Icon Water Quotes

i know how it makes you feel...peaceful, permanent, unbroken

An incomplete list: No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by. No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take pictures of concert states. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars. No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one's hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite. No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position – but no, this wasn't true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked. No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space. No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.

The figure in the icon is not meant to represent literally what Peter or John or any of the apostles looked like, or what Mary looked like, nor the child, Jesus. But, the orthodox painter feels, Jesus of Nazareth did not walk around Galilee faceless. The icon of Jesus may not look like the man Jesus two thousand years ago, but it represents some *quality* of Jesus, or his mother, or his followers, and so becomes an open window through which we can be given a new glimpse of the love of God.

Sand as far as the eye can see, between the last hills and the sea -- the sea -- in the cold air of an afternoon almost past, and blessed by the wind that always blows from the north. The beach. And the sea. It could be perfection -- an image for divine eyes -- a world that happens, that's all, the mute existence of land and water, a work perfectly accomplished, truth --truth -- but once again it is the redeeming grain of a man that jams the mechanism of that paradise, a bagatelle capable on its own of suspending all that great apparatus of inexorable truth, a mere nothing, but one planted in the sand, an imperceptible tear in the surface of that sacred icon, a minuscule exception come to rest on the perfection of that boundless beach. To see him from afar he would be no more than a black dot: amid nothingness, the nothing of a man and a painter's easel. The easel is anchored by slender cords to four stones placed on the sand. It sways imperceptibly in the wind that always blows from the north. The man is wearing waders and a large fisherman's jacket. He is standing, facing the sea, twirling a slim paintbrush between his fingers. On the easel, a canvas.

Stories, no matter how simple, can be vehicles of truth; can be, in fact, icons. It's no coincidence that Jesus taught almost entirely by telling stories, simple stories dealing with the stuff of life familiar to the Jews of his day. Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.

everything changes. Snow becomes water. It’s beautiful because it changes. Things are fleeting. It felt so beautiful to be part of this weird world in that moment. I felt part of the world again, rather than removed from it. It

Of course, all of the coolest icons overdosed and died years ago, which is just as well. How depressing would it be to see a gray-haired Jimi Hendrix wearing a cardigan sweater and reminiscing about the soundtrack of the Summer of Love?

There is something glorious about this place we call Texas. Hell, I don’t know, it must be in the water. Somehow, as overwhelming odds and pressures congregate over Texas like a spring storm, average men and women are transformed into icons of history.

Through his first miracle, Jesus intentionally desecrates a religious icon. He purposely chooses these sacred jars to challenge the religious system by converting them from icons of personal purification into symbols of relational celebration. Jesus takes us from holy water to wedding wine. From legalism to life. From religion to relationship.

There’s always been this deafness in icons. You rely only on gestures from the hierarchy you find yourself within while what appears beyond those painted windows remains silent. You hear no rush of water, or the buckling of clouds. The world outside is icon-less. A metal arm that heals a damaged Madonna is constructed by blacksmiths, not faith.

Branson has a few iconic water towers. But the best way to store a large volume of H2O is in a cloud, and I think floating architecture may be the way to go in the future.

Even the cat smiles When the hen swallows water With back-tilted head.

Stories, no matter how simple, can be vehicles of truth; can be, in fact, icons. It’s no coincidence that Jesus taught almost entirely by telling stories, simple stories dealing with the stuff of life familiar to the Jews of his day. Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.

It is not a gathering of 'escapees' from the world, bitterly enjoying their escape, feeding their hate for the world. Listen to their psalms and hymns; contemplate the transparent beauty of their icons, their movements, of the entire *celebration. It is truly cosmical joy that permeates all this; it is the entire creation - its matter and its time, its sounds and colors, its words and silence - that praises and worships God and in this praise becomes again itself: the Eucharist, the sacrament of unity, the sacrament of the new creation.

A cowboy is someone who loves his work. Since the hours are long—ten to fifteen hours a day—and the pay is $30 he has to. What's required of him is an odd mixture of physical vigor and maternalism. His part of the beef-raising industry is to birth and nurture calves and take care of their mothers. For the most part his work is done on horseback and in a lifetime he sees and comes to know more animals than people. The iconic myth surrounding him is built on American notions of heroism: the index of a man's value as measured in physical courage. Such ideas have perverted manliness into a self-absorbed race for cheap thrills. In a rancher's world, courage has less to do with facing danger than with acting spontaneously—usually on behalf of an animal or another rider. If a cow is stuck in a bog hole he throws a loop around her neck, takes his dally (a half hitch around the saddle horn), and pulls her out with horsepower. If a calf is born sick, he may take her home, warm her in front of the kitchen fire, and massage her legs until dawn. One friend, whose favorite horse was trying to swim a lake with hobbles on, dove under water and cut her legs loose with a knife, then swam her to shore, his arm around her neck lifeguard-style, and saved her from drowning. Because these incidents are usually linked to someone or something outside himself, the westerner's courage is selfless, a form of compassion.

