Everywhere Everything Everyone Quotes

To Stay Focused in Life: You can't know everyone You can't do everything You can't go everywhere We have to pick and choose between good and a little bit better.

Don't exist. Live. Get out, explore. Thrive. Challenge authority. Challenge yourself. Evolve. Change forever. Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don't stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn't know your name doesn't mean you dont matter. Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? What have you done today to matter? Did you exist or did you live? How did you thrive? Become a chameleon-fit in anywhere. Be a rockstar-stand out everywhere. Do nothing, do everything. Forget everything, remember everyone. Care, don't just pretend to. Listen to everyone. Love everyone and nothing at the same time. Its impossible to be everything,but you can't stop trying to do it all. All I know is that I have no idea where I am right now. I feel like I am in training for something, making progress with every step I take. I fear standing still. It is my greatest weakness. I talk big, but often don't follow through. That's my biggest problem. I don't even know what to think right now. It's about time I start to take a jump. Fuck starting to take. Just jump-over everything. Leap. It's time to be aggressive. You've started to speak your mind, now keep going with it, but not with the intention of sparking controversy or picking a germane fight. Get your gloves on, it's time for rebirth. There IS no room for the nice guys in the history books. THIS IS THE START OF A REVOLUTION. THE REVOLUTION IS YOUR LIFE. THE GOAL IS IMMORTALITY. LET'S LIVE, BABY. LET'S FEEL ALIVE AT ALL TIMES. TAKE NO PRISONERS. HOLD NO SOUL UNACCOUNTABLE, ESPECIALLY NOT YOUR OWN. IF SOMETHING DOESN'T HAPPEN, IT'S YOUR FAULT. Make this moment your reckoning. Your head has been held under water for too long and now it is time to rise up and take your first true breath. Do everything with exact calculation, nothing without meaning. Do not make careful your words, but make no excuses for what you say. Fuck em' all. Set a goal for everyday and never be tired.

Did you know I always thought you were braver than me? Did you ever guess that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn't that I only loved some of you. But I wondered if you could ever love more than some of me. I knew I'd miss you. But the surprising thing is, you never leave me. I never forget a thing. Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn't happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all. I know young people look at me and think my youth seems so far away, but it's all around me, and you're all around me. Tiger Lily, do you think magic exists if it can be explained? I can explain why I loved you, I can explain the theory of evolution that tells me why mermaids live in Neverland and nowhere else. But it still feels magic. The lost boys all stood at our wedding. Does it seem odd to you that they could have stood at a wedding that wasn't yours and mine? It does to me. and I'm sorry for it, and for a lot, and I also wouldn't change it. It is so quiet here. Even with all the trains and the streets and the people. It's nothing like the jungle. The boys have grown. Everything has grown. Do you think you will ever grow? I hope not. I like to think that even if I change and fade away, some other people won't. I like to think that one day after I die, at least one small particle of me - of all the particles that will spread everywhere - will float all the way to Neverland, and be part of a flower or something like that, like that poet said, the one that your Tik Tok loved. I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I'll see you sometime again, even if it's not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the way things go after all - that all things end happy. Even for you and Tik Tok. and for you and me. Always, Your Peter P.S. Please give my love to Tink. She was always such a funny little bug.

Wait Wait, for now. Distrust everything, if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven't they carried you everywhere, up to now? Personal events will become interesting again. Hair will become interesting. Pain will become interesting. Buds that open out of season will become lovely again. Second-hand gloves will become lovely again, their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old. Wait. Don't go too early. You're tired. But everyone's tired. But no one is tired enough. Only wait a while and listen. Music of hair, Music of pain, music of looms weaving all our loves again. Be there to hear it, it will be the only time, most of all to hear, the flute of your whole existence, rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

There is a deep desire in everyone to commit suicide for the simple reason, that life seems to be meaningless. People go on living, not because they love life, they go on living just because they are afraid to commit suicide. There is a desire to; and in many ways they do commit suicide. Monks and nuns have committed psychological suicide, they have renounced life. And these suicidal people have dominated humanity for centuries. They have condemned everything that is beautiful. They have praised something imaginary and they have condemned the real; the real is mundane and the imaginary is sacred. My whole effort here is to help you see that the real is sacred, that this very world is sacred, that this very life is divine. But the way to see it is first to enquire within. Unless you start feeling the source of light within yourself, you will not be able to see that light anywhere else. First it has to be experienced within one’s own being, then it is found everywhere. Then the whole existence becomes so full of light, so full of joy, so full of meaning and poetry, that each moment one feels grateful for all that god has given, for all that he goes on giving. Sannyas is simply a decision to turn in, to look in. The most primary thing is to find your own center. Once it is found, once you are centered, once you are bathed in your own light you have a different vision, a different perspective, and the whole of life becomes golden. Then even dust is divine. Then life is so rich, so abundantly rich that one can only feel a tremendous gratitude towards existence. That gratitude becomes prayer. Before that, all prayer is false.

The Buddha's original teaching is essentially a matter of four points -- the Four Noble Truths: 1. Anguish is everywhere. 2. We desire permanent existence of ourselves and for our loved ones, and we desire to prove ourselves independent of others and superior to them. These desires conflict with the way things are: nothing abides, and everything and everyone depends upon everything and everyone else. This conflict causes our anguish, and we project this anguish on those we meet. 3. Release from anguish comes with the personal acknowledgment and resolve: we are here together very briefly, so let us accept reality fully and take care of one another while we can. 4. This acknowledgement and resolve are realized by following the Eightfold Path: Right Views, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Recollection, and Right Meditation. Here "Right" means "correct" or "accurate" -- in keeping with the reality of impermanence and interdependence.

My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man. I know I won't be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Everyone is the Umbrella Man and he is everyone. Every cough, sneeze, smile and wave means both everything and nothing. The signals are everywhere.

In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time. Even Grandma often says that, but she and Steppa don't have jobs, so I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well. In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit. Also everywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.

The Frays had never been a religiously observant family, but Clary loved Fifth Avenue at Christmas time. The air smelled like sweet roasted chestnuts, and the window displays sparkled with silver and blue, green and red. This year there were fat round crystal snowflakes attached to each lamppost, sending back the winter sunlight in shafts of gold. Not to mention the huge tree at Rockefeller Center. It threw its shadow across them as she and Simon draped themselves over the gate at the side of the skating rink, watching tourists fall down as they tried to navigate the ice. Clary had a hot chocolate wrapped in her hands, the warmth spreading through her body. She felt almost normal—this, coming to Fifth to see the window displays and the tree, had been a winter tradition for her and Simon for as long as she could remember. “Feels like old times, doesn’t it?” he said, echoing her thoughts as he propped his chin on his folded arms. She chanced a sideways look at him. He was wearing a black topcoat and scarf that emphasized the winter pallor of his skin. His eyes were shadowed, indicating that he hadn’t fed on blood recently. He looked like what he was—a hungry, tired vampire. Well, she thought. Almost like old times. “More people to buy presents for,” she said. “Plus, the always traumatic what-to-buy-someone-for-the-first-Christmas-after-you’ve-started-dating question.” “What to get the Shadowhunter who has everything,” Simon said with a grin. “Jace mostly likes weapons,” Clary sighed. “He likes books, but they have a huge library at the Institute. He likes classical music …” She brightened. Simon was a musician; even though his band was terrible, and was always changing their name—currently they were Lethal Soufflé—he did have training. “What would you give someone who likes to play the piano?” “A piano.” “Simon.” “A really huge metronome that could also double as a weapon?” Clary sighed, exasperated. “Sheet music. Rachmaninoff is tough stuff, but he likes a challenge.” “Now you’re talking. I’m going to see if there’s a music store around here.” Clary, done with her hot chocolate, tossed the cup into a nearby trash can and pulled her phone out. “What about you? What are you giving Isabelle?” “I have absolutely no idea,” Simon said. They had started heading toward the avenue, where a steady stream of pedestrians gawking at the windows clogged the streets. “Oh, come on. Isabelle’s easy.” “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.” Simon’s brows drew together. “I think. I’m not sure. We haven’t discussed it. The relationship, I mean.” “You really have to DTR, Simon.” “What?” “Define the relationship. What it is, where it’s going. Are you boyfriend and girlfriend, just having fun, ‘it’s complicated,’ or what? When’s she going to tell her parents? Are you allowed to see other people?” Simon blanched. “What? Seriously?” “Seriously. In the meantime—perfume!” Clary grabbed Simon by the back of his coat and hauled him into a cosmetics store that had once been a bank. It was massive on the inside, with rows of gleaming bottles everywhere. “And something unusual,” she said, heading for the fragrance area. “Isabelle isn’t going to want to smell like everyone else. She’s going to want to smell like figs, or vetiver, or—” “Figs? Figs have a smell?” Simon looked horrified; Clary was about to laugh at him when her phone buzzed. It was her mother. where are you? It’s an emergency.

If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression. We would suddenly be seeing everything we do, everyone we meet, not through the tactical eyes of war, but through eyes of love. We would see that there's no such thing as a blank canvas, an empty land or a new idea - but everywhere there is complex, ancient, fertile ground full of potential.

I carried on because it was the only thing I could control. I carried on because I just wanted to be happy and everyone knows when you’re thinner, you’re happier. I carried on because, at every turn, society was rewarding me for my self-inflicted torture. I received compliments, I received propositions, I felt more accepted by people I didn’t know, nearly all clothes looked great on me. I felt like I had finally earnt the right to be taken seriously as a woman; that everything before that had been redundant. That I had been foolish to think I had ever been worthy of affection. I had equated love with thinness and, to my horror, reinforcement of this belief was everywhere. My health was plummeting, my stocks were up.

The newspapers kept stroking my fear. New surveys provided awful statistics on just about everything. Evidence suggested that we were not doing well. Researchers gloomily agreed. Environment psychologists were interviewed. Damage had ‘unwittingly’ been done. There were ‘feared lapses’. There were ‘misconceptions’ about potential. Situations had ‘deteriorated’. Cruelty was on the rise and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The populace was confounded, yet didn’t care. Unpublished studies hinted that we were all paying a price. Scientists peered into data and concluded that we should all be very worried. No one knew what normal behavior was anymore, and some argued that this was a form of virtue. And no one argued back. No one challenged anything. Anxiety was soaking up most people’s days. Everyone had become preoccupied with horror. Madness was fluttering everywhere. There was fifty years of research supporting this data. There were diagrams illustrating all of these problems – circles and hexagons and squares, different sections colored in lime or lilac or gray. Most troubling were the fleeting signs that nothing could transform any of this into something positive. You couldn’t help being both afraid and fascinated. Reading these articles made you feel that the survival of mankind didn’t seem very important in the long run. We were doomed. We deserved it. I was so tired.

The paradoxical intercourse of audience and celebrity. The suppressed awareness that the whole reason ordinary people found celebrity fascinating was that they were not, themselves, celebrities. That wasn't quite it. (....) It was more the deeper, more tragic and universal conflict of which the celebrity paradox was a part. The conflict between the subjective centrality of our own lives versus our awareness of its objective insignificance. Atwater knew - as did everyone at Style, though by some strange unspoken consensus it was never said aloud - that this was the single great informing conflict of the American psyche. The management of insignificance. It was the great syncretic bond of US monoculture. It was everywhere, at the root of everything - of impatience in long lines, of cheating on taxes, of movements in fashion and music and art, of marketing. In particular, he thought it was alive in the paradoxes of audience. It was the feeling that celebrities were your intimate friends, coupled with the inchoate awareness that that untold millions of people felt the same way - and that the celebrities themselves did not. Atwater had had contact with a certain number of celebrities (there was no way to avoid it at BSG), and they were not, in his experience, very friendly or considerate people. Which made sense when one considered that celebrities were not actually functioning as real people at all, but as something more like symbols of themselves.

