Grip Inspirational Quotes

Strength comes, not in the grip, but the opening of the hand.

What did you do?” I mumble. He is just a few feet away from me now, but not close enough to hear me. As he passes me he stretches out his hand. He wraps it around my palm and squeezes. Squeezes, then lets go. His eyes are bloodshot; he is pale. “What did you do?” This time the question tears from my throat like a growl. I throw myself toward him, struggling against Peter’s grip, though his hands chafe. “What did you do?” I scream. “You die, I die too” Tobias looks over his shoulder at me. “I asked you not to do this. You made your decision. These are the repercussions.

... to keep moving up ... , you have to abandon the security of that ledge and reach for another hold. Letting go of that sense of security.. is the challenge. ... think of yourself as climbing a ladder. To move to the next rung, you must give up your grip and reach for the next one.

Don’t simply exist in this world, but grasp life’s potential by the jacket. Dare it to be all it can. Make life historical—a gripping account of accomplishment. Make life a mystery—a challenging, bold adventure. Make life heartfelt—an enduring, poetic romance. Whatever it is you make of your world, live the fairy tale.

There are going to be difficult hills to climb, and we might slip, but we have to know that God has a good grip on us and He will pull us up at the right time.

I will quote one sentence from this text, namely, the one with which it ended. It was also the sentence which finally dissolved the writer’s block that had inhibited the author from starting work. I have since used it whenever I myself have been gripped by fear of the blank sheet in front of me. It is infallible, and its effect is always the same: the knot unravels and a stream of words gushes out on to the virgin paper. It acts like a magic spell and I sometimes fancy it really is one. But, even if it isn’t the work of a sorcerer, it is certainly the most brilliant sentence any writer has ever devised. It runs: ‘This is where my story begins.’

And night falls on you too. You have survived, survived everything up to this moment. Grip tight, hum, laugh, cry. Forget nothing and think many things of it. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight.

When you hang on to your past, you are gripping an anchor that is swiftly moving to the bottom of the ocean. Sure, you have something to hang on to, but you are drowning, too.

Why is wisdom so fair? Why is beauty so wise? Because all else is temporary, while beauty and wisdom are the only real and constant aspects of truth that can be perceived by human means. And I don't mean the kind of surface beauty that fades with age, or the sort of shallow wisdom that gets lost in platitudes. True beauty grips your gut and squeezes your lungs, and makes you see with utmost clarity exactly what is before you. True wisdom then steps in, to interpret, illuminate, and form a life-altering insight.

There’s something helpless about truly being in love, the kind of love they write songs about, that inspires poetry and launches ships and wreaks havoc. It leaves you slightly off balance, controlling when you mean to cherish, smothering when you mean to hold close.

At first, when an idea, a poem, or the desire to write takes hold of you, work is a pleasure, a delight, and your enthusiasm knows no bounds. But later on you work with difficulty, doggedly, desperately. For once you have committed yourself to a particular work, inspiration changes its form and becomes an obsession, like a love-affair… which haunts you night and day! Once at grips with a work, we must master it completely before we can recover our idleness.

I hated him, loved him, wanted him, and yet I wished him away. So many conflicting emotions of wants and needs. So much fear. Not because of him, but because of myself—of how deep my feelings and desires were running, and how much I would fall if I happened to lose my grip.

Is it any wonder the power this man held over me - this man who did not run from his demons like most of us do, but embraced them as his own, clutching them to his heart in a choke-hold grip. He did not try to escape them by denying them or drugging them or bargaining with them. He met them where they lived, in the secret place most of us keep hidden. Warthrop was Warthrop down to the marrow of his bones, for his demons defined him; they breathed the breath of life into him; and without them, he would go down, as most of us do, into the purgatorial fog of a life unrealized.

...a river season will last as long as it takes you to reach your new place. If you get into the river and let it take you where you need to be, your river season will last an afternoon. But if you fear change and struggle and hold on to the rocks, the river season will last and last. It will not end until your body becomes exhausted, your grip weakens, your hands slide off the rocks and the current takes you to your new place.

Here at our ministry we refuse to present a picture of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” a portrait that tugs at your sentiments or pulls at your heartstrings. That’s because we deal with so many people who suffer, and when you’re hurting hard, you’re neither helped nor inspired by a syrupy picture of the Lord, like those sugary, sentimental images many of us grew up with. You know what I mean? Jesus with His hair parted down the middle, surrounded by cherubic children and bluebirds. Come on. Admit it: When your heart is being wrung out like a sponge, when you feel like Morton’s salt is being poured into your wounded soul, you don’t want a thin, pale, emotional Jesus who relates only to lambs and birds and babies. You want a warrior Jesus. You want a battlefield Jesus. You want his rigorous and robust gospel to command your sensibilities to stand at attention. To be honest, many of the sentimental hymns and gospel songs of our heritage don’t do much to hone that image. One of the favorite words of hymn writers in days gone by was sweet. It’s a term that down’t have the edge on it that it once did. When you’re in a dark place, when lions surround you, when you need strong help to rescue you from impossibility, you don’t want “sweet.” You don’t want faded pastels and honeyed softness. You want mighty. You want the strong arm an unshakable grip of God who will not let you go — no matter what.

If your grip on coins of life is not strong enough than they will gradually slip away from your hands,for surely one day you will find that your hands are empty

Things can get tough out there. I am in no way saying life is easy and we should breeze through it like a fart through silk filter; we are going to take our lumps and deal with our own unique adversity. What I am saying is that in all the chaos, remember to breathe, remember to smile, and remember that the only time to panic is when there is truly no tomorrow. Fortunately for the majority of us, tomorrow will always meet us in the morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh deck of cigarettes, ready to crack it's cocoon and mature into today. So ease the grip on your moralities and be yourself. Fantastic is really just the flaws. Nobody is perfect - not you, not me, not Jesus, Buddha, Jehovah, not God. But the great thing is that you do not have to be perfect to be alive, and that is what makes life absolutely perfect.

All the important parts, yes," I said firmly. "Maybe not all the eccentric details. Ask, and I will answer. What do you want to know?" "Everything." He had been leaning on his elbows, but he pushed back now and gripped the balustrade with both hands. "It's always this way with me: if it can be known, I want to know it.

Hands gripped my face as he held me imprisoned in that breathless moment, then pressed his forehead to mine. “I’ll never know what in seven hells inspired the universe to send you to me, Maevyth.” “Some might call it a punishment,” I said, smiling. “If this is punishment, then I welcome an eternity of suffering.” The kiss that followed was gentle and teasing in the way he merely brushed his lips across mine. “You consume me entirely, little moon witch.

I thought about keeping the money," Ove whispered at long last, and took his father's hand in a firmer grip, as if he was afraid of letting go. "I know," said his father, and squeezed his hand a little harder. "But I knew you would hand it in, and I knew a person like Tom wouldn't," said Ove. His father nodded. And not another word was said about it. Had Ove been the sort of man who contemplated how and when one became the sort of man one was, he might have said this was the day he learned that right has to be right. But he wasn't one to dwell on things like that. He contented himself with remembering that on this day he'd decided to be as little unlike his father as possible.

Have you ever had somebody grip you with a passion you never thought existed outside the fucking movies? As though they found you the most precious thing in the world? I felt it then, and couldn't believe that somebody would actually want me that much. I don't believe in Heaven as a place, but I sometimes think that if a person could write down how I felt at just that moment - if they could describe it perfectly - then that sentence would be something like Heaven to me. And as a final resting place, I'd be happy to have my name shrunk down and rested, invisibly, on the collar of the full stop at the end.

The “answer” doesn’t come in a formula or a one-sentence aphorism. Rather, the path to ongoing enlightenment begins by loosening our death grip on our opinions, beliefs, and ingrained behavior. When we let go, we create space to let in new insights and observations—we explore, we expand, and we become more aware. Letting go and opening up allows us to confront repressed feelings and fears, and allows love and compassion to flourish. That’s why one person’s “answer” might offer little insight to someone else.

