List Of Deep Quotes

The leaves are tinged amber at the sides, the pale orange merging with the deep greens of summer. It's as though somebody has dipped a paintbrush in red watercolour paint and then left it atop a green paper towel. The pain seeps gradually through the porous paper and eventually fully stains it: within the month the leaves will be red.

That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place, afterward. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn't necessarily perverse. That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels. That God — unless you're Charlton Heston, or unhinged, or both — speaks and acts entirely through the vehicle of human beings, if there is a God. That God might regard the issue of whether you believe there's a God or not as fairly low on his/her/its list of things s/he/it's interested in re you.

I realized love was this.” His put his hand on his chest. “This deep, intense caring about someone’s well-being. About wanting that person to be okay no matter what happens to yourself.

Beauty’s not only skin deep. Just because a person is beautiful doesn’t mean there’s no soul beneath. Doesn’t mean that person hasn’t suffered like everyone else, doesn’t mean they don’t hope to still be a good human being in an awful world. (Gabriel)

Every species has a dinner date as part of courting ritual. A woman who won't let you pay for dinner is rejecting your courtship. She may think she's playing fair, or that she's being a feminist, but a very deep level, she knows that she's crossing you off her list of possibilities.

Like go for a walk, say a little prayer Take a deep breath of mountain air Put on my glove and play some catch It's time that I make time for that Wade the shore and cast a line Look up a long lost friend of mine Sit on the porch and give my girl a kiss Start livin', that's the next thing on my list.

Thing that got me was not her list of things she hated, since she was obviously crazy as a Cyborg, but fact that always somebody agreed with her prohibitions. Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws — always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" — not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

Please make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life. I take a deep breath and pick up my pen.

Like HIV, depression was a king at playing hide-and-seek. It concealed itself in reservoirs deep inside the mind, waiting for the walls you built around it to eventually erode. Depression could be at undetectable levels for months or years. You'd be all happy and stable and think you were cured, you were a survivor, and then BAM, out of nowhere it resurged.

This deep, intense caring about someone’s well-being. About wanting that person to be okay no matter what happens to yourself.

I grabbed my shot of tequila. Then I tossed it back. When I put my empty down to the bar and after I took in a deep breath, I informed her, “I like you. I need a new best friend. I’ve added you to the top of a list that has one name. Yours.

This is what I want you all to do. I want you to open a new document and type up a list of three problems in your life. Not the universe's life - your own. Underneath, type the solutions." "If we know the solutions," said Belle, "they're not problems." "Exactly," said Denny. "You do know the answers to most of your problems. Somewhere deep inside, you know.

This book is written with the deep conviction that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine must become rooted in our memory and consciousness as a crime against humanity and that it should be excluded from the list of alleged crimes.

It requires heavy-duty interventions: sweeping bans on polluting activities, deep subsidies for green alternatives, pricey penalties for violations, new taxes, new public works programs, reversals of privatizations—the list of ideological outrages goes on and

I turned away, took a deep breath, and sheathed the weapon. I never know what to say after I've intimidated someone; I ought to keep a list of tough-guy remarks.

Time to dig deep and find a Quinn Rowland capable of convincing Emilie to let me fuck her, because losing wasn’t an option. There was too much at stake, and my pride was the least important item on the list.

I have one word to say upon the subject of profound writers, who are grown very numerous of late; and I know very well the judicious world is resolved to list me in that number. I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers as with wells; a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there; and often, when there is nothing in the world at the bottom, besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and half under ground, it shall pass however for wondrous deep, upon no wiser a reason than because it is wondrous dark.

A bucket list disguises a dark question as a challenge: what do you want to do before you die? We all want, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” But do we attain that by listing everything we’ve ever wanted to do? Should we really focus on how many moments we can collect?

Nearly a Valediction" You happened to me. I was happened to like an abandoned building by a bull- dozer, like the van that missed my skull happened a two-inch gash across my chin. You were as deep down as I’ve ever been. You were inside me like my pulse. A new- born flailing toward maternal heartbeat through the shock of cold and glare: when you were gone, swaddled in strange air I was that alone again, inventing life left after you. I don’t want to remember you as that four o’clock in the morning eight months long after you happened to me like a wrong number at midnight that blew up the phone bill to an astronomical unknown quantity in a foreign currency. The U.S. dollar dived since you happened to me. You’ve grown into your skin since then; you’ve grown into the space you measure with someone you can love back without a caveat. While I love somebody I learn to live with through the downpulled winter days’ routine wakings and sleepings, half-and-half caffeine- assisted mornings, laundry, stock-pots, dust- balls in the hallway, lists instead of longing, trust that what comes next comes after what came first. She’ll never be a story I make up. You were the one I didn’t know where to stop. If I had blamed you, now I could forgive you, but what made my cold hand, back in prox- imity to your hair, your mouth, your mind, want where it no way ought to be, defined by where it was, and was and was until the whole globed swelling liquefied and spilled through one cheek’s nap, a syllable, a tear, was never blame, whatever I wished it were. You were the weather in my neighborhood. You were the epic in the episode. You were the year poised on the equinox.

Once you’ve identified these goals, list for each the two or three most important activities that help you satisfy the goal. These activities should be specific enough to allow you to clearly picture doing them. On the other hand, they should be general enough

Something else," he told Atkins. He stood with his nose an inch away from the sergeant's, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his coat. "What does Lucifer mean?" "Light Bearer." "And what is the stuff of the universe?" "Energy." "What is energy's commonest form?" "Light." "I know." And with that, the detective walked away, listing slowly through the squad room and down the stairs. He didn't come back.

Dear Mr. Peter Van Houten (c/o Lidewij Vliegenthart), My name is Hazel Grace Lancaster. My friend Augustus Waters, who read An Imperial Affliction at my recommendationtion, just received an email from you at this address. I hope you will not mind that Augustus shared that email with me. Mr. Van Houten, I understand from your email to Augustus that you are not planning to publish any more books. In a way, I am disappointed, but I'm also relieved: I never have to worry whether your next book will live up to the magnificent perfection of the original. As a three-year survivor of Stage IV cancer, I can tell you that you got everything right in An Imperial Affliction. Or at least you got me right. Your book has a way of telling me what I'm feeling before I even feel it, and I've reread it dozens of times. I wonder, though, if you would mind answering a couple questions I have about what happens after the end of the novel. I understand the book ends because Anna dies or becomes too ill to continue writing it, but I would really like to mom-wether she married the Dutch Tulip Man, whether she ever has another child, and whether she stays at 917 W. Temple etc. Also, is the Dutch Tulip Man a fraud or does he really love them? What happens to Anna's friends-particularly Claire and Jake? Do they stay that this is the kind of deep and thoughtful question you always hoped your readers would ask-what becomes of Sisyphus the Hamster? These questions have haunted me for years-and I don't know long I have left to get answers to them. I know these are not important literary questions and that your book is full of important literally questions, but I would just really like to know. And of course, if you ever do decide to write anything else, even if you don't want to publish it. I'd love to read it. Frankly, I'd read your grocery lists. Yours with great admiration, Hazel Grace Lancaster (age 16)

To experience deep gratitude, sit down and write a list of the things you are grateful for. Keep writing your list until your eyes are overflowing with tears. As the tears come, you will feel the most beautiful feeling around your heart and all through the inside of you. This is the feeling of true

{Yogananda on the death of his dear friend, the eminent 20th century scientist, Luther Burbank} His heart was fathomlessly deep, long acquainted with humility, patience, sacrifice. His little home amid the roses was austerely simple; he knew the worthlessness of luxury, the joy of few possessions. The modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits; it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in an empty boast. I was in New York when, in 1926, my dear friend passed away. In tears I thought, 'Oh, I would gladly walk all the way from here to Santa Rosa for one more glimpse of him!' Locking myself away from secretaries and visitors, I spent the next twenty-four hours in seclusion... His name has now passed into the heritage of common speech. Listing 'burbank' as a transitive verb, Webster's New International Dictionary defines it: 'To cross or graft (a plant). Hence, figuratively, to improve (anything, as a process or institution) by selecting good features and rejecting bad, or by adding good features.' 'Beloved Burbank,' I cried after reading the definition, 'your very name is now a synonym for goodness!

...I do not function too well on emotional motivations. I am wary of them. And I am wary of a lot of other things, such as plastic credit cards, payroll deductions, insurance programs, retirement benefits, savings accounts, Green Stamps, time clocks, newspapers, mortgages, sermons, miracle fabrics, deodorants, check lists, time payments, political parties, lending libraries, television, actresses, junior chambers of commerce, pageants, progress, and manifest destiny.

Having escaped the Dark Ages in which animals were mere stimulus-response machines, we are free to contemplate their mental lives. It is a great leap forward, the one that Griffin fought for. But now that animal cognition is an increasingly popular topic, we are still facing the mindset that animal cognition can be only a poor substitute of what we humans have. It can’t be truly deep and amazing. Toward the end of a long career, many a scholar cannot resist shining a light on human talents by listing all the things we are capable of and animals not. From the human perspective, these conjectures may make a satisfactory read, but for anyone interested, as I am, in the full spectrum of cognitions on our planet, they come across as a colossal waste of time. What a bizarre animal we are that the only question we can ask in relation to our place in nature is “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the smartest of them all?

AN INCOMPLETE LIST: THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HRH PRINCE HENRY OF WALES 1. The sound of your laugh when I piss you off. 2. The way you smell underneath your fancy cologne, like clean linens but somehow also fresh grass (what kind of magic is this?) 3. That thing you do where you stick out your chin to try to look tough. 4. How your hands look when you play piano. 5. All he things I understand about myself now because of you. 6. How you think Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars (wrong) because deep down you're a gigantic, sappy, embarrassing romantic who just wants the happily ever after. 7. Your ability to recite Keats. 8. Your ability to recite Bernadette's "Don't let it drag you down" monologue from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. 9. How hard you try. 10. How hard you've always tried. 11. How determined you are to keep trying. 12. That when your shoulders cover mine, nothing else in the entire stupid world matters. 13. The goddamn issue of Le Monde you brought back to London with you and kept and have on your nightstand (yes, I saw it). 14. The way you look when you first wake up. 15. Your shoulder-to-waist ratio. 16. Your huge, generous, ridiculous, indestructible heart. 17. Your equally huge dick. 18. The face you just made when you read that last one. 19. The way you look when you first wake up (I know I already said this, but I really, really love it). 20. The fact that you loved me all along.

When you have anxiety, you don’t really get to have deep breaths. Your ribs are too small to let your shrivelled lungs expand beyond half their size.