If I may, Miss,” Sands said. “What you call ‘a mascot’ is more what should be termed ‘an icon.’ A subject not just of morale but of veneration or even worship. These men are United States Marines, yes, and they will continue to do their duty. But they are Marines who have lost everything. Family, friends, buddies, country. We are one and all lost and adrift on a darkling sea. You, Miss Smith, have become not their pin-up girl but their heart and soul. They would follow me into hell. Charge any shore, face any fire. I am their Gunny. That’s what Marines do. If you hinted that Satan had a case of ammo you particularly liked, they would charge in without a bucket of water. As Staff Sergeant Januscheitis said when he, separately, brought the idea up: ‘The only thing we’ve got left, Gunny, is Faith.

Mestre. Say the word without hissing the conurbated villain, and pitying its citizens. As quickly as they can, two million tourists pass through, or by, Mestre each year, and each one will be struck by the same thought as they wonder at the aesthetic opposition that it represents. Mestre is an ugly town but ugly only in the same way that Michael Jackson might be desccribed as eccentric or a Tabasco Vindaloo flambéed in rocket fuel might be described as warm. Mestre is almost excremental in its hideousness: a fetid, fly-blown, festering, industrial urbanization, scarred with varicose motorways, flyovers, rusting railway sidings and the rubbish of a billion holidaymakers gradually burning, spewing thick black clouds into the Mediterranean sky. A town with apparently no centre, a utilitarian ever-expandable wasteland adapted to house the displaced poor, the shorebound, outpriced, domicile-deprived exiles from its neighbouring city. For, just beyond the condom- and polystyrene-washed, black-stained, mud shores of Marghera, Mestre's very own oil refinery, less than a mile away across the waters of the lagoon in full sight of its own dispossessed citizens, is the Jewel of Adriatic. Close enough for all to feel the magnetism, there stands the most beautiful icon of Renaissance glory and, like so much that can attract tourism, a place too lovely to be left in the hands of its natives, the Serenissima itself, Venice.

It is a great pleasure to enter a Cretan peasant's home. Everything about you is patriarchal: the hearth, the oil-lamp, the earthenware jars lining the wall, a few chairs, a table and, on the left as you enter, in a hole in the wall, a pitcher of fresh water. From the beams hang strings of quinces, pomegranates and aromatic plants: sage, mint, red-peppers, rosemary and savoury. At the far end of the room a ladder or a few wooden steps lead up to the raised platform, where there is a trestle-bed and, above it, the holy icons with their lamps. The house appears empty, but it contains everything needful, so few in reality are the true necessities of man.

AN INCOMPLETE LIST: No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by. No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take photographs of concert stages. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars. No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one’s hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite. No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position—but no, this wasn’t true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked. No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space. No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.

Carbonara: The union of al dente noodles (traditionally spaghetti, but in this case rigatoni), crispy pork, and a cloak of lightly cooked egg and cheese is arguably the second most famous pasta in Italy, after Bologna's tagliatelle al ragù. The key to an excellent carbonara lies in the strategic incorporation of the egg, which is added raw to the hot pasta just before serving: add it when the pasta is too hot, and it will scramble and clump around the noodles; add it too late, and you'll have a viscous tide of raw egg dragging down your pasta. Cacio e pepe: Said to have originated as a means of sustenance for shepherds on the road, who could bear to carry dried pasta, a hunk of cheese, and black pepper but little else. Cacio e pepe is the most magical and befuddling of all Italian dishes, something that reads like arithmetic on paper but plays out like calculus in the pan. With nothing more than these three ingredients (and perhaps a bit of oil or butter, depending on who's cooking), plus a splash of water and a lot of movement in the pan to emulsify the fat from the cheese with the H2O, you end up with a sauce that clings to the noodles and to your taste memories in equal measure. Amatriciana: The only red pasta of the bunch. It doesn't come from Rome at all but from the town of Amatrice on the border of Lazio and Abruzzo (the influence of neighboring Abruzzo on Roman cuisine, especially in the pasta department, cannot be overstated). It's made predominantly with bucatini- thick, tubular spaghetti- dressed in tomato sauce revved up with crispy guanciale and a touch of chili. It's funky and sweet, with a mild bite- a rare study of opposing flavors in a cuisine that doesn't typically go for contrasts. Gricia: The least known of the four kings, especially outside Rome, but according to Andrea, gricia is the bridge between them all: the rendered pork fat that gooses a carbonara or amatriciana, the funky cheese and pepper punch at the heart of cacio e pepe. "It all starts with gricia.