How tragic it will be if we don't each come to grips with our own personal potential and learn the role the Lord has in mind for us. How sad if we waste one more day with a lack of commitment and not meet the measure of our creation.

For a man to find true freedom, he must free himself from the grip of his fears.

Your dream will keep you awake until you take a grip.

Perhaps it is the setting; rules tend to reduce their grip when you cross borders.

FAITH When your faith does not falter, problems falter. When your faith falters, problems tighten their grip on you.

As we grow in our family… let’s not forget that we, as a couple, still need attention… let’s not lose grip of the excitement of our flirtation and our passion for each other… while we tend to the 'we,' let’s not forget the 'us'.

Many of you are gripped by the loony idea that your intentions are different from the results you create. It simplifies life enormously the moment you accept that the results you create are your unconscious intentions made visibly manifest.

[it] isn't something you just get over. You don't go back to being who you were. It's more like a snow globe. War shakes you up, and suddenly all those pieces of your life - muscles, bones, thoughts, beliefs, relationships, even your dreams - are floating in the air out of your grip. They'll come down. I'm here to tell you that, with hard work, you'll recover. But they'll never come down where they once were. You're a changed person after combat. Not better or worse, just different.

There was no insecurity, there was no need to compare myself to others or compete. The most awe-inspiring person I ever had the privilege of loving chose me every single day, and I chose him. When that wasn’t the case, we parted ways. We didn’t drag it out, we didn’t try to convince the other. We didn’t feel the need to grip, and chase something that did not fulfill us or inspire us. It was natural, and organic, and it allowed for me to feel deeply and confidently. That is the kind of love you want.

It was Andrew realized, not because of tension or nervousness, but purely because of the pulse of her heart, and suddenly he was gripped by possibility once again, that as long as there was that movement in someone, there was capacity to love and now his heart was beating faster and faster as if the power of the river were pushing blood through his veins, urging him to act. He felt Peggy stir, "So", she said, the faintest of tremors in her voice, "Quick question. With scones...do you go with jam or cream first?" Andrew considered the question. "I'm not sure it really matters..." He said. "Not in the grand scheme of things. " And then he leaned across, took Peggy's face in his hands, and kissed her.

Life doesn't get more comfortable. It just gives you more chances to hold tighter to God's loving grip." Page 121, Thriving Through Your Trials.

I know the fabric of love is fragile and yet I never saw the stitches break.

Give yourself permission to not be perfect. Life's too short, but you're still young. Give up that iron-knuckle grip you have on excellence and just...have fun. For a change.

Anger is such a devious emotion. It controls even the best of us by a firm grip around the neck, making us say and do things we often come to regret.

How we face death is at least as important as how we face life.

One of the fastest ways to move through your pain is to get a grip on reality.

Dwelling on the past and worrying about the future will only rob you of the present's joy.

Therefore, according to the disposition of the state and the liberty Fortune allows us, we shall either extend or contract our activities; but at all events we shall stir ourselves and not be gripped and paralyzed by fear. He indeed will prove a man who, threatened by dangers on all sides, with arms and chains clattering around him, will neither endanger nor conceal his courage: for self-preservation does not entail suppressing onself. Truly, I believe, Curius Dentatus used to say that he preferred real death to living death; for the ultimate horror is to leave the number of the living before you die.

A warm hand gripped her fingers and squeezed. Before he could let go, Violet squeezed back. She needed this connection, this moment to tell her she wasn’t alone, she wasn’t the only one who hurt and didn’t know what to do with it.

When the artist leaves a painting on a wall with the full confidence that the mastery of his skill, soul and vision will draw others into its vortex long after he is gone, he is using the grip of seduction. When the musician’s performance, the manipulation of her instrument and the command of her talents are so raw and uninhibited that onlookers feel connected to the cosmos, bridged by the pure genius they are now experiencing, she is using the mystery of seduction. The unexplainable feeling fans get when the athlete ceases to be an athlete and rises to the level of the untouchable magician that can make anything happen, is nothing less than the power of seduction at work. The immense value of seduction is its ability to skillfully allure others into one’s world . . . .

Fear of change—innate, stubborn, and resistant to reason—is a powerful force. In many ways, it reminded me of Musical Chairs: We cling as long as possible to the perceived “safe” place that we already know, refusing to loosen our grip until we feel sure another safe place awaits.

Our father came to sleep in our house that night. He carried a small suitcase with a black mourning suit and a pair of polished shoes. Corrigan stopped him as he made his way up the stairs. 'Where d'you think you're going?'Our father gripped the bannister. His hands were liverspotted and I could see him trembling in his pause. 'That's not your room,' sad Corrigan. Our father tottered on the stairs. He took another step up. 'Don't,' said my brother. His voice was clear, full, confidant. Our father stood stunned. He climbed one more step and then turned, descended, looked around, lost. 'My own sons,' he said. We made a bed for him on a sofa in the living room, but even then Corrigan refused to stay under the same roof; he went walking in the direction of the city center and I wondered what alley he might be found in later that night, what fist he might walk into, whose bottle he might climb down inside.

You are now Korwahk warriors. You serve me,” she said just after Lahn thumped his chest. “You serve your golden queen,” she said after Lahn, not looking back, swung a muscular arm and pointed my way before dropping it. “You know nothing now but horseflesh between your legs, steel in your grip, blood on your tongue, victory your only focus. There is no other path. You have no mother. You have no father. You have no brothers except those who wear the paint. You have only The Horde. You are The Horde. You serve me, your queen, your Horde. You will seize bounty; you will claim your bride. You will grunt and sweat and bury your seed to create warriors. You do not own your flesh; The Horde owns your flesh. You sink your blade into flesh; you do it for The Horde. You will wake up a warrior, you will sleep a warrior and you will die a warrior.

The worst part is that I want to turn this into a parable. I want to echo a rallying cry of inspiration that sings, Women, we are not alone; Women, these men do not defeat us; Women, these men do not define us; Women, I feel what you feel; Women, we, together, are strong, and for all the loud voices that said no or that didn’t have the freedom to but who still said 'please stop' or 'not right now' or 'I don’t know' or 'I don’t like that' which are all the same goddamn thing, to all the women who said no, you are not to blame for his hard, hungry hands, whether they came at you like raging fists or whether they gripped your face softly, at first, smiling at it and inviting you into the night, only later for you to meet the fingernails and full-weighted back of his hand to keep you there and press you down; to all the women who said no, you are not to blame; to all the women who feel ashamed, you are still the goddess and his hungry hands could not defile you more than mortals could defile a god; to all the women who feel sorry, you did not sin; to all the women who feel angry, I share your rage; to all the women who are too tired to feel rage, to all the women who feel empty, who feel blank, who feel Nothing, who feel small, I feel that most of all, too.

The worst part is that I want to turn this into a parable. I want to echo a rallying cry of inspiration that sings, Women, we are not alone; Women, these men do not defeat us; Women, these men do not define us; Women, I feel what you feel; Women, we, together, are strong, and for all the loud voices that said no or that didn’t have the freedom to but who still said 'please stop' or 'not right now' or 'I don’t know' or 'I don’t like that' which are all the same goddamn thing, to all the women who said no, you are not to blame for his hard, hungry hands, whether they came at you like raging fists or whether they gripped your face softly, at first, smiling at it and inviting you into the night, only later for you to meet the fingernails and full-weighted back of his hand to keep you there and press you down; to all the women who said no, you are not to blame; to all the women who feel ashamed, you are still the goddess and his hungry hands could not defile you more than mortals could defile a god; to all the women who feel sorry, you did not sin; to all the women who feel angry, I share your rage; to all the women who are too tired to feel rage, to all the women who feel empty, who feel blank, who feel Nothing, who feel small, I feel that most of all, too.

it too. We become more forgiving as we receive His forgiveness. And as we find Him in every situation and circumstance of our lives, we can relax. We don’t have to hide anything because nothing is hidden from His view. And knowing us, He loves us. Our awareness of His love will transform our lives as we come to grips with the fact that His love has never been dependent on our good behavior. That’s awe-inspiring and humbling. Now we’re getting wiser.

