What has God done to us? What have we done to deserve this?"--all of which, if you understand reality and take it completely into your heart, are irrelevant and unsolvable. They are just things that nobody can know. Your situation is just an accident of life.. We had a hell of good time together...

Adventuring turned out to be boring. Zach thought back to all the fantasy books he'd read where a team of questers traveled overland, and realized a few things. First he'd pictured himself with a loyal steed that would have done most of the walking, so he hadn't anticipated the blister forming on his left heel or the tiny pebble that seemed to have worked its way under his sock, so that even when he stripped off his sneaker he couldn't find it. He hadn't thought about how hot the sun would be either. When he put together his bunch of provisions, he never thought about bringing sunblock. Aragorn never wore sunblock. Taran never wore sunblock. Percy never wore sunblock. But despite all that precedent for going without, he was pretty sure his nose would be lobster-red the next time he looked in the mirror. He was thirsty, too, something that happened a lot in books, but his dry throat bothered him more than it had ever seemed to bother any character. And, unlike in books where random brigands and monsters jumped out just when things got unbearably dull, there was nothing to fight except for the clouds of gnats, several of which Zach was pretty sure he'd accidentally swallowed.

Lots of people have a “timeline” in mind for their life: the age when they want to get married, have kids, retire. The best advice I ever got was to forget all about this schedule. Why try to squeeze your life into a totally artificial construct based on meaningless rules? You’ll end up doing stupid things, like randomly marrying the guy you happen to be dating when you’re 29 because your self-imposed wedding deadline is age 30. Despite people hotly debating the “correct” age to tick off life’s milestones, it’s different for everyone – there’s no right or wrong answer.

Frank grabbed a tourist brochure stuck under the napkin dispenser. He began to read it. Piper patted Leo’s arm, like she couldn’t believe he was really here. Nico stood at the edge of the group, eyeing the passing pedestrians as if they might be enemies. Coach Hedge munched on the salt and pepper shakers. Despite the happy reunion, everybody seemed more subdued than usual—like they were picking up on Leo’s mood. Jason had never really considered how important Leo’s sense of humor was to the group. Even when things were super serious, they could always depend on Leo to lighten things up. Now, it felt like the whole team had dropped anchor. “So then Jason harnessed the venti,” Hazel finished. “And here we are.” Leo whistled. “Hot-air horses? Dang, Jason. So basically, you held a bunch of gas together all the way to Malta, and then you let it loose.” Jason frowned. “You know, it doesn’t sound so heroic when you put it that way.” “Yeah, well. I’m an expert on hot air. I’m still wondering, why Malta? I just kind of ended up here on the raft, but was that a random thing, or—” “Maybe because of this.” Frank tapped his brochure. “Says here Malta was where Calypso lived.” A pint of blood drained from Leo’s face. “W-what now?” Frank shrugged. “According to this, her original home was an island called Gozo just north of here. Calypso’s a Greek myth thingie, right?” “Ah, a Greek myth thingie!” Coach Hedge rubbed his hands together. “Maybe we get to fight her! Do we get to fight her? ’Cause I’m ready.” “No,” Leo murmured. “No, we don’t have to fight her, Coach.” Piper frowned. “Leo, what’s wrong? You look—” “Nothing’s wrong!” Leo shot to his feet. “Hey, we should get going. We’ve got work to do!” “But…where did you go?” Hazel asked. “Where did you get those clothes? How—” “Jeez, ladies!” Leo said. “I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need two extra moms!” Piper smiled uncertainly. “Okay, but—” “Ships to fix!” Leo said. “Festus to check! Earth goddesses to punch in the face! What are we waiting for? Leo’s back!” He spread his arms and grinned. He was making a brave attempt, but Jason could see the sadness lingering in his eyes. Something had happened to him…something to do with Calypso.

The back of my neck breaks out in a sweat, and I’m getting nervous. Why is he just standing there, staring at me? “What do you want?” I press, my tone curt. He opens his mouth but then closes it swallowing. “Pike, Jesus—” “The day you left,” he blurts out, and I stop. I wait, listening as a look of fear crosses his eyes. “The house was so empty,” he continues. “Like a quiet that was never there before. I couldn’t hear your footsteps upstairs or your hairdryer or anticipate you walking into a room. You were gone. Everything was…” he drops his eyes, “gone.” A ball lodges in my throat, and I feel tears threaten, but I tense my jaw, refusing to let it out. “But I could still feel you,” he whispers. “You were still everywhere. The container of cookies in the fridge, the backsplash you picked out, the way you put all my pictures back in the wrong spot after you dusted my bookshelves.” He smiles to himself. “But I couldn’t rearrange them, because you were the last to touch them, and I wanted everything the way you had it.” My chin trembles, and I fold my arms over my chest, hiding my balled fists under my arms. He pauses and then goes on. “Nothing would ever go back to the way it was before you came into my house. I didn’t want it to.” He shakes his head. “I went to work, and I came home, and I stayed there every night and all weekend, every weekend, because that’s where we were together. That’s where I could still feel you.” He steps closer, dropping his voice. “That’s where I could wrap myself up in you and hang on to every last thread in that house that proved you were mine for just a little while.” His tone grows thick, and I see his eyes water. “I really thought I was doing what was best,” he says, knitting his brow. “I thought I was taking advantage of you, because you’re young and beautiful and so happy and hopeful despite everything you’d been through. You made me feel like the world was a big place again.” My breathing shakes, and I don’t know what to do. I hate that he’s here. I hate that I love that he’s here. I hate him. “I couldn’t steal your life from you and keep you to myself, you know?” he explains. “But then I realized that you’re not happy or hopeful or making me feel good because you’re young. You are those things and you’re capable of those things, because you’re a good person. It’s who you are.” A tear spills over, gliding down my cheek. “Baby,” he whispers, his hands shaking. “I hope you love me, because I love you like crazy, and I’m going to want you the rest of my life. I tried to stay away, because I thought it was the right thing, but I fucking can’t. I need you, and I love you. This doesn’t happen twice, and I’m not going to be stupid again. I promise.” My chin trembles, and something lodges in my throat, and I try to hold it in, but I can’t. My face cracks, and I break down, turning away from him. The tears come like a goddamn waterfall, and I hate him. I fucking hate him. His arms are around me in a second, and he hugs me from behind, burying his face in my neck. “I’m sorry I took so long,” he whispers in my ear.

Bad things can happen, terrible things. You can lose the people you love the most; you can lose homes, cars, antiques, hand-knotted silk rugs that cost five figures; you can discover that the very life you’re living is a terrific lie. And despite this, despite all this, the sun will continue to rise.

These two poles, the unconditional and the conditional, are absolutely heterogeneous, and must remain irreducible to one another. They are nonetheless indissociable: if one wants, and it is necessary, forgiveness to become effective, concrete, historic; if one wants it to arrive, to happen by changing things, it is necessary that this purity engage itself in a series of conditions of all kinds (psychosociological, political, etc.). It is between these two poles, irreconcilable but indissociable, that decisions and responsibilities are to be taken. Yet despite all the confusions which reduce forgiveness to amnesty or to amnesia, to acquittal or prescription, to the work of mourning or some political therapy of reconciliation, in short to some historical ecology, it must never be forgotten, nevertheless, that all of that refers to a certain idea of pure and unconditional forgiveness, without which this discourse would not have the least meaning. What complicates the question of ‘meaning’ is again what I suggested a moment ago: pure and unconditional forgiveness, in order to have its own meaning, must have no ‘meaning’, no finality, even no intelligibility. It is a madness of the impossible.

Here's in extreme example: the possibility of life after death. When considered rationally, there is no justification for believing that anything happens to anyone upon the moment of his or her death. There is no reasonable counter to the prospect of nothingness. Any anecdotal story about "floating toward a white light" or Shirley MacClain's past life on Atlantis or the details in Heaven Is for Real or automatically (and justifiably) dismissed by any secular intellectual. Yet this wholly logical position discounts the overwhelming likelihood that we currently don't know something critical about the experience of life, much less the ultimate conclusion to the experience. There are so many things we don't know about energy, or the way energy is transferred, or why energy (which can't be created or destroyed) exists at all. We can't truly conceive the conditions of a multidimensional reality, even though we’re (probably) already living inside one. We have a limited understanding of consciousness. We have a limited understanding of time, and of the perception of time, and of the possibility that all time is happening at once. So while it seems unrealistic to seriously consider the prospect of life after death, it seems equally naïve to assume that our contemporary understanding of this phenomenon is remotely complete. We have no idea what we don't know, or what we’ll eventually learn, or what might be true despite our perpetual inability to comprehend what that truth is. It's impossible to understand the world of today until today has become tomorrow.

And despite it all, all the things that have happened between us, I kept a vain hope that you would keep your promise. That it meant that much to you too. Despite everything.

Yes, that dream ultimately failed, but I learned so much. Mostly tiny things, but it only takes a spark to light a fire. All those tiny things accumulated to make me who I am. If none of it had happened, I could have lived a far worse lie than I did. That's why, despite all the heartbreak, the failure and the secrets, if I was given the chance to go back in time and change things, I wouldn't. Not even a second.

he didn’t feel pity for Macleod, despite all the humiliations and infirmities visited upon him. These he regarded as inevitabilities; indeed, he nowadays regarded most things that happened as inevitabilities.

Home isn’t a place where everything stays the same; it’s a place where you are safe and loved despite nothing staying the same. Change always happens. Always. Surely Jamie knows that. We adjust to it. Somehow we figure out a way. We straighten what we can or learn how to like something a little crooked. That’s how it is. Something breaks, you fix it as best you can. There’s always a way to make something better, even if it means sweeping up the broken pieces and starting all over. That’s how we keep moving, keep breathing, keep opening our eyes every morning, even when the only thing we know for sure is that we’re still alive.

HAZEL WASN’T PROUD OF CRYING. After the tunnel collapsed, she wept and screamed like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. She couldn’t move the debris that separated her and Leo from the others. If the earth shifted any more, the entire complex might collapse on their heads. Still, she pounded her fists against the stones and yelled curses that would’ve earned her a mouth-washing with lye soap back at St. Agnes Academy. Leo stared at her, wide-eyed and speechless. She wasn’t being fair to him. The last time the two of them had been together, she’d zapped him into her past and shown him Sammy, his great-grandfather—Hazel’s first boyfriend. She’d burdened him with emotional baggage he didn’t need, and left him so dazed they had almost gotten killed by a giant shrimp monster. Now here they were, alone again, while their friends might be dying at the hands of a monster army, and she was throwing a fit. “Sorry.” She wiped her face. “Hey, you know…” Leo shrugged. “I’ve attacked a few rocks in my day.” She swallowed with difficulty. “Frank is…he’s—” “Listen,” Leo said. “Frank Zhang has moves. He’s probably gonna turn into a kangaroo and do some marsupial jujitsu on their ugly faces.” He helped her to her feet. Despite the panic simmering inside her, she knew Leo was right. Frank and the others weren’t helpless. They would find a way to survive. The best thing she and Leo could do was carry on. She studied Leo. His hair had grown out longer and shaggier, and his face was leaner, so he looked less like an imp and more like one of those willowy elves in the fairy tales. The biggest difference was his eyes. They constantly drifted, as if Leo was trying to spot something over the horizon. “Leo, I’m sorry,” she said. He raised an eyebrow. “Okay. For what?” “For…” She gestured around her helplessly. “Everything. For thinking you were Sammy, for leading you on. I mean, I didn’t mean to, but if I did—” “Hey.” He squeezed her hand, though Hazel sensed nothing romantic in the gesture. “Machines are designed to work.” “Uh, what?” “I figure the universe is basically like a machine. I don’t know who made it, if it was the Fates, or the gods, or capital-G God, or whatever. But it chugs along the way it’s supposed to most of the time. Sure, little pieces break and stuff goes haywire once in a while, but mostly…things happen for a reason. Like you and me meeting.” “Leo Valdez,” Hazel marveled, “you’re a philosopher.” “Nah,” he said. “I’m just a mechanic. But I figure my bisabuelo Sammy knew what was what. He let you go, Hazel. My job is to tell you that it’s okay. You and Frank—you’re good together. We’re all going to get through this. I hope you guys get a chance to be happy. Besides, Zhang couldn’t tie his shoes without your help.” “That’s mean,” Hazel chided, but she felt like something was untangling inside her—a knot of tension she’d been carrying for weeks. Leo really had changed. Hazel was starting to think she’d found a good friend. “What happened to you when you were on your own?” she asked. “Who did you meet?” Leo’s eye twitched. “Long story. I’ll tell you sometime, but I’m still waiting to see how it shakes out.” “The universe is a machine,” Hazel said, “so it’ll be fine.” “Hopefully.” “As long as it’s not one of your machines,” Hazel added. “Because your machines never do what they’re supposed to.” “Yeah, ha-ha.” Leo summoned fire into his hand. “Now, which way, Miss Underground?” Hazel scanned the path in front of them. About thirty feet down, the tunnel split into four smaller arteries, each one identical, but the one on the left radiated cold. “That way,” she decided. “It feels the most dangerous.” “I’m sold,” said Leo. They began their descent.

In time, when we became adults, we might look back on this pain and loneliness as a funny thing, perfectly ordinary, but—but how were we expected to get by, to get through this interminable period of time until that point when we were adults? There was no one to teach us how. Was there nothing to do but leave us alone, like we had the measles? But people died from the measles, or went blind. You couldn't just leave them alone. Some of us, in our daily depressions and rages, were apt to stray, to become corrupted, irreparably so, and then our lives would be forever in disorder. There were even some who would resolve to kill themselves. And when that happened, everyone would say, Oh, if only she had lived a little longer she would have known, if she were a little more grown up she would have figured it out. How saddened they would all be. But if those people were to think about it from our perspective, and see how we had tried to endure despite how terribly painful it all was, and how we had even tried to listen carefully, as hard as we could, to what the world might have to say, they would see that, in the end, the same bland lessons were always being repeated over and over, you know, well, merely to appease us. And they would see how we always experienced the same embarrassment of being ignored. It's not as though we only care about the present. If you were to point to a faraway mountain and say, If you can make it there, it's a pretty good view, I'd see that there's not an ounce of untruth to what you tell us. But when you say, Well, bear with it just a little longer, if you can make it to the top of that mountain, you'll have done it, you are ignoring the fact that we are suffering from a terrible stomachache—right now. Surely one of you is mistaken to let us go on this way. You're the one who is to blame.

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

I never cared for poetry," I said. "Your loss," Sim said absently as he turned a few pages. "Eld Vintic poetry's thunderous. It pounds at you." "What's the meter like?"I asked, curious despite myself. "I don't know anything about meter," Simmon said distractedly he ran his finger down the page in front of him. "It's like this: "Sought we the Scrivani word-work of Surthur Long-lost in ledger all hope forgotten Yet fast-found for friendship fair the book-bringer Hot comes the huntress Fela, flushed with finding Breathless her breast her high blood rising To ripen the red-cheek rouge-bloom of beauty. "That sort of thing," Simmon said absently, his eyes still scanning the pages in front of him. I saw Fela turn her head to look at Simmon, almost as if she were surprised to see him sitting there. No, it was almost s if up until that point, he'd just been occupying space around her, like a piece of furniture. But this time when she looked at him, she took all of him in. His sandy hair, the line of his jaw, the span of his shoulders beneath his shirt. This time when she looked, she actually *saw* him. Let me say this. It was worth the whole awful , irritating time spent searching the Archives just to watch that moment happen. It was worth blood and the fear of death to see her fall in love with him. Just a little. Just the first faint breath of love, so light she probably didn't notice it herself. It wasn't dramatic, like some bolt of lightning with a crack of thunder following. It was more like when flint strikes steel and the spark fades almost fast for you to see. But still, you know it's there, down where you can't see, kindling.

In the next chapters I will deal with factors that have helped make this happen, including better leaders, a revival of African entrepreneurship, the return of the great diaspora and a hungry, innovative young population—the largest demographic of young people in the world. But I will start with what I believe has been the most important factor of all. Despite Africa’s size and the great drama of her story—colonialism, war, famine, disease, dictatorship, corruption, hundreds of billions of dollars in wasted aid—it is astonishing to me that the thing that has probably helped us more than anything else is a tiny little device that can fit in your pocket. It’s called a cell phone—and it’s been a game changer.

Most people love with a guarded heart, only if certain things happen or don’t happen, only to a point. If the person we love hurts us, betrays us, abandons us, disappoints us, if the person becomes hard to love, we often stop loving. We protect our delicate hearts. We close off, retreat, withhold, disconnect, and withdraw. We might even hate. Most people love conditionally. Most people are never asked to love with a whole and open heart. They only love partway. They get by. Autism was my gift to you. My autism didn’t let me hug and kiss you, it didn’t allow me to look into your eyes, it didn’t let me say aloud the words you so desperately wanted to hear with your ears. But you loved me anyway. You’re thinking, Of course I did. Anyone would have. This isn’t true. Loving me with a full and accepting heart, loving all of me, required you to grow. Despite your heartache and disappointment, your fears and frustration and sorrow, despite all I couldn’t show you in return, you loved me. You loved me unconditionally. You haven’t experienced this kind of love with Dad or your parents or your sister or anyone else before. But now, you know what unconditional love is. I know my death has hurt you, and you’ve needed time alone to heal. You’re ready now. You’ll still miss me. I miss you, too. But you’re ready. Take what you’ve learned and love someone again. Find someone to love and love without condition. This is why we’re all here.

I realize God may have gotten something beautiful done through me despite the fact that I am an asshole, and when I am confronted by the mercy of the gospel so much that I cannot hate my enemies, and when I am unable to judge the sin of someone else (which, let’s be honest, I love to do) because my own crap is too much in the way, and when I have to bear witness to another human being’s suffering despite my desire to be left alone, and when I am forgiven by someone even though I don’t deserve it and my forgiver does this because he, too, is trapped by the gospel, and when traumatic things happen in the world and I have nowhere to place them or make sense of them but what I do have is a group of people who gather with me every week, people who will mourn and pray with me over the devastation of something like a school shooting, and when I end up changed by loving someone I’d never choose out of a catalog but whom God sends my way to teach me about God’s love.

The trees reminded me of unity, all lined up peacefully. I thought about who we all are as people, how we come together in moments we need hope. I thought about how we draw inspiration from each other, how we long to be in love with another. I wondered how many of us have someone else to rely on, what happens when we don’t. The nightmares that play over and over again when the days seem like they are running out of hope. And I wanted to stretch my arms out wide, welcome the hopes and dreams of others, nurture them, support them, remind you that things keep moving no matter how strange and difficult the world seems. The trees will continue to line the roads; the sun will shine through the clouds; and despite a very real feeling of doubt, just know that of you, I’ll always be proud.

Despite the inability to confiscate and redistribute human capital, nevertheless human capital is - ironically - one of the few things that can be spread to others without those with it having any less remaining for themselves. But one of the biggest obstacles to this happening is the 'social justice' vision, in which the fundamental problem of the less fortunate is not an absence of sufficient human capital, but the presence of other people's malevolence. For some, abandoning that vision would mean abandoning a moral melodrama, starring themselves as crusaders against the forces of evil. How many are prepared to give up all that - with all its psychic, political and other rewards - is an open question.

We've all been fooled by something or someone. We've seen things go a different direction than expected. It happens when we expect the person we are loving to do their part and love us the same, yet they don't. When it happens, it hurts. No one goes through this life without meeting some type of hurt or pain. Do not let that disappointment lead to a disappointed life. Do not let it harden your heart, do not let this failed attempt at love, despite what number of try it is, make you give up. It's okay to be disappointed. It's frustrating when you play the fool, but it's not okay to give birth to the fear of disappointment that will rob you of a life of love and loving life." -Pierre Alex Jeanty, Apologies That Never Came

How comfortable if, from a position of power, we think, although comfort is the most dangerous thing—it confuses value with power, vision with illusion, (confessions don't help) and that is how a mistake is born. We know much about people and wars—or we think we do; and despite all these words we know, something terrible always happens to remind us of our blindness.

Pham Nuwen spent years learning to program/explore. Programming went back to the beginning of time. It was a little like the midden out back of his father’s castle. Where the creek had worn that away, ten meters down, there were the crumpled hulks of machines—flying machines, the peasants said—from the great days of Canberra’s original colonial era. But the castle midden was clean and fresh compared to what lay within the Reprise’s local net. There were programs here that had been written five thousand years ago, before Humankind ever left Earth. The wonder of it—the horror of it, Sura said—was that unlike the useless wrecks of Canberra’s past, these programs still worked! And via a million million circuitous threads of inheritance, many of the oldest programs still ran in the bowels of the Qeng Ho system. Take the Traders’ method of timekeeping. The frame corrections were incredibly complex—and down at the very bottom of it was a little program that ran a counter. Second by second, the Qeng Ho counted from the instant that a human had first set foot on Old Earth’s moon. But if you looked at it still more closely. . .the starting instant was actually some hundred million seconds later, the 0-second of one of Humankind’s first computer operating systems. So behind all the top-level interfaces was layer under layer of support. Some of that software had been designed for wildly different situations. Every so often, the inconsistencies caused fatal accidents. Despite the romance of spaceflight, the most common accidents were simply caused by ancient, misused programs finally getting their revenge. “We should rewrite it all,” said Pham. “It’s been done,” said Sura, not looking up. She was preparing to go off-Watch, and had spent the last four days trying to root a problem out of the coldsleep automation. “It’s been tried,” corrected Bret, just back from the freezers. “But even the top levels of fleet system code are enormous. You and a thousand of your friends would have to work for a century or so to reproduce it.” Trinli grinned evilly. “And guess what—even if you did, by the time you finished, you’d have your own set of inconsistencies. And you still wouldn’t be consistent with all the applications that might be needed now and then.” Sura gave up on her debugging for the moment. “The word for all this is ‘mature programming environment.’ Basically, when hardware performance has been pushed to its final limit, and programmers have had several centuries to code, you reach a point where there is far more signicant code than can be rationalized. The best you can do is understand the overall layering, and know how to search for the oddball tool that may come in handy—take the situation I have here.” She waved at the dependency chart she had been working on. “We are low on working fluid for the coffins. Like a million other things, there was none for sale on dear old Canberra. Well, the obvious thing is to move the coffins near the aft hull, and cool by direct radiation. We don’t have the proper equipment to support this—so lately, I’ve been doing my share of archeology. It seems that five hundred years ago, a similar thing happened after an in-system war at Torma. They hacked together a temperature maintenance package that is precisely what we need.” “Almost precisely.

The evil one will always bring pain from the best of gifts, even as Yahweh can bring good from the worst. That is the way of things until Abraham's seed comes. You must always remember this, Dahveed. Despite our will and intentions, the accuser can bring evil from what we do. When that happens, do all you can to help those harmed, and leave the rest to Yahweh, for He will repay.

More than anything, I wanted this book to highlight a neurodiverse heroine who happens to be on medication and in therapy falling in love and thriving. I wanted to show the messy, heavy parts of her life alongside the moments that sweep her off her feet. And I wanted a hero who'd love her through her dark days, not despite them, because to me, that is the most romantic thing of all.

The first time I met Fran, I saw her for only a second outside the department while she was talking to some friends, but I was riveted. There was just something about her. I got up my nerve and introduced myself. She was friendly and smiled. Nothing else happened, but I went home, and Fran was all I could think about. “She agreed to go out with me, and things just unfolded from there. Without warning I had become a fool in love. I died inside if she had a change of plans and couldn’t see me. I kicked myself every day to make sure it was true—I’d fallen in love with the most beautiful woman in the world.” Despite the undoubted experience of falling in love at first sight, and abundant evidence that love creates powerful physiological changes, the whole phenomenon remains mysterious.

Science lectures dealt with social problems that still could be solved, not defunct political systems for which both the proponents and the opponents had died before my birth. Science didn't talk about books that had been written to analyze other books that had originally been written as retellings of ancient books; it talked about what was happening now and of a future that might yet be. The very attributes that rendered me a nuisance to all of my previous teachers - my inability to let things go coupled with my tendency to overdo everything - were exactly what my science professors liked to see. They accepted me despite the fact that I was just a girl, and assured me of what I already suspected: that my true potential had more to do with my willingness to struggle than with my past and present circumstances.

Some early colonists gave the same answer. The leaders of Jamestown tried to persuade Indians to transform themselves into Europeans. Embarrassingly, almost all of the traffic was the other way—scores of English joined the locals despite promises of dire punishment. The same thing happened in New England. Puritan leaders were horrified when some members of a rival English settlement began living with the Massachusett Indians.

The future we can’t know, other than that it will originate in the past but then depart from it. Thucydides’ distinction between resemblance and reflection—between patterns surviving across time and repetitions degraded by time—aligns the asymmetry, for it suggests that the past prepares us for the future only when, however imperfectly, it transfers. Just as capabilities restrict aspirations to what circumstances will allow. To know one big thing or many little ones is, therefore, not enough: resemblances, which Thucydides insists must happen, can occur anywhere along the spectrum from hedgehogs to foxes and back again. So is he one or the other? It’s as useless to ask as it would be, of an accomplished athlete, to try to say. Thucydides’ “first-rate intelligence” accommodates opposing ideas so effortlessly that he entrusts us with hundreds in his history. He does so within time and space but also across scale: only Tolstoy rivals him, I think, in sensing significance where it seems not to be. It’s no stretch to say, then, that Thucydides coaches all who read him. For as his greatest modern interpreter (himself a sometime coach) has gently reminded us, the Greeks, despite their antiquity, “may have believed things we have either forgotten or never known; and we must keep open the possibility that in some respects, at least, they were wiser than we.” 10

There's nothing the least bit sinful about it. Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It's like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. So stop eating yourself up. Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt. Life is like that.

