“
Man can never know the loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in the woman's womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy. The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion. Woman may be busy too, but she feels empty. Sensuality for her is not only a wave of pleasure in which she is bathed, and a charge of electric joy at contact with another. When man lies in her womb, she is fulfilled, each act of love a taking of man within her, an act of birth and rebirth, of child rearing and man bearing. Man lies in her womb and is reborn each time anew with a desire to act, to be. But for woman, the climax is not in the birth, but in the moment man rests inside of her.
”
”
Anaïs Nin (The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934)
“
Mr Churchill, to what do you attribute your success in life?
Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down. And never sit down when you can lie down.
”
”
Winston S. Churchill
“
If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?
”
”
Alain de Botton (On Love)
“
There are two kinds of anger: hot and cold. Boys and girls experience both, but as they grow up the anger separates according to the sex. Boys need hot anger to survive. They need inclination to fight, the drive to sink the knife into the flesh, the energy and initiative of fury. It's a requirement of hunting, of defense, of pride. Maybe of sex too. And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the sidestepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down, ever, ever. It's the compensation for a more limited scope in the world. Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you would adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the universe is changed, once again, for cold anger requires an eternal vigilance in all matters of slight and offense.
”
”
Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
“
I think it takes an amazing amount of energy to convince oneself that the Forever Person isn't just around the corner. In the end I believe we never do convince ourselves. I know that I found it increasingly hard to maintain the pose of emotional self-sufficiency lying on my bed and sitting at my desk, watching the gulls cartwheeling in the clouds over the bridges, cradling myself in my own arms, breathing warm chocolate-and-vodka breath on a rose I had found on a street corner, trying to force it to bloom.
”
”
Douglas Coupland (Life After God)
“
But what Andy never understood about him was this: he was an optimist. Every month, every week, he chose to open his eyes, to live another day in the world. He did it when he was feeling so awful that sometimes the pain seemed to transport him to another state, one in which everything, even the past that he worked so hard to forget, seemed to fade into a gray watercolor wash. He did it when his memories crowded out all other thoughts, when it took real effort, real concentration, to tether himself to his current life, to keep himself from raging with despair and shame. He did it when he was so exhausted of trying, when being awake and alive demanded such energy that he had to lie in bed thinking of reasons to get up and try again,
”
”
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
“
With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (From Beyond / The Haunter of the Dark)
“
Energy never dies. It was a theory spanning cultures, science, and theology.
”
”
M.R. Noble (Dark Eyes: White Lies (The Dark Eyes #2))
“
We clutter the earth with our inventions, never dreaming that possibly they are unnecessary — or disadvantageous. We devise astounding means of communication, but do we communicate with one another? We move our bodies to and fro and incredible speeds, but do we really leave the spot we started from? Mentally, morally, spiritually, we are fettered. What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?
”
”
Henry Miller (The World Of Sex)
“
If energy never died, I now knew that love didn’t either; it could only be transformed.
”
”
M.R. Noble (Dark Eyes: White Lies (The Dark Eyes #2))
“
It’s loneliness. Even though I’m surrounded by loved ones who care about me and want only the best, it’s possible they try to help only because they feel the same thing—loneliness—and why, in a gesture of solidarity, you’ll find the phrase “I am useful, even if alone” carved in stone. Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn’t know why life is being unfair to it. But we still wake up in the morning and take care of our children, our husband, our lover, our boss, our employees, our students, those dozens of people who make an ordinary day come to life. And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within. Even knowing that everyone, at some point, has felt completely and utterly alone, it is humiliating to say, “I’m lonely, I need company. I need to kill this monster that everyone thinks is as imaginary as a fairy-tale dragon, but isn’t.” But it isn’t. I wait for a pure and virtuous knight, in all his glory, to come defeat it and push it into the abyss for good, but that knight never comes. Yet we cannot lose hope. We start doing things we don’t usually do, daring to go beyond what is fair and necessary. The thorns inside us will grow larger and more overwhelming, yet we cannot give up halfway. Everyone is looking to see the final outcome, as though life were a huge game of chess. We pretend it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, the important thing is to compete. We root for our true feelings to stay opaque and hidden, but then … … instead of looking for companionship, we isolate ourselves even more in order to lick our wounds in silence. Or we go out for dinner or lunch with people who have nothing to do with our lives and spend the whole time talking about things that are of no importance. We even manage to distract ourselves for a while with drink and celebration, but the dragon lives on until the people who are close to us see that something is wrong and begin to blame themselves for not making us happy. They ask what the problem is. We say that everything is fine, but it’s not … Everything is awful. Please, leave me alone, because I have no more tears to cry or heart left to suffer. All I have is insomnia, emptiness, and apathy, and, if you just ask yourselves, you’re feeling the same thing. But they insist that this is just a rough patch or depression because they are afraid to use the real and damning word: loneliness. Meanwhile, we continue to relentlessly pursue the only thing that would make us happy: the knight in shining armor who will slay the dragon, pick the rose, and clip the thorns. Many claim that life is unfair. Others are happy because they believe that this is exactly what we deserve: loneliness, unhappiness. Because we have everything and they don’t. But one day those who are blind begin to see. Those who are sad are comforted. Those who suffer are saved. The knight arrives to rescue us, and life is vindicated once again. Still, you have to lie and cheat, because this time the circumstances are different. Who hasn’t felt the urge to drop everything and go in search of their dream? A dream is always risky, for there is a price to pay. That price is death by stoning in some countries, and in others it could be social ostracism or indifference. But there is always a price to pay. You keep lying and people pretend they still believe, but secretly they are jealous, make comments behind your back, say you’re the very worst, most threatening thing there is. You are not an adulterous man, tolerated and often even admired, but an adulterous woman, one who is ...
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
“
Do you know about the spoons? Because you should. The Spoon Theory was created by a friend of mine, Christine Miserandino, to explain the limits you have when you live with chronic illness. Most healthy people have a seemingly infinite number of spoons at their disposal, each one representing the energy needed to do a task. You get up in the morning. That’s a spoon. You take a shower. That’s a spoon. You work, and play, and clean, and love, and hate, and that’s lots of damn spoons … but if you are young and healthy you still have spoons left over as you fall asleep and wait for the new supply of spoons to be delivered in the morning. But if you are sick or in pain, your exhaustion changes you and the number of spoons you have. Autoimmune disease or chronic pain like I have with my arthritis cuts down on your spoons. Depression or anxiety takes away even more. Maybe you only have six spoons to use that day. Sometimes you have even fewer. And you look at the things you need to do and realize that you don’t have enough spoons to do them all. If you clean the house you won’t have any spoons left to exercise. You can visit a friend but you won’t have enough spoons to drive yourself back home. You can accomplish everything a normal person does for hours but then you hit a wall and fall into bed thinking, “I wish I could stop breathing for an hour because it’s exhausting, all this inhaling and exhaling.” And then your husband sees you lying on the bed and raises his eyebrow seductively and you say, “No. I can’t have sex with you today because there aren’t enough spoons,” and he looks at you strangely because that sounds kinky, and not in a good way. And you know you should explain the Spoon Theory so he won’t get mad but you don’t have the energy to explain properly because you used your last spoon of the morning picking up his dry cleaning so instead you just defensively yell: “I SPENT ALL MY SPOONS ON YOUR LAUNDRY,” and he says, “What the … You can’t pay for dry cleaning with spoons. What is wrong with you?” Now you’re mad because this is his fault too but you’re too tired to fight out loud and so you have the argument in your mind, but it doesn’t go well because you’re too tired to defend yourself even in your head, and the critical internal voices take over and you’re too tired not to believe them. Then you get more depressed and the next day you wake up with even fewer spoons and so you try to make spoons out of caffeine and willpower but that never really works. The only thing that does work is realizing that your lack of spoons is not your fault, and to remind yourself of that fact over and over as you compare your fucked-up life to everyone else’s just-as-fucked-up-but-not-as-noticeably-to-outsiders lives. Really, the only people you should be comparing yourself to would be people who make you feel better by comparison. For instance, people who are in comas, because those people have no spoons at all and you don’t see anyone judging them. Personally, I always compare myself to Galileo because everyone knows he’s fantastic, but he has no spoons at all because he’s dead. So technically I’m better than Galileo because all I’ve done is take a shower and already I’ve accomplished more than him today. If we were having a competition I’d have beaten him in daily accomplishments every damn day of my life. But I’m not gloating because Galileo can’t control his current spoon supply any more than I can, and if Galileo couldn’t figure out how to keep his dwindling spoon supply I think it’s pretty unfair of me to judge myself for mine. I’ve learned to use my spoons wisely. To say no. To push myself, but not too hard. To try to enjoy the amazingness of life while teetering at the edge of terror and fatigue.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
Pleasant things to hear, though hearing them from him embarrasses me. I soak up the praise but feel obliged to disparage the gift. I believe that most people have some degree of talent for something--forms, colors, words, sounds. Talent lies around in us like kindling waiting for a match, but some people, just as gifted as others, are less lucky. Fate never drops a match on them. The times are wrong, or their health is poor, or their energy low, or their obligations too many. Something.
”
”
Wallace Stegner (Crossing to Safety)
“
What do we know,” he had said, “of the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with a wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have. I have always believed that such strange, inaccessible worlds exist at our very elbows, and now I believe I have found a way to break down the barriers.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft
“
As Nietzsche wrote, “The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it—what it costs us.” Perhaps you will attain your goal, and a worthy goal at that, but at what price? Apply this standard to everything, including whether to collaborate with other people or come to their aid. In the end, life is short, opportunities are few, and you have only so much energy to draw on. And in this sense time is as important a consideration as any other. Never waste valuable time, or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others—that is too high a price to pay. Power
”
”
Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
“
THE ONE THING YOU MUST DO
There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.
It's as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human being come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don't do it, it's as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It's a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It's like a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.
You say, "But look, I'm using the dagger. It's not lying idle." Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought to serve for that. You say, "But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and the rest." But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself.
Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don't, you will be like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You'll be wasting valuable keenness and forgetting your dignity and purpose.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems)
“
True power lies in the ability to harness energy and wield it like a sword, becoming the puppeteer that masters all the strings instead of the marionette being forced to dance.
”
”
Emily McIntire (Scarred (Never After, #2))
“
THE ONE THING YOU MUST DO
There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.
It's as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human being come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don't do it, it's as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It's a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It's like a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.
You say, "But look, I'm using the dagger. It's not lying idle." Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought to serve for that. You say, "But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and the rest." But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself.
Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don't, you will be like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You'll be wasting valuable keenness and forgetting your dignity and purpose.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable)
“
The Line makes itself felt,-- thro' some Energy unknown, ever are we haunted by that Edge so precise, so near. In the Dark, one never knows. Of course I am seeking the Warrior Path, imagining myself as heroick Scout. We all feel it Looming, even when we're awake, out there ahead someplace, the way you come to feel a River or Creek ahead, before anything else,-- sound, sky, vegetation,-- may have announced it. Perhaps 'tis the very deep sub-audible Hum of its Traffic that we feel with an equally undiscover'd part of the Sensorium,-- does it lie but over the next Ridge? the one after that? We have mileage Estimates from Rangers and Runners, yet for as long as its Distance from the Post Mark'd West remains unmeasur'd, nor is yet recorded as Fact, may it remain, a-shimmer, among the few final Pages of its Life as Fiction.