We are saved by God’s love, and we grow by it too. We become more forgiving as we receive His forgiveness. And as we find Him in every situation and circumstance of our lives, we can relax. We don’t have to hide anything because nothing is hidden from His view. And knowing us, He loves us. Our awareness of His love will transform our lives as we come to grips with the fact that His love has never been dependent on our good behavior. That’s awe-inspiring and humbling. Now we’re getting wiser.

A man sat down by a tree every day for 2 weeks. It was a beautiful Wisteria tree with purple flowers. Every day, around the same time, he would come to the park and sit by this tree. On the fourteenth day, he came to the park and approached the tree and as he sat down, he closed his eyes as he always did. Only this time when he opened them, the tree withered and died before him. The man then looked around and before he knew it, he had found that he never came to the tree at all, but was in an asylum the whole time.

An air of anticipation hung over the lab. The pied crow—whose name, according to Tasha, was Pitch, and who had been raised in captivity, bouncing from wildlife center to wildlife center before winding up living in my sister’s private aviary—gripped her perch stubbornly with her talons and averted her eyes from the screen, refusing to react to the avatar that was trying to catch her attention. She’d been ignoring the screen for over an hour, shutting out four researchers and a bored linguist who was convinced that I was in the middle of some sort of creative breakdown. “All

...in certain regions the party is organized like a gang whose toughest member takes over the leadership. The leader’s ancestry and powers are readily mentioned, and in a knowing and slightly admiring tone it is quickly pointed out that he inspires awe in his close collaborators. In order to avoid these many pitfalls a persistent battle has to be waged to prevent the party from becoming a compliant instrument in the hands of a leader. Leader comes from the English verb “to lead,” meaning “to drive” in French.15 The driver of people no longer exists today. People are no longer a herd and do not need to be driven. If the leader drives me I want him to know that at the same time I am driving him. The nation should not be an affair run by a big boss. Hence the panic that grips government circles every time one of their leaders falls ill, because they are obsessed with the question of succession: What will happen to the country if the leader dies? The influential circles, who in their blind irresponsibility are more concerned with safeguarding their lifestyle, their cocktail parties, their paid travel and their profitable racketeering, have abdicated in favor of a leader and occasionally discover the spiritual void at the heart of the nation.

I’m an overthinker. Many of us are. My mind gets racing a thousand miles a minute and I get anxious about my work, my career, or where I need to be in thirty minutes. Every day I need to shut down this machine and simply be still. Be aware of your breathing, really feel your breath going in, going out. Be aware of the feeling of the cloth on your shirt. Be aware of the grip on the steering wheel. Tell yourself--out oud--that the only thing that truly exists right now is this exact moment, and enjoy it, swim in it. Someone once said that your mind is like a raging river that’s full of debris, and when you’re floating in this river, you reach out and try to grab the branches and rocks. But what if you could climb onto the bank and watch the river? Suddenly you’re in a calm place. Maybe it sounds like a cliché to say, “Stop and smell the roses,” so I’ll tell you this instead: “Stop and watch the sunset.” Just the other night, driving home in L.A., I was struck by how beautiful the sky was--a dark blue canvas painted with strokes of bright orange and red. It was truly one of the most glorious sunsets I’d ever seen. I was stuck in traffic, worrying about one thing or another, and I just gazed out the window and drank it in. I let it fill my soul and inspire me. The world stopped revolving for just that split second, and my mind was still and calm. And to think, I could have missed it.

I wanted to climb to the summit of challenges, attack my way through hardships as solid as granite, tempt all sorts of peril, and break through mysteries with science. I longed to inhale all sorts of experience and then explore the labyrinthine ins and outs of life that in the end cannot be guessed. I yearned for possibilities that react with each other, like the collision of uranium molecules: binding, multiplying, bursting, and dispersing in unexpected directions. I wanted to go to faraway places and meet with endless varieties of foreign languages and peoples. I wished to rove, finding my direction through reading the stars of constellations. I wanted to cross fields and deserts, to be burned by the sun until I blistered, to be shook by the assaulting wind, and shrink from being gripped by cold. I wanted a life that was thrilling, filled with conquest. I wanted to live! To feel the essence of being!

A serious reader of fiction is an adult who reads, let's say, two or more hours a night, three or four nights a week, and by the end of two or three weeks he has read the book. A serious reader is not someone who reads for half an hour at a time and then picks the book up again on the beach a week later. While reading, serious readers aren't distracted by anything else. They put the kids to bed, and then they read. They don't watch TV intermittently or stop off and on to shop on-line or to talk on the phone. There is, indisputably, a rapidly diminishing number of serious readers, certainly in America. Of course, the cause is something more than just the multitudinous distractions of contemporary life. One must acknowledge the triumph the screen. Reading, whether serious or frivolous, doesn't stand a chance against the screen: first, the movie screen, then the television screen, now the proliferating computer screen, one in your pocket, one on your desk, one in your hand, and soon one imbedded between your eyes. Why can't serious reading compete? Because the gratifications of the screen are far more immediate, graspable, gigantically gripping. Alas, the screen is not only fantastically useful, it's fun, and what beats fun? There was never a Golden Age of Serious Reading in America but I don't remember ever in my lifetime the situation being as sad for books – with all the steady focus and uninterrupted concentration they require – as it is today. And it will be worse tomorrow and even worse the day after. My prediction is that in thirty years, if not sooner, there will be just as many people reading serious fiction in America as now read Latin poetry. A percentage do. But the number of people who find in literature a highly desirable source of sustaining pleasure and mental stimulation is sadly diminished.

In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that’s been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen. How, then, do you make failure into something people can face without fear? Part of the answer is simple: If we as leaders can talk about our mistakes and our part in them, then we make it safe for others. You don’t run from it or pretend it doesn’t exist. That is why I make a point of being open about our meltdowns inside Pixar, because I believe they teach us something important: Being open about problems is the first step toward learning from them. My goal is not to drive fear out completely, because fear is inevitable in high-stakes situations. What I want to do is loosen its grip on us. While we don’t want too many failures, we must think of the cost of failure as an investment in the future. I

swirl together and our breathing clashes, my hips are busy rubbing against his. My legs spread just about as wide as I can get, forcing my pussy to open like a flower and hug his dick tight. Pushing off his chest, I lift up, grab his dick, and slam myself home. I almost can’t hear the harsh bite of his breath over my scream. I feel the rings hitting a spot deep within me that will have me begging in no time. The one pressed tight against my clit has my vision going hazy. “Have . . . to . . . move,” he warns, and once again, I find myself rolled onto my back. He doesn’t even pause when he flips and pounds into me. His hips slap against mine, his balls make a loud, wet sound as they hit my skin, and his eyes flash something I wish to God I understood. “H-h-harder!” He slams deep and leans up on his knees causing his dick to slip out almost completely. His large hands grab my hips and bring my body half off the bed. With my head still on the bed, the rest of my body hovers under his control as he pulls back and gives me my wish. My legs are dead weight, my hands clench tightly in the sheets, and my eyes hold his. The look in his eyes combined with the hard hitting of his piercings, and the awe-inspiring thrusts is enough to have me screaming. Screaming, begging, and pleading. I have lost control of my body. It is locked tight and shattering into pieces. His hips pick up speed but then slightly slow down towards the end of my release. He brings my body back down to the mattress and rocks his hips, causing a few more aftershocks to roll through my body. “Do you like my cock? Do you like having me so deep in your body you won’t be able to walk tomorrow? The way your pussy is gripping my dick and your wetness is coating my balls, I would say you fucking love it.” I whimper and he smiles. This isn’t the attractive smile he gives the public, no . . . this smile is pure fucking sexy evil. “Going to fuck you raw.” He warns before making true to his words. When he finally grabs my hips and locks our pelvises together, I have come twice and lost track of reality.

