Messy Mind Quotes

You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom.

Good is towing the line, being behaved, being quiet, being passive, fitting in, being liked, and great is being messy, having a belly, speaking your mind, standing up for what you believe in, fighting for another paradigm, not letting people talk you out of what you know to be true.

Like silence after noise, or cool, clear water on a hot, stuffy day, Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of spiritual energy. Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness.

I backed us up against the wall. “How I feel? You want to know?” I ran my hands over his face and tangled them into his messy hair. “This is unlike anything else. I’ve bungeed off buildings, I’ve skateboarded off roofs. I’ve even gone train surfing. Nothing comes close to the high I feel when I’m with you. You’ve been through horrible things, and yet you’re one of the kindest, truest people I’ve ever met. At first I thought it was because you were safe. I could feel something for you because you couldn’t hurt me. Not the way Alex did. But it’s more than that. It’s you. Who you are. The way you are. Everything from your smile to the way you always say exactly what’s on your mind. Your soul, Kale.

The job of the linguist, like that of the biologist or the botanist, is not to tell us how nature should behave, or what its creations should look like, but to describe those creations in all their messy glory and try to figure out what they can teach us about life, the world, and, especially in the case of linguistics, the workings of the human mind.

The beginning of wisdom, I believe, is our ability to accept an inherent messiness in our explanation of what's going on. Nowhere is it written that human minds should be able to give a full accounting of creation in all dimensions and on all levels. Ludwig Wittgenstein had the idea that philosophy should be what he called "true enough." I think that's a great idea. True enough is as true as can be gotten. The imagination is chaos. New forms are fetched out of it. The creative act is to let down the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended and then to attempt to bring out of it ideas.

Food matters because it's one of the things that forces us to live in this world -- this tactile, physical, messy, and beautiful world -- no matter how hard we try to escape into our minds and our ideals. Food is a reminder of our humanity, our fragility, our createdness.

No story has a beginning, and no story has an end. Beginnings and endings may be conceived to serve a purpose, to serve a momentary and transient intent, but they are, in their fundamental nature, arbitrary and exist solely as a convenient construct in the minds of man. Lives are messy, and when we set out to relate them, or parts of them, we cannot ever discern precise and objective moments when any given event began. All beginnings are arbitrary.

This is life. It's messy and unpredictable, full of wonderful surprises and mind.numbing disappointment. the uncertainty of it all is why I hide, trying to avoid all the pain and the heartache.

As we’ll see, a messy desk doesn’t always signal a messy mind

The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy.

The Scientist’s clear mind sees a foggy world, full of complexity and nuance and messiness, the Zealot’s foggy mind shows them a clear, simple world, full of crisp lines and black-and-white distinctions.

Maybe the human heart was just that messy, and all romance was deeply precarious, and the future was unresolved, and that was fine. Maybe that’s what true love actually was: an embrace of the chaotic unfolding. And maybe the only stories that had neat and certain conclusions were lies and fables and conspiracies. Maybe it was like Dr. Sanborne said: certainty was just a story the mind created to defend itself against the pain of living. Which meant, almost by definition, that certainty was a way to avoid living. You could choose to be certain, or you could choose to be alive.

daughters-in-law, notice the beauty of the rug that your mother-in-law spent a lifetime weaving. Remember that her pattern is mostly firmly established-no need to suggest improvements. Be kinder than necessary, being mindful that the piece of art it took her a lifetime to weave-her masterpiece-she gave to you to keep you warm at night.

Life has been messy for me, as it has for most everyone. I have come to the realization that challenging experiences break us all at some point—our bodies and minds, our hearts and egos. When we put ourselves back together, we find that we are no longer perfectly straight, but rather bent and cracked. Yet it is through these cracks that our authenticity shines. It is by revealing these cracks that we can learn to see and be seen deeply.

You always want to know the truth, isn’t that what you said? Even if it hurts. Even if it’s messy and complicated and inconvenient, and means you have to change your mind.

There is a saying that “a messy room equals a messy mind.

Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, NASB). The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy. What does it feel like to be weary? You have trouble concentrating. The problems of the day are like claws in your brain. You feel pummeled by life. What does heavy-laden feel like? Same thing. You have so many problems you don’t even know where to start. You can’t do life on your own anymore. Jesus wants you to come to him...

The Platonic fold is the explosive boundary where the Platonic mind-set enters in contact with messy reality, where the gap between what you know and what you think you know becomes dangerously wide. It is here that the Black Swan is produced.

Describing good relatedness to someone, no matter how precisely or how often, does not inscribe it into the neural networks that inspire love. Self-help books are like car repair manuals: you can read them all day, but doing so doesn't fix a thing. Working on a car means rolling up your sleeves and getting under the hood, and you have to be willing to get dirt on your hands and grease beneath your fingernails. Overhauling emotional knowledge is no spectator sport; it demands the messy experience of yanking and tinkering that comes from a limbic bond. If someone's relationship today bear a troubled imprint, they do so because an influential relationship left its mark on a child's mind. When a limbic connection has established a neural pattern, it takes a limbic connection to revise it.

A monk’s day begins with cleaning. We sweep the temple grounds and gardens and polish the main temple hall. We don’t do this because it’s dirty or messy. We do it to eliminate the suffering in our hearts.

We have trouble estimating dramatic, exponential change. We cannot conceive that a piece of paper folded over 50 times could reach the sun. There are abrupt limits to the number of cognitive categories we can make and the number of people we can truly love and the number of acquaintances we can truly know. We throw up our hands at a problem phrased in an abstract way, but have no difficulty at all solving the same problem rephrased as a social dilemma. All of these things are expressions of the peculiarities of the human mind and heart, a refutation of the notion that the way we function and communicate and process information is straightforward and transparent. It is not. It is messy and opaque.

When we hold an ideal of friendship in our minds, believing it’s attainable, we hold a standard above the heads of real women God has placed in our lives, and then we wonder why we’re constantly disappointed by the realities, complexities, and difficulties in our relationships. That

I’m with the dirty mouth girls. The ones with bare feet, brilliant minds, messy hair, wild hearts, and feisty spirits. The ones who aren’t afraid to speak up and who live for doing what they’ve been told is impossible.” ~ Brooke Hampton

I had always thought it was her way of blinding herself to the messiness of the way we lived. Now I realised it was easier for her mind to go out through the air far above the clouds than to acknowledge the ugliness right before her eyes.

Speaking of shabby looks, we're going to have to give you a haircut soon. ...WHAT? These feathers are getting messy. LET ME UNDERSTAND THIS CORRECTLY. YOU WISH TO CUT MY MANE? Thunder tigers grow manes? OF COURSE! HOW ELSE WOULD YOU TELL MALES FROM FEMALES? This is a trick question, right? A MANE IS A SIGN A MALE ARASHITORA HAS REACHED MATURITY. Her laughter rang out in his mind. So it's going to be a few more decades growing, then? HMPH. I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW MOST FEMALES FIND IT FETCHING.

A lot of people don’t feel their heart very much. They are so used to focusing on their mind that they don’t notice the shifts in the heart until those shifts are too strong to ignore. Emotions are messy and much too sensitive, so people suppress them.

It's a physical sickness. Etienne. How much I love him. I love Etienne. I love it when he cocks an eyebrow whenever I say something he finds clever or amusing. I love listening to his boots clomp across my bedroom ceiling. I love that the accent over his first name is called an acute accent, and that he has a cute accent. I love that. I love sitting beside him in physics. Brushing against him during lands. His messy handwriting on our worksheets. I love handing him his backpack when class is over,because then my fingers smell like him for the next ten minutes. And when Amanda says something lame, and he seeks me out to exchange an eye roll-I love that,too. I love his boyish laugh and his wrinkled shirts and his ridiculous knitted hat. I love his large brown eyes,and the way he bites his nails,and I love his hair so much I could die. There's only one thing I don't love about him. Her. If I didn't like Ellie before,it's nothing compared to how I feel now. It doesn't matter that I can count how many times we've met on one hand. It's that first image, that's what I can't shake. Under the streeplamp. Her fingers in his hair. Anytime I'm alone, my mind wanders back to that night. I take it further. She touches his chest. I take it further.His bedroom.He slips off her dress,their lips lock, their bodies press,and-oh my God-my temperature rises,and my stomach is sick. I fantasize about their breakup. How he could hurt her,and she could hurt him,and of all the ways I could hurt her back. I want to grab her Parisian-styled hair and yank it so hard it rips from her skull. I want to sink my claws into her eyeballs and scrape. It turns out I am not a nice person. Etienne and I rarely discussed her before, but she's completely taboo now. Which tortures me, because since we've gotten back from winter break, they seem to be having problems again. Like an obsessed stalker,I tally the evenings he spend with me versus the evening he spends with her. I'm winning.

