Extraction Drowning Quotes

Our textbooks were ridiculous propaganda. The first English sentence we learned was "Long live Chairman Mao!" But no one dared to explain the sentence grammatically. In Chinese the term for the optative mood, expressing a wish or desire, means 'something unreal." In 1966 a lecturer at Sichuan University had been beaten up for 'having the audacity to suggest that "Long live Chairman Mao!" was unreal!" One chapter was about a model youth hero who had drowned after jumping into a flood to save an electricity pole because the pole would be used to carry the word of Mao. With great difficulty, I managed to borrow some English language textbooks published before the Cultural Revolution from lecturers in my department and from Jin-ming, who sent me books from his university by post. These contained extracts from writers like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde, and stories from European and American history. They were a joy to read, but much of my energy went toward finding them and then trying to keep them. Whenever someone approached, I would quickly cover the books with a newspaper. This was only partly because of their 'bourgeois' content. It was also important not to appear to be studying too conscientiously, and not to arouse my fellow students' jealousy by reading something far beyond them. Although we were studying English, and were paid par fly for our propaganda value by the government to do this, we must not be seen to be too devoted to our subject: that was considered being 'white and expert." In the mad logic of the day, being good at one's profession ('expert') was automatically equated with being politically unreliable ('white').

Paths of the mirror" I And above all else, to look with innocence. As if nothing was happening, which is true. II But you, I want to look at you until your face escapes from my fear like a bird from the sharp edge of the night. III Like a girl made of pink chalk on a very old wall that is suddenly washed away by the rain. IV Like when a flower blooms and reveals the heart that isn’t there. V Every gesture of my body and my voice to make myself into the offering, the bouquet that is abandoned by the wind on the porch. VI Cover the memory of your face with the mask of who you will be and scare the girl you once were. VII The night of us both scattered with the fog. It’s the season of cold foods. VIII And the thirst, my memory is of the thirst, me underneath, at the bottom, in the hole, I drank, I remember. IX To fall like a wounded animal in a place that was meant to be for revelations. X As if it meant nothing. No thing. Mouth zipped. Eyelids sewn. I forgot. Inside, the wind. Everything closed and the wind inside. XI Under the black sun of the silence the words burned slowly. XII But the silence is true. That’s why I write. I’m alone and I write. No, I’m not alone. There’s somebody here shivering. XIII Even if I say sun and moon and star I’m talking about things that happen to me. And what did I wish for? I wished for a perfect silence. That’s why I speak. XIV The night is shaped like a wolf’s scream. XV Delight of losing one-self in the presaged image. I rose from my corpse, I went looking for who I am. Migrant of myself, I’ve gone towards the one who sleeps in a country of wind. XVI My endless falling into my endless falling where nobody waited for me –because when I saw who was waiting for me I saw no one but myself. XVII Something was falling in the silence. My last word was “I” but I was talking about the luminiscent dawn. XVIII Yellow flowers constellate a circle of blue earth. The water trembles full of wind. XIX The blinding of day, yellow birds in the morning. A hand untangles the darkness, a hand drags the hair of a drowned woman that never stops going through the mirror. To return to the memory of the body, I have to return to my mourning bones, I have to understand what my voice is saying.

If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe. Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that witches are often betrayed by their appetites; dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always; hearts can be well-hidden, and you betray them with your tongue. Do not be jealous of your sister. Know that diamonds and roses are as uncomfortable when they tumble from one's lips as toads and frogs: colder, too, and sharper, and they cut. Remember your name. Do not lose hope -- what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story. When you come back, return the way you came. Favors will be returned, debts be repaid. Do not forget your manners. Do not look back. Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall). Ride the silver fish (you will not drown). Ride the grey wolf (hold tightly to his fur). There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is why it will not stand. When you reach the little house, the place your journey started, you will recognize it, although it will seem much smaller than you remember. Walk up the path, and through the garden gate you never saw before but once. And then go home. Or make a home. Or rest.

The modern world is drowning in information. We have more data than we can possibly use regarding nearly every picayune matter of society, economics, and politics. Science has contributed to this tsunami of facts and figures, but Riley's reports demonstrated that the tidal wave of minutiae is hardly unique to our time. In every age the challenge has been to move from information to knowledge. And the value of experts lies in their capacity to extract meaning from the reams of facts. Rather than being swamped by raw data, the connoisseur, craftsman, engineer, clinician, or scientist is selectively and self-consciously blind. Knowing what to ignore, recognizing what is extraneous, is the key to deriving pattern, form, and insight.