Berlin. November 18, 1917. Sunday. I think Grosz has something demonic in him. This new Berlin art in general, Grosz, Becher, Benn, Wieland Herzfelde, is most curious. Big city art, with a tense density of impressions that appears simultaneous, brutally realistic, and at the same time fairy-tale-like, just like the big city itself, illuminating things harshly and distortedly as with searchlights and then disappearing in the glow. A highly nervous, cerebral, illusionist art, and in this respect reminiscent of the music hall and also of film, or at least of a possible, still unrealized film. An art of flashing lights with a perfume of sin and perversity like every nocturnal street in the big city. The precursors are E.T.A. Hoffmann, Breughel, Mallarmé, Seurat, Lautrec, the futurists: but in the density and organization of the overwhelming abundance of sensation, the brutal reality, the Berliners seem new to me. Perhaps one could also include Stravinsky here (Petrushka). Piled-up ornamentation each of which expresses a trivial reality but which, in their sum and through their relations to each other, has a thoroughly un-trivial impact. All round the world war rages and in the center is this nervous city in which so much presses and shoves, so many people and streets and lights and colors and interests: politics and music hall, business and yet also art, field gray, privy counselors, chansonettes, and right and left, and up and down, somewhere, very far away, the trenches, regiments storming over to attack, the dying, submarines, zeppelins, airplane squadrons, columns marching on muddy streets, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, victories; Riga, Constantinople, the Isonzo, Flanders, the Russian Revolution, America, the Anzacs and the poilus, the pacifists and the wild newspaper people. And all ending up in the half-darkened Friedrichstrasse, filled with people at night, unconquerable, never to be reached by Cossacks, Gurkhas, Chasseurs d'Afrique, Bersaglieris, and cowboys, still not yet dishonored, despite the prostitutes who pass by. If a revolution were to break out here, a powerful upheaval in this chaos, barricades on the Friedrichstrasse, or the collapse of the distant parapets, what a spark, how the mighty, inextricably complicated organism would crack, how like the Last Judgment! And yet we have experienced, have caused precisely this to happen in Liège, Brussels, Warsaw, Bucharest, even almost in Paris. That's the world war, all right.

Alan and his wife had worked all their lives, and managed to sock away a million dollars for retirement. But four months earlier he’d gotten the idea that, despite having no experience in the markets, he should buy a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of GM stock, based on reports that the U.S. government might bail out the auto industry. He was convinced it was a no-lose investment. After his trade went through, the media reported that the bailout might not happen after all. The market sold off GM and the stock price fell. But Alan imagined the thrill of winning big. It felt so real he could taste it. He held firm. The stock fell again, and again, and kept dropping until finally Alan decided to sell, at a big loss. There was worse to come. When the next news cycle suggested that the bailout would happen after all, Alan got excited all over again and invested another hundred thousand dollars, buying more stock at the lower price. But the same thing happened: the bailout started looking uncertain.

God does not will evil or sin. Many things happen that God does not will. But he still permits them, in his wisdom, and they remain a stumbling block or scandal to our minds. God asks us to do all we can to eliminate evil. But despite our efforts, there is always a whole set of circumstances which we can do nothing about, which are not necessarily willed by God but nevertheless are permitted by him, and which God invites us to consent to trustingly and peacefully, even if they make us suffer and cause us problems. We are not being asked to consent to evil, but to consent to the mysterious wisdom of God who permits evil. Our consent is not a compromise with evil but the expression of our trust that God is stronger than evil. This is a form of obedience that is painful but very fruitful. It means that after we have done everything in our power, we are invited, faced with what is still imposed on our will by events, to practice an attitude of abandonment and filial trust toward our heavenly Father, in the faith that “for those who love God, everything works together for good.”12

Why not?” I asked, letting my tears spill over. It was easy to cry. All I had to do was look at Alex’s limp body, and the tears came effortlessly. “You were happy enough to do it to me.” There was a beat. Then John said cautiously, “What do you mean?” “The consequences, John?” I let out a bitter laugh. “Persephone wasn’t doomed to stay in the Underworld because she ate a pomegranate. She was doomed to stay there because she did with Hades what we did last night. That’s what the pomegranate symbolizes, right?” John stared, speechless. But I could tell I was right by the color that slowly started to suffuse his cheeks…and the fact that he didn’t try to contradict me. And of course the fact that the whole thing was spelled out right in front of me by the statue Hope was sitting on. I didn’t get why the Rectors were so obsessed by the myth of Persephone that they’d put a statue of it in their mausoleum, but it was clear enough they were involved in an underworld of one kind or another. “Don’t worry,” I said, lowering my voice because I didn’t want Frank to overhear. “I don’t blame you. You asked me if I was sure, despite the consequences. I said I was. But I thought by consequences you meant a baby, and I already knew that could never happen. I guess Mr. Smith must have told you last night that he found out the pomegranate symbolized something completely different than babies or death-“ “Pierce.” John grasped my hand. His fingers were like ice, but his voice and his gaze had an urgency that was anything but cold. “That isn’t why I did it. I love you. I’ve always loved you, because you’re good…you’re so good, you make me want to be good, too. But that’s the problem, Pierce. I’m not good. And I’ve always been afraid that when you find out the truth about me, you’d run away again-“ I sucked in my breath to tell him for the millionth time that this wasn’t true, but he cut me off, not allowing me to speak until he’d had his say. “Then you almost died yesterday,” he went on, “and it was my fault. I wanted to show you how much I loved you, and things…things went further than I expected. But you didn’t stop me”-his silver eyes blazed, as if daring me to deny what he was saying-“even though I told you we could slow down if you wanted to.” “I know,” I said softly, dropping my gaze to look down at our joined fingers. We’d each kept a hand on Alex. “I know you did.” “I don’t want to lose you again,” he said fiercely. “I lost you once and I couldn’t bear it. I won’t go through that again. I…I know I did the wrong thing. But it didn’t feel wrong at the time.” I raised my gaze to his. “You’re right about that, at least,” I said. “So am I forgiven?” he asked. I hesitated, confused by the myriad of emotions I was feeling. John had known. He’d known the whole time we had been together the night before that he was forever sealing my destiny to his. Of course, he’d thought I’d known, too. He’d asked if I was sure it was what I wanted, despite the consequences. I might have misunderstood what those consequences were, but I’d been very adamant in my response. I’d said yes. And I’d meant it. “Excuse me,” called Frank’s voice from the opposite wall of vaults. “But you might want to take a look at the boy.” John and I both glanced down. Beneath the hands we’d left on Alex, he’d come back to life.

Narrative horror, disgust. That's what drives him mad, I'm sure of it, what obsesses him. I've known other people with the same aversion, or awareness, and they weren't even famous, fame is not a deciding factor, there are many individuals who experience their life as if it were the material of some detailed report, and they inhabit that life pending its hypothetical or future plot. They don't give it much thought, it's just a way of experiencing things, companionable, in a way, as if there were always spectators or permanent witnesses, even of their most trivial goings-on and in the dullest of times. Perhaps it's a substitute for the old idea of the omnipresence of God, who saw every second of each of our lives, it was very flattering in a way, very comforting despite the implicit threat and punishment, and three or four generations aren't enough for Man to accept that his gruelling existence goes on without anyone ever observing or watching it, without anyone judging it or disapproving of it. And in truth there is always someone: a listener, a reader, a spectator, a witness, who can also double up as simultaneous narrator and actor: the individuals tell their stories to themselves, to each his own, they are the ones who peer in and look at and notice things on a daily basis, from the outside in a way; or, rather, from a false outside, from a generalised narcissism, sometimes known as "consciousness". That's why so few people can withstand mockery, humiliation, ridicule, the rush of blood to the face, a snub, that least of all ... I've known men like that, men who were nobody yet who had that same immense fear of their own history, of what might be told and what, therefore, they might tell too. Of their blotted, ugly history. But, I insist, the determining factor always comes from outside, from something external: all this has little to do with shame, regret, remorse, self-hatred although these might make a fleeting appearance at some point. These individuals only feel obliged to give a true account of their acts or omissions, good or bad, brave, contemptible, cowardly or generous, if other people (the majority, that is) know about them, and those acts or omissions are thus encorporated into what is known about them, that is, into their official portraits. It isn't really a matter of conscience, but of performance, of mirrors. One can easily cast doubt on what is reflected in mirrors, and believe that it was all illusory, wrap it up in a mist of diffuse or faulty memory and decide finally that it didn't happen and that there is no memory of it, because there is no memory of what did not take place. Then it will no longer torment them: some people have an extraordinary ability to convince themselves that what happened didn't happen and what didn't exist did.

His finger brushed mine as his mouth formed a full-on smile that could have made me fall in love on the spot if it had lasted any longer than the blink it did. “I’ve never met anybody like you.” “I hope that’s a good thing?” “I’ve met people who don’t know what it’s like to be sad. I’ve met resilient people. But you….” He shook his head, his gaze watching me closely in that rabid raccoon way. “You got this spark of life that nothing and no one has taken away despite the things that have happened to you, and I don’t understand how you still manage to… be you.

At this point, perhaps you Hushlanders are beginning to doubt the truth of this narrative. You have seen several odd and inexplicable things happen. (Though, just as a warning, the story so far has actually been quite tame. Just wait until we get to the part with the talking dinosaurs.) Some readers might even think that I’m just making this story up. You might think that everything in this book is dreamy silliness. This book is serious. Terribly serious. Your skepticism results from a lifetime of training in the Librarians’ school system, where you were taught all kinds of lies. Indeed, you’d probably never even heard of the Smedrys, despite the fact that they are the most famous family of Oculators in the entire world. In most parts of the Free Kingdoms, being a Smedry is considered equivalent to being nobility. (If you wish to perform a fun test, next time you are in history class, ask your teacher about the Smedrys. If your teacher is a Librarian spy, he or she will get red-faced and give you a detention. If, on the other hand, your teacher is innocent, he or she will simply be confused, then likely give you a detention.)

Trump doesn’t happen in a country where things are going well. People give in to their baser instincts when they lose faith in the future. The pessimism and anger necessary for this situation has been building for a generation, and not all on one side. A significant number of Trump voters voted for Obama eight years ago. A lot of those were in rust-belt states that proved critical to his election. What happened there? Trump also polled 2–1 among veterans, despite his own horrific record of deferments and his insulting of every vet from John McCain to Humayun Khan. Was it possible that his rhetoric about ending “our current policy of regime change” resonated with recently returned vets? The data said yes. It may not have been decisive, but it likely was one of many factors. It was also common sense, because this was one of his main themes on the campaign trail—Trump clearly smelled those veteran votes. The Trump phenomenon was also about a political and media taboo: class. When the liberal arts grads who mostly populate the media think about class, we tend to think in terms of the heroic worker, or whatever Marx-inspired cliché they taught us in college. Because of this, most pundits scoff at class, because when they look at Trump crowds, they don’t see Norma Rae or Matewan. Instead, they see Married with Children, a bunch of tacky mall-goers who gobble up crap movies and, incidentally, hate the noble political press. Our take on Trump voters was closer to Orwell than Marx: “In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much.” Beyond the utility that calling everything racism had for both party establishments, it was good for that other sector, the news media.

I used to listen to all the voices in my head that told me I wasn’t good enough, or that I would fail if I tried, or that everyone would judge me harshly for my truth. I used to let one fear or the other dictate how I chose to live my life. Not surprisingly, my life didn’t change much. I spent a lot of time with regret, and thinking about what could have been. I found myself wishing I’d at least tried to do some of the things I’d been so afraid to do. So I began to. I made the choice to hear all the fearful critics in my head without actually listening to them. I gave them a voice, but no longer a say. I had given all the power to my fear, after all, so it was within me to take it away. And my entire life changed, as every life does once we insist that our fears take a backseat to our courage and desire. Fear may not be a choice, but the commitment to take brave action, despite our fears, is always there for the choosing. I spent enough time obeying my fears. Too much time. Now I listen to different voices, the ones reminding me that no matter what happens, no matter what people think, the great potential of my life, and joy, lives within my commitment to live my life beyond my fear.

I would expect such behavior from the children,not from their mother." She tsked at him, not even a little daunted. "Aren't you the least bit curious?" "Certainly,but I can wait until-" "But I can't wait," she cut in passionately. "Come with me, Warren. I'll be careful with it. And if it's nothing more'n a simple gift, albeit a mysterious one, then I'll have the box wrapped up again perfectly, so no one will know we tampered with it." "You're serious about this?" he asked. "You're actually going to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night like an errant schoolgirl-" "No,no,we are, like two perfectly sensible adults making a reasonable effort to solve a mystery that has been around far too long." He chuckled at that point, used to his wife's strange logic, and used to her ignoring any of his attempts at sternness.But then that was the magic of Amy.She was unlike any other woman he'd ever known. He gave in gracefully with a smile. "Very well,fetch our robes and some shoes.I would imagine the fire has been banked in the parlor, so it will be a mite chilly." It wasn't that long before they were standing next to The Present, Warren merely curious, Amy finding it hard to contain her excitement, considering what she expected to find beneath the pretty cloth wrapping.The parlor wasn't chilly at all,since whoever had lef the room last had closed the doors to contain the earlier warmth, and Warren had closed them again before he lit several of the lamps. But the doors opened once more, giving Amy quite a start since she was just reaching for The Present when it happened, and Jeremy said as he entered the room, "Caught in the act,eh? Amy,for shame." Amy,noticeably embarrassed despite the fact that Jeremy wasn't just her cousin, but one of her closest friends, said stiffly, "And what,pray tell, are you doing down here at this hour?" He winked at her and said dryly, "Same thing you are, I would imagine." She chuckled then. "Scamp. Close the door while you're at it." He started to,but stepped out of the way instead as Reggie sauntered in, barefoot and still in the process of tying her bed robe. When everyone else there just stared at her, she huffed indignantly, "I did not come down here to open The Present-well, maybe I did, but I would have chickened out before actually doing so." "What a whopper, Reggie," Derek said as he came in right behind her. "Nice try, though. Mind if I borrow that lame excuse? Better than having none a'tall.

Despite the sisters' pretend rivalry and occasional squabbles, they were each other's staunchest ally and closest friend. Few people in Lillian's life had ever loved her except Daisy, who adored the ugliest stray dogs, the most annoying children, and things that needed to be repaired or thrown out altogether. And yet for all their closeness, they were quite different. Daisy was an idealist, a dreamer, a mercurial creature who alternated between childlike whimsy and shrewd intelligence. Lillian knew herself to be a sharp-tongued girl with a fortress of defenses between herself and the rest of the world- a girl with well-maintained cynicism and a biting sense of humor.

Imagine you were asked in a maths paper at junior school, 'Which would you prefer, a shilling or two sixpences?' and you answered, 'Two sixpences,' because thinking of the two tiny silver coins jingling together in your pocket made you feel good and you loved those cute little sixpences. But when the test paper was returned you saw a big red cross through your answer, and that night your mother explained to you that it was a trick question, two sixpences and a shilling were worth the same amount – which you knew, but you'd still prefer two sixpences. It wasn't that you were stupid, you just saw things from a different angle. Sixpences had character, shillings didn't. And you felt richer with two sixpences because there were two coins, not just one. But despite all these explanations, you were still wrong and you kept getting tripped up by these trick questions over and over again, in exams, in relationships, friendships, jobs and interviews. In fact, these misreadings of situations happened so often that you started to view the world as a tricksy and untruthful place. Then you noticed that the people who saw the tricks behind the questions were popular and always at the top of the class. Baffled by life and its unseen rules, you began to doubt everything around you. You felt you had to approach all of life as a trick, just to get it right a few times.

My huge generalities touched on millennials’ oversensitivity, their sense of entitlement, their insistence that they were always right despite sometimes overwhelming proof to the contrary, their failure to consider anything within its context, their joint tendencies of overreaction and passive-aggressive positivity—incidentally, all of these misdemeanors happening only sometimes, not always, and possibly exacerbated by the meds many this age had been fed since childhood by overprotective, helicopter moms and dads mapping their every move. These parents, whether tail-end baby boomers or Gen Xers, now seemed to be rebelling against their own rebelliousness because they felt they’d never really been loved by their own selfish narcissistic true-boomer parents, and who as a result were smothering their kids and not teaching them how to deal with life’s hardships about how things actually work: people might not like you, this person will not love you back, kids are really cruel, work sucks, it’s hard to be good at something, your days will be made up of failure and disappointment, you’re not talented, people suffer, people grow old, people die. And the response from Generation Wuss was to collapse into sentimentality and create victim narratives, instead of grappling with the cold realities by struggling and processing them and then moving on, better prepared to navigate an often hostile or indifferent world that doesn’t care if you exist.

The same thing, notes Brynjolfsson, happened 120 years ago, in the Second Industrial Revolution, when electrification—the supernova of its day—was introduced. Old factories did not just have to be electrified to achieve the productivity boosts; they had to be redesigned, along with all business processes. It took thirty years for one generation of managers and workers to retire and for a new generation to emerge to get the full productivity benefits of that new power source. A December 2015 study by the McKinsey Global Institute on American industry found a “considerable gap between the most digitized sectors and the rest of the economy over time and [found] that despite a massive rush of adoption, most sectors have barely closed that gap over the past decade … Because the less digitized sectors are some of the largest in terms of GDP contribution and employment, we [found] that the US economy as a whole is only reaching 18 percent of its digital potential … The United States will need to adapt its institutions and training pathways to help workers acquire relevant skills and navigate this period of transition and churn.” The supernova is a new power source, and it will take some time for society to reconfigure itself to absorb its full potential. As that happens, I believe that Brynjolfsson will be proved right and we will start to see the benefits—a broad range of new discoveries around health, learning, urban planning, transportation, innovation, and commerce—that will drive growth. That debate is for economists, though, and beyond the scope of this book, but I will be eager to see how it plays out. What is absolutely clear right now is that while the supernova may not have made our economies measurably more productive yet, it is clearly making all forms of technology, and therefore individuals, companies, ideas, machines, and groups, more powerful—more able to shape the world around them in unprecedented ways with less effort than ever before. If you want to be a maker, a starter-upper, an inventor, or an innovator, this is your time. By leveraging the supernova you can do so much more now with so little. As Tom Goodwin, senior vice president of strategy and innovation at Havas Media, observed in a March 3, 2015, essay on TechCrunch.com: “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.

Whatever else the Florida primary might or might not have proved, it put a definite kink in the Media Theory of politics. It may be true, despite what happened to Lindsay and Muskie in Florida, that all you have to do to be President of the U.S.A. is look “attractive” on TV and have enough money to hire a Media Wizard. Only a fool or a linthead would argue with the logic at the root of the theory: If you want to sell yourself to a nation of TV addicts, you obviously can’t ignore the medium… but the Florida vote at least served to remind a lot of people that the medium is only a tool, not a magic eye. In other words, if you want to be President of the U.S.A. and you’re certified “attractive,” the only other thing you have to worry about when you lay out all that money for a Media Wizard is whether or not you’re hiring a good one instead of a bungler… and definitely lay off the Reds when you go to the studio.

You know," he said, 'for what it's worth, the justice system is supposed to be this purveyor of right and wrong, good and had. But sometimes, I think it gets it wrong almost as much as it gets it right. I've had to learn that, too, and it's hard to accept. What do you do when the things that are supposed to protect you, fail you like that?? 'I was so naïve,' Pip said. 'I practically handed Max Hastings to them, after everything came out last year. And I truly believed it was some kind of victory, that the bad would be punished. Because it was the truth, and the truth was the most important thing to me. It's all I believed in, all I cared about: finding the truth, no matter the cost. And the truth was that Max was guilty and he would face justice. But justice doesn't exist, and the truth doesn't matter, not in the real world, and now they've just handed him right back. 'Oh, justice exists,' Charlie said, looking up at the rain. 'Maybe not the kind that happens in police stations and courtrooms, but it does exist. And when you really think about it, those words - good and bad, right and wrong- they don't really matter in the real world. Who gets to decide what they mean: those people who just got it wrong and let Max walk free? No,' he shook his head. 'I think we all get to decide what good and bad and right and wrong mean to us, not what we're told to accept. You did nothing wrong. Don't beat yourself up for other people's mistakes.' She turned to him, her stomach clenching. But that doesn't matter now. Max has won.' 'He only wins if you let him.' 'What can I do about it?' she asked. 'From listening to your podcast, sounds to me like there's not much you can't do.' 'I haven't found Jamie.' She picked at her nails. "And now people think he's not really missing, that I made it all up. That I'm a liar and I'm bad and -' 'Do you care?' Charlie asked. 'Do you care what people think, if you know you're right?' She paused, her answer sliding back down her throat. Why did she care? She was about to say she didn't care at all, but hadn't that been the feeling in the pit of her stomach all along? The pit that had been growing these last six months. Guilt about what she did last time, about her dog dying, about not being good, about putting her family in danger, and every day reading the disappointment in her mum's eyes. Feeling bad about the secrets she was keeping to protect Cara and Naomi. She was a liar, that part was true. And worse, to make herself feel better about it all, she'd said it wasn't really her and she'd never be that person again. That she was different now... good. That she'd almost lost herself last time and it wouldn't happen again. But that wasn't it, was it? She hadn't almost lost herself, maybe she'd actually been meeting herself for the very first time. And she was tired of feeling guilty about it. Tired of feeling shame about who she was. She bet Max Hastings had never felt ashamed a day in his life. 'You're right,' she said. And as she straightened up, untwisted, she realized that the pit in her stomach, the one that had been swallowing her from inside out, it was starting to go, Filling in until it was hardly there at all. "Maybe I don't have to be good, or other people's versions of good. And maybe I don't have to be likeable.' She turned to him, her movements quick and light despite her water-heavy clothes. "Fuck likeable You know who's likeable? People like Max Hastings who walk into a courtroom with fake glasses and charm their way out. I don't want to be like that." 'So don't, Charlie said. 'And don't give up because of him. Someone's life might depend on you. And I know you can find him, find Jamie. He turned a smile to her. "Other people might

But it may be that I betrayed myself. Since Dorcastle, my ability to supress my emotions has diminished. I know feelings are showing, not in ways which commons might see, but clearly enough for Mages to spot. My elders could well have decided that I am ruined, that my contact with you has corrupted me beyond correction." ... "What does it take to corrupt a Mage, anyway?" "I told you. They thought that you had attempted to seduce me. Perhaps they thought that you had already succeeded despite my denials that such a thing had happened." Once again Mari stared at him, her face darkening. "I was under the impression that your elders thought I would try that at some future point. What did you tell them to make them think that I had already put my moves on you? Or that I had already hooked you?" "Hooked?" Alain asked. "Ensnared." Mari got the word out between clenched teeth. "I told them nothing. That is the illusion they wished to believe, not thinking there could be any other reason for a female Mechanic to seek my company." Alain paused in thought. "A young and attractive female Mechanic, that is." "Oh right. The one with all those physical charms." "Yes," Alain agreed. She gasped a laugh. "I was being sarcastic again, Alain. I hope that isn't the only reason you've been attracted to me. Not the only reason anyway." "You are very pleasant to look upon," Alain said, and Mari's face flushed again. Had he angered her? "But my elders were foolish to think physical desire alone could corrupt me. It should not be possible with all of my training, but I found that a single shadow was by far the most important part of the world illusion. That is what doomed me, so my elders were correct in thinking that you had altered my thinking. Not with your body or other physical temptation, but with who you were and the things you did." Alain made another effort to bend his lips into a smile. "I will never be able to return to what I was before I met you.

I was told love should be unconditional. That's the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge? I am supposed to love Nick despite all his shortcomings. And Nick is supposed to love me despite my quirks. But clearly, neither of us does. It makes me think that everyone is very wrong, that love should have many conditions. Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times. Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all have seen, undisciplined love is disastrous. You can read more about my thoughts on love in Amazing. Out soon! But first: motherhood. The due date is tomorrow. Tomorrow happens to be our anniversary. Year six. Iron. I thought about giving Nick a nice pair of handcuffs, but he may not find that funny yet. It's so strange to think: A year ago today, I was undoing my husband. Now I am almost done reassembling him. Nick has spent all his free time these past months slathering my belly with cocoa butter and running out for pickles and rubbing my feet, and all the things good fathers-to-be are supposed to do. Doting on me. He is learning to love me unconditionally, under all my conditions. I think we are finally on our way to happiness. I have finally figured it out. We are on the eve of becoming the world's best, brightest nuclear family. We just need to sustain it. Nick doesn't have it down perfect. This morning he was stroking my hair and asking what else he could do for me, and I said: 'My gosh, Nick, why are you so wonderful to me?' He was supposed to say: You deserve it. I love you. But he said, 'Because I feel sorry for you.' 'Why?' 'Because every morning you have to wake up and be you.' I really, truly wish he hadn't said that. I keep thinking about it. I can't stop. I don't have anything else to add. I just wanted to make sure I had the last word. I think I've earned that.

I don’t know about you, but most people often look for circumstances, situations & a way to achieve a sense of inner peace & bliss. Darling listen – the nonsense, chaos & the noise will always be there. No one has control over these. But despite of those unwarranted things & circumstances you can stay in peace & maintain your bliss by controling your response to things & how you view things. I repeat – when you can’t control what’s happening, help yourself to control how you respond to what’s happening & make the most of it. That’s where your greatest power is. Sweetheart, today l want you to bring a sense of play, delight, awe & enthusiasm to your daily life & everything you choose to do. I want you to keep thinking about the people you care about & the people who care about you. I wish you to do more of those things & think more of those thoughts that fill your heart & keep it warm. I pray God to help you in becoming more capable of being peaceful, amusing, tasteful & blissful amidst all the chaos of a hectic life..

