Don't Be Rigid Quotes

The night we met—I'm not like that guy." His jaw was rigid. "I know tha—" He placed a finger over my lips, his expression softening. "So I don't want you to feel pressured. Or overpowered. But I do, absolutely, want to kiss you right now. Badly.

Mencheres dragged her screaming from me only an hour after our binding!" Gregor said. "I don't give a rot if Mencheres yanked her off your throbbing, rigid cock," Bones snarled. "Go dream a little dream, you sod!

I started with a large rigid sample container (or “plastic box” to people who don’t work at NASA).

[Loosen] up your life enough to be ready for interruptions. Don't structure your days so rigidly that you lock out God from working with you in the middle of them.

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?

The fact is that camels are far more intelligent than dolphins. They are so much brighter that they soon realised that the most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendants not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships or being patronized rigid by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don't find out about it. So they long ago plumped for a lifestyle that, in return for a certain amount of porterage and being prodded with sticks, allowed them adequate food and grooming and the chance to spit in a human's eye and get away with it.

...for some of us, books are as important as anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid pieces of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet you or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. They are full of the things that you don't get in life...wonderful, lyrical language, for instance. And quality of attention: we may notice amazing details duringthe course of a day but we rarely let ourselves stop and really pay attention. An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.

You think you know yourself inside out when you live alone, but you don't, you believe you are a calm untroubled or at worst melancholic person, you do not realise how irritable you are, how any little thing, the wrong kind of touch or tone, a lack of speed in answering a question, a particular cast of expression will send you into apoplexy because you are unchill, because you have not learnt how to soften your borders, how to make room. You're selfish and rigid and absorbed, you're like an infant.

The stars drew light across the night sky in that little mountain village, and the silence and the cold made the darkness vanish away. It was - I don't know how to explain it - as if everything solid melted away into the ether, eliminating all individualtiy and absorbing us, rigid, into the immense darkness. Not a single cloud to lend perspective to the space blocked any portion of the starry sky.

Use your intuition. Picture how things happen, why they happen. Don’t stick rigidly to first impressions, and once you’ve read the rule book, throw it away. Better still, burn the bastard.

I like you,” he says. My body is rigid. “And I don’t mean as a friend.

Physically it's kind of lassitude, the apathy and tiredness that precedes the flu or some other illness, or death. My legs ache and feel heavy, my skin has become more sensitive to cold and to heat, to the hardness or rigidity of things. Nothing interests me, I feel uncomfortable being still but would feel even more uncomfortable if I moved. I don't know whether speaking is painful or just boring. I sit here, staring straight ahead, with no desires, no needs, hollow. I'm not even sad. I feel only passivity and indifference.

I used to think there were two kinds of Crayola artists: Ones who color inside the lines and ones who don’t stay within the rigid boundaries set by thick black perimeters that make up a cuddly koala. But it seems that inside and outside the lines is just the main basis for comparison. You also have those who color lightly inside and fill each space according to the chosen and appropriate shade. Then you have those who scribble and slap any color anywhere. And sometimes these people have purple turkeys and shit that drives me absofreakinglutely crazy because, seriously

It doesn't matter who you meet or when you meet them; there's pain and joy on each side of the ledger. So don't stick rigidly to one story about what your life means, because it's likely to be wrong. In fact, there are many ways of living this life.

As in the political sphere, the child is taught that he is free, a democrat, with a free will and a free mind, lives in a free country, makes his own decisions. At the same time he is a prisoner of the assumptions and dogmas of his time, which he does not question, because he has never been told they exist. By the time a young person has reached the age when he has to choose (we still take it for granted that a choice is inevitable) between the arts and the sciences, he often chooses the arts because he feels that here is humanity, freedom, choice. He does not know that he is already moulded by a system: he does not know that the choice itself is the result of a false dichotomy rooted in the heart of our culture. Those who do sense this, and who don't wish to subject themselves to further moulding, tend to leave, in a half-unconscious, instinctive attempt to find work where they won't be divided against themselves. With all our institutions, from the police force to academia, from medicine to politics, we give little attention to the people who leave—that process of elimination that goes on all the time and which excludes, very early, those likely to be original and reforming, leaving those attracted to a thing because that is what they are already like. A young policeman leaves the Force saying he doesn't like what he has to do. A young teacher leaves teaching, here idealism snubbed. This social mechanism goes almost unnoticed—yet it is as powerful as any in keeping our institutions rigid and oppressive.

The old sound was alcoholic. The tradition was finally broken. The music is sex and drugs and happy. And happy is the joke the music understands best. Ultra sonic sounds on records to cause frontal lobotomies. Hey, don't be afraid. You'd better take drugs and learn to love PLASTIC. All diffrent kinds of plastic- pliable, rigid, colored, colorful, nonattached plastic. - Lou Reed (1965-1968)

Aedion went rigid. "And what about our unquestioning loyalty? What have you done to earn that? What have you done to save our people since you've returned? Were you ever going to tell me about the blood oath, or was that just another of your many lies?" Aelin snarled with an animalistic intensity that reminded him she, too, had Fae blood in her veins. "Go have your temper tantrum somewhere else. Don't come back until you can act like a human being. Or half of one, at least." Aedion swore at her, a filthy, foul curse that he immediately regretted. Rowan lunged for him, knocking back his chair hard enough to flip it over, but Aelin threw out her hand. The prince stood down. That easily, she leashed the mighty, immortal warrior.

It was something I couldn't put my finger on or define clearly, but a whole mishmash of words and incidents, all rolling quickly and building, like a snowball down a hill, to gather strength and bulk to flatten me. It wasn't what they said, or even just the looks they exchanged when they asked me how school was that day and I just mumbled fine with my mouth full, glancing wistfully over at Scarlett's, where I was sure she was eating alone, in front of the TV, without having to answer to anyone. There had been a time, once, when my mother would have been the first I'd tell about Macon Faulkner, and what P.E. had become to me. But now I only saw her rigid neck, the tight, thin line of her lips as she sat across from me, reminding me to do my homework, no I couldn't go to Scarlett's it was a school night, don't forget to do the dishes and take the trash out. All she'd said to me for years. Only now they all seemed loaded with something else, something that fell between us on the table, blocking any further conversation.

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. They are full of all the things that you don't get in real life--wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. And quality of attention: we may notice amazing details during the course of a day but we rarely let ourselves stop and really pay attention. An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.

We don't think a sustainable society need be stagnant, boring, uniform, or rigid. It need not be, and probably could not be, centrally controlled or authoritarian. It could be a world that has the time, the resources, and the will to correct its mistakes, to innovate, to preserve the fertility of its planetary ecosystems. It could focus on mindfully increasing quality of life rather than on mindlessly expanding material consumption and the physical capital stock.

The Navy’s caste system has the reputation of being about as rigid as any in the world. The first thing most Navy officer do when they meet you is look at your hands to see whether or not you’re wearing a Naval Academy class ring. If you do, then you’re about of the club. If you don’t, then you’re an untouchable. I was the original untouchable. The only things I wore on my knuckles were scars.

Technically defined, splitting is the rigid separation of positive and negative thoughts and feelings about oneself and others; that is, the inability to synthesize these feelings.

Rigid people are the most dangerous people. Because they don't know how to adapt, they become tethered to the one narrative they have created in their minds. They become unable to pivot so when life delivers a blow, it's almost impossible for them to recover.

But why give a man something it's so hard to earn? In that respect women are really thick. They're the daughters of rigidity. They need a man to feel secure but they don't realize that the one thing they should be afraid of is men. They don't know how to run their lives. They have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of someone else. Whores are the worst, patron, believe me. They throw their lives away working for some pimp, smile when he beats them, feel proud when he's well dressed, with his gold teeth and rings on his fingers, and when he goes off and takes up with a woman half their age they forgive him everything because 'he's a man.

People like rigid rules and prohibitions, you know. They make them for themselves and live in fear that, if they don't uphold the restrictions, then things will go back to the way they were -the dark ages,chaos.

There was no room for dust devils in the laws of physics, as least in the rigid form in which they were usually taught. There is a kind of unspoken collusion going on in mainstream science education: you get your competent but bored, insecure and hence stodgy teacher talking to an audience divided between engineering students, who are going to be responsible for making bridges that won’t fall down or airplanes that won’t suddenly plunge vertically into the ground at six hundred miles an hour, and who by definition get sweaty palms and vindictive attitudes when their teacher suddenly veers off track and begins raving about wild and completely nonintuitive phenomena; and physics students, who derive much of their self-esteem from knowing that they are smarter and morally purer than the engineering students, and who by definition don’t want to hear about anything that makes no fucking sense. This collusion results in the professor saying: (something along the lines of) dust is heavier than air, therefore it falls until it hits the ground. That’s all there is to know about dust. The engineers love it because they like their issues dead and crucified like butterflies under glass. The physicists love it because they want to think they understand everything. No one asks difficult questions. And outside the windows, the dust devils continue to gambol across the campus.

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know. There's not a mechanic or scientist or technician alive who hasn't suffered from that one so much that he's not instinctively on guard. That's the main reason why so much scientific and mechanical information sounds so dull and so cautious. If you get careless or go romanticizing scientific information, give it a flourish here and there, Nature will soon make a complete fool out of you. It does it often enough anyway even when you don't give it opportunities. One must be extremely careful and rigidly logical when dealing with Nature: one logical slip and an entire scientific edifice comes tumbling down. One false deduction about the machine and you can get hung up indefinitely.

Society is rigid. Everyone knows everyone else in their world. Everyone has their place in the scheme of things. If you don't belong to a family, a tribe, a village, a guild, whatever, you don't exist then, either. And you can't just pitch up somewhere without mutual acquaintances, recommendations, or letters of introduction. Life on the fringes of society, any society in any time, is tough.

The stronger we are relative to others, the less willing we generally are to change. We see strength as an immediate advantage that we don’t want to compromise. However, it’s not strength that survives, but adaptability. Strength becomes rigidity.

Imagine a peaceful river running through the countryside. That’s your river of well-being. Whenever you’re in the water, peacefully floating along in your canoe, you feel like you’re generally in a good relationship with the world around you. You have a clear understanding of yourself, other people, and your life. You can be flexible and adjust when situations change. You’re stable and at peace. Sometimes, though, as you float along, you veer too close to one of the river’s two banks. This causes different problems, depending on which bank you approach. One bank represents chaos, where you feel out of control. Instead of floating in the peaceful river, you are caught up in the pull of tumultuous rapids, and confusion and turmoil rule the day. You need to move away from the bank of chaos and get back into the gentle flow of the river. But don’t go too far, because the other bank presents its own dangers. It’s the bank of rigidity, which is the opposite of chaos. As opposed to being out of control, rigidity is when you are imposing control on everything and everyone around you. You become completely unwilling to adapt, compromise, or negotiate. Near the bank of rigidity, the water smells stagnant, and reeds and tree branches prevent your canoe from flowing in the river of well-being. So one extreme is chaos, where there’s a total lack of control. The other extreme is rigidity, where there’s too much control, leading to a lack of flexibility and adaptability. We all move back and forth between these two banks as we go through our days—especially as we’re trying to survive parenting. When we’re closest to the banks of chaos or rigidity, we’re farthest from mental and emotional health. The longer we can avoid either bank, the more time we spend enjoying the river of well-being. Much of our lives as adults can be seen as moving along these paths—sometimes in the harmony of the flow of well-being, but sometimes in chaos, in rigidity, or zigzagging back and forth between the two. Harmony emerges from integration. Chaos and rigidity arise when integration is blocked.

Anna?" "Yeah?" He pauses. "Never mind." "What?" "Nothing." But his tone is definitely not nothing. I turn to him, and his eyes are closed. His skin is pale and tired. "What?" I ask again,sitting up. St. Clair opens his eyes, noticing I've moved. He struggles,trying to sit up, too, and I help him. When I pull away, he clutches my hand to stop me. "I like you," he says. My body is rigid. "And I don't mean as a friend." It feels like I'm swallowing my tongue. "Uh. Um. What about-?" I pull my hand away from his. The weight of her name hangs heavy and unspoken. "It's not right.It hasn't been right, not since I met you." His eyes close again,and his body sways. He's drunk. He's just drunk. Calm down,Anna. He's drunk, and he's going through a crisis. There is NO WAY he knows what he's talking about right now. So what do I do? Oh my God, what am I supposed to do? "Do you like me?" St. Clair asks. And he looks at me with those big brown eyes-which,okay,are a bit red from the drinking and maybe from some crying-and my heart breaks. Yes,St. Clair.I like you. But I can't say it out loud, because he's my friend. And friends don't let other friends make drunken declarations and expect them to act upon them the next day. Then again...it's St. Clair. Beautiful, perfect,wonderful- And great.That's just great. He threw up on me.

Poetic Terrorism WEIRD DANCING IN ALL-NIGHT computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. ... Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc. Go naked for a sign. Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty. Graffiti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public monuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, Xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement... The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by PT ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive breakthrough, dada-esque angst--no matter whether the PT is aimed at one person or many, no matter whether it is "signed" or anonymous, if it does not change someone's life (aside from the artist) it fails. PT is an act in a Theater of Cruelty which has no stage, no rows of seats, no tickets & no walls. In order to work at all, PT must categorically be divorced from all conventional structures for art consumption (galleries, publications, media). Even the guerilla Situationist tactics of street theater are perhaps too well known & expected now. An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life--may be the ultimate PT. The PTerrorist behaves like a confidence-trickster whose aim is not money but CHANGE. Don't do PT for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives--but don't be spontaneous unless the PT Muse has possessed you. Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best PT is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art.

Entrepreneurs don’t usually fail from circumstance, they fail from what I call entrepreneurial rigidity—a fixed mindset and unwillingness to change the business model.

Look around! Everything's rigid, hard, dark, what lies beneath it all? Something we don't understand. God's gone. Everything's gone.

In that respect women are really thick. They're the daughters of rigidity. They need a man to feel secure but they don't realize that the one thing they should be afraid of is men. They don't know how to run their lives. They have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of someone else.

Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. They are full of all the things that you don’t get in real life—wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. And quality of attention: we may notice amazing details during the course of a day but we rarely let ourselves stop and really pay attention. An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean. Aren’t you?

A pastor, a politician, and a brick walk into a bar, and the bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve rigid nonthinkers here.” So the brick and the pastor look at the politician, who turns around and leaves.


Often people don't even realize they can question their family relationships or the role they played within the familial structure. Bradshaw explains how, as a social system, all families need the structure that roles provide. In functional families, roles are flexible; they shift in understandable and somewhat predictable ways according to circumstances, external demands, and family members' needs. In dysfunctional families, roles tend to be rigid and unpredictable. Still, they often go unchallenged or unexamined. Six

cannot abide a harmless, necessary cat.” If they try to pretend, out of politeness or any reason, it shows, because they don’t understand how to treat cats—and cat protocol is more rigid than that of diplomacy.

But liking cats is hard to fake to a cat person. There are cat people and there are others, more than a majority probably, who “cannot abide a harmless, necessary cat.” If they try to pretend, out of politeness or any reason, it shows, because they don’t understand how to treat cats—and cat protocol is more rigid than that of diplomacy.

The universe is so complete in itself that anything is possible here. Even horses can fly in some realm. Don’t waste your energy in defending and holding onto your beliefs and opinions. Let that energy enrich your experiences instead.

Who else knows about this besides us?” “Just Patti...” “Okay. That should be okay. Is that it?” “And Kaidan,” I added. My eyes darted everywhere but his face. I was in for it. “Who?” There was an edge to his voice. His eyes searched mine. I didn't want to tell him a single thing about Kaidan. I knew how it would sound. I took my hands from his, pulling the braid over my shoulder to mess with it. “He's my friend. He's the one who drove me here to see you.” “You told some human kid?” I coughed, buying time. “He's Neph, too.” Jonathan LaGray went rigid and his ruddy cheeks paled. I squirmed as his eyes bored into mine. “Which one's his father?” he asked through clenched teeth. “Richard Rowe. I guess you'd know him as Pharzuph.” Oh, boy. He wasn't pale anymore. “You came across the country—” “Shhh!” I warned him as people looked over. He lowered his voice to a shouted whisper. “-with the son of the Duke of Lust? Son of a—” He pounded a fist down on the table and a guard stepped toward us. I waved and nodded at the man, trying to reassure him it was fine, and my father pulled his balled hands down into his lap. After a moment the guard walked back to the wall and looked away. “Don't worry!” I whispered. “I told you; we're just friends.” He closed his eyes and massaged his forehead with his fingers to calm his temper. “You tell him that his father is never to know about you or whatever Sister Ruth tells you. Understand?” “He would never tell his father anything. But, um...” I swallowed. “Unfortunately, Pharzuph already knows about me.” His eyes flashed red again and it nearly stopped my heart. I pressed my back into the seat, causing it to wobble. “Aren't you worried people will see your eyes when you do that?” I asked, sure that my own eyes were gigantic at that moment. “Humans can't see it. And don't try to change the subject. I know Pharzuph,” he growled. “He's a real bastard on earth and in hell. He'd do anything to gain favour.” “Kaidan thinks he'll forget about me if I lie low.” “Maybe momentarily, while he's busy or distracted with his work, but you'll cross his mind again someday.

Shirt off.” Neil stared at her. “Why?” “I can’t check track marks through cotton, Neil.” “I don’t do drugs.” “Good on you,” Abby said. “Keep it that way. Now take it off.” […] “I want to make this as painless as possible, but I can’t help you if you can’t help me. Tell me why you won’t take off your shirt.” Neil looked for a delicate way to say it. The best he managed was, “I’m not okay.” She put a finger to his chin and turned his face back toward her. “Neil, I work for the Foxes. None of you are okay. Chances are I’ve seen a lot worse than whatever it is you’re trying to hide from me.” Neil’s smile was humorless. “I hope not. “Trust me,” Abby said. “I’m not going to judge you. I’m here to help, remember? I’m your nurse now. That door is closed, and it comes with a lock. What happens in here stays in here.” […] “You can’t ask me about them,” he said at last. “I won’t talk to you about it. Okay?” “Okay,” Abby agreed easily. “But know that when you want to, I’m here, and so is Betsy.” Neil wasn’t going to tell that psychiatrist a thing, but he nodded. Abby dropped her hand and Neil pulled his shirt over his head before he could lose his nerve. Abby thought she was ready. Neil knew she wouldn’t be, and he was right. Her mouth parted on a silent breath and her expression went blank. She wasn’t fast enough to hide her flinch, and Neil saw her shoulders go rigid with tension. He stared at her face as she stared at him, watching her gaze sweep over the brutal marks of a hideous childhood. It started at the base of his throat, a looping scar curving down over his collarbone. A pucker with jagged edges was a finger-width away, courtesy of a bullet that hit him right on the edge of his Kevlar vest. A shapeless patch of pale skin from his left shoulder to his navel marked where he’d jumped out of a moving car and torn himself raw on the asphalt. Faded scars crisscrossed here and there from his life on the run, either from stupid accidents, desperate escapes, or conflicts with local lowlifes. Along his abdomen were larger overlapping lines from confrontations with his father’s people while on the run. His father wasn’t called the butcher for nothing; his weapon of choice was a cleaver. All of his men were well-versed in knife-fighting, and more than one of them had tried to stick Neil like a pig. And there on his right shoulder was the perfect outline of half a hot iron. Neil didn’t remember what he’s said or done to irritate his father so much.

I recognized my sisters before they saw me. They approached, smoothing their fine dresses, their brows rising at the gilded carriage. That cracking, caved-in feeling in my chest worsened. Tamlin had said he’d taken care of my family, but this … Nesta spoke first, curtsying low. Elain followed suit. “Welcome to our home,” Nesta said a bit flatly, her eyes on the ground. “Lady …” I let out a stark laugh. “Nesta,” I said, and she went rigid. I laughed again. “Nesta, don’t you recognize your own sister?” Elain gasped. “Feyre?

Remember the one who wanted to know where you learned to handle so casually a technical term like “angle of repose”? I suppose you replied, “By living with an engineer.” But you were too alert to the figurative possibilities of words not to see the phrase as descriptive of human as well as detrital rest. As you said, it was too good for mere dirt; you tried to apply it to your own wandering and uneasy life. It is the angle I am aiming for myself, and I don’t mean the rigid angle at which I rest in this chair. I wonder if you ever reached it. There was a time up there in Idaho when everything was wrong; your husband’s career, your marriage, your sense of yourself, your confidence, all came unglued together. Did you come down out of that into some restful 30° angle and live happily ever after?

that people don’t speak in theories, that the theories they employ change, flexibly, and of necessity, from moment to moment in conversation, that the notion of limiting conversation to a rigid rule of theoretical constancy is an absurd denial of what conversation is.

Don't cling to your self-concept purely because your will demands it. Demand that your environment aligns as much as possible and change what you must about yourself when the outer world can’t be changed. Mental health is about mental fluidity, mental illness stems in rigidity.

How many times do we hear: 'Come on, you Christians, be a little bit more normal, like other people, be reasonable!' This is real snake charmer's talk: 'Come on, just be like this, okay? A little bit more normal, don't be so rigid ...' But behind it is this: 'Don't come here with your stories, that God became man!' The Incarnation of the Word, that is the scandal behind all of this! We can do all the social work we want, and they will say: 'How great the Church is, it does such good social work." But if we say that we are doing it because those people are the flesh of Christ, then comes the scandal. And that is the truth, that is the revelation of Jesus: that presence of Jesus incarnate.

He closed his eyes and grew rigid beneath me. “Don’t give me that look.” “What look? Your eyes are closed, you can’t see me.” “I feel the look. It’s the Fiona death stare of cruel disappointment.” “I have a cruel disappointed look?” “Yes. It’s like getting a spanking, and not the good kind.

At the first light of the dawn the loner knight asked: "Do you happen to know- the abode of The Beloved?" The skies went silent, save their mournful clouds, save their falling stars. The pilgrim gave up his glowing twig- to the gloom of the sands- and replied: “Don’t you see that poplar tree? Well, right before the tree, There is a lane that you’ll reckon, I deem. For it is greener than a heavenly dream, For it is generously shaded- with the deep blue’s of love. Well, if you See! So walk down that lane, You’ll arrive to the garden of sense; Turn to the direction of the loner lake; Listen to the genial hymn of leaves; Watch the eternal fountain- that flows from the spring of ancient myths- till you fade away- In a plain fear. When a rigid noise- Clatters into the fluid intimacy of the space, you'll find a child- on the top of a tree- next to the nest of owls- in hope of a golden egg. Well, if you See. You may be sure: The Child will show you the way. Well, If you just ask about- The Abode of The Beloved.