Music was a kind of penetration. Perhaps absorption is a less freighted word. The penetration or absorption of everything into itself. I don't know if you have ever taken LSD, but when you do so the doors of perception, as Aldous Huxley, Jim Morrison and their adherents ceaselessly remind us, swing wide open. That is actually the sort of phrase, unless you are William Blake, that only makes sense when there is some LSD actually swimming about inside you. In the cold light of the cup of coffee and banana sandwich that are beside me now it appears to be nonsense, but I expect you to know what it is taken to mean. LSD reveals the whatness of things, their quiddity, their essence. The wateriness of water is suddenly revealed to you, the carpetness of carpets, the woodness of wood, the yellowness of yellow, the fingernailness of fingernails, the allness of all, the nothingness of all, the allness of nothing. For me music gives access to everyone of these essences, but at a fraction of the social or financial cost of a drug and without the need to cry 'Wow!' all the time, which is LSD's most distressing and least endearing side effects. ...Music in the precision of its form and the mathematical tyranny of its laws, escapes into an eternity of abstraction and an absurd sublime that is everywhere and nowhere at once. The grunt of rosin-rubbed catgut, the saliva-bubble blast of a brass tube, the sweaty-fingered squeak on a guitar fret, all that physicality, all that clumsy 'music making', all that grain of human performance...transcends itself at the moment of its happening, that moment when music actually becomes, as it makes the journey from the vibrating instrument, the vibrating hi-fi speaker, as it sends those vibrations across to the human tympanum and through to the inner ear and into the brain, where the mind is set to vibrate to frequencies of its own making. The nothingness of music can be moulded by the mood of the listener into the most precise shapes or allowed to float as free as thought; music can follow the academic and theoretical pattern of its own modality or adhere to some narrative or dialectical programme imposed by a friend, a scholar or the composer himself. Music is everything and nothing. It is useless and no limit can be set to its use. Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstasy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering weeping hells of pain that no torturer could ever devise. Music makes me write this sort of maundering adolescent nonsense without embarrassment. Music is in fact the dog's bollocks. Nothing else comes close.

One of two things will happen. Either the dead will defeat the living, in which case all our troubles come to end. Or life will win out. And what then? Don’t fight in the North or the South. Fight every battle everywhere, always. in your mind. Everyone is your enemy, everyone is your friend. Every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you’ve seen before.

It’s the only thing we can do. And not just for our sake, you know? It’s for the other kids, too, even if they don’t realize it. But that doesn’t matter. All that matters is we understand it, you and me. We get it. And, like, in that way, living with this weakness, accepting it completely, that’s the greatest strength in the whole world. It’s not just my dad or them or us. We do it for everyone who’s weak everywhere, in the name of actual strength. Everything we take, all of the abuse, we do it to rise above. We do it for the people who know how important it is.

I will never be a brain surgeon, and I will never play the piano like Glenn Gould. But what keeps me up late at night, and constantly gives me reason to fret, is this: I don’t know what I don’t know. There are universes of things out there — ideas, philosophies, songs, subtleties, facts, emotions — that exist but of which I am totally and thoroughly unaware. This makes me very uncomfortable. I find that the only way to find out the fuller extent of what I don’t know is for someone to tell me, teach me or show me, and then open my eyes to this bit of information, knowledge, or life experience that I, sadly, never before considered. Afterward, I find something odd happens. I find what I have just learned is suddenly everywhere: on billboards or in the newspaper or SMACK: Right in front of me, and I can’t help but shake my head and speculate how and why I never saw or knew this particular thing before. And I begin to wonder if I could be any different, smarter, or more interesting had I discovered it when everyone else in the world found out about this particular obvious thing. I have been thinking a lot about these first discoveries and also those chance encounters: those elusive happenstances that often lead to defining moments in our lives. […] I once read that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I fundamentally disagree with this idea. I think that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of hope. We might keep making mistakes but the struggle gives us a sense of empathy and connectivity that we would not experience otherwise. I believe this empathy improves our ability to see the unseen and better know the unknown. Lives are shaped by chance encounters and by discovering things that we don’t know that we don’t know. The arc of a life is a circuitous one. … In the grand scheme of things, everything we do is an experiment, the outcome of which is unknown. You never know when a typical life will be anything but, and you won’t know if you are rewriting history, or rewriting the future, until the writing is complete. This, just this, I am comfortable not knowing.

...fight every battle everywhere, always, in your mind. Everyone is your enemy, everyone is your friend. Every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you’ve seen before..

The world looks different when you're spinning. Colors run together in the most amazing ways, Everything bleeds into everything else, and you get this idea that maybe there are no differences between any of us. That if everyone everywhere spun, we'd all see that we're connected,

I’d found my niche. Since I belonged to no group I learned to move seamlessly between groups. I floated. I was a chameleon, still, a cultural chameleon. I learned how to blend. I could play sports with the jocks. I could talk computers with the nerds. I could jump in the circle and dance with the township kids. I popped around to everyone, working, chatting, telling jokes, making deliveries. I was like a weed dealer, but of food. The weed guy is always welcome at the party. He’s not a part of the circle, but he’s invited into the circle temporarily because of what he can offer. That’s who I was. Always an outsider. As the outsider, you can retreat into a shell, be anonymous, be invisible. Or you can go the other way. You protect yourself by opening up. You don’t ask to be accepted for everything you are, just the one part of yourself that you’re willing to share. For me it was humor. I learned that even though I didn’t belong to one group, I could be a part of any group that was laughing. I’d drop in, pass out the snacks, tell a few jokes. I’d perform for them. I’d catch a bit of their conversation, learn more about their group, and then leave. I never overstayed my welcome. I wasn’t popular, but I wasn’t an outcast. I was everywhere with everybody, and at the same time I was all by myself.

She smiled thoughtfully. “I think Jackson was like a lost puppy. He needed purpose, someone to believe in him and love him despite his bullshit. But he didn’t have that, so he just went around humping everyone’s leg and peeing everywhere. Then you came along and he thought he found that owner that would give him that purpose—something that would make him feel needed—but you chose the fancy pet store puppy instead, so he went back to peeing on everything and destroying all the furniture.” “Um, Whit...is there a point to this?” “We all need someone to believe in us. It helps us see our full potential. You were that someone to believe in him. I think he’ll be a new man because of it.” “So you’re saying I rescued a lost puppy, and now he’ll become a topnotch show dog because I’m just so amazing?” “Exactly.” “You have such an eloquent way with words.” “No shit, right?” “Precisely.” -Emma and Whitney

This is where I go, when I go: It's a room with no windows and no doors, and walls that are thin enough for me to see and hear everything but too thick to break through. I'm there, but I'm not there. I am pounding to be let out, but nobody can hear me. This is where I go, when I go: To a country where everyone's face looks different from mine, and the language is the act of not speaking, and noise is everywhere in the air we breathe. I am doing what the Romans do in Rome; I am trying to communicate, but no one has bothered to tell me that these people cannot hear. This is where I go, when I go: Somewhere completely, unutterably orange. This is where I go, when I go: To the place where my body becomes a piano full of black keys only—the sharps and the flats, when everyone know that to play a song other people want to hear, you need some white keys. This is why I come back: To find those white keys.

Don't exist. Live. Get out, explore. Thrive. Challenge authority. Challenge yourself. Evolve. Change forever. Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don't stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn't know your name doesn't mean you dont matter. Become a chameleon-fit in anywhere. Be a rockstar-stand out everywhere. Do nothing, do everything. Forget everything, remember everyone. Care, don't just pretend to. Listen to everyone. Love everyone and nothing at the same time. Its impossible to be everything,but you can't stop trying to do it all.

Water everywhere, falling in thundering cataracts, singular drops, and draping sheets. Kellhus paused next to one of the shining braziers, peered beneath the bronze visage that loomed orange and scowling over his father, watched him lean back into absolute shadow. “You came to the world,” unseen lips said, “and you saw that Men were like children.” Lines of radiance danced across the intervening waters. “It is their nature to believe as their fathers believed,” the darkness continued. “To desire as they desired … Men are like wax poured into moulds: their souls are cast by their circumstances. Why are no Fanim children born to Inrithi parents? Why are no Inrithi children born to Fanim parents? Because these truths are made, cast by the particularities of circumstance. Rear an infant among Fanim and he will become Fanim. Rear him among Inrithi and he will become Inrithi … “Split him in two, and he would murder himself.” Without warning, the face re-emerged, water-garbled, white save the black sockets beneath his brow. The action seemed random, as though his father merely changed posture to relieve some vagrant ache, but it was not. Everything, Kellhus knew, had been premeditated. For all the changes wrought by thirty years in the Wilderness, his father remained Dûnyain … Which meant that Kellhus stood on conditioned ground. “But as obvious as this is,” the blurred face continued, “it escapes them. Because they cannot see what comes before them, they assume nothing comes before them. Nothing. They are numb to the hammers of circumstance, blind to their conditioning. What is branded into them, they think freely chosen. So they thoughtlessly cleave to their intuitions, and curse those who dare question. They make ignorance their foundation. They confuse their narrow conditioning for absolute truth.” He raised a cloth, pressed it into the pits of his eyes. When he withdrew it, two rose-coloured stains marked the pale fabric. The face slipped back into the impenetrable black. “And yet part of them fears. For even unbelievers share the depth of their conviction. Everywhere, all about them, they see examples of their own self-deception … ‘Me!’ everyone cries. ‘I am chosen!’ How could they not fear when they so resemble children stamping their feet in the dust? So they encircle themselves with yea-sayers, and look to the horizon for confirmation, for some higher sign that they are as central to the world as they are to themselves.” He waved his hand out, brought his palm to his bare breast. “And they pay with the coin of their devotion.

Single people want relationships, settled people wonder if they’re missing out on something, traveling types miss stability, stable ones are restless, old friends want new friends, new friends miss old friends, and basically almost everyone my age has some dangling worry trailing around after them everywhere that they’re somehow not doing everything, that what they’re doing is not altogether the right thing, that they are missing out. … Do not be ashamed. The doubt is natural, and everyone you know – yes, even that person – carries it sometimes too. Allow yourself to be peaceful. Allow yourself satisfaction in what you have. If you really don’t like it, allow yourself permission to make changes.

I pull the skull off my head. Even though it's made of papier-mache it's really hard. I smash it against Jimmy Snyder's head, and I smash it again. He falls to the ground, because he is unconscious, and I can't believe how strong I actually am. I smash his head again with all my force and blood starts to come out of his nose and ears. But I still don't feel any sympathy for him. I want him to bleed, because he deserves it. And nothing else makes any sense. Dad doesn't make sense.Mom doesn't make sense. The Audience doesn't make sense. The folding chairs and fog machine don't make sense. Shakespeare doesn't make sense. The stars that I know are on the other side of the gym ceiling don't make sense. The only thing that makes any sense right then is my smashing Jimmy Snyder's face. His blood. I knock a bunch of his teeth into his mouth, and I think they go down his throat. There is blood everywhere, covering everything. I keep smashing the skull against his skull, which is also Ron's skull (for letting Mom get on with life) and Mom's skull (for getting on with life) and Dad's skull (for dying) and Grandma's skull (for embarrassing me so much) and Dr. Fein's skull (for asking if any good could come out of Dad's death) and the skulls of everyone else I know. The Audience is applauding, all of them, because I am making so much sense. They are giving me a standing ovation as I hit him again and again.

The streets were empty, the courtyards and gardens as if dead. In the Turkish houses depression and confusion reigned, in the Christian houses caution and distrust. But everywhere and for everyone there was fear. The entering Austrians feared an ambush. The Turks feared the Austrians. The Serbs feared both Austrians and Turks. The Jews feared everything and everyone since, especially in times of war, everyone was stronger than they.

We agree that it’s the same for everyone; not only for us here, but everywhere, for everyone who is of our age; to some more, and to others less. It is the common fate of our generation. Albert expresses it: “The war has ruined us for everything.” He is right. We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.