With his Don Juan Mozart enters the little immortal circle of those whose names, whose works, time will not forget, because eternity remembers them. And though it is a matter of indifference, when one has found entrance there, whether one stands highest or lowest, because in a certain sense all stand equally high, since all stand infinitely high, and though it is childish to dispute over the first and the last place here, as it is when children quarrel about the order assigned to them in the church at confirmation, I am still too much of a child, or rather I am like a young girl in love with Mozart, and I must have him in first place, cost what it may. And I will appeal to the parish clerk and to the priest and to the dean and to the bishop and to the whole consistory, and I will implore and adjure them to hear my prayer, and I will invoke the whole congregation on this matter, and if they refuse to hear me, if they refuse to grant my childish wish, I excommunicate myself, and renounce all fellowship with their modes of thought; and I will form a sect which not only gives Mozart first place, but which absolutely refuses to recognize any artist other than Mozart; and I shall beg Mozart to forgive me, because his music did not inspire me to great deeds, but turned me into a fool, who lost through him the little reason I had, and spent most of my time in quiet sadness humming what I do not understand, haunting like a specter day and night what I am not permitted to enter. Immortal Mozart! Thou, to whom I owe everything; to whom I owe the loss of my reason, the wonder that caused my soul to tremble, the fear that gripped my inmost being; thou, to whom I owe it that I did not pass through life without having been stirred by something. Thou, to whom I offer thanks that I did not die without having loved, even though my love became unhappy. Is it strange then that I should be more concerned for Mozart's glorification than for the happiest moment of my life, more jealous for his immortality than for my own existence? Aye, if he were taken away, if his name were erased from the memory of men, then would the last pillar be overthrown, which for me has kept everything from being hurled together into boundless chaos, into fearful nothningness.

While most of us go through life feeling that we are the thinker of our thoughts and the experiencer of our experience, from the perspective of science we know that this is a distorted view. There is no discrete self or ego lurking like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. There is no region of cortex or pathway of neural processing that occupies a privileged position with respect to our personhood. There is no unchanging “center of narrative gravity” (to use Daniel Dennett’s phrase). In subjective terms, however, there seems to be one — to most of us, most of the time. Our contemplative traditions (Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.) also suggest, to varying degrees and with greater or lesser precision, that we live in the grip of a cognitive illusion. But the alternative to our captivity is almost always viewed through the lens of religious dogma. A Christian will recite the Lord’s Prayer continuously over a weekend, experience a profound sense of clarity and peace, and judge this mental state to be fully corroborative of the doctrine of Christianity; A Hindu will spend an evening singing devotional songs to Krishna, feel suddenly free of his conventional sense of self, and conclude that his chosen deity has showered him with grace; a Sufi will spend hours whirling in circles, pierce the veil of thought for a time, and believe that he has established a direct connection to Allah. The universality of these phenomena refutes the sectarian claims of any one religion. And, given that contemplatives generally present their experiences of self-transcendence as inseparable from their associated theology, mythology, and metaphysics, it is no surprise that scientists and nonbelievers tend to view their reports as the product of disordered minds, or as exaggerated accounts of far more common mental states — like scientific awe, aesthetic enjoyment, artistic inspiration, etc. Our religions are clearly false, even if certain classically religious experiences are worth having. If we want to actually understand the mind, and overcome some of the most dangerous and enduring sources of conflict in our world, we must begin thinking about the full spectrum of human experience in the context of science. But we must first realize that we are lost in thought.

[J.Ivy:] We are all here for a reason on a particular path You don't need a curriculum to know that you are part of the math Cats think I'm delirious, but I'm so damn serious That's why I expose my soul to the globe, the world I'm trying to make it better for these little boys and girls I'm not just another individual, my spirit is a part of this That's why I get spiritual, but I get my hymns from Him So it's not me, it's He that's lyrical I'm not a miracle, I'm a heaven-sent instrument My rhythmatic regimen navigates melodic notes for your soul and your mental That's why I'm instrumental Vibrations is what I'm into Yeah, I need my loot by rent day But that is not what gives me the heart of Kunte Kinte I'm tryina give us "us free" like Cinque I can't stop, that's why I'm hot Determination, dedication, motivation I'm talking to you, my many inspirations When I say I can't, let you or self down If I were of the highest cliff, on the highest riff And you slipped off the side and clinched on to your life in my grip I would never, ever let you down And when these words are found Let it been known that God's penmanship has been signed with a language called love That's why my breath is felt by the deaf And why my words are heard and confined to the ears of the blind I, too, dream in color and in rhyme So I guess I'm one of a kind in a full house Cuz whenever I open my heart, my soul, or my mouth A touch of God reigns out [Chorus] [Jay-Z (Kanye West)] Who else you know been hot this long, (Oh Ya, you know we ain't finished) Started from nothing but he got this strong, (The ROC is in the building) Built the ROC from a pebble, pedalled rock before I met you, Pedalled bikes, got my nephews pedal bikes because they special, Let you tell that man I'm falling, Well somebody must've caught him, Cause every fourth quarter, I like to Mike Jordan 'em, Number one albums, what I got like four of dem, More of dem on the way, The Eight Wonder on the way, Clear the way, I'm here to stay, Y'all can save the chitter chat, this and that, this and Jay, Dissin' Jay 'ill get you mased, When I start spitting them lyrics, niggas get very religious, Six Hail Maries, please Father forgive us, Young, the Archbishop, the Pope John Paul of y'all niggas, The way y'all all follow Jigga, Hov's a living legend and I tell you why, Everybody wanna be Hov and Hov still alive.

But now, inside the gallery, something happens to him. He finds his emotions gripped by the paintings, the huge, colorful canvases by Diego Rivera, the tiny, agonized self-portraits by Frida Kahlo, the woman Rivera loved. Fabien barely notices the crowds that cluster in front of the pictures. He stops before a perfect little painting in which she has pictured her spine as a cracked column. There is something about the grief in her eyes that won't let him look away. That is suffering, he thinks. He thinks about how long he's been moping about Sandrine, and it makes him feel embarrassed, self-indulgent. Theirs, he suspects, was not an epic love story like Diego and Frida's. He finds himself coming back again and again to stand in front of the same pictures, reading about the couple's life, the passion they shared for their art, for workers' rights, for each other. He feels an appetite growing within him for something bigger, better, more meaningful. He wants to live like these people. He has to make his writing better, to keep going. He has to. He is filled with an urge to go home and write something that is fresh and new and has in it the honesty of these pictures. Most of all he just wants to write. But what?

The boy himself was in the grip of his impulse, without knowing what was happening to him. He was not performing a dance he already knew, a dance he had practiced before. This was no familiar rite of celebrating sun and morning that he had long ago invented. Only later would he realize that his dance and his transported state in general were only partly caused by the mountain air, the sun, the dawn, his sense of freedom. They were also a response to the change awaiting him, the new chapter in his young life that had come in the friendly and awe-inspiring form of the Magister. In that morning hour many elements conspired in the soul of young Tito to shape his destiny and distinguish this hour above a thousand others as a high, a festive, a consecrated time. Without knowing what he was doing, asking no questions, he obeyed the command of this ecstatic moment, danced his worship, prayed to the sun, professed with devout movements and gestures his joy, his faith in life, his piety and reverence, both proudly and submissively offered up in the dance his devout soul as a sacrifice to the sun and the gods, and no less to the man he admired and feared, the sage and musician, the Master of the magic Game who had come to him from mysterious realms, his future teacher and friend.