There would seem to be only one question for philosophy to resolve: what must I do? Despite being combined with an enormous amount of unnecessary confusion, answers to the question have at any rate been given within the philosophical tradition of the Christian nations. For example, in Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, or in Spinoza, Schopenhauer and especially Rousseau. But in more recent times, since Hegel's assertion that all that exists is reasonable, the question of what one must do has been pushed to the background and philosophy has directed its whole attention to the investigation of things as they are, and to fitting them into a prearranged theory. This was the first step backwards. The second step, degrading human thought yet further, was the acceptance of the struggle for existence as a basic law, simply because that struggle can be observed among animals and plants. According to this theory the destruction of the weakest is a law which should not be opposed. And finally, the third step was taken when the childish originality of Nietzche's half-crazed thought, presenting nothing complete or coherent, but only various drafts of immoral and completely unsubstantiated ideas, was accepted by the leading figures as the final word in philosophical science. In reply to the question: what must we do? the answer is now put straightforwardly as: live as you like, without paying attention to the lives of others. Turgenev made the witty remark that there are inverse platitudes, which are frequently employed by people lacking in talent who wish to attract attention to themselves. Everyone knows, for instance, that water is wet, and someone suddenly says, very seriously, that water is dry, not that ice is, but that water is dry, and the conviction with which this is stated attracts attention. Similarly, the whole world knows that virtue consists in the subjugation of one's passions, or in self-renunciation. It is not just the Christian world, against whom Nietzsche howls, that knows this, but it is an eternal supreme law towards which all humanity has developed, including Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism and the ancient Persian religion. And suddenly a man appears who declares that he is convinced that self-renunciation, meekness, submissiveness and love are all vices that destroy humanity (he has in mind Christianity, ignoring all the other religions). One can understand why such a declaration baffled people at first. But after giving it a little thought and failing to find any proof of the strange propositions, any rational person ought to throw the books aside and wonder if there is any kind of rubbish that would not find a publisher today. But this has not happened with Nietzsche's books. The majority of pseudo-enlightened people seriously look into the theory of the superman, and acknowledge its author to be a great philosopher, a descendant of Descartes, Leibniz and Kant. And all this has come about because the majority of the pseudo-enlightened men of today object to any reminder of virtue, or to its chief premise: self-renunciation and love - virtues that restrain and condemn the animal side of their life. They gladly welcome a doctrine, however incoherently and disjointedly expressed, of egotism and cruelty, sanctioning the ideas of personal happiness and superiority over the lives of others, by which they live.

The bonds of family can be wonderful but there is a time to know when to stand apart." She held out a hand to Rycca on the nearby bench. "Besides, we are your family now, all of us, and we know your worth." Deeply touched, Rycca had to blink several times before she could respond. She knew both women spoke pure truth and loved them for it.After a lifetime of emotional solitude unbroken but for Thurlow, it was still difficult for her to comprehend that she was no longer alone. Yet was she beginning to understand it. Softly,she said, "I worry over Dragon. He refuses to talk of my father or of what will happen now that we are here, but I fear he is planning to take matters into his own hands." Cymbra and Krysta exchanged a glance. Quietly,Cymbra said, "Your instinct is not wrong. Dragon simmers with rage at the harm attempted to you. In Landsende I caught a mere glimpse of it,and it was like peering into one of those mountains that belch fire." Despite the heat of the sauna, Rycca shivered. "He came close to losing his life once because of me.I cannot bear for it to happen again." There was silence for a moment,broken only by the crackling of the fire and the hiss of steam.Finally, Cymbra said, "We are each of us married to an extraordinary man. There is something about them...even now I don't really know how to explain it." She looked at Krysta. "Have you told Rycca about Thorgold and Raven?" Krysta shook her head. "There was no time before." She turned on her side on the bench,facing the other two. "Thorgold and Raven are my...friends. They are somewhat unusual." Cymbra laughed at that,prompting a chiding look from Krysta,who went on to say, "I'm not sure how but I think somehow I called them to me when I was a child and needed them very much." "Krysta has the gift of calling," Cymbra said, "as I do of feeling and you do of truthsaying. Doesn't it strike you as odd that three very unusual women, all bearing special gifts, ccame to be married to three extraordinary men who are united by a common purpose,to bring peace to their peoples?" "I had not really thought about it," said Rycca, who also had not known of Krysta's gift and was looking at her with some surprise. All three of them? That was odd. "I believe," said Cymbra, who clearly had been thinking about it, "that there is a reason for it beyond mere coincidence. I think we are meant to be at their sides, to help them as best we can, the better to transform peace from dream to reality." "It is a good thought," Krysta said. Rycca nodded. Very quietly, she said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Cymbra grinned. "And poor things, we appear to be their blessings. So worry not for Dragon, Rycca. He will prevail. We will all see to it." They laughed then,the trio of them, ancient and feminine laughter hidden in a chamber held in the palm of the earth. The steam rose around them, half obscuringm half revealing them. In time,when the heat had become too intense,they rose, wrapped themselves in billowing cloths,and ran through the gathering darkness to the river, where they frolicked in cool water and laughed again beneath the stars. The torches had been lit by the time they returned to the stronghold high on the hill. They dressed and hastened to the hall,where they greeted their husbands, who stood as one when they entered,silent and watchful men before beauty and strength, and took their seats at table. Wine was poured, food brought,music played. They lingered over the evening,taking it into night. The moon was high when they found the sweet,languid sanctuary of their beds. Day came too swiftly.

He got in beside her and impatiently reached for her seat belt, snapping it in place. “You always forget,” he murmured, meeting her eyes. Her breath came uneasily through her lips as she met that level stare and responded helplessly to it. He was handsome and sexy and she loved him more than her own life. She had for years. But it was a hopeless, unreturned adoration that left her unfulfilled. He’d never touched her, not even in the most innocent way. He only looked. “I should close my door to you,” she said huskily. “Refuse to speak to you, refuse to see you, and get on with my life. You’re a constant torment.” Unexpectedly he reached out and touched her soft cheek with just his fingertips. They smoothed down to her full, soft mouth and teased the lower lip away from the upper one. “I’m Lakota,” he said quietly. “You’re white.” “There is,” she said unsteadily, “such a thing as birth control.” His face was very solemn and his eyes were narrow and intent on hers. “And sex is all you want from me, Cecily?” he asked mockingly. “No kids, ever?” It was the most serious conversation they’d ever had. She couldn’t look away from his dark eyes. She wanted him. But she wanted children, too, eventually. Her expression told him so. “No, Cecily,” he continued gently. “Sex isn’t what you want at all. And what you really want, I can’t give you. We have no future together. If I marry one day, it’s important to me that I marry a woman with the same background as my own. And I don’t want to live with a young, and all too innocent, white woman.” “I wouldn’t be innocent if you’d cooperate for an hour,” she muttered outrageously. His dark eyes twinkled. “Under different circumstances, I would,” he said, and there was suddenly something hot and dangerous in the way he looked at her as the smile faded from his chiseled lips, something that made her heart race even faster. “I’d love to strip you and throw you onto a bed and bend you like a willow twig under y body.” “Stop!” she whispered theatrically. “I’ll swoon!” And it wasn’t all acting. His hand slid behind her nape and contracted, dragging her rapt face just under his, so close that she could smell the coffee that clung to his clean breath, so close that her breasts almost touched his jacket. “You’ll tempt me once too often,” he bit off. “This teasing is more dangerous than you realize.” She didn’t reply. She couldn’t. She was throbbing, aroused, sick with desire. In all her life, there had been only this man who made her feel alive, who made her feel passion. Despite the traumatic experience of her teens, she had a fierce physical attraction to Tate that she was incapable of feeling with any other man. She touched his lean cheek with cold fingertips, slid them back, around his neck into the thick mane of long hair that he kept tightly bound-like his own passions. “You could kiss me,” she whispered unsteadily, “just to see how it feels.” He tensed. His mouth poised just above her parted lips. The silence in the car was pregnant, tense, alive with possibilities and anticipation. He looked into her wide, pale, eager green eyes and saw the heat she couldn’t disguise. His own body felt the pressure and warmth of hers and began to swell, against his will. “Tate,” she breathed, pushing upward, toward his mouth, his chiseled, beautiful mouth that promised heaven, promised satisfaction, promised paradise. His dark fingers corded in her hair. They hurt, and she didn’t care. Her whole body ached. “Cecily, you little fool,” he ground out. Her lips parted even more. He was weak. This once, he was weak. She could tempt him. It could happen. She could feel his mouth, taste it, breathe it. She felt him waver. She felt the sharp explosion of his breath against her lips as he let his control slip. His mouth parted and his head bent. She wanted it. Oh, God, she wanted it, wanted it, wanted it…

a young Goldman Sachs banker named Joseph Park was sitting in his apartment, frustrated at the effort required to get access to entertainment. Why should he trek all the way to Blockbuster to rent a movie? He should just be able to open a website, pick out a movie, and have it delivered to his door. Despite raising around $250 million, Kozmo, the company Park founded, went bankrupt in 2001. His biggest mistake was making a brash promise for one-hour delivery of virtually anything, and investing in building national operations to support growth that never happened. One study of over three thousand startups indicates that roughly three out of every four fail because of premature scaling—making investments that the market isn’t yet ready to support. Had Park proceeded more slowly, he might have noticed that with the current technology available, one-hour delivery was an impractical and low-margin business. There was, however, a tremendous demand for online movie rentals. Netflix was just then getting off the ground, and Kozmo might have been able to compete in the area of mail-order rentals and then online movie streaming. Later, he might have been able to capitalize on technological changes that made it possible for Instacart to build a logistics operation that made one-hour grocery delivery scalable and profitable. Since the market is more defined when settlers enter, they can focus on providing superior quality instead of deliberating about what to offer in the first place. “Wouldn’t you rather be second or third and see how the guy in first did, and then . . . improve it?” Malcolm Gladwell asked in an interview. “When ideas get really complicated, and when the world gets complicated, it’s foolish to think the person who’s first can work it all out,” Gladwell remarked. “Most good things, it takes a long time to figure them out.”* Second, there’s reason to believe that the kinds of people who choose to be late movers may be better suited to succeed. Risk seekers are drawn to being first, and they’re prone to making impulsive decisions. Meanwhile, more risk-averse entrepreneurs watch from the sidelines, waiting for the right opportunity and balancing their risk portfolios before entering. In a study of software startups, strategy researchers Elizabeth Pontikes and William Barnett find that when entrepreneurs rush to follow the crowd into hyped markets, their startups are less likely to survive and grow. When entrepreneurs wait for the market to cool down, they have higher odds of success: “Nonconformists . . . that buck the trend are most likely to stay in the market, receive funding, and ultimately go public.” Third, along with being less recklessly ambitious, settlers can improve upon competitors’ technology to make products better. When you’re the first to market, you have to make all the mistakes yourself. Meanwhile, settlers can watch and learn from your errors. “Moving first is a tactic, not a goal,” Peter Thiel writes in Zero to One; “being the first mover doesn’t do you any good if someone else comes along and unseats you.” Fourth, whereas pioneers tend to get stuck in their early offerings, settlers can observe market changes and shifting consumer tastes and adjust accordingly. In a study of the U.S. automobile industry over nearly a century, pioneers had lower survival rates because they struggled to establish legitimacy, developed routines that didn’t fit the market, and became obsolete as consumer needs clarified. Settlers also have the luxury of waiting for the market to be ready. When Warby Parker launched, e-commerce companies had been thriving for more than a decade, though other companies had tried selling glasses online with little success. “There’s no way it would have worked before,” Neil Blumenthal tells me. “We had to wait for Amazon, Zappos, and Blue Nile to get people comfortable buying products they typically wouldn’t order online.

It didn’t matter how stupid I was--how dumb, or awkward, or sweaty. It became clearer to me than ever, sitting on that ornate concrete bench, that Marlboro Man loved me. Really, really loved me. He loved me with a kind of love different from any I’d felt before, a kind of love I never knew existed. Other boys--at least, the boys I’d always bothered with--would have been embarrassed that I’d disappeared into the bathroom for half the night. Others would have been grossed out by my tale of sweaty woe or made jokes at my expense. Others might have looked at me blankly, unsure of what to say. But not Marlboro Man; none of it fazed him one bit. He simply laughed, kissed me, and went on. And my heart welled up in my soul as I realized that without question, I’d found the one perfect person for me. Because more often than not, I was a mess. Embarrassing, clumsy things happened to me with some degree of regularity; this hadn’t been the first time and it sure wouldn’t be the last. The truth was, despite my best efforts to appear normal and put together on the outside, I’d always felt more like one of the weird kids. But at last, miraculously, I’d found the one man on earth who would actually love that about me. I’d found the one man on earth who would appreciate my spots of imperfection…and who wouldn’t try to polish them all away.

You’re dreaming of miracles, Willem,” Idriss would say if he knew what he was thinking, and he knew he was. But then again, he would think, what about his life—and about Jude’s life, too—wasn’t it a miracle? He should have stayed in Wyoming, he should have been a ranch hand himself. Jude should have wound up—where? In prison, or in a hospital, or dead, or worse. But they hadn’t. Wasn’t it a miracle that someone who was basically unexceptional could live a life in which he made millions pretending to be other people, that in that life that person would fly from city to city, would spend his days having his every need fulfilled, working in artificial contexts in which he was treated like the potentate of a small, corrupt country? Wasn’t it a miracle to be adopted at thirty, to find people who loved you so much that they wanted to call you their own? Wasn’t it a miracle to have survived the unsurvivable? Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely? Wasn’t this house, this beauty, this comfort, this life a miracle? And so who could blame him for hoping for one more, for hoping that despite knowing better, that despite biology, and time, and history, that they would be the exception, that what happened to other people with Jude’s sort of injury wouldn’t happen to him, that even with all that Jude had overcome, he might overcome just one more thing?

Look, Mel. Look at that sky. You can’t find that anywhere else on earth. All those stars, that moon—the clear black sky. That belongs to us.” She looked up at the most gorgeous sky imaginable, with more stars than she thought existed. He stepped behind her and with his hands on both of her upper arms, he gently squeezed. “You just can’t see this in the city. In any city.” “It is beautiful,” she said softly. “I admit, this is beautiful country.” “It’s majestic. One of these days, before you pack it in and run for your life, I’d like to show you some things. The redwoods, the rivers, the coast. It’s almost time for whale watching.” She leaned back against him and couldn’t deny it felt pretty good to be shored up by Jack. “I’m sorry about what happened tonight.” He leaned down and inhaled the scent of her hair. “I was really impressed with how well you handled it—but I’m sorry he… I hate that he touched you like that. I thought I had an eye on him.” “Too quick for me. Too quick for you,” she said. He turned her around and looked into her eyes. He thought he saw an invitation there in her upturned face and he lowered his. She put a hand on his chest. “I have to go in now,” she said, a little breathless. He straightened. “We both know I couldn’t throw you,” she said, smiling weakly. “You’ll never have to,” he said. But he still held her arms, so reluctant to let go. “Good night, Jack. And thanks for everything. Despite Nick—I had a good time.” “Glad to hear it,” he said. And he let go. She

Trump’s unpredictability caused much discomfort among his frequently changing staff and among America’s allies, who were used to automatic, reflexive support from American presidents. But it had its uses internationally by putting America’s adversaries off balance and instilling fear in its enemies. As Israel’s prime minister, I saw it as my job to carefully navigate through the new reality Trump brought to Washington in order to advance Israel’s security and vital national interests and to forge four historic peace agreements. I could do so because Trump adopted an entirely new approach to peacemaking. He did not heed bureaucratic orthodoxy and was willing to go outside the box. For the first time in Israel’s history, peace was achieved without ceding territory or uprooting Jews from their homes. It was based on mutual economic, diplomatic and security interests in which all sides benefited. In addition to recognizing Jerusalem and the Golan, President Trump recognized the legality of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. In confronting Iran he was equally bold. Recognizing the absurdity of the Iran deal, he withdrew from it and did not hesitate to apply forceful economic and military pressures on Tehran. In all this he was a true trailblazer. Despite bumps in the road, our years together were the best ever for the Israeli-American alliance, strengthening security and bringing four historic peace accords to Israel and the Middle East. They showed the world that great things happen when an American president and an Israeli prime minister work in tandem, with no daylight between them. We proved conclusively that if you pursue peace through strength, you get both.

You know, a government should be a good thing. The Anglo-Saxons and the Germans rejoice in the phenomenon of government. They think that the recipe for human happiness is that you should make your desires and actions concordant with those of the government. So a German and an American will try to make the government work for him, protect him, and he will be more than happy to murder to preserve that wonderful symbiosis. And if he has some money to invest, he will invest it in the government, buying government bonds. He does this regardless of whether his government happens to be trillions of dollars in debt—that is, practically bankrupt. Despite his rhetoric of private enterprise, a Westerner will invest in his government. And we, Eastern and Central Europeans, and particularly Slavs, we all consider our governments to be absolutely the worst in the world. We are ashamed of our governments, and, as a rule, our government is ashamed of us, trying to improve us statistically, to say that we work more and drink less than we do. We think that there's no greater obstacle to human happiness than the government. So even if we have an institution pregnant with democratic potential, such as workers' self-management, we never even bother to attend a meeting unless absolutely forced. And as for voting, we circle any name without looking at whose it is, out of spite. To a Slav, there is nothing more disgusting than voting. We have an aversion to investing trust in any human being. So how could we single out someone we haven't met but whom we know a priori to be a social upstart and climber? So we spend these workers' self-management meetings, where democracy could be practiced, in daydreams of sex and violence.

I struggle with an embarrassing affliction, one that as far as I know doesn’t have a website or support group despite its disabling effects on the lives of those of us who’ve somehow contracted it. I can’t remember exactly when I started noticing the symptoms—it’s just one of those things you learn to live with, I guess. You make adjustments. You hope people don’t notice. The irony, obviously, is having gone into a line of work in which this particular infirmity is most likely to stand out, like being a gimpy tango instructor or an acrophobic flight attendant. The affliction I’m speaking of is moral relativism, and you can imagine the catastrophic effects on a critic’s career if the thing were left to run its course unfettered or I had to rely on my own inner compass alone. To be honest, calling it moral relativism may dignify it too much; it’s more like moral wishy-washiness. Critics are supposed to have deeply felt moral outrage about things, be ready to pronounce on or condemn other people’s foibles and failures at a moment’s notice whenever an editor emails requesting twelve hundred words by the day after tomorrow. The severity of your condemnation is the measure of your intellectual seriousness (especially when it comes to other people’s literary or aesthetic failures, which, for our best critics, register as nothing short of moral turpitude in itself). That’s how critics make their reputations: having take-no-prisoners convictions and expressing them in brutal mots justes. You’d better be right there with that verdict or you’d better just shut the fuck up. But when it comes to moral turpitude and ethical lapses (which happen to be subjects I’ve written on frequently, perversely drawn to the topics likely to expose me at my most irresolute)—it’s like I’m shooting outrage blanks. There I sit, fingers poised on keyboard, one part of me (the ambitious, careerist part) itching to strike, but in my truest soul limply equivocal, particularly when it comes to the many lapses I suspect I’m capable of committing myself, from bad prose to adultery. Every once in a while I succeed in landing a feeble blow or two, but for the most part it’s the limp equivocator who rules the roost—contextualizing, identifying, dithering. And here’s another confession while I’m at it—wow, it feels good to finally come clean about it all. It’s that … once in a while, when I’m feeling especially jellylike, I’ve found myself loitering on the Internet in hopes of—this is embarrassing—cadging a bit of other people’s moral outrage (not exactly in short supply online) concerning whatever subject I’m supposed to be addressing. Sometimes you just need a little shot in the arm, you know? It’s not like I’d crib anyone’s actual sentences (though frankly I have a tough time getting as worked up about plagiarism as other people seem to get—that’s how deep this horrible affliction runs). No, it’s the tranquillity of their moral authority I’m hoping will rub off on me. I confess to having a bit of an online “thing,” for this reason, about New Republic editor-columnist Leon Wieseltier—as everyone knows, one of our leading critical voices and always in high dudgeon about something or other: never fearing to lambaste anyone no matter how far beneath him in the pecking order, never fearing for a moment, when he calls someone out for being preening or self-congratulatory, as he frequently does, that it might be true of himself as well. When I’m in the depths of soft-heartedness, a little dose of Leon is all I need to feel like clambering back on the horse of critical judgment and denouncing someone for something.

I love the commanding tone of your voice and how it falls in gentle rhythms. I love how you dance like the waves and pull me in with your tide. You're every ounce as beautiful as the sea and every bit as wild. You have no idea the extent how vibrantly you glow, but perhaps you're learning. And I love that. I love you." A flutter in my chest multiplies, blooming and blooming and blooming, like the kaleidoscope in my dream. Only this time, it doesn't shatter. It holds me there in that rose-gold glow. I burst, but in a way that's expansive, not destructive. I leap forward, pressing my lips to his, obliterated by the dew-damp softness. His eyes widen as he pulls away. I gape at him, flushed. "I---I'm sorry." He hesitates, but then he pounces, drawing me towards his embrace and crushing my open mouth. It happens so fast. He grabs me by the thighs, welling up my skirt as he carries me out of the water. My fingers curl through his hair, and novas explode as he slips his tongue onto mine. He holds me tighter, kissing me over and over again like repeating a melody. It's as natural as language, as wild as the roaring sea. We fall to the ground, and a bed of flowers blossoms beneath us, pale pink and soft. The velvet petals tangle in my hair as he presses into me--- skin on skin, blooming with wild heat. We fold into each other, our arms coiling like serpents, my fingers tracing his body. He pulls away for just a moment, but only to study me like the rarest opal, admiring my every color and curve before kissing my lips--- sweet and soft and slow. We repeat the motions in a ritual that's only our own. I try to catch my thoughts, but they're all tangled up . Though, there's one thing I know for sure. Through my unsteady breathing, I whisper, "I love you, too." Despite what the Devil thinks, I am capable of love, and I won't let him win, not now. Damien and I collapse into the damp petals, surrendering to the night.

The brain is wired to minimize loss . . . [and] to keep you alive. [It] makes the assumption that because you were alive yesterday, what you did previously is safe. Therefore, repeating the past is good for survival. As a result, doing things differently, even if it seems like an improvement, is risky. Perpetuating past behaviors, from the brain’s reptilian perspective, is the safest way. This is why innovation is difficult for most individuals and organizations. Put another way, the brain wants its problems and predicaments solved first because it can’t deal with anything new or different until they are addressed. The brain has no incentive to come up with new ideas if it doesn’t have to. As long as your brain knows you have another out, it will always be content with keeping you alive by coming up with the same ideas that it used before. This suggests that when you decide to get scrappy, a shift occurs and seems to unlock a door. Once that new door opens, you are more capable than ever of getting innovative because your brain has been activated to manage discomfort or challenges first. You’re able to work on a new, perhaps more advanced, level with heightened energy and focus. It’s that initial commitment, that literal act of saying, “I’m going for it!” that stimulates your mind in new and clever ways and ultimately leads to the generation of fresh ideas. Let’s go back to the Greg Hague story. 1. He had a huge goal, which was to pass the Arizona state bar exam. 2. There was a limited time frame as he had only four and a half months to study. 3. He was all in: “I flat out made up my mind I was going to pass.” He decided to go despite the odds. 4. He had to figure out a way to learn a ton of information in a short period of time. His brain adapted, shifted, and developed an entirely new learning system in order to absorb more material, which helped him to pass the Arizona bar and get the top score in the state. It’s weird, right? But it happened.

I find that while each partner might have needed some specific coaching, the real tests we faced were basically the same, season after season. We had to learn to move as a team. We had to master complex, carefully timed choreography. We had to face the hot lights and live action and the idea that millions of eyes were upon us. But beyond that, I needed to inspire and instill confidence in each person I coached and danced with. I needed to communicate with an open heart and empathetic, encouraging words. I had to critique usefully and praise strategically. I also needed to be my authentic self--exposing my personal vulnerabilities to win their trust. Ultimately, I had to make each of my partners embrace not just me, but also her own sill and power. Every partner I’ve danced with has it within them to kick ass and climb mountains. When you put yourself in a situation when you’re vulnerable, that’s when your power is revealed. And it’s always there; it’s part of your DNA. It’s like a woman walking into a room looking for the diamond necklace and realizing it’s around her neck. I’m not changing any of these ladies; I’m helping them rediscover themselves. And truth be told, that was never my goal. I never walked into a studio thinking, I’m going to transform this person’s life. I’m no therapist! I was just trying to put some damn routines together! But I realized after all these seasons that the dance is a metaphor for the journey. Every one of my partners has had a very different one. What they brought to the table was different; what they needed to overcome was different. But despite that, the same thing happens time and time again: the walls come tumbling down and they find their true selves. That I have anything at all to do with that is both thrilling and humbling. In the beginning, I thought I was just along for the ride--army candy. To touch a person’s life, to help them find their footing, is a gift, and I’m thankful I get to do it season after season.

Behind her, where Tony had been standing, shadows moved, then a hand gently grasped Elizabeth’s elbow, and a deep, husky voice said near her ear, “Dance with me, Elizabeth.” Shock stiffened her body, slamming against the barricade of numbness that Elizabeth was trying to keep intact. Still gazing straight ahead, she said very calmly and politely, “Would you do me a great service?” “Anything,” he agreed. “Go away. And stay away.” “Anything,” he amended with a solemn smile in his voice, “but that.” She felt him move closer behind her, and the nervous quaking she’d conquered hours before jarred through her again, awakening her senses from their blissful anesthesia. His fingers lightly caressed her arm, and he bent his head closer to hers. “Dance with me.” In the arbor two years ago, when he had spoken those words, Elizabeth had let him take her in his arms. Tonight, despite the fact that she was no longer being totally ostracized, she was still teetering on the edge of scandal, and she shook her head. “I don’t think that would be wise.” “Nothing we’ve ever done has been wise. Let’s not spoil our score.” Elizabeth shook her head, refusing to turn, but the pressure on her elbow increased until she had no choice. “I insist.” Reluctantly she turned and looked at him. “Why?” “Because,” he said, smiling tenderly into his eyes, “I’ve already danced seven dances, all of them with ugly women of unimpeachable reputations, so that I’d be able to ask you, without causing more gossip to hurt you.” The words, as well as his softness, made her wary. “What do you mean by the last part of that?” “I know what happened to you after the weekend we were together,” he said gently. “Your Lucinda laid it all out for Duncan. Don’t look so hurt-the only thing she did wrong was to tell Duncan rather than me.” The Ian Thornton who was talking to her tonight was almost achingly familiar; he was the man she’d met two years ago. “Come inside with me,” he urged, increasing the pressure on her elbow, “and I’ll begin making it up to you.