If it makes you feel better, though, Basil is the first on my list if we’re ever stranded in deep space and forced to eat one another. Aeons are most delicious.

He kissed her then. Not tentative. Not polite. This was no first-kiss kiss. It was demanding. Dirty. And it went on and on. Deep, open-mouthed, head-twisting, tongue-fucking, rock’n’roll kissing.

I later learned that while Elsie was at Crownsville, scientists often conducted research on patients there without consent, including one study titled "Pneumoencephalographic and skull X-ray studies in 100 epileptics." Pneumoencephalography was a technique developed in 1919 for taking images of the brain, which floats in a sea of liquid. That fluid protects the brain from damage, but makes it very difficult to X-ray, since images taken through fluid are cloudy. Pneumoencephalography involved drilling holes into the skulls of research subjects, draining the fluid surrounding their brains, and pumping air or helium into the skull in place of the fluid to allow crisp X-rays of the brain through the skull. the side effects--crippling headaches, dizziness, seizures, vomiting--lasted until the body naturally refilled the skull with spinal fluid, which usually took two to three months. Because pneumoencephalography could cause permanent brain damage and paralysis, it was abandoned in the 1970s. "There is no evidence that the scientists who did research on patients at Crownsville got consent from either the patients of their parents. Bases on the number of patients listed in the pneumoencephalography studyand the years it was conducted, Lurz told me later, it most likely involved every epileptic child in the hospital including Elsie. The same is likely true of at lest on other study called "The Use of Deep Temporal Leads in the Study of Psychomotor Epilepsy," which involved inserting metal probes into patients' brains.

Your soul may well consist of artists and artisans, crooks and charlatans, writers and wanderers, poets and performers, vagabonds and visionaries, cigar box jugglers and contortionists, sword swallowers, storey-tellers and snake worshippers, fire eaters and fire dancers, human cannonballs, treasure hunters, swashbuckling pirates, pilgrims, Bedouin tribesmen and Gypsies. Everything that’s rash and wild inside of you is striving for freedom. And I’m not asking for this to hit you like an epiphany. It’s not supposed to. But if you read that list of misfits above and gave just the tiniest of nods – even at a deep subliminal level – then you understand

Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, and spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch. Last night Orion vaulted and spread all over the sky, pagan and lunatic, his shoulder and knee on fire, his sword three suns at the ready-for what? I won’t see this year again, not again so innocent; and longing wrapped round my throat like a scarf. “For the Heavenly Father desires that we should see,” says Ruysbroeck, “and that is why He is ever saying to our inmost spirit one deep unfathomable word and nothing else.” But what is the word? Is this mystery or coyness? A cast-iron bell hung from the arch of my rib cage; when I stirred, it rang, or it tolled, a long syllable pulsing ripples up my lungs and down the gritty sap inside my bones, and I couldn’t make it out; I felt the voiced vowel like a sigh or a note but I couldn’t catch the consonant that shaped it into sense.

I keep a list as close as my phone, and draw a deep sense of satisfaction each time I strike a task from it. In such erasure lies joy. No matter how much I give of myself to household chores, each of the rooms under my control swiftly unravels itself again in my aftermath, as though a shadow hand were already beginning the unwritten lists of my tomorrows…

In his book Human Universals, Donald E. Brown lists traits that people in all places share. The list goes on and on. All children fear strangers and prefer sugar solutions to plain water from birth. All humans enjoy stories, myths, and proverbs. In all societies men engage in more group violence and travel farther from home than women. In all societies, husbands are on average older than their wives. People everywhere rank one another according to prestige. People everywhere divide the world between those inside their group and those outside their group. These tendencies are all stored deep below awareness.

The human mind isn’t a computer; it cannot progress in an orderly fashion down a list of candidate moves and rank them by a score down to the hundredth of a pawn the way a chess machine does. Even the most disciplined human mind wanders in the heat of competition. This is both a weakness and a strength of human cognition. Sometimes these undisciplined wanderings only weaken your analysis. Other times they lead to inspiration, to beautiful or paradoxical moves that were not on your initial list of candidates.

Why entertainment?” I asked. “Why do you like to write reviews?” “I love stories. I love watching them play out and trying to guess the endings. I love being surprised and learning new things about people or about myself.” “And then you love saying how it could’ve been done so much better?” He laughed, a soft, deep laugh that made my stomach flutter. “Or how it was done well. Don’t forget I do write good reviews too.

He projected confidence and strength and had the air of a person who had it all together. But I thought he looked like an uptight hobo and felt the deep loathing that can sometimes coexist with profound love. I could feel my chest tightening. I stretched across the wide seat and reached for his hand.

We have to be more careful,” she said. “I don’t have the time or energy for a broken heart.” He felt a squeeze in his chest. “I wasn’t planning to break your heart, Kate.” Her eyes fell to the floor before rising back to his. “Nobody ever does.” A fist tightened in his gut as he watched her retreat. He stood there for a long time, her words hitting hard, sinking deep. She’d been let down by a lot of people, and his name wasn’t going to be added to the list.

I had the taste of you in my mouth, so sweet, for four years. Your grudge and you hatin' me made that taste as bitter as it was sweet. Didn't get it, what I was feelin', not until I heard you were gettin' hitched. Then I knew I was gone for you. Don't know how it happened, just know it did. Seein' you with another guy cut deep. Then you lost him, and I felt it. And when you called me, I realized if I didn't get my shit together it would be empty pussy and parties for the rest of my life, and I'd never have a woman who was lost without me." His hand moved from my waist to frame the side of my face and his voice got quiet when he said, "Just to be clear, the point of findin' that is not makin' a woman be lost without me like Rosalie will be for a while until she moves on. The point of findin' that is to have the feeling, be able to give that gift, to work at keepin' it good so my woman never feels list because she knows she'll never be without me.

In the centre of everything stands the huge cake. It has appeared whole and perfect before them for most of the day, its train of sugar foliage glittering beneath the lights. But only minutes before the lights went out the guests gathered around to watch its ceremonial disembowelling. Now the deep red sponge gapes from within.

always seem to feel when it comes to Olivia: a deep, almost painful tenderness, and a shameful, secret envy.

Self-care can also just be another thing you procrastinate on and feel shitty about not doing. It can be another bullet on our to-do list, or a mask—Think positive thoughts! Document your gratitude!—that hides our messiness from ourselves and others. It is also some shamey, disingenuous bullshit to be told that if we practice deep breathing or detox from sugar, we’ll find some ease when the pain and exhaustion we’re feeling is mostly perpetuated by our culture. Your getting in your steps doesn’t make the hardship of experiencing systemic oppression or the energy suck of capitalism go away.

Tell me the best part of all your lives." She wanted to say When I found you, every time. But it wasn't as simple as that. It was hard even to think of them discretely. Her past lives began to swirl together and hiccup like the panels of a kaleidoscope. There was that beautiful moment in Tahiti when Lulu had tattooed Daniel's chest. And the way they'd abandoned a battle in ancient China because their love was more important than fighting any war. She could have listed a dozen sexy stolen moments, a dozen gorgeous, bittersweet kisses. Luce knew those weren't the best parts. The best part was now. That was what she would take with her from her journeys through the ages: He was worth everything to her and she was worth everything to him. The only way to experience that deep level of their love was to enter each new moment together, as if time were made of clouds. And if it came down to it during these next nine days, Luce knew that she and Daniel would risk everything for their love.

We are eating warm bread slathered in cold butter and topped with salty anchovies, one of those three-ingredient Italian constructions- a shopping list more than a recipe- that can stop a conversation in its tracks.

He had discovered a deep fondness in himself for making lists; he thought one of his forebears must have been an accountant. When your mind was troubled, he had discovered that making a list often set it at ease again.

I could have listed maybe fifty possible reactions without coming close to the one I got. Her eyes dulled and her narrow nostrils flared wide and her mouth fell into sickness. She lost her posture and stood in an ugly way.

As he turned back to her, Cassandra stood on her toes to kiss him. He claimed his reward immediately, fitting his mouth to hers and taking a long, ardent taste. Her head swam, and she welcomed the exploration of his tongue. He savored and consumed her, with a kiss more aggressive than any he'd given her before. It made her knees weak and turned her bones fluid. Her body listed toward his and was instantly gathered into the hard urgency of his embrace. Desire curled through her in hot tendrils that insinuated themselves in deep, private places. Her throat caught on a whimper of protest as his mouth lifted from hers. "We'd better start negotiating," he said raggedly. "The first issue is how much time you'll want to spend with me." "All of it," Cassandra said, and sought his lips again. Tom chuckled. "I would. I... oh, you're so sweet... no, I'm... God. It's time to stop. Really." He crushed his mouth against her hair to avoid her kisses. "You're about to be deflowered in the library." "Didn't that already happen?" she asked, and felt the shape of his smile. "No," he whispered, "you're still a virgin. Albeit slightly more experienced than two days ago." He brought his mouth closer to her ear. "Did you like what I did?" She nodded, her face turning so hot that she could feel her cheeks throb. "I wanted more." "I'd like to give you more. As soon as possible.

For now, the Simple Daily Practice means doing ONE thing every day. Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

He doesn’t like that you and I are together.” There was a hummingbird in my chest. The fluttering returned with a vengeance. “We are not together.” “Aren’t we?” My breath caught as his hand slid up, skating over my ribs, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Jensen’s deep, low chuckle travelled across my throat. “After this morning, we are most definitely together. We just haven’t worked out the specifics of our together-ness.” “Together-ness is not a word.” “Now it is.

Why do we complain of Nature? She has shown herself kindly; life, if you know how to use it, is long. But one man is possessed by an avarice that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men's fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: "The part of life we really live is small."5 For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time. Vices beset us and surround us on every side, and they do not permit us to rise anew and lift up our eyes for the discernment of truth, but they keep us down when once they have overwhelmed us and we are chained to lust. Their victims are never allowed to return to their true selves; if ever they chance to find some release, like the waters of the deep sea which continue to heave even after the storm is past, they are tossed about, and no rest from their lusts abides. Think you that I am speaking of the wretches whose evils are admitted? Look at those whose prosperity men flock to behold; they are smothered by their blessings. To how many are riches a burden! From how many do eloquence and the daily straining to display their powers draw forth blood! How many are pale from constant pleasures! To how many does the throng of clients that crowd about them leave no freedom! In short, run through the list of all these men from the lowest to the highest—this man desires an advocate,6 this one answers the call, that one is on trial, that one defends him, that one gives sentence; no one asserts his claim to himself, everyone is wasted for the sake of another. Ask about the men whose names are known by heart, and you will see that these are the marks that distinguish them: A cultivates B and B cultivates C; no one is his own master. And then certain men show the most senseless indignation—they complain of the insolence of their superiors, because they were too busy to see them when they wished an audience! But can anyone have the hardihood to complain of the pride of another when he himself has no time to attend to himself? After all, no matter who you are, the great man does sometimes look toward you even if his face is insolent, he does sometimes condescend to listen to your words, he permits you to appear at his side; but you never deign to look upon yourself, to give ear to yourself. There is no reason, therefore, to count anyone in debt for such services, seeing that, when you performed them, you had no wish for another's company, but could not endure your own.