Not to waste the spring I threw down everything, And ran into the open world To sing what I could sing... To dance what I could dance! And join with everyone! I wandered with a reckless heart beneath the newborn sun. First stepping through the blushing dawn, I crossed beneath a garden bower, counting every hermit thrush, counting every hour. When morning's light was ripe at last, I stumbled on with reckless feet; and found two nymphs engaged in play, approaching them stirred no retreat. With naked skin, their weaving hands, in form akin to Calliope's maids, shook winter currents from their hair to weave within them vernal braids. I grabbed the first, who seemed the stronger by her soft and dewy leg, and swore blind eyes, Lest I find I, before Diana, a hunted stag. But the nymphs they laughed, and shook their heads. and begged I drop beseeching hands. For one was no goddess, the other no huntress, merely two girls at play in the early day. "Please come to us, with unblinded eyes, and raise your ready lips. We will wash your mouth with watery sighs, weave you springtime with our fingertips." So the nymphs they spoke, we kissed and laid, by noontime's hour, our love was made, Like braided chains of crocus stems, We lay entwined, I laid with them, Our breath, one glassy, tideless sea, Our bodies draping wearily. We slept, I slept so lucidly, with hopes to stay this memory. I woke in dusty afternoon, Alone, the nymphs had left too soon, I searched where perched upon my knees Heard only larks' songs in the trees. "Be you, the larks, my far-flung maids? With lilac feet and branchlike braids... Who sing sweet odes to my elation, in your larking exaltation!" With these, my clumsy, carefree words, The birds they stirred and flew away, "Be I, poor Actaeon," I cried, "Be dead… Before they, like Hippodamia, be gone astray!" Yet these words, too late, remained unheard, By lark, that parting, morning bird. I looked upon its parting flight, and smelled the coming of the night; desirous, I gazed upon its jaunt, as Leander gazes Hellespont. Now the hour was ripe and dark, sensuous memories of sunlight past, I stood alone in garden bowers and asked the value of my hours. Time was spent or time was tossed, Life was loved and life was lost. I kissed the flesh of tender girls, I heard the songs of vernal birds. I gazed upon the blushing light, aware of day before the night. So let me ask and hear a thought: Did I live the spring I’d sought? It's true in joy, I walked along, took part in dance, and sang the song. and never tried to bind an hour to my borrowed garden bower; nor did I once entreat a day to slumber at my feet. Yet days aren't lulled by lyric song, like morning birds they pass along, o'er crests of trees, to none belong; o'er crests of trees of drying dew, their larking flight, my hands, eschew Thus I'll say it once and true… From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent, It only can be squandered.

Suck, suck, suck. Everything sucks. And everywhere sucks. And everyone sucks. Suck, suck, suck.

You will grow from everything you encounter You will grow from everyone you encounter. You will grow from everywhere you encounter: You will grow.

Dear Pen Pal, I know it’s been a few years since I last wrote you. I hope you’re still there. I’m not sure you ever were. I never got any letters back from you when I was a kid. But in a way it was always therapeutic. Everyone else judges everything I say. And here you are: some anonymous person who never says “boo.” Maybe you just read my letters and laughed or maybe you didn’t read my letters or maybe you don’t even exist. It was pretty frustrating when I was young, but now I’m glad that you won’t respond. Just listen. That’s what I want. My dog died. I don’t know if you remember, but I had a beagle. He was a good dog. My best friend. I’d had him as far back as I could remember, but one day last month he didn’t come bounding out of his red doghouse like usual. I called his name. But no response. I knelt down and called out his name. Still nothing. I looked in his doghouse. There was blood everywhere. Cowering in the corner was my dog. His eyes were wild and there was an excessive amount of saliva coming out of his mouth. He was unrecognizable. Both frightened and frightening at the same time. The blood belonged to a little yellow bird that had always been around. My dog and the bird used to play together. In a strange way, it was almost like they were best friends. I know that sounds stupid, but… Anyway, the bird had been mangled. Ripped apart. By my dog. When he saw that I could see what he’d done, his face changed to sadness and he let out a sound that felt like the word ‘help.’ I reached my hand into his doghouse. I know it was a dumb thing to do, but he looked like he needed me. His jaws snapped. I jerked my hand away before he could bite me. My parents called a center and they came and took him away. Later that day, they put him to sleep. They gave me his corpse in a cardboard box. When my dog died, that was when the rain cloud came back and everything went to hell…

... but I know what I feel now so well: this restlessness, this feeling that whatever it is I'm doing, wherever I am, that's not where I'm supposed to be, this fierce compulsion to be everywhere and everything to everyone all at once that leaves me tired and ragged yet still always searching. So I find myself stranded in places having forgotten why I'm there, what I'm supposed to be doing, trying to lose myself and in the process getting disoriented and messy and chasing the fireflies until I've jumped from dream to dream and light to light and shooting star to shooting star so many times I can't even remember what it was I set out to find in the first place.

Isn’t that… A lie? It’s okay. You can say it. Yes, they were lies and sometimes that’s not a bad thing. Lies are neither bad nor good. Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn you to death, depending on how they’re used. The lies our government told us before the war, the ones that were supposed to keep us happy and blind, those were the ones that burned, because they prevented us from doing what had to be done. However, by the time I made Avalon, everyone was already doing everything they could possibly do to survive. The lies of the past were long gone and now the truth was everywhere, shambling down their streets, crashing through their doors, clawing at their throats. The truth was that no matter what we did, chances were most of us, if not all of us, were never going to see the future. The truth was that we were standing at what might be the twilight of our species and that truth was freezing a hundred people to death every night. They needed something to keep them warm. And so I lied, and so did the president, and every doctor and priest, every platoon leader and every parent. “We’re going to be okay.” That was our message.

Everyone in the Richardson family noticed Izzy’s improved demeanor. “She’s almost pleasant around you,” Lexie told Mia one day. Izzy’s adoration for Mia, like everything she did, did not come by halves: there was nothing Izzy wouldn’t do for her.

Yes, I’ve changed. I used to believe in everything that you do, maybe even more firmly. But then in Smyrna, Talib-effendi said to me: ‘When you see a young man reaching for the sky, grab him by the leg and pull him back down to the ground.’ And he pulled me back down to the ground. ‘You are destined to live here,’ he scolded me. ‘So live here! And live as nicely as you can, but without shame. It is better that God ask you: why did you not do that? rather than: why did you do that?”’ “And what are you now?” “A wanderer on wide roads where I meet good and bad people, who have the same worries and troubles as people do here, who have the same trivial joys as people do everywhere.” “What would happen if everyone took your path?” “The world would be happier. Maybe.

Don't exist. Live. Get out, explore. Thrive. Challenge authority. Challenge yourself. Evolve. Change forever. Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don't stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn't know your name doesn't mean you don't matter. Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? What have you done today to matter? Did you exist or did you live? How did you thrive? Become a chameleon—fit in anywhere. Be a rockstar—stand out everywhere. Do nothing, do everything. Forget everything, remember everyone. Care, don't just pretend to. Listen to everyone. Love everyone and nothing at the same time. Its impossible to be everything, but you can't stop trying to do it all. . . . Leap. It's time to be aggressive. You've started to speak your mind, now keep going with it. . . . Get your gloves on, it's time for rebirth. There IS no room for the nice guys in the history books. THIS IS THE START OF A REVOLUTION. THE REVOLUTION IS YOUR LIFE. THE GOAL IS IMMORTALITY. LET'S LIVE, BABY. LET'S FEEL ALIVE AT ALL TIMES. TAKE NO PRISONERS. HOLD NO SOUL UNACCOUNTABLE, ESPECIALLY NOT YOUR OWN. IF SOMETHING DOESN'T HAPPEN, IT'S YOUR FAULT. Make this moment your reckoning. Your head has been held under water for too long and now it is time to rise up and take your first true breath. Do everything with exact calculation, nothing without meaning. Do not make careful your words, but make no excuses for what you say. Fuck em' all. Set a goal for everyday and never be tired.

We agree that it’s the same for everyone; not only for us here, but everywhere, for everyone who is of our age; to some more, and to others less. It is the common fate of our generation. Albert expresses it: “The war has ruined us for everything.” ==========

Progress does not mean that we will ever reach a paradisiacal end state where everything will be optimal for everyone everywhere. New problems will arise, and they will have to be solved, however imperfectly, by future generations. As such, the world will never be a perfect place. After all, the beings who inhabit it are themselves imperfect. As the German philosopher and advocate of gradual human progress Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) observed in 1784, “From such crooked timber as humankind is made of nothing entirely straight can be made.

But everywhere and for everyone there was fear. The entering Austrians feared an ambush. The Turks feared the Austrians. The Serbs feared both Austrians and Turks. The Jews feared everything and everyone since, especially in times of war, everyone was stronger than they.

It happened to me. And I'll never forget it. Back when I was in the sixth grade, my whole family went out to go watch a baseball game at the stadium. I didn't really care about baseball, but I was surprised by what I saw when we got there. Everywhere I looked, I saw people. On the other side of the stadium, the people looked so small, like little moving grains of rice. It was so crowded. I thought that everyone in Japan had to be packed in there. So I turned to my dad and asked him, "Do you know how many people are here right now"? He said since the stadium was full, probably fifty thousand. After the game, the street was filled with people and I was really shocked to see that, too. To me, it seemed like there was a ton of people there. But then, I realized it could only be a tiny fraction of all the people in Japan. When I got home, I pulled out my calculator. In social studies, I'd learned that the population of Japan was a hundred some odd million. So I divided that by fifty thousand. The answer was one two-thousandth. That shocked me even more. I was only one little person in that big crowded stadium filled with people, and believe me, there were so many people there, but it was just a handful of the entire population. Up till then, I always thought that I was, I don't know, kind of a special person. It was fun to be with my family. I had fun with my classmates. And the school that I was going to, it had just about the most interesting people anywhere. But that night, I realized it wasn't true. All the stuff we did during class that I thought was so fun and cool, was probably happening just like that in classes in other schools all over Japan. There was nothing special about my school at all. When I realized that, it suddenly felt like the whole world around me started to fade into a dull gray void. Brushing my teeth and going to sleep at night, waking up and eating breakfast in the morning, that stuff happened all over the place. They were everyday things that everybody was doing. When I thought about it like that, everything became boring. If there's really that many people in the world, then there had to be someone who wasn't ordinary. There had to be someone who was living an interesting life. There just had to be. But why wasn't I that person? So, that's how I felt till I finished elementary school. And then I had another realization. I realized fun things wouldn't come my way just by waiting for them. I thought when I got into junior high, it was time for me to make a change. I'd let the world know I wasn't a girl who was happy sitting around waiting. And I've done my best to become that person. But in the end, nothing happened. More time went by and before I knew it, I was in high school. I thought that something would change.