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (Mason & Dixon)
“
Energies never lie.
”
”
Mitta Xinindlu
“
What I am describing here is entirely realistic. It is possible to find out one’s own truth in the partial, non-neutral company of such a (therapeutic) companion. In that process one can shed one’s symptoms, free oneself of depression, regain joy in life, break out of the state of constant exhaustion, and experience a resurgence of energy, once that energy is no longer required for the repression of one’s own truth. The point is that the fatigue characteristic of such depression reasserts itself every time we repress strong emotions, play down the memories stored in the body, and refuse them the attention they clamor for. Why
”
”
Alice Miller (The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting)
“
3. The lovely landscape of southern Ohio betrayed by strip mining, the thick gold band on the adulterer’s finger the blurred programs of the offshore pirate station are causes for hesitation. Here in the matrix of need and anger, the disproof of what we thought possible failures of medication doubts of another’s existence —tell it over and over, the words get thick with unmeaning— yet never have we been closer to the truth of the lies we were living, listen to me: the faithfulness I can imagine would be a weed flowering in tar, a blue energy piercing the massed atoms of a bedrock disbelief. 1971
”
”
Adrienne Rich (Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972)
“
Our lives are encumbered with the dead wood of this past; all that is dead and has served its purpose has to go. But that does not mean a break with, or a forgetting of, the vital and life-giving in that past. We can never forget the ideals that have moved our race, the dreams of the Indian people through the ages, the wisdom of the ancients, the buoyant energy and love of life and nature of our forefathers, their spirit of curiosity and mental adventure, the daring of their thought, their splendid achievements in literature, art and culture, their love of truth and beauty and freedom, the basic values that they set up, their understanding of life's mysterious ways, their toleration of other ways than theirs, their capacity to absorb other peoples and their cultural accomplishments, to synthesize them and develop a varied and mixed culture; nor can we forget the myriad experiences which have built up our ancient race and lie embedded in our sub-conscious minds. We will never forget them or cease to take pride in that noble heritage of ours. If India forgets them she will no longer remain India and much that has made her our joy and pride will cease to be.
”
”
Jawaharlal Nehru (The Discovery of India)
“
The player of the inner game comes to value the art of relaxed concentration above all other skills; he discovers a true basis for self-confidence; and he learns that the secret to winning any game lies in not trying too hard. He aims at the kind of spontaneous performance which occurs only when the mind is calm and seems at one with the body, which finds its own surprising ways to surpass its own limits again and again. Moreover, while overcoming the common hang-ups of competition, the player of the inner game uncovers a will to win which unlocks all his energy and which is never discouraged by losing.
”
”
W. Timothy Gallwey (The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance)
“
But what Andy never understood about him was this: he was an optimist. Every month, every week, he chose to open his eyes, to live another day in the world. He did it when he was feeling so awful that sometimes the pain seemed to transport him to another state, one in which everything, even the past that he worked so hard to forget, seemed to fade into a gray watercolor wash. He did it when his memories crowded out all other thoughts, when it took real effort, real concentration, to tether himself to his current life, to keep himself from raging with despair and shame. He did it when he was so exhausted of trying, when being awake and alive demanded such energy that he had to lie in bed thinking of reasons to get up and try again, when it would be much easier to go to the bathroom and untape the plastic zipped bag containing his cotton pads and loose razors and alcohol wipes and bandages from its hiding place beneath the sink and simply surrender. Those were the very bad days. It
”
”
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
“
Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Stillness is the Key)
“
Talent lies around in us like kindling waiting for a match, but some people, just as gifted as others, are less lucky. Fate never drops a match on them. The times are wrong, or their health is poor, or their energy low, or their obligations too many. Something. Talent, I tell him, believing what I say, is at least half luck. It isn’t as if our baby lips were touched with a live coal, and thereafter we lisp in numbers or talk in tongues. We are lucky in our parents, teachers, experience, circumstances, friends, times, physical and mental endowment, or we are not. Born to the English language and American opportunity (I say this in 1937, after seven years of depression, but I say it seriously) we are among the incredibly lucky ones.
”
”
Wallace Stegner (Crossing to Safety (Modern Library Classics))
“
Sir, to what do you attribute your success in life?” Immediately, Churchill replied, “Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (Stillness is the Key)
“
But what Andy never understood about him was this: he was an optimist. Every month, every week, he chose to open his eyes, to live another day in the world. He did it when he was feeling so awful that sometimes the pain seemed to transport him to another state, one in which everything, even the past that he worked so hard to forget, seemed to fade into a gray watercolor wash. He did it when his memories crowded out all other thoughts, when it took real effort, real concentration, to tether himself to his current life, to keep himself from raging with despair and shame. He did it when he was so exhausted of trying, when being awake and alive demanded such energy that he had to lie in bed thinking of reasons to get up and try again, when it would be much easier to go to the bathroom and untape the plastic zipped bag containing his cotton pads and loose razors and alcohol wipes and bandages from its hiding place beneath the sink and simply surrender. Those were the very bad days.
”
”
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
“
On one thing most physicists agree. If the amount of dark energy in our universe were only a little bit different than what it actually is, then life could never have emerged. A little larger, and the universe would have accelerated so rapidly that matter in the young universe could never have pulled itself together to form stars and hence complex atoms made in stars. And, going into negative values of dark energy, a little smaller and the universe would have decelerated so rapidly that it would have recollapsed before there was time to form even the simplest atoms. Out of all the possible amounts of dark energy that our universe might have, the actual amount lies in the tiny sliver of the range that allows life. As before, one is compelled to ask the question: Why does such fine-tuning occur?
”
”
Alan Lightman (The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew)
“
He was like coffee in a way. Bitter at first. But once she'd acquired the taste, his presence filled her with warmth and energy.She'd never felt anything from a boy's stare before.But now she's hooked.
”
”
Eric Kent Edstrom (Child of Lies (The Scion Chronicles #2))
“
There’s not one positive thing about being broke. The worst of it is the day-to-day grind of it all. You never know when that treadmill is finally going to buckle and hurl you into the wall. So you find yourself having to run faster and faster, just to keep from falling off. You can adjust to the hunger and the tiredness for the most part, having to choose between feeding yourself and feeding your electric meter; but one thing you can’t adjust to is the nagging anxiety. Whoever designed this loathsome system must think we’re all living these wonderful lives where money grows in the palms of our hands.
There’s never any reassurance that everything is going to be okay; a promise that tomorrow will be slightly more bearable than today. Every minute of your life is consumed by a relentless feeling that time will only ever lead you to the worst possible outcome. And why—when you haven’t eaten a decent meal in two weeks and you’ve spent the last four days lying on a mattress just to conserve energy— should you believe any differently?
”
”
Rupert Dreyfus (B R O K E)
“
Mr. Churchill, sir, to what do you attribute your success in life?” Without pause or hesitation, he replied: “Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.” He
”
”
Paul Johnson (Churchill)
“
I must admit I found forgiveness a hard pill to swallow. I never really liked people telling me to forgive my abuser. I finally get it, forgiveness removes the negative energy this unforgiveness brings. Forgiveness shoes unconditional love for ourselves.
”
”
Tracy Malone
“
Talent lies around in us like kindling waiting for a match, but some people, just as gifted as others, are less lucky. Fate never drops a match on them. The times are wrong, or their health is poor, or their energy low, or their obligations too many. Something.
”
”
Wallace Stegner (Crossing to Safety)
“
An intelligent man wants to ultimately spend his life with a woman with whom he knows he shares complimentary energies with. He wants to feel like him and his woman are solid, because nothing can throw them off base, because the flow of their connection is just so grounded, that nothing can come in between that— not reason, not logic, not lies, not insecurities, not doubts and not fears. Men don't talk about this, but this is what intelligent men innately crave, and they don't want anything less. They want something solid. They don't want to be with women who want to be with guys who don't respect them or who try to make them jealous all the time; they don't want to be with women who need to feel like there's a game that's being played. So, contrary to popular belief, men do want something real, even more real than what many women dream of! And it's not about other people and what they think is real; it's about just him and her and what they know is real. But you can never fake making a man believe this is the kind of connection that you have with him, because you can't fake energies! At the end of the day, if you're that woman, then you're that woman and he's that man for you. Your connection through your energies will just flow through everything— walls, distance, time, fears— you'll be solid.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
The Words of an Angel
As I sit in a world of darkness
I look around to see no one
The cold wind has filled my soul
The rivers have poured inside my body
And the weight of the waters holds me back from seeing the light of day
What should I do?
I feel helpless,
Paralyzed in my own fears
And lost with no directions or roads to take
Suddenly, a felt a laser of energy bolt though my body
I yelled, “I’m so tired of feeling this way, I need help”
Suddenly, gold light appeared
And a man stood before me
You foolish man,
You choose this path the moment you chose to give up and wallow in your sorrows
I cannot help you
You need to help yourself.
There are no rivers in your soul holding you back from light of the world
The strength lies within you
Look in my eyes and tell me what you see
The lost man looked into the angels eyes and said, I see a man who gets his strength from helping others
He does not waste time focusing on useless matters
If you dig deep enough my child
You will find precious gift inside yourself
Gifts you never knew you had
Learn from others
Then help yourself
Once you helped yourself
Go out and help the world around you
Because many people feel as you do
The angel suddenly disappeared
The lost man was no longer lost
He was determined to waste no time
He was going to use his time to help others
Just as the angel helped him
The man got up
He realized the only thing holding him down was himself
The room was no longer dark
The light of life had entered
Dig deep in yourself and lift yourself
The answer to your problems lies within
Use your gifts
For the greatest gift is the gift of giving.
”
”
Stacey Chillemi (Life's Missing Instruction Manual)
“
First Snow
The snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence such beauty and what
the meaning; such
an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed
would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now,
deep into night,
it has finally ended.
The silence
is immense,
and the heavens still hold
a million candles; nowhere
the familiar things:
stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect
and nightly turn from. Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain—not a single
answer has been found—
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one.
”
”
Mary Oliver
“
Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Collection with Accompanying Facts)
“
If we think of eroticism not as sex per se, but as a vibrant, creative energy, it’s easy to see that Stephanie’s erotic pulse is alive and well. But her eroticism no longer revolves around her husband. Instead, it’s been channeled to her children. There are regular playdates for Jake but only three dates a year for Stephanie and Warren: two birthdays, hers and his, and one anniversary. There is the latest in kids’ fashion for Sophia, but only college sweats for Stephanie. They rent twenty G-rated movies for every R-rated movie. There are languorous hugs for the kids while the grown-ups must survive on a diet of quick pecks. This brings me to another point. Stephanie gets tremendous physical pleasure from her children. Let me be perfectly clear here: she knows the difference between adult sexuality and the sensuousness of caring for small children. She, like most mothers, would never dream of seeking sexual gratification from her children. But, in a sense, a certain replacement has occurred. The sensuality that women experience with their children is, in some ways, much more in keeping with female sexuality in general. For women, much more than for men, sexuality exists along what the Italian historian Francesco Alberoni calls a “principle of continuity.” Female eroticism is diffuse, not localized in the genitals but distributed throughout the body, mind, and senses. It is tactile and auditory, linked to smell, skin, and contact; arousal is often more subjective than physical, and desire arises on a lattice of emotion. In the physicality between mother and child lie a multitude of sensuous experiences. We caress their silky skin, we kiss, we cradle, we rock. We nibble their toes, they touch our faces, we lick their fingers, let them bite us when they’re teething. We are captivated by them and can stare at them for hours. When they devour us with those big eyes, we are besotted, and so are they. This blissful fusion bears a striking resemblance to the physical connection between lovers. In fact, when Stephanie describes the early rapture of her relationship with Warren—lingering gazes, weekends in bed, baby talk, toe-nibbling—the echoes are unmistakable. When she says, “At the end of the day, I have nothing left to give,” I believe her. But I also have come to believe that at the end of the day, there may be nothing more she needs. All this play activity and intimate involvement with her children’s development, all this fleshy connection, has captured Stephanie’s erotic potency to the detriment of the couple’s intimacy and sexuality. This is eros redirected. Her sublimated energy is displaced onto the children, who become the centerpiece of her emotional gratification.