I stood before the group. “Whose fault was this?” I asked to the roomful of teammates. After a few moments of silence, the SEAL who had mistakenly engaged the Iraqi solider spoke up: “It was my fault. I should have positively identified my target.” “No,” I responded, “It wasn’t your fault. Whose fault was it?” I asked the group again. “It was my fault,” said the radioman from the sniper element. “I should have passed our position sooner.” “Wrong,” I responded. “It wasn’t your fault. Whose fault was it?” I asked again. “It was my fault,” said another SEAL, who was a combat advisor with the Iraqi Army clearance team. “I should have controlled the Iraqis and made sure they stayed in their sector.” “Negative,” I said. “You are not to blame.” More of my SEALs were ready to explain what they had done wrong and how it had contributed to the failure. But I had heard enough. “You know whose fault this is? You know who gets all the blame for this?” The entire group sat there in silence, including the CO, the CMC, and the investigating officer. No doubt they were wondering whom I would hold responsible. Finally, I took a deep breath and said, “There is only one person to blame for this: me. I am the commander. I am responsible for the entire operation. As the senior man, I am responsible for every action that takes place on the battlefield. There is no one to blame but me. And I will tell you this right now: I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens to us again.” It was a heavy burden to bear. But it was absolutely true. I was the leader. I was in charge and I was responsible. Thus, I had to take ownership of everything that went wrong. Despite the tremendous blow to my reputation and to my ego, it was the right thing to do—the only thing to do. I apologized to the wounded SEAL, explaining that it was my fault he was wounded and that we were all lucky he wasn’t dead. We then proceeded to go through the entire operation, piece by piece, identifying everything that happened and what we could do going forward to prevent it from happening again.

The Stoics, as we have seen, advise us to pursue tranquility, and as part of their strategy for attaining it they advise us to engage in negative visualization. But isn’t this contradictory advice? Suppose, for example, that a Stoic is invited to a picnic. While the other picnickers are enjoying themselves, the Stoic will sit there, quietly contemplating ways the picnic could be ruined: “Maybe the potato salad is spoiled, and people will get food poisoning. Maybe someone will break an ankle playing softball. Maybe there will be a violent thunderstorm that will scatter the picnickers. Maybe I will be struck by lightning and die.” This sounds like no fun at all. But more to the point, it seems unlikely that a Stoic will gain tranquility as a result of entertaining such thoughts. To the contrary, he is likely to end up glum and anxiety-ridden. In response to this objection, let me point out that it is a mistake to think Stoics will spend all their time contemplating potential catastrophes. It is instead something they will do periodically: A few times each day or a few times each week a Stoic will pause in his enjoyment of life to think about how all this, all these things he enjoys, could be taken from him. Furthermore, there is a difference between contemplating something bad happening and worrying about it. Contemplation is an intellectual exercise, and it is possible for us to conduct such exercises without its affecting our emotions. It is possible, for example, for a meteorologist to spend her days contemplating tornadoes without subsequently living in dread of being killed by one. In similar fashion, it is possible for a Stoic to contemplate bad things that can happen without becoming anxiety-ridden as a result. Finally, negative visualization, rather than making people glum, will increase the extent to which they enjoy the world around them, inasmuch as it will prevent them from taking that world for granted. Despite - or rather, because of - his (occasional) gloomy thoughts, the Stoic will likely enjoy the picnic far more than the other picnickers who refuse to entertain similarly gloomy thoughts; he will take delight in being part of an event that, he fully realizes, might not have taken place.

Ronan hadn't thought much about the future. This was a way he and Adam had always been opposites. Adam seemed to only think about the future. He thought about what he wanted to happen days or weeks or years down the road, and then he backfilled actions to make it happen. He was good at depriving himself in the now in order to have something better in the later. Ronan, on the other hand, couldn't seem to get out of the now. He always remembered consequences too late. After a bloody nose. A broken friendship. A huge tattoo. A cat with human hands. But his head didn't seem built to hold the future. He could imagine it for just a few seconds until, like a weak muscle, his thoughts collapsed back into the present. But there was one future he could imagine. It was a little bit of a cheat, because it was buried in a memory, and Ronan was better at thinking of the past than the future. It was an indulgent memory, too, one he'd never have copped to out loud. There wasn't much to it. It was from the summer after Adam had graduated, the summer he'd spent with Ronan at the Barns. Ronan had come in from working on the fences outdoors and tossed his work gloves onto the grass-cluttered rug by the mudroom door. As he did, he'd seen that Adam's mechanic gloves were lined up neatly on top of his shoes. Ronan had already known Adam was inside the house, but nonetheless, the image made him pause. They were just gloves, grease-stained and very old. Thrifty Adam always tried to get as much wear out of things as possible. They were long and narrow like Adam himself, and despite their age and stains, they were otherwise impeccably clean. Ronan's work gloves, in comparison, were cruddy and creased and coarse-looking, tossed with carefree abandon, the fingers lassoed over Adam's. Seeing the two pairs tumbled together, a nameless feeling had suddenly overwhelmed Ronan. It was about Adam's gloves here, but it was also Adam's jacket tossed on the dining room chair, his soda can forgotten on the foyer table, him somewhere tossed with equal comfort in the Barns, his presence commonplace enough that he was not having to perform or engage with Ronan at all times. He was not dating Ronan; he was living in Ronan's life with him. Shoes kicked off by the door, gloves off.

You surprise me, she says. Do I? he says. Why? Though I like to surprise you. He lights a cigarette, offers her one; she shakes her head for no. He’s smoking too much. It’s nerves, despite his steady hands. Because you said they fell in love, she says. You’ve sneered at that notion often enough—not realistic, bourgeois superstition, rotten at the core. Sickly sentiment, a high-flown Victorian excuse for honest carnality. Going soft on yourself? Don’t blame me, blame history, he says, smiling. Such things happen. Falling in love has been recorded, or at least those words have. Anyway, I said he was lying. You can’t wiggle out of it that way. The lying was only at first. Then you changed it. Point granted. But there could be a more callous way of looking at it. Looking at what? This falling in love business. Since when is it a business? she says angrily. He smiles. That notion bother you? Too commercial? Your own conscience would flinch, is that what you’re saying? But there’s always a tradeoff, isn’t there? No, she says. There isn’t. Not always. You might say he grabbed what he could get. Why wouldn’t he? He had no scruples, his life was dog eat dog and it always had been. Or you could say they were both young so they didn’t know any better. The young habitually mistake lust for love, they’re infested with idealism of all kinds. And I haven’t said he didn’t kill her afterwards. As I’ve pointed out, he was nothing if not self-interested. So you’ve got cold feet, she says. You’re backing down, you’re chicken. You won’t go all the way. You’re to love as a cock-teaser is to fucking. He laughs, a startled laugh. Is it the coarseness of the words, is he taken aback, has she finally managed that? Restrain your language, young lady. Why should I? You don’t. I’m a bad example. Let’s just say they could indulge themselves—their emotions, if you want to call it that. They could roll around in their emotions—live for the moment, spout poetry out of both ends, burn the candle, drain the cup, howl at the moon. Time was running out on them. They had nothing to lose. He did. Or he certainly thought he did! All right then.She had nothing to lose. He blows out a cloud of smoke. Not like me, she says, I guess you mean. Not like you, darling, he says. Like me. I’m the one with nothing to lose. She says, But you’ve got me. I’m not nothing.

The evidence piles up. And in the face of this evidence, proponents of green growth eventually begin to turn to fairy tales. Sure, they say, maybe green growth isn’t empirically actual, but there’s no reason that it can’t happen in theory. We are limited only by our imagination! There’s no reason we can’t have our incomes rising for ever while we nonetheless consume less material stuff each year. And here they are right. There’s no a priori reason why such a thing can’t happen in theory, in a magical alternative world. But there’s a certain moral hazard at stake when we start trafficking in fairy tales – telling people not to worry because eventually, somehow, GDP will de-link from resource use and we’ll be in the clear. In an era of climate emergency and mass extinction, we don’t have time to speculate about imaginary possibilities. We don’t have time to wait for this juggernaut of ecological destruction to suddenly stop being destructive, when all the evidence says it won’t happen. It is unscientific, and a profoundly irresponsible gamble with human lives – with all of life. There is an easy way to solve this problem. For decades, ecological economists have proposed that we can put an end to the debate once and for all with a simple and elegant intervention: impose a cap on annual resource use and waste, and tighten that cap year-on-year until we are back within planetary boundaries.36 If green growthers really believe GDP will keep growing, for ever, despite rapid reductions in material use, then this shouldn’t worry them one bit. In fact, they should welcome such a move. It will give them a chance to prove to the world once and for all that they are right. Indeed, putting hard limits on resource use and waste will help incentivise the transition, spurring the shift toward dematerialised GDP growth. But every time we propose this policy to green growthers, they wriggle away. Indeed, to my knowledge, not a single proponent of green growth has ever agreed to take it up. Why not? I suspect that on some deep level – despite the fairy tales – they realise that this is not how capitalism actually works. For 500 years, capitalism has depended on extraction from nature. It has always needed an ‘outside’, external to itself, from which to plunder value, for free, without an equivalent return. That’s what fuels growth. To put a limit on material extraction and waste is to effectively kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

My lips parted to say something, but I forgot what it had been as my gaze fell on the girl who had just stepped into the room. My thumping pulse picked up speed for a wholly different reason as I drank her in. Long, black hair tumbled down her spine, her green eyes turned up towards the curving roof as she drank in the sight of the building she was in. Her lips were full and primed for tasting, but the set of her mouth said she was more used to frowning than smiling. She was without a doubt, the most stunning creature I'd ever laid my eyes upon and I couldn't help but stare at her as she moved deeper into the room with the other students. I felt a silencing bubble closing around me as one of the others tossed it up to allow us to speak freely, but I didn't look away from her. My gaze was riveted to her as I drank in every small movement of her body and each expression crossing her face. I didn't give a fuck about the Vegas showing up tonight anymore. I just wanted to know that girl a whole lot better than I did. "Holy fuck," Caleb murmured beside me and a deep growl rolled through my chest as I got the impression his gaze was fixed where mine was. "Mine," I snarled, the beast in me waking up and my eyes shifting into reptilian slits as if my Dragon was aching for a look at her too. Every muscle in my body tensed and I was filled with the insane urge to get out of my seat and stride straight up to that girl and claim her in front of every fucker here. I didn't even know her name. I didn't know what Order she was or how powerful she was or any of the things like that which should have mattered to me. But I didn't care. Because the only thing about her that mattered in that moment was that I was laying my claim. The Dragon in me demanded it. "Well shit, I didn't consider the fact that they might be hot," Seth cursed and I frowned a little at his words, trying to piece them together. "That'll make things more interesting," Max agreed. "I wanna know how good they taste," Caleb said with a barely stifled groan. I didn't want to listen to any of them, but their words kept pushing in on me while I continued to stare at my mystery girl. ... The second girl looked strikingly like her sister, though for some reason I felt like I'd know which was which in the dark. I wasn't sure what it was. But despite their equally attractive looks, my attention was pulled back towards the first girl like the stars wanted it to be on her. Nova kept prattling on to the twins while my brothers all hissed plans back and forth between each other. Our parents had been more than clear on this. The Vega twins needed to go. We were expected to make sure that happened. That was all that mattered. My dick's interest in getting to know one of them a whole lot more intimately had no bearing on anything. (Darius POV)

And is that all there is to it?’ Nekhlyudov cried out as he read these words. And the inner voice of his whole being said, ‘Yes, that’s all there is to it. ’ And then something happened to Nekhlyudov, the kind of thing that often occurs with people living a spiritual life. What happened was that an idea that at first seemed weird, paradoxical, maybe even ridiculous, after being confirmed time after time by the process of living, suddenly presented it as a simple, incontrovertible truth. In this way it became clear to him that the only sure way of salvation from the terrible evil whereby so many were made to suffer was for people to acknowledge that they are guilty before God and therefore disqualified from punishing or correcting other people. He now saw clearly that the terrible evil he had witnessed in prisons and the halting-stations, and the smug complacency of those who were committing it, all stemmed from one thing: people were trying to do something that is impossible – to correct evil while being evil. Sinful people tried to correct sinful people and thought this could be achieved mechanically. The only result was that people needing and wanting money have made a profession out of the imaginary punishment and correction of others, and they have become corrupt themselves even as they have gone on ceaselessly corrupting their victims. Now he could clearly see the origin of all the horrors he had witnessed, and what had to be done to eliminate them. The answer he had been unable to discover was the one given by Christ to Peter: always forgive, forgive everyone an infinite number of times, because there are no guiltless people who might be qualified to punish or correct. ‘No, it can’t be as simple as that,’ Nekhlyudov said to himself, yet he could see beyond doubt that, however outlandish this had seemed to him at first, because he was so used to the opposite, it was the one sure way to solve the problem, both in theory and emphatically in practice. The age-old objection that evil-doers had to be dealt with – we can’t just let them go unpunished can we? – no longer bothered him. As an objection it might have been valid if there was any proof that punishment reduces crime and reforms criminals; but when the proof is entirely in the opposite direction, and it is clear that it is not within our power for some men to punish others, the only natural and reasonable thing is to stop doing what is not only useless but pernicious, as well as callous and immoral. ‘For centuries you have been executing people classed by you as criminals. Have they been eliminated? They have not, their numbers have only increased, added to by criminals corrupted by punishment and by other criminals – the judges, prosecutors, magistrates and gaolers who sit in in judgement and dole out punishment.’ Nekhlyudov could now see that society and good order in general exist not because of the legalized criminals who judge and punish others, but because, despite all the forces of corruption, people do in fact pity and love one another. Hoping to find confirmation of this idea in the Bible, Nekhlyudov started reading from the beginning of St Matthew’s Gospel. After reading the Sermon on the Mount, which had always moved him, he discovered in it now for the first time not just abstract ideas of great beauty that imposed hyperbolical and impossible demands, but a series of simple, clear-cut, pragmatic commands, which, if followed, (a distinct possibility), would establish a totally new order of human society, in which the violence that incensed Nekhlyudov would fall away of its own accord, and the greatest blessing for humanity, the kingdom of God on earth, would be achieved. There were five of these commandments.

You know," he said, 'for what it's worth, the justice system is supposed to be this purveyor of right and wrong, good and had. But sometimes, I think it gets it wrong almost as much as it gets it right. I've had to learn that, too, and it's hard to accept. What do you do when the things that are supposed to protect you, fail you like that?? 'I was so naïve,' Pip said. 'I practically handed Max Hastings to them, after everything came out last year. And I truly believed it was some kind of victory, that the bad would be punished. Because it was the truth, and the truth was the most important thing to me. It's all I believed in, all I cared about: finding the truth, no matter the cost. And the truth was that Max was guilty and he would face justice. But justice doesn't exist, and the truth doesn't matter, not in the real world, and now they've just handed him right back. 'Oh, justice exists,' Charlie said, looking up at the rain. 'Maybe not the kind that happens in police stations and courtrooms, but it does exist. And when you really think about it, those words - good and bad, right and wrong- they don't really matter in the real world. Who gets to decide what they mean: those people who just got it wrong and let Max walk free? No,' he shook his head. 'I think we all get to decide what good and bad and right and wrong mean to us, not what we're told to accept. You did nothing wrong. Don't beat yourself up for other people's mistakes.' She turned to him, her stomach clenching. But that doesn't matter now. Max has won.' 'He only wins if you let him.' 'What can I do about it?' she asked. 'From listening to your podcast, sounds to me like there's not much you can't do.' 'I haven't found Jamie.' She picked at her nails. "And now people think he's not really missing, that I made it all up. That I'm a liar and I'm bad and -' 'Do you care?' Charlie asked. 'Do you care what people think, if you know you're right?' She paused, her answer sliding back down her throat. Why did she care? She was about to say she didn't care at all, but hadn't that been the feeling in the pit of her stomach all along? The pit that had been growing these last six months. Guilt about what she did last time, about her dog dying, about not being good, about putting her family in danger, and every day reading the disappointment in her mum's eyes. Feeling bad about the secrets she was keeping to protect Cara and Naomi. She was a liar, that part was true. And worse, to make herself feel better about it all, she'd said it wasn't really her and she'd never be that person again. That she was different now... good. That she'd almost lost herself last time and it wouldn't happen again. But that wasn't it, was it? She hadn't almost lost herself, maybe she'd actually been meeting herself for the very first time. And she was tired of feeling guilty about it. Tired of feeling shame about who she was. She bet Max Hastings had never felt ashamed a day in his life. 'You're right,' she said. And as she straightened up, untwisted, she realized that the pit in her stomach, the one that had been swallowing her from inside out, it was starting to go, Filling in until it was hardly there at all. "Maybe I don't have to be good, or other people's versions of good. And maybe I don't have to be likeable.' She turned to him, her movements quick and light despite her water-heavy clothes. "Fuck likeable You know who's likeable? People like Max Hastings who walk into a courtroom with fake glasses and charm their way out. I don't want to be like that." 'So don't, Charlie said. 'And don't give up because of him. Someone's life might depend on you. And I know you can find him, find Jamie. He turned a smile to her. "Other people might not believe in you but, for what it's worth, your neighbour from four doors down does.

Dear KDP Author, Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year. With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion. Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive. Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers. The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books. Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive. Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

1 It was early December. The streets of Milan glistened with Christmas decorations, with people coming and going carefree, carrying elegant shopping bags. It was past eight, and several minutes earlier I had closed behind me the door of Passerella, the modelling agency I ran. I had let my assistant, Giovanni, file the photos of the new faces we had initially chosen for Dante’s summer collection. He was an up-and-coming designer. The minute I walked down Monte Napoleone, one of the city’s most commercial streets, the chilly air forced me to wrap up well in my brand new light green coat. An original piece of cashmere, the five letters embossed on its lapel making it even more precious in that cold weather. My fingers contentedly groped for the word “Prada” before I stuck my hand into its warm pocket, while clutching my favourite handbag tight. A huge red ostrich Hermes where you could find cosmetics, scarves, and accessories, which I could use throughout the day, giving a different twist to my appearance. I wanted to walk a little bit to let off steam. My job may have been pleasant as it had to do with the world’s most beautiful creatures, men and women, but it wasn’t without its tensions. Models went to and fro, trade representatives looking for new faces, endless castings, phone calls, text messages, tailors, photographers, reports from my secretary and assistants—a rowdy disorder! I had already left the building where my job was, and I was going past another two entrances of nearby premises, when my leg caught on something. I instantly thought of my brand new Manolo Blahnik shoes. I’d only put them on for the second time, and they were now falling victim to the rough surface of a cardboard box, where a homeless man slept, at the entrance of a building. My eyes sparked as I checked if my high heels were damaged. On the face of it, they were intact. But that wasn’t enough for me. I found a lighter, and tried to check their red leather in the dim light. Why should the same thing happen over and over again every time I buy new shoes? I wondered and walked on, cursing. Why had that bloke chosen that specific spot to sleep, and why had I headed for his damn cardboard box! As I held my lighter, my angry gaze fell on the man who was covered with an impermeable piece of nylon, and carried on sleeping. He looked so vulnerable out in the cold that I didn’t dare rouse him from his sleep. After all, how could I hold him responsible in this state? I quickened my gait. Bella was waiting for me to start our night out with a drink and supper at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the imposing arcade with a dome made of glass, its ambience warm and romantic. Bella’s office was nearby, and that meeting place was convenient for both of us. That’s where we made up our minds about how to spend the night.I walked several metres down the road, but something made me stop short. I wanted to have a second look at that man. I retraced my steps. He was a young man who, despite his state, seemed so out of place. His unkempt hair and unshaven face didn’t let me see anything else but his profile, which reminded of an ancient Greek statue, with pronounced cheekbones and a chiselled nose. This second time, he must have sensed me over him. The man’s body budged, and he eyed me without making me out, dazzled by the lighter flame. As soon as I realised what I had done, I took to my heels. What had made me go back? Maybe, the sense of guilt I felt inside my warm Prada coat, maybe, the compassion I had to show as Christmas was just around the corner. All I knew was that a small bell jingled within, and I obeyed it. I walked faster, as if to escape from every thought. As I left, I stuck my hand in my bag, and got hold of my mobile. My secretary’s voice on the other end of the line sounded heavy and imposing. Giovanni wasn’t the embodiment of “macho” man, but he had all it takes to be the perfect male. Having chosen to quit modelling, he still looked gorgeous at the age of

Just before the world ended, people hated the word moist. Poverty was still a problem. Terrorism was a big issue at the time. Genocide was always happening somewhere. But you had to be careful when using the word moist. It was acceptable if you were describing cake, but if you used it in any other sense you were sure to get a talking to. Most people didn’t know a terrorist personally. If we had, then maybe more of us would have told them off with stern words and clever slogans. You couldn’t yell at poor people at all. It wasn’t acceptable. You couldn’t even wonder out loud why they were poor without being an insensitive ass. You couldn’t even suggest a new solution to the problem without being labeled horrible things. Perhaps it was this lack of outlet that caused so much frustration regarding the word moist. We couldn’t do anything about international terror or rampant poverty, but we could always chastise a friend for using a word that made them uncomfortable. Maybe this is why so much effort was put into hating the word. They scorned their friends whenever it was used and followed the scorning with a two-minute rant about how much they hated the word. They spent time and creative resources developing flowcharts for when the word was appropriate and clever cartoons to express just how much it annoyed them when it was used outside of cake references. They shared all of this on social media and built a wall of criticism that kept people in check. We could shut out what we didn’t want to hear. We felt free to berate anyone who thought different than us. By doing this, we fought the good fight. We were activists despite our inactivity. Moist was a line drawn in the sand and we stood behind our walls daring anyone to cross it. It may seem silly now. It may seem that our outrage was misdirected, but it made us feel safe. We stood behind our walls fighting our own battles against the things that offended us most. Times were good as long as the real problems were well outside our walls.

Don’t look at me like that,” I muttered, trying to shake him off but he didn’t budge. “Like what?” “Like you didn’t take part in that whole shoving me in a pit bullshit right before the Nymph attack. Like we aren’t on two different sides of some fight I never asked to be in,” I spat, surprising myself with how angry I felt at him. “We are on two different sides of it though,” he said and there was no apology in his voice, just acceptance. “But shit, Tory you don’t understand how freaking much I like playing this game with you. Ever since we got back from that party I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else. The feeling of you in my arms, the taste of your blood on my lips, the rush I get when you run from me...” My pulse spiked in response to his words despite myself and as he drew a little closer to me, I didn’t push him back. “You’re not even sorry, are you?” I breathed. “Can’t be sorry for it. I’ve got responsibilities. To the other Heirs, my family, Solaria... I have to think of what’s best for all of them and if you take the throne then the Nymphs might just get the leg up they need to win this war. You have to know I can’t let that happen.” He hadn’t released me and I found I didn’t really want him to. “I have a bit of a weakness for assholes,” I admitted slowly. “But I’m used to them lying about what they are. At least you own it.” “I do,” Caleb said with a smirk, his hand travelling up my neck ever so slowly. “I’m an honest to god asshole. Do you want to keep playing with me, Tory?” “Maybe,” I breathed because in that moment I didn’t even know anymore. I should have been trying to keep away from him and his psycho friends but one way or another our lives all seemed to be destined to tangle up with each other's. And at least Caleb wasn’t lying to me. He wasn’t offering me the world, but he was offering me freedom, at least in this. So maybe I could try keeping the two things separate, when we were alone we could forget about being an Heir and a lost princess. And outside of that, we could stay on opposite sides of this stupid feud. It seemed kinda like a recipe for disaster but maybe I wanted a little rebellion. “I’ll take maybe.” Caleb leaned forward to kiss me and I didn’t make any move to stop him. His mouth was hot and demanding against mine and the passion that burned between us sprang to life instantly, urging me on. My heart thumped harder and his fingers twisted into my hair, tugging just enough to elicit a moan from my lips. (tory)

Despite all this, writing really is a good thing; I am now calmer than I was 2 hours ago outside on the balcony with your letter. While I was lying there a beetle had fallen on its back one step away and was desperately trying to right itself; I would have gladly helped—it was so easy, so obvious, all that was required was a step and a small shove—but I forgot about it because of your letter; I was just as incapable of getting up. Only a lizard again made me aware of the life around me, its path led over the beetle, which was already so completely still that I said to myself, this was not an accident but death throes, the rarely witnessed drama of an animal’s natural death; but when the lizard slid off the beetle, the beetle was righted although it did lie there a little longer as if dead, but then ran up the wall of the house as if nothing had happened. Somehow this probably gave me, too, a little courage; I got up, drank some milk and wrote to you.

Listen here. Bad things do happen, but life, beautiful life, continues. Heartache is a guarantee for us all. We must live despite it.

But maybe his father was right. Maybe what had happened in 1918 could never happen again. "U.S. Reveals Detailed Flu Disaster Plans." Cole decided to make this the topic for his research report. Plans for manufacturing and distributing vaccines and other medications. Plans to quarantine the sick and to call up extra doctors and nurses and to replace absent workers with retired workers so that businesses wouldn't have to shut down. Plans to keep public transportation and electricity and telecommunications and other vital services operating and food and water and other necessities from running out. Plans to mobilize troops (for Cole this was the only exciting part) in the event of mass panic or violence. One day he would ask Pastor Wyatt why, despite all these plans, everything had gone so wrong. "Son, that is just the thing. That is what people did not--and still do not--get. There is no way you can count on the government, even if it's a very good government. The government isn't going to save you, it isn't going to save anyone. There's no way you can count on other people in a situation like we had. People afraid of losing their lives--or, Lord knows, even just their toys--they'll panic. Even fine, decent Christian folk--you can never know for sure what they'll do next. So I say, love your neighbor, help your fellow man all you can, but don't ever count on any other human being. Count on God." What Cole didn't know was that most of the plans he read about that night would have been sufficient only for an emergency lasting a few weeks.