RubyMars: Have you heard anything else about when you’re leaving for good? AHall80: Not yet, but everything seems to be on schedule. Should be about 8 weeks. The longest 8 weeks of my life. RubyMars: I’m sure. AHall80: I want a shitty, greasy, deep dish pizza like you can’t imagine. I can already taste it. AHall80: A hot shower… a real bed… AC everywhere… RubyMars: Clean clothes? AHall80: Clean clothes. Clean socks. No sand. RubyMars: Clean underwear. RubyMars: No sand? I thought you were planning on going to the beach? AHall80: The beach is different. There’s water. It isn’t just desert and more desert. RubyMars: I guess that makes sense. RubyMars: My brother said once that his goal is to never see sand in his life again. AHall80: For real. RubyMars: What I didn’t finish saying was that he said that, but he’s gone to Cancun twice with his boyfriend, LOL. AHall80: It’s different. I’m over this sand shit. AHall80: Never again RubyMars: Does that mean you’re dead set on not re-enlisting? AHall80: … RubyMars: Whatever you want. I’m not judging. We don’t have to talk about it. AHall80: It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it… RubyMars: But you don’t want to talk about it. AHall80: :] Basically. RubyMars: I’ll change the subject then. RubyMars: Have you gone #2 lately? AHall80: Three days ago. RubyMars: Are you joking? AHall80: I wish. RubyMars: AARON AHall80: I know. I KNOW. RubyMars: Does it hurt? AHall80: Uh, when it comes out? RubyMars: Omg RubyMars: Aaron RubyMars: I meant your stomach. RubyMars: Does your stomach hurt? RubyMars: I can’t breathe RubyMars: Or type RubyMars: I didn’t mean your… rectum. RubyMars: Aaron? RubyMars: Aaron? RubyMars: Are you there? RubyMars: AARON? AHall80: You’re not the only one who couldn’t breathe or type. RubyMars: LMAO I’m crying. AHall80: me too AHall80: me too RubyMars: I mean… you can tell me if your butt hurts too, I guess. AHall80: Ruby, stop RubyMars: Seriously. You can tell me. I won’t judge. RubyMars: It happens. RubyMars: I think. AHall80: Stop RubyMars: I can’t breathe AHall80: I don’t know when the last time I laughed so hard was. AHall80: Everyone is looking at me wondering wtf happened. RubyMars: Your rectum happened AHall80: BYE RubyMars: I can’t stop laughing AHall80: You’re never hearing from me again RubyMars: There are tears coming out of my eyes. AHall80: Bye. I’ll write you again when I find my balls. RubyMars: It was nice knowing you. AHall80: BYE

You are the sun. The sun doesn't move, this is what it does. You are the Earth. The Earth is here for a start, and then the Earth moves around the sun. And now, we'll have an explanation that simple folks like us can also understand, about immortality. All I ask is that you step with me into the boundlessness, where constancy, quietude and peace, infinite emptiness reign. And just imagine, in this infinite sonorous silence, everywhere is an impenetrable darkness. Here, we only experience general motion, and at first, we don't notice the events that we are witnessing. The brilliant light of the sun always sheds its heat and light on that side of the Earth which is just then turned towards it. And we stand here in its brilliance. This is the moon. The moon revolves around the Earth. What is happening? We suddenly see that the disc of the moon, the disc of the moon, on the Sun's flaming sphere, makes an indentation, and this indentation, the dark shadow, grows bigger... and bigger. And as it covers more and more, slowly only a narrow crescent of the sun remains, a dazzling crescent. And at the next moment, the next moment - say that it's around one in the afternoon - a most dramatic turn of event occurs. At that moment the air suddenly turns cold. Can you feel it? The sky darkens, then goes all dark. The dogs howl, rabbits hunch down, the deer run in panic, run, stampede in fright. And in this awful, incomprehensible dusk, even the birds... the birds too are confused and go to roost. And then... Complete Silence. Everything that lives is still. Are the hills going to march off? Will heaven fall upon us? Will the Earth open under us? We don't know. We don't know, for a total eclipse has come upon us... But... but no need to fear. It's not over. For across the sun's glowing sphere, slowly, the Moon swims away. And the sun once again bursts forth, and to the Earth slowly there comes again light, and warmth again floods the Earth. Deep emotion pierces everyone. They have escaped the weight of darkness

I used to believe that I could do everything and be everywhere. I could work longer hours, make the dead line, cook delicious meals, play with the kids, get enough sleep, focus on my health. And I can absolutely can do all these things. But not at the same time. Not on the same day. Realizing that was a delightful freedom. Letting go of that notion of constant balance was releasing a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. You mean I don't have to be everything to everyone all the time? I don't have to keep all the balls in the air all the time? I can change balls? I can choose different balls? Balance is finding the correct weight for every area of life and understanding that the correctness of that weight will change over time. Balance is fluid and flexible. Balance is alive and aware. Balance is intention. This idea of balance- a correctness rather than an equalness has taught me some of the most important lessons of my life. - I can not be everything to everyone - I can not be in all places at once. - Saying yes to one thing means saying no to another. - Saying no to one thing means I can say yes to another. - Perfection doesn't exist. Let it go. - I can not change people - I have to stop comparing myself to others. They aren't me. I'm not them. - I will never finish the laundry - I can't control everything - Bad things happen to good people and vice versa. - My kids aren't me. - Being all in a moment means I'm all out of another. - Envy and jealousy are different things. - Achievements never look like I thought they were going to. - Being kind to others is addictive. - I can't always be self- possessed. - Sometimes I need a cheerleader. - I like being part of a community. - Asking for help is hard, but necessary. Embrace the wobbly balance.

Wait, for now. Distrust everything if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven’t they carried you everywhere, up to now? Personal events will become interesting again. Hair will become interesting. Pain will become interesting. Buds that open out of season will become interesting. Second-hand gloves will become lovely again; their memories are what give them the need for other hands. The desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old. Wait. Don’t go too early. You’re tired. But everyone’s tired. But no one is tired enough. Only wait a little and listen: music of hair, music of pain, music of looms weaving our loves again. Be there to hear it, it will be the only time, most of all to hear your whole existence, rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

Now Izzy tried to imagine going back to life as it had been before: life in their beautiful, perfectly ordered, abundantly furnished house, where the grass was always cut and the leaves were always raked and there was never, ever any garbage in sight; in their beautiful, perfectly ordered neighborhood where every lawn had a tree and the streets curved so that no one went too fast and every house harmonized with the next; in their beautiful, perfectly ordered city, where everyone got along and everyone followed the rules and everything had to be beautiful and perfect on the outside, no matter what mess lay within.

there is just one energy in the universe. Everything, everyone are just forms of it. When you get enlightened, you see that oneness everywhere, in everything. You realize that a human body, any body for that matter, is just a temporary vessel for that energy to express itself so the body’s birth or death is inconsequential.

One time during Indoc while we were out on night run, one of the instructors actually climbed up the outside of a building, came through an open window, and absolutely trashed a guy’s room, threw everything everywhere, emptied detergent over his bed gear. He went back out the way he’d come in, waited for everyone to return, and then tapped on the poor guy’s door and demanded a room inspection. The guy couldn’t work out whether to be furious or heartbroken, but he spent most of the night cleaning up and still had to be in the showers at 0430 with the rest of us. I asked Reno about this weeks later, and he told me, “Marcus, the body can take damn near anything. It’s the mind that needs training. The question that guy was being asked involved mental strength. Can you handle such injustice? Can you cope with that kind of unfairness, that much of a setback? And still come back with your jaw set, still determined, swearing to God you will never quit? That’s what we’re looking for.

I became convinced that I was being watched. Because self was still leaking everywhere, a part of me began to think it was Mizuko rather than a stranger. I hoped that there might still be a reunion. I hoped it in the shy, sly way hope comes out of the jar, the mistranslated box, last—after everything and everyone else has escaped.

There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day he passed a wealthy merchant's house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant. To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!" Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!" Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!" Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!" Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it - a huge, towering rock. "How powerful that rock is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a rock!" Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the rock?" he thought. He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter.

I have been a full-time fag for the past five years, I realized the other day. Everyone I know is gay, everything I do is gay, all my fantasies are gay, I am what Gus called those people we used to see in discos, bars, baths, all the time—remember? Those people we used to see EVERYWHERE, every time we went out, so that you wanted to call the police and have them arrested?

Chaos was the fuel of Israel. It was a country built on shifting tectonic plates. Things were constantly colliding. Everything led to the edge, the next moment of rupture, but life became most vivid at moments of danger. It was why people drove so fast and so close. It was why they didn’t wait in lines at the airport. It was why the cafés throbbed in the mornings. It was why the markets were so loud and raw. People were chaotic in unison. Molecular in their turmoil. But it worked. Even the polar opposites were attracted to one another. Occasionally they would bash together and it made the ground pulse. There was left and there was right, and there was Orthodox and secular, and there was Arab and Jew, and there was gay and straight, there was high-tech and hippie, and there was rich and fiercely poor. Israel was a condensed everywhere. A tiny country bursting at the seams, but they were in this together. Every dream and neurosis under the sun. The psychoses. The passivities. The pretensions. The pride. The electricity of it all. And the fear too. Everyone wore a loud armor. Always in search of a debate over who and what and where they were.

The simplest thing one can say about the experiential knowledge of awakening is that it is a shift in one's perception. This is the heart of awakening. There is a shift in perception from seeing oneself as an isolated individual to seeing oneself, if we have a sense of self at all after this shift, as something mush more universal—everything and everyone and everywhere at the same time.

(2002) Rick Warren in The Purpose-Driven Life—On page 88 of The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren quotes Ephesians 4:6 from a New Century Bible translation, which erroneously states that God is “in” everything: Because God is with you all the time, no place is any closer to God than the place where you are right now. The Bible says, “He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.”32

i love you much (most beautiful darling) " “i love you much (most beautiful darling) more than anyone on the earth and i like you better than everything in the sky —sunlight and singing welcome your coming although winter may be everywhere with such a silence and such a darkness noone can quite begin to guess (except my life) the true time of year— and if what calls itself a world should have the luck to hear such singing (or glimpse such sunlight as will leap higher than high through gayer than gayest someone’s heart at your each nearness) everyone certainly would (my most beautiful darling) believe in nothing but love

What accounts for this hesitation? Why do we love committers but act like browsers? I think it’s because of three fears. First, we have a fear of regret: we worry that if we commit to something, we will later regret having not committed to something else. Second, we have a fear of association: we think that if we commit to something, we will be vulnerable to the chaos that that commitment brings to our identity, our reputation, and our sense of control. Third, we have a fear of missing out: we feel that if we commit to something, the responsibilities that come with it will prevent us from being everything, everywhere, to everyone.

I can’t help its being gay. I have been a full-time fag for the past five years, I realized the other day. Everyone I know is gay, everything I do is gay, all my fantasies are gay, I am what Gus called those people we used to see in the discos, bars, baths, all the time—remember? Those people we used to see EVERYWHERE, every time we went out, so that you wanted to call the police and have them arrested?—I am a doomed queen. I would LIKE to be a happily married attorney with a house in the suburbs, 2.6 kids, and a station wagon, in which we would drive every summer to see the Grand Canyon, but I’m not! I am completely, hopelessly gay!

I am one man, but I am still a man. I sure can't do everything, but I can, at least, do something. I can't possibly be everywhere in the world where there is need, but I am at the moment somewhere there is, at least, one need. I can't change everyone around me, but I can change me, by changing my perspectives. It is obvious I cannot reach the whole world, but I know I can reach one person at a time. I am not just one man; I am a man that is empowered to make the difference to my world. So, I have stopped complaining that I am in the minority. I just go ahead and do what I can where I am to touch the world one person at a time. Doesn't the bible say, 'one shall chase a thousand'?

So one day, my imagination churned, they became so frightfully bored that they compiled the script of the Game and vowed to never deviate from it under any circumstances. For everyone his role and everyone in his place. And that was the way it had gone since that time. Make-believe and following the script. Willingly for some, less so for others, but everywhere and always. And especially in the canteen, where the audience was always the biggest. No wonder some of them, Pheasants for example, eventually could allow the Game to overrule even basic human nature. Within this structure everything started making sense, easily and beautifully. The scales had fallen from my eyes as I looked around.

That moment changed me on a core level. I can see that cracked O-ring as clearly as I can see the world in front of me. I wake up every morning, and I remind myself how futile it all is. You can do everything right, try to be good, try to do good, and sometimes it won’t matter. Your O-ring gets a crack in it, and you die before you have time to panic. A nothing part, ignored until it’s broken, and then you’re dead. You and everyone you love just cease to be. That’s how close life and death are. Not just here, in space or on a volatile planet. Everywhere. Everywhere in the universe, you’re one cracked O-ring away from total failure. And we all just go through each day, ignoring that. Pretending like we don’t see the cracks. Like the cracks aren’t going to break all the way.

There was once a stonecutter, who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day, he passed a wealthy merchant's house, and through the open gateway, saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stonecutter. He became very envious, and wished that he could be like the merchant. Then he would no longer have to live the life of a mere stonecutter. To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever dreamed of, envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. But soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants, and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!" Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around, who had to bow down before him as he passed. It was a hot summer day, and the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought "I wish that I could be the sun!" Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!" Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!" Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, hated and feared by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it--a huge, towering stone "How powerful that stone is”" he thought. I wish that I could be a stone!" Then he became the stone, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the solid rock, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the stone?" he thought. He looked down and saw far below him the fixture of a stonecutter.