”
”
Esther Perel (Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence)
“
The face that Moses had begged to see – was forbidden to see – was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20)
The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth’s rebellion now twisted around his brow…
“On your back with you!” One raises a mallet to sink the spike. But the soldier’s heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner’s wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier’s life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on – he grants the warrior’s continued existence. The man swings.
As the man swings, the Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm – the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless – the nerves perform exquisitely. “Up you go!” They lift the cross. God is on display in his underwear and can scarcely breathe.
But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around his nose, but his heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being – the living excrement from our souls. The apple of his Father’s eye turns brown with rot.
His Father! He must face his Father like this!
From heaven the Father now rouses himself like a lion disturbed, shakes His mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on a cross.Never has the Son seen the Father look at him so, never felt even the least of his hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes.
“Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped – murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, over-spent, overeaten – fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my name? Have you ever held a razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk – you, who moles young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave you the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end!
Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp – buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves – relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in you! Disgust for everything about you consumes me! Can you not feel my wrath?
Of course the Son is innocent He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed.
The Father watches as his heart’s treasure, the mirror image of himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah’s stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction.
“Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?!”
But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply.
The Trinity had planned it. The Son had endured it. The Spirit enabled Him. The Father rejected the Son whom He loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted His sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.
”
”
Joni Eareckson Tada (When God Weeps Kit: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty)
“
With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with a wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction)
“
The hours I spent in this anachronistic, bibliophile, Anglophile retreat were in surreal contrast to the shrieking horror show that was being enacted in the rest of the city. I never felt this more acutely than when, having maneuvered the old boy down the spiral staircase for a rare out-of-doors lunch the next day—terrified of letting him slip and tumble—I got him back upstairs again. He invited me back for even more readings the following morning but I had to decline. I pleaded truthfully that I was booked on a plane for Chile. 'I am so sorry,' said this courteous old genius. 'But may I then offer you a gift in return for your company?' I naturally protested with all the energy of an English middle-class upbringing: couldn't hear of such a thing; pleasure and privilege all mine; no question of accepting any present. He stilled my burblings with an upraised finger. 'You will remember,' he said, 'the lines I will now speak. You will always remember them.' And he then recited the following:
What man has bent o'er his son's sleep, to brood
How that face shall watch his when cold it lies?
Or thought, as his own mother kissed his eyes,
Of what her kiss was when his father wooed?
The title (Sonnet XXIX of Dante Gabriel Rossetti)—'Inclusiveness'—may sound a trifle sickly but the enfolded thought recurred to me more than once after I became a father and Borges was quite right: I have never had to remind myself of the words. I was mumbling my thanks when he said, again with utter composure: 'While you are in Chile do you plan a call on General Pinochet?' I replied with what I hoped was equivalent aplomb that I had no such intention. 'A pity,' came the response. 'He is a true gentleman. He was recently kind enough to award me a literary prize.' It wasn't the ideal note on which to bid Borges farewell, but it was an excellent illustration of something else I was becoming used to noticing—that in contrast or corollary to what Colin MacCabe had said to me in Lisbon, sometimes it was also the right people who took the wrong line.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
“
We're never quite so powerful as we feel, in this free state," she whispered in the rushing wind. "Because our usual bodies are left behind, and our moving mind complexes can draw only upon the chance energies that they happen to grasp from the atoms of the air or other substances we possess, by the linkage of probability. All our power lies in that control of probability, and we must strike where it will serve.
”
”
Jack Williamson (Darker Than You Think)
“
The wind rose, whipping at Gregori's solid form, lashing his body,ripping at the waves of black hair so that it streamed around his face. His expression was impassive, the pale silver eyes cold and merciless, unblinking and fixed on his prey. The attack came from sky and ground simultaneously; slivers of sharpened wood shot through the air on the wild winds,aimed directly at Gregori. The wolves leapt for him,eyes glowing hotly in the night. The army of the dead moved relentlessly forward, pressing toward Gregori's lone figure.
His hands moved, a complicated pattern drected at the approaching army;then he was whirling, a flowing wind of motion beautiful to the eye,so fast that he blurred. Yelps and howls accompanied bodies flying through the air. Wolves landed to lie motionless at his feet. His expression never changed. There was no hint of anger or emotion,no sign of fear,no break in concentration. He simply acted as the need arose. The skeletons were mowed down by a wall of flame, an orange-red conflagration that rose in the night sky and danced furiously for a brief moment. The army withered into ashes, leaving only a pile of blackened dust that spewed across the street in the ferocious onslaught of the wind.
Savannah felt Gregori wince, the pain that sliced though him just before he shut out all sensation.She whirled to face him and saw a sharpened stake portruding from his right shoulder. Even as she saw it, Gregori jerked it free.Blood gushed,spraying the area around him.Just as quickly it stopped,as if cut off midstream.
The winds rose to a thunderous pitch, a whirling gale of debris above their heads like the funnel cloud of a tornado. The black cloud spun faster and paster,threatening to suck everything and everyone up into its center where the malevolent red eye stared at them with hatred. The tourists screamed in fear,and even the guide grabbed for a lamppost to hang on grimly.Gregori stood alone,the winds assaulting him,tearing at him, reaching for him.As the whirling column threatened him from above, sounding like the roar of a freight train, he merely clapped his hands, then waved to send a backdraft slamming into the dark entity.The vampire screamed his rage.
The thick black cloud sucked in on itself with an audible soumd, hovering in the air, waiting, watching, silent. Evil.No one moved.No one dared to breathe. Suddenly the churning black entity gathered itself and streamed across the night sky,racing away from the hunter over the French Quarter and toward the swamp.Gregori launched himself into the air,shape-shifting as he did so,ducking the bolts of white-hot energy and slashing stakes flying in the turbulant air.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
The great weakness of Christianity lies in the fact that it ignores rhythm. It balances God with Devil instead of Vishnu with Siva. Its dualisms are antagonistic instead of equilibrating, and therefore can never issue in the functional third in which power is in equilibrium. Its God is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and does not evolve with an evolving creation, but indulges in one special creative act and rests on His laurels. The whole of human experience, the whole of human knowledge, is against the likelihood of such a concept being true. The Christian concept being static, not dynamic, it does not see that because a thing is good, its opposite is not necessarily evil. It has no sense of proportion because it has no realisation of the principle of equilibrium in space and rhythm in time. Consequently, for the Christian ideal the part is all too often greater than the whole. Meekness, mercy, purity and love are made the ideal of Christian character, and as Nietzsche truly points out, these are slave virtues. There should be room in our ideal for the virtues of the ruler and leader-courage, energy, justice and integrity. Christianity has nothing to tell us about the dynamic virtues; consequently those who get the world's work done cannot follow the Christian ideal because of its limitations and inapplicability to their problems. They can measure right and wrong against no standard save their own self-respect. The result is the ridiculous spectacle of a civilisation, committed to a one-sided ideal, being forced to keep its ideals and its honour in separate compartments.
”
”
Dion Fortune (The Mystical Qabalah)
“
My Dear Mrs Winter. (I had half a mind when I dipped my pen in the ink, to address you by your old natural Christian name.)
The snow lies so deep on the Northern Railway, and the Posts have been so interrupted in consequence, that your charming note arrived here only this morning...
I get the heartache again when I read your commission, written in the hand which I find now to be not in the least changed, and yet it is a great pleasure to be entrusted with it, and to have that share in your gentler remembrances which I cannot find it still my privilege to have, without a stirring of the old fancies. ... I am very very sorry you mistrusted me in not writing before your little girl was born; but I hope now you know me better you will teach her, one day, to tell her children, in times to come when they have some interest in wondering about it, that I loved her mother with the most extraordinary earnestness when I was a boy.
I have always believed since, and always shall to the last, that there never was such a faithful and devoted poor fellow as I was. Whatever of fancy, romance, energy, passion, aspiration and determination belong to me, I never have separated and never shall separate from the hard hearted little woman - you - whom it is nothing to say I would have died for, with the greatest alacrity! I never can think, and I never seem to observe, that other young people are in such desperate earnest, or set so much, so long, upon one absorbing hope. It is a matter of perfect certainty to me that I began to fight my way out of poverty and obscurity, with one perpetual idea of you. This is so fixed in my knowledge that to the hour when I opened your letter last Friday night, I have never heard anybody addressed by your name or spoken of by your name, without a start. The sound of it has always filled me with a kind of pity and respect for the deep truth that I had, in my silly hobbledehoyhood, to bestow upon one creature who represented the whole world to me. I have never been so good a man since, as I was when you made me wretchedly happy. I shall never be half so good a fellow any more.
This is all so strange now, both to think of, and to say, after every change that has come about; but I think, when you ask me to write to you, you are not unprepared for what it is so natural to me to recall, and will not be displeased to read it. I fancy, - though you may not have thought in the old time how manfully I loved you - that you may have seen in one of my books a faithful reflection of the passion I had for you, and may have thought that it was something to have been loved so well, and may have seen in little bits of "Dora" touches of your old self sometimes, and a grace here and there that may be revived in your little girls, years hence, for the bewilderment of some other young lover - though he will never be as terribly in earnest as I and David Copperfield were. People used to say to me how pretty all that was, and how fanciful it was, and how elevated it was above the little foolish loves of very young men and women. But they little thought what reason I had to know it was true and nothing more nor less.
These are things that I have locked up in my own breast, and that I never thought to bring out any more. But when I find myself writing to you again "all to your self", how can I forbear to let as much light in upon them as will shew you that they are there still! If the most innocent, the most ardent, and the most disinterested days of my life had you for their Sun - as indeed they had - and if I know that the Dream I lived in did me good, refined my heart, and made me patient and persevering, and if the Dream were all of you - as God knows it was - how can I receive a confidence from you, and return it, and make a feint of blotting all this out! ...
”
”
Charles Dickens
“
Mary did not care a straw for the world besides. She was too much occupied with obedience to trouble her head about opinion, either her own or other people's. Not until a question comes puzzling and troubling us so as to paralyze the energy of our obedience is there any necessity for its solution, or any probability of finding a real one. A thousand foolish _doctrines_ may lie unquestioned in the mind, and never interfere with the growth or bliss of him who lives in active subordination of his life to the law of life: obedience will in time exorcise them, like many another worse devil.
