Grinding In Silence Quotes

There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. . . . Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord. . . .

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation...tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.

...my father, [was] a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee. At worst? He never beat her, but his pure, inarticulate fury would fill the house for days, weeks, at a time, making the air humid, hard to breathe, my father stalking around with his lower jaw jutting out, giving him the look of a wounded, vengeful boxer, grinding his teeth so loud you could hear it across the room ... I'm sure he told himself: 'I never hit her'. I'm sure because of this technicality he never saw himself as an abuser. But he turned our family life into an endless road trip with bad directions and a rage-clenched driver, a vacation that never got a chance to be fun.

So many pebbles on that beach—millions—all of them worn smooth by the sea’s relentless grinding, but not this one. This one had stayed sharp.

His frown was less dark and more confused."What's new for you? Dancing?" And so much more, but all I said was, "Yes." "And you let some strange college boy grind all over you for your first time? That's stupid, Ali." NOT GOING TO BE EMBARRASSED, NOT GOING TO BE EMBARRASSED."First, he wasn't grinding on me, and second, you're no better than him." A solid minute of silence, then "You are terrible for my ego, you know that?" I could say the same to him.

Matthias flinched, teeth grinding. "Which one of them told you?" He zeroed in on Ayden. "One?" I said. With a growl, Matthias pushed a button on his watch and spoke into it. "What part of 'don't tell her anything' didn't you all understand?" A moment of silence, then Blake's voice cracked through static, "Can't-" The static sounded suspiciously like crinkling paper. "Hear-" More "static" then, "break- up.

We sat in silence, listening to strange creaks and groans in the maze, the echo of stones grinding together as tunnels changed, grew, and expanded. The dark made me think about the visions I’d seen of Nico di Angelo, and suddenly I realized something.

I dread dinner with Father. I dread his suffocating shroud of silence. I dread his end-of-day rituals. Most of all, I detest what comes last: his lock-up-for-the-night clatter. These sounds rasp my already fragile nerves. Click, clang, grind, zing, clap, schlik: horrid sounds.

Within a few years these "jokes" as we comedians call them, will have been entirely purged from my work in favour, exclusively, of grinding repetition, embarrassing silence and passive-aggressive monotony.

I’m feeling the full force of the guilt of being unable to keep up, of having now fallen so far behind that I can’t imagine a way back in. That grinding mix of grief, exhaustion, lost will, lost hope. My only tenable position is to retreat into a dignified silence, but that’s not what I want at all. I want to give an account of myself, force everyone else to understand.

All's ringing, roaring, grinding, breakers' crash - and silence all at once, release: it means he is tiptoeing over pine needles, so as not to startle the light sleep of space. And it means he is counting the grains in the blasted ears; it means he has come again to the Daryal Gorge, accursed and black, from another funeral. And again Moscow, where the heart's fever burns. Far off the deadly sleighbell chimes, someone is lost two steps from home in waist-high snow. The worst of times...

Now the evening's at its noon, its meridian. The outgoing tide has simmered down, and there's a lull-like the calm in the eye of a hurricane - before the reverse tide starts to set in. The last acts of the three-act plays are now on, and the after-theater eating places are beginning to fill up with early comers; Danny's and Lindy's - yes, and Horn & Hardart too. Everybody has got where they wanted to go - and that was out somewhere. Now everybody will want to get back where they came from - and that's home somewhere. Or as the coffee-grinder radio, always on the beam, put it at about this point: 'New York, New York, it's a helluva town, The Bronx is up, the Battery's down, And the people ride around in a hole in the ground. Now the incoming tide rolls in; the hours abruptly switch back to single digits again, and it's a little like the time you put your watch back on entering a different time zone. Now the buses knock off and the subway expresses turn into locals and the locals space themselves far apart; and as Johnny Carson's face hits millions of screens all at one and the same time, the incoming tide reaches its crest and pounds against the shore. There's a sudden splurge, a slew of taxis arriving at the hotel entrance one by one as regularly as though they were on a conveyor belt, emptying out and then going away again. Then this too dies down, and a deep still sets in. It's an around-the-clock town, but this is the stretch; from now until the garbage-grinding trucks come along and tear the dawn to shreds, it gets as quiet as it's ever going to get. This is the deep of the night, the dregs, the sediment at the bottom of the coffee cup. The blue hours; when guys' nerves get tauter and women's fears get greater. Now guys and girls make love, or kill each other or sometimes both. And as the windows on the 'Late Show' title silhouette light up one by one, the real ones all around go dark. And from now on the silence is broken only by the occasional forlorn hoot of a bogged-down drunk or the gutted-cat squeal of a too sharply swerved axle coming around a turn. Or as Billy Daniels sang it in Golden Boy: While the city sleeps, And the streets are clear, There's a life that's happening here. ("New York Blues")

I OPEN THE DOOR to my cottage these evenings on a silence so thick it falls upon me like a blanket. Of all the lonely moments of my day, this one is always the loneliest. I confess I have sometimes been reduced to muttering my thoughts aloud like a mad-woman when the need for a human voice becomes too strong. I mislike this, for I fear the line between myself and madness is as fine these days as a cobweb, and I have seen what it means when a soul crosses over into that dim and wretched place. But I, who always prided myself on grace, now allow myself a deliberate clumsiness. I let my feet land heavily. I clatter the hearth tools. And when I draw water, I let the bucket chain grind on the stone, just to hear ragged noise instead of the smothering silence.