Unschooling, at its core, vehemently rejects coercion, standardization, and the rigid grip of centralized systems. It stems from a profound understanding that education is, at its heart, a deeply personal journey—a journey undertaken by individuals who resist being confined to predetermined molds.

We can have everything we want as long as what we want is a life spent searching for exhausting work that doesn't pay enough, shopping for things we don't need and sticking to a set of social and sexual rules that turn out, once you plough through the layers of trash and adverts, to be as rigid as ever.

Remember my experiments with the RTG and having a hot bath? Same principle, but I came up with an improvement: submerge the RTG. No heat will be wasted that way. I started with a large rigid sample container (or “plastic box” to people who don’t work at NASA). I ran a tube through the open top and down the inside wall. Then I coiled it in the bottom to make a spiral. I glued it in place like that and sealed the end. Using my smallest drill bit, I put dozens of little holes in the coil. The idea is for the freezing return air from the regulator to pass through the water as a bunch of little bubbles. The increased surface area will get the heat into the air better. Then I got a medium flexible sample container (“Ziploc bag”) and tried to seal the RTG in it. But the RTG has an irregular shape, and I couldn’t get all the air out of the bag. I can’t allow any air in there.

Lighten up" (don't) turn prayer into a work but listen for God and let oneself be surprised. Overly rigid adherence to a spiritual direction built around formal liturgical adherence and highly structured prayer time can work against the sanctification of the ordinary. Christ is effectively imprisoned, to be visited at stated times and otherwise ignored".

derelict. my voice cracked and yolk poured out. wind chimes rigid, no breeze, no song. my wings found hidden in your suitcase. pleas for help mistaken for a swan song. i'm stuffing pages from my journal down my throat as kindling. hoping the smoke will get the taste of you out of my mouth. he looks at me from across the room and all i want is to push him against the wall. ravage. ravage. carnage has never been more vogue. is it still art if it doesn't bring you to your knees? lover, let me prey at your altar. let me bare my fangs in praise. don't i look so pretty in a funeral shroud? i keep time with the click of my creaking bones. dance with me under the milky translucence of a world suffocating. how did you find me? i buried myself beneath the cicadas. is a girl trapped in glass still a prize? let me get under your skin. i want to know what your fears taste like. i want to consume.

I like you," he says. My body is rigid. "And I don't mean as a friend.

Traditions are part of life, but they must evolve with time, if they don't, they become poison.

Don't you see? Why do you have to be so rigid? Relax, let your guard down. You're all tensed up so you always expect the worst. Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.

They don’t understand that religion and science are there to serve different purposes. We need science to understand how everything on this planet and beyond works – us, nature, everything we see around us. That’s fact – no one with a working brain can question that. But we also need religion. Not for ridiculous counter-theories about things that science can prove. We need it for something else, to fill a different kind of need. The need for meaning. It’s a basic need we have, as humans. And it’s a need that’s beyond the realm of science. Your scientists don’t understand that it’s a need they can’t fulfill no matter how many Hadron colliders and Hubble telescopes they build- and your preachers don’[t understand that their job is to help you discover a personal, inner sense of meaning and not behave like a bunch of zealots intent on converting the rest of the planet to their rigid, literalist view of how everyone should live their lives.

Maybe, for whatever reason, you just don’t want to date right now,” I say, “and that’s fine. People feel that way all the time. But if it’s something else—if you’re afraid you’re too rigid, or whatever your exes might’ve thought about you—none of that’s true. Maybe every day with you would be more or less the same, but so what? That actually sounds kind of great. “And maybe I’m misreading all of this, but I don’t think I am, because I’ve never met anyone so much like me. And—if any part of all this is that you think, in the end, I’ll want a golden retriever instead of a mean little cat, you’re wrong.” “Everyone wants a golden retriever,” he says in a low voice. As ridiculous a statement as it is, he looks serious, concerned. I shake my head. “I don’t.

There is no love in Puritanism. It turns out that these monsters that won't allow any deviation from that rigid orthodoxy are obsessed with frigging, fucking, wanking, twatty sex. Don't do it, they screamed, while that's exactly what they did. My mother's cunt was all bent out of shape to prove it...All those Puritan preachers were vindictive, vengeful men spouting hateful thoughts and threats, and it's disheartening that they're still taught in the schools with reverence. They were shits. And they spouted shit. And a goodly portion of the world is still spouting shit.

Physically I felt almost nothing, just a mild discomfort. I let myself become rigid and silent, waiting for Rossa to notice my rigidity and stop what he was doing, but he didn’t. I considered asking him to stop, but the idea that he might ignore me felt more serious than the situation needed to be. Don’t get yourself into a big legal thing, I thought. I lay there and let him continue.

It's hard to trust your child to find his or her own path, especially when we're told everyday by professionals that children must fit into rigid boxes. We all want to give our kids the best opportunities we can, which is why it feels like such a disservice if we don't push them in the "right" direction. Celebrating you children's passions rather than redirecting them, especially when those passions don't line up neatly with a checklist for future success, can feel like jumping off a cliff. It certainly did for me. But that leap of faith is necessary if your kids are going to fly.

Most people reflect on their own thoughts: Is this true? Am I overreacting? I should check this out. But people with PDs don’t seem to have the ability to reflect on their own thoughts or behavior. Like someone who is drunk, their thinking is continually “under the influence” of their cognitive distortions. They can send, but not receive, new information. Because they are unaware of their cognitive distortions, these distortions can underlie serious misbehavior, including physical abuse, emotional abuse, and even legal abuse (using the legal system to attack a target and to promote false or unnecessary litigation). Information that does not fit the distortion is rigidly unconsciously blocked as too threatening and confusing. Instead, people with PDs defend their distortions in an effort to protect themselves. Blamers repeatedly react to “false alarms” caused by all-or-nothing thinking, jumping to conclusions, and so forth. They truly believe that they are in danger, and they feel powerless and out of control inside.

Something creaked beneath me! A soft step on rotting wood! I jumped startled, scared, and turned, expecting to see-God knows what! Then I sighed, for it was only Chris standing in the gloom, silently staring at me. Why? Did I look prettier than usual? Was it the moonlight, shining through my airy clothes? All random doubts were cleared when he said in a voice gritty and low, "You look beautiful sitting there like that." He cleared the frog in his throat. "The moonlight is etching you with silver-blue, and I can see the shape of your body through your clothes." Then, bewilderingly, he seized me by the shoulders, digging in his fingers, hard! They hurt. "Damn you, Cathy! You kissed that man! He could have awakened and seen you, and demanded to know who you were! And not thought you only a part of his dream!" Scary the way he acted, the fright I felt for no reason at all. "How do you know what I did? You weren't there; you were sick that night." He shook me, glaring his eyes, and again I thought he seemed a stranger. "He saw you, Cathy-he wasn't soundly asleep!" "He saw me?" I cried, disbelieving. It wasn't possible . . . wasn't! "Yes!" he yelled. This was Chris, who was usually in such control of his emotions. "He thought you a part of his dream! But don't you know Momma can guess who it was, just by putting two and two together-just as I have? Damn you and your romantic notions! Now they're on to us! They won't leave money casually about as they did before. He's counting, she's counting, and we don't have enough-not yet!" He yanked me down from the widow sill! He appeared wild and furious enough to slap my face-and not once in all our lives had he ever struck me, though I'd given him reason to when I was younger. But he shook me until my eyes rolled, until I was dizzy and crying out: "Stop! Momma knows we can't pass through a looked door!" This wasn't Chris . . . this was someone I'd never seen before . . . primitive, savage. He yelled out something like, "You're mine, Cathy! Mine! You'll always be mine! No matter who comes into your future, you'll always belong to me! I'll make you mine . . . tonight . . . now!" I didn't believe it, not Chris! And I did not fully understand what he had in mind, nor, if I am to give him credit, do I think he really meant what he said, but passion has a way of taking over. We fell to the floor, both of us. I tried to fight him off. We wrestled, turning over and over, writhing, silent, a frantic strug- gle of his strength against mine. It wasn't much of a battle. I had the strong dancer's legs; he had the biceps, the greater weight and height . . . and he had much more determination than i to use something hot, swollen and demanding, so much it stile reasoning and sanity from him. And I loved him. I wanted what he wanted-if he wanted it that much, right and wrong. Somehow we ended up on that old mattress-that filthy, smelly, stained mattress that must have known lovers long before this night. And that is where he took me, and forced in that swollen, rigid male sex part of him that had to be satisfied. It drove into my tight and resisting flesh which tore and bled. Now we had done what we both swore we'd never do.

Prejudiced people, Allport wrote in his landmark work, The Nature of Prejudice, “seem afraid to say ‘I don’t know.’ ” They have an “urge for quick and definite answers,” “cling to past solutions,” and have a preference for “order, but especially social order.” Such people “adopt concrete, if rigid, modes of thinking,” “cannot tolerate ambiguity” when making plans, “latch on to what is familiar, safe, simple, definite,” and fail “to see all relevant sides to [a] problem.

Relinquish your attachment to the outcome. This means giving up your rigid attachment to a specific result and living in the wisdom of uncertainty. It means enjoying every moment in the journey of your life, even if you don’t know the outcome.

Now don't, please, be quite so single-minded, self-involved, or assume the world is wrong and you are right. Whoever thinks that he alone possesses intelligence, the gift of eloquence, he and no one else, and character too . . . such men, I tell you, spread them open--you will find them empty. No, it's no disgrace for a man, even a wise man, to learn many things and not to be too rigid. You've seen trees by a raging winter torrent, how many sway with the flood and salvage every twig, but not the stubborn--they're ripped out, roots and all. Bend or break. The same when a man is sailing: haul your sheets too taut, never give an inch, you'll capsize, and go the rest of the voyage keep up and the rowing-benches under. Oh give way. Relax your anger--change! I'm young, I know, but let me offer this: it would be best by far, I admit, if a man were born infallible, right by nature. If not--and things don't often go that way, it's best to learn from those with good advice.

don’t think you can have any society without self-discipline, individual responsibility, some kind of property that you can call your own, some basis for identity, some system of moral values. Only emotional people cry, “Down with the middle classes,” or any other class. I think that we can design a better society, and we still have about the best society that’s around. The fact that we are discontented with its imperfections is not a bad thing in itself, but it is no justification to destroy it. And if we are to have a society in the future which is strong and healthy and stable, it will be based to a very considerable extent on the virtues that you’re talking about. But it cannot be based upon a rigid loyalty to structures.

My confidence wavered like a thin tree in a storm and then completely collapsed. I sucked in a breath and it got stuck in my throat. “You don’t want me.” Cam was in front of me within a second, so fast I hadn’t even seen him move. His hands were planted on either side of my head and he leaned down, his face inches from mine. Tension rolled off his body in waves. Air fled my lungs as my body went rigid.   “Fuck, Avery. You think I don’t want you?” His voice came out low, almost a growl. “There’s not a single part of you that I don’t want, you understand? I want to be on you and inside of you. I want you against the wall, on the couch, in your bed, in my bed, and every fucking place I can possibly think of, and trust me, I have a vast imagination when it comes to these kinds of things. Don’t ever doubt that I want you. That is not what this is about.” My eyes widened as confusion swirled through me, muddling my thoughts further, which at this point, seemed impossible. He leaned in, resting his forehead against mine. The contact sent my pulse pounding. “But not like this— never like this. You’re drunk, Avery, and when we get together— because we will get together, you’re going to be fully aware of everything that I do to you.” It took a few moments, but what he said finally sunk in through the liquor haze and confusion and made sense. Closing my eyes, I turned my head to the side, feeling the way his skin slid alongside mine. “You’re a good guy, Cam.

I wanted to be a sex goddess. And you can laugh all you want to. The joke is on me, whether you laugh or not. I wanted to be one -- one of them. They used to laugh at Marilyn when she said she didn't want to be a sex-goddess, she wanted to be a human being. And now they laugh at me when I say, "I don't want to be a human being; I want to be a sex-goddess." That shows you right there that something has changed, doesn't it? Rita, Ava, Lana, Marlene, Marilyn -- I wanted to be one of them. I remember the morning my friend came in and told us that Marilyn had died. And all the boys were stunned, rigid, literally, as they realized what had left us. I mean, if the world couldn't support Marilyn Monroe, then wasn't something desperately wrong? And we spent the rest of the goddamned sixties finding out what it was. We were all living together, me and these three gay boys that adopted me when I ran away, in this loft on East Fifth Street, before it became dropout heaven -- before anyone ever said "dropout" -- way back when "commune" was still a verb? We were all -- old-movie buffs, sex-mad -- you know, the early sixties. And then my friend, this sweet little queen, he came in and he passed out tranquilizers to everyone, and told us all to sit down, and we thought he was just going to tell us there was a Mae West double feature on somewhere -- and he said -- he said -- "Marilyn Monroe died last" -- and all the boys were stunned -- but I -- I felt something sudden and cold in my solar plexus, and I knew then what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be the next one. I wanted to be the next one to stand radiant and perfected before the race of man, to shed the luminosity of my beloved countenance over the struggles and aspirations of my pitiful subjects. I wanted to give meaning to my own time, to be the unattainable luring love that drives men on, the angle of light, the golden flower, the best of the universe made womankind, the living sacrifice, the end! Shit!

Give up all the wild ideas that buzz round you like wasps. Or like bluebottles. […] Find a nice, ordinary girl, not too attractive or you’ll be jealous all the time, not too bright or you’ll be anxious all the time, not too rich or you’ll have nothing to strive for, not too original or she’ll upset people. There are plenty of them, and all of them are available to a young postman like you. Those are the terms offered.” The terrier had come to a sudden standstill, as if he had been a white gun dog on one of the estates. “You don’t live like that,” said Robin from the bed. “I don’t live at all,” replied Rosetta. “Haven’t you realized?” “Perhaps I have.” Now Robin was staring at her: momentarily still that muggy evening; for seconds rigid as the dog. Rosetta smiled. “I am the person every postman meets in the end.” “I’m a provisional postman only. I told you that clearly,” remarked Robin, starting once more to relax. “Do what I tell you. What else is there for you? Only wasps and bluebottles.

had any doubt over. People say that I should move on. I don’t see why.” Christopher’s entire body was rigid. “Perhaps it’s time to let her go. It’s been thirteen years now, Brother. You’re not old. You’ve still got a life to live.” “Maybe, but maybe I just don’t want

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.

That’s not true. You can be and do whatever your heart desires,” Ruvan says, soft and firm. “Even the vampir who can see the future in someone’s blood will always say that the choice still lies in the beating heart of the person.” I glance away. “I wish you could look into my future. The reassurance would be easier.” “I don’t need to taste your blood to see your future.” His thumb begins to caress mine. “I don’t need magic to see a woman in the process of learning what she wants. I see a woman whose world is so much more than she thought it was, and that threatens her rigid structure.

I once read a theory about ‘positive thinking’ that seems to be true or, at least, made a sufficient impression on me to remember it. I have always been distrustful of positive thinking, believing it to be as fixed and unyielding as negative thinking. Yet it is the advice most often offered to depressives. That it does not work seems not to occur to those who offer it up like some benevolent panacea. Perhaps it works for them or perhaps they are a product of some positive thinking gene pool. Who knows? Anywhere, here is the theory that helped me. I hope that it will help you too. Imagine you are driving a car, and you are heading straight for a brick wall. If you stay in habitual or rigid thinking (the kind of thinking that says, ‘this is the way I always do things’) and do not change the direction in the way you are headed, you will drive you car into the brick wall. Now imagine you are driving that same car towards that same brick wall. Now use positive thinking to imagine that wall is, in fact, a tunnel. It is not, of course, you simply hope or wish that it is a tunnel but it is the same old, intractable brick. You still drive your car into the wall. You are in the same car, facing the same wall except that you use creative or constructive thinking. You see the wall as an obstacle set dead ahead and see that it is solid and immoveable. You use your thinking to change direction and drive your car around it. Understanding that our thinking is not always helpful sounds so obvious and simple. So does changing our thinking, yet both are formidably difficult to do, perhaps because, most of the time, we never question it. We go right ahead and do what we have always done, in the same way we have always done it. We crash into relationships, mess up jobs, ruin friendships and all because we believe that our way is the right way. There is a saying: ‘I’d rather be right than happy.’ And here is another: ‘My way or no way.’ I see that wall as a symbol for an obstacle (or obstacles, there may be many) in our emotional make-up. If we go on behaving in the same way, we will crash. If we pretend that those obstacles in our character don’t exist, or are something else entirely, we will still crash. But if we acknowledge them and behave in a different way, we will come to a better and safer place. Or at least we will, until we meet the next obstacle.

As I walk behind her down the halls, it happens. I shrink inch by inch until I am no longer an adult, but a baby toddling along in a comically oversized business suit. I have been pretending to be a grown-up this whole time. My briefcase is full of milk: I have been found out. 'This, then, is home. What is home? Is it a sort of lap of location, that exists only if certain conditions are in place? Is it the intersection of rigidity and comfort--a junction of familiartiy that you curl into? Is it a feeling? I don't know, but I'm being hugged hard against it, and I can't tell when I'll be let go.

I want to be softened, not stiff. Pliable, not rigid. I don't want anyone to look at my life and think it is perfect or, worse, that I want them to think it is perfect. Instead, I want anything that is unapproachable or harsh in me to be scrubbed away by the salt and the sand, revealing the imperfections, the brokenness, the cracks. Not because I am proud of those parts, but because I know it is real. Like the Skin Horse or the Velveteen Rabbit, I am shabby because I live life, because I am loved, and because it is all work - living and loving and being loved, being transformed, being worn and faded

At their worst, alpha geeks can’t let anyone else get any glory without claiming some of it for themselves. They are the origin of any good ideas but had no part in creating the bad ideas, except that he knew they would fail. The alpha geek believes that every developer should know exactly what she knows, and if you don’t know something, she will gleefully point out your ignorance. The alpha geek can be very rigid about how things should be done and closed off to new ideas that he didn’t come up with. Alpha geeks get very threatened when people complain about systems they built or criticize their past technical decisions.

The thing to do, when you don’t know, is not to bluff and not to freeze, but to learn. The way you learn is by experiment—or, as Buckminster Fuller put it, by trial and error, error, error. In a world of complex systems, it is not appropriate to charge forward with rigid, undeviating directives. “Stay the course” is only a good idea if you’re sure you’re on course. Pretending you’re in control even when you aren’t is a recipe not only for mistakes, but for not learning from mistakes. What’s appropriate when you’re learning is small steps, constant monitoring, and a willingness to change course as you find out more about where it’s leading.

When the child asks: "Why have the leaves turned red?" or "Why does it snow?" we launch into explanations which have no obvious connection with the question. Leaves are red because it is cold, we say. What has cold to do with colour? How is the child to know that we are talking of abstract connections between atmospheric conditions and leaf chemistry? And why should he care? The child has asked 'why,' not 'how,' and certainly not 'how much.' And why should he care the molecular structure of water is believed to be such that at low temperatures it forms rigid bonds which make it appear as ice or snow? None of these abstractions says anything about what the child experiences: the redness of leaves and the cool, tickling envelopment by snow. The living response would be quite different. 'Why are the leaves red Dad?" "Because it is so beautiful, child. Don't you see how beautiful it is, all these autumn colours?" There is no truer answer. That is how the leaves are red. An answer which does not invoke questions, which does not lead the child into an endless series of questions, to which each answer is a threshold. The child will hear later on that a chemical reaction occurs in those leaves. It is bad enough, then; let us not make the world uninhabitable for the child too soon.

The smart voter is politically-fluid in that they don't rigidly believe that the same viewpoint, party manifesto or individual is the poultice for all maladies in every election. They attune themselves to the zeitgeist, search for potentially-reputable parties and candidates with suitable policies and cast their vote accordingly.

Don’t make that mistake again,” he said in a voice so quiet it was barely audible. He looked as if all his latent hostilities were waiting for an excuse to turn on her. “If you throw that cup at me, so help me, I’ll carry you over and put you down in the punch bowl!” “You and the CIA, maybe!” Cecily hissed. “Go ahead and try…!” Tate actually took a step toward her just as Colby managed to get between them. “Now, now,” he cautioned. Cecily wasn’t backing down an inch. Neither was Tate. He’d gone from lazy affection and indulgent amusement to bristling antagonism in the space of weeks. Lately he flew into a rage if Cecily’s name was mentioned, but Colby hadn’t told her that. “You have no right to make that kind of insinuation about me,” she said through her teeth. “I don’t get jobs lying on my back, and you know it!” Tate’s black eyes narrowed. He looked formidable, but Cecily wasn’t intimidated by him. She never had been. He glanced at her hands, which were clenched on her cup, and then back to her rigid features. It had infuriated him to be the object of televised ridicule at the political dinner, and Audrey’s comments had only made things worse. He was carrying a grudge. But as he looked at Cecily, he felt an emptiness in his very soul. This woman had been a thorn in his side for years, ever since an impulsive act of compassion had made her his responsibility. In those days, she’d been demure and sweet and dependent on him, and her shy hero worship had been vaguely flattering. Now, she was a fiery, independent woman who didn’t give a damn about his disapproval or, apparently, his company, and she had done everything expect leave town to keep out of his way.

--Gardens, not buildings-- Great projects start out feeling like buildings. There are architects, materials, staff, rigid timelines, permits, engineers, a structure. It works or it doesn't. Build something that doesn't fall down. On time. But in fact, great projects, like great careers and relationships that last, are gardens. They are tended, they shift, they grow. They endure over time, gaining a personality and reflecting their environment. When something dies or fades away, we prune, replant and grow again. Perfection and polish aren't nearly as important as good light, good drainage and a passionate gardener. By all means, build. But don't finish. Don't walk away. Here we grow.

Trans people are trans people. We should get over it. They deserve to be safe, to be visible throughout society without shame or stigma, and to have exactly the life opportunities non-trans people do. Their transness makes no difference to any of this. What trans people don’t deserve, however, is to be publicly misrepresented in philosophical terms that make no sense; nor to have their everyday struggles instrumentalised in the name of political initiatives most didn’t ask for, and which alienate other groups by rigidly encroaching on their hard-won rights. Nor do trans people deserve to be terrified by activist propaganda into thinking themselves more vulnerable to violence than they actually are.