Note: I am sure that now they will approach Medium to stop me from writing. Let’s see what happens. “A genuine person or celebrity doesn’t need a certificate or blue tick. Such ways are blackmailing your passion, emotion, or willingness. Criminals and money-mongers misuse and try to earn in an ugly and easy way. This trend also discriminates against others who cannot afford such an awkward notion.” Istay determined every day. I cannot tolerate liars and those who misuse their authority and attempt to victimize the righteous for their will and purpose in an illegitimate way to please their godfathers of the mafia and international criminal intelligence agencies. I am pretty sure, after reviewing again the replies from the Twitter team that mirror and endorse the Twitter team, that someone works for intelligence agencies or criminal and mafia groups. Since the beginning months of this year, I have been continuously victimized without specifying why I was posting the wrong things. I am going to publish a few emails that will exhibit the picture of how I was being victimized, harassed, and even threatened about things that I was neither aware of nor that the team explained. I was already under the attacks of criminals and even the gang of filthy-minded gays who were suffering from mental issues and sexual frustration; knowing it, I am not gay. In the Twitter team, the presence of such ones is not excluded since I felt a similar style of victimization. How do they dare to adopt such mean tactics to gain their will and desire? This reply email shows that a screenshot article has been displayed since 2020. After four years, it became an issue for someone in the Twitter team who continued to lock my account and tag the restriction flag. Text of my emails; “I am still uncertain about what to post and what not to post. You didn’t specify why my account was locked, whether it was because of the content I removed or something else. Is it permissible for me to share media and social media links in which my quotes are mentioned? My writings do not contain any personal attacks; nonetheless, thank you.” “You locked my Twitter, @EhsanSehgal, again; you know why you are doing it. Now, I can say only goodbye to my locked account and enjoy your terror. It is not a protection of my account; it is victimization. No more requests to unlock my account. Someone of angelic character will do it without my request. Shame on you all, involved ones.” Team replied; Hello, “We had a look at your account, and it appears that everything is now resolved! If that’s not the case, please reply to this message, and we’ll continue to help. Thanks,” X Support This was a screenshot article from Wikipedia about me on my profile that was illegitimately removed by such people as the Twitter team forced me to remove. Despite that, they continued locking my account to identify and provide an ID or passport. I did that twice and identified several times, but the team seemed not satisfied since their goal was something else; they would not approach nor be able to do it. To stop such criminal torture, I deactivated my account and decided never to come back there again.

The New, New Thing 'Despite all the difficulties, all the frustrations, there is a joy in having done something as well as you could and better than others thought you could. ' J.R.D. TATA

Then you have to work to find some good things that came out of what happened, even despite all the bad. And then you have to decide to let it go.

If you choose to try to make a life with another person, you will live by that choice. You’ll find yourself having to choose again and again to remain rather than run. It helps if you enter a committed relationship prepared to work, ready to be humbled, and willing to accept and even enjoy living in that in-between span of a single conversation, sometimes over the course of years. And inside of that choice and those years, you’ll almost certainly come to see that there’s no such thing as a fifty-fifty balance. Instead, it’ll be like beads on an abacus, sliding back and forth—the math rarely tidy, the equation never quite solved. A relationship is dynamic this way, full of change, always evolving. At no point will both of you feel like things are perfectly fair and equal. Someone will always be adjusting. Someone will always be sacrificing. One person may be up while the other person is down, one might bear more financial pressures, while the other person handles household and caregiving responsibilites. Those choices and the stress that goes along with them are real. I’ve come to realize though, that life happens in seasons. Your fulfillment—in love, family and career—rarely happens all at once. In a strong relationship both people will take their turns at compromise, building that shared sense of home together, there in the in-between Regardless of how wildly and deeply in love you are, you will be asked to on board a whole lot of your partners' foibles, you will be required to ignore all sorts of minor irritations and at least a few major ones too trying to assert love and constancy over all of it over all the rough spots and an invisible disruptions you will need to do this as often and as compassionately as you can. And you will need to be doing it with someone who is equally able and willing to create the same latitude and show this same forbearance toward you --to love you despite all the baggage you show up with, despite what you look like and how you behave when you are at your absolute worst.

And is that all there is to it?’ Nekhlyudov cried as he read these words. And the inner voice of his whole being said, ‘Yes, that’s all there is to it.’ And then something happened to Nekhlyudov, the kind of thing that often occurs with people living a spiritual life. What happened was that an idea that at first had seemed weird paradoxical, maybe even ridiculous, after being confirmed time after time by the process of living, suddenly presented itself as a simple, incontrovertible truth. In this way it became clear to him that the only sure way of salvation from the terrible evil whereby so many were made to suffer was for people to acknowledge that they are guilty before God and therefore disqualified from punishing or correcting other people. He now saw clearly that the terrible evil he had witnessed in the prisons and at the halting-stations, and the smug complacency of those who were committing it, all stemmed from one thing: people were trying to do something that was impossible – to correct evil while being evil. Sinful people tried to correct sinful people and thought this could be achieved mechanically. The only result was that people needing and wanting money have a profession out of the imaginary punishment and correction of others, and they have become corrupt themselves even as they have gone on ceaselessly corrupting their victims. Now he could clearly see the origin of all the horrors he had witnessed, and what had to be done to eliminate them. The answer he had been unable to discover was the one given by Christ to Peter: always forgive, forgive everyone an infinite number of times, because there are no guiltless people who might be qualified to punish or correct. ‘No, it can’t be as simple as that,‘ Nekhlyudov said to himself, yet he could see beyond doubt that, however outlandish this had seemed to him at first, because he was so used to the opposite, it was the one sure way to solve the problem, both in theory and emphatically in practice. The age-old objection that evil-doers had to be dealt with – we can’t let them go unpunished, can we? – no longer bothered him. As an objection it might have been valid if there was any proof that punishment reduces crime and reforms criminals; but when the proof is entirely in the opposite direction, and it is clear that it is not within our power for some men to punish others, the only natural and reasonable thing is to stop doing what is not only useless but pernicious, as well as callous and immoral. ‘For centuries you have been executing people classed by you as criminals. Have they been eliminated? They have not, their numbers have only increased, added to by criminals corrupted by punishment and by other criminals – the judges, prosecutors, magistrates and gaolers who sit in judgement and dole out punishment.’ Nekhlyudov could now see that society and good order in general exist not because of the legalized criminals who judge and punish others, but because, despite all the forces of corruption, people do in fact pity and love one another. Hoping to find confirmation of this idea in the Bible, Nekhlyudov started reading from the beginning of St Matthew’s Gospel. After reading the Sermon on the Mount, which had always moved him, he discovered in it now for the first time not just abstract ideas of great beauty that imposed hyperbolical and impossible demands, but a series of simple, clear-cut, pragmatic commands, which, if followed (a distinct possibility), would establish a totally new order of human society, in which the violence that incensed Nekhlyudov would fall away of its own accord, and the greatest blessing for humanity, the kingdom of God on earth, would be achieved.

We’ve all been fooled by something or someone. We’ve seen things go a different direction than expected. It happens when we expect the person we are loving to do their part and love us the same, yet they don’t. When it happens, it hurts. No one goes through this life without meeting some type of hurt or pain. Do not let that disappointment lead to a disappointed life. Do not let it harden you heart, do not let this failed attempt at love, despite what number of try it is, make you give up.

stand before you today to speak of a grave matter that has come to my attention recently," Father called as the crowd quieted to listen to him. "A matter which I know has been concerning Fae all over the country for quite some time. Of course, I am speaking about the lack of midnight amethyst stones in our great kingdom." I fought the urge to arch a brow as I tore my gaze away from Roxy to look at my father. What the fuck was he talking about? Who gave a shit about midnight amethyst being hard to come by recently? I mean, yeah, there had been a bunch of stories about how the stones which were the luckiest objects in Solaria had been dwindling in numbers over the last ten years or so, but I'd never really paid those stories much attention. Less powerful Fae relied on things like lucky stones to get them through life, but I preferred to chart my own path. Besides, it seemed fairly obvious to me that if enough people really believed that those rare stones might change their lives then they'd be in high demand. Fae who owned them would be secretive about them and guard them carefully. Plus they were damn rare in the first place. "It has come to my attention that a conspiracy has been taking place beneath our very noses," Father growled, allowing smoke to slip from his lips to showcase his Dragon for the crowd and cameras watching him. "A group of Fae have been stealing these precious stones and hoarding them away to make sure that their kind are the only ones to benefit from owning them. This group of Fae are all of one specific Order. A prey Order. The kind to seem inconspicuous, innocent, harmless even. And yet many members of their kind - if not all members of their kind have been quietly stealing these stones and using them to gain power and influence in their communities while robbing hard working, more powerful Fae of their rightful places above them." The crowd began to boo and shout for answers and I glanced beyond Roxy to Xavier, wondering if he had any idea what the fuck was happening here because I was getting the horrible feeling that I might just know, and I really didn't want to be right. My brother's eyes widened a fraction and he gave me the hint of a shrug as I turned my gaze back to watching my father as he riled up the crowd. "These Fae - no, these Rats, have been working to gather midnight amethysts for years. Slowly increasing their power and influence despite the fact that their very nature demands they stay at the bottom of the pecking order. And to prove to you that I am correct in this discovery, I have brought their leader here for you to see.

When I was born,” she said, careful not to look at him. “I was deemed unworthy to live. My father saved me from being exposed, but that only proved something about him. It didn’t say anything about me. All the time I was growing up, I could look around and see people who didn’t think I’d deserved to live.” Including her mother. She wouldn’t mention that to him. It sounded self-pitying, even to herself. And it had nothing to do with what she was saying. Did it? “I worked alongside my father. I gathered just like he did. I did all the work that was expected of me. But it still wasn’t enough to prove that I deserved to live. It was just what was expected of me. What would have been expected of any Rain Wild daughter.” She did look at him then. “Proving I could be ordinary, despite how I looked, wasn’t enough for any of them.” His hands, tanned brown, worked like separate little animals, stripping the fruit and loading it into his pack. She’d always liked his hands. “Why wasn’t it enough for you?” he asked her. There was the rub. She wasn’t sure. “It just wasn’t,” she said gruffly. “I wanted to make them admit that I was just as good as any of them and better than some.” “And then what would happen?” She was quiet for a time, thinking. She stopped her gathering to eat one of the yellow fruit. Her father had a name for them, but she couldn’t remember it. They didn’t commonly grow near Trehaug. These were fat and sweet. They’d have fetched a good price at the market. She got down to the fuzzy seed and scraped the last of the pulp off with her teeth before she tossed it away. “It would probably make them hate me more than they already did,” she admitted. She nodded to herself and smiled, saying, “But at least then they’d have a good reason for it.” Tat’s backpack was full. He pulled the drawstring tight. She’d never seen that pack before; probably ship’s gear. He picked another fruit, took a bite of it, and then asked, “So, for you, it wasn’t about proving yourself and then being able to break their rules? Get married, have babies.” She thought about it. “No. Not really. Just making them admit that I deserved to live might have been enough for me.” She turned her head and added, “I don’t think I really focused on the ‘get married, have babies’ part of it. The rules about us were just the rules about us.” “Not for Greft,” he said, shaking his head. “He’d finished the fruit. He put the whole seed in his mouth, chewed on it for a moment, and then spat it out. “Greft and his new rules,” she muttered to herself. “You never wanted to live without the rules they put on you? Just do what you wanted to do?” “The rules are different for me than for him,” she said slowly. “How?” “Well, he’s male. Women like me… just as often as we give birth to children who can’t or shouldn’t survive, we don’t survive ourselves. The rules about not having husbands or having children, my father said was there to protect me as much as anything else.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Greft changes the rules, it’s no risk for him, is it? He’s not the one who’s going to go into labor out here with no midwife. He’s not the one who’ll have to deal with a baby who can’t survive. I don’t think he’s ever wondered what he’s going to do with that baby if Jerd dies and the baby lives.” “How can you think of such things?” Tats was aghast. “How can you not think of them?” she retorted.

She heard the shock in his voice as he spoke, and surprising her it all came together—being here, seeing him. She felt something twitch inside, something deep and old, something that made her dizzy for just a second. She caught herself fighting for control. She hadn’t expected this to happen, didn’t want it to happen. She was engaged now. She hadn’t come here for this. Yet. Yet the feeling went on despite herself, and for a brief moment she felt fifteen again. Felt as she hadn’t in years, as if all her dreams could still come true. Felt as though she’d finally come home. Without another word they came together, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and he put his arms around her, drawing her close. They held each other tightly; both of them letting the fourteen years of separation dissolve in the deepening twilight.

people who have experienced deep suffering and are still gentle with others do not get enough credit to not let the hard things that happened to you win is heroic work, to drop the bitterness and still live with an open heart despite it all is a massive gift to the world

In 1985, Wouter van Hoven was in his office in the zoology department at Pretoria University when he got an unusual call from a wildlife warden. In the last month, more than a thousand kudu, a particularly majestic species of antelope with elegant stripes and long, curling horns, had dropped dead on multiple game ranches in the nearby Transvaal region. The same thing had happened the winter before. In total some three thousand kudu had died. Nothing seemed wrong with them, no open wounds, no disease, though some looked a little thin. Could he come out as soon as possible? The ranch owners were beside themselves. Van Hoven was a wildlife nutrition zoologist who specialized in African ungulates. He should be able to figure this out, he thought. He’d be over right away. When Van Hoven got to the first game ranch, dead kudu were lying about as if a war had just been fought. But the first thing he noticed after the stench was that there were too many of them for a ranch that size. As a rule, there should not be more than three kudu per 100 hectares, and this ranch had about fifteen per 100. The same was true at the next few ranches he visited. Game-ranch hunting had exploded in popularity, and to cash in, ranchers were pushing the limits of their land. He opened up several kudu and saw stomachs full of crushed acacia leaves, undigested. He looked out at the giraffes, who were spread out along a swath of savanna, nibbling acacia trees and evidently not dying. After a few weeks a picture began to come together: when acacias begin to be eaten, they increase the bitter tannin in their leaves. Van Hoven already knew this. It’s a gentle defensive mechanism. At first, the tannin rises just a little. It’s not dangerous, but it tastes bad. Typically, that’s enough to deter a kudu. But both of the last two winters were extremely dry. All the grass was dead. Too many kudu, penned in by game fences, had nothing else to eat and nowhere else to go. He figured they had continued eating the acacia leaves, despite the bitter taste, because they had to. He pulled out a few clumps of chewed acacia leaves from a kudu gut and brought them to a lab. Kudu, Van Hoven knew, could handle about 4 percent tannin content in a leaf. Above that is trouble. The acacia, he figured, kept raising the level of tannin in the leaves, tit for tat. The kudu kept eating. And then, clearly, the acacias delivered a lethal dose. The undigested leaves Van Hoven tested from the kudu’s stomachs were 12 percent tannin.

We need literature to remind us how like each other we are, despite our differences. Baldwin spoke beautifully about this: You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discovered it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important. In reality, in this very pragmatic sense, we all have limitations. There are borders within all of us, things that make us unalike. We come from separate nations. But when you read literature, you enter a republic of imagination that transcends time and space. So you are an African-American boy living in New York City, and you discovered that the person who best expresses you is a man who lived in Russia and has been dead a hundred years. That gives you a sense of hope, a sense of connection and camaraderie. It is one of those moments when you’re glad you’re human. This is why so many people will say that one book changed their whole life. Or writers talk about how reading a book made them want to become a writer.

One mild and ordinary work-morning in Chicago, Lew happened to find himself on a public conveyance, head and eyes inclined nowhere in particular, when he entered, all too briefly, a condition he had no memory of having sought, which he later came to think of as grace. Despite the sorry history of rapid transit in this city, the corporate neglect and high likelihood of collision, injury, and death, the weekday-morning overture blared along as usual. Men went on grooming mustaches with gray-gloved fingers. A rolled umbrella dented a bowler hat, words were exchanged. Girl amanuenses in little Leghorn straw hats and striped shirtwaists with huge shoulders that took up more room in the car than angels’ wings dreamed with contrary feelings of what awaited them on upper floors of brand-new steel-frame “skyscrapers.” The horses stepped along in their own time and space. Passengers snorted, scratched, and read the newspaper, sometimes all at once, while others imagined that they could get back to some kind of vertical sleep. Lew found himself surrounded by a luminosity new to him, not even observed in dreams, nor easily attributable to the smoke-inflected sun beginning to light Chicago. He understood that things were exactly what they were. It seemed more than he could

My Everest story would be incomplete if I didn’t give final credit to the Sherpas who had risked their lives alongside us every day. Pasang and Ang-Sering still climb together as best friends, under the direction of their Sirdar boss--Kami. The Khumba Icefall specialist, Nima, still carries out his brave task in the jumbled ice maze at the foot of the mountain: repairing and fixing the route through. Babu Chiri, who so bravely helped Mick when he ran out of oxygen under the South Summit, was tragically killed in a crevasse in the Western Cwm several years later. He was a Sherpa of many years’ Everest experience, and was truly one of the mountain’s greats. It was a huge loss to the mountaineering fraternity. But if you play the odds long enough you will eventually lose. That is the harsh reality of high-altitude mountaineering. You can’t keep on top of the world forever. Geoffrey returned to the army, and Neil to his business. His toes never regained their feeling, but he avoided having them amputated. But as they say, Everest always charges some sort of a price, and in his own words--he got lucky. As for Mick, he describes his time on Everest well: “In the three months I was away, I was both happier than ever before, and more scared than I ever hope to be again.” Ha. That’s also high-altitude mountaineering for you. Thengba, my friend, with whom I spent so much time alone at camp two, was finally given a hearing aid by Henry. Now, for the first time, he can hear properly. Despite our different worlds, we shared a common bond with these wonderful Sherpa men--a friendship that was forged by an extraordinary mountain. Once, when the climber Julius Kugy was asked what sort of person a mountaineer should be, he replied: “Truthful, distinguished, and modest.” All these Sherpas epitomize this. I made the top with them, and because of their help, I owe them more than I can say. The great Everest writer Walt Unsworth, in his book Everest: The Mountaineering History, gives a vivid description of the characters of the men and women who pit their all on the mountain. I think it is bang on the money: But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Determination and faith are their strongest weapons. At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad… Three things they all had in common: faith in themselves, great determination, and endurance. If I had to sum up what happened on that journey for me, from the hospital bed to the summit of the world, I tend to think of it as a stumbling journey. Of losing my confidence and my strength--then refinding it. Of seeing my hope and my faith slip away--and then having them rekindled. Ultimately, if I had to pass on one message to my children it would be this: Fortune favors the brave. Most of the time.

I take it you have some sort of plan going? Something that calls for you to be arrested?" "There, now, you see? I told Drake you'd grasp the gist of things right away, but he had his doubts." "Drake?" I straightened up. "Is Gabriel with him? Did he get my message?" "Of course he got your message. That's why I'm here. Is there no chair?" she asked, frowning around the empty room. "No. I hate to let down the team and all, but what exactly are you doing here? Is Gabriel going to be able to get me out of being sent to the Akasha? Is he going to appeal the conviction?" "Better than that," she said with smile, glancing around quickly before leaning in closely, her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "We're going to bust you out of here." "Bust me..." I closed my eyes for a moment. "You've been watching too many old westerns. No one conducts jailbreaks these days. Especially not when the jailers are the L'au-dela committee." "That's why this plan is so incredibly cunning," she said, giving my arm a little squeeze. "They're all expecting you to try to escape-they'll never expect us to break you out of here." "Oy," I said, sliding down the wall to the floor. "This has 'doomed from the start' written all over it. You didn't think up this plan yourself, did you?" I asked suspiciously. She looked offended. "No, I didn't, and you can stop being such a negative Nelly. Gabriel thought up the plan, and Drake and I are helping. I'm the decoy, you see." "Of course you are. What, exactly, is this grandiose escape plan?" Her mouth set in a prim manner. "I can't tell you." "Why not?" "There could be bugs. We don't want them to know our plans." "If they were listening in, you just told them there's a plan, so they'll be expecting something to happen," I pointed out. "Yes, but they won't know what," she said, pulling off her jacket. Her shirt followed almost immediately, as did her jeans, shoes, and the sparkly pink socks that she was so prone to wearing despite the fact they would look more at home on a twelve-year-old. I watched her striptease with confusion for a moment before a thought struck me. "You don't mean-" "Shhh," she said, waving a vague hand around as she pulled off the scarf she wore to confine her bangs. "Bugs, remember?" I bit back an obvious reply, thought for a moment, then decided that although the plan Gabriel had come up with was too I Love Lucy for words, I didn't have any alternative. I stripped.

But she was barely listening. “There’s this newish thing from Amazon? Called an AMI—an Amazon Machine Image. Basically it runs a snapshot of an operating system. There are hundreds of them, loaded up and ready to run.” Evan said, “Um.” “Virtual machines,” she explained, with a not-insubstantial trace of irritation. “Okay.” “But the good thing with virtual machines? You hit a button and you have two of them. Or ten thousand. In data centers all over the world. Here—look—I’m replicating them now, requesting that they’re geographically dispersed with guaranteed availability.” He looked but could not keep up with the speed at which things were happening on the screen. Despite his well-above-average hacking skills, he felt like a beginning skier atop a black-diamond run. She was still talking. “We upload all the encrypted data from the laptop to the cloud first, right? Like you were explaining poorly and condescendingly to me back at the motel.” “In hindsight—” “And we spread the job out among all of them. Get Hashkiller whaling away, throwing all these password combinations at it. Then who cares if we get locked out after three wrong password attempts? We just go to the next virtual machine. And the one after that.” “How do you have the hardware to handle all that?” She finally paused, blowing a glossy curl out of her eyes. “That’s what I’m telling you, X. You don’t buy hardware anymore. You rent cycles in the cloud. And the second we’re done, we kill the virtual machines and there’s not a single trace of what we did.” She lifted her hands like a low-rent spiritual guru. “It’s all around and nowhere at the same time.” A sly grin. “Like you.

and Medicaid, which would help expand coverage and bring down costs. The other thing we should be honest about is how hard it’s going to be, no matter what we do, to create significant economic opportunity in every remote area of our vast nation. In some places, the old jobs aren’t coming back, and the infrastructure and workforce needed to support big new industries aren’t there. As hard as it is, people may have to leave their hometowns and look for work elsewhere in America. We know this can have a transformative effect. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration experimented with a program called Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing, which gave poor families in public housing vouchers to move to safer, middle-income neighborhoods where their children were surrounded every day by evidence that life can be better. Twenty years later, the children of those families have grown up to earn higher incomes and attend college at higher rates than their peers who stayed behind. And the younger the kids were when they moved, the bigger boost they received. Previous generations of Americans actually moved around the country much more than we do today. Millions of black families migrated from the rural South to the urban North. Large numbers of poor whites left Appalachia to take jobs in Midwestern factories. My own father hopped a freight train from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Chicago in 1935, looking for work. Yet today, despite all our advances, fewer Americans are moving than ever before. One of the laid-off steelworkers I met in Kentucky told me he found a good job in Columbus, Ohio, but he was doing the 120-mile commute every week because he didn’t want to move. “People from Kentucky, they want to be in Kentucky,” another said to me. “That’s something that’s just in our DNA.” I understand that feeling. People’s identities and their support systems—extended family, friends, church congregations, and so on—are rooted in where they come from. This is painful, gut-wrenching stuff. And no politician wants to be the one to say it. I believe that after we do everything we can to help create new jobs in distressed small towns and rural areas, we also have to give people the skills and tools they need to seek opportunities beyond their hometowns—and provide a strong safety net both for those who leave and those who stay. Whether it’s updating policies to meet the changing conditions of America’s workers, or encouraging greater mobility, the bottom line is the same: we can’t spend all our time staving off decline. We need to create new opportunities, not just slow down the loss of old ones. Rather than keep trying to re-create the economy of the past, we should focus on making the jobs people actually have better and figure out how to create the good jobs of the future in fields such as clean energy, health care, construction, computer coding, and advanced manufacturing. Republicans will always be better at defending yesterday. Democrats have to be in the future business. The good news is we have

It had been good with Naomi, that was the thing. Warm and sweet and emotionally uncomplicated. It wasn’t what I had with Midori, or almost had, but I was never going to have that again and preferred to spend as little time as possible flagellating myself over it. Going to her would be selfish, I knew, because in Tokyo our involvement had almost gotten her killed, and, despite the change of venue and all my new precautions, it was far from impossible something like that could happen again. But I found myself thinking of her all the time, wondering if somehow it could work. Japan was far away. I was Yamada now, wasn’t I? And Naomi was whoever she was in Brazil. We could start over, start afresh.