FOR THE VOICELESS by El Niño Salvaje I speak for the ones who cannot speak, for the voiceless. I raise my voice and wave my arms and shout for the ones you do not see, perhaps cannot see, for the invisible. For the poor, the powerless, the disenfranchised; for the victims of this so-called “war on drugs,” for the eighty thousand murdered by the narcos, by the police, by the military, by the government, by the purchasers of drugs and the sellers of guns, by the investors in gleaming towers who have parlayed their “new money” into hotels, resorts, shopping malls, and suburban developments. I speak for the tortured, burned, and flayed by the narcos, beaten and raped by the soldiers, electrocuted and half-drowned by the police. I speak for the orphans, twenty thousand of them, for the children who have lost both or one parent, whose lives will never be the same. I speak for the dead children, shot in crossfires, murdered alongside their parents, ripped from their mothers’ wombs. I speak for the people enslaved, forced to labor on the narcos’ ranches, forced to fight. I speak for the mass of others ground down by an economic system that cares more for profit than for people. I speak for the people who tried to tell the truth, who tried to tell the story, who tried to show you what you have been doing and what you have done. But you silenced them and blinded them so that they could not tell you, could not show you. I speak for them, but I speak to you—the rich, the powerful, the politicians, the comandantes, the generals. I speak to Los Pinos and the Chamber of Deputies, I speak to the White House and Congress, I speak to AFI and the DEA, I speak to the bankers, and the ranchers and the oil barons and the capitalists and the narco drug lords and I say— You are the same. You are all the cartel. And you are guilty. You are guilty of murder, you are guilty of torture, you are guilty of rape, of kidnapping, of slavery, of oppression, but mostly I say that you are guilty of indifference. You do not see the people that you grind under your heel. You do not see their pain, you do not hear their cries, they are voiceless and invisible to you and they are the victims of this war that you perpetuate to keep yourselves above them. This is not a war on drugs. This is a war on the poor. This is a war on the poor and the powerless, the voiceless and the invisible, that you would just as soon be swept from your streets like the trash that blows around your ankles and soils your shoes. Congratulations. You’ve done it. You’ve performed a cleansing. A limpieza. The country is safe now for your shopping malls and suburban tracts, the invisible are safely out of sight, the voiceless silent as they should be. I speak these last words, and now you will kill me for it. I only ask that you bury me in the fosa común—the common grave—with the faceless and the nameless, without a headstone. I would rather be with them than you. And I am voiceless now, and invisible.

I’ll Open the Window Our embrace lasted too long. We loved right down to the bone. I hear the bones grind, I see our two skeletons. Now I am waiting till you leave, till the clatter of your shoes is heard no more. Now, silence. Tonight I am going to sleep alone on the bedclothes of purity. Aloneness is the first hygienic measure. Aloneness will enlarge the walls of the room, I will open the window and the large, frosty air will enter, healthy as tragedy. Human thoughts will enter and human concerns, misfortune of others, saintliness of others. They will converse softly and sternly. Do not come anymore. I am an animal very rarely.

I realise suddenly how this season of illness has rearranged my mind into a library of paranoia. I am afraid of being doubted, and I’m afraid of being found out. I am wondering what all those other people, whom I used to see every day, are thinking of me. Are they gossiping, or has some moribund discretion fallen over my name? I’m not sure which is worse. I’m feeling the full force of the guilt of being unable to keep up, of having now fallen so far behind that I can’t imagine a way back in. That grinding mix of grief, exhaustion, lost will, lost hope. My only tenable position is to retreat into a dignified silence, but that’s not what I want at all. I want to give an account of myself, force everyone else to understand. Most of all, I want to disappear. I’m almost desperate to find a way to absent myself easily from the situation, like cutting around my outline with a craft knife and cleanly excising myself from the record. But that, I know, would only leave a human-shaped hole. I imagine everybody gazing into the space where I ought to be.