Every day the same things came up; the work was never done, and the tedium of it began to weigh on me. Part of what made English a difficult subject for Korean students was the lack of a more active principle in their learning. They were accustomed to receiving, recording, and memorizing. That's the Confucian mode. As a student, you're not supposed to question a teacher; you should avoid asking for explanations because that might reveal a lack of knowledge, which can be seen as an insult to the teacher's efforts. You don't have an open, free exchange with teachers as we often have here in the West. And further, under this design, a student doesn't do much in the way of improvisation or interpretation. This approach might work well for some pursuits, may even be preferred--indeed, I was often amazed by the way Koreans learned crafts and skills, everything from basketball to calligraphy, for example, by methodically studying and reproducing a defined set of steps (a BBC report explained how the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had his minions rigorously study the pizza-making techniques used by Italian chefs so that he could get a good pie at home, even as thousands of his subjects starved)--but foreign-language learning, the actual speaking component most of all, has to be more spontaneous and less rigid. We all saw this played out before our eyes and quickly discerned the problem. A student cannot hope to sit in a class and have a language handed over to him on sheets of paper.

The Ten Humanitarian Commandments 1. First you are human, then everything else. 2. No one is the authority of your life, but you. 3. Impose nobody on nobody. 4. Don't be rigid about anybody's ideas - expand on them. 5. Take a thinker as a mental companion if you need, but not the only companion. 6. Always have some healthy respect for fiction, and never glorify facts at the expense of humanity. 7. Booze, smoke and others, try all for experience if you desire, so long as they don't end up owning you. 8. Learn from everything and everyone, but pledge allegiance to no one. 9. No weapons, period - except in intensely exceptional circumstances like the Ukraine invasion. 10. Love is the supreme religion, love is the supreme law, love is the supreme science.

I released a breath I didn’t remember holding. Turned to Ben. Found him looking at me, face inches from mine on Sewee’s deck. Panic flared, white hot, paralyzing me as I lay beside him. Our gazes met. I saw fear in his dark brown eyes. Indecision. Doubt. Ben went rigid, his chest rising and falling like a bellows. Then something changed. His face relaxed, a small smile playing on his lips. Before I could blink, his mouth covered mine. We shared a breath. A tingle ran my spine. Then I pulled back, breathing hard, unsure what either my mind or body were doing. Ben’s unsure look returned. Then vanished. He pulled me near again, his lips melting into mine. Strong, calloused fingers stroked the side of my face. His smell enveloped me. Earthy. Masculine. Ben. Fire rolled through my body. So this is what it’s like. I broke away again, gasping slightly for breath. Reality crashed home. I sat up and scooted a few feet away, rubbing my face with both hands. What was I doing? “Ben, I—” His hand rose to cut me off. He leaned against the bench, face suddenly serious. “I’m not going to pretend anymore. One way or another, I’m going to say how I feel.” Ben snorted softly. “Make my case.” We sat still in the darkness, Sewee rocking gently, the scene dream-like and surreal. “You don’t have to make a case.” I stared at my shoes, had no idea where I wanted this conversation to go. “It’s just, things are—” “YO!” Our heads whipped in the voice’s direction. Ben scrambled to a crouch, scanning the silent bulk of Tern Point, as if just now recalling we were adrift at sea. The voice called down again, suddenly familiar. “What, are you guys paddling around the island? I don’t have a boat license, but that seems dumb.” “Shut up, Hi!” Ben shouted, with more heat than was necessary. Scowling, he slid behind the controls and fired the engine. I scurried to the bow, as far from the captain’s chair as I could manage and stay dry. You’ve done it now, Tory Brennan. Better hope there’s a life preserver somewhere. A glance back. Ben was watching me, looking for all the world like he had more to say. I quickly turned away. Nope. Nope nope nope. I needed some time to think about this one. Perhaps a decade? “Where are we?” I asked, changing the subject. Ben must’ve sensed that my “personal” shop was closed for business.

I grab the nearest rock, toss it in my hand, watching as it drops and soars into the air again. I chunk it in the water, as the rock sinks to the bottom, ripples cast in each direction. Unsatisfied I do this again. And again. I only stop when I feel him approach. I stop and steady myself, I don't turn. I know it's him, my body turns rigid and my heart speeds up as if the devil himself is behind me.

THE WISDOM OF SURRENDER It is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that is the main determinant of what kind of future you will experience, so to surrender is the most important thing you can do to bring about positive change. Any action you take is secondary. No truly positive action can arise out of an unsurrendered state of consciousness. To some people, surrender may have negative connotations, implying defeat, giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, becoming lethargic, and so on. True surrender, however, is something entirely different. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing about it. Nor does it mean to cease making plans or initiating positive action. SURRENDER IS THE SIMPLE but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation. It is to relinquish inner resistance to what is. Inner resistance is to say “no” to what is, through mental judgment and emotional negativity. It becomes particularly pronounced when things “go wrong,” which means that there is a gap between the demands or rigid expectations of your mind and what is. That is the pain gap. If you have lived long enough, you will know that things “go wrong” quite often. It is precisely at those times that surrender needs to be practiced if you want to eliminate pain and sorrow from your life. Acceptance of what is immediately frees you from mind identification and thus reconnects you with Being. Resistance is the mind. Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon. It does not mean that on the outer level you cannot take action and change the situation. In fact, it is not the overall situation that you need to accept when you surrender, but just the tiny segment called the Now. For example, if you were stuck in the mud somewhere, you wouldn't say: “Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud.” Resignation is not surrender. YOU DON'T NEED TO ACCEPT AN UNDESIRABLE OR UNPLEASANT LIFE SITUATION. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say that there is nothing wrong with it. No. You recognize fully that you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention down to the present moment without mentally labeling it in any way. This means that there is no judgment of the Now. Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the “isness” of this moment. Then you take action and do all that you can to get out of the situation. Such action I call positive action. It is far more effective than negative action, which arises out of anger, despair, or frustration. Until you achieve the desired result, you continue to practice surrender by refraining from labeling the Now

Being a product of Bea and Jack, he is the antithesis of Mom.  I don’t mean he doesn’t love me, rather his expression of love, acceptance, and even his presence in my life is as conditional as Mom’s love is unconditional.  He has an unwavering opinion of right and wrong, success and failure, and how a man should behave.  This belief is so rigid, I’ve always felt I wasn’t the type of person he wanted as a son. To

When we think of social animals-that is, animals who live together in well-defined groups, and form enduring relationships- we usually think of the great apes, of wolves and other members of the dog family, and, or course, of humans. Science considers bears to be solitary animals. But while bears don't live in established groups or obey rigid hierarchies as chimps and wolves do, they have amazingly complex social relationships.

A relationship in which one partner can express hostile feelings but the other cannot is based on a serious imbalance of power. Yet, the woman who sees herself as powerless in such a relationship is not seeing things as they really are. She actually has more power than her partner, because he is far more dependent on her than she is on him. She just doesn't realize it. His neediness, his fears of abandonment, his need to be in total control, his intense possessiveness, and his distorted view of reality make him a paper tiger. No matter how powerful he appears, he feels powerful only when he is subjugating and controlling her. These defenses give him a sense of safety but also keep him locked into a very rigid way of behaving. In contrast, once the woman learns to accurately assess her real strengths, she is in a much better position than he is to change her behavior and her life.

For many years I have been saying that I would like to write a book (or series of books) called Physics for Mathematicians. Whenever I would tell people that, they would say, “Oh good, you're going to explain quantum mechanics, or string theory, or something like that”. And I would say, “Well that would be nice, but I can't begin to do that now; first I have to learn elementary physics, so the first thing I will be writing will be Mechanics for Mathematicians”. So then people would say, “Ah, so you're going to be writing about symplectic structures”, or something of that sort. And I would have to say, “No, I'm not trying to write a book about mathematics for mathematicians, I'm trying to write a book about physics for mathematicians”; …… it's elementary mechanics that I don't understand. … I mean, for example, that I don't understand this – lever. ... Most of us know the law of the lever, but this law is simply a quantitative statement of exactly how amazing the lever is, and doesn't give us a clue as to why it is true, how such a small force at one end can exert such a great force at the other. Now physicists all agree that Newton's Three Laws are the basis from which all of mechanics follows, but if you ask for an explanation of the lever in terms of these three laws, you will almost certainly not get a satisfactory answer.

She pulled the shawl closer as a tall, lithe figure cut across the parking lot and joined her at the passenger door. “You’re already famous,” Colby Lane told her, his dark eyes twinkling in his lean, scarred face. “You’ll see yourself on the evening news, if you live long enough to watch it.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Tate’s on his way right now.” “Unlock this thing and get me out of here!” she squeaked. He chuckled. “Coward.” He unlocked the door and let her climb in. By the time he got behind the wheel and took off, Tate was striding across the parking lot with blood in his eye. Cecily blew him a kiss as Colby gunned the engine down the busy street. “You’re living dangerously tonight,” Colby told her. “He knows where you live,” he added. “He should. He paid for the apartment,” she added in a sharp, hurt tone. She wrapped her arms closer around her. “I don’t want to go home, Colby. Can I stay with you tonight?” She knew, as few other people did, that Colby Lane was still passionately in love with his ex-wife, Maureen. He had nothing to do with other women even two years after his divorce was final. He drank to excess from time to time, but he wasn’t dangerous. Cecily trusted no one more. He’d been a good friend to her, as well as to Tate, over the years. “He won’t like it,” he said. She let out a long breath. “What does it matter now?” she asked wearily. “I’ve burned my bridges.” “I don’t know why that socialite Audrey had to tell you,” he muttered irritably. “It was none of her business.” “Maybe she wants a big diamond engagement ring, and Tate can’t afford it because he’s keeping me,” she said bitterly. He glanced at her rigid profile. “He won’t marry her.” She made a sound deep in her throat. “Why not? She’s got everything…money, power, position and beauty-and a degree from Vassar.” “In psychology,” Colby mused. “She’s been going around with Tate for several months.” “He goes around with a lot of women. He won’t marry any of them.” “Well, he certainly won’t marry me,” she assured him. “I’m white.” “More of a nice, soft tan,” he told her. “You can marry me. I’ll take care of you.” She made a face at him. “You’d call me Maureen in your sleep and I’d lay your head open with the lamp. It would never work.

Rigid ranking based on minuscule differences misleads rather than informs. Rounding and approximation is superior to unwarranted and unnecessary precision. Doubt, caution, and incessant questioning are in order—but so is the insistence on quantifying the complex realities of the modern world. If we are to understand many unruly realities, if we are to base our decisions on the best available information, then there is no substitute for this pursuit.

When I was at university, my dorm was in a red light area. Often after class on my way to the dorm, I would sit with those sisters of mine and listen to their stories and struggles for hours - just listening to them pouring their heart out gave me a kind of uncorrupted bliss that couldn't be explained with human words. You don't need to be a practicing physician or psychiatrist to ease the pain of others, listening to them as a human being crossing prejudice is enough.

Do those of you in like Chicago or NYC ever notice how commuters on the train tend to get all quiet and intense when South Side or South Bronx starts to flow past? If you look closely at the faces, you see it’s not depression, not even discomfort; it’s a kind of rigid fascination with the beauty of ruins in which people live but look or love nothing like you, a horizonful of numbly complex vistas in slab-gray and spraypaint-red. Hieroglyphs on walls, people on stoops, hoops w/o nets. White people have always loved to gaze at the ‘real black world,’ preferably at a distance and while moving briskly through, toward business. A view from this remove yields easy abstractions about rap in its role as just the latest ‘black’ music. Like: the less real power a people have, the more they’ll assert hegemony in areas that don’t much matter in any grand scheme. A way to rule in hell: their own vocabulary, syntax, gestures, music, dance; own food; religious rhetoric; social and party customs; that…well-known athletic superiority—the foot-speed, vertical leap—we like them in fields, cotton- or ball-. It’s a Hell we like to look at because it has so clearly been made someone else’s very own….And the exported popular arts! The singing and dancing!…each innovation, new Scene, and genius born of a ‘suffering’ we somehow long to imagine, even as we co-opt, overpay, homogenize, make the best of that suffering song go to stud for our own pale performers.

There isn’t any room,” said Joshua. “You travel back along the line of time and you don’t find the past, but another world, another bracket of consciousness. The earth would be the same, you see, or almost the same. Same trees, same rivers, same hills, but it wouldn’t be the world we know. Because it has lived a different life, it has developed differently. The second back of us is not the second back of us at all, but another second, a totally separate sector of time. We live in the same second all the time. We move along within the bracket of that second, that tiny bit of time that has been allotted to our particular world.” “The way we keep time was to blame,” said Ichabod. “It was the thing that kept us from thinking of it in the way it really was. For we thought all the time that we were passing through time when we really weren’t, when we never have. We’ve just been moving along with time. We said, there’s another second gone, there’s another minute and another hour and another day, when, as a matter of fact the second or the minute or the hour was never gone. It was the same one all the time. It had just moved along and we had moved with it.” Jenkins nodded. “I see. Like driftwood on the river. Chips moving with the river. And the scene changes along the river bank, but the water is the same.” “That’s roughly it,” said Joshua. “Except that time is a rigid stream and the different worlds are more firmly fixed in place than the driftwood on the river.

But your problems are not going to continue for the rest of your life," I said, touching her back. "They'll end eventually. And when they do, we'll stop and think about how to go on from there. Maybe you will have to help me. We're not running our lives according to some account book. If you need me, use me. Don't you see? Why do you have to be so rigid? Relax, letdown your guard. You're all tensed up so you always expect the worst. Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.

For that is the curious quality of the discotheque after you have gone there a long time: in the midst of all the lights, and music, the bodies, the dancing, the drugs, you are stiller than still within, and though you go through the motions of dancing you are thinking a thousand disparate things. You find yourself listening to the lyrics, and you wonder what these people around you are doing. They seemed crazed to you. You stand there on a floor moving your hips, wondering if there is such a thing as love, and conscious for the very first time that it is three-twenty-five and the night only half-over. You put the popper to your nostril, you put a hand out to lightly touch the sweaty, rigid stomach of the man dancing next to you, your own chest is streaming with sweat in that hot room, and you are thinking, as grave as a judge: What will I do with my life? What can any man do with his life? And you finally don’t know where to rest your eyes. You don’t know where to look, as you dance. You have been expelled from the communion of the saints.

I feel shock splinter through him, his body going rigid. Then he relaxes, melting into me, stepping forward until I am caught between him and the wall, the torch crackling beside me. His hands slide down my back, over my hips and thighs, leaving a trail of fire. His heart beats fast enough for the both of us, its thunderous pulse echoing through me. I bury my hands in his dark hair, fingers knotting around those thick locks. Desire pulls at my stomach, and I lean into him, lifting one leg and wrapping it around his waist. He lifts me, and my other leg coils around him, my skirts sliding up my thighs, my back pressed against the column. His lips are soft and warm and gentle, underlined with barely restrained urgency. I cannot get enough of him. I pull his kurta over his head and let it fall on the floor. I press my hands against his bared chest, feel his heart against my palm, his lungs rising and falling. His shoulder is knotted with the scar from the arrow he took for me. He kisses me again, this time more strongly, and I run my hands down his jaw and neck, over his shoulders, the taut muscles of his back. He turns, without letting me go or breaking our kiss, and we tumble onto the soft divan. Aladdin holds himself over me, his abdomen clenched and his hair hanging across his forehead. His lips wander downward, to my chin, to the curve of my jaw, to my neck. My hands are ravenous, exploring the planes and angles of his body. His fingers find mine, and our hands knit together. He raises them over my head, pressing them into the pillow beneath my hair, as his kisses trace my collarbone, and then he sinks lower, parting the buttons of my dress and pressing his lips to my bare stomach. I gasp and open my eyes wide, my borrowed body coursing with sensations I have never felt, never dared to feel, never thought I could feel. “Aladdin,” I murmur. “We shouldn’t . . .” “Sh.” He silences me with a kiss, and I lift my chin to meet him. A warm wind rushes through my body, stirring embers and setting them aflame. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to think about consequences. I only want Aladdin, everywhere.

Maud sighed. “Because some people have rigid minds. They like everything to be clearly labeled. They have a box for everyone they meet. A box for vampires, a box for lees, a box for humans. When someone doesn’t fit into their boxes, they panic.” “But why?” “I don’t exactly know, my flower. I think it’s because they lack confidence. They think they figured out the rules of their world and when something falls outside those rules, it scares them.” “So, I’m scary?” “To those people? Yes. If the rules they made up don’t apply anymore, they don’t know how to act, and it makes them feel like their survival is in doubt. Instead of adapting to a new situation and coming up with a new set of rules, some of them will fight to the death trying to keep the world the way it was. Do you remember when we lived in Fort Kur? What was written above the door?” “Adapt or die,” Helen said. “It’s impossible to stop change,” Maud said. “It’s the nature of life. Those who refuse to adapt will eventually die out. But before they do, they will get nasty. They might even hate you.

We need a new lodestar, a new map of the world that once again includes a distant, uncharted continent – “Utopia.” By this I don’t mean the rigid blueprints that utopian fanatics try to shove down our throats with their theocracies or their five-year plans – they only subordinate real people to fervent dreams. Consider this: The word utopia means both “good place” and “no place.” What we need are alternative horizons that spark the imagination. And I do mean horizons in the plural; conflicting utopias are the lifeblood of democracy, after all.

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,” he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. “Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?

His order [Hitler's] to stand firm not only created clarity about what the army was doing but also had some effect in improving morale. On the other hand, the rigidity with which he now implemented it began to have an effect on the smaller-scale tactical withdrawals that the desperate situation frequently necessitated at various parts of the front. Gotthard Henrici in particular became increasingly frustrated at the repeated orders to stand firm, when all this brought was a repeated danger of being surrounded. 'The distaster continues,' he wrote to his wife on Christmas Eve 1941. 'And at the top, in Berlin, at the very top, nobody wants to admit it. Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make blind. Every day we experience this anew. But for reasons of prestige nobody dares to take a determined step backwards. They don't want to admit that their army is surrounded before Moscow. They refuse to recognize that the Russians can do such a thing. And in complete blindness they are kneeling over into the abyss. And they will end in 4 weeks by losing their army before Moscow and later on by losing the whole war.

Years ago a friend of mine and I used to frequent a market in Baltimore where we would eat oysters and drink Very Large Beers from 32-ounce Styrofoam cups. One of the regulars there had the worst toupee in the world, a comical little wig taped in place on the top of his head. Looking at this man and drinking our VLBs, we developed the concept of the Soul Toupee. Each of us has a Soul Toupee. The Soul Toupee is that thing about ourselves we are most deeply embarrassed by and like to think we have cunningly concealed from the world, but which is, in fact, pitifully obvious to everybody who knows us. Contemplating one’s own Soul Toupee is not an exercise for the fainthearted. Most of the time other people don’t even get why our Soul Toupee is any big deal or a cause of such evident deep shame to us, but they can tell that it is because of our inept, transparent efforts to cover it up, which only call more attention to it and to our self-consciousness about it, and so they gently pretend not to notice it. Meanwhile we’re standing there with our little rigid spongelike square of hair pasted on our heads thinking: Heh—got ’em all fooled!

Stop it," she said. "Stop what?" Her eyes flew open, filled with rage and betrayal. "Stop pretending. You made your point this morning—you don't have anything more to prove. You don't want me, you can make me do anything you wish, and I'll be pathetically grateful for your attention, while you won't feel a thing…" "You idiot," he said, his voice savage. "How blind are you?" "Leave me alone." He pulled her legs apart, pushing between them, fully clothed, the rigid length of his cock pressed up against her. Her eyes widened in shock. "You can feel that, can't you? It's been like that all day. It's been like that almost since I first touched you. You make me crazy with wanting you, but right now doing what I want could get us both killed." "No," she said. "You're lying. This morning you didn't—" He rocked against her, and she shivered in unwilling response. "This morning I was so turned on that I came without touching myself. And five minutes later I was hard again. I need you. I need to be inside you, now, and it's too dangerous." He thrust against her, feeling the tremor of response wash over her, and he knew he couldn't stop, not until he made her come again, over and over...

Fairly serious! The merest whisper of such goings-on will be enough to alienate every voter in the town. Ginger's done for.' 'You don't think they might excuse him because his blood was young at the time?' 'Not a hope. They won't be worrying about his ruddy blood. You don't know what these blighters here are like. Most of them are chapel folk with a moral code that would have struck Torquemada as too rigid.' 'Torquemada?' 'The Spanish Inquisition man.' 'Oh, that Torquemada.' 'How many Torquemadas did you think there were?' I admitted that it was not a common name, and she carried on.

People in the West need to know that most of the spiritual, intellectual, and cultural products of South Asia are tainted by Brahmanism. What may have offered you liberation and healing also causes caste-oppressed people to suffer. You don't have to give up those practices or concepts, but the call is to be intentional and acknowledge the caste harm. Your faith is bound to the violence it sanctions. For practitioners of Brahminical traditions, this reckoning may be painful. It's hard to admit the gulf between your values and the history of your spiritual practice, but if you do not wish to be complicit in the suffering of others, then you must confront these truths. When we exalt some aspects of spiritual practices, we cannot be fully aware and present. People enter spiritual practices and surrender everything without critical judgment and informed consent. Any faith is a practice of teachings that come from an ego, and those can then be interpreted by bad actors. To my mind, part of being a seeker is to interrogate all teachings and practices, to stay soft and flexible as opposed to rigid and dogmatic, to move slowly enough to be able to see when we're being blinded to the truth.

I don't switch much, don't really want many people to fuck me, because there's a whole code, unwritten but no less rigid than if it were chiseled in stone, about how Tops Must be, how Butches Must Be, and it does not include taking off one's pants. It does not include admitting to one's own desires, only quietly serving the desires of others. It certainly does not include taking a break once in a while to inhabit some other gender, role, or sensibility, even for half a delightful, sweaty hour, in the company of someone who feels like a mirror of me rather than a complementary piece I can fit myself against.