The bad (that is, uncompassionate] man everywhere feels a thick partition between himself and everything outside him. The world to him is an absolute non-ego and his relation to it is primarily hostile; thus the keynote of his disposition is hatred, spitefulness, suspicion, envy, and delight at the sight of another's distress. The good character, on the hand, lives in an external world that is homogeneous with his own true being. The others are not a non-ego for him, but an 'I once more'. His fundamental relation to everyone is, therefore, friendly; he feels himself intimately akin to all beings, takes an immediate interest in their weal and woe, and confidently assumes the same sympathy with them. The results of this are his deep inward peace and the confident, calm, and contented mood by virtue of which everyone is happy when he is near at hand.

Wait" Wait, for now. Distrust everything, if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven’t they carried you everywhere, up to now? Personal events will become interesting again. Hair will become interesting. Pain will become interesting. Buds that open out of season will become lovely again. Second-hand gloves will become lovely again, their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old. Wait. Don’t go too early. You’re tired. But everyone’s tired. But no one is tired enough. Only wait a while and listen. Music of hair, Music of pain, music of looms weaving all our loves again. Be there to hear it, it will be the only time, most of all to hear, the flute of your whole existence, rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

I began to see very clearly that what destroyed me in this silent drama with my father was that I was always trying to tell something that never happened, or rather that everything that happened, the many incidents, the love of twenty years, the trip down south, all this produced a state like slumber and ether out of which I could only awake with great difficulty. It was a struggle with shadows, a story of not meeting the loved one but loving one’s self in the other, of never seeing the loved one but of seeing reflections of his presence everywhere, in everyone; of never addressing the loved one except through a diary or a book written about him, because in reality there was no connection between us, there was no human being to connect with. No one had ever merged into my father, yet we had thought a fusion could be realized through the likeness between us: but the likeness itself seemed to create greater separations and confusions. There was a likeness and no understanding, likeness and no nearness.

And all the while everyone who uses his brain knows that Socialism, as a world-system and wholeheartedly applied, is a way out. It would at least ensure our getting enough to eat even if it deprived us of everything else. Indeed, from one point of view, Socialism is such elementary common sense that I am sometimes amazed that it has not established itself already. The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody; the idea that we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions seems so blatantly obvious that one would say that no one could possibly fail to accept it unless he had some corrupt motive for clinging to the present system. Yet the fact that we have got to face is that Socialism is not establishing itself. Instead of going forward, the cause of Socialism is visibly going back. At this moment Socialists almost everywhere are in retreat before the onslaught of Fascism, and events are moving at terrible speed. As I write this the Spanish Fascist forces are bombarding Madrid, and it is quite likely that before the book is printed we shall have another Fascist country to add to the list, not to mention a Fascist control of the Mediterranean which may have the effect of delivering British foreign policy into the hands of Mussolini. I do not, however, want here to discuss the wider political issues. What I am concerned with is the fact that Socialism is losing ground exactly where it ought to be gaining it. With so much in its favour—for every empty belly is an argument for Socialism—the idea of Socialism is less widely accepted than it was ten years ago. The average thinking person nowadays is not merely not a Socialist, he is actively hostile to Socialism. This must be due chiefly to mistaken methods of propaganda. It means that Socialism, in the form of which it is now presented to us, has about it something inherently distasteful—something that drives away the very people who ought to be nocking to its support.

For years, Britain operated a research facility called the Common Cold Unit, but it closed in 1989 without ever finding a cure. It did, however, conduct some interesting experiments. In one, a volunteer was fitted with a device that leaked a thin fluid at his nostrils at the same rate that a runny nose would. The volunteer then socialized with other volunteers, as if at a cocktail party. Unknown to any of them, the fluid contained a dye visible only under ultraviolet light. When that was switched on after they had been mingling for a while, the participants were astounded to discover that the dye was everywhere—on the hands, head, and upper body of every participant and on glasses, doorknobs, sofa cushions, bowls of nuts, you name it. The average adult touches his face sixteen times an hour, and each of those touches transferred the pretend pathogen from nose to snack bowl to innocent third party to doorknob to innocent fourth party and so on until pretty much everyone and everything bore a festive glow of imaginary snot.

Did you know I always thought you were braver than me? Did you ever guess that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn’t that I only loved some of you. But I wondered if you could ever love more than some of me. I knew I’d miss you. But the surprising thing is, you never leave me. I never forget a thing. Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn’t happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn’t seem broken at all. I know young people look at me and think my youth seems so far away. But it’s all around me, and you’re all around me. Tiger Lily, do you think magic exists if it can be explained? I can explain why I loved you, I can explain the theory of evolution that tells me why mermaids live in Neverland and nowhere else. But it still feels magic. The lost boys all stood at our wedding. Does it seem odd to you that they could have stood at a wedding that wasn’t yours and mine? It does to me. And I’m sorry for it, and for a lot, and I also wouldn’t change it. It is so quiet here. Even with all the trains and the streets and the people. It’s nothing like the jungle. The boys have grown. Everything has grown. Do you think you will ever grow? I hope not. I like to think that even if I change and fade away, some other people won’t. I like to think that one day after I die, at least one small particle of me—of all the particles that will spread everywhere—will float all the way to Neverland, and be part of a flower or something like that, like that poet said, the one that your Tik Tok loved. I like to think that nothing’s final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don’t, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I’ll see you sometime again, even if it’s not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the way things go after all—that all things end happy. Even for you and Tik Tok. And for you and me. Always, Your Peter P.S. Please give my love to Tink. She was always such a funny little bug.

For years, Britain operated a research facility called the Common Cold Unit, but it closed in 1989 without ever finding a cure. It did, however, conduct some interesting experiments. In one, a volunteer was fitted with a device that leaked a thin fluid at his nostrils at the same rate that a runny nose would. The volunteer then socialized with other volunteers, as if at a cocktail party. Unknown to any of them, the fluid contained a dye visible only under ultraviolet light. When that was switched on after they had been mingling for a while, the participants were astounded to discover that the dye was everywhere—on the hands, head, and upper body of every participant and on glasses, doorknobs, sofa cushions, bowls of nuts, you name it. The average adult touches his face sixteen times an hour, and each of those touches transferred the pretend pathogen from nose to snack bowl to innocent third party to doorknob to innocent fourth party and so on until pretty much everyone and everything bore a festive glow of imaginary snot. In a similar study at the University of Arizona, researchers infected the metal door handle to an office building and found it took only about four hours for the “virus” to spread through the entire building, infecting over half of employees and turning up on virtually every shared device like photocopiers and coffee machines. In the real world, such infestations can stay active for up to three days. Surprisingly, the least effective way to spread germs (according to yet another study) is kissing. It proved almost wholly ineffective among volunteers at the University of Wisconsin who had been successfully infected with cold virus. Sneezes and coughs weren’t much better. The only really reliable way to transfer cold germs is physically by touch. A survey of subway trains in Boston found that metal poles are a fairly hostile environment for microbes. Where microbes thrive is in the fabrics on seats and on plastic handgrips. The most efficient method of transfer for germs, it seems, is a combination of folding money and nasal mucus. A study in Switzerland in 2008 found that flu virus can survive on paper money for two and a half weeks if it is accompanied by a microdot of snot. Without snot, most cold viruses could survive on folding money for no more than a few hours.

You choose this moment to act like the Abnegation?” His voice fills the room and makes fear prickle in my chest. His anger seems too sudden. Too strange. “All that time you spent insisting that you were too selfish for them, and now, when your life is on the line, you’ve got to be a hero? What’s wrong with you?” “What’s wrong with you? People died. They walked right off the edge of a building! And I can stop it from happening again!” “You’re too important to just…die.” He shakes his head. He won’t even look at me--his eyes keep shifting across my face, to the wall behind me or the ceiling above me, to everything but me. I am too stunned to be angry. “I’m not important. Everyone will do just fine without me,” I say. “Who cares about everyone? What about me?” He lowers his head into his hand, covering his eyes. His fingers are trembling. Then he crosses the room in two long strides and touches his lips to mine. Their gentle pressure erases the past few months, and I am the girl who sat on the rocks next to the chasm, with river spray on her ankles, and kissed him for the first time. I am the girl who grabbed his hand in the hallway just because I wanted to. I pull back, my hand on his chest to keep him away. The problem is, I am also the girl who shot Will and lied about it, and chose between Hector and Marlene, and now a thousand other things besides. And I can’t erase those things. “You would be fine.” I don’t look at him. I stare at his T-shirt between my fingers and the black ink curling around his neck, but I don’t look at his face. “Not at first. But you would move on, and do what you have to.” He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me against him. “That’s a lie,” he says, before he kisses me again. This is wrong. It’s wrong to forget who I have become, and to let him kiss me when I know what I’m about to do. But I want to. Oh, I want to. I stand on my tiptoes and wrap my arms around him. I press one hand between his shoulder blades and curl the other one around the back of his neck. I can feel his breaths against my palm, his body expanding and contracting, and I know he’s strong, steady, unstoppable. All things I need to be, but I am not, I am not. He walks backward, pulling me with him so I stumble. I stumble right out of my shoes. He sits on the edge of the bed and I stand in front of him, and we’re finally eye to eye. He touches my face, covering my cheeks with his hands, sliding his fingertips down my neck, fitting his fingers to the slight curve of my hips. I can’t stop. I fit my mouth to his, and he tastes like water and smells like fresh air. I drag my hand from his neck to the small of his back, and put it under his shirt. He kisses me harder. I knew he was strong; I didn’t know how strong until I felt it myself, the muscles in his back tightening beneath my fingers. Stop, I tell myself. Suddenly it’s as if we’re in a hurry, his fingertips brushing my side under my shirt, my hands clutching at him, struggling closer but there is no closer. I have never longed for someone this way, or this much. He pulls back just enough to look into my eyes, his eyelids lowered. “Promise me,” he whispers, “that you won’t go. For me. Do this one thing for me.” Could I do that? Could I stay here, fix things with him, let someone else die in my place? Looking up at him, I believe for a moment that I could. And then I see Will. The crease between his eyebrows. The empty, simulation-bound eyes. The slumped body. Do this one thing for me. Tobias’s dark eyes plead with me. But if I don’t go to Erudite, who will? Tobias? It’s the kind of thing he would do. I feel a stab of pain in my chest as I lie to him. “Okay.” “Promise,” he says, frowning. The pain becomes an ache, spreads everywhere--all mixed together, guilt and terror and longing. “I promise.

The same song was playing the second I met my ex–best friend and the moment I realized I’d lost her. I met my best friend at a neighborhood cookout the year we would both turn twelve. It was one of those hot Brooklyn afternoons that always made me feel like I'd stepped out of my life and onto a movie set because the hydrants were open, splashing water all over the hot asphalt. There wasn't a cloud in the flawless blue sky. And pretty black and brown people were everywhere. I was crying. ‘What a Wonderful World’ was playing through a speaker someone had brought with them to the park, and it reminded me too much of my Granny Georgina. I was cupping the last snow globe she’d ever given me in my small, sweaty hands and despite the heat, I couldn’t help imagining myself inside the tiny, perfect, snow-filled world. I was telling myself a story about what it might be like to live in London, a place that was unimaginably far and sitting in the palm of my hands all at once. But it wasn't working. When Gigi had told me stories, they'd felt like miracles. But she was gone and I didn't know if I'd ever be okay again. I heard a small voice behind me, asking if I was okay. I had noticed a girl watching me, but it took her a long time to come over, and even longer to say anything. She asked the question quietly. I had never met anyone who…spoke the way that she did, and I thought that her speech might have been why she waited so long to speak to me. While I expected her to say ‘What’s wrong?’—a question I didn’t want to have to answer—she asked ‘What are you doing?’ instead, and I was glad. “I was kind of a weird kid, so when I answered, I said ‘Spinning stories,’ calling it what Gigi had always called it when I got lost in my own head, but my voice cracked on the phrase and another tear slipped down my cheek. To this day I don’t know why I picked that moment to be so honest. Usually when kids I didn't know came up to me, I clamped my mouth shut like the heavy cover of an old book falling closed. Because time and taught me that kids weren't kind to girls like me: Girls who were dreamy and moony-eyed and a little too nice. Girls who wore rose-tonted glasses. And actual, really thick glasses. Girls who thought the world was beautiful, and who read too many books, and who never saw cruelty coming. But something about this girl felt safe. Something about the way she was smiling as she stuttered out the question helped me know I needn't bother with being shy, because she was being so brave. I thought that maybe kids weren't nice to girls like her either. The cookout was crowded, and none of the other kids were talking to me because, like I said, I was the neighborhood weirdo. I carried around snow globesbecause I was in love with every place I’d never been. I often recited Shakespeare from memory because of my dad, who is a librarian. I lost myself in books because they were friends who never letme down, and I didn’t hide enough of myself the way everyone else did, so people didn’t ‘get’ me. I was lonely a lot. Unless I was with my Gigi. The girl, she asked me if it was making me feel better, spinning the stories. And I shook my head. Before I could say what I was thinking—a line from Hamlet about sorrow coming in battalions that would have surely killed any potential I had of making friends with her. The girl tossed her wavy black hair over her shoulder and grinned. She closed her eyes and said 'Music helps me. And I love this song.' When she started singing, her voice was so unexpected—so bright and clear—that I stopped crying and stared at her. She told me her name and hooked her arm through mine like we’d known each other forever, and when the next song started, she pulled me up and we spun in a slow circle together until we were both dizzy and giggling.