I called the Keep, introduced myself to the disembodied female voice on the phone, and asked for the Beast Lord. In less than fifteen seconds Curran came on the line. “I’m going into hiding with Jim.” The silence on the other side of the phone had a distinctly sinister undertone. Perhaps he thought that his kissing superpowers had derailed me. Fat chance. I would keep him from having to kill Derek. That was a burden he didn’t need. “I thought about this morning,” I said, doing my best to sound calm and reasonable. “I’ve instructed the super to change the locks. If I ever catch you in my apartment again, I will file a formal complaint. I’ve taken your food, under duress, but I did take it. You rescued me once or twice, and you’ve seen me near naked. I realize that you’re judging this situation by shapeshifter standards, and you expect me to fall on my back with my legs spread.” “Not necessarily.” His voice matched mine in calmness. “You can fall on your hands and knees if you prefer. Or against the wall. Or on the kitchen counter. I suppose I might let you be on top, if you make it worth my while.” I didn’t grind my teeth—he would’ve heard it. I had to be calm and reasonable. “My point is this: no.” “No?” “There will be no falling, no sex, no you and me.” “I wanted to kiss you when you were in your house. In Savannah.” Why the hell was my heart pounding? “And?” “You looked afraid. That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.” Be calm and reasonable. “You flatter yourself. You’re not that scary.” “After I kissed you this morning, you were afraid again. Right after you looked like you were about to melt.” Melt? “You’re scared there might be something there, between you and me.” Wow. I struggled to swallow that little tidbit. “Every time I think you’ve reached the limits of arrogance, you show me new heights. Truly, your egotism is like the Universe—ever expanding.” “You thought about dragging me into your bed this morning.” “I thought about stabbing you and running away screaming. You broke into my house without permission and slobbered all over me. You’re a damn lunatic! And don’t give me that line about smelling my desire; I know it’s bullshit.” “I didn’t need to smell you. I could tell by the dreamy look in your eyes and the way your tongue licked the inside of my mouth.” “Enjoy the memory,” I ground out. “That’s the last time it will ever happen.” “Go play your games with Jim. I’ll find you both when I need you.” Arrogant asshole. “I tell you what, if you find us before those three days run out, I’ll cook you a damn dinner and serve it to you naked.” “Is that a promise?” “Yes. Go fuck yourself.” I slammed the phone down. Well, then. That was perfectly reasonable. On the other side of the counter an older, heavyset man stared at me like I had sprouted horns. Glenda handed me the money I’d given her. “That was some conversation. It was worth ten bucks.

I’ve sat at the piano for hours already, looking for lyrics and melodies, but everything sounds the same and I feel as uninspired as ever. Does it mean I’m finished? A more sobering thought: if I’m finished, would I miss it? But the truth is, I’ve been here before. Many times. We all have. So how do we find the faith to press on? Remember. Remember, Hebrew children, who you once were in Egypt. Remember the altars set up along the way to remind yourselves that you made the journey and God rescued you from sword and famine, from chariots and pestilence, that once you were there, but now you are here. It happened. Our memories are fallible, residing in that most complex and mysterious organ in the human body (and therefore the known universe), capable of being suppressed, manipulated, altered, but also profoundly powerful and able to transport a person to a place fifty years ago all because of a whiff of your grandfather’s cologne or an old book or the salty air. As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. Remember with every sip of wine that we shared this meal, you and I. Remember. So I look at the last album, the last book, and am forced to admit that I didn’t know anymore then than I do now. Every song is an Ebenezer stone, evidence of God’s faithfulness. I just need to remember. Trust is crucial. So is self-forgetfulness and risk and a measure of audacity. And now that I think about it, there’s also wonder, insight, familiarity with Scripture, passion, a good night’s sleep, breakfast (preferably an egg sandwich), an encouraging voice, diligence, patience. I need silence. Privacy. Time—that’s what I need: more time. But first I need a vacation, because I’ve been really grinding away at this other stuff and my mental cache is full. A deadline would be great. I work best with deadlines, and maybe some bills piling up. Some new guitar strings would help, and a nice candle. And that’s all I need, in the words of Steve Martin’s The Jerk. This is the truth: all I really need is a guitar, some paper, and discipline. If only I would apply myself.

When all the Stars become a Memory' When all the stars become a memory Hid in the heart of Heaven : when the sun At last is resting from his weary run, Sinking to glorious silence in the sea Of God's own glory : when the immensity Of Nature's universe its fate has won And its reward : when Death to death is done And deathless Being's all that is to be- Your praise shall 'scape the grinding of the mills: My songs shall live to drive their blinding cars Through fiery apocalypse to Heaven's bars! When God's loosed might the prophet's word fulfils, My songs shall see the ruin of the hills, My songs shall sing the dirges of the stars

In the cause of silence, each of us draws the face of her own fear--fear of contempt, of censure, or some judgment, or recognition, of challenge, of annihilation. But most of all, I think, we fear the very visibility without which we also cannot truly live. Within this country where racial difference creates a constant, if unspoken, distortion of vision, Black women have on one hand always been highly visible, and so, on the other hand, have been rendered invisible through the depersonalization of racism. Even within the women’s movement, we have had to fight, and still do, for that very visibility which also renders us most vulnerable, our Blackness. For to survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson--that we were never meant to survive. Not as human beings. And neither were most of you here today, Black or not. And that visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength. Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid.