Pilgrimage is premised on the idea that the sacred is not entirely immaterial, but that there is a geography of spiritual power. Pilgrimage walks a delicate line between the spiritual and the material in its emphasis on the story and its setting though the search is for spirituality, it is pursued in terms of the most material details of where the Buddha was born or where Christ died, where the relics are or the holy water flows. Or perhaps it reconciles the spiritual and the material, for to go on pilgrimage is to make the body and its actions express the desires and beliefs of the soul. Pilgrimage unites belief with action, thinking with doing, and it makes sense that this harmony is achieved when the sacred has material presence and location. Protestants, as well as the occasional Buddhist and Jew, have objected to pilgrimages as a kind of icon worship and asserted that the spiritual should be sought within as something wholly immaterial, rather than out in the world. There is a symbiosis between journey and arrival in Christian pilgrimage, as there is in mountaineering. To travel without arriving would be as incomplete as to arrive without having traveled. To walk there is to earn it, through laboriousness and through the transformation that comes during a journey. Pilgrimages make it possible to move physically, through the exertions of one's body, step by step, toward those intangible spiritual goals that are otherwise so hard to grasp. We are eternally perplexed by how to move toward forgiveness or healing or truth, but we know how to walk from here to there, however arduous the jour ney. Too, we tend to imagine life as a journey, and going on an actual expedition takes hold of that image and makes it concrete, acts it out with the body and the imagination in a world whose geography has become spiritualized. The walker toiling along a road toward some distant place is one of the most compelling and universal images of what it means to be human, depicting the individual as small and solitary in a large world, reliant on the strength of body and will. In pilgrim age, the journey is radiant with hope that arrival at the tangible destination will bring spiritual benefits with it. The pilgrim has achieved a story of his or her ow and in this way too becomes part of the religion made up of stories of travel and transformation.

despite the variety of ingredients and the imagination with which Vermont cooks use them, the state remains strongly associated with several iconic products — think cheddar cheese (really, dairy products in general), apples and cider, and maple syrup. Here’s a brunch menu to commemorate Vermont’s anniversary that includes those tried-and-true flavors — cheddar in the quiche, maple syrup in the salad’s vinaigrette, and apple cider in the muffins, which recall fried cider doughnuts, with a thick cinnamon-sugar coating. Their crumb is a little denser than some other muffins, and their profile a bit more compact. Cheddar, Bacon, and Caramelized Onion Quiche Makes 1 quiche 6 slices bacon, cut into ¼-inch pieces, fried until crisp and the fat has rendered, drained, and 1½ tablespoons fat reserved 3 medium onions (about 1 ¼ pounds), thinly sliced (about 6 cups) Salt and black pepper 1½ tablespoons minced fresh sage ¼ teaspoon balsamic vinegar 3 large eggs 1 cup half-and-half Pinch cayenne pepper 2 cups coarsely grated medium or sharp cheddar 1 9-inch pie shell, blind-baked until lightly browned and warm In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the bacon fat until hot. Add onions and 1 teaspoon salt, toss to coat, and cook until they begin to soften and release liquid, about 6 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue cooking, stirring and scraping the bottom of the skillet every 10 minutes (and adjusting the heat if the onions begin to scorch or are not browning), until the onions are sticky and caramelized, about 1 hour longer (you will have about 1 cup). Add the sage, vinegar, and 1½ tablespoons water, and with a wooden spoon, scrape bottom of pan to dissolve the fond, about 30 seconds; set aside to cool briefly. With the rack in middle position, heat the oven to 375 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, half-and-half, cayenne, 1¾ cups cheese, and ¾ teaspoon each salt and black pepper to combine thoroughly. Spread caramelized onions in an even layer in the warm, pre-baked pie shell. Sprinkle bacon evenly over the onions, place pie shell on the oven rack, and pour in the custard mixture (it should reach to about ½ inch beneath the rim of the pie shell). Sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup cheese over custard mixture and bake until custard is set, light golden brown, center wiggles slightly when you jiggle the quiche, and the tip of a knife inserted about 1½ inches from the edge comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on a wire rack and serve barely warm or at room temperature.

We were taking a DC-10 all the way across the country, from the east coast to the west. Together we flew into the Red Centre, the interior of the continent and the location of Ayers Rock--one of Australia’s most recognizable icons. “Have a look at it,” Steve said when we arrived. “It’s the heart of Australia.” I could see why. A huge red mountain rose up out of the flat, sandy landscape. The rock appeared out of place in the great expanse of the desert. The Aborigines knew it as Uluru, and they preferred that tourists did not clamber over their sacred site. We respectfully filmed only the areas we were allowed to access with the local Aborigines’ blessing. As we approached the rock, Steve saw a lizard nearby. He turned to the camera to talk about it. I was concentrating on Steve, Steve was concentrating on the lizard, and John was filming. Bindi was with us, and she could barely take two steps on her own at this point, so I knew I could afford to watch Steve. But after John called out, “Got it,” and we turned back to Bindi, we were amazed at what we saw. Bindi was leaning against the base of Ayer’s Rock. She had placed both her palms against the smooth stone, gently put her cheek up to the rock, and stood there, mesmerized. “She’s listening,” Steve whispered. It was an eerie moment. The whole crew stopped and stared. Then Bindi suddenly seemed to come out of her trance. She plopped down and started stuffing the red sand of Uluru into her mouth like it was delicious. We also filmed a thorny devil busily licking up ants from the sandy soil. The one-of-a-kind lizard is covered with big, lumpy, bumpy scales and spikes. “When it rains,” Steve told the camera, “the water droplets run along its body and end up channeling over its face, so that if there is any rain at all, the thorny devil can get a drink without having to look for water!” It’s a pity she won’t remember any of it, I thought, watching Bindi crouch down to examine the thorny devil’s tongue as it madly ate ants. But we had the photos and the footage. What a lucky little girl, I thought. We’ll have all these special experiences recorded for her to take out and enjoy anytime she wants to remember.