And so, he gently chided Apostle John A. Widtsoe, whose wife advocated such a rigid interpretation of the Word of Wisdom as to proscribe chocolate because of the stimulants it contained, saying, “John, do you want to take all the joy out of life?”85 But he didn’t stop there. At a reception McKay attended, the hostess served rum cake. “All the guests hesitated, watching to see what McKay would do. He smacked his lips and began to eat.” When one guest expostulated, “‘But President McKay, don’t you know that is rum cake?’ McKay smiled and reminded the guest that the Word of Wisdom forbade drinking alcohol, not eating

To the surprise of many sceptics, the results revealed the following associations: Full-fetal: People adopting this position tend to be anxious, emotional, indecisive, and overly sensitive to criticism. Dunkell interpreted the ‘closed’ nature of this position as indicative of a person who does not want to open themselves up to life. Semi-fetal: This position is associated with people who are well adjusted, conciliatory in nature, amenable to compromises, and unlikely to take extreme stances. Royal: This sleeping position is associated with being self-confident, open, expansive, and sensation-seeking. Prone: Those sleeping face down tend to show a tendency for rigidity and perfectionism. Dunkell thought that these sleepers disliked the unexpected, demand strong evidence for any assertion, and always arrive on time for meetings. The research also showed that those who have no preferred sleeping position have a strong need for being active, enjoy challenging work, and find it difficult to relax. However, please don’t be too upset or worried if your sleeping position suggests that you have a less-than-perfect personality. The associations between people’s sleeping positions and their personalities are fairly weak and many scientists would take them with a pinch of salt. I suspect that this is especially true of those researchers who tend to sleep in a prone position.

and confused if someone does not appreciate their niceness. Others often sense this and avoid giving them feedback not only, effectively blocking the nice person’s emotional growth, but preventing risks from being taken. You never know with a nice person if the relationship would survive a conflict or angry confrontation. This greatly limits the depths of intimacy. And would you really trust a nice person to back you up if confrontation were needed? 3. With nice people you never know where you really stand. The nice person allows others to accidentally oppress him. The “nice” person might be resenting you just for talking to him, because really he is needing to pee. But instead of saying so he stands there nodding and smiling, with legs tightly crossed, pretending to listen. 4. Often people in relationship with nice people turn their irritation toward themselves, because they are puzzled as to how they could be so upset with someone so nice. In intimate relationships this leads to guilt, self-hate and depression. 5. Nice people frequently keep all their anger inside until they find a safe place to dump it. This might be by screaming at a child, blowing up a federal building, or hitting a helpless, dependent mate. (Timothy McVeigh, executed for the Oklahoma City bombing, was described by acquaintances as a very, very nice guy, one who would give you the shirt off his back.) Success in keeping the anger in will often manifest as psychosomatic illnesses, including arthritis, ulcers, back problems, and heart disease. Proper Peachy Parents In my work as a psychotherapist, I have found that those who had peachy keen “Nice Parents” or proper “Rigidly Religious Parents” (as opposed to spiritual parents), are often the most stuck in chronic, lowgrade depression. They have a difficult time accessing or expressing any negative feelings towards their parents. They sometimes say to me “After all my parents did for me, seldom saying a harsh word to me, I would feel terribly guilty complaining. Besides, it would break their hearts.” Psychologist Rollo May suggested that it is less crazy-making to a child to cope with overt withdrawal or harshness than to try to understand the facade of the always-nice parent. When everyone agrees that your parents are so nice and giving, and you still feel dissatisfied, then a child may conclude that there must be something wrong with his or her ability to receive love. -§ Emotionally starving children are easier to control, well fed children don’t need to be. -§ I remember a family of fundamentalists who came to my office to help little Matthew with his anger problem. The parents wanted me to teach little Matthew how to “express his anger nicely.” Now if that is not a formula making someone crazy I do not know what would be. Another woman told me that after her stinking drunk husband tore the house up after a Christmas party, breaking most of the dishes in the kitchen, she meekly told him, “Dear, I think you need a breath mint.” Many families I work with go through great anxiety around the holidays because they are going to be forced to be with each other and are scared of resuming their covert war. They are scared that they might not keep the nice garbage can lid on, and all the rotting resentments and hopeless hurts will be exposed. In the words to the following song, artist David Wilcox explains to his parents why he will not be coming home this Thanksgiving: Covert War by David Wilcox

I don’t want to fight you. But perhaps there’s another way I could win your favor.” The way he said it made her hearts pound and her body heat up. But even if her hormones were moved, her ambitions remained unswayed. “I’m only going to say this one time, so hear me well. If you want me, don’t let some bounty come between us,” she finally said. “I’m not playing games anymore. Either it’s real, or it’s nothing. I will not be seduced away from my own success.” She waited a long moment as he thought about it. “You win this one fair and square,” he finally said. “I suppose I wouldn’t want to try lying to the Grand Inquisitor, anyway. I can prove myself on my own.” A brief pause. “And we’ll see how you might be seduced.” The comlink went silent. As she and Sixty-Seven walked back to her ship, she watched Tualon’s ship take off from just a few klicks away and zip into the sky. Now, this was a version of Tualon she could respect. Honest with himself and others, ambitious and confident. She looked forward to seeing where the seduction might come in. For all that she’d been drawn to him since they were children, he’d always been neutral toward her, never felt that same tug. But now, freed from the rigidity of the Jedi ways, perhaps he was finally realizing how powerful a partner she might be. They would make a good team, but not if he thought he was in charge. No one could rule Iskat Akaris.

One night, when Violet’s parents had gone out, he teased her about it, whispering against her throat, “I should probably be dating girls my own age now that you’ll be over-the-hill.” Jay was stretched out on Violet’s bed as she curled against him. Violet laughed, rising to the bait. “Fine,” she challenged, pulling away and leaning up on her elbow. “I’m sure there are plenty of men my own age who would be willing to finish what you’ve started.” Jay stiffened, and Violet realized that she’d struck a nerve. “What is it?” He shook his head, and Violet thought he might say, “Nothing,” so when he answered, his words caught her off guard. “Is there someone else, Vi?” Violet frowned, baffled by the unfamiliar jealousy she saw on his face. She wondered what in the world he meant as she reached down and smoothed a strand of hair from his forehead. “What are you talking about, Jay?” His eyes met hers. “I saw you with that guy at the movies, Vi. Who was he?” Violet closed her eyes. She wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t want to tell him about the FBI, about Sara and Rafe or what she’d learned about Mike’s mother. She wondered briefly if he knew about Mike’s mom-if his friend had ever confided in him. But somehow she doubted it. Jay wasn’t like her; he didn’t keep secrets. “It’s not like that,” she explained, hoping that would be enough. Jay got up and went to the window, pushing the curtain aside. Every muscle in his body was rigid. “Like what, Vi? What’s going on? Something’s been bothering you lately. Why can’t you tell me?” He was right. She owed it to him to at least try. “I don’t know how to explain, but I just feel like everything’s changed between us-“ “Of course it’s changed, Violet, what’d you expect?” Violet tried to ignore the bitterness in his voice, telling herself she had no right to be hurt. “It used to be that I would never keep secrets from you. You were my best friend. But now that we’re dating, it’s just…different. I feel like I have to watc what I say, or you get all worried. Sometimes I just want you to be the old Jay again, so I can talk to you.” Violet crept up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against his back.

Are there American variations of Solomon Slepak, those rendered so rigid by ideas that all reason fails them? Prudence, a cautious awareness of nuances, of complexities, of consequences, a perception of the unity of the American experience, and a saving sense of irony and humor—pervasive in the Founding Fathers and lacking in contemporary ideologues. Can we learn something from these chronicles about iron righteousness and rigid doctrine, about the stony heart, the sealed mind, the capricious use of law, and the tragedies that often result when theories are not adjusted to realities? Do the chronicles seem to reveal a glaring and almost obvious truth: the larger the nation, the more tumultuous its demise? Are we approaching the finale now to the bright possibilities once inherent in this land? Is that old America forever gone? Indeed, did it ever exist? Were we seduced as schoolchildren into a vision of a land green and golden from sea to shining sea, a land as illusory for many Americans as the Motherland of Solomon Slepak was for Volodya and Masha? Perhaps the more sensible question is not about what we once were but about what we intend ourselves to be one day. Things are happening to us today that we don’t seem able to explain. Can we enter the uncertain future without the corrosive cynicism, the clutching greed, the divisive self-interests—the beasts that destroyed the world of Solomon Slepak and rendered it uninhabitable to his family?

It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven. But why is it important? After all, fiction can be dangerously misleading or distracting. People who go to the forest looking for fairies and unicorns would seem to have less chance of survival than people who go looking for mushrooms and deer. And if you spend hours praying to non-existing guardian spirits, aren’t you wasting precious time, time better spent foraging, fighting and fornicating? But fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers. Ants and bees can also work together in huge numbers, but they do so in a very rigid manner and only with close relatives. Wolves and chimpanzees cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so only with small numbers of other individuals that they know intimately. Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That’s why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories. The

She was especially taken with Matt. Until he said, “It’s time to fess up, hon. Tell Trace how much you care. You’ll feel better when you do.” Climbing up the ladder, Chris said, “Better sooner than later.” He nodded at the hillside behind them. “Because here comes Trace, and he doesn’t look happy.” Both Priss and Matt turned, Priss with anticipation, Matt with tempered dread. Dressed in jeans and a snowy-white T-shirt, Trace stalked down the hill. Priss shielded her eyes to better see him. When he’d left, being so guarded about his mission, she’d half wondered if he’d return before dinner. Trace wore reflective sunglasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes, but his entire demeanor—heavy stride, rigid shoulders, tight jaw—bespoke annoyance. As soon as he was close enough, Priss called out, “What’s wrong?” Without answering her, Trace continued onto the dock. He didn’t stop until he stood right in front of . . . Matt. Backing up to the edge of the dock, Matt said, “Uh . . . Hello?” Trace didn’t say a thing; he just pushed Matt into the water. Arms and legs flailing out, Matt hit the surface with a cannonball effect. Stunned, Priss shoved his shoulder. “What the hell, Trace! Why did you do that?” Trace took off his sunglasses and looked at her, all of her, from her hair to her body and down to her bare toes. After working his jaw a second, he said, “If you need sunscreen, ask me.” Her mouth fell open. Of all the nerve! He left her at Dare’s, took off without telling her a damn thing and then had the audacity to complain when a friend tried to keep her from getting sunburned. “Maybe I would have, if you’d been here!” “I’m here now.” Emotions bubbled over. “So you are.” With a slow smile, Priss put both hands on his chest. The shirt was damp with sweat, the cotton so soft that she could feel every muscle beneath. “And you look a little . . . heated.” Trace’s beautiful eyes darkened, and he reached for her. “A dip will cool you down.” Priss shoved him as hard as she could. Taken by surprise, fully dressed, Trace went floundering backward off the end of the dock. Priss caught a glimpse of the priceless expression of disbelief on Trace’s face before he went under the water. Excited by the activity, the dogs leaped in after him. Liger roused himself enough to move out of the line of splashing. Chris climbed up the ladder. “So that’s the new game, huh?” He laughed as he scooped Priss up into his arms. “Chris!” She made a grab for his shoulders. “Put me down!” “Afraid not, doll.” Just as Trace resurfaced, Chris jumped in with her. They landed between the swimming dogs. Sputtering, her hair in her face and her skin chilled from the shock of the cold water, Priss cursed. Trace had already waded toward the shallower water off the side of the dock. His fair hair was flattened to his head and his T-shirt stuck to his body. “Wait!” Priss shouted at him. He was still waist-deep as he turned to glare at her. Kicking and splashing, Priss doggy-paddled over to him, grabbed his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Oh, no, you don’t!” Startled, Trace scooped her bottom in his hands and struggled for balance on the squishy mud bottom of the lake. “What the hell?” And then lower, “You look naked in this damn suit.” Matt and Chris found that hilarious. Priss looked at Trace’s handsome face, a face she loved, and kissed him. Hard. For only a second, he allowed the sensual assault. He even kissed her back. Then he levered away from her. “You ruined my clothes, damn it.” “Only because you were being a jealous jerk.” His expression dark, he glared toward Matt. Christ started humming, but poor Matt said, “Yeah,” and shrugged. “If you think about it, you’ll agree that you sort of were—and we both know there’s no reason.

The future of democracy in developed countries will depend on their ability to deal with the problem of a disappearing middle class. In the wake of the financial crisis there has been a rise of new populist groups from the Tea Party in the United States to various anti-EU, anti-immigrant parties in Europe. What unites all of them is the belief that elites in their countries have betrayed them. And in many ways they are correct: the elites who set the intellectual and cultural climate in the developed world have been largely buffered from the effects of middle-class decline. There has been a vacuum in new approaches to the problem, approaches that don’t involve simply returning to the welfare state solutions of the past. The proper approach to the problem of middle-class decline is not necessarily the present German system or any other specific set of measures. The only real long-term solution would be an educational system that succeeded in pushing the vast majority of citizens into higher levels of education and skills. The ability to help citizens flexibly adjust to the changing conditions of work requires state and private institutions that are similarly flexible. Yet one of the characteristics of modern developed democracies is that they have accumulated many rigidities over time that make institutional adaptation increasingly difficult. In fact, all political systems—past and present—are liable to decay. The fact that a system once was a successful and stable liberal democracy does not mean that it will

Celia realized she'd shocked Mr. Pinter when his thick black brows drew together in a frown. His lean form seemed even more rigid than usual, and his angular features-the arrow of a nose and bladed jaw-even more stark. IN his severe morning attire of black serge and white linen, he radiated male disapproval. But why? He knew she was the only "hellion" left unmarried. Did he think she would let her brothers and sisters lose their inheritance out of some rebellious desire to thwart Gran's ultimatum? Of course he did. He'd been so kind and considerate during her recitation of the dream that she'd almost forgotten he hated her. Why else were his eyes, gray as slate after a storm, now so cold and remote? The blasted fellow was always so condescending and sure of himself, so...so... Male. "Forgive me, my lady," he said in his oddly raspy voice, "but I was unaware you had any suitors." Curse him for being right. "Well, I don't...exactly. There are men who might be interested but haven't gone so far as to offer marriage." Or even to show a partiality to her. "And you're hoping I'll twist their arms so they will?" She colored under his piercing gaze. "Don't be ridiculous." This was the Mr. Pinter she knew, the one who'd called her "a reckless society miss" and a "troublemaker." Not that she cared what he thought. He was like her brother's friends, who saw her as a tomboy because she could demonstrate a rifle's fine qualities. And like Cousin Ned. Scrawny bitch with no tits-you don't have an ounce of anything female on you. Curse Ned to hell.

​Try it in the last hundred years or so and you’ll find the lack of National Insurance number, ID card, or credit rating means you’re officially a non-person and after America closed its borders last year, all sorts of security alarm bells start ringing. ​Or, you think you’ll go back a little further before all these tiresome records were invented, but that doesn’t work either. Society is rigid. Everyone knows everyone else in their world. Everyone has their place in the scheme of things. If you don’t belong to a family, a tribe, a village, a guild, whatever, you don’t exist then, either. And you can’t just pitch up somewhere without mutual acquaintances, recommendations, or letters of introduction. Life on the fringes of society, any society in any time is tough. I should know.

Self-Love Self-love is the quality that determines how much we can be friends with ourselves and, day to day, remain on our own side. When we meet a stranger who has things we don’t, how quickly do we feel ourselves pitiful, and how long can we remain assured by the decency of what we have and are? When another person frustrates or humiliates us, can we let the insult go, able to perceive the senseless malice beneath the attack, or are we left brooding and devastated, implicitly identifying with the verdict of our enemies? How much can the disapproval or neglect of public opinion be offset by the memory of the steady attention of significant people in the past? In relationships, do we have enough self-love to leave an abusive union? Or are we so down on ourselves that we carry an implicit belief that harm is all we deserve? In a different vein, how good are we at apologizing to a lover for things that may be our fault? How rigidly self-righteous do we need to be? Can we dare to admit mistakes or does an admission of guilt or error bring us too close to our background sense of nullity? In the bedroom, how clean and natural or alternatively disgusting and unacceptable do our desires feel? Might they be a little odd, but not for that matter bad or dark, since they emanate from within us and we are not wretches? At work, do we have a reasonable, well-grounded sense of our worth and so feel able to ask for (and properly expect to get) the rewards we are due? Can we resist the need to please others indiscriminately? Are we sufficiently aware of our genuine contribution to be able to say no when we need to?

The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you don’t actually know. There’s not a mechanic or scientist or technician alive who hasn’t suffered from that one so much that he’s not instinctively on guard. That’s the main reason why so much scientific and mechanical information sounds so dull and so cautious. If you get careless or go romanticizing scientific information, giving it a flourish here and there, Nature will soon make a complete fool out of you. It does it often enough anyway even when you don’t give it opportunities. One must be extremely careful and rigidly logical when dealing with Nature: one logical slip and an entire scientific edifice comes tumbling down. One false deduction about the machine and you can get hung up indefinitely.

LEADING LESSONS Stretch your legs. By this I mean you need to let go of the structure and rigidity of your life and do something different. There’s a saying: You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. When I signed on to do Footloose, I learned about commitment on a whole new level. The tools I had called upon in the past to help me win dance competitions were not the ones I needed now. I had to find new ways to win at this as well. I had to let go of what had worked before and figure out new solutions. Flexibility is something all leaders need in their tool belt--the ability to roll with things, to shift gears, to approach something in a new and different way. The only thing certain in life is that life isn’t certain. Leaders know this, expect it, and change their hearts and heads to adapt to the situation.

Yes, but I’ve also walked about in your city and I’ve watched your people. Your people are aggressive!” “You see, Duncan? Peace encourages aggression.” “And you say that your Golden Path . . .” “Is not precisely peace. It is tranquility, a fertile ground for the growth of rigid classes and many other forms of aggression.” “You talk riddles!” “I talk accumulated observations which tell me that the peaceful posture is the posture of the defeated. It is the posture of the victim. Victims invite aggression.” “Your damned enforced tranquility! What good does it do?” “If there is no enemy, one must be invented. The military force which is denied an external target always turns against its own people.” “What’s your game?” “I modify the human desire for war.” “People don’t want war!” “They want chaos. War is the most readily available form of chaos.

Cordelia – “Why so rough?” Aral – “It’s very poor. It was the town center during the time Isolation. And it hasn’t been touched by renovation, minimal water, no electricity choked with refuse.” “Mostly human,” added Peoter tartly. “Poor?” Asked Cordelia bewildered. “No electricity? How can it be on the comm network?” “It’s not of course,” answered Vorkosigan. “Then how can anyone get their schooling?” Cordelia “They don’t.” Cordelia stared. “I don’t understand, how do they get their jobs?” “A few escape to the service, the rest prey on each other mostly.” Vorkosigan regarded her face uneasily. “Have you no poverty on Beta colony?” “Poverty? Well some people have more money than others, but no comm consuls…?” Vorkosigan was diverted from his interrogation. “Is not owning a comm consul the lowest standard of living you can imagine?” He said in wonder. “It’s the first article in the constitution! ‘Access to information shall not be abridged.’” “Cordelia, these people barely have access to food, clothing and shelter. They have a few rags and cooking pots and squat in buildings that aren’t economical to repair or tear down yet with the wind whistling through the walls.” “No air conditioning?” “No heat in the winter is a bigger problem here.” “I suppose so. You people don’t really have summer. How do they call for help when they are sick or hurt?” “What help?” Vorkosigan was growing grim. “If they’re sick they either get well or die.” “Die if we’re lucking” muttered Veoter. “You’re not joking.” She stared back and forth between the pair of them. “Why, think of all the geniuses you must missing!” “I doubt we must be missing very many from the Caravanceri.” Said Peoter dryly. “Why not? They have the same genetic compliment as you.” Cordelia pointed out the – to her -obvious. The Count went rigid. “My dear girl, they most certainly do not. My family has been Vor for nine generations.” Cordelia raised her eyebrows. “How do you know if you didn’t have the gene-typing until 80 years ago?” Both the guard commander and the footman were acquiring peculiar stuffed expressions. The footman bit his lip. “Besides,” she pointed out reasonably, “If you Vor got around half as much as those histories I’ve been reading imply. 90% of the people on this planet must have Vor blood by now. Who knows who your relatives are on your father’s side. Vorkosigan bit his napkin absently. His eyes gone crinkly with much the same expression as the footman and muttered, “Cordelia, you really can’t sit at the breakfast table and imply my ancestors were bastards. It’s a mortal insult here.” “Where should I sit? Oh I’ll never understand.

Where are we going?” Arin stared out the carriage window at the trees of the Garden District, their bare branches slim and violet in the dusk. Kestrel fidgeted with her skirts. “Arin. You know that we are going to Irex’s party.” “Yes,” he said shortly, but didn’t tear his gaze away from the passing trees. Better he look at them than at her. The velvet dress was a deep red, the skirts deliberately crushed in a pattern highlighted by golden embroidered leaves that twined up toward the bodice, where they interlaced and would catch the light. Conspicuous. The dress made her conspicuous. Kestrel sank into her corner of the carriage, feeling her dagger dig into her side. This evening at Irex’s wouldn’t be easy. Arin seemed to think the same. He held himself so rigidly on the carriage seat across from her that he looked wooden. Tension seeped into the air between them. When torches lit the darkness outside the windows and the driver lined up behind other carriage waiting to access the pathway to Irex’s villa, Kestrel said, “Perhaps we should return home.” “No,” said Arin. “I want to see the house.” He opened the door. They were silent as they walked up the path to the villa. Though not as large as Kestrel’s, it was also a former Herrani home: elegant, prettily designed. Arin fell behind Kestrel, as was expected of slaves, but this made her uneasy. It was unsettling to feel him close and not see his face. They entered the house with the other guests and made their way into the receiving room, which was lined with Valorian weapons. “They don’t belong there,” she heard Arin say. She turned to see him staring in shock at the walls. “Irex is an exceptional fighter,” said Kestrel. “And not very modest.” Arin said nothing, so neither did Kestrel.

It was the custom, rigidly adhered to," Luke said, turning the brandy in his glass, "for the public executioner, before a quartering, to outline his knife strokes in chalk upon the belly of his victim--for fear of a slip, you understand." I would like to hit her with a stick, Eleanor thought, looking down on Theodora's head beside her chair; I would like to batter her with rocks. "An exquisite refinement, exquisite. Because of course the chalk strokes would have been almost unbearable, excruciating, if the victim were ticklish." I hate her, Eleanor thought, she sickens me; she is all washed and clean and wearing my red sweater. "When the death was hanging by chains, however, the executioner..." "Nell?" Theodora looked up at her and smiled. "I really am sorry, you know," she said. I would like to watch her dying, Eleanor thought, and smiled back and said, "Don't be silly.