But I can cite ten other reasons for not being a father." "First of all, I don't like motherhood," said Jakub, and he broke off pensively. "Our century has already unmasked all myths. Childhood has long ceased to be an age of innocence. Freud discovered infant sexuality and told us all about Oedipus. Only Jocasta remains untouchable; no one dares tear off her veil. Motherhood is the last and greatest taboo, the one that harbors the most grievous curse. There is no stronger bond than the one that shackles mother to child. This bond cripples the child's soul forever and prepares for the mother, when her son has grown up, the most cruel of all the griefs of love. I say that motherhood is a curse, and I refuse to contribute to it." "Another reason I don't want to add to the number of mothers," said Jakub with some embarrassment, "is that I love the female body, and I am disgusted by the thought of my beloved's breast becoming a milk-bag." "The doctor here will certainly confirm that physicians and nurses treat women hospitalized after an aborted pregnancy more harshly than those who have given birth, and show some contempt toward them even though they themselves will, at least once in their lives, need a similar operation. But for them it's a reflex stronger than any kind of thought, because the cult of procreation is an imperative of nature. That's why it's useless to look for the slightest rational argument in natalist propaganda. Do you perhaps think it's the voice of Jesus you're hearing in the natalist morality of the church? Do you think it's the voice of Marx you're hearing in the natalist propaganda of the Communist state? Impelled merely by the desire to perpetuate the species, mankind will end up smothering itself on its small planet. But the natalist propaganda mill grinds on, and the public is moved to tears by pictures of nursing mothers and infants making faces. It disgusts me. It chills me to think that, along with millions of other enthusiasts, I could be bending over a cradle with a silly smile." "And of course I also have to ask myself what sort of world I'd be sending my child into. School soon takes him away to stuff his head with the falsehoods I've fought in vain against all my life. Should I see my son become a conformist fool? Or should I instill my own ideas into him and see him suffer because he'll be dragged into the same conflicts I was?" "And of course I also have to think of myself. In this country children pay for their parents' disobedience, and parents for their children's disobedience. How many young people have been denied education because their parents fell into disgrace? And how many parents have chosen permanent cowardice for the sole purpose of preventing harm to their children? Anyone who wants to preserve at least some freedom here shouldn't have children," Jakub said, and fell into silence. "The last reason carries so much weight that it counts for five," said Jakub. "Having a child is to show an absolute accord with mankind. If I have a child, it's as though I'm saying: I was born and have tasted life and declare it so good that it merits being duplicated." "And you have not found life to be good?" asked Bertlef. Jakub tried to be precise, and said cautiously: "All I know is that I could never say with complete conviction: Man is a wonderful being and I want to reproduce him.

At the end of the lane Elizabeth put down her side of the trunk and sank down wearily beside Lucinda upon its hard top, emotionally exhausted. A wayward chuckle bubbled up inside her, brought on by exhaustion, fright, defeat, and the last remnants of triumph over having gotten just a little of her own back from the man who’d ruined her life. The only possible explanation for Ian Thornton’s behavior today was that he was a complete madman. With a shake of her head Elizabeth made herself stop thinking of him. At the moment she had so many new worries she hardly knew how to begin to cope. She glanced sideways at her stalwart duenna, and an amused smile touched her lips as she recalled Lucinda’s actions at the cottage. On the one hand, Lucinda rejected all emotional displays as totally unseemly-yet at the same time she herself was possessed of the most formidable temper Elizabeth had ever witnessed. It was as if Lucinda did not regard her own outbursts of ire as emotional. Without the slightest hesitation or regret Lucinda could verbally flay a wrongdoer into small, bite-sized pieces and then mentally stamp him into the ground and grind him beneath the heel of her sturdy shoe. On the other hand, were Elizabeth to exhibit the smallest bit of fear right now over their daunting predicament, Lucinda would instantly stiffen up with disapproval and deliver one of her sharp reprimands. Cognizant of that, Elizabeth glanced worriedly at the sky, where black clouds were rolling in, heralding a storm; but when she spoke she sounded deliberately and absurdly bland. “I believe it’s starting to rain, Lucinda,” she remarked while cold drizzle began to slap the leaves of the tree over their heads. “So it would seem,” said Lucinda. She opened her umbrella with a smart snap, holding it over them both. “It’s fortunate you have your umbrella.” “We aren’t likely to drown from a little rain.” “I shouldn’t think so.” Elizabeth drew a steadying breath, looking around at the harsh Scottish cliffs. In the tone of one asking someone’s opinion on a rhetorical question, Elizabeth said, “Do you suppose there are wolves out here?” “I believe,” Lucinda replied, “they probably constitute a larger threat to our health at present than the rain.” The sun was setting, and the early spring air had a sharp bite in it; Elizabeth was almost positive they’d be freezing by nightfall. “It’s a bit chilly.” “Rather.” “We have warmer clothes in the trunks, though.” “I daresay we won’t be too uncomfortable, in that case.” Elizabeth’s wayward sense of humor chose that unlikely moment to assert itself. “No, we shall be snug as can be while the wolves gather around us.” “Quite.” Hysteria, hunger, and exhaustion-combined with Lucinda’s unswerving calm and her earlier unprecedented entry into the cottage with umbrella flailing-were making Elizabeth almost giddy. “Of course, if the wolves realize how hungry we are, there’s every change they’ll give us a wide berth.” “A cheering possibility.” “We’ll build a fire,” Elizabeth said, her lips twitching. “That will keep them at bay, I believe.” When Lucinda remained silent for several moments, occupied with her own thoughts, Elizabeth confided with an odd surge of happiness. “Do you know something, Lucinda? I don’t think I would have missed today for anything.” Lucinda’s thin gray brows shot up, and she cast a dubious sideways glance at Elizabeth. “I realize that must sound extremely peculiar, but can you imagine how absolutely exhilarating it was to have that man at the point of a gun for just a few minutes? Do you find that-odd?” Elizabeth asked when Lucinda stared straight ahead in angry, thoughtful silence. “What I find off,” she said in a tone of frosty disapproval mingled with surprise, “is that you evoke such animosity in that man.” “I think he’s quite demented.” “I would have said embittered.” “About what?” “That is an interesting question.