We live in a world of want ads. Some of them are printed on pages; many more are unspoken. Wanted: A woman who is a perfect friend, mom, wife, coworker, housekeeper, cook, driver, thinker, encourager, and more. Messy, real, in-progress people need not apply. God has a very different idea in mind. Wanted: A woman who is imperfect, in need of grace, gloriously gifted, flawed, and beautiful and who dares to believe she’s loved through it all by a God who has an amazing purpose for her life. No need to apply. You’ve already been chosen.

Having the mind-set that you’ve got it together and everyone else is lacking is a fast track to being a grace failure.

Imagination happens only when your mind has the freedom to run rampant. When you’re always connected and able to find an answer, you stop wondering and wandering.

messy room equals a messy mind’.

Creative people have messy minds.

Women with AD/HD often move away from relationships in the initial stages of forming friendships because of their difficulty in making small talk or difficulty with finding the words that they want to say when they want to say them. Sometimes it is as difficult to find the words in your messy mind as it is to find a paper on your messy desk. Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo (1995, pg. 66) call this a “reaction time irregularity” They go on to point out that a person with this difficulty might look rude or disinterested when they actually may be having “trouble retrieving things from memory in a demand situation”.

Ephron insisted, "It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. It will not be anything like what you think it will be like, but surprises are good for you. And don't be frightened: you can always change your mind. I know: I've had four careers and three husbands.

Max never intended to be messy with his writing, which he could read just fine, years later if necessary, even if his teachers couldn’t. He merely found that his active mind tended to move too fast for his hand to keep up with.

Back on the job, this kind of heat was when we knew things were gonna get messy. People lose their minds, do the type of crazy stuff where you figure they must’ve been high on half a dozen things at once, till the tests come back and nope, stone-cold sober. Just hot. Whenever it stays hot for too long, I’m just waiting for things to get messy.

At that, Marty howled great big, messy sobs, and Elanor, the little lady in the yellow suit, who organized the weddings at the church, came running with a box of tissue. Oz appeared in the vestibule, looking alarmed. “Is everything all right? I thought someone was strangling a duck.” “Do you mind?” Marty snapped. “Me and the bride, here, we’re having a moment.

It’s okay to be messy. Like sunflowers, galaxies, and fingerprints, your life is an intricately designed spiral. Your wrinkles, bumps, and bruises show the world you are a force of nature. Forget linear. When you embrace chaos, it brings its own kind of order.

...Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest"(Matthew 11:28, NASB). The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with you wandering mind. Come messy.

I am wondering if many of the things that we say about ourselves as women, are actually responsible for leading us down detrimental paths in life. For example, usually we like to say that we're crazy, messy and lost. But when I think about it, I want to be of sound mind, with purpose and unlost (if there is such a word as unlost). Really, who wants to be mentally unstable and eternally insecure? I think maybe we need to stop saying these things about ourselves and we need to start seeing ourselves as what and who we really want to be.

you deserve a call me anytime love. a pick you up from the airport love. a love note on napkins kind of love. a chicken noodle soup for sore throats kind of love. a back rub before bed kind of love. a laughs at your bad jokes kind of love. a reminder to get up ten minutes earlier because it snowed and you’re going to have to clean off your car kind of love. a clean off your car for you kind of love. a bring you cheesecake when you have cramps kind of love. a listening love. a love that takes care of you. a love that sees your messy hair, your morning breath, your spiralling mind, your no sleep crankiness, a love that loves you more because of it. you deserve a requited love. a love that lasts.