Vischer had the same kind of experiences, likewise anticipating Rorschach’s. “When I observe a stationary object,” Vischer wrote, “I can without difficulty place myself within its inner structure, at its center of gravity. I can think my way into it,” feel “compressed and modest” when I see a star or flower, and “experience a feeling of mental grandeur and breadth” from a building, water, or air. “We can often observe in ourselves the curious fact that a visual stimulus is experienced not so much with our eyes as with a different sense in another part of our body.

* Who do you think of when you hear the word “successful”? “The first people who come to mind are the real heroes of Task Unit Bruiser: Marc Lee, first SEAL killed in Iraq. Mike Monsoor, second SEAL killed in Iraq, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor after he jumped on a grenade to save three of our other teammates. And finally, Ryan Job, one of my guys [who was] gravely wounded in Iraq, blinded in both eyes, but who made it back to America, was medically retired from the Navy, but who died from complications after the 22nd surgery to repair his wounds. Those guys, those men, those heroes, they lived, and fought, and died like warriors.” * Most-gifted or recommended books? “I think there’s only one book that I’ve ever given and I’ve only given it to a couple people. That’s a book called About Face, by Colonel David H. Hackworth. The other book that I’ve read multiple times is Blood Meridian [by Cormac McCarthy].” * Favorite documentaries? “Restrepo, which I’m sure you’ve seen. [TF: This was co-produced and co-filmed by Sebastian Junger, the next profile.] There is also an hour-long program called ‘A Chance in Hell: The Battle for Ramadi.’” Quick Takes * You walk into a bar. What do you order from the bartender? “Water.” * What does your diet generally look like? “It generally looks like steak.” * What kind of music does Jocko listen to? Two samples: For workouts—Black Flag, My War, side B In general—White Buffalo

Buridan’s ass,’ about a donkey who is standing halfway between a pile of hay and a bucket of water. He just keeps looking left to the hay, and right to the water, trying to decide. Hay or water, hay or water? He’s unable to decide, so he eventually falls over and dies of both hunger and thirst. A donkey can’t think of the future. If he did, he’d realize he could clearly go first to drink the water, then go eat the hay. “So, my advice to my 30-year-old self is, don’t be a donkey. You can do everything you want to do. You just need foresight and patience.

I do not think I have seen anyone so beautiful; I was enchanted by her manner and her wit, at once so masked, so ingenuous and so penetrating. But one felt a terrible unreality about her — as if talking to someone under water. Bobby and I engaged in mock competition for her; she was most agreeable to him and pleasant to me, but one never felt her to be wholly engaged. She receded into her own glittering mist.

When Ask met Embla he was overcome with joy, allured by her beauty, and filled with gratitude for the marvelous partner he’d been given. He ruled not over her, nor she over him. They were equal in dignity, though distinct in constitution. Together, male and female bore children—thus, they fulfilled their own divine image, becoming makers themselves. Their progeny, in turn, helped to maintain the balance between the garden groves and the skies. “Meanwhile, Taranus, Hu-Esus, and Beli came together and placed an icon amongst men. A great tree, rooted in the ground yet elevating its branches toward the skies. It served as an image of the All Father’s character, a reminder of the role man and woman were to serve by maintaining balance in Abred, the natural realm. By reaching to the Tree, the soul of man and woman together participated in Gwynfydd, a place beyond though not above the natural realm, a place where they could hold together the mysteries of nature. Yet the most prominent of the Great Tree’s progeny, while matching the Great Tree in beauty, differed in character. The Great Tree had always taken from the land no more and no less than it needed. It reached to the sun and absorbed waters from the nearby wellsprings, but never in excess. The Great Tree exemplified balance and harmony in Abred. Insofar as Ask and Embla maintained the balance of things, respected the agency of each element and creature, the Great Tree was a true Tree of Life. It nourished them in kind, channeling Awen into their souls. “The other tree, its progeny, rebelled against its own nature. It sought not balance nor harmony between the elements, but its own magnificence. It took from the land not as the land would freely give, but whatever it might use at the land’s expense. It could take no more light than the sun would offer, but drawing in all moisture from every surrounding wellspring and from the air itself, the temperate sun no longer exhibited a pleasant warmth, but a scorching heat. “But Ask and Embla, blinded by this Wayward Tree’s magnificence, failed to see its true character. Allured by its fruit, they took from it and ate. Thus, Ask and Embla came to resemble the Wayward Tree and forgot the Tree of Life. “Enraged by what he had seen, how his likeness had departed from Awen and the way of the Great Tree of Life, the All Father—Taranus, Hu-Esus, and Beli—dispatched an emissary, the one known as Michael, to Earth to salvage what had been lost.

Francis and Clare would retire to the woods near Assisi to converse with each other. The villagers of Assisi, seeing a red glow over the forests ran with buckets of water to douse what they assumed was a fire. Instead, they found Francis and Clare, seated in a clearing, rapt in conversation surrounded by a holy fire. The icon shows the fulfillment of Christ's promise in the gospel: "Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there with them". The figure of the Risen Christ is in their midst, blessing and connecting them from within a red mandorla of seraphs.