But the murderous hatred of the Nazis, their will to destroy, was apparently stronger; too many people, moreover, stood silently by and watched the Nazi machine grind on. “The little man is just as guilty, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago!” Anne realized. “There’s in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage” (May 3, 1944; ver. A). The Nazis and their silent helpers could take Ann’es life from her, but not her voice. “I know what I want, I have a goal, have an opinion, have a religion and love. . . . If God lets me live, I shall attain more than Mummy has ever done, I shall not remain insignificant, I shall work in the world for mankind” (April 11, 1944, ver. A). In the end, the Nazi terror could not silence Anne’s voice, which still rings out for all of us, whom she had hoped so ardently to serve.

In this era of instant everything, it is unsurprising that music is a choice stress release for hyperactive Americans. Increasing social isolationism and the decline in traditional family life goads anxious Americans to feel a need to zone out in a musical blur, addictively listening to ear splitting music while performing ordinary activities such as walking, doing the laundry, driving a car, waiting at a bus stop, or fixing and eating dinner. A soundless environment is terrifying to Americans. When we listen to music, we receive absolution from our autobiographical history; we take a temporary reprieve from the grind of daily life.

lanes. The mill wheel on the horizon turning its daily grind as chimneys breathed tendrils of smoke into the Wiltshire sky and smartly attired gentlemen played cricket on the Barley Field. Nothing now. Not even the distant din of agricultural equipment ploughing the fields. Just silence. Heavy. Oppressive. I glimpsed something then, a quick movement at the very edge of my field of vision. There were enough trees in the churchyard; it might easily have been a branch stirring on the wind . . . I looked to the great elm tree at the far end of the churchyard and saw, in the shadow cast by its overhanging branches, an ornate memorial stone fashioned from smooth white marble in the shape of a lamb. On either side of the lamb were two stone urns. Something told me there was only one family in Imber who could have afforded such a monument. With weather-worn angels looming on all sides of me, I crossed the churchyard to examine the impressive monument, and wasn’t surprised to find I was right. IN LOVING MEMORY OF PIERRE HOWISON HARTWELL APRIL 1925 – OCTOBER 1930

The Spring Has Many Silences - 1901-1991 The spring has many sounds: Roller skates grind the pavement to noisy dust. Birds chop the still air into small melodies. The wind forgets to be the weather for a time And whispers old advice for summer. The sea stretches itself And gently creaks and cracks its bones…. The spring has many silences: Buds are mysteriously unbound With a discreet significance, And buds say nothing. There are things that even the wind will not betray. Earth puts her finger to her lips And muffles there her quiet, quick activity…. Do not wonder at me That I am hushed This April night beside you. The spring has many silences.

What I say is my business. How you react to it is your business To ascertain someone’s true character, don't listen to what they say, look at what they do The more intelligent you are, the more of an individual you are (same with creativity). Memory is the prison and imagination the key that frees us from our prejudice and preconceptions Attention addiction is the most pernicious of addictions. People will destroy themselves and the lives of others around them, just to get or keep attention focused on them and their need for its drug like dependency Sensitive people are more present than the insensitive, which is why the former jump at the sound of a pin dropping and the latter, not even to a ton weight falling beside them What you admire you mourn the passing of. What you despise, you are glad to see the back of Memory and perception depends upon silence and stillness as forgetting depends upon noise and motion (concentration / dispersal of energy and attention) Reality is not open to discussion. It is not something that changes with your opinion. It works how it works because that is how it works. The laws of reality are the laws of reality and that is it. If seeing is believing, is hearing deceiving (Being told the Emperor has got new clothes, versus seeing he hasn’t)? Stillness and silence is about staying present in the present. Noise and motion is abandonment (moving away from your position in time and space). Discovery is live, that is of the present. Memory is of the dead past (a recording). The first is always a surprise to you, the second is not. People mistake where consciousness is directed as being consciousness itself, which it isn’t If we think that we can't solve a problem, we want to eradicate it instead (stop it dead). If we can find a solution, we want to pat ourselves on the back for our creativity or understanding (keeping life / existence moving on, instead of it grinding to a halt). Culture, habit is that which reinforces our sense of identity Concentration is control because you are being present Thinking is an individual task, it is not a discussion with others, which is an exchange of ideas (other people’s thoughts) You will never understand a problem and resolve it, without exploring it and in depth. To some, yesterday is the nightmare and tomorrow the dream, to others it is the reverse Everything seems crazy until you understand it, when it instantly makes sense, even if you you still don’t think it’s sensible

Will is endless striving. Will is desire without satisfaction. The preview but never the movie. Sex but never climax. Will is what makes you order a third Scotch when two was enough. Will is that grinding sound in your head that, while occasionally muffled, is never silenced, even after the fourth Scotch. It gets worse. The Will is destined to harm itself. “At bottom,” says Schopenhauer, “the Will must live on itself, since nothing exists besides it, and it is a hungry will.