His prescription to experience a deep sense of meaning, then, was remarkably pragmatic. He had three recommendations: 1. Have a project to work on, some reason to get out of bed in the morning and preferably something that serves other people. 2. Have a redemptive perspective on life’s challenges. That is, when something difficult happens, recognize the ways that difficulty also serves you. 3. Share your life with a person or people who love you unconditionally. Frankl called this treatment logotherapy, or a therapy of meaning. And surprisingly, it worked. He was put in charge of the mental-health division of the Viennese hospital system because they had lost far too many patients to suicide. When Frankl came aboard, he had more than thirty thousand suicidal patients under his care. The challenge was phenomenal. Frankl created community groups for the patients and taught counselors to identify projects the patients could contribute to, serious work the world needed that would give them a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Frankl also had the patients circle the difficult experiences they’d had and while allowing them to grieve, also asked them to list benefits that had come from their pain. The result of the program was transformational. Not one patient committed suicide on Frankl’s watch.

Let me be candid. If I had to rank book-acquisition experiences in order of comfort, ease, and satisfaction, the list would go like this: 1. The perfect independent bookstore, like Pygmalion in Berkeley. 2. A big, bright Barnes & Noble. I know they’re corporate, but let’s face it—those stores are nice. Especially the ones with big couches. 3. The book aisle at Walmart. (It’s next to the potting soil.) 4. The lending library aboard the U.S.S. West Virginia, a nuclear submarine deep beneath the surface of the Pacific. 5. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

Sublime Books The Known World, by Edward P. Jones The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro A Thousand Trails Home, by Seth Kantner House Made of Dawn, by N. Scott Momaday Faithful and Virtuous Night, by Louise Glück The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy, by Robert Bly The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, by Mahmoud Darwish Collected Fictions, by Jorge Luis Borges, trans. Andrew Hurley The Xenogenesis Trilogy, by Octavia E. Butler Map: Collected and Last Poems, by Wisława Szymborska In the Lateness of the World, by Carolyn Forché Angels, by Denis Johnson Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz Hope Against Hope, by Nadezhda Mandelstam Exhalation, by Ted Chaing Strange Empire, by Joseph Kinsey Howard Tookie’s Pandemic Reading Deep Survival, by Laurence Gonzales The Lost City of the Monkey God, by Douglas Preston The House of Broken Angels, by Luis Alberto Urrea The Heartsong of Charging Elk, by James Welch Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey Let’s Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell The Aubrey/Maturin Novels, by Patrick O’Brian The Ibis Trilogy, by Amitav Ghosh The Golden Wolf Saga, by Linnea Hartsuyker Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky Coyote Warrior, by Paul VanDevelder Incarceration Felon, by Reginald Dwayne Betts Against the Loveless World, by Susan Abulhawa Waiting for an Echo, by Christine Montross, M.D. The Mars Room, by Rachel Kushner The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander This Is Where, by Louise K. Waakaa’igan I Will Never See the World Again, by Ahmet Altan Sorrow Mountain, by Ani Pachen and Adelaide Donnelley American Prison, by Shane Bauer Solitary, by Albert Woodfox Are Prisons Obsolete?, by Angela Y. Davis 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, by Ai Weiwei Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters. —Tookie * * * If you are interested in the books on these lists, please seek them out at your local independent bookstore. Miigwech! Acknowledgments

If there is less deep poverty in San Francisco than in New York, is it not because San Francisco is yet behind New York in all that both cities are striving for? When San Francisco reaches the point where New York now is, who can doubt that there will also be ragged and barefooted children on her streets?

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

That’s some list you have there, little girl.” He placed the crumpled half sheet of paper on the counter next to one of her knees and finally took off his sunglasses. His deep brown irises pegged her with more intensity than she’d seen in weeks. Biting her lip, drew his attention and then he focused on her eyes again. “Did you like it, Sir?

Standing waist deep in the swimming pool at Yaddo, I received a gift—it was the first decent piece of instruction about marriage I had ever been given in my twenty-five years of life. “Does your husband make you a better person?” Edra asked. There I was in that sky-blue pool beneath a bright blue sky, my fingers breaking apart the light on the water, and I had no idea what she was talking about. “Are you smarter, kinder, more generous, more compassionate, a better writer?” she said, running down her list. “Does he make you better?” “That’s not the question,” I said. “It’s so much more complicated than that.” “It’s not more complicated than that,” she said. “That’s all there is: Does he make you better and do you make him better?

You should settle for nothing less than a man who loves you for who you are. He shouldn't try to change you. He peeked over the paper. He should love who he becomes when he's with you. All right, she said softly. Is that all? Hardly. I have an entire list. He took a step closer. He should revel in your accomplishments. With every word, his deep voice laid claim to her heart. His heart should be revealed to you through his kindness and his care. He should love you with every part of his being. He should never, ever say a harsh word or glare at you in anger. And, finally Jonathan lifted his eyes to hers he should worship all the bountiful gifts you possess that are uniquely yours. Only that man is worthy of you, Constance Lysander

Why do you want to know?” The shrug again. “Just wondering.” “Really. You’ve skipped your lawn tennis or duck hunting or whiskey drinking or whatever else people of your sort do all day, only to come all the way out to the island to ask me about the piano piece. Because you were just wondering.” I pushed away from the door. “Coming here to kiss me would have been more believable.” “Well, it was second on my list.” “I’m not intimidated by you,” I said, blunt. “If you’re hoping I’ll turn out to be some pathetic, blubbering little rag-girl who begs you not to ruin her, you’re in for a surprise.” “That’s good.” Lord Armand met my eyes. “I like surprises.” We gazed at each other, he on the bed and me by the door, neither of us giving quarter. It seemed to me that the room was growing even more dim, that time was repeating the same ploy it had pulled in Jesse’s cottage, drawing out long and slow. The storm outside railed against the castle walls, drowning the air within. It layered darkness through Armand’s eyes, the once-vivid blue now deep as the ocean at night. Beyond my window the rain fell and fell, fat clouds weeping as if they’d never stop. “Nice bracelet,” Armand said softly. “Did you steal it?” I shook my head. “You gave it to me.” “Did I?” “As far as everyone else if concerned, yes. You did.” “Hmm. And what do I get in return for agreeing to be your…benefactor?” “The answer to your question.” “No kiss?” he asked, even softer. “No.” His lips quirked. “All right, then, waif. I accept your terms. We’ll try the kiss later.

The weavers I’ve met are extremely relational. They are driven to seek deep relations with others, both to feed their hunger for connection and because they believe that change happens through deepening relationships. When they are working with the homeless or the poor or the traumatized, they are laboring alongside big welfare systems that offer services but not care. These systems treat people as “cases” or “clients.” They are necessary to give people financial stability and support, but they can’t do transformational change. As Peter Block, one of the leading experts on community, puts it, “Talk to any poor person or vulnerable person and they can give you a long list of the services they have received. They are well serviced, but you often have to ask what in their life has fundamentally changed.

Something settled inside me then, a deep serenity, the kind I thought I would get from rehab, but didn’t. It wasn’t S.....He was part of the picture, but I knew better than to expect someone to fill my empty spaces. I thought it might have been the act of standing in one place long enough to look around. I was taking stock in St. Nacho’s, making a new list of what I didn’t want and, maybe more importantly, what I did

She had always known that they did not connect on any deep level, but connecting emotionally need not be a priority on a married couple’s list, she thought, especially for a man and a woman who had been married for so long. There were more important things than passion and love in a marriage, such as understanding, affection, compassion, and that most godlike act a person could perform, forgiveness. Love was secondary to any of these.

I’m done being polite about this bullshit. My list of professional insecurities entirely stems from being a young woman. Big plot twist there! As much as I like to execute equality instead of discussing the blaring inequality, the latter is still necessary. Everything, everywhere, is still necessary. The more women who take on leadership positions, the more representation of women in power will affect and shift the deep-rooted misogyny of our culture—perhaps erasing a lot of these inherent and inward concerns. But whether a woman is a boss or not isn’t even what I’m talking about—I’m talking about when she is, because even when she manages to climb up to the top, there’s much more to do, much more to change. When a woman is in charge, there are still unspoken ideas, presumptions, and judgments being thrown up into the invisible, terribly lit air in any office or workplace. And I’m a white woman in a leadership position—I can only speak from my point of view. The challenges that women of color face in the workforce are even greater, the hurdles even higher, the pay gap even wider. The ingrained, unconscious bias is even stronger against them. It’s overwhelming to think about the amount of restructuring and realigning we have to do, mentally and physically, to create equality, but it starts with acknowledging the difference, the problem, over and over.

Here is what I remember him saying: Kindness before honesty. We are taught that honesty is the most important quality. Tell the truth. Do not lie. Etc. But there are so many instances when honesty isn't kind. When the kinder thing to do is to keep what you have to say to yourself. Tobias didn't understand that. He told me everything. Eventually, so did I. But as the honesty grew, so did the cruelty. Sometimes I thought we were being honest just to see how deep we could cut.

The list goes on. It’s impossible to know how many people believe one or many of these stories. But if a third of our community questions the president’s origin—despite all evidence to the contrary—it’s a good bet that the other conspiracies have broader currency than we’d like. This isn’t some libertarian mistrust of government policy, which is healthy in any democracy. This is deep skepticism of the very institutions of our society. And it’s becoming more and more mainstream.

Your Alex.He's selfish too.He could have left you alone, but he didn't. The difference is he's always known the consequences." "And what are the consequences? What did you see?" "You really should learn your history better Rowan." She slid the book across the table to me. The book was open and her finger was pointed to a list of names. I took a deep breath and began to read aloud. "A list of the accused witches hung at Gallows Hill." I let my eyes wander down until they froze on one name. "Alexander William Foster." The words sucked the life from me, leaving me limp and broken. My eyes met hers. "What does this mean?" She pulled the book back and grabbed my hand. "It means that Alex is from a very different place. A place where is no free will.When they find out what he is, he'll hang for it, Rowan.And they will find out.It's all here. His future is our history.You can't change that." She tapped on the book as she folded the cover closed. I caught a glimpse of the title. The Salem Witch Trials.