So, let’s reorient from exterior to interior. “Distraction” then becomes boredom; “impulsiveness” becomes self-generated explorative behavior based on what captures interest; “abnormal activity level” is thus high-energy levels generating multiple task interests; “disorganization” is failure to follow rigid organizational regimens set by others; “anxiety”—well, we all know that one: what the hell kind of world did I get born into?; “emotional lability” is, in fact, a wide range of emotions that are accessed when adults or the exterior culture don’t want them to be. In other words, should you have ever read Mark Twain, what is being described is “Tom Sawyer syndrome,” a once common state of being in many if not most children. The more widely open the sensory gating channels are, the more the child’s behavior alters from what is currently held to be the cultural norm in the West. On average, some

Tate was sprawled across the bed in his robe early the next morning when the sound of the front door opening penetrated his mind. There was an unholy commotion out there and his head was still throbbing, despite a bath, several cups of coffee and a handful of aspirin that had been forced on him the day before by two men he’d thought were his friends. He didn’t want to sober up. He only wanted to forget that Cecily didn’t want him anymore. He dragged himself off the bed and went into the living room, just in time to hear the door close. Cecily and her suitcase were standing with mutual rigidity just inside the front door. She was wearing a dress and boots and a coat and hat, red-faced and muttering words Tate had never heard her use before. He scowled. “How did you get here?” he asked. “Your boss brought me!” she raged. “He and that turncoat Colby Lane and two bodyguards, one of whom was the female counterpart of Ivan the Terrible! They forcibly dressed me and packed me and flew me up here on Mr. Hutton’s Learjet! When I refused to get out of the car, the male bodyguard swept me up and carried me here! I am going to kill people as soon as I get my breath and my wits back, and I am starting with you!” He leaned against the wall, still bleary-eyed and only half awake. She was beautiful with her body gently swollen and her lips pouting and her green eye sin their big-lensed frames glittering at him. She registered after a minute that he wasn’t himself. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked abruptly. He didn’t answer. He put a hand to his head. “You’re drunk!” she exclaimed in shock. “I have been,” he replied in a subdued tone. “For about a week, I think. Pierce and Colby got my landlord to let them in yesterday.” She smiled dimly. “I’d made some threats about what I’d do if he ever let anybody else into my apartment, after he let Audrey in the last time. I guess he believed them, because Colby had to flash his company ID to get in.” He chuckled weakly. “Nothing intimidates the masses like a CIA badge, even if it isn’t current.” “You’ve been drunk?” She moved a little closer into the apartment. “But, Tate, you don’t…you don’t drink,” she said. “I do now. The mother of my child won’t marry me,” he said simply. “I said you could have access…” His black eyes slid over her body like caressing hands. He’d missed her unbearably. Just the sight of her was calming now. “So you did.” Why did the feel guilty, for God’s sake, she wondered. She tried to recapture her former outrage. “I’ve been kidnapped!” “Apparently. Don’t look at me. Until today, I was too stoned to lift my head.” He looked around. “I guess they threw out the beer cans and the pizza boxes,” he murmured. “Pity. I think there was a slice of pizza left.” He sighed. “I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.” “Yesterday!

The only thing I can’t figure out is why you still eat the food your captors fed you. Why don’t you hate it as much as you hate them?” Fila glanced down at her plate. It contained a strange mixture of Afghan and Mexican dishes. She held up a flatbread. “This isn’t Taliban food—it’s Afghan food. It’s my mother’s food. I grew up eating it before I was ever captured. To me it means love and tenderness, not hate and violence.” “Taliban, Afghan—it’s all the same.” She waved the bread. “No, it’s not. Not one bit. Afghan culture is over two thousand years old. And it’s a conservative culture—it’s had to be—but it’s not a culture of monsters. Afghans are people like you, Holt. They’re born, they grow up, they live and love and they die just like we do. I didn’t study much history before I was taken, but I know this much. America’s story is that of the frontier—of always having room to grow. Afghanistan’s story is that of occupation. By the Russians, the British, the Mongols—even the ancient Greeks. On and on for century after century. Imagine all those wars being fought in Montana. Foreign armies living among us, taking over your ranch, stealing everything you own, killing your wife and children, over and over and over again.” She paused to catch her breath. “Death is right around the corner for them—all the time. Is it any wonder that a movement that turns men into warriors and codes everything else into rigid rules might seem like the answer?” She still wasn’t sure if Holt was following her. What analogy would make sense to him? She wracked her brain. “If a bunch of Californians overran Chance Creek and forced everyone to eat tofu, would you refuse to ever eat steak again?” He made a face. “Of course not!” “Then imagine the Taliban are the Californians, forcing everyone to eat tofu. And everyone does it because they don’t know what else to do. They still love steak, but they will be severely punished if they eat it—so will their families. That’s what it’s like for many Afghans living under Taliban control. It’s not their choice. They still love their country. They still love their heritage. That doesn’t mean they love the group of extremists who have taken over.” “Even if those Taliban people went away, they still wouldn’t be anything like you and me.” Holt crossed his arms. Fila suppressed a smile at his inclusion of her. That was a step in the right direction even if the greater message was lost on him. “They’re more like you than you think. Defensive. Angry. Always on the lookout for trouble.” Holt straightened. “I have four sons. Of course I’m on the lookout for trouble.” “They have sons, too.” She waited to see if he understood. Holt shook his head. “We’re going to see different on this one. But I understand about the food. Everyone likes their mother’s cooking best.” He surveyed her plate. “You got any more of that bread?” She’d take that as a victory.

If your taste, and therefore the taste buds of your soul, have grown accustomed to the flavor of bitterness—and consuming it to the last drop, your playful spirit has run completely dry—do this, and you’ll discover the highly sought but rarely found fountain of youth. Push far out from the populated shore, then stretch out over the side of your canoe, and peer down into the deep deep waters. When the shark begins to emerge within your reflection, don’t be afraid, let it completely devour your big head, as you have also taught the beast to consume others. Fear not! You will no longer need it on your odyssey. The humiliating disfiguration will kill you but it won’t hurt you. Rather, it will make space for your heart to turtlehead as an old, wise, and happy sage with an insatiable thirst for the drunkenness of good spirits, that can be found in every home, temple, and tavern that litters the shore, and brings cheer and love of life to the rigid bitter bones.

Nicolas couldn’t stop looking at her with her head thrown back, her thick, black hair streaming in the wind, her body perfectly balanced as she guided the boat. With her head back, he could see her neck and the outline of her body beneath the shirt, almost as if she wore nothing at all. His body stirred, hardened. Nicolas didn’t bother to fight the reaction. Whatever was between them, the chemistry was apparent and it wasn’t going to go away. He could sit in the boat and admire the flawless perfection of her skin. Imagine the way it would feel beneath his fingertips, his palm. Dahlia’s head suddenly turned and her eyes were on him. Hot Wild. Wary. “Stop touching my breasts.” She lifted her chin, faint color stealing under her skin. He held up his hands in surrender. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Dahlia’s breasts ached, felt swollen and hot, and deep inside her, a ravenous appetite began to stir. Nicolas was sitting across from her, looking the epitome of the perfect male statue, his features expressionless and his eyes cool, but she felt his hands on her body. Long caresses, his palms cupping her breasts, thumbs stroking her nipples until she shivered in awareness and hunger. “Oh, that.” “Yes, that.” She couldn’t help seeing the rigid length bulging beneath his jeans, and he made no effort to hide it. His unashamed display sent her body into overtime reaction so that she felt a curious throbbing where no throbbing needed to be. She grit her teeth together. “I can still feel you touching me.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I consider myself an innocent victim in this situation,” Nicolas said. “I’ve always had control, in fact I pride myself on self-discipline. You seem to have destroyed it. Permanently.” He wasn’t exactly lying to her. He couldn’t take his eyes or his mind from her body. It was an unexpected pleasure, a gift. He was devouring her with his eyes. With his mind. A part of her, the truly insane part—and Dahlia was beginning to believe there really was one—loved the way he was looking at her. She’d never experienced a man’s complete attention centered on her in a sexual way before. And he wasn’t just any man. He was . . . extraordinary. “Well, stop all the same,” she said, caught between embarrassment and pleasure. “I don’t see why my having a few fantasies should bother you.” “I’m feeling your fantasies. I think you’re projecting just a little too strongly.” His eyebrows shot up. “You mean you can actually feel what I’m thinking? My hands on your body? I thought you were reading my mind.” “I told you I could feel you touching me.” “That’s amazing. Has that ever happened before?” “No, and it better not happen again. Good grief, we’re strangers.” “You slept with me last night,” he pointed out. “Do you sleep with many strangers?” He was teasing her, but the question sent a dark shadow skittering through him.

Politically correct sexuality is a paradoxical concept. One of the most deeply held opinions in feminism is that women should be autonomous and self-directed in defining their sexual desire, yet when a woman says “This is my desire,” feminists rush in to say, “No, no, it is the prick in your head; women should not desire that act.” But we do not yet know enough about what women– any women– desire. The real problem here is that we stopped asking questions too early in the lesbian and feminist movement, and rushed to erect what appeared to be answers into the formidable and rigid edifice that we have now. Our contemporary lack of curiosity also affects our view of the past. We don’t ask butch-femme women who they are; we tell them. We don’t explore the social life of working-class lesbian bars in the 1940’s and 1950’s; we simply assert that all those women were victims. Our supposed answers closed our ears and stopped our analysis. Questions and answers about lesbian lives that deviate from the feminist model of the 1970’s strike like a shock wave against the movement’s foundation, yet this new wave of questioning is an authentic one, coming from women who have helped create the feminist and lesbian movement that they are now challenging into new growth. If we close down exploration, we will be forcing some women once again to live their sexual lives in a land of shame and guilt, only this time they will be haunted by the realization that it was not the patriarchal code they had failed, but the creed of their own sisters who said they came in love. Curiosity builds bridges between women and between the present and past; judgement builds the power if some over others. Curiosity is not trivial; it is respect one life pays to another. It is a largeness of mind and heart that refuses to be bound by decorum or by desperation. It is hardest to keep alive in the times it is most needed, the times of hatred, of instability, of attack. Surely these are such times.

Attempting to indirectly get validation, reassurance, and other psychological fulfillment from sex - especially if we don't admit our agenda to ourselves or inform our partner - makes sex complicated, unpredictable, and a lot of work. We make it even harder on ourselves by creating narrow, rigid definitions of the satisfactions we seek; if "manliness" means always being erect regardless of fatigue, for instance, or "competent" means climaxing every time, sexual "success" will be frustratingly elusive. Perhaps this helps explain why you aren't focused on pleasure and closeness during sex. It's because you're also looking for something else, whether you know it or not. This also helps explain why so many people are sexually dissatisfied - because sex isn't delivering what they really want, in fact can't deliver what they want through genital excellence. And any psychological satisfaction you accidentally get doesn't stick to you ribs because it's indirect, unacknowledged, and fleeting.

Ego is not an enemy to be broken or demolished, as is often portrayed in spiritual literature. We don't want to get rid of the ego, we want to soften it, make it porous and receptive, so information, thoughts, and compassion flow in and out. A healthy ego allows us to have the strength of our convictions yet be open to others. Psychological literature often refers to ego strength - a sureness about ourselves that rests calmly inside, the will to actualize our dreams, or stand fast to our beliefs without worrying about the consequences. By contrast, the rigid or inflated ego is concrete and dualistic - right-wrong, good-bad, friend-foe...It believes the stories we've made up are reality and doesn't realize that they are only the cover over our essence...To deflect fear, the inflated ego dons a mask and becomes artificial in relationships...This leaves us a stranger to ourself and the person we are meeting. In fact, there has been no authentic connection; it's only our personas that have met.

Fitzgerald contrasts rupture with structural pseudobreaks in so-called signifying chains. But he also distinguishes it from more supple, more subterranean links or stems of the "voyage" type, or even from molecular conveyances. "The famous 'Escape' or 'run away from it all' is an excursion in a trap even if the trap includes the South Seas, which are only for those who want to paint them or sail them. A clean break is something you cannot come back from; that is irretrievable because it makes the past cease to exist." Can it be that voyages are always a return to rigid segmentarity? Is it always your daddy and mommy that you meet when you travel, even as far away as the South Seas, like Melville? Hardened muscles? Must we say that supple segmentarity itself reconstructs the great figures it claimed to escape, but under the microscope, in miniature? Beckett's unforgettable line is an indictment of all voyages: "We don't travel for the fun of it, as far as I know; we're foolish, but not that foolish.

Isn’t that … Amanda’s car?” April suddenly walked past us, her blond ponytail swaying. “I don’t know,” Zoe answered. April slid past a small group. “Yeah. That is her car and it’s running.” I trailed behind April, glancing at Zoe. She shrugged. Amanda hadn’t been in chem today, but if that was her car and it was running, then was she…? It happened so fast. “Oh my God.” A girl stumbled back from the car, dropping her bag just as the driver’s side came into view. I saw it—saw everything before I had a chance to look away, to not see what would forever be imprinted in my mind. Amanda was sitting in the driver’s seat, her posture rigid. At first glance I thought she was driving—I thought everything was okay—but then I saw that her head was tipped back against the seat, her long blond hair falling over her shoulders. Then I saw her face. Someone screamed. Someone grabbed my arm. Someone was tugging on me. But I saw her face through the windshield. I saw where her eyes should’ve been, but they were just burnt-out black sockets.

They got under each of my shoulders and pulled me up, Padma walking in front of me and holding her arms out for good measure. I walked on my own, but I knew that if they hadn’t been there, I might have fallen more than once. Side by side, we marched into the Ocean, all of us crying for help. What? I felt the swirling waves of Her worry as we floated just beneath the surface. Something’s wrong with Kahlen, Miaka said. In the water, they could let me go, and I floated there, the Ocean holding me like a child. I’m so tired. Look at her skin, Elizabeth said. She’s so pale. And she keeps sleeping. Like she needs it. She has a fever, too, Miaka added. I was acutely aware that my temperature was off; I could feel the water around me warming from my touch....She fretted. This has never happened before. I don’t know what to do. Maybe if she stays in You for a while, it would help, Elizabeth suggested. What, Miaka? the Ocean asked suddenly. Nothing. But she did look like she was hiding something. What were you thinking? Nothing, Miaka insisted. Flipping through ideas, it’s all nothing. I think Elizabeth is onto something. She swam up to me. We’ll come and check on you every hour until you feel like coming back to bed. I didn’t want to say how much it bothered me that she said “back to bed” instead of “back to the house.” It was like she knew I wasn’t going to be standing again. Okay. They fled, off to make arrangements for their broken sister. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening. How long have you been feeling like this? She sounded uneasy, as if She suspected something She didn’t want to say. I squinted, trying to remember. It’s been coming on so slowly, it’s hard to say. She snuggled me into Herself. Just rest. I’m here. And I was so tired, I did exactly that. It was so unreal, how loved I felt. Right there, balanced with Her rigidity, Her absolute need to maintain order, I heard Her thinking of what She might sacrifice so long as She could keep me. It was such an encompassing feeling, and that alone was enough to make me sleep.

All the love that had been accumulating through the lonely years of her childhood was in that kiss-Ian felt it in the soft lips parting willingly for his searching tongue, the delicate hands sliding through the hair at his nape. With unselfish ardor she offered it all to him, and Ian took it hungrily, feeling it moving from her to him, then flowing through his veins and mingling with his until the joy of it was shattering. She was everything he’d ever dreamed she could be and more. With an effort that was almost painful he dragged his mouth from hers, his hand still cupping the rumpled satin of her hair, his other hand holding her pressed to his rigid body, and Elizabeth stayed in his arms, seeming neither frightened nor offended by his rigid erection. “I love you,” he whispered, rubbing his jaw against her temple. “And you love me. I can feel it when you’re in my arms.” He felt her stiffen slightly and draw a shaky breath, but she either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. She hadn’t thrown the words back in his face, however, so Ian continued talking to her, his hand roving over her back. “I can feel it, Elizabeth, but if you don’t admit it pretty soon, you’re going to drive me out of my mind. I can’t work. I can’t think. I make decisions and then I change my mind. And,” he teased, trying to lighten the mood by using the one topic sure to distract her, “that’s nothing to the money I squander whenever I’m under this sort of violent stress. It wasn’t just the gowns I bought, or the house on Promenade…” Still talking to her, he tipped her chin up, glorying in the gentle passion in her eyes, overlooking the doubt in their green depths. “If you don’t admit it pretty soon,” he teased, “I’ll spend us out of house and home.” Her delicate brows drew together in blank confusion, and Ian grinned, taking her hand from his chest, the emerald betrothal ring he had brought her unnoticed in his fingers. “When I’m under stress,” he emphasized, sliding the magnificent emerald onto her finger, “I buy everything in sight. It took my last ounce of control not to buy one of those in every color.

Why is it that you don’t know what to do when there is desire? I’ll tell you why. Because this rigid decision of yours is still in operation. All religions have told us to deny sex, to suppress it, because they say it is a waste of energy and you must have energy to find God. But this kind of austerity and harsh suppression and conformity to a pattern does brutal violence to all our finer instincts. This kind of harsh austerity is a greater waste of energy than indulgence in sex. Why have you made sex into a problem? Really it doesn’t matter at all whether you go to bed with someone or whether you don’t. Get on with it or drop it but don’t make a problem of it. The problem comes from this constant preoccupation. The really interesting thing is not whether we do or don’t go to bed with someone but why we have all these fragments in our lives. In one restless corner there is sex with all its preoccupations; in another corner there is some other kind of turmoil; in another a striving after this or that, and in each corner there is the continual chattering of the mind. There are so many ways in which energy is wasted. If one corner of my life is in disorder, then the whole of my life is in disorder. If there is disorder in my life in regard to sex, then the rest of my life is in disorder. So I shouldn’t ask how to put one corner in order, but why I have broken life into so many different fragments – fragments which are in disorder within themselves and which all contradict each other. What can I do when I see so many fragments? How can I deal with them all? I have these fragments because I am not whole inside. If I go into all this without causing yet another fragment, if I go to the very end of each fragment, then in that awareness, which is looking, there is no fragmentation. Each fragment is a separate pleasure. I should ask myself whether I am going to stay in some sordid little room of pleasure all my life. Go into the slavery of each pleasure, each fragment, and say to yourself, my god, I am dependent, I am a slave to all these little corners – is that all there is to my life? Stay with it and see what happens.

5. The “No Talk” Rule. This rule prohibits the full expression of any feeling, need or want. In shame-based families, the members want to hide their true feelings, needs or wants. Therefore, no one speaks of his loneliness and sense of self-rupture. 6. The “No Listen” Rule. Everyone is so busy using their energy to defend themselves or play their rigid roles, no one really hears anything from the other’s true self. 7. Don’t Make Mistakes. Mistakes reveal the flawed, vulnerable self. To acknowledge a mistake is to open oneself to scrutiny. Cover up your own mistakes, and if someone else makes a mistake, shame him. 8. Unreliability. Don’t expect reliability in relationships. Don’t trust anyone, and you will never be disappointed. The parents didn’t get their developmental dependency needs met and will not be there for their children to depend on. The distrust cycle goes on. 9. Don’t Trust. Since no one feels validated or listened to, and there is unpredictability and unreliability on the part of the source figures, no one develops basic trust in themselves or others.

I might have stood there for a long time, hand halfway up like a religious statue,if Frankie hadn't gently pulled it down and held on. He stood behind me, vibrating with anger. "That is not an honorable man, Fiorella." Without thinking, I lifted my free hand toward my neck.But I was wearing a turtleneck and my hair was down. There was nothing to see,and all my fingertips found was the rigid peak under my jaw. "Don't do that," Frankie hissed. "Don't you dare. It's not the scar and it's abso-freakin-lutely not you." I dropped my hand. "Yeah,right." I sagged against him a little. For being skinny as he is, Frankie's really solid. "It's never me." I felt his sigh against my shoulder blades. "We are young; heartache to heartache we stand." "Let me guess," I said. "Old Korean proverb." "As if.Pat Benatar. 'Love is a Battlefield.'" I laughed.I had a feeling I might cry, but not there and then. "Thanks." "Don't mention it." Frankie wrapped his free arm around me so my chin rested on his forearm. "Enough,right? That was enough of Alex Bainbridge-for all of us. Promise?" "Yeah.Promise?

Orthodoxy is the wide open field within which successful breeding can take place. If one maintains that Jesus was an eater of magic mushrooms or a Martian, then this will not make for fertility. There is not enough in common for there to be intercourse in any sense. How different can two believers be for the encounter to be fertile? This is a complex question which we do not need to explore here. Of course ultimately we must share orthodoxy, but this is not to narrow the scope of the conversation; it is to enter the broad terrain of the mystery, in which we are liberated from the tightness of ideology. It is a serious misuse of language to use the word 'orthodox' to mean conservative or, even worse, rigid. Orthodoxy does not lie in the unvarying and thoughtless repetition of received formulas. As Karl Rahner pointed out, that can be a form of heresy. Orthodoxy is speaking about our faith in ways that keep open the pilgrimage towards the mystery. Often it is hard to know immediately whether a new statement of belief is a new way of stating our faith or its betrayal. It takes time for us to tell.

To think I actually talked to the boy who nearly got you killed," Ivy mutters, shuddering with disgust. "I'm so sorry I did." "It's okay. You didn't know," I reassure her as we take a seat on some pool chairs. "But you told me before what his appearance was. I should have recognized him!" "It's fine, Ivy. Even if you did your best to avoid him, he would've found way to hit on you eventually." Ivy wrinkles her nose at the unfamiliar language. " 'Hit on'? What does that mean?" "Flirting. Or, for Dunstan, more like a procedure. He's been hitting on any pretty girl he sees ever since he and Melanie broke up. I don't know if he's doing this to make her jealous or what, but it's really annoying." I look back up to see Ivy go rigid. For some reason she looks classically surprised; her hand is over her mouth, and the rosy blush is back with a vengeance, "Ivy? You okay?" Ivy removes her hand, muttering something so quietly I can't hear it. "Sorry?" "You called me pretty." The moment those words are said, Ivy stares down at her feet as her face gets brighter. "Well, yeah," I murmur, my face hot. "You really are beautiful tonight, Ivy.