Last year I saw three migrating Canada geese flying low over the frozen duck pond where I stood. I heard a heart-stopping blast of speed before I saw them. They thundered across the pond, and back, and back again. I think of this now, and my brain vibrates to the blurred bastinado of feathered bone. “Our God shall come,” it says in a psalm for Advent, “and shall not keep silence; there shall go before him a consuming fire, and a mighty tempest shall be stirred up round about him.” It is the shock I remember. Not only does something come if you wait, but it pours over you like a waterfall, like a tidal wave. You wait in all naturalness without expectation or hope, emptied, translucent, and that which comes rocks and topples you; it will shear, loose, launch, winnow, grind. I have glutted on richness and welcome hyssop. This distant silver November sky, these sere branches of trees, shed, and bearing their pure and secret colors- this is the real world, not the world gilded and pearled. I stand under wiped skies directly, naked, without intercessors. Frost winds have lofted my body’s bones with all their restless sprints to an airborne raven’s glide. I am buoyed by a calm and effortless longing, an angled pitch of the will, like the set of the wings of the monarch which climbed a hill by falling still.

You're not going to answer, are you?" Jaenelle asked after a minute of teeth-grinding silence. "No." "Don't you know the answer?" "Whether I know the answer or not is beside the point. It's not something a man discusses with a young girl." "But you know the answer." Daemon growled.

I’ve been in the kitchens of a lot of restaurants and drive-ins selling Multimixers around the country,” I told them, “and I have never seen anything to equal the potential of this place of yours. Why don’t you open a series of units like this? It would be a gold mine for you and for me, too, because every one would boost my Multimixer sales. What d’you say?” Silence.

My body stiffens at the silence after the rumbling truck engines shut off. Doors squeak open and firm footsteps grind against the broken asphalt. I sit next to Lucas, frozen in place behind an abandoned car long ago stripped of tires and dried of gasoline.

You are carrying Luis Philippe's child," he stated without preamble. The name did not sound strange on this man's tongue, but it took Lily a moment to respond to it. She merely nodded her head in reply. She had a feeling she would need to save her voice for what would follow. "I had hoped my grandson would find a wife among his own people." Antonio took a bedroom chair but continued to hold himself stiffly upright. Lily lifted an inquiring brow. His own people? Had the man forgotten that Cade was equally Indian? Antonio scowled at her response. "Among my people. It would be easier to show that he is a de Suela if he had married appropriately." This man had come here with an axe to grind, and nothing she could say would stop him. Why waste her voice in trying? She reached for the shawl on her bedside stand and wrapped it around her. Her silence forced de Suela to realize he left her no room for comment. "He tells me you are a wealthy lady in your own right. I should not complain. I apologize. I am an old man and have come to realize that many of my dreams will never come true. For many years I have wished for a child to carry on my name, but I thought it was not to be. Now that I have found my grandson, I wish him to be everything that I would have made of him. I forget that he is already a man of his own." "Very much so," Lily whispered, finally hearing something with which she could agree. Antonio nodded. "I think you are a good woman. We will make the family see that you are one of us, as they must come to see that Luis is mine. It is good that he takes my name. The child you carry will be a de Suela. Luis has done the right thing by bringing you here. I am not so old that there is not time to see my destiny passed on to my grandson and his child." Lily felt a flicker of alarm, but the old man was already rising, and the shakiness of his hand on the stick prevented her from protesting aloud.

She breaks the silence with a breathy, "Oh my God" Yeah. No shit. Because I’m about to blow, and all I’ve done is grind myself against her like three times. I’m afraid to count cuz it might only be twice. Jesus

Sometimes, in the heat of battle, there’s a moment of calm, when time slows and the shouting and the clamour fade away and you see the red veins in the whites of an enemy’s eyes and you know—not believe, not hope—know you can’t miss. They’re rare, those moments. The other ninety-five percent of the time, war’s just a tedious, bloody grind, composed in equal parts of boredom and terror, but then it comes again, that shining moment, when the din of battle fades and your body’s a rod connecting earth and sky.