Lots of people do not feel and do not care, deeply. They're the sea creatures who were born to swim in the shallows. And I think that they look at those of us who come from the parts of the ocean that's pitch black and deeper than the core of the planet and they feel fascinated. They're fascinated in the way we are fascinated with eagles or with vampires. They think we're unabashedly deep and beautiful and they feel like they want to try being that way, too. It's like a fascination for a mystical creature. But I have watched these kinds of people burn out before they ever reach that depth (not even close). They burn out because they just get so exhausted! You only have the set of lungs designed for the depths of the ocean, if you are the type of creature who was born in those depths. It's not a regimen, it's not a list of rules, it's not a succession of steps to get there. It's about anatomy. There are creatures for the shallows and creatures for the deep. It is nature's designer plan. And when these people burn out, they will have these outbursts wherein they lash out at you, as if they are exasperated at why you're a mermaid in the black of the seas, and if they could, they'd drag you into a glass tank and chain you up because they don't want that kind of beauty around them, outshining them. Feeling and living in the depths of life (caring so much it hurts, feeling so much it becomes painful) is a mystical, beautiful thing but it cannot be copied and it shouldn't be copied. Everyone has their place and you are going to drown if you can't breathe underwater.

Christy dug her hand deeper into her shoulder bag. Scanning the papers she finally located there, she found no phone numbers or addresses listed. All the plans had been made in such haste. All she knew was that someone was supposed to meet her here. She was here, and he or she wasn't. Never in her life had she felt so completely alone. Stranded with nowhere to turn. A prayer came quickly to her lips. "Father God, I'm at Your mercy here. I know You're in control. Please show me what to do." Suddenly she heard a voice calling to her. "Kilikina!" Christy's heart stopped. Only one person in the entire world had ever called her by her Hawaiian name. She spun around. "Kilikina," called out the tall, blond surfer who was running toward her. Christy looked up into the screaming silver-blue eyes that could only belong to one person. "Todd?" she whispered, convinced she was hallucinating. "Kilikina," Todd wrapped his arms around her so tightly that for an instant she couldn't breathe. He held her a long time. Crying. She could feel his warm tears on her neck. She knew this had to be real. But how could it be? "Todd?" she whispered again. "How? I mean, what...? I don't..." Todd pulled away, and for the first time she noticed the big gouquet of white carnations in his hand. They were now a bit squashed. "For you," he said, his eyes clearing and his rich voice sounding calm and steady. Then, seeing her shocked expression, he asked, "You really didn't know I was here, did you?" Christy shook her head, unable to find any words. "Didn't Dr. Benson tell you?" She shook her head again. "You mean you came all this way by yourself, and you didn't even know I was here?" Now it was Todd's turn to look surprised. "No, I thought you were in Papua New Guinea or something. I had no idea you were here!" "They needed me here more," Todd said with a chin-up gesture toward the beach. "It's the perfect place for me." With a wide smile spreading above his square jaw, he said, "Ever since I received the fax yesterday saying they were sending you, I've been out of my mind with joy! Kilikina, you can't imagine how I've been feeling." Christy had never heard him talk like this before. Todd took the bouquet from her and placed it on top of her luggage. Then, grasping both her quivering hands in his and looking into her eyes, he said, "Don't you see? There is no way you or I could ever have planned this. It's from God." The shocked tears finally caught up to Christy's eyes, and she blinked to keep Todd in focus. "It is," she agreed. "God brought us back together, didn't He?" A giggle of joy and delight danced from her lips. "Do you remember what I said when you gave me back your bracelet?" Todd asked. "I said that if God ever brought us back together, I would put that bracelet back on your wrist, and that time, it would stay on forever." Christy nodded. She had replayed the memory of that day a thousand times in her mind. It had seemed impossible that God would bring them back together. Christy's heart pounded as she realized that God, in His weird way, had done the impossible. Todd reached into his pocket and pulled out the "Forever" ID bracelet. He tenderly held Christy's wrist, and circling it with the gold chain, he secured the clasp. Above their heads a fresh ocean wind blew through the palm trees. It almost sounded as if the trees were applauding. Christy looked up from her wrist and met Todd's expectant gaze. Deep inside, Christy knew that with the blessing of the Lord, Todd had just stepped into the garden of her heart. In the holiness of that moment, his silver-blue eyes embraced hers and he whispered, "I promise, Kilikina. Forever." "Forever," Christy whispered back. Then gently, reverently, Todd and Christy sealed their forever promise with a kiss.

Chikako and Ben's lives are inexorably linked linked to an ever-expanding list of seasonal tasks. In summer, they work through the garden bounty, drying and pickling the fruits and vegetables at peak ripeness. Fall brings chestnuts to pick, chili paste to make, mushrooms to hunt. Come winter, Noto's seas are flush with the finest sea creatures, which means pickling fish for hinezushi and salting squid guts for ishiri. In the spring, after picking mountain vegetables and harvesting seaweed, they plant the garden and begin the cycle that will feed them, their family, and their guests in the year ahead.

You hold Mr. Winterborne in esteem, then?" "I do, my lady. Oh, I know he's called an upstart by his social betters. But to the real London- the hundreds of thousands who work every blessed day and scrape by as best we can- Winterborne is a legend. He's done what most people don't dare dream of. A shop boy, he was, and now everyone from the queen down to any common beggar knows his name. It gives people reason to hope they might rise above their circumstances." Smiling slightly, the housekeeper had added, "And none can deny he's a handsome, well-made chap, for all that he's as brown as a gypsy. Any woman, highborn or low, would be tempted." Helen couldn't deny that Mr. Winterborne's personal attractions were high on her list of considerations. A man in his prime, radiating that remarkable energy, a kind of animal vitality that she found both frightening and irresistible. But there was something else about him... a lure more potent than any other. It happened during his rare moments of tenderness with her, when it seemed as if the deep, tightly locked cache of sadness in her heart was about to break open. He was the only person who had ever approached that trapped place, who might someday be able to shatter the loneliness that had always held fast inside her.

After DeepMind’s breakthrough, there’s no reason why a robot can’t ultimately use some variant of deep reinforcement learning to teach itself to walk without help from human programmers: all that’s needed is a system that gives it points whenever it makes progress. Robots in the real world similarly have the potential to learn to swim, fly, play ping-pong, fight and perform a nearly endless list of other motor tasks without help from human programmers. To speed things up and reduce the risk of getting stuck or damaging themselves during the learning process, they would probably do the first stages of their learning in virtual reality.

It bounded from the line of trees directly ahead. This was his first real sight of the spirit and the breath stuck in his throat. Its black fur rippled as muscles bunched, flexed and powered the sleek animal towards him. Front legs reached forward, claws extended to dig into the soft ground as its body compressed. Back arching upwards as the rear legs caught up with the front and gathered their strength, propelling the cat forward again. The panther ate up the ground between the forest and Zhou. As it closed, he could see the yellow iris surrounding the deep, black, circular pupil. Either side of its snout, whiskers sprouted, sensing the movement of air, and its mouth parted to reveal two, long, sharp canine teeth rising from its bottom jaw.

We might ask what role relational neuroscience plays in these kinds of experiences. For me, it begins with the body. Cultivating an understanding -- and most importantly a felt sense -- of these neural pathways helps us attune body to body with our people as they enter these deeper, more challenging realms. Through resonance, our capacity to attend to our bodies while remaining in a ventral state gradually becomes theirs. An indispensable support comes from our left hemisphere's deepening understanding of the particulars of the healing process. The stability this provides helps our right stay as engaged as possible in the relationship with all its emerging uncertainty. When Joshua became so suddenly depressed, Jaak Panksepp came to mind, so I could remain curious rather than scared. When Caroline entered increasingly intense states with her mother, Stephen Porges helped me remain mindful of our joined windows of tolerance and the necessity of staying in connection for co-regulation and disconfirmation to occur. The whole process of leading, following and responding rests on his statement, "Safety IS the treatment". In the broadest way, Dan Siegel's voice fosters deep acquaintance with the principles of interpersonal neurobiology, which supports hope for healing, confidence in our inherent health, and appreciation for our co-organizing brains. Each of these strands of knowledge increases our trust in the process. You may sense yourself adding to the list those that have been most helpful for you.

Characteristics of the Council 1. The council exists as a device to gain understanding about important issues facing the organization. 2. The Council is assembled and used by the leading executive and usually consists of five to twelve people. 3. Each Council member has the ability to argue and debate in search of understanding, not from the egoistic need to win a point or protect a parochial interest. 4. Each Council member retains the respect of every other Council member, without exception. 5. Council members come from a range of perspectives, but each member has deep knowledge about some aspect of the organization and/or the environment in which it operates. 6. The Council includes key members of the management team but is not limited to members of the management team, nor is every executive automatically a member. 7. The Council is a standing body, not an ad hoc committee assembled for a specific project. 8. The Council meets periodically, as much as once a week or as infrequently as once per quarter. 9. The Council does not seek consensus, recognizing that consensus decisions are often at odds with intelligent decisions. The responsibility for the final decision remains with the leading executive. 10. The Council is an informal body, not listed on any formal organization chart or in any formal documents. 11. The Council can have a range of possible names, usually quite innocuous. In the good-to-great companies, they had benign names like Long-Range Profit Improvement Committee, Corporate Products Committee, Strategic Thinking Group, and Executive Council.

The perplexed man cried out within the clergyman, and pressed for some acknowledgment from God of the being he had made. But—was it strange to tell? or if strange, was it not the most natural result nevertheless?—almost the same moment he began to pray in this truer fashion, the doubt rushed up in him like a torrent-spring from the fountains of the great deep—Was there—could there be a God at all? a real being who might actually hear his prayer? In this crowd of houses and shops and churches, amidst buying and selling, and ploughing and praising and backbiting, this endless pursuit of ends and of means to ends, while yet even the wind that blew where it listed blew under laws most fixed, and the courses of the stars were known to a hair's-breadth, —was there—could there be a silent invisible God working his own will in it all? Was there a driver to that chariot whose multitudinous horses seemed tearing away from the pole in all directions? and was he indeed, although invisible and inaudible, guiding that chariot, sure as the flight of a comet, straight to its goal? Or was there a soul to that machine whose myriad wheels went grinding on and on, grinding the stars into dust, matter into man, and man into nothingness? Was there—could there be a living heart to the universe that did positively hear him—poor, misplaced, dishonest, ignorant Thomas Wingfold, who had presumed to undertake a work he neither could perform nor had the courage to forsake, when out of the misery of the grimy little cellar of his consciousness he cried aloud for light and something to make a man of him? For now that Thomas had begun to doubt like an honest being, every ugly thing within him began to show itself to his awakened probity.