”
”
George MacDonald (Mary Marston)
“
What do we know … of the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft
“
It will be long before everyone is wiped out. People live in war time, they always have. There was terror down through history - and the men who saw the Spanish Armada sail over the rim of the world, who saw the Black death wipe out half of Europe, those men were frightened, terrified. But though they lived and died in fear, I am here; we have built again. And so I will belong to a dark age, and historians will say "We have few documents to show how the common people lived at this time. Records lead us to believe that a majority were killed. But there were glorious men." And school children will sigh and learn the names of Truman and Senator McCarthy. Oh, it is hard for me to reconcile myself to this. But maybe this is why I am a girl - - - so I can live more safely than the boys I have known and envied, so I can bear children, and instill in them the biting eating desire to learn and love life which I will never quite fulfill, because there isn't time, because there isn't time at all, but instead the quick desperate fear, the ticking clock, and the snow which comes too suddenly upon the summer. Sure, I'm dramatic and sloppily semi-cynical and semi-sentimental. But in leisure years I could grow and choose my way. Now I am living on the edge. We all are on the brink, and it takes a lot of nerve, a lot of energy, to teeter on the edge, looking over, looking down into the windy blackness and not being quite able to make out, through the yellow, stinking mist, just what lies below in the slime, in the oozing, vomit-streaked slime; and so I could go on, into my thoughts, writing much, trying to find the core, the meaning for myself. Perhaps that would help, to synthesize my ideas into a philosophy for me, now, at the age of eighteen, but the clock ticks, ah yes, "At my back I hear, time's winged chariot hovering near." And I have too much conscience, too much habit to sit and stare at snow, thick now, and evenly white and muffling on the ground. God, I scream for time to let go, to write, to think. But no. I have to exercise my memory in little feats just so I can stay in this damn wonderful place which I love and hate with all my heart. And so the snow slows and swirls, and melts along the edges. The first snow isn't good for much. It makes a few people write poetry, a few wonder if the Christmas shopping is done, a few make reservations at the skiing lodge. It's a sentimental prelude to the real thing. It's picturesque & quaint.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
What do we know," he had said, "of the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with a wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (The Complete Tales of H.P. Lovecraft)
“
But this is my contentment, that I've lost what I never needed and what I need I can never lose: these two things, universal nature and one's personal virtue.
For this is the intention of the creator of the world, whatever he may be - whether an all-powerful Deity, or some incorporeal Reason contriving vast works, or a divine Spirit pervading all things from the least to the largest with a uniform energy, or Fate, or an inalterable sequence of Causes clinging one to another - whatever the Intender, I say, this is his intention: that nothing of ours can fall under the control of others except that which is finally and truly worthless to us.
The best of any man lies beyond the power of other men, either to give it or take it away.
”
”
Walter Wangerin Jr. (Paul)
“
I wiped the blade against my jeans and walked into the bar. It was mid-afternoon, very
hot and still. The bar was deserted. I ordered a whisky. The barman looked at the blood
and asked:
‘God?’
‘Yeah.’
‘S’pose it’s time someone finished that hypocritical little punk, always bragging about
his old man’s power…’
He smiled crookedly, insinuatingly, a slight nausea shuddered through me. I replied
weakly:
‘It was kind of sick, he didn’t fight back or anything, just kept trying to touch me and
shit, like one of those dogs that try to fuck your leg. Something in me snapped, the
whingeing had ground me down too low. I really hated that sanctimonious little creep.’
‘So you snuffed him?’
‘Yeah, I’ve killed him, knifed the life out of him, once I started I got frenzied, it was
an ecstasy, I never knew I could hate so much.’
I felt very calm, slightly light-headed. The whisky tasted good, vaporizing in my
throat. We were silent for a few moments. The barman looked at me levelly, the edge of
his eyes twitching slightly with anxiety:
There’ll be trouble though, don’tcha think?’
‘I don’t give a shit, the threats are all used up, I just don’t give a shit.’
‘You know what they say about his old man? Ruthless bastard they say. Cruel…’
‘I just hope I’ve hurt him, if he even exists.’
‘Woulden wanna cross him merself,’ he muttered.
I wanted to say ‘yeah, well that’s where we differ’, but the energy for it wasn’t there.
The fan rotated languidly, casting spidery shadows across the room. We sat in silence a
little longer. The barman broke first:
‘So God’s dead?’
‘If that’s who he was. That fucking kid lied all the time. I just hope it’s true this time.’
The barman worked at one of his teeth with his tongue, uneasily:
‘It’s kindova big crime though, isn’t it? You know how it is, when one of the cops
goes down and everything’s dropped ’til they find the guy who did it. I mean, you’re not
just breaking a law, your breaking LAW.’
I scraped my finger along my jeans, and suspended it over the bar, so that a thick clot
of blood fell down into my whisky, and dissolved. I smiled:
‘Maybe it’s a big crime,’ I mused vaguely ‘but maybe it’s nothing at all…’ ‘…and we
have killed him’ writes Nietzsche, but—destituted of community—I crave a little time
with him on my own.
In perfect communion I lick the dagger foamed with God’s blood.
”
”
Nick Land (The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (An Essay in Atheistic Religion))
“
Depression, that is,” I continue. “People who’ve never experienced it think it’s a mask, but it’s not. It’s a curtain. And when it falls, it shuts you off from your life, plunging you into complete darkness. There you stand, arms flailing around you, reaching for anything to find your way back. But after exhausting yourself, grasping at only more darkness, you give up and drop to the floor in resignation. “And so you sit. You and the blackness. You and the accusations. You and the self-hatred, the lies that become truth, the failure and pain and hopelessness and black thoughts that twist through you, impaling you to the floor. There you bleed, alone in your black hole, convinced the audience on the other side of the curtain has given up and gone home. The show is over. “Before you know it, you realize the curtain has turned into a cement wall, and you couldn’t escape the darkness even if you wanted to, but by now you don’t care anymore. What’s the point? There’s nothing waiting for you on the other side, and even if there was, you’re such a useless waste of space that you wouldn’t dare to contaminate the world outside with your cancer anyway.” I stop, my eyes burning, my voice heavy in my throat. “You feel like crying all the time but you rarely do. Depression isn’t sadness; it’s numbness. You don’t have the energy for sadness. You can’t sleep. You don’t eat. You have no desire for the things you used to love, but it doesn’t matter because you can’t love anyway. You feel nothing, just a dull, heavy ache that makes it hard to breathe sometimes, let alone get up to start the search again. You fantasize about disappearing, just erasing your pointless existence and sparing the Earth from your toxic presence. By now you’re so exhausted just from the effort of living that there’s nothing left to live it.” I
”
”
Alyson Santos (Night Shifts Black (The Hold Me NSB Series Book 1))
“
But what Andy never understood about him was this: he was an optimist. Every month, every week, he chose to open his eyes, to live another day in the world. He did it when he was feeling so awful that sometimes the pain seemed to transport him to another state, one in which everything, even the past that he worked so hard to forget, seemed to fade into a gray watercolor wash. He did it when his memories crowded out all other thoughts, when it took real effort, real concentration, to tether himself to his current life, to keep himself from raging with despair and shame. He did it when he was so exhausted of trying, when being awake and alive demanded such energy that he had to lie in bed thinking of reasons to get up and try again, when it would be much easier to go to the bathroom and untape the plastic zipped bag containing his cotton pads and loose razors and alcohol wipes and bandages from its hiding place beneath the sink and simply surrender.
”
”
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
“
Nighy’s people almost got him on Instagram, with the promise they’d do all the work. “But I pulled out. I just thought: I can’t. One of the things that I would’ve been required to do was to tell people that I’m in a film. I’m never gonna tell people I’m in a film. It’s just never gonna happen.”
At the London premiere of Living, he was asked by red carpet journalists what his favourite scene was. “And I couldn’t remember any of them. Normally, just to be sociable, I’d choose one. But I just didn’t have that kind of energy.
“There are certain PR questions to which there are only PR answers. It’s not lying, but it’s a very edited truth. And if you are in any way a moral creature, that’s probably why it’s sort of enervating. It’s a very particular kind of tiredness not because you’ve been doing anything dishonest, but it’s just not quite normal contact with other human beings.”
He hurriedly adds some qualifiers: it’s a champagne problem. And this isn’t abnormal. “This is nice and I’m not just smooth-talking.
”
”
Bill Nighy
“
Joan Blondell had it all: looks, talent, energy, humor. If she never became a top-flight superstar, the fault lies mostly with Warner Brothers. At MGM, Joan could have easily had Jean Harlow’s career; at Paramount, Claudette Colbert’s or Carole Lombard’s; at Fox, Loretta Young’s; at RKO, Ginger Rogers’. Some of the fault lies, too, with Blondell herself, who later admitted, “The instant they said ‘cut!’ I was whammo out of that studio and into the car . . . In order to be a top star and remain a top star and to get all the fantastic roles that you yearned for, you’ve got to fight for it and you’ve got to devote your twenty-four hours to just that; you’ve got to think of yourself as a star, operate as a star; do all the press that is necessary . . . What meant most to me was getting home, and that’s the truth.” But if Joan Blondell got slightly lost in the shuffle at Warners, she still managed to turn in some delightfully snappy performances and typify the warm-hearted, wisecracking Depression dame. And when she aged, she did so with grace and humor.
”
”
Eve Golden (Bride of Golden Images)
“
Maxims & Other Quotes II
Exactly how we deal with our souls was at this moment the only question I thought worth asking. 181
Borges: What I most admire about Whitman is that he created Walt Whitman, an ideal projection not of himself but someone like him, a character every reader could find in his heart and admire. 184
Borges: Mythos, in Greek, is not a story that is false, it’s a story that is more than true. Myth is a tear in the fabric of reality, and immense energies pour through those holy fissures. Our stories, our poems, are rips in these holy fissures, as well, however slight. 193
Borges: Don’t question survival, mine or yours. More powers lie at your disposal than you realize. 194
Parini: I just don’t know enough.
Borges: Nor I. But we all proceed on insufficient knowledge. 195
Borges: I’ve found a name for myself. Borges the Reenactor! The problem is, one never wins old battles. The losses only mount. 250
Borges: Remember that the battle between good and evil persists, and the writer’s work is constantly to reframe the argument, so that readers make the right choices. Never work from vanity. … What does Eliot say? ‘Humility is endless’ … We fail, and we fail again. We pick ourselves up. I’ve done it a thousand times, Guiseppe. Borges only deepens. 251
”
”
Jay Parini (Borges and Me: An Encounter)
“
13. If the goal is to build up one's sexual energy, what's the
harm of sleeping with a lot of different women (or men) to increase
your ching chi?
Chia: The goal is not to build up one's sexual energy—it is to
transform raw sexual energy into a refined subtle energy. Sex is
only one means of doing that. Promiscuity can easily lower your
energy if you choose partners with moral or physical weakness.