It did, however, conduct some interesting experiments. In one, a volunteer was fitted with a device that leaked a thin fluid at his nostrils at the same rate that a runny nose would. The volunteer then socialized with other volunteers, as if at a cocktail party. Unknown to any of them, the fluid contained a dye visible only under ultraviolet light. When that was switched on after they had been mingling for a while, the participants were astounded to discover that the dye was everywhere—on the hands, head, and upper body of every participant and on glasses, doorknobs, sofa cushions, bowls of nuts, you name it. The average adult touches his face sixteen times an hour, and each of those touches transferred the pretend pathogen from nose to snack bowl to innocent third party to doorknob to innocent fourth party and so on until pretty much everyone and everything bore a festive glow of imaginary snot. In a similar study at the University of Arizona, researchers infected the metal door handle to an office building and found it took only about four hours for the “virus” to spread through the entire building, infecting over half of employees and turning up on virtually every shared device like photocopiers and coffee machines. In the real world, such infestations can stay active for up to three days. Surprisingly,

Of course the no-government ethics will meet with at least as many objections as the no-capital economics. Our minds have been so nurtured in prejudices as to the providential functions of government that anarchist ideas must be received with distrust. Our whole education, from childhood to the grave, nurtures the belief in the necessity of a government and its beneficial effects. Systems of philosophy have been elaborated to support this view; history has been written from this standpoint; theories of law have been circulated and taught for the same purpose. All politics are based on the same principle, each politician saying to people he wants to support him: “Give me the governmental power; I will, I can, relieve you from the hardships of your present life.” All our education is permeated with the same teachings. We may open any book of sociology, history, law, or ethics: everywhere we find government, its organisation, its deeds, playing so prominent a part that we grow accustomed to suppose that the State and the political men are everything; that there is nothing behind the big statesmen. The same teachings are daily repeated in the Press. Whole columns are filled up with minutest records of parliamentary debates, of movements of political persons. And, while reading these columns, we too often forget that besides those few men whose importance has been so swollen up as to overshadow humanity, there is an immense body of men—mankind, in fact—growing and dying, living in happiness or sorrow, labouring and consuming, thinking and creating. And yet, if we revert from the printed matter to our real life, and cast a broad glance on society as it is, we are struck with the infinitesimal part played by government in our life. Millions of human beings live and die without having had anything to do with government. Every day millions of transactions are made without the slightest interference of government; and those who enter into agreements have not the slightest intention of breaking bargains. Nay, those agreements which are not protected by government (those of the exchange, or card debts) am perhaps better kept than any others. The simple habit of keeping one's word, the desire of not losing confidence, are quite sufficient in an overwhelming majority of cases to enforce the keeping of agreements. Of course it may be said that there is still the government which might enforce them if necessary. But without speaking of the numberless cases which could not even be brought before a court, everyone who has the slightest acquaintance with trade will undoubtedly confirm the assertion that, if there were not so strong a feeling of honour in keeping agreements, trade itself would become utterly impossible.

I know that I've lost something now because this keeps happening, and I feel as if this is all I ever come to, to this place, this knife, this feeling, almost killing, and I wonder that I'm not drunk because I feel fucked up and cold and hot, and this man, the drunk man, he's backing away from me toward a parked car and he trips over the parking meter and stumbles and takes a few steps and there's a wall he can follow along and he's scuttling back into the doorway of the bar and his off-white shirt gets hazy like cottonwood down floating off the river back home but it's hot in the spring there, back home, when the cottonwoods are dropping, and nothing about this night is even warm at all except my fist around the handle of the knife that's still cold, and there's the smell of the river water, the water in the air, and water everywhere, over my eyes and the city and the night, and I wonder why the water's not frozen because it's cold, cold every night here, so fucking cold, and no amount of weed will warm me up because I'm a long way from home and my bed and my room and my house and my family and anything and everything and everyone that I have ever loved, and I can sleep on a dirty floor with gum and spiders and garbage and wrappers and ants and dust and spit and cum, and I can sleep here and wake up, and I can sleep here and wake up again, but no amount of sleeping and waking will ever make it right.

For years, Britain operated a research facility called the Common Cold Unit, but it closed in 1989 without ever finding a cure. It did, however, conduct some interesting experiments. In one, a volunteer was fitted with a device that leaked a thin fluid at his nostrils at the same rate that a runny nose would. The volunteer then socialized with other volunteers, as if at a cocktail party. Unknown to any of them, the fluid contained a dye visible only under ultraviolet light. When that was switched on after they had been mingling for a while, the participants were astounded to discover that the dye was everywhere—on the hands, head, and upper body of every participant and on glasses, doorknobs, sofa cushions, bowls of nuts, you name it. The average adult touches his face sixteen times an hour, and each of those touches transferred the pretend pathogen from nose to snack bowl to innocent third party to doorknob to innocent fourth party and so on until pretty much everyone and everything bore a festive glow of imaginary snot. In a similar study at the University of Arizona, researchers infected the metal door handle to an office building and found it took only about four hours for the “virus” to spread through the entire building, infecting over half of employees and turning up on virtually every shared device like photocopiers and coffee machines. In the real world, such infestations can stay active for up to three days.

Did you know I always thought you were braver than me? Did you ever guess that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn't that I only loved some of you. But I wondered if you could ever love more than some of me. I knew I'd miss you. But the surprising thing is, you never leave me. I never forget a thing. Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn't happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all. I know young people look at me and think my youth seems so far away, but it's all around me, and you're all around me. Tiger Lily, do you think magic exists if it can be explained? I can explain why I loved you, I can explain the theory of evolution that tells me why mermaids live in Neverland and nowhere else. But it still feels magic. The lost boys all stood at our wedding. Does it seem odd to you that they could have stood at a wedding that wasn't yours and mine? It does to me. and I'm sorry for it, and for a lot, and I also wouldn't change it. It is so quiet here. Even with all the trains and the streets and the people. It's nothing like the jungle. The boys have grown. Everything has grown. Do you think you will ever grow? I hope not. I like to think that even if I change and fade away, some other people won't. I like to think that one day after I die, at least one small particle of me - of all the particles that will spread everywhere - will float all the way to Neverland, and be part of a flower or something like that, like that poet said, the one that your Tik Tok loved. I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I'll see you sometime again, even if it's not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the way things go after all - that all things end happy. Even for you and Tik Tok. and for you and me. Always, Your Peter

You are a drop of water in ocean but you can become ocean itself. Truth is found in ocean of silence, where one has to dissolve himself into Nothingness. Don't limit yourself to drop of water, come drown in the deepness of heart and become the ocean. Knowing the death as life is, and Known dying in every moment as bliss, then death doesn't exist anymore. Know anything from it's root and it will perish itself into nonexistence of nothingness. Beauty is in, just being what one is. Like nature, in competition with noone. Just be yourself and be free. You are surrounded from everywhere, from existence of God. But you seek it in sleep, awake and open your eyes, you may see, feel and be the existence of God itself. Everyone has spoken only one Truth, but people are in Chaos with them because of their blind beliefs and low Perspectives. Change your perspective and everything will change. You will find "One Truth, Different Perspectives". You suffer from worldly pain or pleasure, doesn't matters. Both are inside phenomenon attached to you and outside world. Knowing the Roots, Break this attachment between the chaos of two and step into the eternal bliss. Don't limit yourself to the outside world and worldly affairs, awake to the Cosmic Realisation of Oneness and know the universe inside you. I don't believe in the concept of God existence or not. I believe in Realisation of Cosmic Oneness and it's divine nature of self existence in everything and everyone. Which is beyond explanation and can be only experienced and achieved in Eternal Bliss of Silence. Being Love is true form of a being. Other are just misconception and illusions of thoughts and beliefs. Don't attach worldly things to your happiness, everything change with time, find bliss inside and it will be for eternity unhindered by time and worldly Storms. Change is the law of Nature don't fear the change and it's consequences, rather learn to accept whatever come the way, walk with it step by step. Change can be powerful in changing things outside but it's powerless if you know it can not move the mountains of your heart inside. If you Stay unhindered Inside, Storms outside can not touch you.

I think about that often. I think about the boots and the bones, and how I didn't want to be so lowly as to stoop down and help another human being take off their layers of mud. to wind up with their dirt on my hands. I think that's because for a long time I believed freedom looked like getting to a place where none of the people were muddy. Where everyone was shiny and clean and took care of their own front yards. Where everywhere you looked, there were white picket fences and perfectly manicured pansies lining the front walkway. ... And then I think about God and what neighborhood He would live in. I think about Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. Those dusty busted-up, sandal-blistered feet they rolled up with to His supper table. I think about the Savior of the world kneeling there at His last meal, before His body was broken and His blood was poured out, first making sure that none of them had to walk around with muddy feet. At this I picture Jesus kneeling at the feet of my father. I think about the conversation those two might have. I think about the care Jesus would take in removing those heavy weights from around Dad's ankles. how He would hold all those broken parts in His light-filled hands and weep with Dad for all the pain he'd been walking around with. I think He would tell him that He sees how hard he's been fighting to hold it all together, sees all the sacrifices that he's made. I think Jesus would sit with him there for a while in the mud, not even caring about Dad's boots leaving marks all up and down His crisp, white robes. There comes a time when every person who believes in God also has to decide what kind of character they believe He has. Is He a cold and distant God, withholding every good thing, just waiting for the chance to take back what little He has given? Is He a God who only gives out begrudging scraps of joy after first putting you in very hot water, His red-letter way of ensuring that you've been washed clean? Or is He a God who sits with you in the mud, who stoops to serve before the sacrifice? I used to think freedom looked a lot like being around people who aren't muddy. Now I realize we're all pretty muddy and maybe just a little bit broken too, no matter what kind of place we call home. And when it comes right down to it, getting each other's mud on our hands--this serving one another in love--that's what true freedom has always been about anyway. Because love, like integrity, is also about what we do when no one else is looking. And how we do anything is how we do everything.

Until knowledge becomes part of you, it is not possible to talk about awareness, or true understanding. Everything must come from and into an organism. Theories are only valid when made organic — ”organic” as in "part of the body". The knowledge that has to be learned and followed like a discipline is useless. It doesn't matter which amount of knowledge you absorb or in which variety. Knowledge can’t be remembered all the time in the same proportion that is kept, not all of it, and not all of it at the same time. As a matter of fact, when knowledge is not assimilated above personal interests, that same knowledge is already corrupted. When knowledge is seen as a means to a goal, either it is in obtaining something from the outside world, or passing some test, this knowledge has not become organic but merely used as a tool. That's why so many people avoid being confronted with their ignorance and react angrily when faced with their contradictions, which is quite obvious when we compare what they learn and what they say. You see this everywhere, in teachers, politicians, religious groups, and so on. And then you wonder why are people not honest. But they can’t understand honesty as much as they can’t understand their own ignorance. The stupid are not aware they are stupid, and that’s what really makes them stupid. When someone is too stupid, ignorance is replaced by arrogance. And then this person feels like the world is a bit threat to survival at an individual level. We call this attitude being egotistic. But you can’t stop being an egotistic when suppressing your emotions, or imagining that everyone is a source of negative energy but you. As a matter of fact, you commonly see the egotistic drop into apathy precisely because they confuse the work they must do on themselves with the anger they feel for the world as a whole. Have you ever noticed how easily people turn to anger when you ask them a question? That’s a reaction of someone moving from apathy to fear. On the surface this person is acting like a rude individual, but the emotions behind this behavior are those one feels when watching a horror movie. They are afraid of their own feelings, and project this fear as an aggression. Now comes the interesting part: Who are they attacking? They are attacking precisely the one that can help them, because only such individual will ask the right questions. An individual on apathy and lack of interest, can’t ask anything that is interesting or motivating. So we come to an interesting paradox in society, that those who can uplift others, end up being perceived as a threat to them. And that’s the simplest way to explain insanity.