One way or another, I’m determined to see Hap apprenticed well. But once I do—” “Once you do, you’ll be free to take up your own life again. I’ve a feeling it will call you back to Buckkeep.” “You’ve a ‘a feeling’?” I asked him dryly. “Is this a Fool’s feeling, or a White Prophet’s feeling?” “A time or three, it did seem as if what you predicted came true. Though your predictions were always so nebulous, it seemed to me that you could make them mean anything.” He swallowed. “It was not my prophecies that were nebulous, but your understanding of them. When I arrived, I warned you that I had come back into your life because I must, not because I wanted to. Not that I didn’t want to see you again. I mean only that if I could spare you somehow from all we must do, I would.” “And what is it, exactly, that we must do?” “Exactly?” he queried with a raised eyebrow. “Exactly. And precisely,” I challenged him. “Oh, very well then. Exactly and precisely what we must do. We must save the world, you and I. Again.” He leaned back, tipping his chair onto its back legs. His pale brows shot toward his hairline as he widened his eyes at me. I lowered my brow into my hands. But he was grinning like a maniac and I could not contain my own smile. “Again? I don’t recall that we did it the first time.” “Of course we did. You’re alive aren’t you? And there is an heir to the Farseer throne. Hence, we changed the course of all time. In the rutted path of fate, you were a rock, my dear Fitz. And you have shifted the grinding wheel out of its rut and into a new track. Now, of course, we must see that it remains there. That may be the most difficult part of all.” “And what, exactly and precisely, must we do to ensure that?” I knew his words were bait for mockery, but as ever, I could not resist the question. “It’s quite simple.” He ate a bite of eggs, enjoying my suspense. “Very simple, really.” He pushed the eggs around on his plate, scooped up a bite, then set his spoon down. He looked up at me, and his smile faded. When he spoke, his voice was solemn. “I must see that you survive. Again. And you must see that the Farseer heir inherits the throne.” “And the thought of my survival makes you sad?” I demanded in perplexity. “Oh, no. Never that. The thought of what you must go through to survive fills me with foreboding.” I pushed my plate away, my appetite fled. “I still don’t understand you,” I replied irritably. “Yes you do,” he contradicted me implacably. “I suppose you say you don’t because it is easier that way, for both of us. But this time, my friend, I will lay it cold before you. Think back in the last time we were together. Were there not times when death would have been easier and less painful than life?” His words were shards of ice in my belly, but I am nothing if not stubborn. “Well. And when is that ever not true?” I demanded of him. There have been very few times in my life when I had been able to shock the Fool into silence. That was one of them. He stared at me, his strange eyes getting wider and wider. Then, a grin broke over his face. He stood so suddenly he nearly overturned his chair, and then lunged at me to seize me in a wild hug. He drew a deep breath as if something that had constricted him had suddenly sprung free. “Of course that is true,” he whispered by my ear. And then, in a shout that near deafened me, “Of course it is!” Before I could shrug free of his strangling embrace, he sprang apart from me. He cut a caper that made motley of his ordinary clothes, and then sprang lightly to my tabletop. He flung his arms wide as if he once more performed for all of King Shrewd’s court rather than an audience of one. “Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make. Am I right?

Kids are jumping out the windows of burning buildings, falling to their deaths. And we think the problem is that they’re jumping. This is what we’ve done: We’ve tried to find ways to get them to stop jumping. Convince them that burning alive is better than leaving when the shit gets too hot for them to take. We’ve boarded up windows and made better nets to catch them, found more convincing ways to tell them not to jump. They’re making the decision that it’s better to be dead and gone than to be alive in what we have here, this life, the one we made for them, the one they’ve inherited. And we’re either involved and have a hand in each one of their deaths, just like I did with my brother, or we’re absent, which is still involvement, just like silence is not just silence but is not speaking up. I’m in suicide prevention now. I’ve had fifteen relatives commit suicide over the course of my life, not counting my brother. I had one community I was working with recently in South Dakota tell me they were grieved out. That was after experiencing seventeen suicides in their community in just eight months. But how do we instill in our children the will to live? At these conferences. And in the offices. In the emails and at the community events, there has to be an urgency, a do-whatever-at-any-cost sort of spirit behind what we do. Or fuck the programs, maybe we should send the money to the families themselves, who need it and know what to do with it, since we all know what that money goes toward, salaries and conferences like this one. I’m sorry. I get paid outta that shit too, and actually, shit, I’m not sorry, this issue shouldn’t be met with politeness or formality. We can’t get lost in the career advancements and grant objectives, the day-to-day grind, as if we have to do what we do. We choose what we do, and in that choice comes the community. We are choosing for them. All the time. That’s what these kids are feeling. They have no control. Guess what kinda control they do have? We need to be about what we’re always saying we’re about. And if we can’t, and we’re really just about ourselves, we need to step aside, let somebody else from the community who really cares, who’ll really do something, let them come in and help. Fuck all the rest.

What's generally happening is that you are more present in the beginnings of these relationships and your subconscious, where ego pops up, is suppressed to a large extent. At the beginning of this joyous union, you were able to unconsciously silence that little voice of judgment because it was overwhelmed by the yearning for the connection. This little voice is the ego constantly trying to interject judgments into the mix based upon your self-identification and beliefs .  However, as the daily grind of life starts to intercede, we are not as conscious as we once were and this is where the subconscious ego sees its opening and pounces.

Enough,” Soren clipped. I was grinding my teeth to dust, but Meridia’s insults made it easier to maintain my silence if anything. I’d never been good at formulating words when I was truly angry. All of my best retorts came to me hours later, usually when I was alone in the shower.

Frequently, you find yourself in an awkward silence or a pregnant pause in the conversation. It is up to you to either invigorate the conversation or allow it to slowly grind to a halt. Do your part to charge up the conversation by being prepared with questions on the origin and history of those people you are with. History Lessons •How did you two meet? •How did you get started ______? •What got you interested in this area? •When did you fi rst know you wanted to be a ______? •What brought you to Colorado? •How do you all know each other? •What got you interested in marketing? •What gave you the idea for this business? •What happened fi rst?

Being is continuous, while doing has a beginning and an end. I compare being to silence and doing to the words we say. Just like silence holds our words and is often taken for granted, so does being “hold” our doing, and we take being for granted. Another parallel, used traditionally to describe the relationship between being and doing is the grinding stone—it is made up of a central pole, which is still and immobile and around which the stone turns. The invitation is to find that still place within yourself, and direct your actions from that point of view. If we are more aware of our being and place it on the “throne” of our value system, then our doing would be more meaningful, purposeful, and effective.