Just Because You Exercise Doesn’t Mean You Deserve Sugar Water

How might you put this into practice? Here are a few things I’ve done repeatedly for 3 to 14 days at a time to simulate losing all my money: Sleeping in a sleeping bag, whether on my living room floor or outside Wearing cheap white shirts and a single pair of jeans for the entire 3 to 14 days Using CouchSurfing.com or a similar service to live in hosts’ homes for free, even if in your own city Eating only A) instant oatmeal and/or B) rice and beans Drinking only water and cheap instant coffee or tea Cooking everything using a Kelly Kettle. This is a camping device that can generate heat from nearly anything

Don’t Be a Donkey TIM: “What advice would you give to your 30-year-old self?” DEREK: “Don’t be a donkey.” TIM: “And what does that mean?” DEREK: “Well, I meet a lot of 30-year-olds who are trying to pursue many different directions at once, but not making progress in any, right? They get frustrated that the world wants them to pick one thing, because they want to do them all: ‘Why do I have to choose? I don’t know what to choose!’ But the problem is, if you’re thinking short-term, then [you act as though] if you don’t do them all this week, they won’t happen. The solution is to think long-term. To realize that you can do one of these things for a few years, and then do another one for a few years, and then another. You’ve probably heard the fable, I think it’s ‘Buridan’s ass,’ about a donkey who is standing halfway between a pile of hay and a bucket of water. He just keeps looking left to the hay, and right to the water, trying to decide. Hay or water, hay or water? He’s unable to decide, so he eventually falls over and dies of both hunger and thirst. A donkey can’t think of the future. If he did, he’d realize he could clearly go first to drink the water, then go eat the hay. “So, my advice to my 30-year-old self is, don’t be a donkey. You can do everything you want to do. You just need foresight and patience.

Similarly, a comprehensive 1977 study by McKinlay and McKinlay, formerly required reading in almost all American medical schools, found that all medical interventions, including vaccines, surgeries, and antibiotics, contributed only about 1 percent of the decline and at most 3.5 percent.17 Both CDC and the McKinlays attributed the disappearance of infectious disease mortalities not to doctors and health officials, but to improved nutrition and sanitation—the latter credited to strict regulation of food preparation, electric refrigerators, sewage treatment, and chlorinated water. The McKinlays joined Harvard’s iconic infectious disease pioneer, Edward Kass, in warning that a self-serving medical cartel would one day try to claim credit for these public health improvements as a pretense for imposing unwarranted medical interventions (e.g., vaccines) on the American public. As the McKinlays and Kass18 had predicted, vaccinologists successfully hijacked the astonishing success story—the dramatic 74 percent decline in infectious disease mortalities of the first half of the twentieth century—and deployed it to claim for themselves, and particularly for vaccines, a revered and sanctified—and scientifically undeserving—prestige beyond criticism, questioning, or debate.

For would-be entrepreneurs (he calls them “wantrapreneurs”), or entrepreneurs who’ve grown a little too comfortable, Noah has a recommendation—ask for 10% off of your next few coffees. “Go up to the counter and order coffee. If you don’t drink coffee, order tea. If you don’t drink tea, order water. I don’t care. Then just ask for 10% off. . . . The coffee challenge sounds kind of silly, but the whole point is that—in business and in life—you don’t have to be on the extreme, but you have to ask for things, and you have to put yourself out there.

Here’s my protocol for my usual monthly 3-day fast from Thursday dinner to Sunday dinner: On Wednesday and Thursday, plan phone calls for Friday. Determine how you can be productive via cell phone for 4 hours. This will make sense shortly. Have a low-carb dinner around 6 p.m. on Thursday. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings, sleep as late as possible. The point is to let sleep do some of the work for you. Consume exogenous ketones or MCT oil upon waking and 2 more times throughout the day at 3- to 4-hour intervals. I primarily use KetoCaNa and caprylic acid (C8), like Brain Octane. The exogenous ketones help “fill the gap” for the 1 to 3 days that you might suffer carb withdrawal. Once you’re in deep ketosis and using body fat, they can be omitted. On Friday (and Saturday if needed), drink some caffeine and prepare to WALK. Be out the door no later than 30 minutes after waking. I grab a cold liter of water or Smartwater out of my fridge, add a dash of pure, unsweetened lemon juice to attenuate boredom, add a few pinches of salt to prevent misery/headaches/cramping, and head out. I sip this as I walk and make phone calls. Podcasts also work. Once you finish your water, fill it up or buy another. Add a little salt, keep walking, and keep drinking. It’s brisk walking—NOT intense exercise—and constant hydration that are key. I have friends who’ve tried running or high-intensity weight training instead, and it does not work for reasons I won’t bore you with. I told them, “Try brisk walking and tons of water for 3 to 4 hours. I bet you’ll be at 0.7 mmol the next morning.” One of them texted me the next morning: “Holy shit. 0.7 mmol.” Each day of fasting, feel free to consume exogenous ketones or fat (e.g., coconut oil in tea or coffee) as you like, up to 4 tablespoons. I will often reward myself at the end of each fasting afternoon with an iced coffee with a bit of coconut cream in it. Truth be told, I will sometimes allow myself a SeaSnax packet of nori sheets. Oooh, the decadence. Break your fast on Sunday night. Enjoy it. For a 14-day or longer fast, you need to think about refeeding carefully. But for a 3-day fast, I don’t think what you eat matters much. I’ve done steak, I’ve done salads, I’ve done greasy burritos. Evolutionarily, it makes no sense that a starving hominid would need to find shredded cabbage or some such nonsense to save himself from death. Eat what you find to eat.