Rejecting failure and avoiding mistakes seem like high-minded goals, but they are fundamentally misguided. Take something like the Golden Fleece Awards, which were established in 1975 to call attention to government-funded projects that were particularly egregious wastes of money. (Among the winners were things like an $84,000 study on love commissioned by the National Science Foundation, and a $3,000 Department of Defense study that examined whether people in the military should carry umbrellas.) While such scrutiny may have seemed like a good idea at the time, it had a chilling effect on research. No one wanted to “win” a Golden Fleece Award because, under the guise of avoiding waste, its organizers had inadvertently made it dangerous and embarrassing for everyone to make mistakes. The truth is, if you fund thousands of research projects every year, some will have obvious, measurable, positive impacts, and others will go nowhere. We aren’t very good at predicting the future—that’s a given—and yet the Golden Fleece Awards tacitly implied that researchers should know before they do their research whether or not the results of that research would have value. Failure was being used as a weapon, rather than as an agent of learning. And that had fallout: The fact that failing could earn you a very public flogging distorted the way researchers chose projects. The politics of failure, then, impeded our progress. There’s a quick way to determine if your company has embraced the negative definition of failure. Ask yourself what happens when an error is discovered. Do people shut down and turn inward, instead of coming together to untangle the causes of problems that might be avoided going forward? Is the question being asked: Whose fault was this? If so, your culture is one that vilifies failure. Failure is difficult enough without it being compounded by the search for a scapegoat. In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that’s been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen. How, then, do you make failure into something people can face without fear? Part of the answer is simple: If we as leaders can talk about our mistakes and our part in them, then we make it safe for others. You don’t run from it or pretend it doesn’t exist. That is why I make a point of being open about our meltdowns inside Pixar, because I believe they teach us something important: Being open about problems is the first step toward learning from them. My goal is not to drive fear out completely, because fear is inevitable in high-stakes situations. What I want to do is loosen its grip on us. While we don’t want too many failures, we must think of the cost of failure as an investment in the future.

In all the seconds of life that beat solemnly from my heart, in all the hours of waiting for the release that binds us, in all the months of moons that guided our hopes, of all the years of yesterday that taught us the path of which we walk today: Today, I am true. Today I will write without release; without questions or care of the minds that do not understand the words that will lie before me in this letter. Licentia. The release of anything that covers my ears or blinds my eyes. Oh, licentia. The people shall call me insane because I have proven to remain unrelenting in the belief that freedom and justice and truth are all subject to change, but that the ideas are the spark which light the fire to continue my journey. These words have no value unless given an idea, and that is the only part that is bounded in this world: the idea. The idea to be free; no matter the cost of autonomy and decisions and conscious state of mind. The idea to have justice; without a governance to proclaim what it defines. The idea to seek truth; no matter how many lies claim to hold the reality. Licentia. The release of anything that covers my ears or blinds my eyes. Oh, licentia. It is the fear that controls the grip which lacerates our brains and chains our souls. It is the fear that without power or an entity that seeks it, that we will be dangerous. It is the fear of our ourselves that binds us. But once we are no longer afraid of the mirror that grants us our reflection, we begin to understand that the fear was simply an illusion. It is the pain that scares us into submission and breaks our vows to our hearts. It is the pain that makes an honest man beg on his knees to the wolves that seek to devour his ideas. It is the pain that creates the stage to which only fools applaud and puppets play. It is the pain that makes us see the ugliness of our soul. But once we are in pain, we realize that it was never the worst feeling to behold, but that the betrayal of our minds and the minds of others is. Licentia. The release of anything that covers my ears or blinds my eyes. Oh, licentia.

Rebellion's demand is unity; historical revolution's demand is totality. The former starts from a negative supported by an affirmative, the latter from absolute negation and is condemned to every aspect of slavery in order to fabricate an affirmative that is dismissed until the end of time. One is creative, the other nihilist. The first is dedicated to creation so as to exist more and more completely; the second is forced to produce results in order to negate more and more completely. The historical revolution is always obliged to act in the hope, which is invariably disappointed, of one day really existing. Even unanimous consent will not suffice to create its existence. "Obey," said Frederick the Great to his subjects; but when he died, his words were: "I am tired of ruling slaves." To escape this absurd destiny, the revolution is and will be condemned to renounce, not only its own principles, but nihilism as well as purely historical values in order to rediscover the creative source of rebellion. Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the insanity of history. Undoubtedly, it has nothing but scorn for the formal and mystifying morality to be found in bourgeois society. But its folly has been to extend this scorn to every moral demand. At the very sources of its inspiration and in its most profound transports is to be found a rule that is not formal but that nevertheless can serve as a guide. Rebellion, in fact, says— and will say more and more explicitly— that revolution must try to act, not in order to come into existence at some future date in the eyes of a world reduced to acquiescence, but in terms of the obscure existence that is already made manifest in the act of insurrection. This rule is neither formal nor subject to history, it is what can be best described by examining it in its pure state—in artistic creation. Before doing so, let us only note that to the "I rebel, therefore we exist" and the "We are alone" of metaphysical rebellion, rebellion at grips with history adds that instead of killing and dying in order to produce the being that we are not, we have to live and let live in order to create what we are.

With his Don Juan Mozart enters the little immortal circle of those whose names, whose works, time will not forget, because eternity remembers them. And though it is a matter of indifference, when one has found entrance there, whether one stands highest or lowest, because in a certain sense all stand equally high, since all stand infinitely high, and though it is childish to dispute over the first and the last place here, as it is when children quarrel about the order assigned to them in the church at confirmation, I am still too much of a child, or rather I am like a young girl in love with Mozart, and I must have him in first place, cost what it may. And I will appeal to the parish clerk and to the priest and to the dean and to the bishop and to the whole consistory, and I will implore and adjure them to hear my prayer, and I will invoke the whole congregation on this matter, and if they refuse to hear me, if they refuse to grant my childish wish, I excommunicate myself, and renounce all fellowship with their modes of thought; and I will form a sect which not only gives Mozart first place, but which absolutely refuses to recognize any artist other than Mozart; and I shall beg Mozart to forgive me, because his music did not inspire me to great deeds, but turned me into a fool, who lost through him the little reason I had, and spent most of my time in quiet sadness humming what I do not understand, haunting like a specter day and night what I am not permitted to enter. Immortal Mozart! Thou, to whom I owe everything; to whom I owe the loss of my reason, the wonder that caused my soul to tremble, the fear that gripped my inmost being; thou, to whom I owe it that I did not pass through life without having been stirred by something. Thou, to whom I offer thanks that I did not die without having loved, even though my love became unhappy. Is it strange then that I should be more concerned for Mozart's glorification than for the happiest moment of my life, more jealous for his immortality than for my own existence? Aye, if he were taken away, if his name were erased from the memory of men, then would the last pillar be overthrown, which for me has kept everything from being hurled together into boundless chaos, into fearful nothingness.

How about when you feel as if you are at a treacherous crossing, facing an area of life that hasn’t even been on the map until recently. Suddenly there it is, right in front of you. And so the time and space in between while you first get over the shock of it, and you have to figure out WHAT must be done feels excruciating. It’s a nightmare you can’t awaken from. You might remember this time as a kind of personal D-day, as in damage, devastation, destruction, damnation, desolation – maybe a difficult divorce, or even diagnosis of some formidable disease. These are the days of our lives that whole, beautiful chapters of life go up in flames. And all you can do is watch them burn. Until you feel as though you are left only with the ashes of it all. It is at this moment you long for the rescue and relief that only time can provide. It is in this place, you must remember that in just 365 days – you're at least partially healed self will be vastly changed, likely for the better. Perhaps not too unlike a caterpillar’s unimaginable metamorphosis. Better. Stronger. Wiser. Tougher. Kinder. More fragile, more firm, all at the same time as more free. You will have gotten through the worst of it – somehow. And then it will all be different. Life will be different. You will be different. It might or might not ever make sense, but it will be more bearable than it seems when you are first thrown, with no warning, into the kilns of life with the heat stoked up – or when you get wrapped up, inexplicably, through no choice of your own, in a dark, painfully constricting space. Go ahead, remind yourself as someone did earlier, who was trying miserably to console you. It will eventually make you a better, stronger person. How’d they say it? More beautiful on the inside… It really will, though. That’s the kicker. Even if, in the hours of your agony, you would have preferred to be less beautiful, wise, strong, or experienced than apparently life, fate, your merciless ex, or a ruthless, biological, or natural enemy that has attacked silently, and invisibly - has in mind for you. As will that which your God feels you are capable of enduring, while you, in your pitiful anguish, are yet dubious of your own ability to even endure, not alone overcome. I assure you now, you will have joy and beauty, where there was once only ashes. In time. Perhaps even more than before. It’s so hard to imagine and believe it when it’s still fresh, and so, so painful. When it hurts too much to even stand, or think, or feel anything. When you are in the grip of fear, and you remember the old familiar foe, or finally understand, firsthand, in your bones, what that actually means.