I asked for your consent to marry Elizabeth, and you refused.” “Yes,” Zachary cleared his throat gruffly. “Well, I—” “You've left me no choice, sir.” Although Somers flushed slightly with obvious nervousness, his voice was steady as he continued. “Out of respect for you, I came to inform you in person that I intend to marry Elizabeth with or without your approval. And despite what you or anyone else thinks, I'm not doing it because I have an eye on your damned fortune. I happen to love your sister. If she'll have me, I'm going to provide for her, work like hell for her and treat her with all the respect and gentleness a man can give his wife. And if you require more than that of any man, you can go to the devil.” Zachary felt his brows lift slightly. He couldn't help but be impressed by the young man—it wasn't often that someone dared to stand up to him this way. “If I may ask,” he said quietly, “why do you love Elizabeth?” “She's my perfect match in every way that matters.” “Not socially,” Zachary pointed out. “I said,” came the young man's calm reply, “in every way that matters. I don't give a damn what her social status is.” The answer satisfied Zachary. His instincts told him that Somers was a decent man who truly loved Elizabeth. “Then you have my approval to marry Lizzie—if you'll do one thing for me.

have been passing overheard comments up through thin-walled buildings. The speech was made at a closed Congress session but Alexander is pleased that their leader’s forthright, shocking denouncement of his predecessor Stalin is becoming known to the people outside. The sense of openness, of freedom that has made some of them light-headed at work over the past weeks will start to infect others too. How can that be bad? As if he has been listening to his friend’s thoughts, Misha turns to him. “And what do you think about Comrade Khrushchev’s brave speech, my friend? That the “cult of the individual” mustn’t happen again?” He pauses and takes a drag on his cigarette. “That old man Stalin was a cantankerous, bloody-minded butcher all along?” Misha smiles thinly, and exhales a long stream of smoke upwards. Alexander does not smoke. He used to, as a teenager, but as a young man, the residual taste of tar, the insidious smell of ash in his clothes, bothers him. “I think it’s about time,” Alexander replies. “People will see that things are different now. Really different.” Misha slaps him on the back. “Such an idealist, Sasha.” He smiles, but the smile is forced, and when he speaks next, his voice has lowered so that only Alexander can hear him. “You do remember that our beloved leader Nikita Sergeyevitch was around during all that terror. Doing his part?” The soft tones are a precaution, one that may or may not be necessary here, but Misha, like all of them, cannot get used to any other

filled with all kinds of fun stuff: golf clubs, jet skis, mountain bikes, you name it. For many of them, “fun” has become an addiction. But as with most addictive substances, people build up a tolerance. So despite all the “fun” things people do, they’re still not having fun. What’s really missing is a sense of joy. People find that they no longer feel an authentic joyfulness in living, despite all the fun stuff they have or do. And this is the case whether they’re male or female, young or old, rich or poor, or at any stage of life. What’s happened to people is that they’ve lost a delicate, but critical, component of aliveness and well-being—they’ve lost their eccentricities. It happens to many of us as we grow up and make our way in the world. We fit in. We see how other people survive and we copy their style—same as everyone else. Swept along by the myriad demands of day-to-day living, we stop making choices of our own. Or even realizing that we have choices to make. We lose the wonderful weird edges that define us. We cover up the eccentricities that make us unique. Alfred Adler, the great 20th century psychologist and educator, considered these eccentricities a vital part of a happy and fulfilling lifestyle. Ironically, 14 Repacking Your Bags

ARE MY CHILDREN still alive?" Sara Prague asked the question in a quiet, steady voice that he heard very clearly despite the noise around her. Cops coming and going, keyboards clicking, phones ringing. She looked haggard. Hard. She hadn't always, Vince figured. The worry lines bracketing her eyes, her mouth, the dry skin, the chapped lips, the sense that she really didn't give a damn what she looked like—those things had been strangers to her that first day. The day her kids hadn't come home from school. Now those lines, that hardness, had made themselves at home. It looked as if they planned to stay awhile. This shouldn't have happened to Sara Prague, a PTA mom whose world revolved around her kids. It shouldn't have happened to her husband. Mike, full-time plumber and part-time Little League coach. It shouldn't happen to anyone. Ever. Vince walked around his desk and eased Sara Prague into a cracked vinyl chair, ignoring the chaos around them. He poured her some stale coffee from the pot on the nearby stand, just as he had every day for the past three weeks. She came in here like clockwork—something the Center for Missing and Exploited Children had probably told her to do. He thought she would keep doing it, too. For years, if necessary. It wouldn't be necessary, though. She took the foam cup and sipped automatically. It was all part of their daily

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Kane stared across the room. A muscle worked in his jaw and when he finally spoke his words were measured, determined. “I know the noble thing would be to let you go without a fight, but I won’t do it.” He swung his gaze towards her; the intense expression in his amber eyes made her gasp. “I love you, Elise. I love you and our children and I want to make this work for us.” “Kane…” She rose to her knees and stretched out her hand towards him, but he kept speaking. “I know our mating wasn’t of your choosing.” He stared down at his clasped hands, his voice low. “You were forced into it but I think, despite that fact, something special has happened between us. That first night I vowed to myself that I’d make you happy.” He turned his head and looked at her, a definite sheen in his eyes. “Somewhere along the way, I’ve forgotten that. Grown complacent. It’s all my fault.” His mouth twisted bitterly. She

In life sometimes we reach a stage where we believe everything is under control and things will happen the way we have envisaged. What we forget it that despite all the money, power, name and fame we might have gathered at the end of the day you are only a helpless human being in the hands of destiny. However

There are only eight numbers. They repeat.” “That’s right, and it’s amazing that we could calculate this with only one hundred examples. Despite every block being a slightly different size and shape, calculating the ratios gets us only eight different ones, and the same thing happens when we divide the circumference by the ratio as a percentage. Furthermore, the eight unique numbers that result from that calculation are all Fibonacci numbers.

It's strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls? Now, seriously, I'm impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt an important role in it. Science needs women, and you should do science, despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me.

If formality and courtesy take over the feelings . . . how silly and meaningless these things could become. And despite all this, I still take part in it!

The metaphor of the early American explorer fits policing and the complex problems we face on the street daily. As we search for peaceful outcomes to the situations we encounter numerous unknowns despite the similarities, in the types of incidents and crises we observe day to day. Standard operating procedures, policy and procedure practices are all very useful when we have standard problem and things go as we plan but what happens when things deviate from the standard and go outside the normal patterns? Here is where we must rely on resilience and adaptation, our ability and knowhow. Experienced people using their insights, imagination and initiative to solve complex problems as our ancestors, the early American explores did.  As we interact with people in dynamic encounters, the explorer mentality keeps us in the game; it keeps us alert and aware. The explorer mentality has us continually learning as we accord with a potential adversary and seek to understand his intent to the best of our ability. An officer who possesses the explorer mentality understands that an adversary has his own thoughts objectives and plans, many which he cannot hear, such as: “I will do what I am asked,” “I will not do what I am asked,” “I will escape,” “I will fight,” “I will assault,” “I will kill,” “I will play dumb until...,” “I will stab,” “I will shoot,” “he looks prepared I will comply,” “he looks complacent I will not comply, etc.” The explorer never stops learning and is ever mindful of both obvious and subtle clues of danger and or cooperation.

We were in the Crocodile Environmental Park at the zoo when Steve first told me the story of Acco’s capture. I just had to revisit him after hearing his story. There he was, the black ghost himself, magnificently sunning on the bank of his billabong. Standing there next to this impressive animal, I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that people had wanted him dead. His huge, intimidating teeth made him look primeval, and his osteodermal plates gleamed black in the sun--a dinosaur, living here among us. I felt so emotional, contemplating the fear-based cruelty that prompted humans to hate these animals. For his part, Acco still remembered his capture, even though it had happened nearly a decade before. Whenever Steve went into his enclosure, Acco would stalk him and strike, exploding out of the water with the intent to catch Steve unaware. Despite the conflict in Steve’s soul over whether he had done the right thing, I decided that Acco’s capture had to be. In the zoo, Acco had his own territory to patrol and a beautiful female crocodile, Connie, who loved him dearly. Left in the wild, somebody would have eventually shot him. If the choice is between a bullet and living in the Crocodile Environmental Park, I think his new territory was much more preferable. When I met Steve in 1991, he had just emerged from a solid decade in the bush, either with Bob or on his own, with just his dog Chilli, and later Sui. Those years had been like a test of fire. As a boy all Steve wanted to do was to be like his dad. At twenty-nine he’d become like Bob and then some. He had done so much more than catch crocs. In the western deserts, he and Bob helped researchers from the Queensland Museum understand the intricacies of fierce snake behavior. Steve also embarked on a behavioral study of a rare and little-understood type of arboreal lizard, the canopy goanna, scrambling up into trees in the rain forests of Cape York Peninsula in pursuit of herpetological knowledge. As much as Steve had become a natural for television, over the course of the 1980s he had become a serious naturalist as well. His hands-on experience, gleaned from years in the bush, meshed well with the more abstract knowledge of the academics. No one had ever accomplished what he had, tracking and trapping crocodiles for months at a time on his own. He would hand Bindi and Robert his knowledge of nature and the bush, just as Bob and Lyn had handed it down to him. This is what few people understood about Steve--his relationship with his family, and the tradition of passion and commitment and understanding that passed from generation to generation. Later on, that Irwin family tradition would bring Steve untold grief, when outsiders misjudged his effort to educate his children and crucified him for it.

Are you all right, Vanni?” he asked. “Hmm, just a little melancholy, that’s all.” “It’s hard to tell what’s bothering you most—Midge’s passing or some problem you’re having with Paul.” She turned to look at him and he said, “Anything you want to talk about?” She shrugged. “There’s not too much to talk about, Dad.” “You could help me understand a couple of things, you know.” “For instance?” “Oh, don’t be coy—you stood Paul up to go away with the doctor and if I know anything about you, you’re not that interested in the doctor. Hell, you’ve been in a strange mood since Paul left after Mattie was born. You knew Paul was coming for the weekend—and despite his best efforts to be circumspect, you knew he was coming for you.” “I wasn’t so sure about that.” “I heard you fight with him, Vanni. Did you and Paul have some kind of falling-out?” “Not exactly, Dad.” Walt took a breath. “Vanessa, I don’t mean to pry, but it’s pretty apparent to me how you feel about Paul. And how Paul feels about you. And yet…” “Dad, while Paul was here last autumn, we got a lot closer. We were good friends before, but of course with all we went through together… Dad, before all that happened, Paul had a life in Grants Pass. One that’s not so easily left behind.” “Vanni, Paul loves you, but something happened between you recently…” “He let me know—there are complications in Grants Pass. Something he’s been struggling with. It’s kept him from being honest about his feelings,” she said. “He has commitments, Dad.” “A woman?” Walt asked. Vanni laughed softly. “We shouldn’t be so surprised that Paul actually had women in his life, should we? Yes, apparently there was a woman. Is a woman…” “Jesus,” Walt said under his breath. “He’s not married, is he?” “Of course not. He wouldn’t keep something like that from us.” “Engaged?” “He says there’s enough of an entanglement there to make his position difficult. That’s why he wasn’t around after Mattie was born.” Walt drove in silence for a while and Vanni resumed gazing out the window. After a few moments of silence Walt asked, “What about you, Vanni? I know you care about him.” “Dad, Matt’s only been gone a few months. Should I even have such feelings? Should I be completely embarrassed? I’ll miss him forever, but I—” “Please don’t do that to yourself, honey,” he said. “Haven’t we learned by now? Life is too short to suffer needlessly.” “Will people say I—” “I don’t give a good goddamn what people say,” he growled. “Everyone is entitled to a little happiness, wherever that is. And I think for you, it’s with Paul.” She sighed and said, “I’m asking myself why I thought I had some claim on him. He was very good to us all, I’m so grateful—but why didn’t I realize that a man like Paul wouldn’t have any trouble attracting the attention—the love—of a woman? I’ve been so angry with him for not telling me, but… Why didn’t I ask?” “Now what, Vanni? Is he trying to make a choice, is that it?” “We were having a discussion, not a very pleasant one, right when the call came from Shelby. It left his intentions up in the air a bit. But there’s one thing I won’t do, I can’t do—I can’t ask Paul to choose me over a woman he has an obligation to. I tried to make it very clear, his duty to me as his best friend’s widow has expired. He doesn’t have to take care of me anymore.” “I have a feeling it’s more than duty,” Walt said. “I have a feeling it always has been…” “He has to do the right thing,” she said. “I’m not getting in the way of that. A man like Paul—he could regret the wrong decision for the rest of his life. And frankly, I don’t want to be the one left to live with his regret.” “Oh, boy. You two have some talking to do.” “No. Paul has business to take care of. I have nothing more to say about this.” *

One mild and ordinary work-morning in Chicago, Lew happened to find himself on a public conveyance, head and eyes inclined nowhere in particular, when he entered, all too briefly, a condition he had no memory of having sought, which he later came to think of as grace. Despite the sorry history of rapid transit in this city, the corporate neglect and high likelihood of collision, injury, and death, the weekday-morning overture blared along as usual. Men went on grooming mustaches with gray-gloved fingers. A rolled umbrella dented a bowler hat, words were exchanged. Girl amanuenses in little Leghorn straw hats and striped shirtwaists with huge shoulders that took up more room in the car than angels’ wings dreamed with contrary feelings of what awaited them on upper floors of brand-new steel-frame “skyscrapers.” The horses stepped along in their own time and space. Passengers snorted, scratched, and read the newspaper, sometimes all at once, while others imagined that they could get back to some kind of vertical sleep. Lew found himself surrounded by a luminosity new to him, not even observed in dreams, nor easily attributable to the smoke-inflected sun beginning to light Chicago. He understood that things were exactly what they were. It seemed more than he could bear. He

Why are you building that house, Caleb Halliday, when we both know you’re going to hightail it back to Pennsylvania and drag me right along with you?” She couldn’t read his expression, but she saw that he was climbing deftly down the roof. He reached the ladder and descended to stand facing her, his shirt in one hand, his muscular chest glistening with sweat even as the first chill of twilight came up from the creek. “Half of that farm is mine,” he said. Lily sighed. “So go back to Pennsylvania and fight for it,” she said, exasperated. “You’re not the only one with problems, you know.” Caleb looked at her closely as he shrugged back into his shirt and began doing up the buttons, but he didn’t speak. He seemed to know that Lily was going to go on talking without any urging from him. “It just so happens that my mother is dead, and I’ll probably never find out where my sisters are.” “So that’s why you were willing to marry me all of a sudden—you’ve given up. I don’t know as I like that very much, Lily.” “What you like is of no concern to me,” Lily said briskly. She started to turn away, but Caleb caught her by the arm and made her stay. “You can’t just up and quit like this. It isn’t like you.” “You’ve said it yourself, Caleb: The West is a big place. My sisters could be married, with no time in their busy lives for a lost sister they haven’t seen in thirteen years. They might even be dead.” Caleb’s mouth fell open, but he recovered himself quickly. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this. You’ve fought me from the day we met because you wanted to find your sisters, and now you’re standing there telling me that it’s no use looking for them. What about that letter you had from Wyoming?” “It said Caroline had disappeared, Caleb. That’s hardly reason for encouragement.” “Maybe we’d better go there and find out.” Lily had never dared to think such a thought. “Travel all the way to Wyoming? But what about the chickens?” “What’s more important to you, Lily—your sister or those damn chickens?” Despite herself, Lily was beginning to believe her dreams might come true after all. “My sister,” she said quietly. Caleb reached out at long last and laid his hands on Lily’s shoulders, drawing her close. “Lily, come to Fox Chapel with me,” he said hoarsely. “I’m going to need you.” Lily looked up at her husband. He was, for all practical purposes, the only family she had, and she couldn’t imagine living without him. “What if I hate it there?” she asked, her voice very quiet. “What if I miss my house and my chickens so much I can’t stand it?” He gave her a light, undemanding kiss, and his lips were warm and soft as they moved against hers. “If you hate Fox Chapel, I’ll bring you back here.” “Is that a promise?” “Yes.” “Even if you work things out with your brother and want to stay?” Caleb sighed. “I told you—your happiness is as important to me as my own.” Lily was not a worldly woman, but she’d seen enough to know that such an attitude was rare in a man. She hugged Caleb. “In that case, maybe you won’t be mad that there’s nothing for supper but biscuits.” Although his lips curved into a slight smile, Caleb’s eyes were serious. He lifted one hand to caress Lily’s cheek. “I’m sorry about your mother,” he said quietly. Lily straightened in his arms. “I didn’t even know the woman, really,” she said lightly. “So it’s not as though I’m grieving.” She would have walked away toward the house, but Caleb held her fast. “I think you are,” he said. Lily swallowed. Damn the man—now he had her on the verge of tears. She struggled all the harder to maintain her composure. “If I wept for her, Caleb, I’d be weeping for a woman who never existed—the woman I needed her to be. She was never a real mother to us.” At

Suppose (to take a most improbable example) you decided, or were told and chose to believe, that the world was created by an invisible person who, despite all the evidence that he occasionally disliked us but was mostly indifferent, actually loved us and thought about us all the time. Suppose, piling absurdity upon improbability, you also decided, or were told, and chose to believe, that this same person decided to split himself in two and turn one part of himself into an ordinary person like you or me, and pay a visit to a desert tribe and get himself executed for treason; at which point he performed a conjuring trick, came back from the dead, vanished mysteriously but planned to return and punish all the bad people and make everything nice (though in the meantime, the bad people could go on getting away with it and the good people could go on getting buggered up by the bad people – that is, when they weren’t getting cancer, or run over, or bankrupt, or tortured, or flogged or worked like beasts or raped or killed in power struggles which were nothing to do with them). Suppose you were misguided enough to believe that lot. What would you do? Would you devote all your spare hours to finding someone who would disabuse you of these intensely peculiar delusions, so that you could finally sleep at night? Or would you go, once a week or more, to listen to someone telling you that you were quite right, and everything you believed was true, and, what’s more, if you ever stopped believing it, terrible things would happen to you even after you had died?

Then the heavy lifting began. For the next six months, our employees rarely saw their families. We worked deep into the night, seven days a week. Despite two hit movies, we were conscious of the need to prove ourselves, and everyone gave everything they had. With several months still to go, the staff was exhausted and starting to fray. One morning in June, an overtired artist drove to work with his infant child strapped into the backseat, intending to deliver the baby to day care on the way. Some time later, after he’d been at work for a few hours, his wife (also a Pixar employee) happened to ask him how drop-off had gone—which is when he realized that he’d left their child in the car in the broiling Pixar parking lot. They rushed out to find the baby unconscious and poured cold water over him immediately. Thankfully, the child was okay, but the trauma of this moment—the what-could-have-been—was imprinted deeply on my brain. Asking this much of our people, even when they wanted to give it, was not acceptable. I had expected the road to be rough, but I had to admit that we were coming apart. By the time the film was complete, a full third of the staff would have some kind of repetitive stress injury. In the end, we would meet our deadline—and release our third hit film. Critics raved that Toy Story 2 was one of the only sequels ever to outshine the original, and the total box office would eventually top $500 million. Everyone was fried to the core, yet there was also a feeling that despite all the pain, we had pulled off something important, something that would define Pixar for years to come. As Lee Unkrich says, “We had done the impossible. We had done the thing that everyone told us we couldn’t do. And we had done it spectacularly well. It was the fuel that has continued to burn in all of us.” T

If we hurry,” Lock repeated dully. “Because the faster we get back, the faster you can get us separated from the only woman I’ve ever really loved. The only woman either one of us has ever really loved.” Deep raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you forgetting Miranda?” “We shared a few dreams with her,” Lock said wearily. “Not our lives—not like Kat.” “So she doesn’t count because we never actually got to meet her in person?” Deep demanded. Lock looked up at him wearily. “What happened to Miranda was terrible, Brother. It was a grief deeper than anything I have ever felt—until now.” He sighed. “But Miranda is gone and Kat…she’s right here. She’s lovely and intelligent and perfect in every way. So of course you have to drive her away.” Deep looked his brother in the eyes. “If you truly love her, then you’ll help me in this. I’m no good for her, Lock—for any female. I’ll poison her life if we get too close.” “Just the way you’ve poisoned mine.” Lock ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “I wish I could cut the tie between us. Not just between the two of us and Kat—between you and me. I wish…I wish we weren’t brothers.” He glared at Deep. “I’d rather be dead than spend one more day as your twin.” Despite his outward composure, Deep’s breath caught in his throat. He knew his brother—Lock never spoke unkindly and he never lied. If he said a thing, it was true from the bottom of his heart. “Brother…” he said uncertainly. “Don’t call me that.” Lock threw him one last glance over his shoulder before he walked away. “Not anymore.” Deep watched him go, his heart aching in his chest. He was only doing what he had to do, but it still hurt. It’s for the best though, he told himself. For Kat. For all of us. But seeing misery in the set of his brother’s hunched shoulders, and feeling the echo of both his pain and Kat’s, it was hard to believe.

On my very best days, I’m hanging from a very delicate thread, walking an even more delicate line over a river of broken things that I’ve barely managed not to let consume me. I do this by existing behind a veil of biased facts I tell myself about what happens when you expect better from people and what they can do to you when you let them in. Despite all of this, somehow, he had made it in…

She heard her mother tell her that when you were loved by someone, you never lost them, no matter what might happen next. Despite the curse, despite the losses you might endure, she knew now that love was the only thing that lasted. It was inside you and with you for all eternity.

You are not ruined. Something terrible happened to you and you've been alone in this for so long, I think you've forgotten what if feels like to be loved and cared for, despite the darkness tainting your past. We are not the greatest people in the world to remind you of that, but we will try. As for being whole? Emery, no one is whole. No one in this entire world is whole, we're designed like that. We're designed to crave people and things and passion to fill up the voids we all have in our lives and maybe we never will fill them, but we have to at least try. We have to try or we're nothing. We're just...floating sacks of bones and heartbreak begging for the gods to help us, but you know what? They have been helping, we're just too bitter and hurt to see what's right in front of us.

More than anything, I wanted this book to highlight a neurodiverse heroine who happens to be on medication and in therapy falling in love and thriving. I wanted to show the messy, heavy parts of her life alongside the moments that sweep her off her feet. And I wanted a hero who’d love her through her dark days, not despite them—because to me, that is the most romantic thing of all.

The popular religion and culture of peasants in a complex society are not only a syncretized, domesticated, and localized variant of larger systems of thought and doctrine. They contain almost inevitably the seeds of an alternative symbolic universe—a universe which in turn makes the social world in which peasants live less than completely inevitable. Much of this radical symbolism can only be explained as a cultural reaction to the situation of the peasantry as a class. In fact, this symbolic opposition represents the closest thing to class consciousness in pre-industrial agrarian societies. It is as if those who find themselves at the bottom of the social heap develop cultural forms which promise them dignity, respect, and economic comfort which they lack in the world as it is. A real pattern of exploitation dialectically produces its own symbolic mirror image within folk culture…. The radical vision to which I refer is strikingly uniform despite the enormous variations in peasant cultures and the different great traditions of which they partake…. At the risk of over-generalizing, it is possible to describe some common features of this reflexive symbolism. It nearly always implies a society of brotherhood in which there will be no rich and poor, in which no distinctions of rank and status (save those between believers and non-believers) will exist. Where religious institutions are experienced as justifying inequities, the abolition of rank and status may well include the elimination of religious hierarchy in favor of communities of equal believers. Property is typically, though not always, to be held in common and shared. All unjust claims to taxes, rents, and tribute are to be nullified. The envisioned utopia may also include a self-yielding and abundant nature as well as a radically transformed human nature in which greed, envy, and hatred will disappear. While the earthly utopia is thus an anticipation of the future, it often harks back to a mythic Eden from which mankind has fallen away” (1977:224–226).

I have two tubes with ten paint pellets in each, so I assess the cost of each shot. I then think of how, despite being behind a tree, I was hit by someone I never saw. Maybe the same thing would happen again and I’d return home with two tubes of souvenirs. Or maybe I’d just shoot them all off against a tree. I test my gun. I aim, squeeze the trigger, and the shell tumbles out like a lead weight. I adjust the air pressure. Try again. Same results. If the gun came equipped with a “pow” sign it’d be more lethal.

How often does it happen that you start chasing something new? Think about a new job or career. Or maybe you want to live in a certain city. Maybe you want to find a romantic partner. You get something in your head, read a few books on conquering fear, get your act together and decide to pursue it. Congrats! You took action. But half way through, you realize you don’t even want the thing you’re chasing. But despite that realization, you put your head in the sand. You ignore the inner disturbance and keep going even though you don’t want that thing anymore, that way of life. All of a sudden you feel restricted by all the obligations you’ve accumulated. You’re trapped in a life you created.

Line 4 - Sales (Director) Throughout the Golden Path Program we have gotten to know the 4th line as the great ‘friendmaker’. This gift comes from a truly genuine heart, and an easy warmth with people and community. This is the kind of person that emerges through the Venus Sequence, as those 4th lines release some of their inner restrictions and fears. To have a 4th line Vocation is to be a spokesperson. Such gifts are given to us to serve the whole, and although the 4th line wound may feel reluctant to engage at this level, they do have to overcome the fear that they inherited in their very early years. When we say that the 4th line is the most natural salesperson of all the lines, it does not mean only in business. The open 4th line is always selling their heart. They are here to create more openness, to help others overcome their fears, and to be examples of open-hearted communication. Like the 4th line, the 3rd line can be hugely successful in a business context. However, the role and style of the 4th line is very different. Their role is more like the director of the movie. They have to work closely with people, which involves diplomacy, conviction, and focus. The 4th line knows what the movie should look like, and their one-pointed drive will ensure that everyone else comes into harmony around that direction. The 4th line is comfortable taking control and guiding others to work towards a collective vision or ideal. This is where the notion of sales comes in - the 4th line can diffuse difficulties through the sheer strength and goodwill of its character. The 4th line also has a strong theme of aloneness as a counterbalance to its communal warmth. The inner strength and commitment of these people is rooted in this ability to stand alone and remain committed to one’s ideal, despite the odds. If you have a 4th line Vocation, then you are here to influence humanity. You are here to use your considerable gifts to open people’s hearts. If you happen to be selling a specific idea or product, then at the deepest level it is really an excuse to share your spirit with others. Sometimes you may also be here to deliver a rousing message that shakes people out of their comfort zones, and brings them to a new place inside themselves. Since the 4th line is so good at convincing people about things, it is for a very good reason. When this reason is for a higher purpose, then your whole life moves onto a higher level. There is nothing more powerful or authentic than when one of us stands alone in the world and expresses the love in our heart - whatever creative form that may take.