Once You’re in Keto, How Can You Keep It Going Without Fasting? The short answer is: Eat a boatload of fat (~1.5 to 2.5 g per kilogram of body weight), next-to-no carbs, and moderate protein (1 to 1.5 g per kilogram of body weight) each day. We’ll look at Dom’s typical meals and day in a minute, but a few critical notes first: High protein and low fat doesn’t work. Your liver will convert excess amino acids into glucose and shut down ketogenesis. Fat as 70 to 85% of calories is required. This doesn’t mean you always have to eat rib eye steaks. A chicken breast by itself will kick you out of ketosis, but a chicken breast cut up into a green leafy salad with a lot of olive oil, feta cheese, and some Bulletproof Coffee (for example) can keep you in ketosis. One of the challenges of keto is the amount of fat one needs to consume to maintain it. Roughly 70 to 80% of your total calories need to come from fat. Rather than trying to incorporate fat bombs into all meals (one does get tired of fatty steak, eggs, and cheese over and over again), Dom will both drink fat between meals (e.g., coconut milk—not water—in coffee) and add in supplemental “ice cream,” detailed on page 29. Dom noticed that dairy can cause lipid profile issues (e.g., can spike LDL) and has started to minimize things like cream and cheese. I experienced the same. It’s easy to eat a disgusting amount of cheese to stay in keto. Consider coconut milk (Aroy-D Pure Coconut Milk) instead. Dom doesn’t worry about elevated LDL as long as other blood markers aren’t out of whack (high CRP, low HDL, etc.). From Dom: “The thing that I focus on most is triglycerides. If your triglycerides are elevated, that means your body is just not adapting to the ketogenic diet. Some people’s triglycerides are elevated even when their calories are restricted. That’s a sign that the ketogenic diet is not for you. . . . It’s not a one-size-fits-all diet.

All that preamble out of way, here’s what Big Dom eats. Keep in mind that he weighs roughly 100 kg (220 lbs), so scale as needed: Breakfast 4 eggs (cooked in a combo of butter and coconut oil) 1 can of sardines packed in olive oil (such as Wild Planet brand) ½ can oysters (Crown Prince brand. Note: Carbs on the label are from non-glycemic phytoplankton) Some asparagus or other vegetable TF: Both Dom and I travel with boxes of sardines, oysters, and bulk macadamia nuts. “Lunch” Instead of lunch, Dom will consume a lot of MCT throughout the day via Quest Nutrition MCT Oil Powder. He will also make a Thermos of coffee with a half stick of butter and 1 to 2 scoops of MCT powder, which he sips throughout the day, totaling about 3 cups of coffee. Dinner “One trick I’ve learned is that before dinner, which is my main meal of the day, I’ll have a bowl of soup, usually broccoli cream soup or cream of mushroom soup. I use concentrated coconut milk in place of the dairy cream. I thin it out [with a bit of water] so it’s not super dense in calories. After eating that, the amount of food that I want to consume is cut in half.” Dom’s dinner is always some kind of large salad, typically made up of: Mixed greens and spinach together Extra-virgin olive oil Artichokes Avocado MCT oil A little bit of Parmesan or feta cheese A moderate amount—about 50 g—of chicken, beef, or fish. He uses the fattiest versions he can get and increases the protein in the salad to 70 to 80 g if he had a workout that day. In addition to the salad, Dom will make some other vegetable like Brussels sprouts, asparagus, collard greens, etc., cooked in butter and coconut oil. He views vegetables as “fat delivery systems.

Honey + ACV: My go-to tranquilizer beverage is simple: 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (I use Bragg brand) and 1 tablespoon honey, stirred into 1 cup of hot water. This was taught to me by the late and great Seth Roberts, PhD. Some of his readers also noticed large and immediate strength improvements in exercise after a few days of using this pre-bed cocktail.

California Poppy Extract: If both honey + ACV and Yogi Bedtime Tea fail, try plan C: a few drops of California poppy extract in warm water. Yogi Bedtime Tea does contain California poppy extract, but taking it directly allows you to increase the dose.

Similarly, a comprehensive 1977 study by McKinlay and McKinlay, formerly required reading in almost all American medical schools, found that all medical interventions, including vaccines, surgeries, and antibiotics, contributed only about 1 percent of the decline and at most 3.5 percent.17 Both CDC and the McKinlays attributed the disappearance of infectious disease mortalities not to doctors and health officials, but to improved nutrition and sanitation—the latter credited to strict regulation of food preparation, electric refrigerators, sewage treatment, and chlorinated water. The McKinlays joined Harvard’s iconic infectious disease pioneer, Edward Kass, in warning that a self-serving medical cartel would one day try to claim credit for these public health improvements as a pretense for imposing unwarranted medical interventions (e.g., vaccines) on the American public.