This book is fiction and all the characters are my own, but it was inspired by the story of the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. I first heard of the place in the summer of 2014 and discovered Ben Montgomery’s exhaustive reporting in the Tampa Bay Times. Check out the newspaper’s archive for a firsthand look. Mr. Montgomery’s articles led me to Dr. Erin Kimmerle and her archaeology students at the University of South Florida. Their forensic studies of the grave sites were invaluable and are collected in their Report on the Investigation into the Deaths and Burials at the Former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. It is available at the university’s website. When Elwood reads the school pamphlet in the infirmary, I quote from their report on the school’s day-to-day functions. Officialwhitehouseboys.org is the website of Dozier survivors, and you can go there for the stories of former students in their own words. I quote White House Boy Jack Townsley in chapter four, when Spencer is describing his attitude toward discipline. Roger Dean Kiser’s memoir, The White House Boys: An American Tragedy, and Robin Gaby Fisher’s The Boys of the Dark: A Story of Betrayal and Redemption in the Deep South (written with Michael O’McCarthy and Robert W. Straley) are excellent accounts. Nathaniel Penn’s GQ article “Buried Alive: Stories From Inside Solitary Confinement” contains an interview with an inmate named Danny Johnson in which he says, “The worst thing that’s ever happened to me in solitary confinement happens to me every day. It’s when I wake up.” Mr. Johnson spent twenty-seven years in solitary confinement; I have recast that quote in chapter sixteen. Former prison warden Tom Murton wrote about the Arkansas prison system in his book with Joe Hyams called Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal. It provides a ground’s-eye view of prison corruption and was the basis of the movie Brubaker, which you should see if you haven’t. Julianne Hare’s Historic Frenchtown: Heart and Heritage in Tallahassee is a wonderful history of that African-American community over the years. I quote the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. a bunch; it was energizing to hear his voice in my head. Elwood cites his “Speech Before the Youth March for Integrated Schools” (1959); the 1962 LP Martin Luther King at Zion Hill, specifically the “Fun Town” section; his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”; and his 1962 speech at Cornell College. The “Negroes are Americans” James Baldwin quote is from “Many Thousands Gone” in Notes of a Native Son. I was trying to see what was on TV on July 3, 1975. The New York Times archive has the TV listings for that night, and I found a good nugget.

Little Brother, an aspiring painter, saved up all his money and went to France, to surround himself with beauty and inspiration. He lived on the cheap, painted every day, visited museums, traveled to picturesque locations, bravely spoke to everyone he met, and showed his work to anyone who would look at it. One afternoon, Little Brother struck up a conversation in a café with a group of charming young people, who turned out to be some species of fancy aristocrats. The charming young aristocrats took a liking to Little Brother and invited him to a party that weekend in a castle in the Loire Valley. They promised Little Brother that this was going to be the most fabulous party of the year. It would be attended by the rich, by the famous, and by several crowned heads of Europe. Best of all, it was to be a masquerade ball, where nobody skimped on the costumes. It was not to be missed. Dress up, they said, and join us! Excited, Little Brother worked all week on a costume that he was certain would be a showstopper. He scoured Paris for materials and held back neither on the details nor the audacity of his creation. Then he rented a car and drove to the castle, three hours from Paris. He changed into his costume in the car and ascended the castle steps. He gave his name to the butler, who found him on the guest list and politely welcomed him in. Little Brother entered the ballroom, head held high. Upon which he immediately realized his mistake. This was indeed a costume party—his new friends had not misled him there—but he had missed one detail in translation: This was a themed costume party. The theme was “a medieval court.” And Little Brother was dressed as a lobster. All around him, the wealthiest and most beautiful people of Europe were attired in gilded finery and elaborate period gowns, draped in heirloom jewels, sparkling with elegance as they waltzed to a fine orchestra. Little Brother, on the other hand, was wearing a red leotard, red tights, red ballet slippers, and giant red foam claws. Also, his face was painted red. This is the part of the story where I must tell you that Little Brother was over six feet tall and quite skinny—but with the long waving antennae on his head, he appeared even taller. He was also, of course, the only American in the room. He stood at the top of the steps for one long, ghastly moment. He almost ran away in shame. Running away in shame seemed like the most dignified response to the situation. But he didn’t run. Somehow, he found his resolve. He’d come this far, after all. He’d worked tremendously hard to make this costume, and he was proud of it. He took a deep breath and walked onto the dance floor. He reported later that it was only his experience as an aspiring artist that gave him the courage and the license to be so vulnerable and absurd. Something in life had already taught him to just put it out there, whatever “it” is. That costume was what he had made, after all, so that’s what he was bringing to the party. It was the best he had. It was all he had. So he decided to trust in himself, to trust in his costume, to trust in the circumstances. As he moved into the crowd of aristocrats, a silence fell. The dancing stopped. The orchestra stuttered to a stop. The other guests gathered around Little Brother. Finally, someone asked him what on earth he was. Little Brother bowed deeply and announced, “I am the court lobster.” Then: laughter. Not ridicule—just joy. They loved him. They loved his sweetness, his weirdness, his giant red claws, his skinny ass in his bright spandex tights. He was the trickster among them, and so he made the party. Little Brother even ended up dancing that night with the Queen of Belgium. This is how you must do it, people.

When Benjamin Bloom studied his 120 world-class concert pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and research neurologists, he found something fascinating. For most of them, their first teachers were incredibly warm and accepting. Not that they set low standards. Not at all, but they created an atmosphere of trust, not judgment. It was, “I’m going to teach you,” not “I’m going to judge your talent.” As you look at what Collins and Esquith demanded of their students—all their students—it’s almost shocking. When Collins expanded her school to include young children, she required that every four-year-old who started in September be reading by Christmas. And they all were. The three- and four-year-olds used a vocabulary book titled Vocabulary for the High School Student. The seven-year-olds were reading The Wall Street Journal. For older children, a discussion of Plato’s Republic led to discussions of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Orwell’s Animal Farm, Machiavelli, and the Chicago city council. Her reading list for the late-grade-school children included The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov, Physics Through Experiment, and The Canterbury Tales. Oh, and always Shakespeare. Even the boys who picked their teeth with switchblades, she says, loved Shakespeare and always begged for more. Yet Collins maintained an extremely nurturing atmosphere. A very strict and disciplined one, but a loving one. Realizing that her students were coming from teachers who made a career of telling them what was wrong with them, she quickly made known her complete commitment to them as her students and as people. Esquith bemoans the lowering of standards. Recently, he tells us, his school celebrated reading scores that were twenty points below the national average. Why? Because they were a point or two higher than the year before. “Maybe it’s important to look for the good and be optimistic,” he says, “but delusion is not the answer. Those who celebrate failure will not be around to help today’s students celebrate their jobs flipping burgers.… Someone has to tell children if they are behind, and lay out a plan of attack to help them catch up.” All of his fifth graders master a reading list that includes Of Mice and Men, Native Son, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Joy Luck Club, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Separate Peace. Every one of his sixth graders passes an algebra final that would reduce most eighth and ninth graders to tears. But again, all is achieved in an atmosphere of affection and deep personal commitment to every student. “Challenge and nurture” describes DeLay’s approach, too. One of her former students expresses it this way: “That is part of Miss DeLay’s genius—to put people in the frame of mind where they can do their best.… Very few teachers can actually get you to your ultimate potential. Miss DeLay has that gift. She challenges you at the same time that you feel you are being nurtured.

As arrogant as I may be in general, I am not sufficiently doltish or vainglorious to imagine that I can meaningfully address the deep philosophical questions embedded within this general inquiry of our intellectual ages—that is, fruitful modes of analysis for the history of human thought. I shall therefore take refuge in an escape route that has traditionally been granted to scientists: the liberty to act as a practical philistine. Instead of suggesting a principled and general solution, I shall ask whether I can specify an operational way to define “Darwinism” (and other intellectual entities) in a manner specific enough to win shared agreement and understanding among readers, but broad enough to avoid the doctrinal quarrels about membership and allegiance that always seem to arise when we define intellectual commitments as pledges of fealty to lists of dogmata (not to mention initiation rites, secret handshakes and membership cards—in short, the intellectual paraphernalia that led Karl Marx to make his famous comment to a French journalist: “je ne suis pas marxiste”).

Rhysand opened his mouth, but then the silhouettes of two tall, powerful bodies appeared on the other side of the front door's fogged glass. One of them banged on it with a fist. 'Hurry up, you lazy ass,' a deep male voice drawled from the antechamber beyond. Exhaustion drugged me so heavily that I didn't particularly care that there were wings peeking over thier two shadowy forms. Rhys didn't so much as blink toward the door. 'Two things, Feyre darling.' The pounding continued, followed by the second male murmuring to his companion, 'If you're going to pick a fight with him, do it after breakfast.' That voice- like shadows given form, dark and smooth and... cold. 'I wasn't the one who hauled me out of bed just now to fly down here,' the first one said. Then added, 'Busybody.' I could have sworn a smile tugged on Rhys's lips as he went on, 'One, no one- no one- but Mor and I are able to winnow directly inside this house. it is warded, shielded, and then warded some more. Only those I wish- and you wish- may enter. You are safe here; and safe anywhere in this city, for that matter. Velaris's walls are well protected and have not been breached in five thousand years. No one with ill intent enters this city unless I allow it. So go where you wish, do what you wish, and see who you wish. Those two in the antechamber,' he added, eyes sparkling, 'might not be on that list of people you should bother knowing, if they keep banging on the door like children.' Another pound, emphasised by the first male voice saying, 'You know we can hear you, prick.' 'Secondly,' Rhys went on, 'in regard to the two bastards at my door, it's up to you whether you want to meet them now, or head upstairs like a wise person, take a nap since you're still looking a little peaky, and then change into city-appropriate clothing while I beat the hell out of one of them for talking to his High Lord like that.' There was such light in his eyes. It made him look... younger, somehow. More mortal. So at odds with the icy rage I'd seen earlier when I'd awoken... Awoken on that couch, and then decided I wasn't returning home. Decided that, perhaps, the Spring Court might not be my home.