Have a firmer grasp or grip on your dream. Then you can anchor yourself in that, and you won't be swayed on way or another.

Seeing him loosen the tight grip of his palms sedates me again... seeing him grip it back in place, tighter this time, writes me off again.

I wanted the gift of the shortest and easiest path. Instead, He gave me the gift of holding me close and strengthening me for the hard path. It took me a long time to understand that both were gifts. And as I embraced the second, my need for the first lost its tormenting grip.

Almost any positive good [positive liberty] can be described in terms of freedom from something [negative liberty]. Health is freedom from disease; happiness is a life free from flaws and miseries; equality is freedom from advantage and disadvantage.. Faced with this flexibility, the theorist will need to prioritize some freedoms and discount others. At its extreme we may get the view that only some particular kind of life makes for ‘real freedom’. Real freedom might, for instance, be freedom the bondage of desire, as in Buddhism and Stoicism. Or it might be a kind of self-realization or self-perfection only possible in a community of similarly self-realized individuals, pointing us towards a communitarian, socialist, or even communist ideal. To a laissez-faire capitalist, it is freedom from more than minimal necessary political and legal interference in the pursuit of profit. But the rhetoric of freedom will typically just disguise the merits or demerits of the political order being promoted. The flexibility of the term ‘freedom’ undoubtedly plays a huge role in the rhetoric of political demands, particularly when the language of rights mingles with the language of freedom. ‘We have a right to freedom from…’ is not only a good way, but the best way to start a moral or political demand. Freedom is a dangerous word, just because it is an inspirational one. The modern emphasis on freedom is problematically associated with a particular self-image. This is the 'autonomous' or self-governing and self-driven individual. This individual has the right to make his or her own decisions. Interference or restraint is lack of respect, and everyone has a right to respect. For this individual, the ultimate irrationality would be to alienate his freedom, for instance by joining a monastery that requires unquestioning obedience to a superior, or selling himself into slavery to another. The self-image may be sustained by the thought that each individual has the same share of human reason, and an equal right to deploy this reason in the conduct of his or her own life. Yet the 'autonomous' individual, gloriously independent in his decision-making, can easily seem to be a fantasy. Not only the Grand Unifying Pessimisms, but any moderately sober reflection on human life and human societies, suggest that we are creatures easily swayed, constantly infected by the opinions of others, lacking critical self-understanding, easily gripped by fantastical hopes and ambitions. Our capacity for self-government is spasmodic, and even while we preen ourselves on our critical and independent, free and rational decisions, we are slaves of fashion and opinion and social and cultural forces of which we are ignorant. A little awareness of ethics will make us mistrustful of sound-bite-sized absolutes. Even sacred freedoms meet compromises, and take us into a world of balances. Free speech is sacred. Yet the law does not protect fraudulent speech, libellous speech, speech describing national secrets, speech inciting racial and other hatreds, speech inciting panic in crowded places, and so on. In return, though, we gain freedom from fraud, from misrepresentation of our characters and our doings, from enemy incursions, from civil unrest, from arbitrary risks of panic in crowds. For sure, there will always be difficult cases. There are websites giving people simple recipes on how to make bombs in their kitchens. Do we want a conception of free speech that protects those? What about the freedom of the rest of us to live our lives without a significant risk of being blown up by a crank? It would be nice if there were a utilitarian calculus enabling us to measure the costs and benefits of permission and suppression, but it is hard to find one.

Their corner She withdrew her hand from his soft but firm grip, And that was all about their romantic trip, She went her way and he went his way, And they got busy chasing the mammons of the day, The hands that held on to each other had slipped away, To feed the obsequious vanities of every new day, But at that discreet corner where she freed her hand, There she does often for a moments few stand, To hold the same sensation and to grab the same feeling, Under which her heart had discovered a new healing, And as her bus arrives, she occupies her seat, And keeps looking at the fading away corner in that narrow street, Where at dusk two shadows often meet, Holding each others hands as they wish and greet, The memory of the hands that held on to each other, Under the sun, under the moon, under the rain, in every weather, The man stands there moments after the woman has left, And his mind turns contemplative in ways simple yet deft, He too catches the bus and goes away, Leaving behind the shadows that you will find there every night and every day, Today the woman did not visit the corner, Today the man too did not surrender, His wishes and his desires, To this corner where he often her memories admires, And where she experiences his sensations crawling all over her, This corner where she felt him and he felt her, Where could they be wondered the street? And the corner, sadly in its obscurity clad dimension did retreat, The following day, they walked together holding their hands again, The street overflowed with joy and the corner had nothing left to disdain, They caught the bus together and looked at the corner and the narrow street, Where they now often meet, And the corner resonates with their whispering smiles, Because now in their minds they cover journeys of endless miles!

On the road to your life purpose, you will hit bumps and potholes along the way. So buckle up, grip the wheel with both hands and keep your foot on the gas! Enjoy the ride.

To be hanged He was in his cell, Wondering about heaven and hell, Because he was the one due to be hanged, And throughout the night by old demons he was flanked and fanged, He remembered everything, his every act, That had turned him into the man whose conscience was never intact, A victim of many vagaries and a flippant attitude, Always surrounded by them in multitude, But tonight, his last night, when he could dream, when he could imagine, Think of a new hope maybe; and think of a new short battle that he could still win, Because tomorrow by the afternoon he shall be dangling on the noose, Which is already beginning to form a grip around his neck, though loose, He imagined and conversed with his own mind, And there he picked moments of happiness, whichever he could find, And waited for the sun’s rays to enter his dark cell, Where desires, wishes and hopes died and fell, In their midst he held on to few moments of happiness, just a few, To help him walk upto the noose and invent a form courage, totally new, The sun’s rays gradually gathered in his dark cell and brightened it slowly, As he looked at the walls hopelessly, but thoughtfully, He looked perturbed but not demented or lost, He knew it was the end of everything, his walk upto the gallows to be his steps last, But he appeared to struggle with the invisible frost, That had frozen his feelings and cast him in an emotional world where he was lost, He was despondent, yes he was, you can say that, But the man in him had not died yet, he had not allowed that, So he walked with careful but slow steps towards the final knot that would seal everything for him, And push him into the world where there will be nothing and noone except him, For that is the tragedy of dying, you die alone, with no one but you, But he had held on to his moments of happiness, as he approached the hangman, he asked him to do what he ought to do, The look between the two, the one dying and the one to end life forever, was strange, It was like a rose looking at its own scent, but looking at it, it felt it belonged to a different range, Of emotions, of senses, of feelings, of every thought, and as the he let go of his moments of happiness, The hangman covered his face and hanged him for the sake of justice, and then entered the moment of emotional stillness, For he had executed a man whose body dangled on the rope, A sight with which the hangman could not cope, He turned his face around and then forced himself to be the hangman he is always meant to be, Whereas the man who was just now hanged remained hanging forever in his memories, there now forever to be, And in the dark cell where the sun’s rays still try to find him, The man hangs on like the strange scent of the rose, in faint smells of the corners less bright and more dim!

Lost within, uncertain paths unfold, Each day a weight, a tale of burdens told. Striving to find solace, a challenging quest, In the struggle, life's yard, an unyielding test. Yet amid the shadows, a glimmer of hope, Fatigue battles, but the heart learns to cope. An arduous journey, the destination unclear, Yet a promise embraced, soothing every fear. So, I endure, guided by patience's light, Through the darkest night, sharing my plight. In the struggle's grip, where challenges leer, I find resilience, and strength crystal clear.