It was quiet. Then he asked, “What do you have to do?” I pointed at his stress grip. “Things like that. I mean there’s more, but that’s a great place to start. But hey, I’m pretty similar to you in all this. I’ll show you a few things. You know, different ways to breathe, for example. How to talk to yourself in a positive way. How to realize that it’s the anxiety and not the situation. But on the positive side, do you know what happened when I learned to live with my anxiety instead of trying to find a way to get rid of it?” “What?” he asked. “Well, my life got better. I got happier. I started smiling more, and I stopped being so afraid all the time. And when I look back at my life thus far, I’ve gone to college. I’ve gotten married, gotten a good job, and had three amazing kids. All of it with my anxiety in the back seat. Life’s been pretty good despite my anxiety. Pretty sure it’s going to be the same for you.” I gave him one of those soft, fatherly punches to the arm. He let out this long breath, and I could almost see the steam of feeling odd or like he was holding on to some great burden alone come pouring out of him. Then he said something I think all dads never, ever, get tired of hearing. “Thanks, Dad.” “Anytime, kiddo. Anytime.

Love! How many legends were organized for it? It was said that it is the most mysterious human feeling that pushes us to do things we are not ready for and heedless of us. Despite the reality, and the difficulties, we do the impossible, and in the name of love, we do miracles. Just legends but the truth is that history did not mention that any miracle has happened thanks to love. Myths, of which there is no use but our consolation, and the justification of our blind rush behind unjustified, incomprehensible feelings, to do what we were not ready to do, and then we pay the price with a reassuring conscience, and with a comfortable mind, in the name of love. If we analyze these feelings, love, anger, hate, tranquility, fear, we will find that they are another face of pain, just chemical reactions inside our bodies, and hormones controlled by our mind, it decides when to kindle the fire of love in us, and when to make hate blind us. If you know how to motivate the mind to produce the hormone needed to produce the desired emotions, then you do not have to talk about anything anymore. It is all your emotions, which are yours. This inevitably makes human feelings subject to causation in the universe, unless our feelings are from another world, not causal. Therefore, the most magical words remain, those that come out of the mouth of a lover describing his love for his lover, “I love you without reason.” This is the impossibility desired, and in the subconscious, these words have charm and glamour, and the tongue of the lover says, “My love for you is not from this causal world, neither the color of your hair, nor your eyes, nor your body, nor your sweet voice, nor your way of speaking, nor anything that you possess is a reason why I love you, because my love for you is not causal, does not belong to this world.” A lie loved by the mind of the lovers, a legend among the millions which says, that nothing in this world can anticipate the feelings and moods of human beings before they occur, and more precisely, the private feelings and fluctuations, of an individual, to be precise, and not just of a large group of people, the more we try to customize it, the more difficult it becomes. And where the indicators of the collective mind, the demagogue, can give us an idea of the general direction and the future fluctuations of a society or group of people, not because of a weakness in the lines of defense of feelings, but rather because we know that the mob, the collective mind, and the herd, will force many to follow it, even if it violates what they feel, what they want at their core. The mind is designed for survival, and you know that survival’s chances are stronger with the stronger group, the more number, it will secrete all the necessary hormones, to force you to follow the herd. However, the feelings assigned to a particular person remain an impossible task, so many people are able to deceive each other by showing signs of expected trends and fluctuations that contradict the reality of what they feel. Humans and scientists have treated it as something unpredictable, coming from another world, a curse on science, as if it were a whiff of a magical spell cast on us from the immemorial. But in fact, emotions are causal, and every cause has a causative. Like everything else in this world, the laws of chaos and randomness apply to them. They can be accurately predicted, formulated into mathematical equations, and even manipulated. All it takes is to have something that contains all the cosmic events, a number we did not imagine, starting with the flutter of a butterfly, a breath of air, temperatures across the universe, a word a man says to his son, a donkey’s kick, a rabbit’s jump, and ending with the movement of stars and planets, and cosmic explosions, and beyond, and able to deal with them, and with the hierarchical possibilities of their occurrence.

He closed his eyes against his pounding headache, but the blackness engulfed him again. A familiar vision materialized—the statuesque, veiled woman with the amulet and silver hair in ringlets. As before, she was on the banks of a bloodred river and surrounded by writhing bodies. She spoke to Langdon, her voice pleading. Seek and ye shall find! Langdon was overcome with the feeling that he had to save her … save them all. The half-buried, upside-down legs were falling limp … one by one. Who are you!? he called out in silence. What do you want?! Her luxuriant silver hair began fluttering in a hot wind. Our time grows short, she whispered, touching her amulet necklace. Then, without warning, she erupted in a blinding pillar of fire, which billowed across the river, engulfing them both. Langdon shouted, his eyes flying open. Dr. Brooks eyed him with concern. “What is it?” “I keep hallucinating!” Langdon exclaimed. “The same scene.” “The silver-haired woman? And all the dead bodies?” Langdon nodded, perspiration beading on his brow. “You’ll be okay,” she assured him, despite sounding shaky herself. “Recurring visions are common with amnesia. The brain function that sorts and catalogs your memories has been temporarily shaken up, and so it throws everything into one picture.” “Not a very nice picture,” he managed. “I know, but until you heal, your memories will be muddled and uncataloged—past, present, and imagination all mixed together. The same thing happens in dreams.

That is the thing about growing old. Inside you still feel like a child, but your body plays tricks on you. You still want to skip into the lake and squeal. You still want to eat an ice cream cone on a hot summer day. You still want to call your best friend when something happens in your life. You still want to live with all of that same joy despite the fact you know you are reaching...

The best that I could come up with is this: There may not always be a plausible scientific explanation for why humans do what they do. Not everything can be plugged into an equation or reduced to the lowest common denominator. Not everything can be summed up by a letter grade on a report card or a check in a box. Not everything has a formula, and sometimes things just happen for no reason at all, good or bad, logical or illogical. Ms. Bixby would probably say there actually is a reason—we just don’t always understand it at the time. Father Massey would probably say the same thing. I suppose there is some strange comfort in it—this idea that the numbers are sometimes wrong, that there are still mysteries in the universe, and that you don’t always have to know why you do the things you do. Sometimes, despite all evidence to the contrary, things can go your way.

Despite skyrocketing overdose death rates, none of the country’s leading advocates of harm reduction are rethinking their advocacy of decriminalization and harm reduction. Instead they focus on things like promoting Narcan. “It’s really about getting emergency responders to carry [naloxone/Narcan],” said Ethan. “The guy who was a real pioneer in all of this was a guy named Dan Bigg out of Chicago. He really took this issue by the horns in the early 2000s.” What happened to him? “He himself died of an overdose a few years ago,” said Ethan. Bigg’s death in 2018 attracted national media attention. “The substances found in his body included heroin, two benzodiazepines . . . methadone, fentanyl, and acetyl fentanyl,” wrote a journalist for Vice. “The cause of Bigg’s death, however, in no way repudiates the cause to which he devoted his life.”24 Leaders of the Harm Reduction Coalition agreed. “We can’t end overdoses until we end poverty,” said Kristen Marshall, “until we end racism, and until we end homelessness.

You listened to it all with no judgement, ever. Because of you, I got through that phase, released that resentment. You reminded me to keep the focus on why these things were happening, why she changed, so I could maintain that emotional connection to her, despite her limitations. And I learned to accept that different person. So grateful for those good days, too, and whatever glimpses… of light… I…I could still see in her. There were many when I just opened to them. You taught me that. No way to prepare for something like this, but I did my best. I did. I hope she knows I did my best. Even when I was angry about the situation, I never stopped loving her. I hope Mom knew that, somewhere deep inside. Do you think she knew that?” “Yes, she knew. I swear, Preston. It’s true. Please believe that.” “You…” his voice, now hoarse with emotion, “have no idea how much respect I have for you.

wanted this book to highlight a neurodiverse heroine who happens to be on medication and in therapy falling in love and thriving. I wanted to show the messy, heavy parts of her life alongside the moments that sweep her off her feet. And I wanted a hero who’d love her through her dark days, not despite them—because to me, that is the most romantic thing of all.

When we feel loved, despite all the things we see as flaws? Well, that’s where the real healing happens.

Big waves today. Big and beautiful and loud and filling me with a sense of wonder, every time I see them. I think a lot, maybe too much, about all the things the modern world has managed to ruin. Politics and privacy, for example. Civility, you could throw that in, too. But nobody can ever ruin these waves and the scene spread out in front of me. Despite everything happening in my life, the ocean still makes me believe in God.

Mate, I’ve only been here for a few weeks, but I don’t think anyone even knows my name. I’ve already slipped three spots down the batting order. I’ve got no idea what the lyrics to the club song are. And every time I get a hit at training, I hear the faint sound of blokes whispering that one word under their breath: “Yuck.” What am I doing wrong?’ I began, nervously. Nuggsy paused, took a long swig of his Reschs schooner, and reclined languidly into his seat. He scratched his bald head for a moment, seemingly in deep thought, before embarking on the long-winded response that would indeed shape my cricketing future. ‘Listen, bud. You’re a grade cricketer now. And it’s time you learned a little bit about what that means. This isn’t club cricket, “Shires” cricket, or that stupid school shit that you wasted your time on for all those years. This is grade cricket: the highest level of amateur cricket in the world,’ he said with pride. Just for those who don’t already know, I should quickly provide a bit of background on the grade cricket competition. Grade cricket (or ‘Premier cricket’, as it is known in some states/territories) is the level directly below the state competition.  Despite this close proximity to the professional arena, it is nonetheless an amateur competition. Sure, one or two first graders might get paid a little bit under the table, but everyone else must pay a registration fee in order to play. Normally, each club has four to five grades — first grade being the strongest; fifth grade the weakest. Those in first grade enjoy a status that the fifth graders can only dream about. Being a first grader is like being a celebrity to 50 blokes whose names you’ll never know — or never even need to know — unless you end up playing with them after a severe run of poor form (or a serious disciplinary breach). The rest of the club — seconds, thirds, and fourth grade — is basically an assortment of talented youngsters and ageing desperates. The common denominator between the young and old brigade is that they were all once told they were ‘good enough to play for Australia’. In many cases, it was the first and last compliment they ever received — and the reason why they’re still playing. In all cases, it was the worst thing that could have ever happened to them. The ultimate grade cricketer, therefore, will possess the perfect balance of good and not good enough that will haunt them for all of their playing days. All this of course, is something that can only be learned with experience. At this early stage in my grade cricket career, I considered these young players to be ‘cool’ and the older players worthy of my respect. Nuggsy tilted his head to one side as he lit up a cigarette. He took a deep drag, holding it in for what seemed like hours, before launching his head back to expel a thick plume of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘Listen, great man,’ he began. ‘Success in grade cricket has nothing to do with skill, ability, or even results. It’s all about the social ladder, bud. You’ve got the big dogs up top, the peasants down the bottom, and everyone in between is just trying to stay relevant,’ he offered. In many ways, grade cricket social hierarchy bears great similarity to the feudal systems that first appeared in the Middle Ages in Europe — something I’d learned a bit about at high school. As I remembered, kings and monarchs sat at the top, enjoying their pick of the land, women and food. They were the ones who established the rules that everyone had to live under. The barons leased their land from the king; the knights leased their land from the barons; and the knights granted the lowly peasants their land.  The peasants were not allowed to marry, nor could they even leave the manor without permission. Basically, they were the fifth graders of the 8-12th Century.

Rolling my eyes, I took Dylan’s hand and followed Harlow inside. Jace sat in the front of the TV. I knew he was grumpy based on the way he didn’t look at me. When I flopped next to him on the couch, he did smile. “You smell like a strip club,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “How would you know?” “I’m not telling you my secrets.” Shaking my head, I sighed loudly. “Why do you make me do this to you? It’s like you want to suffer.” Jace knew what was coming, but his escape came too late. I pinned him on the couch and tickled him. Despite his efforts to seem unfazed, he couldn’t withstand armpit tickling. While I tormented my laughing brother, Dad and Mom walked out from the kitchen. “He missed you,” Mom said as I finally let Jace up. Catching his breath, my brother leaned next to me on the couch. “I miss beating you at videogames.” “I miss you beating me too,” I said, kissing his head. Harlow flopped on the couch next to us and I smiled at the familiar comfort of my family. Dylan watched us with a slight grin. When he caught Tad and Toni’s gazes, his smile grew. Suspicious now, I glanced at Harlow who was busy gluing herself to me. “Are they up to something?” I whispered. “Am I going to be embarrassed?” “I don’t know. If you feel embarrassed, I’ll punch Dylan in the crotch and distract everyone.” Rolling my eyes at her threat, I studied Dylan who grinned at me. “What?” I asked, nervous now. “She’s on to you,” Dad said. “Better ask now before she gets squirrely.” “Squirrely,” Jace snorted. “She gets batty too.” Harlow laughed. “Winnie can do so many animal impressions.” Ignoring them, I stood up and walked to a still smiling Dylan. “What?” “What happened to patience?” Without thinking, I reached to pinch my hand. Dylan took both hands then knelt on one knee. “Don’t,” Harlow blurted, grabbing for me. Everyone frowned at her. A moment passed where she stared at me in horror. Suddenly, she shrugged. “I meant don’t stop. Go ahead, Dylan.” The mood in the room shifted back to anticipation. Our gaze focused on Dylan who smiled up at me. “I know it’s been a few weeks. I don’t care. I love you and you love me, right?” “I love you so much.” “I’m not stupid. I know we’ll have problems. We run into issues. When we do, we’ll work them out. We’ll figure them out because we belong together. You believe that, don’t you?” “Yes,” I whispered, staring into his beautiful dark eyes. “Winona Todds, you are perfection and I refuse to live without you. Will you marry me?” My legs turning to jelly, I knelt down too. “Yes,” I whispered, afraid he was about to change his mind. Maybe it was a trick. All these awful things rushed through my mind. I wasn’t good enough for Dylan. He was going to leave me one day. I didn’t deserve to be happy when I was so weak. “You love me,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against mine. “You want me to be happy.” “Yes,” I said, tears rolling down my cheeks. “You’re what I need to survive.” “I’m not really strong yet.” “I love you now. I don’t want to wait. Do you want to wait for me?” Shaking my head, I looked at my smiling parents then back at Dylan. “We’re in love and planning to live together. We need to make our relationship official, so your daddy won’t kick my ass.” Even laughing, I asked, “You want this?” “I can give up everything else in my life, but never you. Married or not, you belong with me.” I exhaled uneasily then smiled. “Yes, I will marry you.

I’ve ruined things for you,” I said, eyes hot and tears threatening to fall. “I fucked up and now you’ll end up with a record. You’ll never have your dream because of me. I’m so sorry.” Wrapping me in his strong arms, Nick sighed. “I punched him and made the first move. It’s not your fault.” “You had to punch him. He was calling me names and you’re my man.” Nick smiled down at me. “Yeah, I couldn’t let him trash my girl.” “I should have just ignored him or been polite.” “I love you enough to know ignoring him and doing the polite shit was never happening. It’s not your way and I don’t want you to pretend. Maybe other people need that from you, but I love all of you even the crazy temperamental parts.” “I ruined your dream though.” “I’ll get a new dream.” My heart broke at how easily Nick accepted his lost dream. “You wanted that one so bad.” “I want you more.” “Maybe we can run. I have money. Let’s run and hide. You’re giving up your dream. I can give up my home, so we’ll be even.” Nick grinned then looked behind me. “This is my home now too and I’m not giving it up.” Turning to follow Nick’s gaze, I saw my parents approaching. Pop tossed his cigarette on the ground then laughed. “I always figured Sawyer would be the one to attack a cop,” he said as Mom smiled. “He called me a bitch and Nick punched him.” “Seems fair.” “Then he was going to arrest Nick, so I had to do something.” “I can see that,” Pop said, hugging me. “Did he rough you two up?” “No. Well, his face might have hurt Nick’s fist.” “I’m fine,” Nick said, giving me an amused look. “Pop,” I mumbled, panicking despite attempts to find the situation funny. “Dickhead is going to ruin Nick’s future as a teacher. You have to do something.” My pop grinned at Mom then shook his head. “All this drama is Coop’s problem now. I’m retired.” Frowning, I wanted Pop to wave his hand and fix things like he normally did. Instead, he expected me and my brothers to behave like adults. Had he never met us? “It’ll be fine,” Nick said, lacing his finger in the loop of my shorts and tugging back against him. “Darling can file charges if he wants, but he’ll put a target on himself too. It’s his choice.” My dad smiled and nodded while Mom threw a ball at the dogs. “Nick ain’t wrong. Dickhead might have a big mouth and show off, but he knows his place. He went to school with your brothers and understands what happens when the family feels threatened.” “Okay,” I said, still worried. “I can’t believe I lost my temper like that.” Mom and Pop laughed first then Nick started up. I just rolled my eyes.

One reason Bonhoeffer wished to spend a year as a pastor in Barcelona was that he believed communicating what he knew theologically—whether to indifferent businessmen, teenagers, or younger children—was as important as the theology itself. His success in children’s ministry shows this, and this letter to his future brother-in-law Walter Dress gives us a glimpse into this aspect of his year in Barcelona: 86 Today I encountered a completely unique case in my pastoral counseling, which I’d like to recount to you briefly and which despite its simplicity really made me think. At 11:00 a.m. there was a knock at my door and a ten-year-old boy came into my room with something I had requested from his parents. I noticed that something was amiss with the boy, who is usually cheerfulness personified. And soon it came out: he broke down in tears, completely beside himself, and I could hear only the words: “Herr Wolf ist tot” [Mr. Wolf is dead.], and then he cried and cried. “But who is Herr Wolf?” As it turns out, it is a young German shepherd dog that was sick for eight days and had just died a half-hour ago. So the boy, inconsolable, sat down on my knee and could hardly regain his composure; he told me how the dog died and how everything is lost now. He played only with the dog, each morning the dog came to the boy’s bed and awakened him—and now the dog was dead. What could I say? So he talked to me about it for quite a while. Then suddenly his wrenching crying became very quiet and he said: “But I know he’s not dead at all.” “What do you mean?” “His spirit is now in heaven, where it is happy. Once in class a boy asked the religion teacher what heaven was like, and she said she had not been there yet; but tell me now, will I see Herr Wolf again? He’s certainly in heaven.” So there I stood and was supposed to answer him yes or no. If I said “no, we don’t know” that would have meant “no.” . . . So I quickly made up my mind and said to him: “Look, God created human beings and also animals, and I’m sure he also loves animals. And I believe that with God it is such that all who loved each other on earth—genuinely loved each other—will remain together with God, for to love is part of God. Just how that happens, though, we admittedly don’t know.” You should have seen the happy face on this boy; he had completely stopped crying. “So then I’ll see Herr Wolf again when I am dead; then we can play together again”—in a word, he was ecstatic. I repeated to him a couple of times that we don’t really know how this happens. He, however, knew, and knew it quite definitely in thought. After a few minutes, he said: “Today I really scolded Adam and Eve; if they had not eaten the apple, Herr Wolf would not have died.” This whole affair was as important to the young boy as things are for one of us when something really bad happens. But I am almost surprised—moved, by the naïveté of the piety that awakens at such a moment in an otherwise completely wild young boy who is thinking of nothing. And there I stood—I who was supposed to “know the answer”—feeling quite small next to him; and I cannot forget the confident expression he had on his face when he left.

All the boys are out there looking for a god to thank. We call her boy 'Big Mike' although he's six foot two, And he likes to be the boy behind the barbecue. It's a good time, and a big free-for-all... Or it was until the moment that the zombies came to call. So run for the river, run for the trees, Run faster than the next guy, honey, if you please. We came out to the lakeside for a holiday, Now it seems we're in the wrong in 'predator and prey'. We came out for the fish, we came out for the fun, But we're captives now in the zombie river run. Well, Dave was first to see them, took it for a joke; He was standing by the forest sucking down a Coke. When they grabbed and started chewing he was real surprised, And that's about the time we came to realize That the locals had decided to crash our soiree Despite their state of fairly well-advanced decay. It wasn't very social at all... But that's the crap that happens when the zombies come to call. We tried to hold them off, but they would not turn back, It was another stupid clip from 'When the Dead Attack'. Then Mike got real annoyed and started spitting flames, While Suzy summoned demons by their secret names. Bambi shed her skin and started to constrict, And that's when all those zombies knew that they'd been tricked. We aren't all that normal at all... I guess this is the last time that the zombies come to call. So run for the river, run for the trees, Run faster than the next guy, honey, if you please. We came out to the lakeside for a holiday, Now it seems we're in the wrong in 'predator and prey'. We came out for the fish, we came out for the fun, But we're captives now in the zombie river run. We're a simple little family, and we like our lake, And if you want to make us cranky, that's a big mistake, Because we bring the whole damn family out every year, And we only want our peace -- I hope I've made that clear. It's not hard to form a posse when you've got a brood, And I only hope this warning won't be misconstrued, Because if anybody bugs us at all... You'll be wishing things were clear as when the zombies came to call. Written on: 2006-07-26. “Zombie River Run” Copyright © 2006 Seanan McGuire

Ti Noëlhad squandered his birthright, and, despite the abject poverty to which he had sunk, he was leaving the same inheritance he had received: a body of flesh to which things happened. Now he understood that a man never knows for whom he suffers and hopes. He suffers and hopes and toils for people he will never know, and who, in turn, will suffer and hope and toil for others who will not be happy either, for man always seeks a happiness far beyond that which is meted out to him. But man's greatness consists in the very fact of wanting to be better than he is. In laying duties upon himself. In the Kingdom of Heaven there is no grandeur to be won, inasmuch as there all is an established hierarchy, the unknown is revealed, existence is infinite, there is no possibility vealed, existence is infinite, there is no possibility of sacrifice, all is rest and joy" (178-179).

work vehicles and a lone motorcycle, her SUV had the road to itself, which meant she would get there faster. Indeed, the familiarity of turning onto Caroline’s street was a lifeline. Once she parked in front of the mint-over-teal Victorian, she put Tad on her hip and hurried up the walk. The squeak of the screen was actually reassuring. And the smell of time when she stepped inside? Heaven. “Mom?” Caroline ran barefoot from the kitchen, stopped short, and put a hand to her heart. “Mother and child,” she breathed and slowly approached. Her hair was a wavy mess, and her face blushed in a way that made her look forty, but her eyes, moist now, held adoration. Wrapping a firm arm around Jamie, she said by her ear, “We will not mention the show. It has no place in this house with us right now, okay?” Jamie hadn’t even thought about the show, and certainly couldn’t think of it with Caroline’s soft, woodsy scent soothing her nerves and giving her strength. “Mom,” she began, drawing back, but Caroline was studying Tad. “Oh my. A real little boy. Hey,” she said softly and touched his hair. Jamie felt the warmth of the touch, but Tad just stared without blinking. “I think I know you. Aren’t you Theodore MacAfee the Second?” Those very big eyes were somber as he shook his head. “Who, then?” “Taddy,” came the baby voice. “The Taddy who likes cats?” Caroline asked, to which he started looking around the floor, “or the Taddy who likes pancakes?” “Pancakes, please,” Jamie inserted. “I promised him we’d eat here. Mom—” She broke off when Master meowed. Setting Tad on the floor, she waited only until he had run after the cat before turning back to her mother and holding out her left hand. Caroline frowned. “You’re shaking.” She had steadied the hand with her own before she finally focused on that bare ring finger. Wide eyes flew to Jamie’s. In that instant, with this first oh-so-important disclosure, it was real. Jamie could barely breathe. “I returned it. Brad and I split.” “What happened?” Caroline whispered, but quickly caught herself. Cupping Jamie’s face, she said, “First things first. I don’t have a booster seat for Tad.” “He’ll kneel on a chair. He looks like Dad. Do you hate him for that?” Tad was on his haunches on the other side of the room, waiting for Master to come out from under the spindle legs of a lamp stand. “I should,” Caroline confessed, “but how to hate a child? He may have Roy’s coloring, but he’ll take on your expressions, and soon enough he’ll look like himself. Besides,” she gave a gritty smirk, “it’s not like your father gets the last laugh. If he thought I was a withered-up old hag—” “He didn’t.” “Yes, he did. Isn’t that what booting me off Gut It! was about?” “You said we weren’t talking about that,” Jamie begged, knowing that despite this nascent reconciliation, Gut It! remained a huge issue. Not talking about it wouldn’t make it go away, but she didn’t want the intrusion of it now. Caroline seemed to agree. She spoke more calmly. “Your father’s opinion of me went way back to our marriage, so this, today, here, now, is satisfying for me. How happy do you think he is looking down from heaven to see his son at my house, chasing my cat and about to eat my grandmother’s pancakes, cooked by me in my kitchen and served on a table I made?” The part of Jamie that resented Roy for what he had made Caroline suffer shared her mother’s satisfaction. She might have said that, if Caroline hadn’t gone from bold to unsure in a breath. “I’m not equipped yet, baby. Does Tad need a bottle for his water?” “No. He’s done with bottles. Just a little water in a cup will do, since I forgot the sippy.” In her rush to get out of the house, she had also left Moose, which meant she would have to go back for him before dropping Tad off, which meant she would be late for her first appointment, which she couldn’t reschedule because she had back-to-backs all day, which meant she would have to postpone to another day, which

From what I just heard, my greatest fault is that I dare to take pride in my work, in knowing I'm excellent at it." The brown paper crumpled tighter in her hands. "How is that snobbery?" "Of course being excellent at your work and knowing it isn't snobbery. But believing that you are somehow unique in excelling at your work while looking down on what others do- that's the snobbish part. Especially given the life you were born into." She paled at that. "I'm not going to apologize for the life I was born into. Which, by the way, I have never taken for granted or misused for one moment. Tell me, if I were a man, would you see my confidence in my work and my pride in where I come from as arrogance?" "This gets better and better. As you pointed out, so disdainfully, I cook for a living. Nurturing people, nourishing them holds incredible meaning to me. You cannot pull the gender-role card on me. Plus, I have a vested interest in you being good at your work. My issue is with how you think it absolves you from treating those around you with consideration and respect. Cooking for a living is something I happen to be incredibly proud of." "As you should be. You're amazing at it." That of all things made her voice crack. She threw a look of such longing at the two empty bowls on the table that despite his anger, pride swelled inside him. It was followed by a sense of hypocrisy that he pushed away. "Yes, I am, and I don't appreciate when someone treats me like a servant for doing it.