I first came to Hokkaido for two reasons: miso ramen and uni, the island's most famous foods and two items on my short list for Last Supper constituents. The only thing they share in common, besides a home, is the intense fits of joy they deliver: the former made from an unholy mix of pork-bone broth, thick miso paste, and wok-crisped pork belly (with the optional addition of a slab of melting Hokkaido butter), the latter arguably the sexiest food on earth, yolk-orange tongues of raw sea urchin roe with a habit-forming blend of fat and umami, sweetness and brine. Fall for uni at your own peril; like heroin and high-stakes poker, it's an expensive addiction that's tough to kick. But my dead-simple plan- to binge on both and catch the first flight back to Tokyo- has been upended by a steam locomotive and Whole Foods foliage, and suddenly Hokkaido seems much bigger than an urchin and a bowl of soup. No one told me about the rolling farmlands, the Fuji-like volcanoes, the stunning national parks, one stacked on top of the other. Nobody said there would be wine. And cheese. And bread.

In your own mind, what do you usually think about at the end of the day? The fifty things that went right, or the one that went wrong? Such as the driver who cut you off in traffic, or the one thing on your To Do list that didn’t get done . . . In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. That shades implicit memory—your underlying feelings, expectations, beliefs, inclinations, and mood—in an increasingly negative direction. Which is not fair, since most of the facts in your life are probably positive or at least neutral. Besides the injustice of it, the growing pile of negative experiences in implicit memory naturally makes a person more anxious, irritable, and blue—plus it gets harder to be patient and giving toward others. But you don’t have to accept this bias! By tilting toward the good—toward that which brings more happiness and benefit to oneself and others—you merely level the playing field. Then, instead of positive experiences washing through you like water through a sieve, they’ll collect in implicit memory deep down in your brain.

Question 2: How Do You Want to Grow? When you watch how young children soak up information, you realize how deeply wired we are to learn and grow. Personal growth can and should happen throughout life, not just when we’re children. In this section, you’re essentially asking yourself: In order to have the experiences above, how do I have to grow? What sort of man or woman do I need to evolve into? Notice how this question ties to the previous one? Now, consider these four categories from the Twelve Areas of Balance: 5.​YOUR HEALTH AND FITNESS. Describe how you want to feel and look every day. What about five, ten, or twenty years from now? What eating and fitness systems would you like to have? What health or fitness systems would you like to explore, not because you think you ought to but because you’re curious and want to? Are there fitness goals you’d like to achieve purely for the thrill of knowing you accomplished them (whether it’s hiking a mountain, learning to tap dance, or getting in a routine of going to the gym)? 6.​YOUR INTELLECTUAL LIFE. What do you need to learn in order to have the experiences you listed above? What would you love to learn? What books and movies would stretch your mind and tastes? What kinds of art, music, or theater would you like to know more about? Are there languages you want to master? Remember to focus on end goals—choosing learning opportunities where the joy is in the learning itself, and the learning is not merely a means to an end, such as a diploma. 7.​YOUR SKILLS. What skills would help you thrive at your job and would you enjoy mastering? If you’d love to switch gears professionally, what skills would it take to do that? What are some skills you want to learn just for fun? What would make you happy and proud to know how to do? If you could go back to school to learn anything you wanted just for the joy of it, what would that be? 8.​YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE. Where are you now spiritually, and where would you like to be? Would you like to move deeper into the spiritual practice you already have or try out others? What is your highest aspiration for your spiritual practice? Would you like to learn things like lucid dreaming, deep states of meditation, or ways to overcome fear, worry, or stress?

Here are my 12 Rules for Living: I go to bed and get up at the same time seven days per week (8 p.m. and 4 a.m., respectively). I stick to my diet, avoid caffeine after 1 p.m., and avoid alcohol within three hours of bedtime. I write for at least sixty minutes first thing every morning. I do not check email before noon and I do not talk on the phone unless it is a scheduled interview or conference call. I act polite and courteous, and I do not swear. I create a to-do list at the start & end of every workday and update my daily gratitude & achievement journal. I do not engage in confrontations with anyone, in-person or online. This is a waste of time and energy. If I have caused harm, I apologize and fix the situation. And then I take a deep breath, relax, breathe out, and re-focus my efforts back on my work and goals. I am guided by these two phrases: “Nothing matters.” – I can only work towards my big goals and my vision of helping others, while the opinions of others do not matter. “It will all be over soon.” – Everything, both good and bad, comes to an end. I must enjoy the good while it lasts, and persevere through the bad until I have beaten it. Everything that happens to me—good and bad—is my personal responsibility. I blame no one but myself. These are the choices I’ve made—this is the life I’m living. I accept the consequences of my actions. I will help ten million men and women transform their lives. I will not be the person I don’t want to be. I will not be petty, jealous, or envious, or give in to any other of those lazy emotions. I will not gossip or speak badly of others, no matter who I am with or what environment I am in. I will not be negative when it is easier to be positive. I will not hurt others when it is possible to help. I will know the temptations, situations and environments in life that I must avoid, and I will, in fact, avoid them, even if it means loosening relationships with others who “live” in those environments. It’s my life and that matters more than what other people think of me. “I will always keep the child within me alive.” – Frank McKinney. I will make time to laugh and play every day. “I will write with honesty and feeling.” – Ted Nicholas. The opinion of others does not matter. What matters is the number of people that I can help by sharing advice and encouragement in my writing. My 12 Rules have made me much happier

If you’re an introvert, you also know that the bias against quiet can cause deep psychic pain. As a child you might have overheard your parents apologize for your shyness. (“Why can’t you be more like the Kennedy boys?” the Camelot-besotted parents of one man I interviewed repeatedly asked him.) Or at school you might have been prodded to come “out of your shell”—that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and that some humans are just the same. “All the comments from childhood still ring in my ears, that I was lazy, stupid, slow, boring,” writes a member of an e-mail list called Introvert Retreat. “By the time I was old enough to figure out that I was simply introverted, it was a part of my being, the assumption that there is something inherently wrong with me. I wish I could find that little vestige of doubt and remove it.” Now that you’re an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you’re told that you’re “in your head too much,” a phrase that’s often deployed against the quiet and cerebral. Of course, there’s another word for such people: thinkers.

Desperately. Tally searched her brain for a prayer. Any prayer. Now I lay me down to sleep... No! Not that one. Hail Mary something, something. She wasn't Catholic. Oh, God, she should've gone to church more often. And Jesus, now definitely wasn't the time to blaspheme. Fingers completely numb from gripping the chair, she kept her gaze pinned, with manic attention, on the pirate's large, strong hands on the wheel. Backlit eerily by the red lights on the instrument panel, those few teeny, tiny red lights were all that held her together. She hated the dark. Hated, hated, hated it. She wasn't that fond of roller coasters, either, and this was about seven hundred times worse. Putting the two together was overkill and proved that God had a sense of humor. Maybe she didn't want to pray after all. The boat hit a trough with the force of a ten-ton cement truck slamming into a granite mountain. Every bone in her body jarred. Dear God, how long could the pirate ship last in this onslaught? Her brain pulled up every water movie she'd ever seen. Titanic. The Abyss. The Deep. Jaws... Oh, Lord. The Perfect Storm... There were things she still wanted to do in her life. Off the top of her head she couldn't think of a one right now. But topping her list was dying in her own bed in Chicago. Dry. Of old age.

The clearest signs of Hakodate's current greatness, though, can be found clustered around its central train station, in the morning market, where blocks and blocks of pristine seafood explode onto the sidewalks like an edible aquarium, showcasing the might of the Japanese fishing industry. Hokkaido is ground zero for the world's high-end sushi culture. The cold waters off the island have long been home to Japan's A-list of seafood: hairy crab, salmon, scallops, squid, and, of course, uni. The word "Hokkaido" attached to any of these creatures commands a premium at market, one that the finest sushi chefs around the world are all too happy to pay. Most of the Hokkaido haul is shipped off to the Tsukiji market in Tokyo, where it's auctioned and scattered piece by piece around Japan and the big cities of the world. But the island keeps a small portion of the good stuff for itself, most of which seems to be concentrated in a two-hundred-meter stretch in Hakodate. Everything here glistens with that sparkly sea essence, and nearly everything is meant to be consumed in the moment. Live sea urchins, piled high in hillocks of purple spikes, are split with scissors and scraped out raw with chopsticks. Scallops are blowtorched in their shells until their edges char and their sweet liquor concentrates. Somewhere, surely, a young fishmonger will spoon salmon roe directly into your mouth for the right price.

Several of the peculiarities of WEIRD culture can be captured in this simple generalization: The WEIRDer you are, the more you see a world full of separate objects, rather than relationships. It has long been reported that Westerners have a more independent and autonomous concept of the self than do East Asians.3 For example, when asked to write twenty statements beginning with the words “I am …,” Americans are likely to list their own internal psychological characteristics (happy, outgoing, interested in jazz), whereas East Asians are more likely to list their roles and relationships (a son, a husband, an employee of Fujitsu). The differences run deep; even visual perception is affected. In what’s known as the framed-line task, you are shown a square with a line drawn inside it. You then turn the page and see an empty square that is larger or smaller than the original square. Your task is to draw a line that is the same as the line you saw on the previous page, either in absolute terms (same number of centimeters; ignore the new frame) or in relative terms (same proportion relative to the frame). Westerners, and particularly Americans, excel at the absolute task, because they saw the line as an independent object in the first place and stored it separately in memory. East Asians, in contrast, outperform Americans at the relative task, because they automatically perceived and remembered the relationship among the parts.4

Letting Go of the Need to Control: April 27 The rewards from detachment are great: serenity; a deep sense of peace; the ability to give and receive love in self-enhancing, energizing ways; and the freedom to find real solutions to our problems. —Codependent No More Letting go of our need to control can set us and others free. It can set our Higher Power free to send the best to us. If we weren’t trying to control someone or something, what would we be doing differently? What would we do that we’re not letting ourselves do now? Where would we go? What would we say? What decisions would we make? What would we ask for? What boundaries would be set? When would we say no or yes? If we weren’t trying to control whether a person liked us or his or her reaction to us, what would we do differently? If we weren’t trying to control the course of a relationship, what would we do differently? If we weren’t trying to control another person’s behavior, how would we think, feel, speak, and behave differently than we do now? What haven’t we been letting ourselves do while hoping that self-denial would influence a particular situation or person? Are there some things we’ve been doing that we’d stop? How would we treat ourselves differently? Would we let ourselves enjoy life more and feel better right now? Would we stop feeling so bad? Would we treat ourselves better? If we weren’t trying to control, what would we do differently? Make a list, then do it.