I’M NOT SURE how much more my ovaries can endure today. As if Grip looking the way he does isn’t enough, seeing him inspire these kids from his old high school is like a stick of C4 planted in my ovaries. Boom.

You admired my necklace last night,” she says. “But you didn’t read the inscription.” I study her face while I lift the gold bar and turn it over. Etched into the gold is the inscription “My heart broke loose on the wind.” For a second, the space of a heartbeat, I can’t breathe. This means so much to me I literally cannot breathe. “When did you get this?” My voice is hushed, reverent with the thought of what that night on the Ferris wheel must have meant to her, too. “Months ago.” She cups one side of my face. “We didn’t even seem to be a possibility when I ordered this.” “But why . . . even then?” Months ago, Bristol was deep freezing me, so it’s hard to imagine that night was on her mind then. That I was on her mind then. “Even if we hadn’t gotten together, I was still going to wear this next to my heart because I knew I would never love anyone else that way.” She shakes her head, eyes bright with conviction. “Not the way I felt that night. That night was awesome, magical, but it was just a glimpse of the man you would become. And I knew even if I couldn’t have you, I’d carry this piece of you with me. This piece of your prophecy.” That poem inspired me in a way I have only ever put into words for one person. The woman sitting in my lap. The woman who has held my heart for years when I wasn’t sure she even wanted it. And the whole time, this night, these moments, burned in her memory like they did mine. I’m torn between spreading her on the table and having my appetizer before the pizza arrives, or kissing her until she’s limp in my arms.

I can read a thousand words and have every one of them drift past my heart without touching any part of it. Or I can read a handful of words and have them seize my heart with such a grip that I will be forever held fast. Such is the difference between the art of writing and the lesser task of arranging words.

* Favorite documentary Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series inspired Adam to become a scientist, which is true for many of the top-tier scientists I’ve met and interviewed. [TF: Neil deGrasse Tyson has a revised version of Cosmos that is also spectacular.] “It was a really powerful, friendly way of being introduced to the complexities and wonders that were gripping to me as a kid. I watched it with my dad. It was great bonding for us. The way [Sagan] delivered it was just captivating, and it was really what sealed the deal for me that I wanted to be a scientist.” * Advice to your 30-year-old self? “I would say to have no fear. I mean, you’ve got one chance here to do amazing things, and being afraid of being wrong or making a mistake or fumbling is just not how you do something of impact. You just have to be fearless.” As context, Adam said the following earlier in our conversation: “I want to do fundamental breakthroughs, if possible. If you have that mindset, if that’s how you challenge yourself, that that’s what you want to do with your life, with your small amount of time that you have here to make a difference, then the only way to do it is to do the type of research that other people would think of as risky or even foolhardy. That’s just part of the game.

Poverty acted as a motivating force for the rich and poor alike. It allowed the rich to be inspired to acts of charity for the community, and it forced the poor to learn from their desperation and pushed them toward, patience, thrift, and hard work.

As we know Him (intimately), sin loses its grip on us. Our love for Him deepens, and serving Him becomes a great joy and fulfillment, not a drudgery birthed out of performance.

The desert wind had stirred up evil odors from the fringe plantings which anchored the dunes at the cliff base. Fremen superstition gripped her: evil odors, evil times. She faced into the wind, saw a worm appear outside the plantings. It arose like the prow of a demon ship out of the dunes, threshed sand, smelled the water deadly to its kind, and fled beneath a long, burrowing mound. She hated the water then, inspired by the worm's fear. Water, once the spirit-soul of Arrakis, had become a poison. Water brought pestilence. Only the desert was clean.

The government replaced the real story of what had happened with lavish propaganda about how the military had fended off bloodthirsty communist hordes. The National Library removed references to the events from its records. Newspaper accounts were destroyed. Government files from the time were hidden or burned. What remained, the American historian Thomas Anderson wrote in 1971, was a “paranoiac fear of communism that has gripped the nation ever since. This fear is expressed in the continual labeling of even the most modest reform movements as communist or communist inspired.” Roque Dalton, the Salvadoran poet and activist, put it more succinctly: “We were all born half dead in 1932.

Once you’ve developed a rhythm with those little daily goals, create weekly and then monthly goals. Instead of zooming in from a broad place, build out your life from this small beginning and let your vision open up in front of you from there. As it does, and the sense of uselessness starts to loosen its grip, that’s when you take the second step: put the machines away and create space and time in your life, however small or short in the beginning, for inspiration to find its way in and for the discovery process to happen.

Halfway through the day, Megan started dicking around on the internet. She made her browser window as small as she could, paused for a second, and then looked up “Carrie Wilkins.” She found Carrie’s website, and on it, this bio: Hi, my name’s Carrie. I’m 26. I make things. I paint and I write, but mostly I design. I like to make things beautiful, or creative. I make my own food and I’m trying to grow my own beets. A lot of people around me seem unhappy and I don’t understand why. I freelance because I know I’d go insane if I couldn’t make my own schedule—I believe variety is the zest of life. I know I want a dog someday soon, and sometimes I make lunch at 3 a.m. I believe in the power of collaboration, and I’d love to work with you! What a total asshole. What does she have, some kind of a pact with Satan? The picture next to Carrie’s bio had some kind of heavy filter on it that made it look vintage, and she had a friendly but aloof look on her face. She was flanked on both sides by plants and was wearing an oxford shirt with fancy shorts and had a cool necklace. It was an outfit, for sure, like all of Carrie’s clothes were outfits, which Megan always thought of as outdated or something only children did. The website linked to a blog, which was mostly photos of Carrie doing different things. It didn’t take too long to find the picture of her with the llama with a caption about how she and her boss got it from a homeless guy. And then just products. Pictures and pictures of products, and then little captions about how the products inspired her. Motherfucker, thought Megan. She doesn’t get it at all. It was like looking at an ad for deodorant or laundry soap that made you feel smelly and like you’d been doing something wrong that the person in the ad had already figured out, but since it was an ad, there was no real way to smell the person and judge for yourself whether or not the person stank, and that was what she hated, hated, hated most of all. I make things, gee-wow. You think you’re an artist? Do you really thing this blog is a representation of art, that great universalizer? That great transmigrator? This isolating schlock that makes me feel like I have to buy into you and your formula for happiness? Work as a freelance designer, grow beets, travel, have lots of people who like you, and above all have funsies! “Everything okay?” asked Jillian. “Yeah, what?” “Breathing kind of heavy over there, just making sure you were okay and everything.” “Oh, uh-huh, I’m fine,” said Megan. “It’s not . . . something I’m doing, is it?” “What? No. No, I’m fine,” said Megan. How could someone not understand that other people could be unhappy? What kind of callous, horrible bullshit was that to say to a bunch of twenty-yearolds, particularly, when this was the time in life when things were even more acutely painful than they were in high school, that nightmare fuck, because now there were actual stakes and everyone was coming to grips with the fact that they’re going to die and that life might be empty and unrewarding. Why even bring it up? Why even make it part of your mini-bio?