She leaned in and placed her hand reassuringly on mine. "And don't worry, dear," she said conspiratorially. "I know it will still happen for you. There's still time." There it was. ...But much to my surprise, I didn't need to lean on my collective self to navigate around this nice woman who thought she was providing me comfort by assuring me that, despite my age, I appeared to be someone to whom things could still happen...For a minute I felt all the old defense mechanisms go up, like metal toward a magnet. I took a deep breath and prepared to deliver my well-rehearsed responses...all the things I was used to saying to get out of this conversation and make the other person feel more comfortable. Instead, I found myself resisting the urge to laugh. Not at her. At the suddenly absurd idea that I was running out of time. I was no longer running, I realized. I was off the clock. "I have to tell you," I said, making sure there was not one ounce of defensiveness in my voice, "I think it's going to be pretty great even if it doesn't happen.

What actually happened was this. Over the last twenty years, we have delighted in our children, and have had many of them. We don’t shuttle them off to day care or leave them with professional care providers. And we homeschool them or have them in schools which encourage direct parental involvement. Our families are tight. We have had many children because we love them, despite hostile stares or comments from those outside our community. To quote a comment made to my wife on the street years ago, “My, you don’t believe in the pill, do you?” But we didn’t mind—kids are a kick. And, as I can now say, grandkids are a kick. It just keeps getting better. But then one day, we were distracted from our work by all this yelling that was coming from the general direction of the Moscow School District. “Where have the kids gone!? How could this have happened? Maybe they moved out of the state!” And the powers that be put lighter fluid in their hair, set it ablaze, and ran in tight little circles. “Where are the kids?” You see the state takes away money for each little breathing bipedal carbon unit that doesn’t show up in the classroom each autumn, and it turns out this is serious business. So, against my better judgment, I say something like this: “Um—maybe you don’t have kids in your schools because you quit having them. And if any actually make it into the womb, you think it should be legal to get them out of there violently. Talk about eviction. And if any of successfully run that gauntlet and actually show up, you provide them with a fifth-rate education and then turn them loose into your hollow and ugly world. And maybe you don’t have access to our kids anymore because we looked at all this and quit handing them to you to educate. Just a thought.” Take care not to get the whole thing turned around. Susan’s sign-off—“breeding my way to a better tomorrow” reminds me of a joke that can be reapplied to our situation. Early in the twentieth century, a refined woman from Boston was at a high brow social gathering where she met a woman from Chicago, who didn’t quite fit with the refined lady’s ideas of deportment. “Here in Boston,” the great lady said with a sniff, “we think breeding is everything.” “Well,” the other lady said, “out in Chicago we think it is a lot of fun, but we don’t think it’s everything.

So what does it mean, to live a deliberate life? I think it means to actually live your life rather than letting it slip past or slide over you; to be a thing that happens to this world instead of just letting things happen to you or despite you. To stretch out towards the horizons and trust that your life will expand to contain you. To step into each day with eyes and mind a little more open, so that you can allow for extraordinary moments to break through the mundane, so you can notice them when they do, and to collect them so that you never have to wonder what it's all about. To be a little more open-hearted and let the good things in and give the good things out. To be deliberately positive, deliberately happy, deliberately alive to all this life brings; to put a deliberate twist on your story so that it takes you where you want to go. To never dismiss an extraordinary moment as being too tiny, and to let for now be enough, until it isn't. Until you're ready to move on and change your mind. We're allowed.

He told me I’d know for sure when you heard their voices,” Etienne went on. “And he said to ask you about the screams. He said only you would hear their screams at night.” Her curiosity vanished now, replaced by a growing panic. This can’t be happening to me. It squeezed her heart and choked her words, though she fought to stay calm. Her hands clenched at her sides. She willed her voice not to tremble. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” “Look, Miranda--” “I don’t know about any voices.” “But you heard one in your apartment today, yeah? We both know that--” “No. It was a mistake. I only thought I did…” “I guess it’d be easier to believe that. Safer to believe that.” Despite her angry glare, Etienne’s voice softened. “Your grand-père, he cares about you. He knows what it’s like. He wants your life to be happy.” “I’ll be happy when you leave. Why’d you come here anyway? Why don’t you just go?” She was starting to shake uncontrollably. Deep, painful chills that ached all the way through. She couldn’t get warm. She couldn’t concentrate on what Etienne was saying. She hugged herself and tried to stop shivering, and that’s when she realized Etienne’s arms were around her. “Your grand-père, he wants me to help you, cher,” Etienne insisted. “So you won’t be alone in all this.” The chills began instantly to melt. As Etienne pressed her firmly to his chest, she could feel his faint stir of breath through her hair, the length and shape of his body against hers. Her pulse quickened; her thoughts spun. She had to escape--from this room and this house, from Etienne and the way he was holding her, from these crazy things he was saying… Miranda pushed him away. “I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. My grandpa doesn’t know anything about me, and neither do you. There’s nothing to help me with. I don’t need any help. And I’m not lonely.” “I didn’t say you’d be lonely.” Etienne seemed to be studying her, as if she was some unusual specimen under a microscope. “I said you’d be alone. But in this case, you might end up being both.

Here is the first trivia quiz question on the Book of Common Prayer (BCP): who was the only layperson not of royal blood ever prayed for by name in the Prayer Book? Answer: Sir James Croft, Lord Deputy of Ireland, in the Dublin edition of 1551, and the fact that Sir James died in his bed three decades later, despite a risky career of double-dealing and his son’s execution for witchcraft, suggests that the prayers of the Irish faithful did him a bit of good. Second trivia question: who is St Enurchus? Answer: no one, because he is a misprint, and his original, the massively obscure St Evurtius, Bishop of Orleans, crept into the Prayer Book’s Calendar obliquely and entirely without authorization in 1604, almost certainly because his feast of 7 September happened to be the birthday of the lately deceased Queen Elizabeth I – it was some learned printer’s joke, and perhaps a little cock of the snook at the newly arrived King James I.

There was everything and at the same time nothing of what had happened years ago. It was as if the parallelism of space-time was basing its existence on an alternative of deja vus that the only thing they did was to remember a feeling lived before, but from different angles and incarnations. As if that were the memory's way of not bleeding out completely: Projecting in space intangible coordinates that repeated patterns in the most subtle but perceptible possible way . There - quite possibly - was still room for what had happened to be repeated, but there were no guarantees that it could be the same again. Despite all this, that memory remained intact because memory had insisted on it. It was stored in the deepest space of what it had generated at that time, therefore the armor was such that no matter how much pain it might feel at some point, love had always been greater and that memory remained eternal.

Mister, I understand why you hate Indians and Tories so.” “Well now, you’re a fair-minded duchess. Just been led astray, I reckon.” “But Rising Hawk was only a baby when those terrible things happened. You can’t blame him.” “A Indian’s a Indian, sis. I seen firsthand what they’re capable of. Don’t try and fool yourself. It comes natural to them. That fella’s done plenty of evil.” “No, he hasn’t. He’s probably the kindest human being I’ve ever known, excepting Polly Gunn.” Lawson’s face softened a little at the mention of Polly. Nonetheless, he took her arm in silence and made her walk on. “Please, please let me go. Even if he isn’t bleeding now, he’s sick and weak, and what happens if a bear or a panther finds him there?” “Then that’ll be one less savage to worry about.” “Let me go! You have no rights over me. You’re probably breaking the law. You broke the law shooting Rising Hawk. That was no accident, was it? You shot him on purpose.” She twisted suddenly and bit the filthy hand holding her. She ran and was off the road and deep into a pine grove before he caught up and knocked her to the ground. He had his foot on her back before she knew she was down. “I oughta knock your teeth out for that. I will, if you try that again, you little hellcat. And don’t talk to me about no damn law. I know all about rights. Here’s rights for you. I’m bigger than you, I run faster than you, and I got a gun. Them’s my rights.” Despite her pain and fatigue, Livy struggled furiously to get up. But he held her down until the rage passed out of her and she lay still. Then he let her up and tied her hands again, preaching all the while. “What you do not understand, child, is that a white woman who lives with savages of her own volition is lower than one of them Indian girls. And a white woman who breeds with them is lower than a whore even. You are a nice little girl and too young to know the damage you are doing. I am saving you from yourself.

Incoming call: Adam Reynolds. I let those words fill my vision for a moment. Not because I intend to make him wait; it’s simply that for a second I freeze. Blake’s dad is a wolf, and I feel very much like the rabbit. The last time Adam and I talked, it didn’t turn out particularly well. But right now, the CEO of Cyclone—and the man who, incidentally, still thinks I’m dating his son—is calling me. What can I do? I hit accept. He appears on the screen: messy pepper-gray hair and beard scruff in need of a shave. His gaze fixes on mine. “Tina.” His voice is just a little hoarse. He clears his throat and sniffs. “Is Blake there?” “No.” “Good.” He frowns. “Look. Blake’s a little distant right now. Is something going on with him?” Something is obviously going on between them, but even I can’t tell what it is, and I suspect I know about as much as anyone on the planet except these two. I shake my head. “I’m not talking to you about Blake.” “Yeah.” He blows out a breath. “Probably just as well that you’re loyal to him. I just…” He pauses, tapping his fingers against his cheek. “It’s not that,” I interject. “It’s just that you’re an…” I choke back the word I’d been planning to put in that blank. Last time was bad enough. “You’re a little intense,” I finish. For a moment, he stares at me. Then, ever so slowly, he smiles. “Don’t start holding out on me now. I’m an asshole.” My surprise must show, because he shrugs a shoulder. “I’ve never claimed otherwise.” I suspect this is as close as Adam Reynolds will ever come to apologizing for his behavior in that restaurant. “Blake thinks you’re not an asshole.” “Blake,” Mr. Reynolds says with a roll of his eyes, “is a ridiculously good kid. There’s a reason I’m a little protective of him. I’m always afraid people will take advantage.” I don’t say anything. A little protective is what he is? Despite my silence, he sighs and waves his hand. “Good point,” he mutters in response to the thing I didn’t say. “It hasn’t happened yet, and God knows if he were as naïve as I really feared, it would have by now. Of all the women he could have had, he did choose you.” I think this is intended as a compliment. “Still,” his dad continues. “I worry. Is everything okay with him?” I have the distinct impression that even though Blake has never said so, most of his problems lie with this man. Somehow. Some way. “This is a conversation you should have with Blake.” He puts his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Fuck.” He doesn’t move for a few moments. And then—of all things—he sniffles. Unconvincingly. “Mr. Reynolds, are you fake crying to try to get my sympathy?” The hand lowers. He glowers at me—obviously dry-eyed. “Fuck me,” he says. “First, call me Adam. Mr. Reynolds makes me sound like some bullshit old fart. Second, I don’t fucking cry. I especially don’t fake cry. Emotional manipulation is for morons who don’t have the strength of will to get people on their side with reason. I have a cold.” “Aw. Poor baby. You should get some rest.” I incline my head toward him, and then widen my eyes. “Oh, wait. I forgot. You can’t.” He shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “Yeah, yeah. My kid has good taste. I’m fucking things up for you. I hope it won’t be too much of a disturbance.” “You know.” I swallow. “I think Blake gave you the wrong impression about us.” “What, that he’s into you more than you’re into him? I got that from him.” I swallow. “That you need to be convinced? That he’s going to end up convincing you, no matter what you’re telling yourself right now? I let out a breath. “Exactly.” Adam points a finger at me. “That’s what I thought. My money’s on my boy. But hey, don’t tell me what’s going on. Who needs details? Surely not his own father. I’m not invasive.” “Right. Calling me in the middle of the night when Blake’s not around isn’t invasive at all.

How to stay positive in your life? Learn positivity You can characterize positive speculation as positive symbolism, positive self-talk, or general good faith, however, these are on the whole despite everything general, vague ideas.They are clear about objectives and they are certain that they will achieve them, at some point or another. Second, confident people search for the positive qualities in each issue or trouble. At the point when things turn out badly, as they frequently do, they state, "That is acceptable!" And then set about discovering something positive about the circumstance. At the point when we attempt to transform ourselves to improve things; we quite often center around our practices. We believe that in the event that we change what we are doing and pick a progressively positive conduct, we will see better outcomes. Fundamentally, this is valid however it truly streamlines the issue. Over and over again, we overlook our considerations and convictions about the things that we need to change when our musings massively affect how we act. Thinking emphatically is basic to effective living. For instance, on the off chance that you need to be increasingly emphatic and go to bat for your privileges, you should initially accept that you have those rights; that you are qualified for shield those rights and that you can impart your privileges in a powerful way. On the off chance that you do not have any of those musings or convictions, you are going to battle to be self-assured. On the off chance that you need trust in any everyday issue, you are going battle to make an accomplishment of that part of your life. 7 Important positive thoughts about life 1. How you start the morning establishes the pace for the remainder of the day. Have you at any point woken up late, froze, and afterward felt like no good thing happened the remainder of the day? This is likely on the grounds that you began the day with a negative feeling and a cynical view that conveyed into each other occasion you encountered. 2. Positive reasoning can add such a great amount to your life – both regarding quality and amount. At the point when you think positively you dispose of pressure and will in general carry on with a more beneficial life and settle on better decisions. In case you're normally a negative mastermind, there are ways you can change that reasoning and jump on the way to a life getting an updated perspective. 3. Note that you don't need to acknowledge your musings as realities. On the off chance that you are feeling terrible, you are probably going to see everything in a negative light yet you can challenge this. We as a whole experience the ill effects of what is alluded to as deduction blunders every now and then. It is significant that we challenge these negative considerations, pick increasingly positive and steady contemplation, and search out proof to help those new musings. 4. Permit yourself to encounter humor in even the darkest or most difficult circumstances. Advise yourself that this circumstance will presumably make for a decent story later and attempt to break a joke about it. 5. It's useful on the off chance that you can see toward the day's end what your considerations have been. Set aside the effort to record them. You'll see what turned out badly with your musings and have the option to improve them. A diary is one of the least difficult however most useful assets that you can use in your endeavors to be increasingly sure and positive. 6. When something turns out badly, cataclysmic reasoning can without much of a stretch dominate. This is the place you lose all viewpoints and believe that since one thing has turned out badly; everything is destroyed. 7. Thinking emphatically comes normal to certain individuals yet there are those. Can also Check: Things Which Is Important To Get Success.

But I’ve also thought a lot about how a person can be one thing and another thing, both at the same time. I’ve thought about how much I loved my children despite what I let happen to them, and how Richard, believe it or not, loved them too. I’ve thought about how he could hurt them and hurt me and also love us and laugh with us and help the kids with their schoolwork and coach their Little League games and give them thoughtful advice when they had disagreements with their friends. I’ve thought about how Richard would say he would change, and how much he wanted to change, and how he still wouldn’t change, at least not for long, and how despite all of this, none of what he said was ever a lie.

Everyone in this room has managed to grow old despite how easy it is to die. They all escaped their childhoods alive despite tuberculosis, polio, and whatever other horrible illnesses afflicted humanity when they were kids. They drove without seatbelts, in cars full of cigarette smoke. They survived literal wars. Terrible things have probably happened to every single person here in this room, and yet here they are.

Have you ever wondered why one person recovers from an illness while another person, despite taking the same treatment, does not? Have you ever asked yourself why intelligent people often seem less fortunate and unhappier? Perhaps it is because they think too much and place too much importance on causes rather than the One who causes all things. The answer is simple: in this life, if you try to do everything by yourself, you will fail and exhaust both your mind and your body. Simple example: try to breathe consciously; practice the task of breathing. In a few moments, you will struggle, your breath will stop, and you will start to suffocate. But why? Why did that happen to you? The answer is simple: because breathing is not your task. There are many things in this life that are not your responsibility, and when you try to handle them yourself, you will fail and end up making things worse.  Understand that all your problems and deprivations stem from trying to force things to happen instead of letting them unfold naturally. A skilled fisherman only prepares the bait and the fishing rod and chooses the right place and time. After casting his line, he immediately relaxes. This is because he knows his part of the task is done and the rest is up to Allah, as Allah said in the Quran: "And when you have decided, then rely upon Allah. Indeed, Allah loves those who rely [upon Him]" (Quran 3:159). But you, on the other hand, throw the bait and then jump into the water and try so hard to force the fish to eat your bait, and guess what? No matter how hard you try, you only end up scaring the fish away. In the end, you are exhausted with wet clothes returning home empty-handed. Now, instead of chasing after your goals (whether it's solving a problem or fulfilling a wish) and seeing them constantly elude you, try standing back, relaxing like the experienced fisherman, and leaving the matter to Allah to handle it divinely. If you succeed in this step, you will feel a sense of peace and relief, as if a heavy burden has been lifted off your shoulders.  Your practical mind will still try to interfere from time to time, attempting to impose its own solutions and thinking of strategies and causes, but resist this urge and do not intervene. You may also hear a voice in your head saying, "Who are you for Allah to solve your problem and fulfill your wish? You are a sinner and negligent, Allah will not help you." This is where the final and crucial step comes in to silence that voice which is: seeking forgiveness. As the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "Whoever continually seeks forgiveness, Allah will make for him a way out of every distress and a relief from every anxiety, and will provide for him from where he does not expect." And as God said in the Quran: "Seek forgiveness from your Lord. Indeed, He is ever a Perpetual Forgiver. He will send rain from the sky upon you in continuing showers and give you increase in wealth and children and provide for you gardens and provide for you rivers" (Quran 71:10-12).   The current feeling of peacefulness and relief you just felt after reading this short introduction stems from an Islamic concept called Tawakkul, which simply means reliance on Allah. In the upcoming chapters of this book, you will learn more about this Islamic concept in detail. After that, you will find it easy to let go and smoothly and effortlessly manifest what you want.

Despite 부산OP my success, everyone around me forced me to pursue a career in science. So, I took science in my 11th grade, hoping to excel in it. However, I didn’t go to any tuition classes, which resulted in me failing both the half-yearly and final exams. 부산오피 This was a significant setback for me, but due to my past academic records, I was somehow promoted to the 12th grade.In my 12th grade, I was determined to do better. However, things didn’t go as planned. I failed in both the half-yearly and pre-board exams, and my exam scores were only 6 out of 70. It was a frustrating experience, and I began to lose hope. But, I refused to give up. I started to manifest my success by visualizing my goals. I imagined myself scoring 98% and getting the first position in my class, and even having a trophy on my shelf. I did this every day, and it helped me to stay focused and motivated. When the board exams arrived, I was completely unprepared. But, something miraculous happened. I managed to score 98% by studying in the gap days between 부산오피 consecutive exams. I also got the first position in my class and the trophy I desired. It was an incredible achievement, and I still get goosebumps when I think about it. I am grateful to my Krishna Ji, my Khatu Ji, the Universe, and my parents for helping me achieve this success. It taught me the power of manifestation and hard work. My cat was saved with the Universe’s blessings and love. I am so happy and truly grateful to now share one of my Secret Success Stories here. First of all, I am so grateful to Rhonda Byrne mam, Neville Goddard, and everyone else who has all shared their Success Stories about The Secret. Thank you so very much to you all from the bottom of my full, kind, and lovable heart. I really want to say thank you to you all. You are all doing amazing, guys. Now I am going to share my Success Story. I have cats. They’re my favorite pets. One of my pets recently got sick. I don’t know what happened but I just visualized a time when my cat 부산스파 was cured and that it came over to me and wanted me to give him food. That was it! Our Universe is so kind and lovable. I just trusted the Universe and 부산스파 within 3 days, my cat completely recovered! And he really did come to me and asked me for food to eat, just as I had visualized Thank you, thank you, thank you! Really! Thank you to the Universe. Thank you so very much. Now, my cat is playing and is safe and healthy. I am really so grateful to you. By the way, I am going to share all of my Secret Success Stories here. I already said that I have married my desired person and I am really happy with my partner. My husband is so lovable, kind, and humble, and he loves me for who and what I am. I am going to share my Success Story of how I manifested my desired marriage with my desired person. I am really grateful to have my husband and the 부산OP Universe.

It’s a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, ‘Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He didn’t love me. He just couldn’t deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me.’ Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll – then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greetings cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.

But are there some things that happen in life to make other things, which once seemed unforgivable, forgivable? Does my surrogate father's grief and suffering make forgiveable what he did to Mrs. Thornton? Has what happened to my Thandi - dammit - has what happened to my Thandi not made my Uncle Zacchaeus's vices forgivable? Because I know how my Thandi's death must have hurt him so! How he must have wept! How it drove him to near madness! Did he not, in the mid-'80s, right after her death, begin to scribble anti-establishment tracts that cut the government to the quick? Incisive, precise pieces that were so unlike his former, literary, wispy self... And can Abednego ever forgive Black Jesus? As Dumo used to say, one can't just exist passively in the twenty-first century. One has to be, actively, an ethical citizen of our global village, seeing in others the mirror of what he sees in himself - humanity - and in himself what he presupposes to be in others - inhumanity. This was one of his sweetest sermons! The loftiest of his speeches, designed to elevate! And yet he, himself, despite admitting that our current oppressors, too, had been, also, once upon a time, victims of oppression under the fascist state of Rhodesia, from which they had learned well and whose lessons they were now applying full force in the jingoistic state of Zimbabwe, in spite of being able to realize all of this, he could not bring himself to recognize Black Jesus's humanity. 'There's nothing human about that man!' he exclaimed, tears streaming down his face. And I don't blame him! I don't blame him for being unable to transcend this, and yet whenever I look in the mirror and see this face of mine which is as black as a velvet night, with my kissable lips and my finely sloping cheekbones, I can't help but think what this, then, makes me.

to not let the hard things that happened to you win is heroic work, to drop the bitterness and still live with an open heart despite it all is a massive gift to the world

But old Grandma always used to say, “Back in time immemorial, things were different, the animals could talk to human beings and many magical things still happened.” He never lost the feeling he had in his chest when she spoke those words, as she did each time she told them stories; and he still felt it was true, despite all they had taught him in school—that long long ago things had been different, and human beings could understand what the animals said, and once the Gambler had trapped the storm clouds on his mountaintop.

You know the thing about Trusting Krishna, you slowly learn to accept things as it is, because then you look at everything as a third person, merely observing the pain, the happiness, the victory, the failure, your whole Life looks and seems like a dream and you know this is not your Home neither your Destination, you stay kind not out of expecting anything from anyone but because you start understanding the core of Life, that stands in the basic fabric of Love, you stop Hoping not out of Dismay but out of the acute understanding that Nothing that happens around is new or under your control and yet none of it means inaction, it just means you keep walking and adding to your soul's account sometimes actually balancing the score by doing what your soul has contracted to from the beginning of taking this shell of a body, you realise you are not this body and yet you are of this body and every thing happening around is Not Happening for you and yet happening around you, where you have a significant role to play, that in this beautiful cosmic fabric of an unfathomable universe you matter because you carry the light and the DNA of a Star, of a Sun, in essence of Him. And then you realise, that all along Mahadev was trying to tell you the exact same thing, in a different yet quite the same language, the Art of Life, where you Attach yourself without Attaching Yourself, the Dichotomy and Contrasts of Life, the Contradictory Path of Life, where Light and Dark Co-exist, much like the Life and Shadow, Death and New Beginnings and Everything that tells you Detachment is Nothing but Attachment without any expectation, that Life is Death every moment and yet Beautifully glorious in its Moments that teaches you how Human Life despite all the Pain and Loss, Melancholy and Struggles is a Lesson that is Never Void, that No Matter Your Dreams, Your Life will walk in the path that was Chosen for your Soul's progress, that despite nothing being under our Control, He has given us the Power to Pray, not to achieve something in particular but to surrender everything in essence, losing your soul and finding much more in Him, where Time Dilutes and Life Stands Still, after all Time is of Mahadev and Life is of Krishna. So then, Time and Life become your allies and no matter what comes, you simply observe because you know you have agreed to this, long before this perishable body took charge, because you know that Death, Fear and Gloom lost their control on you the moment you surrendered your Soul and Life to Him. Because Mahadev teaches you Vairāgya. And Krishna teaches you Karma. Both in Essence speak of Life lived in Submission, closely linked to the Simple Understanding that you are not this body and yet you are of this body, that you don't do anything and yet you do everything, that you are simply an observer and hence life and death, victory and failure, pleasure and pain, life and death are actually one, it is just our mind that tells us any different. And so, Pain Loses its grip when Faith walks in. You embrace your Darkness and wear your Crown simply in the understanding that even in Quantum Physics, the understanding of the Black Holes still holds the key, by dissecting Murphy's Law, by knowing Time as just a dimension and simply coming to the conclusion that all of this, pin-points at the Single Most Essential Truth, Life is beyond Time and HE is Beyond Time, Life, Destiny, Fate and that is where Prayers walk in. That is Where Prayers are Much More powerful than anything of this Universe or beyond. Because Prayers from your heart are a direct link to the One who created your heart and the Heart of this Universe, from the gravitational force to the time frequency of this tiny yet beautiful planet called earth, entangling the forces of Nature through an ocean of Cosmos and beyond.

The defining characteristic of love, it seems to me, is specificity. To be seen accurately, in all our freakish particularity, to be loved for and despite it. That such a thing ever happens is as close as we get to a miracle.