To me she was a woman who had something supernatural about her. Her face reminded me so strongly of the confounding oblivion of other people's faces that, upon seeing her, my whole body began to shake, and my knees gave way. I saw the whole painful story of my life behind her large eyes, her extremely large eyes, wet and glistening eyes, like black diamond balls thrown into tears. In her eyes, in her black eyes, I found the eternal night, the dense darkness that I had been searching for. I plunged into its awesome, enchanting darkness. I felt as though some force was being extracted from my being; the ground shook underneath my feet. At that moment, If I had fallen to the ground, I would have drawn an indescribable pleasure from that fall. My heart stopped. Fearing that my breath might make her disappear, as if she were a piece of cloud or a puff of smoke, I restrained myself from breathing. Her silence was like a miracle. It was as though a glass wall intervened between us. This Moment, this hour, this eternity was choking me. Her weary eyes, as if witnessing something extraordinary that others could not see—as if seeing death—were gradually closing. Eventually, her eyelids closed. The intensity of the moment shook me. I felt like a drowning man who was coming to the surface for air. With the edge of my sleeve, I wiped the perspiration on my forehead.

Life is like coffee, sometimes when you feel you are drowned in hot water, life is actually brewing you to extract your true essence and spread the aroma of your inner self around.

Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General (1645 – 1647) by Stewart Stafford ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ – Exodus, Nor allow legalised killing too cheaply, Twenty shillings of blood money per witch, A charlatan’s extortion for ‘cleansing.’ Witchcraft, the capital crime of the age, Lawyer Hopkins, parasitising laws, Self-appointed Witchfinder General, A reign of terror brought to God-fearing doors. Evildoing’s hunter was its embodiment; A Judas purse wed brutality’s handmaiden, With Stearne, stoked Essex witch hunt mania, Puritanical zeal’s sadistic cruelty. His victims were cast into dungeon pits; Bloodied and broken in outcast desperation; Disease helped some cheat the hangman; The only fortune anyone deemed fair. Extracting confessions through torture’s pain; Their skin pricked to find Satan’s mark, Victims, forced to run until collapse, Sleepless starvation hastened their bleak end. Then to the wicked ducking stool gauntlet, Lowered into muddy ditches or icy water, A survivor’s noose or drowned exoneration? None met the Witchfinder’s imperious eyes. “I, John Lowes, a minister of God, Was martyred so. Hopkins, thou pestilent knave! Bade me to run, held aloft by mocking hands, Funeral rites as I dug mine own grave.” Sensing his gaslit flames turn back on him, Hopkins went to ground with his ill-gotten gains, Slowly he faded, from infamous to obscure, Scars linger on 300 unmarked graves. Some say that Hopkins was executed as a witch, Or faced a tubercular end in his village, Where he is buried, no one knows or cares, Hexed in a barren field for karmic tillage. Rat-catcher to an imagined pestilence, Communities, not covens, he did churn, A toxic chalice for New World lips, Fanning Salem’s pernicious turn. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.

More than loving themselves, Narcissists are absorbed with themselves. They feel their own desires so acutely that they can’t pay attention to anything else. Imagine their disorder as a pair of binoculars. Narcissists look at their own needs through the magnifying side, and the rest of the cosmos through the side that makes things small to the point of insignificance. It’s not so much that these vampires think they’re better than other people as that they hardly think of other people at all. Unless they need something. Narcissistic need is tremendous. Just as sharks must continually swim to keep from drowning, Narcissists must constantly demonstrate that they are special, or they will sink like stones to the depths of depression. It may look as if they are trying to demonstrate their worth to other people, but their real audience is themselves. Narcissists are experts at showing off. Everything they do is calculated to make the right impression. Conspicuous consumption is for them what religion is for other people. Narcissists pursue the symbols of wealth, status, and power with a fervor that is almost spiritual. They can talk for hours about objects they own, the great things they’ve done or are going to do, and the famous people they hang out with. Often, they exaggerate shamelessly, even when they have plenty of real achievements they could brag about. Nothing is ever enough for them. That’s why Narcissists want you, or at least your adulation. They’ll try so hard to impress you that it’s easy to believe that you’re actually important to them. This can be a fatal mistake; it’s not you they want, only your worship. They’ll suck that out and throw the rest away. To Narcissistic vampires, the objects, the achievements, and the high regard of other people mean nothing in themselves. They are fuel, like water forced across gills so that oxygen can be extracted. The technical term is Narcissistic supplies. If Narcissists don’t constantly demonstrate their specialness to themselves, they drown.