And the world too will be in a bad way if ever it happens that there are no more wildernesses, no more silent unspoilt places to which a man can retire and think, if every corner of the earth is filled with noise and underground tunnels and soaring airplanes and communication networks, if cables and sewers scar the surface and undermine the crust. Mankind needs to keep a few quiet corners for those who seek a respite and feel the urge to retreat for a while from over-civilization to creative silence. For those who occasionally feel the hermit instinct there should at least be a chance to try it out. The law of absolute utility, of total functionalism, is not a law of life. There is an extraordinarily close connection between the wilderness and fruitful, satisfying life. Where all the secluded places ring with tumult, where the silent muses have been degraded to pack horses and all the sources of inspiration forced into the service of official mills grinding out propaganda, the wilderness has indeed been conquered—but at what a price. Even greater devastation has taken its place.

Young first encountered George Mallory in 1909, at a Cambridge dinner. At Easter he invited Mallory to Pen y Pass, and the following summer the two went off, at Young’s expense, to the Alps, where they were joined by Donald Robertson, a close friend and peer of Hilton Young’s. They climbed a number of peaks, none more dramatic than the southeast ridge of the Nesthorn, where Mallory nearly died. He was leading at the time, inching his way across fluted ice, seeking a route around the third of the four great towers that blocked the way up the ridge. Young would later recall his sudden astonishment: “I saw the boots flash from the wall without even a scrape; and, equally soundlessly, a grey streak flickered downward, and past me, and out of sight. So much did the wall, to which he had clung so long, overhang that from the instant he lost hold he touched nothing until the rope stopped him in mid-air over the glacier. I had had time to think, as I flung my body forward on to the belayed rope, grinding it and my hands against the slab, that no rope could stand such a jerk; and even to think out what our next action must be—so instantaneous is thought.” Miraculously, the rope held and Mallory was uninjured.

Across the room Lant was grinding at mortar with his knife. Per knelt on the floor beside him, likewise digging at a seam. Spark had crossed to a rack of tools meant for tearing flesh, not stone. Her upper lip curled back as she selected one of the black iron implements. I turned my gaze away from that and met the Fool’s eyes. “I should go help them,” he said. “Not yet.” He gave me a questioning look. “Let me have this moment. All of you here with me. Just for a short time.” A smile suddenly came to me. “I have news for you,” I told him. I found I could still grin. “Fool, I’m a grandfather! Nettle has a baby girl now. Hope! Isn’t that a wonderful name?” “You. A grandfather.” He smiled with me. “Hope. A perfect name.” For a time we sat together in silence. I was so weary, and danger still threatened, but that did not steal the sweetness of being here, alive, with them. I was so tired. And my leg hurt. Nonetheless, I had this moment. I slipped into the wolf’s enjoyment of the immediate. Rest a moment. I will keep watch. I didn’t realize I had dozed until I twitched awake. I was thirsty and ravenously hungry. Bee was holding my hand and was asleep against me. Skin-to-skin, I felt my daughter as a part of me. I smiled slowly as I became aware of her Skill-wall. Self-taught. She would be strong with it. I lifted my eyes to the Fool. He was haggard but smiling. “Still here,” he said softly.

I realise, suddenly, how this season of illness has rearranged my mind into a library of paranoia. I am afraid of being doubted, and I’m afraid of being found out. I am wondering what all those other people, whom I used to see every day, are thinking of me. Are they gossiping, or has some morbid discretion fallen over my name? I’m not sure which is worse. I’m feeling the full force of the guilt of being unable to keep up; of having now fallen so far behind that I can’t imagine a way back in. That grinding mix of grief, exhaustion, lost will, lost hope. My only tenable position is to retreat into a dignified silence, but that’s not what I want at all. I want to give an account of myself, force everyone else to understand.

You lead such a busy life?’ ‘Yes, I have always some of ‘em to look up, or something to look after. But I like business,’ said Pancks, getting on a little faster. ‘What’s a man made for?’ ‘For nothing else?’said Clennam. Pancks put the counter question, ‘What else?’ It packed up, in the smallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam’s life; and he made no answer. ‘That’s what I ask our weekly tenants,’ said Pancks. ‘Some of ‘em will pull long faces to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, we’re always grinding, drudging, toiling, every minute we’re awake. I say to them, What else are you made for? It shuts them up. They haven’t a word to answer. What else are you made for? That clinches it.’ ‘Ah dear, dear, dear!’sighed Clennam. ‘Here am I,’ said Pancks, pursuing his argument with the weekly tenant. ‘What else do you suppose I think I am made for? Nothing. Rattle me out of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and I’ll keep you always at it, you keep somebody else always at it. There you are with the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country.’ When they had walked a little further in silence, Clennam said: ‘Have you no taste for anything, Mr Pancks?’ ‘What’s taste?’ drily retorted Pancks. ‘Let us say inclination.’ ‘I have an inclination to get money, sir,’ said Pancks, ‘if you will show me how.’... ‘You are no great reader, I suppose?’ said Clennam. ‘Never read anything but letters and accounts.