Will you never forgive me for what I did so long ago, Jane?” The soft question caught her off guard. “Would you do it again if you had the chance?” She could hardly breathe, awaiting his answer. With a low oath, he glanced away. Then his features hardened into those of the rigid and arrogant Dom he had become. “Yes. I did the only thing I could to keep you happy.” Her breath turned to ice in her throat. “That’s the problem. You still really believe that.” His gaze swung to her again, but before he could say anything more, noises in the hall arrested them both. “It’s gone very quiet in there.” It was the duke’s voice, remarkably clear, sounding as if it came from right outside the door. “Perhaps we should knock first.” Oh no! As Jane frantically set her gown to rights, she heard Lisette say, “Don’t you dare bother them, Max. I’m sure everything’s fine. Let’s come back later.” With panic growing in her belly, Jane glanced around for her tucker. Wordlessly, Dom plucked it from the back of a chair and handed it to her. Without meeting his gaze, she pinned it into her bodice, hoping to hide the tiny holes where Dom had unwittingly ripped it free of its pins. “Besides,” drawled Tristan, “it’s not as if Dom will seduce her or anything. That’s not his vice.” Sweet Lord, were they all right outside the door? “I’m not worried about that,” Max answered. “Miss Vernon isn’t the sort to let him seduce her.” As Jane tensed, Dom hissed under his breath, “Do the blasted idiots not realize we can hear them?” “Apparently not.” Dom furtively adjusted his trousers, which seemed to be rather…oddly protruding just now. Ohhh. Right. This was one time she wished Nancy hadn’t been so forthcoming about what happened to a man’s body when he was aroused. So that, not his pistol, had been the odd bulge digging into her. Definitely not a pistol. Her cheeks positively flamed. Faith, how could she even face his family after this and not give away what she and Dom had been doing? Mortified, she hurried to the looking glass to fix her hair. While she stuffed tendrils back into place and repinned drooping curls, Dom came up behind her to meet her gaze in the mirror. “Before we let them in, I want an answer to my question about Blakeborough.” Curse the stubborn man. How could she tell Dom she was so pathetic that she hadn’t even managed to find another man to love in all the years they’d spent apart? That she’d been foolish enough to wait around for Dom all this time, when he’d happily gone on living his life without her? Her pride couldn’t endure having him know that. To her relief, Tristan said, “Well, whatever they’re up to, we have to get moving.” A knock sounded at the door. “Dom? Jane? Are you done talking?” She met Dom’s gaze with a certain defiance, and he arched one eyebrow in question. So she took matters into her own hands and strode for the door. Caught off guard, Dom swore behind her and snatched up his greatcoat just as she opened the door and said, “Please come in. We’re quite finished.” In more ways than one. Their companions trooped in, casting her and Dom wary glances. Jane looked over to see Dom holding his greatcoat looped over his arm as if to shield the front of him. That brought the blushes back to her cheeks. She caught Lisette furtively watching her, and she cursed herself for wearing her emotions on her sleeve. Better shift her attention elsewhere before Lisette guessed just how shameless she’d been.

Tamlin won't allow it.' 'Tamlin isn't your keeper, and you know it.' 'I'm his subject, and he is my High Lord...' 'You are no one's subject.' I went rigid at the flash of teeth, the smoke-like wings that flared out. 'I will say this once- and only once,' Rhysand purred, stalking to the map on the wall. 'You can be a pawn, be someone's reward, and spend the rest of your immortal life bowing and scraping and pretending you're less than him, than Ianthe, than any of us. If you want to pick that road, then fine. A shame, but it's your choice.' The shadow of wings rippled again. 'But I know you- more than you realise, I think- and I don't believe for one damn minute that you're remotely fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on his ass for nearly fifty years, then set on his ass while you were shredded apart-' 'Stop it-' 'Or,' he plowed ahead, 'you've got another choice. You can master whatever powers we gave you, and make it count. You can play a role in this war. Because war is coming one way or another.' ... 'Think it over. Take the week. Ask Tamlin, if it'll make you sleep better. See what charming Ianthe says about it. But it's your choice to make- no one else's.

Owen stepped into the saddle and reached a hand down as he took his foot out of the stirrup, so Bay could mount behind him. Once she was settled, he said, “Hang on. And don’t be wiggling around. We can’t afford any more accidents.” Bay glowered at him. She clamped her hands on either side of his waist at his beltline, but his Colt .45 was holstered on one side, which kept her from getting a comfortable hold. She put her right hand above the gun, but that meant it was practically under his armpit. Then she moved it below the gun, but that put her hand low on hips close to his crotch. “Sonofabitch.” He grabbed her hands and pulled them around his midriff. “Now hang on.” Bay kept her breasts rigidly distanced from Owen’s back, but her nipples puckered anyway. It was that damned washboard of male abdominal muscle under her hands. The man could do commercials for those workout machines they advertised on TV. The horseflies were a surprise. Where had they come from? She let go with one hand and swatted at one that seemed determined to bite her on the nose. And knocked Owen’s hat askew. “That does it. Off.” “It wasn’t my fault,” Bay said. “I was getting bitten.” “Off.” He grabbed her arm and levered her out from behind him and onto the ground.

Are you ever not manipulating people?” “We all manipulate the people around us,” Jason said. “We all show different faces to friends, family, colleagues. Enemies.” “You think that’s the same thing?” “You think it’s different? You think my friends don’t see past the bombast and the bluster? Do you think Jory doesn’t know how I feel, healing people in his clinic? That Humphrey doesn’t know my pride, helping protect a village from monsters? That Rufus doesn’t feel my triumph when I push my abilities a little bit further and grow that little bit stronger?” “Aren’t you just making it harder for them?” “We all make it hard. Rufus can be rigid when he needs to be flexible. Humphrey can be short-sighted when he needs to look deeper. Jory needs to be more ambitious before he can truly accomplish the things he wants to. As for me, well, I’m the worst of the lot. I’m constantly causing trouble a little politeness would avoid. I pick fights I have no business being in, make enemies that would overlook me if I just learned to keep my mouth shut. I’m prickly, manipulative. Completely lacking in deference.” “If you’re so self-aware, then why not fix all that?” “Because they aren’t problems,” Jason said. “They’re part of who I am, and I’m happier with that now than I ever have been.

Yes, do that,” Ignatius said excitedly. “Begin organizing at every level.” “Oh, I never guessed that you would be such a fun person to know. You were so hostile in that dreadful, tacky bar.” “My being has many facets.” “You amaze me.” The young man stared at Ignatius’ outfit. “To think that they’re letting you run around loose. In a way, I respect you.” “Thank you very much.” Ignatius’ voice was smooth, pleased. “Most fools don’t comprehend my worldview at all.” “I wouldn’t imagine so.” “I suspect that beneath your offensively and vulgarly effeminate façade there may be a soul of sorts. Have you read widely in Boethius?” “Who? Oh, heavens no. I never even read newspapers.” “Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age,” Ignatius said solemnly. “Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books.” “You’re fantastic.” “I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he’s found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman.

Unfortunately, the most common metaphor for software development is building construction. [...] Well, software doesn’t quite work that way. Rather than construction, software is more like gardening—it is more organic than concrete. You plant many things in a garden according to an initial plan and conditions. Some thrive, others are destined to end up as compost. You may move plantings relative to each other to take advantage of the interplay of light and shadow, wind and rain. Overgrown plants get split or pruned, and colors that clash may get moved to more aesthetically pleasing locations. You pull weeds, and you fertilize plantings that are in need of some extra help. You constantly monitor the health of the garden, and make adjustments (to the soil, the plants, the layout) as needed. Business people are comfortable with the metaphor of building construction: it is more scientific than gardening, it’s repeatable, there’s a rigid reporting hierarchy for management, and so on. But we’re not building skyscrapers—we aren’t as constrained by the boundaries of physics and the real world. The gardening metaphor is much closer to the realities of software development. Perhaps a certain routine has grown too large, or is trying to accomplish too much—it needs to be split into two. Things that don’t work out as planned need to be weeded or pruned.

The equivalent of humans searching for their “real selves” is small cats chasing their tails. For it seems to me that there is no “real self”. We humans are ever-shifting, dynamic entities and not unchangeable, rigid selves. And even if there were a kind of centrum within us that we could call an “inner self”, we would never reach down to it, because of our natural biases about what we are and what our place in the world is. When we look in the mirror, we don’t see what we are, but we see what we want to be. Yet, as elusive as the search for self is, so clear is what we have to do on earth: to love and take care of each other. Life is too short and too miraculous to waste it on something other than love and joy!The equivalent of humans searching for their “real selves” is small cats chasing their tails. For I believe that there is no “real self”. We humans are ever-shifting, dynamic entities and not unchangeable, rigid selves. And even if there were a kind of centrum within us that we could call an “inner self”, we would never reach down to it, because of our natural biases about what we are and what our place in the world is. When we look in the mirror, we don’t see what we are, but we see what we want to be. Yet, as elusive as the search for self is, so clear is what we have to do on earth: to love and take care of each other. Life is too short and too miraculous to waste it on something other than love and joy!

It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven. But why is it important? After all, fiction can be dangerously misleading or distracting. People who go to the forest looking for fairies and unicorns would seem to have less chance of survival than people who go looking for mushrooms and deer. And if you spend hours praying to non-existing guardian spirits, aren’t you wasting precious time, time better spent foraging, fighting and fornicating? However, fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers. Ants and bees can also work together in huge numbers, but they do so in a very rigid manner and only with close relatives. Wolves and chimpanzees cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so only with small numbers of other individuals that they know intimately. Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That’s why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

A few minutes later Elizabeth watched Lucinda emerge from the cottage with Ian, but there was no way to guess from their closed expressions what they’d discussed. In fact, the only person betraying any emotion at all was Jake Wiley as he led two horses into the yard. And his face, Elizabeth noted with confusion-which had been stormy when he went off to saddle the horses-was now wreathed in a smile of unrestrained glee. With a sweep of his arm and a bow he gestured toward a swaybacked black horse with an old sidesaddle upon its back. “Here’s your mount, ma’am,” he told Lucinda, grinning. “His name’s Attila.” Lucinda cast a disdainful eye over the beast as she transferred her umbrella to her right hand and pulled on her black gloves. “Have you nothing better?” “No, ma’am. Ian’s horse has a hurt foot.” “Oh, very well,” said Lucinda, walking briskly forward, but as she came within reach the black suddenly bared his teeth and lunged. Lucinda struck him between the ears with her umbrella without so much as a pause in her step. “Cease!” she commanded, and, ignoring the animal’s startled grunt of pain, she continued around to his other side to mount. “You brought it on yourself,” she told the horse as Jake held Attila’s head, and Ian Thornton helped her into the sidesaddle. The whites of Attila’s eyes showed as he warily watched her land in his saddle and settle herself. The moment Jake handed Lucinda the reins Attila began to leap sideways and twist around in restless annoyance. “I do not countenance ill-tempered animals,” she warned the horse in her severest tone, and when he refused to heed her and continued his threatening antics she hauled up sharply on his reins and simultaneously gave him a sharp jab in the flank with her umbrella. Attila let out a yelping complaint, broke into a quick, animated trot, and headed obediently down the drive. “If that don’t beat all!” Jake said furiously, glowering after the pair, and then at Ian. “That animal doesn’t know the meaning of the word loyalty!” Without waiting for a reply Jake swung into his saddle and cantered down the lane after them. Absolutely baffled over everyone’s behavior this morning, Elizabeth cast a puzzled, sideways glance at the silent man beside her, then gaped at him in amazement. The unpredictable man was staring after Lucinda, his hands shoved into his pockets, a cigar clamped between his white teeth, his face transformed by a sweeping grin. Drawing the obvious conclusion that these odd reactions from the men were somehow related to Lucinda’s skillful handling of an obstinate horse, Elizabeth commented, “Lucinda’s uncle raised horses, I believe.” Almost reluctantly, Ian transferred his admiring gaze from Lucinda’s rigid back to Elizabeth. His brows rose. “An amazing woman,” he stated. “Is there any situation of which she can’t take charge?” “None that I’ve ever seen,” Elizabeth said with a chuckle; then she felt self-conscious because his smile faded abruptly, and his manner became detached and cool.

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,’ "اصلا متوجه شده ای کل مقصود نوگفتار اینه که گسترهی تفکر رو محدود کنه؟ آخر سر کاری میکنیم که پندار مجرمانه عملا ناممکن بشه، چون واژهایی برای بیانش وجود نخواهد داشت. هر مفهومی که یک موقعی بتونه به درد بخوره دقیقا با یک کلمه بیان می شه که معناش سخت گیرانه تعیین شده و تمام معناهای ضمنیش حذف و فراموش شده همین حالا، توی چاپ یازدهم، با این مرحله خیلی فاصله داریم، اما این فرایند تا مدتها بعد از این که من و تو هم مردیم باز ادامه پدا می کنه. هر سال واژه هاکم و کمتر میشن و عرصه ی آگاهی یک خرده تنگتر. البته، الآن هم، هیچ دلیل و توجیهی برای ارتکاب پندار مجرمانه وجود نداره. قضیه صرفا به انضباط شخصی و تسلط به واقعیت مربوط میشه اما در نهایت به این هم نیازی نخواهد بود انقلاب زمانی تکمیل میشه که زبان به کمال برسه.

I’m wondering what it would be like to be kissed by you.” “Let’s not go there,” he said. “I don’t want to mess up our friendship.” “It wouldn’t,” she said, grinning suddenly. “I’d like to know how it feels. I mean, as an experiment.” “Put the wrong chemicals together, and they explode.” She frowned. “Are you saying you don’t think I’d like it? Or that I would?” “It doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to kiss you.” She looked up at him shyly, from beneath lowered lashes, and gave him a cajoling smile. “Just one teeny, weeny little kiss?” He laughed at her antics. Inside his stomach, about a million butterflies had taken flight. “Don’t play games with me, Summer.” He said it with a smile, but it was a warning. One she ignored. She crooked her finger and wiggled it, gesturing him toward her. “Come here, and give me a little kiss.” She was doing something sultry with her eyes, something she’d never done before. She’d turned on some kind of feminine heat, because he was burning up just looking at her. “Stop this,” he said in a guttural voice. She canted her hip and put her hand on it, drawing his attention in that direction, then slid her tongue along the seam of her lips to wet them. “I’m ready, bad boy. What are you waiting for?” His heart was beating a hundred miles a minute. He was hot and hard and ready. And if he touched her, he was going to ruin everything. “I’m not going to kiss you, Summer.” He saw the disappointment flash in her eyes. Saw the determination replace it. “All right. I’ll kiss you.” He could have stopped her. He was the one with the powerful arms and the broad chest and the long, strong legs. But he wanted that kiss. “Fine,” he said. “Don’t expect fireworks. I’m only doing this because we’re friends.” And if she believed that, he had some desert brushland he could sell her. Suddenly, she seemed uncertain, and he felt a pang of loss. Silly to feel it so deeply, when kissing Summer had been the last thing he’d allowed himself to dream about. Although, to be honest, he hadn’t always been able to control his dreams. She’d been there, all right. Hot and wet and willing. He made himself smile at her. “Don’t worry, kid. It was a bad idea. To be honest, I value our friendship too much—” She threw herself into his arms, clutching him around the neck, so he had to catch her or get bowled over. “Whoa, there,” he said, laughing and hugging her with her feet dangling in the air. “It doesn’t matter that you’ve changed your mind about wanting that kiss. I’m just glad to be your friend.” She leaned back in his embrace, searching his eyes, looking for something. Before he could do or say anything to stop her, she pressed her lips softly against his. His whole body went rigid. “Billy,” she murmured against his lips. “Please. Kiss me back.” “Summer, I don’t—” She pressed her lips against his again, damp and pliant and inviting. He softened his mouth against hers, felt the plumpness of her upper lip, felt the open, inviting seam, and let his tongue slide along the length of it. “Oh.” She broke the kiss and stared at him with dazed eyes. Eyes that sought reason where there was none. He wanted to rage at her for ruining everything. They could never be friends now. Not now that he’d tasted her, not now that she’d felt his want and his need. He lowered his head to take her mouth, to take what he’d always wanted.

Violet’s not getting out of our sight,” Arion adds. There’s a moment of just staring…like everyone is trying to silently argue. “No one naked in my car,” Mom states when I just stand in my spot, waiting on them to hurry through the push and pull. You really can tell how thick the air is when too many alphas are in the room at one time, but weirdly it never feels this way when it’s just the four of them. Unless punches are thrown. Then it gets a little heavier than normal. Arion pulls on his clothes, and threads whir in the air as I quickly fashion Emit a lopsided toga that lands on his body. Everyone’s gaze swings to him like it’s weird for him and normal for me to be in a toga. Awesome. Damien muffles a sound, Emit arches an eyebrow at me, and Arion remains rigid, staying close to me but never touching me. All of us squeezing into a car together while most of them hate each other…should be fun. The storm finally stops before we board the elevator, and it’s one of those super awkward elevator moments where no one is looking at anyone or saying anything, and everyone is trying to stay in-the-moment serious. We stop on the floor just under us, after the longest thirty-five seconds ever. The doors open, and two men glance around at Emit and I in our matching togas, even though his is the fitted sheet and riding up in some funny places. He looks like a caveman who accidentally bleached and shrank his wardrobe. I palm my face, embarrassed for him. The next couple of floors are super awkward with the addition of the two new, notably uncomfortable men. Worst seventy-nine seconds ever. Math doesn’t add up? Yeah. I’m upset about those extra nine seconds as well. Poor Emit has to duck out of the unusually small elevator, and the bottom of his ass cheek plays peek-a-boo on one side. Damien finally snorts, and even Mom struggles to keep a straight face. That really pisses her off. “You’re seeing him on an off day,” I tell the two guys, who stare at my red boots for a second. I feel the need to defend Emit a little, especially since I now know he overheard all that gibberish Tiara was saying… I can’t remember all I said, and it’s worrying me now that my mind has gone off on this stupid tangent. I trip over the hem of my toga, and Arion snags me before I hit the floor, righting me and showing his hands to my mother with a quick grin. “Can’t just let her fall,” he says unapologetically. “You’re going to have to learn to deal with that,” she bites out. She has a very good point. I don’t trip very often, but things and people usually knock me around a good bit of my life. The two guys look like they want to run, so I hurry to fix this. “Really, it’s a long story, but I swear Emit—the tallest one in the fitted-sheet-toga—generally wears pants…er…I guess you guys call them trousers over here. Anyway, we had some plane problems,” I carry on, and then realize I have to account for the fact we’re both missing clothing. “Then there was a fire that miraculously only burned our clothes, because Emit put all my flames out by smothering me with his body,” I state like that’s exactly what happened. Why do they look so scared? I’m not telling a scary lie. At this point, I’ve just made it worse, and fortunately Damien takes mercy, clamping his hand over my mouth as he starts steering me toward the door before I can make it…whatever comes after worse but before the worst. “Thank you,” sounds more like “Mmdi ooooo,” against his hand, but he gets the gist, as he grins. Mom makes a frustrated sound. “Another minute, and she’d be bragging about his penis size in quest to save his dignity. Did you really want to hear that?” Damien asks her, forcing me to groan against his hand.

One day Billy’s kindergarten teacher phoned me at work. In a grave tone of voice she informed me Billy had been involved in a serious incident at school. She refused to elaborate but insisted I come to the school for a disciplinary meeting. My mind raced as I drove to the school. I wondered what type of behavior could possibly land a five-year-old in such hot water. When I arrived at the school, the teacher ushered me into a private office. Billy sat next to me—he looked scared. We both faced the grim faced teacher. She reminded me of the woman in the famous painting, “American Gothic.” She sat rigidly behind her desk, her eyes unblinking. The atmosphere was reminiscent of a criminal court proceeding. “Maybe Billy had accidentally killed someone.” I thought. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. The teacher’s face was stiff and emotionless. Finally, her lips moved and she intoned, “Billy, tell your father what you did.” Under the disapproving gaze of his teacher, Billy began his confession. “Well, I was eating lunch next to Suzy. We had green Jell-O. It was jiggling around. Suzy bent down to look at her Jell-O real close, and I … pushed her face into it.” I barely choked off a belly laugh and quickly looked away, struggling for control. Somehow I sensed that Billy’s straitlaced teacher would frown upon me laughing uncontrollably about this issue. With Zenlike concentration, I mastered my emotions and turned to face my son. My expression was serious, my tone was stern, my acting was impeccable, “Billy, how do you think that made Suzy feel?” “Bad.” said Billy. “That’s right.” I said. “I don’t want you to ever do such a thing again. Do you understand?” “Yes.” Billy meekly replied. I looked at the teacher. She seemed disappointed I hadn’t tortured my son with hot irons. Reluctantly, the she allowed us to leave. This incident was representative of many child-rearing situations I dealt with over the years.

Ryder’s heart beats madly against my ear as we cling to each other, holding on for dear life. Adrenaline races through my veins, making my breath come in short gasps. I can feel Ryder’s fingers in my hair, his nails digging into my scalp as he presses me tightly against his body, his muscles bunched and rigid. I know I’m supposed to hate him, but all I can think right now is how glad I am he’s here--glad that I’m not alone. I’ve never been so scared in all my life, but I know it would be worse without him. It’s over in a matter of seconds. The freight-train roar quiets, the rain returning with a vengeance. I don’t need Jim Cantore to tell me it’s a rain-wrapped tornado. I’ve watched enough Storm Chasers to recognize it, even from my little hidey-hole under the stairs. If we had been outside, we probably wouldn’t have seen it coming, not till it was too late. Ryder releases his grip on my head, and I pull away slightly, peering up at him. His deep brown eyes are slightly wild-looking, but otherwise he looks okay. His face isn’t a shade of green, at least. I lean back against him, my head resting on his shoulder now. We’re still holding hands, our fingers intertwined. Somehow, it doesn’t seem at all weird. It just feels…safe. Neither of us says a word, not till the sirens are silenced a few minutes later. “I guess we should give it a few minutes,” I say, my voice slightly hoarse. “You know, just to make sure that’s it. No point in going out just to climb right back in.” He nods. “Besides, it’s perfectly comfortable in here.” “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” “Okay, let me rephrase. It’s not uncomfortable.” I swallow hard. “I hope it’s not bad out there. I’m afraid of what we’re going to find.” “No matter how bad it is, we’re fine; the dogs and cats are fine. That’s what matters, Jemma. Anything else is replaceable.” “You sound like my dad, you know that? Have you been studying at the Bradley Cafferty School of Platitudes or something?” “Your dad’s a smart guy,” he says with a shrug.