If you lie with degenerates, it may hurt you, in that you can
temporarily acquire your partner's vileness. By exchanging subtle
energy, you actually absorb the other's substance. You become the
other person and assume new karmic burdens. This is why old
couples resemble each other so closely: they have exchanged so
much energy that they are made of the same life-stuff. This practice
accelerates this union, but elevates it to a higher level of spiritual
experience.
So the best advice I can give is to never compromise your
integrity of body, mind and spirit. In choosing a lover you are
choosing your destiny, so make sure you love the woman with
whom you have sex. Then you will be in harmony with what flows
from the exchange and your actions will be proper.
If you think you can love two women at once, be ready to
spend double the chi to transform and balance their energy. I doubt
if many men can really do that and feel deep serenity. For the sake
of simplicity, limit yourself to one woman at a time. It takes a lot of
time and energy to cultivate the subtle energies to a deep level.
It is impossible to define love precisely. You have to consult
your inner voice. But cultivating your chi energy sensitizes you to
your conscience. What was a distant whisper before may become a
very loud voice. For your own sake, do not abandon your integrity
for the sake of physical pleasure or the pretense that you are doing
deep spiritual exercises. If you sleep with one whom you don't
love, your subtle energies will not be in balance and psychic warfare can begin. This will take its toll no matter how far apart you
are physically until you sever or heal the psychic connection. It's
better to be honest in the beginning.
For the same reason make love only when you feel true tenderness within yourself. Your power to love will thus grow
stronger. Selfish or manipulative use of sex even with someone
with whom you are in love can cause great disharmony. If you feel
unable to use your sexual power lovingly, then do not use it at all!
Sex is a gleaming, sharp, two-edged sword, a healing tool that can
quickly become a weapon. If used for base purposes, it cuts you
mercilessly. If you haven't found a partner with whom you can be
truly gentle, then simply touch no one. Go back to building your
internal energy and when it gets high you will either attract a
quality lover or learn a deeper level within yourself.
”
”
Mantak Chia (Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy)
“
Let’s find out where your shame came from by taking a look at your past. But before we do that, I want to address a common misconception people have about looking at their past. I have heard many people misinterpret the apostle Paul’s words: I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead…Philippians 3:13 People use this verse to teach that a person should never reflect on their past to resolve their present problems. They think looking to your past is a sign of doubt and weak faith. “Good Christians” should forget about their past, they say, and focus on who they are as a believer in Jesus. That might sound good, but I couldn't disagree more. That kind of thinking is both unbiblical and illogical. It is unbiblical because Paul wasn’t telling people to forget past problems. He was simply referring to his former life when he sought to please God through religious works like praying, giving money, or fasting. He boasted about these religious habits as if they got him closer to God. But he stopped that kind of foolish thinking when he came to learn what Jesus had done for him. Paul wasn’t making an all-inclusive statement telling people to forget everything about their past. He was simply telling his personal story and encouraging people to find their acceptance from God based on his love, not on their good works. To read more into his words is to twist the meaning.
”
”
F. Remy Diederich (Healing the Hurts of Your Past: A Guide to Overcoming the Pain of Shame (The Overcoming Series: Self-Worth, Book 1))
“
When people have a low vibration they are more reactive and less able to observe and think properly. Trauma, sadness, injustice, apathy and anger, all these things bring a person down to a state from where many never get out. Then because these people can't control themselves, they are constantly reacting to the high energies they feel - pulling them down. They attack the wrong target and fear what they need the most. They literally become antagonistic to higher vibrations. It's in their nature and they can't control that. Neither do they want. They will rationalize "disbelief" and prove you wrong to make you confused before they change, even when they promise to change, because they don't want to. And why would they if they can confuse you? Confusion is a low vibration scheme, and as you go lower in this vibration of lies, you feel more lost and confused about yourself. It then happens that you are forced to abandon any group that vibrates at a low frequency because they insist on making you confused. Certainty - which is not the same as arrogance but is instead the knowing of something to be true -, is a high frequency level. And the creatures of the darkness attack precisely that certainty, by making you feel ashamed of what you know, by calling you a narcissist. You find them in all religions without exceptions. Very few people know what the light is because they have never seen their real face in a mirror when the light is on.
”
”
Dan Desmarques
“
The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking “men speaking perverse things” (Acts xx. 30), “vain talkers and seducers” (Tit. i. 10), “erring and driving into error” (2 Tim. iii. 13). Still it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ’s kingdom itself. Wherefore We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetfulness of Our office. GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION 2. That We make no delay in this matter is rendered necessary especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the more mischievous, the less conspicuously they appear.
”
”
Pope Pius X (PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS: ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS [and] SYLLABUS CONDEMNING THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS: LAMENTABILI SANE)
“
Breathe. Pause. Move. Pause. Breathe. Pause. Move. Pause.
It is unending.
I heave myself over the final lip and strain to pull myself clear of the edge.
I clear the deep powder snow from in front of my face. I lie there hyperventilating.
Then I clear my mask of the ice that my breath has formed in the freezing air.
I unclip off the rope while still crouching. The line is now clear for Neil to follow up.
I get to my feet and start staggering onward.
I can see this distant cluster of prayer flags semisubmerged in the snow. Gently flapping in the wind, I know that these flags mark the true summit--the place of dreams.
I feel this sudden surge of energy beginning to rise within me.
It is adrenaline coursing around my veins and muscles.
I have never felt so strong--and yet so weak--all at the same time.
Intermittent waves of adrenaline and fatigue come and go as my body struggles to sustain the intensity of these final moments.
I find it strangely ironic that the very last part of this immense climb is so gentle a slope.
A sweeping curve--curling along the crest of the ridge toward the summit.
Thank God.
It feels like the mountain is beckoning me up. For the first time, willing me to climb up onto the roof of the world.
I try to count the steps as I move, but my counting becomes confused.
I am now breathing and gasping like a wild animal in an attempt to devour the oxygen that seeps into my mask.
However many of these pathetically slow shuffles I take, this place never seems to get any closer.
But it is. Slowly the summit is looming a little nearer.
I can feel my eyes welling up with tears. I start to cry and cry inside my mask.
Emotions held in for so long. I can’t hold them back any longer.
I stagger on.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
Retirement’s for young people, because they have other things they can do.’ At 70 years of age, with idleness, the system breaks down quickly. You have to have something in place when you retire. Right away, the next day, not after a three-month holiday. When you’re young, the 14-hour days are necessary, because you have to establish yourself, and the only way to do that is by working your balls off. By those means, you establish a work ethic for yourself. If you have family, it’s passed on to them. My mother and father conveyed the fruits of their labour to me and I have done so with my own children and beyond. With youth you have the capacity to establish all the stability of later life. With age you have to manage your energy. Keep fit. People should keep fit. Eat the right foods. I was never a great sleeper, but I could get my five to six hours, which was adequate for me. Some people wake up and lie in bed. I could never do that. I wake and jump up. I’m ready to go somewhere. I don’t lie there whiling my time away. You’ve had your sleep – that’s why you woke up.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Of course, people who have been severed from their true feelings since early childhood will be dependent on institutions like the church and will let themselves be told what they are allowed to feel. In most cases it is very little indeed. But I cannot imagine that it will always be like this. Somewhere, sometime, there will be a rebellion, and the process of mutual stultification will be halted. It will be halted with individuals summon up the courage to overcome their understandable fears, to tell, feel, and publish the truth and communicate with others on this basis. Once we realize the immense amount of energy children can summon up in order to survive cruelty and extreme sadism, things suddenly start looking more optimistic. Then it is easy to imagine our world could be a much better one if those children (like Rimbaud, Schiller, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche) could expend their almost limitless energies on other, more productive ends than merely fighting for their own survival.
”
”
Alice Miller (The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting)
“
Part One—The Lipid Panel. Used to evaluate heart health, this panel comprises of four biological markers representing the four types of fat found in the blood—triglycerides, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL). Two additional measures of cardiovascular health, homocysteine and c-reactive protein (CRP), may also be measured as part of a more comprehensive profile. These two labs are discussed in Part Six, “Optional Tests” (see page 8). • Part Two—The Basic Metabolic Panel. The labs used to evaluate metabolism measure blood sugar regulation, electrolyte and fluid balance, and kidney function. Biomarkers included in this panel are glucose, calcium, sodium, potassium, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and creatinine. • Part Three—The Hepatic Function Panel. This panel determines how well your liver is functioning by measuring levels of different proteins produced and processed by the liver, like albumin and globulin, as well as liver enzymes. • Part Four—The Complete Blood Count (CBC) Panel. The lab values measured in the complete blood count (CBC) panel include red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and hemoglobin. Maintaining healthy levels of these biomarkers affect your vitality and energy, immune system, and cardiovascular health. • Part Five—Hormones. Although they are not always included in a routine blood test, hormones should be periodically tested, especially in aging adults. Hormones such as estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, DHEA, and prostate specific antigen (PSA) play an integral role in reproductive wellness and affect other aspects of health. Maintaining balanced levels can slow down the aging process, for instance. Hormones involved in metabolism, like the thyroid hormones and the stress hormone cortisol, are also discussed in this section. • Part Six—Optional Tests. This final part of the book highlights four tests—homocysteine, c-reactive protein (CRP), vitamin D, and magnesium—that are not typically measured unless requested, or if a standard blood test shows an abnormality that requires a more in-depth analysis. These tests can provide a more complete picture of heart health, immunity, calcium absorption, blood sugar regulation, and a number of other vital processes.
”
”
James B. LaValle (Your Blood Never Lies: How to Read a Blood Test for a Longer, Healthier Life)
“
Artificially induced positive feelings are not only short-lived, they also leave us in the state of a child hoping against hope that our parents will one day show their good sides, thus relieving us of the necessity to feel anger or fear in connection with them. But if we want to attain true adulthood and live in our present reality, we must (and can) free ourselves of these illusory expectations. To do so, we need to admit the so-called negative emotions and change them into meaningful feelings, instead of trying to banish them as quickly and effectively as possible. Once they are admitted into our awareness, these emotions do not last forever, though in the relatively short time they persist they can liberate pent-up energies. Only when we attempt to ignore or banish them altogether do they ensconce themselves in the body.
”
”
Alice Miller (The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting)
“
The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking “men speaking perverse things” (Acts xx. 30), “vain talkers and seducers” (Tit. i. 10), “erring and driving into error” (2 Tim. iii. 13). Still it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ’s kingdom itself. Wherefore We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetfulness of Our office. GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION 2. That We make no delay in this matter is rendered necessary especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the more mischievous, the less conspicuously they appear. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.
”
”
Pope Pius X (Encyclical of Pope Pius X on the Doctrines of the Modernists (Illustrated))
“
So what did Mussolini do? He founded, as he put it, the only genuinely socialist government in the world, with the possible exception of the Soviet Union.35 Mussolini attempted to put into effect what he termed the “true socialism” that he said “plutocratic elements and sections of the clergy” had prevented him from implementing in Italy. At Salo, Mussolini outlined a socialist program that went beyond anything he attempted in Italy. The new program of November 1943 called for the state to take over all the critical sections of the economy—energy, raw materials, all necessary social services—leaving only private savings and private homes and assets in the hands of the citizens. The public sector was to be run by management committees in which workers would have a key role. Unions would also be part of the fascist governing assembly. The next step, declared Mussolini’s adviser Ugo Spirito, would be to abolish all private property. Interestingly Mussolini’s closest adviser in Salo was Nicola Bombacci, once a friend and disciple of Lenin who had in 1921 been a co-founder of the Italian Communist Party. Mussolini’s Salo period, although short-lived, proves that he never abandoned his original leftist ideals; he remained to the last a dedicated statist, collectivist, and socialist.