Our universe of love! Let us wander like these carefree clouds, All across the sky, Let us create love’s heart beats and its sounds, And then let the two hearts freely fly, Like these clouds in the sky, Where love abounds, And we float like these clouds by and by, To create a feeling that knows no bounds, Where there is only one destiny, The eternity of you and me, And as time every creation confounds in its final act of tyranny, And nothing exists now between you and me, Neither the space, nor time or light, For now there shall only be, You and me, no space, no time and no light, An endless you floating through the infinite me, In this state of nothingness and eternal silence, Then as your heart beats for me Irma, and mine for thee, We shall rescue the universe from this sentence, And create a universe for you and me, By lending it our heart beats, Then as the romantic sound waves travel through the darkness, And the darkness finally retreats, Then the universe gets created in its loveliness, And in it Irma, lie our heart beats, In every atom, every corner, every ray of light, And as my passion your passions meets, We become our own and the universe’s infinite delight, Where now we are what universe is, And the universe is our creation, For whatever there is, It is only our heart beats, our feelings and our single sensation, That lies in this universe of everything, But for you and me, it is our abode of love, And whenever you whisper and I hear something, It is the whisper of endless love, your and just our love, Where the stars are formed every moment, And the universe expands at its happy pace, It develops few feelings benevolent, And creates for you and me, our secret space, That lies beyond the limits of time, Where even light sees nothing, For lovers love to reside in infinite moments of time, Where even a small thing has the potential to be the God of everything, Just like our love that for now is the creator of the universe, Where our love thrives and travels everywhere, You within me while I flow within you, and together we traverse, To finally lie in our secret somewhere, that for everyone else is nowhere, only for you and me always there somewhere!

Bryce’s rasping voice overrode the sounds of the demons rallying again around her. “The firstlight I’ll generate by making the Drop will spread from this Gate to the others. It’ll light up everything, send those demons racing away. It’ll heal everything it touches. Everyone it touches. And I—” She took a deep breath. “I am Starborn Fae, and I bear Luna’s Horn in my body. With the power of the firstlight I generate, I can shut the portals to Hel. I did it here—I can do it everywhere else. But I need a link—and the power from my Drop to do it.

We do it for everyone who's weak everywhere, in the name of actual strength. Everything we take, all of the abuse, we do it to rise above. We do it for the people who know how important it is.

i love you much (most beautiful darling)” i love you much (most beautiful darling) more than anyone on the earth and i like you better than everything in the sky —sunlight and singing welcome your coming although winter may be everywhere with such a silence and such a darkness noone can quite begin to guess (except my life) the true time of year— and if what calls itself a world should have the luck to hear such singing (or glimpse such sunlight as will leap higher than high through gayer than gayest someone’s heart at your each nearness) everyone certainly would (my most beautiful darling) believe in nothing but love E.E. Cummings, Complete Poems, 1913-1962. (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; Second Printing edition, 1980)

Love and time It was as if time had gone on a vacation, At least it was not there where I was now, Because there I could not feel her sensation, So it was a world without her beauty, thus a world without love, Time appeared to transition from one moment to another, But I could not feel its presence, For a while I thought I was in a world, that was some other, As my heart did not experience life’s romance, In her absence time appeared to be on a vacation, The world seemed to have come to a sudden halt, Without her, world’s charms had lost all their traction, And I wondered whether it was my or time’s fault, Everything and everyone moved, and life happened just like any day, But to me somehow time appeared to be somewhere else, Because it felt it was not here today, And maybe only her presence can convince me it is false, Maybe time has drowned in the past, Forgotten somewhere in her infinite memories, And my mind still recreates only moments from the past, And convinces the heart to keep beating for the sake of her old stories, Or is it that the present is an illusion of shadows, Shadows from the past, her and my past, And the present only from this past borrows, So I am in this illusion of timelessness cast, But whatever it might be, Whether time is here or somewhere else, She, her memories; are intact within me, And my every heartbeat still says, there cannot be anyone else, So, there is no need to seek time that has vanished suddenly, Because I have installed her memories everywhere, And now time has left me in my peaceful corner knowingly, So I believe, time is somewhere else, but not here, not here, And my love Irma, let me escape with you into this corner, Where time has no business, And just be your lover, And let that be my only business, For time will then lose its pride, someday, in that somewhere, where it has fled, And it will offer us it's rarest gift of eternity, Because my love, a rose by its own thorn is never hurt or bled, So instead of time, we shall live in the love’s sanity, Where time serves no purpose, Because everything exists for everything, There life offers no fake pose, It is then that love becomes a true virtue and not just a thing!

Busy street of emotions On a languid Sunday afternoon on the busy street, Everything everywhere appeared to be missing a beat, Few of their desires, of their hopes, many of their own dreams, And in midst of all this I could hear strange screams, There was rush, there was movement, there was life in its busiest state, Many loved to be a part of it whereas a few showed all signs of hate, They were the ones who were not chasing life, they were after something different, That the busy street did not offer, and to the most people caught in its glamour it nothing meant, To me all appeared to be seeking the same illusive something, A thing that is born of nothing, and to a few it means everything, That something, about which I had no clue, but the busy street certainly knew about it, It knew everything about it, But it had concealed it from all, happy and sad alike, For now it had kept everyone busy pursuing what he/she liked, and what next he/she would like, It was then she appeared in the busiest corner of the street, Where people crossed each other; but noone nobody did ever meet, They all saw other people's eyes but not what their eyes could see, All were in this maze of fascinations where they had been before, but there they again and again wished to be, And then she got up and left this busy corner, And whispered in my ear, “let me show you a life that is real and livelier!” I followed her wherever she went, And that is how my Sunday was spent, Finally as the evening set in and people began to feel weary, And life too seemed dreary, I looked at the once busy street that was now empty and desolate, “This is the fact of life, and this is what you shall be able to isolate!” With these last words she disappeared, And now on the street, only I and my infinite avatars appeared, Everywhere, in everything, and the street got busy again, Because now I was dealing with life in its reality: joy, sorrow, love, faith, defection, everything and even pain, So whenever you visit this busy street, walk towards everything with every feeling, Because in our lives we all are either with retreating joy or with an advancing pain dealing!

I was laughing with God,' Elizabeth said in her Italian journal. In the years since, she had come to know the peace that comes from finding God everywhere, in everything, in everyone. As Gandhi would one day put it, 'If you don't find God in next person you meet, it's a waste of time to look further.

First they warn everyone to wear a mask. Then we find out unless it's a special kind of mask it's not going to protect you at all." "It's not just a question of beds. There's not enough linen, not enough gloves, gowns, hypodermic needles, disinfectant, meds, you name it. Not enough ambulances, not enough ventilators or other equipment. Hospitals are even running out of food." "It's not like every other bad thing stopped happening to make room for the flu. People are still getting cancer and having heart attacks and strokes and road accidents. The idea that we could handle any kind of surge on top of that--whoever's fantasy that was, it was never going to happen." "The retired workers they were depending on to take over for the workers out sick? Very few of those people ever showed. The volunteer doctors and nurses and the other helping hands--they aren't showing up, either. It's not like 9/11. There aren't any heroes rushing toward the danger. The danger is everywhere, and everyone's running scared." "Let's face it, this is America. Anything that's bad for business, people don't want to hear. When it comes to money or doing the right thing, most people are going to choose money. Close up shop for months till they can make a new vaccine? How many businesses would still be alive after that?" "This disaster proves what some of us have been saying about America all along: everything is broken.

The sea and the albatross Far away in the deep sea, An albatross flew every day and sometimes looked at me, It sometimes flapped its wings rigorously, And then glided so calmly, Over the waves of wind and the ocean of air, It looked majestic and I wondered what was its affair, That compelled it to bear long flights everyday, Because it only returned when the evening lights had invaded the day, And to find out its secret there was no way, Yet I hoped I shall know it someway, It was a rough day and the sea had turned violent, My boat was being tossed everywhere in this torrent, The wind howled, the sea roared and everything appeared agitated, And to venture into such a rough sea even the valour of the mariners like me hesitated, So I stayed at the shore, While the albatross flew through this violent uproar, It swung its wings up and down with great effort, As if from this toil of mind and muscle, it gained some unknown comfort, After few moments it was far away, that I could no longer see it, But everyone could hear the beating of his wings, only if you had the mariner’s heart to feel it, And looking at the albatross, I too ventured into the sea, And I recalled the mariner’s only oath, “whatever shall be shall be!” The wind played with me and my boat like a finless fish caught in the tempest, And it overpowered us inpsite of our efforts best, For a moment I thought it was asinine on my part to have felt brave like an albatross, Who sometimes sits on the hull of my boat where I have erected a cross, I looked at it and used all my force left in me, And my heart and mind said together, “let us see how strong the sea can be!” And then the sea turned rougher, the waves rose higher, But I too worked with the muscle of will and mind, with conviction stronger, It was evening now and I stood in the middle of the rough sea where they said everything sinks, I saw the albatross caught in the discarded net, and it was struggling to free itself from these nylon links, Maybe I was courageous today not to catch fish but to rescue the master of the skies, And it shall be a shame for all mariners and our oath of courage, if today in this discarded net the albatross dies,

Love and time It was as if time had gone on a vacation, At least it was not there where I was now, Because there I could not feel her sensation, So it was a world without her beauty, thus a world without love, Time appeared to transition from one moment to another, But I could not feel its presence, For a while I thought I was in a world, that was some other, As my heart did not experience life’s romance, In her absence time appeared to be on a vacation, The world seemed to have come to a sudden halt, Without her, world’s charms had lost all their traction, And I wondered whether it was my or time’s fault, Everything and everyone moved, and life happened just like any day, But to me somehow time appeared to be somewhere else, Because it felt it was not here today, And maybe only her presence can convince me it is false, Maybe time has drowned in the past, Forgotten somewhere in her infinite memories, And my mind exclusively recreates moments, only from the past, And convinces the heart to keep beating for the sake of her old stories, Or is it that the present is an illusion of shadows, Shadows from the past, her and my past, And the present only from this past borrows, So I am in this illusion of timelessness cast, But whatever it might be, Whether time is here or somewhere else, She, her memories; are intact within me, And my every heartbeat still says, there cannot be anyone else, So, there is no need to seek time that has vanished suddenly, Because I have installed her memories everywhere, And now time has left me in my peaceful corner knowingly, So I believe, time is somewhere else, but not here, not here, And my love Irma, let me escape with you into this corner, Where time has no business, And just be your lover, And let that be my only business, For time will then lose its pride, someday, in that somewhere, where it has fled, And it will offer us it's rarest gift of eternity, Because my love, a rose by its own thorn is never hurt or bled, So instead of time, we shall live in the love’s sanity, Where time serves no purpose, Because everything exists for everything, There life offers no fake pose, It is then that love becomes a true virtue and not just a thing!

was because you had a small penis and the other side had run out of arguments and resorted to third-grade tactics. Every belief was labeled as extreme. Every ideology was decried as far this or far that. Everyone else was either a racist, a misogynist, or a homophobe, Islamophobe, or ammophobe. And everyone was Hitler. Part of the problem was that everyone was an expert on everything so any chance for debate was quashed by superior credentials such as, “I read it on Wikipedia,” or “the TV station that thinks like I do agrees with me and told me everyone else was too stupid to understand.” Opinions were treated like concealed weapons, and every time one was offered it was a showdown. Words turned to sticks and stones and hurt people everywhere. People grew afraid of someone who didn’t agree with them. Friendships were called off, family was ostracized, and we all went to our separate corners to gloat and pout. But even that didn’t help, because the rules of acceptable beliefs within each group became so complex they began to conflict with one another, and it became a choir-to-choir shouting match. Even atheists were trying to prove they were holier than thou. Irony went completely unnoticed. There was no pleasing anyone. In the end it was best if you just didn’t feel anything at all. - An entry from the journal of the Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warrior dated “after

You can’t be everything to everyone, everywhere. It’s not possible.