After Us, the Salamanders!, The Future belongs to the Newts, Newts Mean Cultural Revolution. Even if they don't have their own art (they explained) at least they are not burdened with idiotic ideals, dried up traditions and all the rigid and boring things taught in schools and given the name of poetry, music, architecture, philosophy and culture in any of its forms. The word culture is senile and it makes us sick. Human art has been with us for too long and is worn-out and if the newts have never fallen for it we will make a new art for them. We, the young, will blaze the path for a new world of salamandrism: we wish to be the first newts, we are the salamanders of tomorrow! And so the young poetic movement of salamandrism was born, triton - or tritone - music was composed and pelagic painting, inspired by the shape world of jellyfish, fish and corals, made its appearance. There were also the water regulating structures made by the newts themselves which were discovered as a new source of beauty and dignity. We've had enough of nature, the slogans went; bring on the smooth, concrete shores instead of the old and ragged cliffs! Romanticism is dead; the continents of the future will be outlined with clean straight lines and re-shaped into conic sections and rhombuses; the old geological must be replaced with a world of geometry. In short, there was once again a new trend that was to be the thing of the future, a new aesthetic sensation and new cultural manifestoes; anyone who failed to join in with the rise of salamandrism before it was too late felt bitterly that he had missed his time, and he would take his revenge by making calls for the purity of mankind, a return to the values of the people and nature and other reactionary slogans. A concert of tritone music was booed off the stage in Vienna, at the Salon des Indépendents in Paris a pelagic painting called Capriccio en Bleu was slashed by an unidentified perpetrator; salamandrism was simply victorious, and its rise was unstoppable.

Reaching the bottom of the ladder, she turned around, but had only taken a few steps down the swaying passageway when her path was blocked by a large, formidable silhouette: Rohan stepped out of his cabin and stood waiting for her. He loomed in the darkness ahead as she approached, his angular face cast in shadow, his black shirt hanging open down his sculpted chest. Kate felt an instantaneous awareness of him in her most primal core, but she hesitated before the fevered intensity in his stare. "I-I thought you went to bed." "Can't sleep." She did not need to ask why. Who could sleep after the night he'd had? She stopped in front of him, wondering what to say. His hungry gaze stayed fixed on her, and something in his silvery eyes made her heart begin to pound. "What did you think of what my father said?" "I don't want to talk." As he reached out and cupped her cheek, Kate swallowed hard, but she hardly had to ask what he wanted to do. She could feel the heat of his need coming off him in waves. She drew in her breath as he ran his hand down from her cheek along the side of her neck. He threaded his fingers into her hair, moving closer as he drew her toward him. He bent his head and claimed her mouth, his lips, burning, silken, against hers; she quivered with temptation as he consumed her tongue. The fierce demand in his kiss threatened to overwhelm her. "I want you," he whispered, breathing heavily. His bold advance jarred her somewhat back to her senses. "You must be joking," she uttered, yanking away from him and trying to hide her mad desire behind a mask of self-possession. "I'm not your harlot anymore." "You said you love me. Prove it," he murmured. He captured her hand and brought her palm to his loins, making her feel the massive evidence of his sincerity. She bit her lower lip, striving to reason against passion. Letting her palm linger on his rigid shaft a heartbeat too long, she withdrew her touch, determined to get around him. "Rohan." "Sleep with me," he ordered in a whisper, too proud to beg, but then again, he'd never have to.

(from) ARTAUD THE MOMO- In the humus of the plot with wheels, on the breathing humus of the plot of this void, between hard and soft. Black, violet, rigid, recreant and that's all. Which means that there is a bone, where god sat down on the poet, in order to sack the ingestion of his lines, like the head farts that he wheedles out of him through his cunt, that he would wheedle out of him from the bottom of the ages, down to the bottom of his cunt hole, and it's not a cunt prank that he plays on him in this way, it's the prank of the whole earth against whoever has balls in his cunt. And if you don't get the image, --and that's what i hear you saying in a circle, that you don't get the image which is at the bottom of my cunt hole,-- it's because you don't know the bottom, not of things, but of my cunt, mine, although since the bottom of the ages you've all been lapping there in a circle as if badmouthing an alienage, plotting an incarceration to death. ge re ghi regheghi geghena e reghena a gegha riri Between the ass and the shirt, between the gism and the under-bet, between the member and the let down, between the membrane and the blade, between the slat and the ceiling, between the sperm and the explosion, 'tween the fishbone and 'tween the slime, between the ass and everyone's seizure of the high-pressure trap of an ejaculation death rattle is neither a point nor a stone burst dead at the foot of a bound nor the severed member of a soul (the soul is nothing more than an old saw) but the terrifying suspension of a breath of alienation raped, clipped, completely sucked off by all the insolent riff-raff of all the turd-buggered who had no other grub in order to live than to gobble Artaud momo there, where one can fuck sooner than me and the other get hard higher than me in myself if he has taken care to put his head on the curvature of that bone located between anus and sex, of that hoed bone that i say in the filth of a paradise whose first dupe on earth was not father nor mother who diddled you in this den, but I screwed into my madness.

Now, we’ll begin,’ interrupted Mr. Torkingham, his mind returning to this world again on concluding his search for a hymn. Thereupon the racket of chair-legs on the floor signified that they were settling into their seats,—a disturbance which Swithin took advantage of by going on tiptoe across the floor above, and putting sheets of paper over knot-holes in the boarding at points where carpet was lacking, that his lamp-light might not shine down. The absence of a ceiling beneath rendered his position virtually that of one suspended in the same apartment. The parson announced the tune, and his voice burst forth with ‘Onward, Christian soldiers!’ in notes of rigid cheerfulness. In this start, however, he was joined only by the girls and boys, the men furnishing but an accompaniment of ahas and hems. Mr. Torkingham stopped, and Sammy Blore spoke,— ‘Beg your pardon, sir,—if you’ll deal mild with us a moment. What with the wind and walking, my throat’s as rough as a grater; and not knowing you were going to hit up that minute, I hadn’t hawked, and I don’t think Hezzy and Nat had, either,—had ye, souls?’ ‘I hadn’t got thorough ready, that’s true,’ said Hezekiah. ‘Quite right of you, then, to speak,’ said Mr. Torkingham. ‘Don’t mind explaining; we are here for practice. Now clear your throats, then, and at it again.’ There was a noise as of atmospheric hoes and scrapers, and the bass contingent at last got under way with a time of its own: ‘Honwerd, Christen sojers!’ ‘Ah, that’s where we are so defective—the pronunciation,’ interrupted the parson. ‘Now repeat after me: “On-ward, Christ-ian, sol-diers.”’ The choir repeated like an exaggerative echo: ‘On-wed, Chris-ting, sol-jaws!’ ‘Better!’ said the parson, in the strenuously sanguine tones of a man who got his living by discovering a bright side in things where it was not very perceptible to other people. ‘But it should not be given with quite so extreme an accent; or we may be called affected by other parishes. And, Nathaniel Chapman, there’s a jauntiness in your manner of singing which is not quite becoming. Why don’t you sing more earnestly?

Sweat popped out on his brow. Little by little he advanced. Higher. Deeper. Her flesh yielding beneath his gentle but inevitable penetration. She moaned. "It's not enough. Dammit, it's not enough!" His laugh was triumphant. "Patience, love. Patience." She buried her head against his shoulder. He buried his finger inside her cleft, as far as he could. His thumb slowly circled her velvety pearl, pressed, then circled anew, faster and faster, gaining a tempo he knew would drive her wild. Her hands came up, clenching and unclenching against his chest. He felt the tension strung throughout her body and knew precisely what caused it. Knew precisely how to ease it. "Don't fight it." The words were a low, silken whisper, yet his tone was almost gritty with self-control. "Just let it happen, darling. Just let it happen." She couldn't stop it. He knew that pure sensation burned inside her. She writhed around his finger, her hips seeking, stark and wanton. He knew precisely when the spasms of release seized hold. She cried aloud. Her body contracted around him, again and again. She collapsed against him, spent and satiated, his finger still deep inside her. Aidan, however, was more aroused than he had ever been in his life. Every part of his body, every muscle, every nerve, was taut and on edge, almost to the breaking point. A crimson haze of desire scorched his insides, for though Fionna had gained release, he had not. He could barely think. Powerful arms lifted her, catching her so that she faced him, her bare legs bracketed around his. a long arm swept around her back. "You pleased me, love. And I am glad that I pleased you so much. But the next time we are together like this, it will be a different part of me that will be inside you. The next time it will be this." Reaching between them, he fumbled with his trousers, freeing his rigid erection, curling her fingers around his thick, swollen flesh and sealing it there with the pressure of his own. "And there will be nothing between us, sweet. No barriers of clothing. No barriers of words. Do you understand what I am saying?" Fionna gaped at him, stunned at what he'd said. Stunned at what he was doing. She could feel that rigidly masculine part of him... good heavens, her palm was filled with that rigidly masculine part of him.

For a moment we just sit there silently, our heads tipped back as we stare at the sky. A minute passes, maybe two. And then Ryder’s hand grazes mine before settling on the ground, our pinkies touching. I suck in a breath, my entire body going rigid. I’m wondering if he realizes it, if he even knows he’s touching me, when just like that, he draws away. Ryder clears his throat. “So…I hear you’re going out with Patrick on Friday.” “And?” I ask. That brief connection that we’d shared is suddenly gone--poof, just like that. “And what?” he answers with a shrug. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve got an opinion on this--one you’re just dying to share.” Because Ryder has an opinion on everything. “Well, it’s just that Patrick…” He shakes his head. “Never mind. Forget I brought it up.” “No, go on. It’s just that Patrick what?” “Seriously, Jemma. It’s none of my business.” “C’mon, Ryder, get it out of your system. What? Patrick is looking to get a piece? Is using me? Is planning on standing me up?” I can’t help myself; the words just tumble out. “I was going to say that I think he really likes you,” he says, his voice flat. I bite back my retort, forcing myself to take a deep, calming breath instead. That was not what I had expected him to say--not at all--and it takes me completely by surprise. Patrick really likes me? I’m not sure how I feel about that--not sure I want it to be true. “What do you mean, he really likes me?” I ask stupidly. “Just what I said. It’s pretty simple stuff, Jemma. He likes you. I think he always has.” “And you know this how?” He levels a stare at me. “Trust me on this, okay? He’s got problems, sure, but he’s a decent guy. Don’t break his heart.” I scramble to my feet. “I agreed to go out with him--once. And I’m probably going to cancel, anyway, because after today’s news, I’m really not in the mood. But the last thing I need is dating advice from you.” “How come every conversation we have ends like this--with you going off on me? You didn’t use to be like this. What happened?” He’s right, and I hate myself for it--hate the way he makes me feel inside, as if I’m not good enough. I mean, let’s face it--I know I’m nothing special. I’m not beauty-pageant perfect like Morgan, or fashion-model gorgeous like Lucy. Unlike Ryder and Nan, I don’t have state-championship trophies lining my walls. My singing voice is only so-so, I can’t draw or play a musical instrument, and if the school plays are any indicator, I can’t act for shit, either.

You okay?” Marlboro Man called out. I didn’t answer. I just kept on walking, determined to get the hell out of Dodge. It took him about five seconds to catch up with me; I wasn’t a very fast walker. “Hey,” he said, grabbing me around the waist and whipping me around so I was facing him. “Aww, it’s okay. It happens.” I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted him to let go of me and I wanted to keep on walking. I wanted to walk back down the hillside, start my car, and get out of there. I didn’t know where I’d go, I just knew I wanted to go. I wanted away from all of it--riding horses, saddles, reins, bridles--I didn’t want it anymore. I hated everything on that ranch. It was all stupid, dumb…and stupid. Wriggling loose of his consoling embrace, I squealed, “I seriously can’t do this!” My hands trembled wildly and my voice quivered. The tip of my nose began to sting, and tears welled up in my eyes. It wasn’t like me to display such hysteria in the presence of a man. But being driven to the brink of death had brought me to this place. I felt like a wild animal. I was powerless to restrain myself. “I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life!” I cried. I turned to leave again but decided instead to give up, choosing to sit down on the ground and slump over in defeat. It was all so humiliating--not just my rigid, freakish riding style or my near collision with the ground, but also my crazy, emotional reaction after the fact. This wasn’t me. I was a strong, confident woman, for Lord’s sake; I don’t slump on the ground in the middle of a pasture and cry. What was I doing in a pasture, anyway? Knowing my luck, I was probably sitting on a pile of manure. But I couldn’t even walk anymore; my knees were even trembling by now, and I’d lost all feeling in my fingertips. My heart pounded in my cheeks. If Marlboro Man had any sense, he would have taken the horses and gotten the hell out of there, leaving me, the hysterical female, sobbing on the ground by myself. She’s obviously in the throes of some hormonal fit, he probably thought. There’s nothing you can say to her when she gets like this. I don’t have time for this crap. She’s just gonna have to learn to deal with it if she’s going to marry me. But he didn’t get the hell out of there. He didn’t leave me sobbing on the ground by myself. Instead he joined me on the grass, sitting beside me and putting his hand on my leg, reassuring me that this kind of thing happens, and there wasn’t anything I did wrong, even though he was probably lying. “Now, did you really mean that about not wanting to do this the rest of your life?” he asked. That familiar, playful grin appeared in the corner of his mouth. I blinked a couple of times and took a deep breath, smiling back at him and reassuring him with my eyes that no, I hadn’t meant it, but I did hate his horse. Then I took a deep breath, stood up, and dusted off my Anne Klein straight-leg jeans. “Hey, we don’t have to do this now,” Marlboro Man said, standing back up. “I’ll just do it later.” “No, I’m fine,” I answered, walking back toward my horse with newfound resolve.

As if reading his mind, she smiled happily up at him. “Gary really came through for us, didn’t he?” “Absolutely, ma petite. And Beau LaRue was not so bad either. Come, we cannot leave the poor man pacing the swamp. He will think we are engaging in something other than conversation.” Wickedly Savannah moved her body against his, her hands sliding provocatively, enticingly, over the rigid thickness straining his trousers. “Aren’t we?” she asked with that infuriating sexy smile he could never resist. “We have a lot of clean-up to do here, Savannah,” he said severely. “And we need to get word to our people, spread the society’s list through our ranks, warn those in danger.” Her fingers were working at the buttons of his shirt so that she could push the material aside to examine his chest and shoulder, where two of the worst wounds had been. She had to see his body for herself, touch him to assure herself he was completely healed. “I suggest, for now, that your biggest job is to create something for Gary to do so we can have a little privacy.” With a smooth movement, she pulled the shirt from over her head so that her full breasts gleamed temptingly at him. Gregori made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. His hands came up to cup the weight of her in his palms, the feel of her soft, satin skin soothing after the burning torture of the tainted blood. His thumbs caressed the rosy tips into hard peaks. He bent his head slowly to the erotic temptation because he was helpless to do anything else. He needed the merging of their bodies after such a close call as much as she did. He could feel the surge of excitement, the rush of liquid heat through her body at the feel of his mouth pulling strongly at her breast. Gregori dragged her even closer, his hands wandering over her with a sense of urgency. Her need was feeding his. “Gary,” she whispered. “Don’t forget about Gary.” Gregori cursed softly, his hand pinning her hips so that he could strip away the offending clothes on her body. He spared the human a few seconds of his attention, directing him away from the cave. Savannah’s soft laughter was taunting, teasing. “I told you, lifemate, you’re always taking off my clothes.” “Then stop wearing the damn things,” he responded gruffly, his hands at her tiny waist, his mouth finding her flat stomach. “Someday my child will be growing right here,” he said softly, kissing her belly. His hands pinned her thighs so that he could explore easily without interruption. “A beautiful little girl with your looks and my disposition.” Savannah laughed softly, her arms cradling his head lovingly. “That should be quite a combination. What’s wrong with my disposition?” She was writhing under the onslaught of his hands and mouth, arcing her body more fully into his ministrations. “You are a wicked woman,” he whispered. “I would have to kill any man who treated my daughter the way I am treating you.” She cried out, her body rippling with pleasure. “I happen to love the way you treat me, lifemate,” she answered softly and cried out again when he merged their bodies, their minds, their hearts and souls.

When We Want God to Breathe New Life into Our Marriage Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ISAIAH 43:18-19 WE ALL HAVE TIMES when we know we need new life in our marriage. We feel the strain, the tension, the sameness, or possibly even the subtle decay in it. When there is so much water under the bridge over what seems like a river of hurt, apathy, or preoccupation, we know we cannot survive the slowly and steadily rising flood without the Lord doing a new thing in both of us. The good news is that God says He will do that. He is the God of new beginnings, after all. But it won’t happen if we don’t make a choice to let go of the past. We have been made new if we have received Jesus. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). But in a marriage, it is way too easy to hang on to the old disappointments, misunderstandings, disagreements, and abuses. It becomes a wilderness of hurtful memories we cling to because we don’t want to be hurt, disappointed, misunderstood, disregarded, fought with, or abused again. Hanging on to old patterns of thought and negative memories keeps them fresh in your mind. And you don’t let your husband forget them, either. You remain mired in them because you don’t feel the situation has been resolved—and it still hurts. Only God can give you and your husband a new beginning from all that has gone on in the past. Only He can make a road in the wilderness of miscommunication and misread intentions, and make a cleansing and restoring river to flow in the dry areas of your relationship. Everyone needs new life in their marriage at certain times. And only the God of renewal can accomplish that. My Prayer to God LORD, I ask that You would do a fresh work of Your Spirit in our marriage. Make all things new in each of us individually and also together. Dissolve the pain of the past where it is still rising up in us to stifle our communication and ultimately our hope and joy. Wherever we have felt trapped in a wilderness of our own making, carve a way out of it for us and show us the path to follow. If there are rigid and dry areas between us that don’t allow for new growth, give us a fresh flow of Your Spirit to bring new vitality into our relationship. Help us to stop rehearsing old hurtful conversations that have no place in any life committed to the God of new beginnings. Sweep away all the old rubble of selfishness, stubbornness, blindness, and the inability to see beyond the moment or a particular situation. Only You can take away our painful memories so that we don’t keep reliving the same problems, hurts, or injustices. Only You can resurrect love, excitement, and hope where they have died. Help us to forgive fully and allow each other to completely forget. Help us to focus on Your greatness in us, instead of each other’s faults. Holy Spirit, breathe new life into each of us and into our marriage today.

There are many types of teachers out there from many traditions. Some are very ordinary and some seem to radiate spirituality from every pore. Some are nice, some are indifferent, and some may seem like sergeants in boot camp. Some stress reliance on one’s own efforts, others stress reliance on the grace of the guru. Some are very available and accessible, and some may live far away, grant few interviews, or have so many students vying for their time that you may rarely get a chance to talk with them. Some seem to embody the highest ideals of the perfected spiritual life in their every waking moment, while others may have many noticeable quirks, faults and failings. Some live by rigid moral codes, while others may push the boundaries of social conventions and mores. Some may be very old, and some may be very young. Some may require strict commitments and obedience, while others may hardly seem to care what we do at all. Some may advocate very specific practices, stating that their way is the only way or the best way, while others may draw from many traditions or be open to your doing so. Some may point out our successes, while others may dwell on our failures. Some may stress renunciation or even ordination into a monastic order, while others seem relentlessly engaged with “the world.” Some charge a bundle for their teachings, while others give theirs freely. Some like scholarship and the lingo of meditation, while others may never use or even openly despise these formal terms and conceptual frameworks. Some teachers may be more like friends or equals that just want to help us learn something they happened to be good at, while others may be all into the hierarchy, status and role of being a teacher. Some teachers will speak openly about attainments, and some may not. Some teachers are remarkably predictable in their manner and teaching style, while others swing wide in strange and unpredictable ways. Some may seem very tranquil and mild mannered, while others may seem outrageous or rambunctious. Some may seem extremely humble and unimposing, while others may seem particularly arrogant and presumptuous. Some are charismatic, while others may be distinctly lacking in social skills. Some may readily give us extensive advice, and some just listen and nod. Some seem the living embodiment of love, and others may piss us off on a regular basis. Some teachers may instantly click with us, while others just leave us cold. Some teachers may be willing to teach us, and some may not. So far as I can tell, none of these are related in any way to their meditation ability or the depths of their understanding. That is, don’t judge a meditation teacher by their cover. What is important is that their style and personality inspire us to practice well, to live the life we want to live, to find what it is we wish to find, to understand what we wish to understand. Some of us may wander for a long time before we find a good fit. Some of us will turn to books for guidance, reading and practicing without the advantages or hassles of teachers. Some of us may seem to click with a practice or teacher, try to follow it for years and yet get nowhere. Others seem to fly regardless. One of the most interesting things about reality is that we get to test it out. One way or another, we will get to see what works for us and what doesn’t, what happens when we do certain practices or follow the advice of certain teachers, as well as what happens when we don’t.

Let's sing the song of victory, There ain't no place for savagery no more. Let's loosen the knots of tradition, There ain't no time for rigidity no more. Don't you hear the siren my friend, Can't you feel the rising sun! Don't you hear the footsteps of dawn, It's time to let go of all things barbarian.

Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. They are full of all the things that you don’t get in real life—wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. And quality of attention: we may notice amazing details during the course of a day but we rarely let ourselves stop and really pay attention.

The system needs to be managed, not the people. We don’t need to do more things or implement difficult frameworks, methods, or models; we need to learn how to allow people to give their best effort to the company by providing the correct structures. It’s a path of trial and error to find the best way for each company. The Agile principles and mindset can serve as a guide. The tools and practices work sometimes, but not every time. The only way to move forward is through continuous learning. The companies that learn faster than the others will be the winners. HR has the power to design the structures that either support people to perform or make it difficult to contribute in creative and innovative ways. If HR holds onto the old, traditional approach, the consequence will be rigid and fixed organizations chained to ineffective systems and processes. HR can either support or hinder the change toward a more Agile organization, which is why HR needs to go first! By providing different structures and focusing on customer value instead of rules, HR can lead companies through change that no other department is capable of.