”
”
Dinesh D'Souza (The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left)
“
40. From Those To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Expected
When I left school, I worked for six months running a series of self-defence classes around London to earn some money so I could go backpacking. Finally, I saved enough to travel to India, where I had always wanted to go and see the mighty Himalayas with my own eyes. I knew it would take my breath away.
But it was the other things I witnessed in India that really blew my mind.
In the back streets of Calcutta I saw sights that just should not happen: legless, blind, ragged bodies, lying in filth-strewn gutters, holding out their blistered arms to beg for a few rupees. I felt overwhelmed, inadequate and powerless - all at once.
I sought out the mission run by Mother Teresa and saw there how simple things - cleanliness, calm, care and love - made a difference to those in need. These are not costly things to give, and the lesson I learnt was simple: that we all have it within our power to offer something to change a life, even if our pockets are empty.
We’ve come to think of charity as being about big telethons or rock stars setting up foundations, but at its heart, charity is about small acts of kindness.
No matter the circumstances in which you were brought up, no matter what your job or how much you earn, we all have the capacity to give something - whether it’s time, love or a listening ear to someone in need.
And the thing to remember is this: don’t wait until you have more time, money or energy. Mother Teresa said: ‘Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.’
It is a great lesson, and the more we try to do this with whatever little we have, the more real success will gravitate toward us. People will love you back, your own sense of purpose and achievement will grow, and your life will have influence beyond the material.
That is a great way to be known and to live your life.
For the record: I am definitely still a work in progress on this one, but we all benefit from trying to aspire to this more.
So look around you for those in need - you won’t have to look far - and your own life will grow in meaning.
Success is not success unless you live this one.
”
”
Bear Grylls (A Survival Guide for Life: How to Achieve Your Goals, Thrive in Adversity, and Grow in Character)
“
To my friend, the anthropologist, it was a sacrifice, but to me it was the burial of a very important
child. The totonalcayos are also called cuecueyos in Náhuatl. A cuey is something curved in the shape
of a half-moon which goes in and out. To put a cuey in the seven totonalcayos is a very advanced
technique of taking out the soul, a technique which nowadays even the most advanced spiritual
practitioners don’t know. The shedding of the skin represents the removal of the old energy. It is the
symbol of the second Tezcatlipoca, the red one, Xipe Totec. It was clear to me that the cuecueyos had
been inserted after this boy had died, and that he had been flayed to make his energy change so that he
wouldn’t come back ever again.
It’s a matter of common sense: if you sacrifice someone you don’t worry about his chakras, or his
skin, and you don’t bother putting him in the foetal position, which is related to the way
consciousness comes in and out of the body. So this proved something else that the guardians of the
oral tradition had stated: that there had never been any human sacrifices in the Aztec Empire.
When I realized this, I understood the extent to which the Aztec people been slandered. It was lack of
understanding and a series of lies that had led to the slaughter in which 90 per cent of the native
population of Mexico had perished. I was seeing this injustice now with my own eyes, and my heart
sank in sadness for the ancient people of Mexico. Their throne had a cross on top of it; their dead
were thought to have been sacrificed. I didn’t want to see anything else, not even the sun temple — I
just wanted to get out of there.
”
”
Sergio Magana "Ocelocoyotl (The Toltec Secret)
“
A sacred dream launches you to a destiny beyond simply not dying, or of being reasonably happy as you strive to avoid discomfort. It encourages you to explore the mysteries of life and of love, to glimpse a reality beyond death and discover a timeless truth for yourself. It demands that you act boldly and courageously, and not collude with the consensual—that which everyone agrees on and no one questions—even though it is a popular story that traps us in daydreams that become nightmares.
How do you know when you have found a sacred dream?” Because it is much larger than you, and it feels impossible to accomplish all that you hope to achieve. A sacred dream launches you on a mission, as it did with Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi. I discovered that when you hold a sacred dream, the universe begins to actively conspire on your behalf to make the impossible doable. It offers you energy and skills that you never had available before. Discovering the sacred dream requires courage. You can no longer be a passive (and anxious) bystander watching others have a meaningful life. The sacred dream will not come knocking at your door: It requires that you leave the familiar and embark on a quest. It requires that you not compromise your integrity. It demands that you not allow yourself to be seduced by the “easy path.” It calls you to fight the lie that your daydream is adequate and will continue to keep you comfortable.
”
”
Alberto Villoldo (The Heart of the Shaman: Stories and Practices of the Luminous Warrior)
“
I think cheating is the greatest hurt you could ever inflict on someone. Because you’re not just doing something bad to them. You’re sabotaging their whole life. You’re letting them build a world around lies. And when they finally find out, they’re not just going to be heartbroken; they’re going to have to face the terrible fact that they’ve invested all of their time and energy into something that never really existed in the first place.
”
”
Lacie Waldon (The Layover)
“
Kundalini Christianity is Another Obvious Heresy that Has Entered the Church:
Phillip St. Romain is a Catholic counselor at Heartland Spirituality Center in Great Bend, Kansas (1). This group integrates contemplative prayer (meditation) within their program (2). In Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality, Philip St. Romain claims that meditation, which awakens Kundalini energy is compatible with Christianity. Yet, before his spiritual crises, which began in 1986, Mr. St. Romain had never heard of the Kundalini and could not find any Christian literature to guide him through this experience (3). He could not find Christian literature on kundalini because Christianity forbids Eastern meditation techniques.
However, Hindus claim that through meditation, they may awaken the inner fire of Kundalini, which lies coiled and dormant at the base of the spine. Then this energy migrates, through chakras as it activates them along the way. Then, the goddess Shakti meets Shiva at the crown of the head, and their spiritual wedding transpires. Then, devotees realize they are divine (gods) (4). This is the first lie that the serpent told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He said, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5, KJV).
References:
1. “Spiritual Oasis for Souls.” Heartland Center for Spirituality,
2. “Who are the Dominican Sisters.” Becoming Dominican.
3. St. Romain, Philip. Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality: A Pathway to Growth & Healing. Lulu Publishing, 2010, pp. 10-12, 52, 5.
4. Klostermaier, Klaus. A Survey of Hinduism. 2007, pp. 218-221.
”
”
Philip St. Romain
“
Is it possible to worry about our past? For sure. It’s called regret. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “The past cannot be recalled and you can do nothing about it. You can sit down and be miserable and you can go round and round in circles of regret for the rest of your life but it will make no difference to what you have done. . . . We must never for a second worry about anything that cannot be affected or changed by us. It is a waste of energy.”1 Sometimes we waste a lot of time and energy worrying about our past failures. But if we have repented and sought forgiveness from God—and from other people, where possible (see Rom. 12:18)—we need to be actively “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:13).
”
”
Paul Tautges (Anxiety: Knowing God's Peace (31-Day Devotionals for Life))
“
...The lore supposes there should be conflict, hostility, battle, but I wonder, in contact with spirits, if what the boy needs is a good helping of cold anger."
"Cold anger?"
"Oh yes, don't you know the distinction? Tribal mothers always tell their children that there are two kinds of anger: hot and cold. Boys and girls experience both, but as they grow up the angers separate according to the sex. Boys need hot anger to survive. They need the inclination to fight, the drive to sink the knife into the flesh, the energy and initiative of fury. It's a requirement of hunting, of defense, or pride. Maybe of sex, too."
"Yes, I know," said Elphaba, remembering.
Sarima blushed and looked unhappy, and continued. "And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the sidestepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down, ever, ever. It's the compensation for a more limited scope in the world. Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on - or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the universe is changed, once again, for cold anger requires an eternal vigilance in all matters of slight and offense.
”
”
Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
“
The feeling of your inner body is formless, limitless, and unfathomable. You can always go into it more deeply. If you cannot feel very much at this stage, pay attention to whatever you can feel. Perhaps there is just a slight tingling in your hands or feet. That’s good enough for the moment. Just focus on the feeling. Your body is coming alive. Later, we will practice some more. Please open your eyes now, but keep some attention in the inner energy field of the body even as you look around the room. The inner body lies at the threshold between your form identity and your essence identity, your true nature. Never lose touch with it.
”
”
Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
“
Yes I am critical. I will judge you. But not by your physicality, credentials, the way you sound, your success or the way you portray yourself. That’s just a facade. An illusion. See, energy never lies. So, I will figure you out through my intuition.
”
”
Confessions of a Scorpio Moon
“
Yes I am critical. I will judge you. But not by your physicality, credentials, the way you sound, your success or the way you portray yourself. That’s just a facade. See, energy never lies. So, I will figure you out through my intuition.
”
”
Confessions of a Scorpio Moon
“
When we’re constantly needing to defend our positions and worry about the choices we make, we get stuck in our problems. Our energy stagnates and we become more concerned about what others think than what our intuition is signaling to us. It doesn’t matter whether our resistance comes from external or internal judgment—the outcome tends to be the same. Fear of judgment or making wrong choices keeps us frozen in our problems. It keeps us stuck between two points, never moving forward to explore what lies beyond the horizon.
”
”
Ayelet Baron (F*ck the Bucket List for the Soul: Discover the Wonder of You)
“
Only those who are worthy. Who have enough energy. There is no judgment but that: whether a soul possesses enough residual power to make a hearty meal, both for myself and for the Dead Gate. As their souls pass through the Dead Gate, I take a … bite or two.” Hunt cringed inwardly. Maybe he had been too hasty in deeming the being before him not evil. The Under-King went on, “The rituals were all invented by you. Your ancestors. To endure the horror of the offering.” “But Danika was here. She answered me.” Bryce’s voice broke. “She was here. She and all of the newly dead from the past several centuries. Just long enough that their living descendants and loved ones either forget or don’t come asking. They dwell here until then in relative comfort—unless they make themselves a nuisance and I decide to send them into the Gate sooner. But when the dead are forgotten, their names no longer whispered on the wind … then they are herded through the Gate to become firstlight. Or secondlight, as it is called when the power comes from the dead. Ashes to ashes and all that.” “The Sleeping City is a lie?” Hunt asked. His mother’s face flashed before him. “A comforting one, as I have said.” The Under-King’s voice again became sorrowful. “One for your benefit.” “And the Asteri know about this?” Hunt demanded. “I would never presume to claim what the holy ones know or don’t know.” “Why are you telling us any of this?” Bryce blanched with horror. “Because he’s not letting us leave here alive,” Hunt breathed. And their souls wouldn’t live on, either. The light vanished entirely, and the voice of the Under-King echoed around them. “That is the first intelligent thing you’ve said.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2))
“
But you don’t need to have brawn to subdue and exert power. True power lies in the ability to harness energy and wield it like a sword, becoming the puppeteer who masters all the strings instead of the marionette being forced to dance.