Buffett’s investments]?” MARC: “No. No. Absolutely not. Furthermore, every time I hear a story like See’s Candies, I want to go find the new scientific superfood candy company that’s going to blow them right out of the water. We’re wired completely opposite in that sense. Basically, he’s betting against change. We’re betting for change. When he makes a mistake, it’s because something changes that he didn’t expect. When we make a mistake, it’s because something doesn’t change that we thought would.

I had to get back to this place where you just want water, food, and shelter. All the craziness of my life—this Wall Street life I had taken on—would go away, would melt away.

but you can start with a cold water “finish” to showers. Simply make the last 30 to 60 seconds of your shower pure cold.

Hot baths can also significantly increase GH over baseline, and both sauna and hot baths have been shown to cause a massive release in prolactin, which plays a role in wound healing. I usually stay in a hot bath or sauna for about 20 minutes, which is long enough to significantly elevate my heart rate. I push a few minutes past dynorphin release, which usually makes one feel dysphoric and want to get out (but *not* to dizziness or lightheadedness). Generally, I’ll listen to an audiobook like The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman during the heat, then cool off for 5 to 10 minutes using an ice bath (I put 40 pounds of ice in a large bath to get it to roughly 45°F; more details on page 43) and/or by drinking ice water. I’ll repeat this cycle 2 to 4 times.

I thank the inner lining of my inner lips for keeping its pure gliss decade after decade, century after century, as if I am iconic, a fountain whose waters are fresh, era after geological era, as if my lips are not merely mine, but have seemed to belong, some hours, to a man, to a child, to my species. And I have not, always, treated them well, I have sat on them and sat on them, for hours, in summer heat, sometimes I have left them untouched, so they cannot sing, yet they’ve been sweet to me, liquidy, sleek, lissome, with some faint fragrance of salted nectar. Other parts of my body have worn out, worn down, been ground away, dried up (though one breast still makes, once a moon, one drop of cream), but the kissing lips of life, the inner sheath of the mouth of ecstasy remains as silver-pale-green as the wet deeps of a cactus which guardians us in the fierce desert—the core of our being, the slake.

What I am saying is: Booze fucks our shit up. More than most things. More than gluten for sure, more than dairy for sure, more than white sugar and tap water for sure, and it fucks our shit up not only because it’s an addictive, toxic chemical, but because we live in a world where we haven’t quite caught on to that fact just yet. Even Gwyneth doesn’t know. And that—the fact that we think it’s safe because it’s legal and everyone is doing it, including our health icons—is what makes it even more dangerous than, say, cigarettes. Or Maybelline eyeliner.

on a seagull poo–like texture when mixed into cold water. Amelia saved my palate and joints by introducing me to the Great Lakes hydrolyzed version (green label), which blends easily and smoothly. Add a tablespoon of beet root powder like BeetElite to stave off any cow-hoof flavor, and it’s a whole new game. Amelia uses BeetElite pre-race and pre-training for its endurance benefits, but I’m much harder-core: I use it to make tart, low-carb gummy bears when fat Tim has carb cravings. RumbleRoller: Think foam roller meets monster-truck tire. Foam rollers have historically done very little for me, but this torture device had an immediate positive impact on my recovery. (It also helps you sleep if used before bed.) Warning: Start slow. I tried to copy Amelia and did 20-plus minutes my first session. The next day, I felt like I’d been put in a sleeping bag and swung against a tree for a few hours. Rolling your foot on top of a golf ball on the floor to increase “hamstring” flexibility. This is infinitely more helpful than a lacrosse ball. Put a towel on the floor underneath the golf ball, lest you shoot your dog’s eye out. Concept2 SkiErg for training when your lower body is injured. After knee surgery, Amelia used this low-impact machine to maintain cardiovascular endurance and prepare for the 2014 World’s Toughest Mudder, which she won 8 weeks post-op. Kelly Starrett (page 122) is also a big fan of this device. Dry needling: I’d never heard of this before meeting Amelia. “[In acupuncture] the goal is not to feel the needle. In dry-needling, you are sticking the needle in the muscle belly and trying to get it to twitch, and the twitch is the release.” It’s used for super-tight, over-contracted muscles, and the needles are not left in. Unless you’re a masochist, don’t have this done on your calves. Sauna for endurance: Amelia has found using a sauna improves her endurance, a concept that has since been confirmed by several other athletes, including cyclist David Zabriskie, seven-time U.S. National Time Trial Championship winner. He considers sauna training a more practical replacement for high-altitude simulation tents. In the 2005 Tour de France, Dave won the Stage 1 time trial, making him the first American to win stages in all three Grand Tours. Zabriskie beat Lance Armstrong by seconds, clocking an average speed of 54.676 kilometers per hour (!). I now use a sauna at least four times per week. To figure out the best protocols, I asked