MILF Token: What Is It and What Are the Prospects? Why MILF symbols? Whoever had actually the intense suggestion of producing a MILF token has actually located a cutting-edge means of touching into 2 distinctive yet similarly eye-catching streams. On the one hand, here's a fresh cryptocurrency including distinctively collectible characters, with evidence of possession saved in a blockchain. On the various other hand, when it concerns those characters, it likewise ventures a fixation among several songs in the very early 21st-century: fully grown, sexually knowledgeable ladies looking for daring times with their suitors. Any kind of speculator wanting to explore the idea behind these extravagant as well as attractive characters can conveniently acquaint themselves with a few of the very best sites concentrating on dating MILFs. These systems provide an algorithm-based solution, where brand-new consumers can surely join, as well as the details offered throughout this enrollment procedure - inspirations, kind of MILF they are brought in to, and so on. - can surely be as compared to the information they currently carry submit. This way, the liaison can surely be easily organized without the individual enquiring also needing to make up a candid message. The computer system software application will certainly give a shortlist of ideal dating prospects. Comparable character-driven symbols MILF symbols are top on from formerly prominent characters that have actually gripped the focus of crypto investors, such as CryptoPunks. These were a collection of 10,000 characters, each distinct, that exposed evidence of possession on the Ethereum blockchain. MILF symbols operate similarly. Due to the fact that no 2 characters are alike, each token can surely ended up being the authorities residential building of a solitary proprietor on this blockchain. Those 10,000 CryptoPunk symbols were quickly purchased, immediately providing the specific characters boosted worth. The presumption is that the MILF symbols will certainly go similarly, so any individual wanting to obtain their practical a certain MILF personality will certainly need to buy this through the market-place that's likewise installed in the Ethereum blockchain. Presently, the most affordable offered rate for MILF symbols is $0.00004078, standing for a 0.61% increase over the previous 24-hour. Shade coding Generally, these characters will certainly have actually a condition when they show up in the crypto markets. Where the CrytoPunks are worried, a blue history suggested that punk was except sale, neither exist energetic quotes. Punks that were offered offer for sale would certainly have actually a red history. Those with an energetic quote would certainly have actually a purple history. MILFs have actually built such a solid track record for desirability, their incorporation as

the only thing I had so far learned with any certainty about the film world was that back-biting, hypocrisy, double-dealing, innuendo and character assassination formed so integral a part of its conversational fabric that it was quite impossible to know where the truth ended and falsehood began. The only safe guide, I’d discovered, was to assume that the truth ended almost immediately.

New wisdom is the wisdom that whispers to us to pursue detachment. It is the wisdom that, steady as breath work, releases us from our monkey-mind grip on exactly how life needs to look and sound. We don’t even have to obsess about how long an idea will be relevant, trusting the universe that when the idea’s time has expired an even more useful one will appear to replace it.

When the ego has you in its grip, it can distort any reality to make you feel you are the smartest person in the room. But listening with curiosity is the smartest way to show genuine respect to others and gain true wisdom.

At times, it is advisable to release what you cannot control. To let go and release your grip, even when it feels uncomfortable to do so. Focus on what you can control, such as your mind and resting more. The rest will figure itself out or will have to burn down for a blessing that you won’t understand just yet. Stay mentally strong. You will survive.

I'm in love with the fact that declan Conner's book "The Alternate Girlfriend" brings out so many positive messages and themes that strike me as real. First and foremost, the character of Douglas Carter is so inspiring. Despite his condition, autism and all it comes with, Doug shows caring intelligence and perseverance. I learned how everybody has unique strengths, along with those being the exact ingredients in helping us face life challenges. I could also see through the events that go on with the AI, Donna, how it brings up important questions about the responsibilities of creators of new, high-tech. I found myself reflecting on how these themes apply in our real world with its rapidly advancing technology. That is one of the thought-provoking aspects, and I think future readers are going to rigorously reflect on the implications of their work and innovations. It's a compelling read, joining a gripping plot with deep reverberations around technology, ethics, and personal resilience. The characters are very well crafted, real, relatable, and seem to be there even after finishing a read. This was wonderful to read.

This thing we have, it's like throwing a tangled chain into a drawer, hoping one day it'll come out untangled again: the knot gets even bigger while you're not looking. I couldn't find the right piece to pull, couldn't get a good grip on the links, even if I wanted to. We're just too... done.

TOM CLARE From a child, I was gripped by the amazing imagination on display in Alice in Wonderland. In my teens, the wild and wacky Goon Show came into being on the radio. Later, I became a huge fan of Tom Sharpe and his wickedly funny books. The more Gothic writing of Daphne du Maurier, especially in Rebecca and Don't Look Now, and the time manipulation novels of William Boyd, linger in my memory. Absurdity, in all its forms, is my type of humour. In retirement, all these sources, together with the stranger events from my life, inspired me to take up writing.

To the degree in which he became persuaded of Ableukhov’s involvement in the matter concerning the exposure of T.T., so did the terror-laden, oppressive feeling that had gripped him during his conversation with the person die away; something light, almost carefree entered his soul. Aleksandr Ivanovich had for some reason long had an especial hatred of the senator: Apollon Apollonovich inspired him with an especial revulsion, similar to the revulsion inspired in us by a phalanx, or even a tarantula; on the other hand, at times he liked Nikolai Apollonovich; but now the senator’s son had united for him with the senator in a single spasm of revulsion and in a desire to root out, exterminate this tarantula-like breed.

must be wrestled: this is no account of inspiration; it figures instead strenuous poetic labor.66 Proteus sponsors a sense of poetic form as constraint; notions of organic or expressive form are irrelevant to his legend. For only by constraint will he give answer: He bends to no entreaty; capture him With ruthless force and fetters; only these Will circumvent and shatter his designs. (Georgics 4.399–400)67 His story reveals some of what an account of poetic authority requires: struggle and labor, unstable and forceful formality, and repetitiveness; but also the merely temporary arrest of truth. Proteus is an oracle, not a figure for rhetorical artifice. One grasps him, holds on, and after his resistance is spent, he yields a truth. A grip on truth and an effort at retention, however temporary: that is what Proteus brings to a religious poetic—a stubborn, willful grasp on an elusive oracle. We speak of orphic fragments, enigmas, but not of forms fulfilled. Proteus supplements orphic poetics by sponsoring perseverance within explicit bonds: the origin of poetry, for him, is metamorphosis.

Life is definitely not a Bed of Roses but If you know how to tackle with thorns, you can have better grip!

We all hope to one day escape the cold grip of depression as it squeezes us, and drags us all deeper into the sea of lost souls.

Our whole society must first be brought to a consensus that it wants to close the socioeconomic gap between the races. It must accept that the gap derives from the social depredations of slavery. Once and for all, America must face its past, open itself to a fair telling of all of its peoples' histories, and accept full responsibility for the hardships it has occasioned for so many. It must come to grips with the increasingly indisputable reality that this is not a white nation. Therefore it must dramatically reconfigure its symbolized picture of itself, to itself. Its national parks, museums, monuments, statues, artworks must be recast in a way to include all Americans–Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans as well as European Americans. White people do not own the idea of America, and should they continue to deny others a place in the idea's iconograph, those others, who fifty years from now will form the majority of America's citizens, will be inspired to punish them for it.

It's December, the year 2014 is folding, is coming to an end. But it doesn't mean everything has to end with it, it simply means you have to step into year 2015 with the continuation of your dreams and aim higher than ever. To those who still play a dilly-dally get a grip and start to dream big dreams again and again.

And let us not be weary in well doing…. —Galatians 6:9 (KJV) It’s impossible!” I wailed, annoyance flaring to the boiling point. “This is stupid. It’s just a feed truck! Why do we need a turn signal anyway?” For a half hour I had stood on a five-gallon bucket, fumbling blindly in the contorted space behind the light housing. The twelfth time my cramped hand slipped off the wrench and bloodied my knuckles I was ready to throw the tools to the ground and quit. My temples throbbed and actual tears of frustration were building at the obvious defeat to which I was about to succumb. I was losing control. Do it as if for Me. The voice came out of nowhere, so softly I barely heard it. I’d read recently that to be successful in life, do all things as if you were doing them directly for God. I stared at the old truck. What if this were God’s? What if He had asked me to fix the light? Would I be on the verge of a wrench-flinging screaming fit? No. I’d be thrilled to do something for Him. My shoulders relaxed. My breathing slowed. Calmly, unhurried, I worked the wrench. My hand didn’t slip when my grip wasn’t so fierce. I unscrewed the backing of the light and replaced the shattered signal within minutes. But even better than that, I’d discovered the key to success. Lord, please inspire me to be my best. What utter joy I find when everything I do is for You. —Erika Bentsen Digging Deeper: Phil 2:14–15; Col 3:23–24