Fae of the match,” she said and I flinched in surprise as her voice rang out over the whole stadium. “Goes to Geraldine Grus.” I could finally let my smile free as I looked around to see Geraldine leaping out of her spot in the line up, her eyes glimmering with emotion. “Oh sweet onion balls!” she gasped as she rushed towards us. “Congratulations!” I said enthusiastically as I placed the medal over her head. She crushed me in an embrace, lifting me clean off of my feet as she celebrated. Darcy wrapped her arms around us too and we laughed as Geraldine descended into happy tears. “And congratulations to the winners of the match: Starlight Academy!” Nova added loudly when we didn’t seem likely to break free of Geraldine any time soon. The crowd from Starlight went crazy, their applause deafening as the team jumped up and down in ecstatic celebration. A low growl caught my attention and I glanced to my right where Darius stood almost close enough to touch. His jaw was locked tight, his spine rigid and his eyes burning with rage. I looked away from him quickly, though I couldn’t help but feel glad that this was upsetting him. Poor little Darius lost his favourite game. Imagine how bad you’d feel if someone tried to drown you though? Not that I’m bitter at all... Nova passed Darcy a bunch of flowers and gave me a medal on a green ribbon as the Starlight Airstriker stepped up to claim them. The guy pulled both of us into an exuberant hug as he claimed his prizes and I couldn’t help but feel a bit pleased for the team as we worked our way through the line, handing over flowers and medals to each of them as they approached. I imagined beating a team filled with the Celestial Heirs was something that none of them would ever forget. I could feel heat radiating off of Darius beside me as he fought to maintain his composure while the line worked its way past us but I didn’t look his way again. The last Starlight player to approach us was the Captain, Quentin. He smiled widely as he accepted the flowers from Darcy, tossing her a wink. As I placed the medal around his neck he pulled me into a tight hug, his hand skimming my ass less than accidentally. I pushed him off with a laugh, his excitement infectious in a way that made me think he was a Siren but it didn’t feel invasive like the way it always did with Max. Maybe because he wasn’t trying to force any emotions onto me, just sharing his own. “Why don’t you two girls come back and party with us at Starlight tonight?” he offered and I didn’t miss his suggestive tone. “Why don’t you fuck off while you’ve still got some teeth left?” Darius said before we could respond. I frowned at him but his gaze was locked on Quentin. To my surprise, Quentin laughed tauntingly. “And to think, we were worried about facing off against the Celestial Heirs,” he said, aiming his comments at me and Darcy. “Turns out they really aren’t that impressive after all. It would be a shame if Solaria ended up in their loser hands. Maybe the two of you should reconsider the idea of taking up your crown?” I laughed at his brazen behaviour, wondering how much more it would take for Darius to snap. “Yeah,” I replied jokingly. “Maybe we should take our crowns back after all.” Darcy laughed too, flicking her long hair. “Oh yeah,” she agreed. “I think a crown would suit me actually.” Quentin yelled out in surprise as a shot of heated energy slammed into him like a freight train and he was catapulted halfway across the pitch before falling into a heap on the ground. Before I could react in any way, I found a severely pissed off Dragon Shifter snarling in my face. My breath caught in my lungs and I blinked up at him as he growled at me. Seth moved in on Darcy beside me, his face set with the same enraged scowl while the other two drew close behind them. “Do you want to say that again?” Darius asked, his voice low, the threat in it sending a tremor right through my core. (tory)

Tory Vega just shut me down. I asked her to come to my room tonight but she just messaged me saying she's not coming and that I should use this time to 'work on my personality'.” He sighed, furiously thumbing through FaeBook posts absentmindedly, kicking out against the railing and making us swing backwards. “The Vegas are hard work.” I leaned my head back with a grunt. Caleb threw me a curious look. “You're not judging me then? Because every time I mention her name in front of Darius he looks like he's about to burst into flames.” ... “Well look at the bright side,” I said. “You could marry one of them and avoid marrying your buck-toothed cousin?” Darius's eyes whipped to me, his anger seeming to dissolve for a second. “That's not a terrible idea. Tory Vega has dry humped me on more than one occasion so I could probably win her round.” “I do hope you're fucking joking right now,” Caleb said in a deadly low voice and I turned to him with a smirk. “Someone's jealous,” I taunted, shoving his thigh with mine and he pressed his lips together into a tight line. A smirk pulled at Darius's features as he played up to Caleb's reaction. “That would be one way to keep her in line, huh Caleb? Surely you don't mind if I claim your play-thing. You're only passing time with her anyway, right?” “Right,” Caleb ground out, his shoulders becoming rigid and I glanced at him, knowing that wasn't true. Caleb didn't do exclusive very often, but it seemed like he was trying to do it with Tory. Which meant he actually gave a shit about her. And with my emotions all knotted up over Darcy, I sensed we were both about to cause a real issue when it came to keeping them both under heel. “That was the least convincing act I've ever seen,” Max jibed. “And I can feel your jealousy from here, mate, so you're not fooling anyone.” “She's my Source, it's natural for me to be possessive. That doesn't mean I care about her,” Caleb insisted, glaring at Max to try and make him back down. Their fighting made me uncomfortable and I snarled at Max to try and make him back off too. He raised his hands in innocence and I relaxed, getting to my feet and moving to stand next to Darius instead. (Seth POV)

Through Unschooling, families rediscover the intrinsic value of spending time together, engaging in shared learning experiences, and celebrating the beauty of each family member's unique journey. It offers an opportunity to break free from the constraints of rigid schedules, standardized curricula, and external expectations, fostering an environment where curiosity, creativity, and exploration thrive.

The fact is that camels are far more intelligent than dolphins.* They are so much brighter that they soon realized that the most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendants not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships or being patronized rigid by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don’t find out about it. So they long ago plumped for a lifestyle that, in return for a certain amount of porterage and being prodded with sticks, allowed them adequate food and grooming and the chance to spit in a human’s eye and get away with it.

Rigid boundaries are inflexible, isolating, and overly self-protective. When your boundaries are too rigid, you keep people at a distance, don’t share even when it’s safe to, avoid getting too close, and rarely, if ever, ask for help. You isolate and avoid people because you don’t know how to feel safe when you’re around others. Think of rigid boundaries like a closed door with no handle: nothing is getting in or out.

His father curled a finger toward him. “I have need of your gift.” “Why?” His Starborn abilities were little more than a sparkle of starlight in his palm. His shadow talents were the more interesting gift. Even the temperature monitors on the high-tech cameras in this city couldn’t detect him when he shadow-walked. His father held up the prism. “Direct a beam of your starlight through this.” Not waiting for an answer, his father again put an eye to the metal viewing contraption atop the prism. It ordinarily took Ruhn a good amount of concentration to summon his starlight, and it usually left him with a headache for hours afterward, but … He was intrigued enough to try. Setting his index finger onto the crystal of the prism, Ruhn closed his eyes and focused upon his breathing. Let the clicking metal of the orrery guide him down, down, down into the black pit within himself, past the churning well of his shadows, to the little hollow beneath them. There, curled upon itself like some hibernating creature, lay the single seed of iridescent light. He gently cupped it with a mental palm, stirring it awake as he carefully brought it upward, as if he were carrying water in his hands. Up through himself, the power shimmering with anticipation, warm and lovely and just about the only part of himself he liked. Ruhn opened his eyes to find the starlight dancing at his fingertip, refracting through the prism. His father adjusted a few dials on the device, jotting down notes with his other hand. The starlight seed became slippery, disintegrating into the air around them. “Just another moment,” the king ordered. Ruhn gritted his teeth, as if it’d somehow keep the starlight from dissolving. Another click of the device, and another jotted note in an ancient, rigid hand. The Old Language of the Fae—his father recorded everything in the half-forgotten language their people had used when they had first come to Midgard through the Northern Rift. The starlight shivered, flared, and faded into nothing. The Autumn King grunted in annoyance, but Ruhn barely heard it over his pounding head. He’d mastered himself enough to pay attention as his father finished his notes. “What are you even doing with that thing?” “Studying how light moves through the world. How it can be shaped.” “Don’t we have scientists over at CCU doing this shit?” “Their interests are not the same as mine.” His father

How long?” “I don’t know. When I found you, it was nineteen days after you checked out of school.” His eyes close. His eyelids look pink and translucent. “Adam?” I lean in closer to show I’m still here, still listening. “It didn’t…feel like nineteen days. It was like a thousand years…longer than my whole life before it. Why?” I have to hold my face rigid, because it’s happening again. The burning throat and the urge to cry. I went years without crying, but now it’s like I can’t stop. In spite of my decision to be calm and soothing, I have to blink and brush away tears, but then more stupid tears just refill my eyes like a faucet I can’t turn off.

I used the role of fight-or-flight in human survival as an excuse to justify my addiction to depression and anxiety; I saw them as survival traits, believing that I would perish without them. However, the key here is that fight-or-flight is an automatic physiological reaction, making it often more dependent on instinct, not initiative. When a person starts getting stressed, or when their fight-or-flight response is activated, they don’t carefully evaluate whether or not this is something worth getting anxious about; they just get anxious automatically. Having their brains become numb, their hearts palpitate, and their adrenaline course their veins just happens automatically; you don’t intentionally control that. That is what makes the woman so blank and emotionless—it is her, or my, strict and rigid dependency on fight-or-flight! By being so deeply contingent on an automatic instinct, I had little time for true introspection. It is like the instinct controlled me, instead of the other way around.

The professional elite also values hard work, of course—but it’s different. To working-class members of all races, valuing hard work means having the rigid self-discipline to do a menial job you hate for 40 years, and reining yourself in so you don’t “have an attitude” (i.e., so that you can submit to authority). Hard work for elites is associated with self-actualization; “disruption” means founding a successful start-up. Disruption, in working-class jobs, just gets you fired.

Don’t meld your magic with mine or you’ll be doomed too,” he snarled, knocking me against the broken altar as pain and pleasure flashed in his gaze in equal measures. “When my grip fails, it will consume me,” he gasped. “You have to find a way to close it. You need to cut Lavinia off from-” “Don’t start talking like you’re already dead, asshole. Is it your magic that it’s caught you by?” I asked frantically. Orion grunted a confirmation, his face drawn in pain which I knew had nothing to do with whatever the fuck the shadows were doing to him and everything to do with what he thought he was about to lose if he was ripped from this life.  “Once it burns through all of my magic it will drag my soul after it,” he ground out. “You need to run, you need to-” I shot towards him with a snarl, my fangs snapping out as I got my answer and I collided with his back, locking an arm around his chest and fisting his hair with my other hand before yanking his head to the side and driving my teeth deep into his throat. Orion snarled furiously, the outrage he felt at me biting him more than clear in the rigidity of his posture as I drew in a mouthful of his blood and swallowed greedily. The moment the power of his magic swept over my tongue, his ability to use it was locked down and his connection to the shadows via it was severed.

When Calls A Promise: I made a promise to someone that I would protect humankind with my life - that I would let no savagery, no prejudice, no sectarianism tear my people apart - that I would spend every breath of my life in uniting my people - the people of earth. And my very existence is the living manifestation of that promise. Don't make promises that you know not whether you will be able to keep, but once you do make a promise, keep it at all cost, even at the cost of your life, which is exactly the kind of promise I made - to give my life in the unification of humankind. Initially I thought I would achieve that by erasing the religious barriers amongst people. Hence, in the beginning I wrote ceaselessly on religion, but as I kept studying the tenets of the society, I came to realize that the barriers amongst people have invaded every aspect of life and society, much beyond the mere traditional bounds of religion - they have invaded the very lifeblood of society and have been tearing the society apart from inside out. I came to realize that the religion of the future is not going to be christianity, islam, judaism or any such traditional system, rather, the religion of the future is going to be social justice. And the best way to shape the future is to envision it early on and start manufacturing it today. Thus, though initially the primary premise of my work was religion, eventually it acquired much wider and diverse societal roots. My purpose remains the same, that is, to unite you all, to unite my seven billion sisters and brothers of earth, but I had to make a few changes to my approach based on the need of the time as I kept evolving with my work. I started off as a scientist, but the needs of the society turned me into a reformer. Society needed not yet another scientist, it needed a reformer scientist, so I became one. All my life my need has been to serve the need of the society - need mark you, not desire. There is a difference between what the society desires and what it really needs. Society may desire for more bigotry, more segregation, more rigidity, more separatism, but that's not what the society needs - a civilized society needs humility, not bigotry - it needs inclusion, not segregation - it needs reason, not rigidity - it needs assimilation, not separatism.

What to Do Tonight Have a family meeting in which you talk about setting up technology-free times or zones. At the very least there should be no cell phones during meals or in the bedroom, but you may also want to carve out more cell-phone-free zones for the family. A friend’s wife says, “No cell phones on the couch. If you are on the couch, talk to me.” Model healthy use of technology. For example, never text while driving. If you need to send a text while you’re in the car, be sure to pull over. If you are on your phone when your child walks into the room, stop and greet him or her. If you need to check your phone for a text, e-mail, or alert, ask permission. “Is it okay if I check this? It might be Dad/I told so-and-so I would look for her message.” Try to have at least thirty minutes of unplugged “private time” every day with your kids during the week and at least an hour a day on weekends when you don’t take calls or check your phone. Consider identifying a certain period during the weekend (e.g., Sundays 9:00 A.M. to noon) as tech free—“It’s pancake, read the Times, and play a game time.” Negotiate with your kids if necessary about the best time for digital downtime. If your child has difficulty letting go of her phone, let her set a timer and tell her she can check her texts every ten or fifteen minutes. Ten to fifteen minutes seems obsessive—and it is, in our view—but kids who have a harder time with tech-free time will resent it less if you’re not rigid. Be respectful and know that even short periods of tech-free time may be hard for her.

Fear rips through me as violent as a wildfire, but ice-cold. Hidden there, under my rigidly manufactured sense of control and my checklists and my steel exterior, there is always fear. Libby was wrong when she told Sally I am just like Mom. Mom worked nonstop to chase something she wanted. For me, it’s running endlessly trying to escape the past. Fear of the money running out again. Of hunger. Of failure. Of wanting anything badly enough that it will destroy me when I can’t have it. Of loving someone I can’t hold on to, of watching my sister slip through my fingers like sand. Of watching something break that I don’t know how to fix. I am afraid, always, of the kind of pain I know we won’t survive a second time.

You don’t have it. You are my future son-in-law now, Prince. I forbid you from breaking the law and crossing the gate. That is why I came to tell you myself.” The Queene’s cruel lips tipped down. “Lord Gwess’s second son was hardly worth having around to begin with. He had measly half-power and an obnoxious laugh.” Something snapped in Cress’s chest. “The High Court will demand that Whyp be avenged!” he shouted. “How can I come into power over the North before that human is killed and justice has been restored in our court?” The Queene looked back and forth between his eyes. “That sounded dangerously close to defiance,” she said. “You’ll send them to hunt the human, then?” Cress nodded toward the triad of kneeling males waiting beneath the lantern light. “I have been the North Court’s greatest assassin for over a decade,” he objected. “Can I not be granted this one request?” “You attacked a lord of the East yesterday!” Her voice blasted through the room with the volume of a horn, and frost crawled up the walls. Cress and Thessalie slammed their hands over their ears; the kneeling assassins by the lanterns went rigid. The Queene’s eyes narrowed. “The High Court will conspire against you if you disobey me. And no, I will not be sending your brother assassins after the human, either. There are more important things approaching in the new faeborn year—like the wedding. As I said, we will send an assassin to kill the human for breaking a fairy law in due time.

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already,

My entire body went rigid at the sight of the man dressed in all black. Every part of me rebelled at what I saw. It didn’t make sense. It was impossible. But I recognized the dark, buzzed hair, the hard-set jaw, and thin lips. Now I knew why his laugh sounded so familiar. It was the commander of the Royal Guard. Commander Jansen. “You’re dead,” I breathed, staring up at him as he drifted between the pillars. A dark eyebrow rose. “Whatever gave you that impression, Penellaphe?” “The Ascended discovered that Hawke wasn’t who he said he was shortly after we left.” What Lord Chaney had told me in that carriage resurfaced. “They said the Descenters infiltrated the highest ranks of the Royal Guard.” “They did, but they didn’t catch me.” One side of Jansen’s lips curved up as he strolled forward, his fingers skating over the side of a coffin. Confusion swirled through me as I stared up at him. “I…I don’t understand. You’re a Descenter? You support the Prince—?” “I support Atlantia.” He moved fast, crossing the distance in less time than it took a heart to beat. He knelt so we were at eye-level. “I am no Descenter.” “Really?” His superspeed sort of gave that away. “Then what are you?” The tight-lipped smile grew. His features sharpened, narrowed, and then he changed. Shrinking in height and width, the new body drowned in the clothing Jansen had been wearing. His skin became tanner and smoother. In an instant, his hair darkened to black and became longer, his eyes lightening and turning blue. Within seconds, Beckett knelt before me.

We’ve grown up together.” Sam stopped at the foot of her bed. “You think I don’t know how to tell when you’re cooking up some scheme? What do you want from Rolfe?” “Maybe I’m just unable to resist how handsome he is,” she said. Sam went rigid. “He’s twelve years older than you.” “So?” He didn’t think she was serious, did he? He gave her a look so scathing it could have burned her to ash, and he stalked to the window, ripping his cloak down. “What are you doing?” “I’m sick of suffocating. And if you’re interested in Rolfe, he’s bound to find out what you look like at some point, isn’t he? So why bother slowly roasting to death?” “Shut the window.” He only crossed his arms. “Shut it,” she growled. “Idiot,” she seethed.

Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. They are full of all the things that you don't get in real life-wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. And quality of attention: we may notice amazing details during the course of a day but we rarely let ourselves stop and really pay attention. An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean. Aren't you?

Don't worship the dead at the expense of the living.

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,’ he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?

Tamlin isn’t your keeper, and you know it.” “I’m his subject, and he is my High Lord—” “You are no one’s subject.” I went rigid at the flash of teeth, the smoke-like wings that flared out. “I will say this once—and only once,” Rhysand purred, stalking to the map on the wall. “You can be a pawn, be someone’s reward, and spend the rest of your immortal life bowing and scraping and pretending you’re less than him, than Ianthe, than any of us. If you want to pick that road, then fine. A shame, but it’s your choice.” The shadow of wings rippled again. “But I know you—more than you realize, I think—and I don’t believe for one damn minute that you’re remotely fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on his ass for nearly fifty years, then sat on his ass while you were shredded apart—” “Stop it—” “Or,” he plowed ahead, “you’ve got another choice. You can master whatever powers we gave to you, and make it count. You can play a role in this war. Because war is coming one way or another, and do not try to delude yourself that any of the Fae will give a shit about your family across the wall when our whole territory is likely to become a charnel house.

Although I’m what is called a progressive, it isn’t out of dislike for the past. I don’t reject our yesterdays. I wish that parts of our dead past were more alive. If I’m capable of originality, it’s not because I want to knock down idols or be ahead of the times. If there’s anything rigid about me, it’s a distaste for being in vogue. I would much rather be thought old-fashioned than “with it.” But in general, I still belong to the liberal leftist world as it exists in the West. I vote that way and stand with those people. We may disagree on one issue or another, but that is where I belong.

I want you,” she moaned against his lips. “I don’t care how or why this has happened. I want you.” And maybe, just maybe, he wanted her as much as she did him. Like she’d unleashed a shark, he descended upon her. She only had a few moments to realize they were sinking to the sands before her back hit them. A plume of sand covered her vision for a brief moment before his gills fluttered hard enough to push it all away from her. He loomed over her, a dark shadow with a frame of the sea behind him. “I have wanted to taste you for such a long time,” he growled, his voice low and guttural. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know how he would taste her, but... Sure. If that’s what he wanted to do. Nodding frantically, she wrapped an arm around his neck and kissed him again. Arching into him, wanting whatever he would give her. “Then taste me.” He groaned, his body going rigid under her touch. “We are not a gentle people, Alys.” “I don’t want gentle.” “I don’t know how to do this the way your people do, maybe...” She leaned away from him, a full-blown glare on her face. “Do you want me?” “Yes.” The word wrenched out of him like she had pulled it out of his heart. “More than anything.” “Then touch me how you want. Taste me how you want. I don’t even know what that means, but I’m telling you that nothing you do will feel wrong.” She kissed him again, sweeter this time, but with no less desire. “No one has done this before, Imber. I think it’s safe to say that anything we do will be new for the both of us.” He shook his head, gliding his lips over hers. “I don’t want to hurt you.” “I’ll tell you if it hurts.” She didn’t think any of it could

She looked relaxed and free in a way I’ve never seen before. Strangely, she looked more herself than she did in Chicago. She was smiling and laughing, dancing with me like she’d been doing it all her life. She tries to be so rigid and stern, but that’s not her, not really. The real Riona is adventurous, climbing on a horse when she’s never been within ten feet of one before. She’s graceful, spinning around in my arms like she was born to dance. She’s perceptive, getting to know Bo when Bo’s as prickly as a cactus and can’t get along with anybody, including her own damn best friend. That’s what I see when I look at Riona. A woman who can be anything and do anything she wants. But she seems determined to deny it. I felt her pulling away from me as we danced. I saw that resentment flare up in her eyes again, that refusal to let herself enjoy something that she was obviously loving just a few minutes before. I don’t understand her. But goddamn do I want to. I want it more than anything. I want to crack the code of her psyche. I want to win her over. I want to make her mine.

I’m his subject, and he is my High Lord—” “You are no one’s subject.” I went rigid at the flash of teeth, the smoke-like wings that flared out. “I will say this once—and only once,” Rhysand purred, stalking to the map on the wall. “You can be a pawn, be someone’s reward, and spend the rest of your immortal life bowing and scraping and pretending you’re less than him, than Ianthe, than any of us. If you want to pick that road, then fine. A shame, but it’s your choice.” The shadow of wings rippled again. “But I know you—more than you realize, I think—and I don’t believe for one damn minute that you’re remotely fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on his ass for nearly fifty years, then sat on his ass while you were shredded apart

The fear, the possibility of death, makes you feel alive. That’s part of the reason why I do what I do.” “Swimming with sharks turns you on?” she questions with doubt, though she’s entirely distracted. I twist her rigid body around before she can spot the grin on my face. “Considering my job isn’t remotely sexual, I don’t get aroused, no.” I say with amusement. “But it does make me feel alive. And this will, too, if you let me show you.” “Will I get aroused?” she asks quietly. “Si,” I answer. “You will come harder than you ever have before.” “That’s a big promise to make.” “Then you’d better let me keep it.

Don’t worry. I’ll find every last sprinkle. I swear.” Kylian goes rigid, and his spine snaps straight. “Give me the car keys,” he demands of Kendrick before leaning against the counter below the window and hollering, “One soft serve vanilla cone, extra sprinkles!