”
”
Emily McIntire (Scarred (Never After, #2))
“
Every life experience and all creativity come from the clash of opposing forces—the collision of the energy of polar opposites. It’s healthy to laugh and it’s healthy to cry—the brightest stars eventually become black holes—the good person without accountability becomes the evil one. Steroids take away skin redness, but if used too long, they redden the skin. The germaphobe cleans her hands to avoid germs, but cleaning too much destroys antibodies, allowing for infection. Lying down for a headache helps, but if you stay down too long it gives you a headache. The desire of total control results in the loss of all control. The greater the love you feel the deeper the pain of loss. If you help your child, she learns; if you do everything for her, she never learns…
”
”
Steven Ray Ozanich (The Great Pain Deception: Faulty Medical Advice Is Making Us Worse)
“
That makes sense.” He pauses. Then adds softly, “I’m proud of you. Thank you for telling me.” I press a little kiss against his shoulder since I can’t get any words out. We lie in peaceful silence for a few minutes. Then Mack says, “You don’t talk about Josh much anymore.” “I know. He used to fill my mind, even long after he was dead. But he doesn’t now. Honestly, I barely even think about him anymore. I think that’s good.” “It is good. He never deserved even the smallest space in your head.” I smile and find the energy to pick my head up so I can kiss him. We don’t take it very far since both of us are tired and sated. After a few more minutes, we adjust our positions so I’m at his side and his arm is around me. We go back to sleep that way, and we don’t wake up until midmorning.
”
”
Claire Kent (Beacon (Kindled #8))
“
Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.” He
”
”
Paul Johnson (Churchill)
“
Every life experience and all creativity come from the clash of opposing forces—the collision of the energy of polar opposites. It’s healthy to laugh and it’s healthy to cry—the
brightest stars eventually become black holes—the good person without accountability becomes the evil one. Steroids take away skin redness, but if used too long, they redden the skin. The germaphobe cleans her hands to avoid germs, but cleaning too much destroys antibodies, allowing for infection. Lying down for a headache helps, but if you stay down too long it gives you a headache. The desire of total control results in the loss of all control. The greater the love you feel the deeper the pain of loss. If you help your child, she learns; if you do everything for her, she never learns…
”
”
Steven Ray Ozanich (The Great Pain Deception: Faulty Medical Advice Is Making Us Worse)
“
Love is the sweetness of life.”
“Pray is gold, whereas love is a diamond.”
“Love does not wear hatred and bias.”
“Love is a fulfillment of life; without that, life is nothing.”
Love cannot appear and become true love without respect, tolerance, empathy, sympathy, care, and sacrifice.”
“One can love whoever and whenever one wants; however, expecting similar feelings from that whom one loves is a risk of self-hurting.”
“Love speaks in your words, sights with your eyes, grows on your conduct, and finally resides in your heart, becoming your heartbeat.”
“When your mind is rich in wisdom, and your heart is sensitive and filled with love, you are a person who can change the world.”
“Love does not recognize the terms hide and seek. When it happens, it becomes visible without any fear or hesitation.”
“Those who care for self-respect show real and true love, and they do not break the trust and certainty of their beloved. Love cannot stay where there is no self-respect.”
“If you love someone, and you are also keeping the options, it is not fair to your lover, not even yourself. You are just an opportunist. True love knows no options.”
“Love for humanity is the mother of every love; no other love can prevail over it.”
“Etiquette, respect, and love embellish and beautify the character while also helping to reach and qualify for success in life.”
“Love with motives does not have success and embraces shame and sorry.”
“My religion is love, which I have learned from my religion.”
“Beauty hits eyes, and love touches heartbeats.”
“The billions of beautiful faces exist in the world, but I fell in love with one face.”
“The silent love has more truth than the spoken one.”
“Please pray for me. I am going to fall in love.”
“I do not search for a true friend and true love. I practice becoming a true friend and giving true love.”
“I can never feel again such love which I had felt for the first time in my youth.”
“If there is no current, the lamp does not light up; similarly, if there is no passion, love does not become the heartbeat.”
“Love with the heart validates purity and truth. Love with the mind may evidence diplomacy and tact.”
“Real and pure love exists at the age of nine and ninety years; between that lies a risk. However, an exception may become a wonder.”
“Love fragrances, and colors, the breath waves that inspire the heart language.”
“Love bears two negative feelings; fear and jealousy, overcoming that beautify life; otherwise, these become self-hurting.”
“Love is not just a remedy for sex frustration; it is a solemn life pledge to be together for all seasons and circumstances.”
“How simple it is, how deep it is, and how true it is, within the two-L-that you are my Life and Love. Do we honestly make also perfumed that?”
“Log in Love; log out Hatred and scan evil threats with the purity of thoughts: Life becomes secure and stays smooth and flowery.”
“Anyone who indulges only in self-love remains devoid of true love.”
"Your words can be constructive or destructive. Love is a positive energy that grows when it is filled up with sweet words and keeps love fresh and alive. If there are destructive words, love will go dry and finally die.
"Love is a context of heartbeats; intimacy is its dictionary; use it carefully and properly; otherwise, typos can cause risks.
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
Yung Pueblo, the modern poet and philosopher, is a beacon of personal growth, healing, and self-awareness. His words, steeped in wisdom, resonate with people seeking peace, transformation, and a deeper connection with themselves. Let's look at some of Yung Pueblo's quotes and break them down in a way that adds value to your life.
Each quote is followed by an easy-to-understand explainer, using metaphors to help you understand his message's depth. These explanations are guideposts, showing how to apply his insights to your journey.
## Yung Pueblo Quotes on Healing
**"True healing is the willingness to treat yourself with kindness."**
Healing is like tending to a garden. You can't rush it, and you can't force it. As you carefully water plants and pull weeds, you must approach yourself with patience and compassion. Only by treating yourself kindly will you create an environment where healing can flourish.
**"The more you heal, the less you push away what's uncomfortable."**
Healing isn't about avoiding discomfort—it's about embracing it. Think of it like building a muscle. Every stretch and strain makes you stronger. As you heal, you grow more capable of sitting with discomfort, knowing that it's part of the process, not a thing to run from.
**"Healing happens when you are ready to let go of what is hurting you."**
Letting go is like releasing a heavy anchor holding your ship in place. You can't sail forward until you free yourself from the weight of old wounds. Healing begins when you untie yourself from the past and allow yourself to move freely into the future.
## Yung Pueblo Quotes About Self-Love
**"You must love yourself so deeply that your energy and presence become a gift to the world."**
Imagine your heart as well. The more you fill it with love for yourself, the more you have to share with others. Self-love isn't selfish—the overflow enriches everything and everyone around you. By loving yourself deeply, you become a gift to those you meet.
**"Self-love is creating space in your life to take care of yourself."**
Self-love is like building a sanctuary in your daily life. You need to create space, even negligible, to retreat and recharge. It's not about indulgence; it's about recognizing that taking care of yourself is essential to thriving in a busy, chaotic world.
**"Self-love is accepting that you are a constantly evolving work of art."**
You are like a canvas, always in progress. Some days, the strokes are bold; others, they're gentle. Self-love means accepting that your life is a masterpiece in progress—you are never finished, and that's where the beauty lies. Embrace each phase and layer, and know it all adds to something magnificent.
”
”
Yung Pueblo Quotes: Wisdom on Healing, Self-Love, and Inner Growth
“
Okay, judged on raw brain power, humans do no better than our hairier cousins. So, then, what are we using our great big brains for? Maybe we’re more cunning. That’s the crux of the ‘Machiavellian intelligence’ hypothesis, named after the Italian Renaissance philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince (1513). In this handbook for rulers, Machiavelli counsels weaving a web of lies and deception to stay in power. According to adherents of this hypothesis, that’s precisely what we’ve been doing for millions of years: devising ever more inventive ways to swindle one another. And because telling lies takes more cognitive energy than being truthful, our brains grew like the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the US during the Cold War. The result of this mental arms race is the sapien superbrain. If this hypothesis were true, you’d expect humans to beat other primates handily in games that hinge on conning your opponent. But no such luck. Numerous studies show that chimps outscore us on these tests and that humans are lousy liars.9 Not only that, we’re predisposed to trust others, which explains how con artists can fool their marks.10 This brings me to another odd quirk of Homo sapiens. Machiavelli, in his classic book, advises never revealing your emotions. Work on your poker face, he urges; shame serves no purpose. The object is to win, by fair means or foul. But if only the shameless win, why are humans one of the only species in the whole animal kingdom to blush?
”
”
Rutger Bregman (Humankind: A Hopeful History)
“
Cooper Friday, October 5, 3:30 p.m. I pick Lucas up after school and stop by Nonny’s hospital room before our parents get there. She’d been asleep most of the time we visited all week, but today she’s sitting up in bed with the TV remote in hand. “This television only gets three channels,” she complains as Lucas and I hover in the doorway. “We might as well be in 1985. And the food is terrible. Lucas, do you have any candy?” “No, ma’am,” Lucas says, flipping his too-long hair out of his eyes. Nonny turns a hopeful face to me, and I’m struck by how old she looks. I mean, sure, she’s well into her eighties, but she’s always had so much energy that I never really noticed. It hits me now that even though her doctor says she’s recovering well, we’ll be lucky to go a few years before something like this happens again. And then at some point, she’s not gonna be around at all.
”
”
Karen M. McManus (One of Us Is Lying (One of Us is Lying, #1))
“
Ten best quotes of the book, “Miracles Through My Eyes”
"Miracles Through My Eyes " by Dinesh Sahay Author- Mentor
{This book was published on 23rd October in 2019)
1. “God is always there to fulfil each demand, prayer or wish provided you have intent; unshaken trust in Him, determination and action on the ground, and when this entire manifest in one’s life, then it becomes a miracle of life. Nothing moves without His grace. It comes when you are on the right path without selfish motives but will never happen when done for selfish and destructive motives”.
2. “All diseases are self-creation and they come due to some cause and it transforms into a disease by virtue of wrong thinking, wrong actions which are against nature, the universe and God. When you disobey the rules set by God. All misfortunes, accidents, deceases, and even death are the creation of negative, bad thoughts, spoken words and actions of man himself, at some stage of his life. All good events in life are also the creation of man through his good and positive thoughts at various stages of his life”.
3. “The biggest investments lie not in the savings and creation of wealth with selfish motives. Though you may find success this prosperity shall not be long lasting and at a later stage, the money and wealth may be lost slowly in many unfortunate ways”.
4. “If you want to have a successful life with ease and at the same time want abundance and wealth then my friend, you must care for others. You must start your all efforts to help by means of tithing, charity, service to mankind in any form, and help poor, helpless, needy and underprivileged.”
5. “The largest investment for a person (which is time tested by many rich personalities) shall be to give 10% of your monthly income for the charitable cause each month if you are a salaried class, and if you are a businessman or a company, then you must contribute 10% annually for charitable cause”.
6. “Nature is giving signals to the mankind that they are moving near to destruction of this earth as it’s a cause and effect of man-made destruction of earth and with all sins, hate, untruthfulness and violence it carried throughout the centuries and acted against the principals of the universe and nature. Those connected to the divine may escape from the clutches of death and destruction of the earth. We have witnessed many major catastrophes in the form of Tsunami’s, earthquakes, Tornado’s, Global warming and volcanic eruptions and the world is moving towards it further major happenings in times to come”.