But I was stuck for a long time by myself at Abraham Lincoln's portrait, standing in the middle of the huge hall as people moved all around me with mostly children. I felt as if time had stopped as I watched Lincoln, facing him, while watching the woman’s back as she was looking out the window. I felt wronged, so much like Truman from the movie, standing there in the middle of the museum alone. I was wondering what would Abraham Lincoln do if he realized he was the slave in his own cotton fields, being robbed by evil thieves, nazis. I had taken numerous photos of Martina from behind, as well as silhouettes of her shadow. I remember standing there, watching as she stood in front of the window; it was almost as if she was admiring the view of the mountains from our new home, as I did take such pictures of her, with a very similar composition to that of the female depicted in the iconic Lincoln portrait looking outwards from the window. I hadn't realized how many photographs I snapped of Martina with her back turned towards me while we travelled to picturesque places. Fernanda and I walked side-by-side in utter silence, admiring painting after painting of Dali's, without exchanging a single word. Meanwhile, Luis and Martina had got lost somewhere in the museum. When I finally found her, she was taking pictures outside of the Rainy Cadillac. We both felt something was amiss without having to say it, as Fernanda knew things I didn't and vice versa. We couldn't bring ourselves to discuss it though, not because we lacked any legal authority between me and Martina, but because neither Fernanda or myself had much parental authority over the young lady. It felt like when our marriages and divorces had dissolved, it was almost as if our parenting didn't matter anymore. It was as if I were unwittingly part of a secret screenplay, like Jim Carrey's character in The Truman Show, living in a fabricated reality made solely for him. I was beginning to feel a strange nauseous feeling, as if someone was trying to force something surreal down my throat, as if I were living something not of this world, making me want to vomit onto the painted canvas of the personalised image crafted just for me. I couldn't help but wonder if Fernanda felt the same way, if she was aware of the magnitude of what was happening, or if, just like me, she was completely oblivious, occasionally getting flashes of truth or reality for a moment or two. I took some amazing photographs of her in Port Lligat in Dali's yard in the port, and in Cap Creus, but I'd rather not even try to describe them—they were almost like Dali's paintings which make all sense now. As if all the pieces are coming together. She was walking by the water and I was walking a bit further up on the same beach on pebbles, parallel to each other as we walked away from Dali's house in the port. I looked towards her and there were two boats flipped over on the two sides of my view. I told her: “Run, Bunny! Run!

In the cool of evening people gather on deck to watch stars emerge from the twilight—at first single pinpricks and then a swarm, uncountable. The sky tilts steadily night by night, revealing new parts of itself as our changed latitude tips old constellations below the horizon and hoists new ones aloft. Soon there is a thrilling first glimpse of the Southern Cross, its iconic quadrangle pointing toward the antipodes, just below the shadow of Corvus the crow. The North Star sinks lower, steadfast pivot of the heavens until a day at the equator when it will dip to the horizon and vanish. In the northern hemisphere, Polaris will always make an angle with the horizon equal to your latitude—a cosmic geometry first revealed to me in magic diagrams by an astronomy professor, rocketing across the blackboard in a cloud of chalk dust.

Separated by centrifugal force, in the great turbine of Dante, or through fractional distillation in the Deisis of Byzantine icons, Inferno and Paradiso, layer of perfumed oil over layer of stinking pitch, all these in the end are all wisdom. Paradise – the wisdom of the right hand, right hemisphere, feminine, gentle and puffy, endless, still waters, illuminated in their depths by the phosphorescence of terrifying abyssal fish … Hell – wisdom of the left hand, left hemisphere, sudden paracletian fire, the mask that covers, in the crux of destruction, the soul of a dove. Good and evil, two enormous Buddhas erupting over our lives from two volcanoes over our lives, opposing and yet similar principles like magnetic poles, in the end they couple, over a footbridge of nervous fibers, to make the motionless and complicated hemispheres of the great, incomparable Brain that dreams us all.

The speech started as an acknowledgment of political icons—Roosevelt, Obama, and Bill Clinton—and mixed in applause lines for constituencies Hillary wanted to court, including African Americans, Hispanics, the LGBT community, and women of all races and sexual orientations. She sprinkled in bromides about economic opportunity and how “prosperity can’t just be for CEOs.” But there was no overarching narrative explaining her candidacy, no framing of Hillary as the point of an underdog spear, no emotive power. “America can’t succeed unless you succeed,” she offered in a trite tautology. “That is why I am running for president of the United States.” Even those in her camp who defended the speech acknowledged that there were too many cooks in the kitchen, that the text was too watered down to serve as a call to action, and that Hillary was less than inspiring. And these were the kinder criticisms. “That speech had a simple mission, which was a requirement,” said one source close to Hillary. “This was the chance to make a credible persuasive case for why she wants to be president. She had to answer the why question. It’s not because of her mother. Her mother’s an inspiration, but that is not why. It has to sort of feel like kind of a call to action, a galvanizing, ‘I’m bringing us together around this larger-than-all-of-us’ idea or cause, and I don’t think it did that. I don’t think it did either of those.

He just keeps looking left to the hay, and right to the water, trying to decide. Hay or water, hay or water? He’s unable to decide, so he eventually falls over and dies of both hunger and thirst. A donkey can’t think of the future.

Generally, I’ll listen to an audiobook like The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman during the heat, then cool off for 5 to 10 minutes using an ice bath (I put 40 pounds of ice in a large bath to get it to roughly 45°F; more details on page 43) and/or by drinking ice water. I’ll repeat this cycle 2 to 4 times.

Konstantin asked the monks for brushes and wooden panels, for oil and water and pigment, and set himself to writing icons.