The consumer society and its harassed citizens had other things to think of. Although it was a month to Christmas, the advertising orgy had begun and the buying hysteria spread as swiftly and ruthlessly as the Black Death along the festooned shopping streets. The epidemic swept all before it and there was no escape. It ate its way into homes and apartments, poisoning and braking down everything and everyone in its path. Children were already howling from exhaustion and fathers of families were plunged into debt until their next vacation. The gigantic legalized confidence trick claimed victims everywhere. The hospitals had a boom in cardiac infractions, nervous breakdowns, and burst stomach ulcers. The police stations downtown had frequent visits from the outriders of the great family festival, in the shape of Santa Clauses who were dragged blind drunk out of doorways and public urinals. . .two exhausted patrolmen dropped a drunken Father Christmas in the gutter when they tried to get him into a taxi.

The judges who breach, violate, and break the concept of the constitution and law are not fair to society, even to themselves; they just put the mask on their faces as the judge. However, history is their judge that does not ignore the reality. A verdict is neither a vote nor a consensus nor a customary decision; it is the interpretation and conclusion of the constitution and law, and judges set it accordingly in the context of that and ensure its implementation. The constitution is like a rose; foreign policy is its fragrance that flies freely everywhere, and everyone feels equally beyond restrictions. Sure, such context carries beauty, dignity, self-determination, freedom, and success; otherwise, the sting of thorns becomes a painful risk. In a civilized century, it is a tragedy that one dares not express one’s feelings that may abuse God, prophets, or sacred figures. But more than that, one cannot speak a word against the wrongdoing of a handful of army generals or ISI officials. In Pakistan, veteran journalists, top judges, and other key figures draw breath under the spying eyes of the ISI; even higher and minister-level personalities are the victims of such conduct. One has to live in such surroundings. Tit for Tat is neither a constitution nor a law; it is just an act of revenge. If it continues, be sure everything collapses wherever it happens. The cheap army, undemocratic state, and corrupt nation neither fulfill their oath nor comply with their constitution.

etc." I have been searching for my self everywhere, but I can’t find it! I can’t even remember when exactly I lost it… I search for it in everything I love and hate in foreign and familiar cities in all the kind, exhausted, and mean faces… I search for my self near water springs and along river shores On mountaintops and in the scent of wildflowers… Between the branches of olive and fig trees, but without any trace or hope… I search in teacups, in the corners of old cafés In songs and interludes… In books In the memories of everyone who ever knew me Everyone I betrayed or was betrayed by… I search in lines and sentences, But all in vain… I even search unsuccessfully in the sentences that list options, including the examples and each “etc.” after each list of options… I keep wondering how did I so quietly lose it? And each time I ask the loved ones about my strong desire to reunite with my lost self, I realize they have no leads other than long and wide lists of places, things, activities, individuals, and hobbies where I may possibly “find” my self… In each list they suggest, I find countless options and countless lines ending with “etc.” They don’t understand that I have turned every rock and searched behind every “etc.” And today I finally realized That my self wasn’t from here, and thus, it was never here… That, all along, I have been searching for an illusion that never existed… [Original poem published in Arabic on March 11, 2024 at ahewar.org]

I carried on because it was the only thing I could control. I carried on because I just wanted to be happy and everyone knows when you’re thinner, you’re happier. I carried on because, at every turn, society was rewarding me for my self-inflicted torture. I received compliments, I received propositions, I felt more accepted by people I didn’t know, nearly all clothes looked great on me. I felt like I had finally earned the right to be taken seriously as a woman; that everything before that had been redundant. That I had been foolish to think I had ever been worthy of affection. I had equated love with thinness and, to my horror, reinforcement of this belief was everywhere.

I buried my face in my hands, thinking he didn’t have to go downstairs and sit at the dinner table with the ice king next. “If this is healing, I’d rather be sick. I need my ability to shut everyone and everything out, but it’s gone. I can’t cope.” To my surprise, Jameson laughed, then crossed the chamber to join me on the window seat. Looking at Edward, he asked, “Does she know the story about the lame man whom Peter healed?” Edward threw his palms up as if to say my religious training was still a mystery to him and that Jameson should leave me be. “I know it,” I said, not in the mood to hear it recited. Gritting my teeth, I looked toward the door, feeling as trapped as I used to with my former vicar. I couldn’t handle people acting as though everything could be solved with the Bible. “All right, I won’t repeat it, then.” Jameson held up innocent hands. “But have you ever considered how costly and painful that healing was for the man?” I rolled my eyes, unable to hide my antagonism toward receiving a religious lecture. “Yes, how he must have hated being able to walk.” “Oh, I’m certain it was exciting at first. A huge miracle, center of attention, a great testimony, and all that.” Jameson rested one foot on the bench, then laced his fingers about his knee. “But afterwards there’s still the business of living to get to. What do you suppose he did for work the following morning?” I touched my temples, not certain how I’d fallen into this conversation and wondering the quickest way out. “Think about it, Mrs. Auburn. He was lame from birth, which meant he was a beggar by trade. He’d never been trained for any occupation, never been apprenticed. Likely he couldn’t read or write. He had to learn to adjust to a half life to survive. The entire way he viewed the world, structured his life, and adapted, all gone—” Jameson snapped his fingers—“in the blink of an eye.” I said nothing but looked at him. At least he wasn’t telling me what I ought to be feeling or thinking. And like it or not, I was now captivated enough to listen. “Everywhere he went, he likely was stared at. Some probably suspected he’d faked being lame for pity and money. To be healed ended up costing him everything he knew. His entire world was deconstructed, leaving him the hard task of rebuilding it.” Jameson’s voice grew tender as I only stared. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? I’ve known full-grown men to collapse under less strain than you’ve endured. You’ve been crippled from birth, too, just in a different sort of way. It hurts to be healed, but would you honestly rather be lame at the gate?

Painting of love This afternoon I saw a painting hanging on the wall, It was of a maiden in the prime of her beauty, The background was painted in rainbow colours, one and all, I had every reason to admire the artists sagacity, Her form looked perfect worthy of every appreciation, Her eyes interacted with mine, Her lips had a strong and intense red sensation, And from her arose feelings divine, Although she was just a portrait, A still painting hanging on the even more still wall, She was a feeling that moved through eyes into the heart without any freight, And in me, just like other mesmerised onlookers, she did feelings of “life in love” install, Maybe I only felt so, maybe I wanted to feel so, Because her eyes, her form, her everything reminded me of someone, And I imagined her in this painting on the wall, and I allowed my mind to believe so, As long as she did not remind me of anyone, or everyone, but just her, my special someone, So I sat there looking at the painting on the wall, I admired the salient aspects of her colourful beauty, And now I too was still, still like the painting and still like the dead wall, Now, not the painting, but the stillness it exuded had become my new propensity, Like a flower that is beautiful in the presence of the beauty that holds itself within it so still, A state where all conflicts are exhumed and everything that represents profanity dies, That is when this painting my heart does with million joys fill, And recreates her colourful visions within me, and now my life just on them relies, So, I often visit the painting on the wall, still hanging there, And maybe it will be so always, Until one day I find it everywhere, Because I wish to love her in a million ways!

Painting of love This afternoon I saw a painting hanging on the wall, It was of a maiden in the prime of her beauty, The background was painted in rainbow colours, one and all, I had every reason to admire the artists sagacity, Her form looked perfect worthy of every appreciation, Her eyes interacted with mine, Her lips had a strong and intense red sensation, And from her arose feelings divine, Although it was just a portrait, A still painting hanging on the still wall, She was a feeling that moved through eyes into the heart without any freight, And in me, just like other mesmerised onlookers, she did feelings of life and love install, Maybe I only felt so, maybe I wanted to feel so, Because her eyes, her form, her everything reminded me of someone, And I imagined her in this painting on the wall, and I allowed my mind to believe so, As long as she did not remind me of anyone, or everyone, but just her, my special someone, So I sat there looking at the painting on the wall, I admired the salient aspects of her colourful beauty, And now I too was still, still like the painting and still like the dead wall, Now, not the painting, but the stillness it exuded had become my new propensity, Like a flower that is beautiful in the presence of the beauty that holds itself within it so still, A state where all conflicts are exhumed and everything that represents profanity dies, That is when this painting with million joys my heart fills in the life’s unforgiving mill, And recreates her colourful visions within me, and now my life just on them relies, So, I often visit the painting on the wall, still hanging there, And maybe it will be so always, Until one day I find it everywhere, Because I wish to love her in a million ways, in the narrow lanes, on the byways and all the highways!

I want to take you out. I want to look forward to it. I want to obsess a little bit about where we’ll go and whether you’ll like it. Maybe I want to obsess a lot. But I still want to pick you up, bring you flowers, lose my fucking mind because you’re unbelievably gorgeous but we can’t be late so I’ll have to fuck you up against the door later—which you’ll love, I promise. I want to choose a special place to eat that has things you’ll like and I want to talk to you for hours. I want to hear about everywhere you’ve been and everything you’ve done, and all the places you want to go and things you want to do. I want to sit across from you knowing that everyone else in the world wants to be near you, wants your attention, and I was the one who got it for these short hours. And I want to bring you home and walk the dogs with you and take you to bed. And I don’t want it to be something you tolerate. I want to do better than that.

Nature’s fall There was a theatrical taste to it all, The experiencing of seasons and the morbidness of the fall, When nothing seems to have any sort of animation left, As if everything and everyone is suffering from the trauma of a theft, Where they have been robbed of every lively moment and life’s pleasure, As they were busy indulging in moments of leisure, Unlike nature that only and always grows, And no signs of regression shows, But there is a sort of slight indignation in it all, And you can tell it from every pale leaf falling and tossing against the great wall, The wall that is the only barricade between life and lifelessness, The wall that prevents sensibility from the invasion of senselessness, Where leisure is a moment of enjoyment with one's self and someone you love, It can be a moment in the future or a moment you are experiencing now, But if it indulges with the present to such a degree that it invades the future, Then you are bound to exhaust beforehand life’s true treasure, That of moments of leisure offering life’s authentic pleasure, In quantities with a perfect taste and measure, Because nature too enjoys in summer complete state of leisure, But then spring is for grooming and growing, and not for pleasure, While winter and fall, are for regeneration, A self introspection and kind of inward meditation, But if it spends all seasons in leisure and soaks itself in one feeling alone, that of pleasure, Then it shall be left with no beauty’s treasure, And it shall turn into the desert, where only desert roses grow, And remind you of nature’s follies, its oversights, and its over indulgence in leisure, about which it shall never everything know, Because pleasures have no end, they are a road that has no end, That is why nature created seasons, so that it realised when it was time to bend, And not be left lonely like the desert rose, Who moans the death of beauty lost to nature’s long repose, In the lap of leisure, until it entered a state, Where it was always summer like sunny now, and from this reality it could no longer obviate, Because there was nothing left, to remind it, to end the merriments of summer time, So, it rested in prolonged slumber until the winter robbed it of all its moments sublime, And then, when summer returned and somehow the desert rose bloomed, The nature in this act of callousness was doomed, It was summer always here now, bright light everywhere, Until nature forgot of the desert rose that still bloomed somewhere, And then it all ended and the beauty got buried under the sands of time, And it became the nature’s most infamous crime, To have relied only on summer joys and thinking they will last forever, And when fall took over; the summer and the spring, now returned never!