What’s the verdict?” Kimmie asks, peering back at me. I stare down at the jumble of words. “I can’t quite tell yet.” “Give us a clue,” Wes says. “I love puzzles.” “That’s because you are one,” Kimmie jokes. I read them the list of words: ARE, ALONE, YOU, NEVER, EYE, WATCHING, ALWAYS, AM. Not five seconds later, Wes has the whole thing figured out. “YOU ARE NEVER ALONE. EYE AM ALWAYS WATCHING!” he says, making his voice all deep and throaty. “Wait, seriously?” I ask, completely bewildered by the idea that he’d be able to unravel the message so quickly. I look at the individual words, making sure they’re all included, and that he didn’t add any extra. “What can I say? I’m good at puzzles.” “Are you good at making them, too?” Kimmie asks. “Because it’s a little scary how you were able to figure that out so fast.” “Do you think it matters that the “eye” in the puzzle is the noun and not the pronoun?” I ask them. “Since when is it a requirement for psychos to be good in English?” Wes asks. “Only you would know.” Kimmie glares at him. “Plus, it’s a puzzle,” he says, ignoring her comment. “You have to expect a few quirks.” “I don’t know,” I say, still staring at the words. “Maybe there’s some other message here. Maybe we need to try unscrambling it another way.” “Such as ‘EYE AM NEVER ALONE. YOU ARE ALWAYS WATCHING,’” he suggests. “Or perhaps the ever-favorite. ‘YOU ARE NEVER WATCHING. EYE AM ALWAYS ALONE.’” Kimmie scoots farther away from him in her seat. “Okay, you really are starting to scare me.

Mom,” Vaughn said. “I’m sure Sidney doesn’t want to be interrogated about her personal life.” Deep down, Sidney knew that Vaughn—who’d obviously deduced that she’d been burned in the past—was only trying to be polite. But that was the problem, she didn’t want him to be polite, as if she needed to be shielded from such questions. That wasn’t any better than the damn “Poor Sidney” head-tilt. “It’s okay, I don’t mind answering.” She turned to Kathleen. “I was seeing someone in New York, but that relationship ended shortly before I moved to Chicago.” “So now that you’re single again, what kind of man are you looking for? Vaughn?” Kathleen pointed. “Could you pass the creamer?” He did so, then turned to look once again at Sidney. His lips curved at the corners, the barest hint of a smile. He was daring her, she knew, waiting for her to back away from his mother’s questions. She never had been very good at resisting his dares. “Actually, I have a list of things I’m looking for.” Sidney took a sip of her coffee. Vaughn raised an eyebrow. “You have a list?” “Yep.” “Of course you do.” Isabelle looked over, surprised. “You never told me about this.” “What kind of list?” Kathleen asked interestedly. “It’s a test, really,” Sidney said. “A list of characteristics that indicate whether a man is ready for a serious relationship. It helps weed out the commitment-phobic guys, the womanizers, and any other bad apples, so a woman can focus on the candidates with more long-term potential.” Vaughn rolled his eyes. “And now I’ve heard it all.” “Where did you find this list?” Simon asked. “Is this something all women know about?” “Why? Worried you won’t pass muster?” Isabelle winked at him. “I did some research,” Sidney said. “Pulled it together after reading several articles online.” “Lists, tests, research, online dating, speed dating—I can’t keep up with all these things you kids are doing,” Adam said, from the head of the table. “Whatever happened to the days when you’d see a girl at a restaurant or a coffee shop and just walk over and say hello?” Vaughn turned to Sidney, his smile devilish. “Yes, whatever happened to those days, Sidney?” She threw him a look. Don’t be cute. “You know what they say—it’s a jungle out there. Nowadays a woman has to make quick decisions about whether a man is up to par.” She shook her head mock reluctantly. “Sadly, some guys just won’t make the cut.” “But all it takes is one,” Isabelle said, with a loving smile at her fiancé. Simon slid his hand across the table, covering hers affectionately. “The right one.” Until he nails his personal trainer. Sidney took another sip of her coffee, holding back the cynical comment. She didn’t want to spoil Isabelle and Simon’s idyllic all-you-need-is-love glow. Vaughn cocked his head, looking at the happy couple. “Aw, aren’t you two just so . . . cheesy.” Kathleen shushed him. “Don’t tease your brother.” “What? Any moment, I’m expecting birds and little woodland animals to come in here and start singing songs about true love, they’re so adorable.” Sidney laughed out loud. Quickly, she bit her lip to cover.

Any relationship will have its difficulties, but sometimes those problems are indicators of deep-rooted problems that, if not addressed quickly, will poison your marriage. If any of the following red flags—caution signs—exist in your relationship, we recommend that you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor. Part of this list was adapted by permission from Bob Phillips, author of How Can I Be Sure: A Pre-Marriage Inventory.1 You have a general uneasy feeling that something is wrong in your relationship. You find yourself arguing often with your fiancé(e). Your fiancé(e) seems irrationally angry and jealous whenever you interact with someone of the opposite sex. You avoid discussing certain subjects because you’re afraid of your fiancé(e)’s reaction. Your fiancé(e) finds it extremely difficult to express emotions, or is prone to extreme emotions (such as out-of-control anger or exaggerated fear). Or he/she swings back and forth between emotional extremes (such as being very happy one minute, then suddenly exhibiting extreme sadness the next). Your fiancé(e) displays controlling behavior. This means more than a desire to be in charge—it means your fiancé(e) seems to want to control every aspect of your life: your appearance, your lifestyle, your interactions with friends or family, and so on. Your fiancé(e) seems to manipulate you into doing what he or she wants. You are continuing the relationship because of fear—of hurting your fiancé(e), or of what he or she might do if you ended the relationship. Your fiancé(e) does not treat you with respect. He or she constantly criticizes you or talks sarcastically to you, even in public. Your fiancé(e) is unable to hold down a job, doesn’t take personal responsibility for losing a job, or frequently borrows money from you or from friends. Your fiancé(e) often talks about aches and pains, and you suspect some of these are imagined. He or she goes from doctor to doctor until finding someone who will agree that there is some type of illness. Your fiancé(e) is unable to resolve conflict. He or she cannot deal with constructive criticism, or never admits a mistake, or never asks for forgiveness. Your fiancé(e) is overly dependant on parents for finances, decision-making or emotional security. Your fiancé(e) is consistently dishonest and tries to keep you from learning about certain aspects of his or her life. Your fiancé(e) does not appear to recognize right from wrong, and rationalizes questionable behavior. Your fiancé(e) consistently avoids responsibility. Your fiancé(e) exhibits patterns of physical, emotional or sexual abuse toward you or others. Your fiancé(e) displays signs of drug or alcohol abuse: unexplained absences of missed dates, frequent car accidents, the smell of alcohol or strong odor of mouthwash, erratic behavior or emotional swings, physical signs such as red eyes, unkempt look, unexplained nervousness, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has displayed a sudden, dramatic change in lifestyle after you began dating. (He or she may be changing just to win you and will revert back to old habits after marriage.) Your fiancé(e) has trouble controlling anger. He or she uses anger as a weapon or as a means of winning arguments. You have a difficult time trusting your fiancé(e)—to fulfill responsibilities, to be truthful, to help in times of need, to make ethical decisions, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has a history of multiple serious relationships that have failed—a pattern of knowing how to begin a relationship but not knowing how to keep one growing. Look over this list. Do any of these red flags apply to your relationship? If so, we recommend you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor.

CHANGING YOUR LIFE TO ACCOMMODATE THE SIXTH SECRET The sixth secret is about the choiceless life. Since we all take our choices very seriously, adopting this new attitude requires a major shift. Today, you can begin with a simple exercise. Sit down for a few minutes and reassess some of the important choices you’ve made over the years. Take a piece of paper and make two columns labeled “Good Choice” and “Bad Choice.” Under each column, list at least five choices relating to those moments you consider the most memorable and decisive in your life so far—you’ll probably start with turning points shared by most people (the serious relationship that collapsed, the job you turned down or didn’t get, the decision to pick one profession or another), but be sure to include private choices that no one knows about except you (the fight you walked away from, the person you were too afraid to confront, the courageous moment when you overcame a deep fear). Once you have your list, think of at least one good thing that came out of the bad choices and one bad thing that came out of the good choices. This is an exercise in breaking down labels, getting more in touch with how flexible reality really is. If you pay attention, you may be able to see that not one but many good things came from your bad decisions while many bad ones are tangled up in your good decisions. For example, you might have a wonderful job but wound up in a terrible relationship at work or crashed your car while commuting. You might love being a mother but know that it has drastically curtailed your personal freedom. You may be single and very happy at how much you’ve grown on your own, yet you have also missed the growth that comes from being married to someone you deeply love. No single decision you ever made has led in a straight line to where you find yourself now. You peeked down some roads and took a few steps before turning back. You followed some roads that came to a dead end and others that got lost at too many intersections. Ultimately, all roads are connected to all other roads. So break out of the mindset that your life consists of good and bad choices that set your destiny on an unswerving course. Your life is the product of your awareness. Every choice follows from that, and so does every step of growth.