7. “Let us pray for peace and harmony for all humanity and make this world a better place to live by our actions of love, compassion, truthfulness, non-violence, end of terrorism and peace on earth with no wars with any country. Let there will be single governance in the world, the governance of one religion, the religion of love, peace, prosperity and healthy living to all”.
8.” Forgive all the people who often unreasonable, self-centred or accuse you of selfish and forget the all that is said about you. It is your own inner reflection which you see in the outer world.
9. “Thought has a tremendous vibratory force which moves with limitless speed and, makes all creations in man’s life. Each thought vibrates to the frequency with which it was created by a person, whether that was good or bad, travels accordingly through the conscious and subconscious mind in space and the universe. It vibrates with time and energy to produces manifestation in the spiritual and materialistic world of man or woman or matter (thing), in form of events, happenings and creativity”.
”
”
Dinesh Sahay
“
No one realized that it was the inhuman and absurd discipline imposed on him at this boarding school, where he spent eight years of his life, that completely exhausted his physical and mental energies.
”
”
Alice Miller (The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting)
“
Because we sit there in the gap for a long time saying [gasps]. And that’s when you begin to learn the meaning of ‘Lord Have Mercy’. I can’t do anything to raise my state but what I can do is stay honestly ahead of, in plain sight, what’s happened, acknowledging. Here I am. And I think it’s from that repeated acknowledgement of my own helplessness at that level, but refusing to simply hide from that helplessness, that gradually, gradually, gradually the energy that had originally gone into your, sort of, ego programmes gets recaptured to begin to hold this other kind of field of awareness, of attentiveness, that’s not identified with that small self acting out and can begin to become a nest for that deeper and fuller and truer wiser self to live in. And then we begin to Be. Then we begin to have Being. And it’s from that Being that sometimes we can pull ourselves out of that spiral we were heading into, and it’s from that Being that we can begin to offer our force of Being to the world as love, as assistance, as a shift in the energy field for someone else. ‘Baraka’ the Sufis call it. But it comes slowly, because you can’t just, kind of, click your heels together and have Being. It has to accumulate slowly in your being for a life of painfully bearing the crucifixion of inner honesty, and slowly it emerges.
Interviewer: So that brings up the question in me, what is then freedom? Because you go on this journey. We start out on this journey to become free, which we call enlightenment.
Cynthia: Well, you know, we have so many mixed metaphors as Western and Eastern ways of contexting reality come together like tectonic plates. And they don’t often match up. I think, in a very obvious way, freedom is easy. At the obvious level, what it means is what you’d call ‘freedom from the false self’. Most of us think we’re free, and yet we are not free at all because we are under the absolute compulsion of agendas, addictions and aversions that have been programmed into us from early life, and sometimes from the womb. We have our values, we have our triggers, we have our flash points, we have our agendas. And, as A.H. Almaas said so famously, “Freedom to be your ego is not freedom.” Because that’s slavery. You’re being pulled around by a bull ring in the nose.
So part of the work of freedom begins when you can stabilise in yourself this thing that some of the Eastern traditions helpfully call ‘witnessing presence’, which is something deeper that’s not dependent on the pain-pleasure principle, that’s not attracted by attraction, or repulsed by aversion. You know, as my teacher Rafe, the hermit monk of Snowmass, Colorado, used to say, “I want to have enough Being to be nothing.” Which means he is not dependant on the world to give him his identity, because he’s learned his identity nests in something much deeper.
[...]
And as you finally become free to follow what you might call the ‘homing beacon of your own inner calling’, you realise that it’s only in that complete obedience that freedom lies. And, of course, the trick to that is the word ‘obedience’, which we usually thinks means knuckling under, or capitulating, really comes from the Latin ‘ob audire’, which means ‘to listen deeply’. So, as we listen deeply to the fundamental, what you might call the ‘tuning fork’ of our being – which is given to us not by ourself and is never about self-realisation because the self melts as that realisation comes closer – you find the only freedom is to be your own cell in the vast mystical body of God.
”
”
Cynthia Bourgeault
“
I wouldn’t have believed her, but she’s never dissembled. She doesn’t have the energy for it, and she isn’t trying to get anywhere, so she has no reason to lie or manipulate people. It’s one of
”
”
Adam Haslett (Imagine Me Gone)
“
No belief is true, life has no meaning, nothing we do matters. All is vanity and a striving after wind. We’re going to die and it will be as if we never lived. Everything we think is true is false, all our beliefs are delusions and everything we know is a lie. There is no such thing as success, nothing we do can make any possible difference, no matter how fast we go or how far ahead we are, we are not going anywhere. The best and the brightest are in a dead-tie with the worst and the dimmest. These are the facts of life, simple, obvious, plain to behold, yet universally unrecognized and unacknowledged. This is what it means to see what’s not and not see what is, to be in denial, to be asleep within the dream, to reside in the womb of the unborn. We are madly, desperately, insanely afraid of the truth, and it is that fear that walls us off from our unbounded nature. It is the emotional energy of fear that erects and maintains the egoic shell.
”
”
Jed McKenna (Spiritual Warfare (The Enlightenment Trilogy Book 3))
“
Do you…do you know how long I’ll have?” Emyr asks here, and his claws dig into my thigh. I reach down and put my hand over his. I don’t pull his fingers away. “I know that resurrection magic is rarely permanent. My—my mother—”
Vorgaine reaches across the table and lays her hand across the back of Emyr’s. He stills under her touch, and tilts his head up to stare into her eyes.
“I am sorry about your mother, Emyr. That never should have happened.” She shakes her head. “But I can tell you this. Wyatt’s energy is permanently, and inextricably, tangled with yours. For as long as one of you lives, the other cannot die.”
And just like that, with one sentence, a thousand pounds of invisible weight, sitting on my chest for the last few weeks, disappears.
Our world is on fire. Everything we’ve ever known is a lie. We could both die tomorrow.
But Emyr isn’t going anywhere without me. I am not going to lose him.
Never again.
”
”
H.E. Edgmon (The Fae Keeper (Witch King #2))
“
My parents did their best to feed their children’s bodies, minds, and hearts, every day, whether they felt like it or not. Now that I have had children, I am in awe of how consistently they did this at such a young age, without complaint. They made a commitment to each other and to my brother and myself, and they kept it. I do not know what this cost them. I may never know. But having had children of my own, I know how hard it is some days to do what has to be done.
Many of my parents’ generation were raised with a belief that was both curse and blessing: commitments were to be fulfilled, duties carried out. There was no choice. When we are convinced there is no choice, we waste less energy on wondering what to do and railing against that which needs to be done. This is the blessing we have when the rules are clear, the duties delineated. But there is another side to the ease we feel when our duty is laid out for us. If the strict parameters of what is expected do not fit us, we must shape ourselves to meet them, regardless of the costs. My mother, if she did not by nature fit the role of full-time homemaker, successfully managed the Herculean task of bending to meet it, without losing her enthusiasm for life, her ability to experience joy. Other women and their children were not so fortunate. Behind closed doors, within spotless rooms, many of my friends mothers drowned the pain of not living who they were with alcohol and prescription drugs, and they sometimes descended into illness and suicide.
Many of the women of my generation are torn apart daily by the choices available to us, choices I am nevertheless grateful to have. When I went to work, I felt worried and guilty about leaving my children at daycare. When I stayed home I thought I would go out of my mind with the mental boredom, the struggle to live without enough money, and the worry that I would never be able to go back into the workplace and make a living. I had inherited my parents’ values in a world with so many more choices and demands, plus my own expectations that I could, and should, develop my own interests and talents. So, I tried to do it all - to keep a house and care for my children according to the standards required of a full-time homemaker, to attend classes to develop my skills, and to work to provide money and financial security. And I got sick – very, very sick.
One of the gifts of lying on the floor too ill to get up with two young children to look after is the ease and clarity with which you know what really does have to be done. No, when I work with men and women who are worn out with too much work and worry, you tell me all the things they have to do, I tell them, “You know, very little actually has to be done.” I found out when I was ill that cookies do not have to be baked, floors do not have to be spotless, PTA meetings do not have to be attended, the dish drainer does not have to be emptied, meals do not have to be exotic and innovative. Too ill to do anything that did not have to be done, I did the impossible: I lowered my standards.
”
”
Oriah Mountain Dreamer (The Invitation)
“
In the course of history, kings have welcomed more and more people to their courts, which became more and more brilliant. Is it not obvious that these courtiers and the "officers" were stolen from the feudal lords, who just lost at one fell swoop, their retinues and their administrators? The modern state nourishes a vast bureaucracy. Is not the corresponding decline in the staff of the employer patent to all?
Putting the mass of the people to productive work makes possible at any given moment of technical advance the existence of a given number of non-producers. These non-producers will either be dispersed in a number of packets or concentrated in one immense body, according as the profits of productive work accrue to the social or to the political authorities. The requirement of Power, its tendency and its raison d'etre, is to concentrate them in its own service. To this task, it brings us so much ardour, instinctive rather than designed that in course of time it does to a natural death the social order which gave it birth.
This tendency is due not to the form taken by any particular state but to the inner essence of Power, which is the inevitable assailant of the social authorities and sucks the very lifeblood. And the more vigorous a particular power is a more virile it is to the role of vampire. When it falls to weak hand, which gives aristocratic resistance a chance to organize itself, the state's revolutionary nature becomes for the time being effaced.
This happens either because the forces of aristocracy opposed to the now enfeebled statocratic onslaught a barrier capable of checking it, or, more frequently, because they put a guard on their assailant, by laying hands on the apparatus which endangers them; they guarantee their own survival by installing themselves in the seat of government. This is exactly what did happen to the two epochs when the ideas of Montesquieu and Marx took shape.
The counter-offensive of the social authorities cannot be understood unless it is realized that the process of destroying aristocracy goes hand in hand with a tendency in the opposite sense. The mighty are put down - if they are independent of the state; but simultaneously, a statocrcy is exalted, and the new statocrats do more than lay a collective hand on the social forces - they laid them on the lay them each his own hand; in this way, they divert them from Power and restore them again to society, in which thereafter the statocrats join forces, by reason of the similarity of their situations and interests, with the ancient aristocracies in retreat.
Moreover, the statocratic acids, in so far as they break down the aristocratic molecules, do not make away with all the forces which they liberate. Part of them stays unappropriated, and furnishes new captains of society with the personnel necessary to the construction of new principates. In this way, the fission of the feudal cell at the height of the Middle Ages released the labour on which the merchant-drapers rose to wealth and political importance.
So also in England, with a greed of Henry VIII had fallen on the ecclesiastical authorities to get from their wealth, the wherewithal to carry out his policies, the greater part of the monastic spoils, stuck to the fingers of hands, which had been held out to receive them. These spoils founded the fortunes of the nascent English capitalism.
In this way, new hives are forever being built, in which lie hidden a new sort of energies; these will in time inspire the state to fresh orgies of covetousness. That is why the statocratic aggression seemed never to reach its logical conclusion - the complete atomization of society, which should contain henceforward nothing but isolated individuals whom the state alone rules and exploits.
”
”
Bertrand de Jouvenel (ON POWER: The Natural History of Its Growth)
“
What do we know,’ he had said, ‘of the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with a wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have…
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft (From Beyond)