You can talk to me, Clay,” I said with a little hope.  I really began to wonder if he could speak.  When he didn’t respond, I spoke again.  “Okay, do you want to go out or stay in?” He moved to the couch and sat in the middle, his choice clear.  Stay in tonight. I hesitated.  The chair, set at an odd angle to the TV, gave you a sore neck if you tried to watch a movie from there.  That meant I’d need to sit next to him to watch a movie.  But I felt so exposed in a skirt and sleeveless shirt. I wasn’t sure if I could sit next to him for a full movie. While I debated my options, he watched me closely. “I’m going to go change,” I stammered. “I’ll be right back.” I turned and made it one step before the back of my shirt snagged on something.  Surprised, I looked over my shoulder and found Clay standing right behind me.  He held a fold of my shirt between his thumb and forefinger.  I could see the glint of his brown eyes behind the still damp strands of his hair.  He tilted his head back toward the couch and gave a slight tug on my shirt.  My stomach dropped, and I couldn’t tell if it was in a good way or a bad one. When I hesitated, he gave another tug.  I surrendered, turned back, and sat on the couch. He padded over to the movies, made a selection I couldn’t see, and crouched to start it.  It amazed me that he knew how to do that.  Then again, he watched everything Rachel and I did.  I wondered if anything escaped his notice. He pressed play, stood, and walked toward me with fluid strides.  I felt graceless in comparison.  He settled next to me and watched the previews.  I tried to focus on them, too, but couldn’t.  Instead, I noticed our bare feet, the scratch on the wall next to the TV, his leg lightly pressed against mine, the sound of the water as it slowly dripped from the showerhead in the bathroom, his hands loosely resting on his lap.  The long list of unimportant details would not let my mind settle. It was midway through the movie when my mind calmed enough to notice we watched an action-comedy I’d wanted to see.  I’d just mentioned it to Rachel this past week.  She must have gotten it after that. Slowly, I began to relax and enjoy the movie.  I even laughed aloud at one point.  Clay’s echoing chuckle startled me, but in a good way.  So, he could do more than growl as a dog.  His deep laugh sounded pleasant. When

Line of AuNor, dragon bold Flows to me from days of old, And through years lost in the mist My blood names a famous list. By Air, by Water, by Fire, by Earth In pride I claim a noble birth. From EmLar Gray, a deadly deed By his flame Urlant was freed, Of fearsome hosts of blighters dark And took his reward: a golden ark! My Mother’s sire knew battle well Before him nine-score villages fell. When AuRye Red coursed the sky Elven arrows in vain would fly, He broke the ranks of men at will In glittering mines dwarves he’d kill. Grandsire he is through Father’s blood A river of strength in fullest flood. My egg was one of Irelia’s Clutch Her wisdom passed in mental touch. Mother took up before ever I woke The parent dragon’s heavy yoke; For me, her son, she lost her life Murderous dwarves brought blackened knife. A father I had in the Bronze AuRel Hunter of renown upon wood and fell He gave his clutch through lessons hard A chance at life beyond his guard. Father taught me where, and when, and how To fight or flee, so I sing now. Wistala, sibling, brilliant green Escaped with me the axes keen We hunted as pair, made our kill From stormy raindrops drank our fill When elves and dwarves took after us I told her “Run,” and lost her thus. Bound by ropes; by Hazeleye freed And dolphin-rescued in time of need I hid among men with fishing boats On island thick with blown sea-oats I became a drake and breathed first fire When dolphin-slaughter aroused my ire. I ran with wolves of Blackhard’s pack Killed three hunters on my track The Dragonblade’s men sought my hide But I escaped through a fangèd tide Of canine friends, assembled Thing Then met young Djer, who cut collar-ring. I crossed the steppes with dwarves of trade On the banks of the Vhydic Ironriders slayed Then sought out NooMoahk, dragon black And took my Hieba daughter back To find her kind; then took first flight Saw NooMoahk buried in honor right. When war came to friends I long had known My path was set, my heart was stone I sought the source of dreadful hate And on this Isle I met my fate Found Natasatch in a cavern deep So I had one more promise to keep. To claim this day my life’s sole mate In future years to share my fate A dragon’s troth is this day pledged To she who’ll see me fully fledged. Through this dragon’s life, as dragon-dame shall add your blood to my family’s fame.

We needed to drive down the road a couple of miles to meet the rest of the cowboys and gather the cattle from there. “Mom, why don’t you and Ree go ahead in her car and we’ll be right behind you,” Marlboro Man directed. His mother and I walked outside, climbed in the car, and headed down the road. We exchanged pleasant small talk. She was poised and genuine, and I chattered away, relieved that she was so approachable. Then, about a mile into our journey, she casually mentioned, “You might watch that turn up ahead; it’s a little sharp.” “Oh, okay,” I replied, not really listening. Clearly she didn’t know I’d been an L.A. driver for years. Driving was not a problem for me. Almost immediately, I saw a ninety-degree turn right in front of my face, pointing its finger at me and laughing--cackling--at my predicament. I whipped the steering wheel to the left as quickly as I could, skidding on the gravel and stirring up dust. But it was no use--the turn got the better of me, and my car came to rest awkwardly in the ditch, the passenger side a good four feet lower than mine. Marlboro Man’s mother was fine. Lucky for her, there’s really nothing with which to collide on an isolated cattle ranch--no overpasses or concrete dividers or retaining walls or other vehicles. I was fine, too--physically, anyway. My hands were trembling violently. My armpits began to gush perspiration. My car was stuck, the right two tires wedged inextricably in a deep crevice of earth on the side of the road. On the list of the Top Ten Things I’d Want Not to Happen on the First Meeting Between My Boyfriend’s Mother and Me, this would rate about number four. “Oh my word,” I said. “I’m sorry about that.” “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she reassured, looking out the window. “I just hope your car’s okay.” Marlboro Man and his dad pulled up beside us, and they both hopped out of the pickup. Opening my door, Marlboro Man said, “You guys okay?” “We’re fine,” his mother said. “We just got a little busy talking.” I was Lucille Ball. Lucille Ball on steroids and speed and vodka. I was a joke, a caricature, a freak. This couldn’t possibly be happening to me. Not today. Not now. “Okay, I’ll just go home now,” I said, covering my face with my hands. I wanted to be someone else. A normal person, maybe. A good driver, perhaps. Marlboro Man examined my tires, which were completely torn up. “You’re not goin’ anywhere, actually. You guys hop in the pickup.” My car was down for the count.

Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

EXERCISE 10: DEVELOPING A GRAND VISION You may want to do this exercise alone, out in a natural setting somewhere. 1. See Your Interests, Values, and Abilities. The next step is to discover how your interests and your deep values connect into and form your mission. It can be accomplished by seeing a grand, whole, meaningful image of what purpose you could dedicate your life to. This will be formed from your interests, values, and present goals. Begin to play with the images that you see, which represent some kind of direction that you want to take. As you get a sense of what your mission can be, see various snapshots of yourself doing what you love to do, snapshots of your abilities. 2. Focus on Heroes and Heroines. Take a look at what your favorite heroes or heroines do. See yourself doing things that give you the same feeling you get when you think of them. See snapshots of the person you want to become. Any images you don’t like can fade away. 3. Direct a Movie of Yourself. See yourself the way you want to be—doing the things you love to do. Whatever you choose to put on the screen, you’re the Spielberg, you’re the director. See the images that you feel passionate about. You can play with the images in front of you. Pretend that you’re in the middle of an inner, three-dimensional movie theater. It’s a place where you can see and hear and feel with great fidelity. Notice how much you can see, letting the wisdom from within guide the visual display that you see in front of you. Visualize it, feel it, enjoy it. The images are often up close and in full, rich color. See yourself living out a scenario that gives you tingles in your spine. You can zoom in on that glorious, fun-filled, exciting future that you see. It allows you to do what you love to do and accomplish what you believe in. 4. Recall Your Deep Values. List your deep values as you watch your mission scenario. Notice how your values and your images can fit together with a remarkable consistency. 5. Ask for Help from Your Inner Wisdom. Ask for your inner wisdom, the higher powers, or God to guide your grand vision. This vision is going to be more of a discovery than a creation. Let it come to you. Ask and it will come. Take the time to see and hear those aspects of life that unify into a whole that you feel a powerful passion for. See some more images. See some time going by. See various bright, radiant, up-close, colorful images of what it is that you could create in your life. They can begin going in a certain direction, coalescing and representing many of your current goals, some of the things that you want. See them develop into a kind of grand visionary collection of images that represents your purpose and your mission. 6. Do What It Takes. Take whatever time you need—five minutes, an hour, a whole afternoon. This is your life, your future that you are creating. When you finish, write it down. Your images are so attractive, you have some glimpses of what your mission is. Now you can develop it more fully. Ask the visionary in you to give you the gift of this grand vision. Now that you can see your grand vision of what you want to contribute to, you can make that vision into a cause to work for—a specific direction to channel your efforts to.

Syn paid the bill and they headed to the door with lust so thick around them, Syn couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else could see it. Furi reached back for Syn’s hand and he gladly offered it. He looked over his shoulder and threw him a seductive wink when Syn crowded in close behind him. As soon as Syn made it out the door, he saw four members of his team walking up the sidewalk. Well fuck me. “Hey, Sarge.” Pendleton, his demolitions expert was the first to speak up. Syn threw down Furi’s hand and quickly put some distance between them. “Yeah, hey fellas.” They’d all stopped and were staring back and forth between him and Furi. Syn couldn’t even look Furious in his eye after what he’d just done. Detective Green cleared his throat and pointed at Furi. “Don’t I know you?” “Hardly,” Furi mumbled. “Um, this is ... uh, uh. He’s my ... uh.” Syn cursed under his breath. Obviously his team already knew who Furious was. They all had detailed lists of Illustra’s entertainers and Furious’ image was not easy to forget. “Sarge, who’s your friend?” Detective Ruxsburg asked, a sly smile playing on his handsome face. “He’s um.” “He’s leaving,” Furi’s deep voice cut in as he eased his way through and walked in the opposite direction of Syn’s truck. “Fuck,” Syn whispered as he watched Furi turn the corner. “You better go after him and be ready to do some serious groveling,” his IT Detective said in his calm, cool voice. Syn didn’t say anything. His guys walked around him and went into the bar, leaving him feeling ashamed. He thought about running after Furi but choose to get in his truck and cut him off at the corner. He sped around the block and pulled into an alley hoping to intercept his angry date. When Syn got out of the truck Furi was turning the corner coming toward him. Oh hell. Furi had his hands crammed into his pockets and if the scowl on his face didn’t indicate how angry Furious was, then his choice of words when he finally reached Syn sure as hell did. “Get the fuck away from me.” “Furious, I know you're upset.” Furi spun around and glared at him with midnight eyes. “Upset! Upset! Look at my face goddamnit! Does this just look upset to you?” Syn put his hands up in a calming gesture. “Alright, you’re angry, and you have every right to be. I reacted badly back there. I was just caught off guard.” Furi was in Syn’s face and people on the street had begun to stop and stare. “Can we please move this off the sidewalk?” Syn tried to usher Furi farther into the alley and away from the nosy fuckers on the street. “Don’t fuckin’ touch me!” “I’m not gonna touch you! Damn, calm down. I just want to explain,” Syn argued. It seemed every time he was around Furi he was apologizing for something. “I’m sorry, okay. I should have introduced you properly to my team.” “How would the–” “Please, Furious. Let me finish. I should’ve told them your name and introduced you as my friend at a minimum. I’m sorry. I told you I fuckin’ suck at this dating shit, and if you don’t tell me to go fuck myself and give me another–” “Go fuck yourself,” Furi interrupted. He tried to move around Syn but Syn grabbed him around the wrist and backed him against the side of his truck. “No! I will not go fuck myself. I would rather fuck you.” “Well you pretty much shot that chance all to hell,” Furi yelled right back at him. “Have I?” “What do you think?