There is so much grit in the bottom of the container, almost all our natural preoccupations are low ones, and in most cases the rag-bag of consciousness is only unified by the experience of great art or of intense love. Neither of these was relevant to my messy and absent-minded goings-on.

It doesn’t matter how messy life has become; it’s never too late for God to do a miracle. It’s never too late for God to restore your family, your health, your mind. It’s never too late for him to put your life back together. It’s never too late to heal the wounds inflicted on you over years. It’s never too late for Jesus to speak to you when you’re hanging on a cross in the middle of your guilt and the punishment you deserve. It’s not too late if you’re in a garbage dump and you don’t matter to anyone in this world.

We are a couple of messy bisexuals.” “Speak for yourself. I didn’t cheat on anyone. You’re a messy bisexual. I’m an untidy queer.” “I’m sorry that you’re stuck here in my attic with my bullshit.” “Your attic is fine. Your bullshit is fine. But you know, Lee, what you did to Vincent… it’s everything people say is shitty about us. That we can’t make up our minds. That we can’t be with one person. That we cheat.” “That’s not fair,” I say. I’m not trying to defend what I’ve done, but I also don’t think I should be expected to model ideal bisexual behavior—whatever that is—at all times. When straight people cheat, they aren’t failing the whole straight population. They are just failing one person.

I need quiet in order to discern what’s in my mind. Otherwise it’s a giant messy swirl.

Not my cup of tea, he thought with a smile. He preferred dorky girls with messy hair and potato chip crumbs on their shirts.

Managers could be tidy-minded simply because tidiness seemed like the right and proper way to be.

Messy arrangements far outweigh orderly ones.

During the war some of the country’s sharpest minds had looked as if they had been dragged through a hedge backwards.

Let’s imagine a cluttered room. It does not get messy all by itself. You, the person who lives in it, makes the mess. There is a saying that “a messy room equals a messy mind.” I look at it this way. When a room becomes cluttered, the cause is more than just physical. Visible mess helps distract us from the true source of the disorder. The act of cluttering is really an instinctive reflex that draws our attention away from the heart of an issue. If you can’t feel relaxed in a clean and tidy room, try confronting your feeling of anxiety. It may shed light on what is really bothering you. When your room is clean and uncluttered, you have no choice but to examine your inner state. You can see any issues you have been avoiding and are forced to deal with them. From the moment you start tidying, you will be compelled to reset your life. As a result, your life will start to change. That’s why the task of putting your house in order should be done quickly. It allows you to confront the issues that are really important. Tidying is just a tool, not the final destination. The true goal should be to establish the lifestyle you want most once your house has been put in order. Storage

know what yer thinking: how can I not know if all day, every day I’m hearing every thought of the two men who run my house? That’s the thing, tho. Noise is noise. It’s crash and clatter and it usually adds up to one big mash of sound and thought and picture and half the time it’s impossible to make any sense of it at all. Men’s minds are messy places and Noise is like the active, breathing face of that mess. It’s what’s true and what’s believed and what’s imagined and what’s fantasized and it says one thing and a completely opposite thing at the same time and even tho the truth is definitely in there, how can you tell what’s true and what’s not when yer getting everything? The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.

A rumble is a discussion, conversation, or meeting defined by a commitment to lean into vulnerability, to stay curious and generous, to stick with the messy middle of problem identification and solving, to take a break and circle back when necessary, to be fearless in owning our parts, and, as psychologist Harriet Lerner teaches, to listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard. More than anything else, when someone says, “Let’s rumble,” it cues me to show up with an open heart and mind so we can serve the work and each other, not our egos.

See you at breakfast?" "Yeah.See ya." I try to say this casually,but I'm so thrilled that I skip from her room and promptly slam into a wall. Whoops.Not a wall.A boy. "Oof." He staggers backward. "Sorry! I'm so sorry,I didn't know you were there." He shakes his head,a little dazed. The first thing I notice is his hair-it's the first thing I notice about everyone. It's dark brown and messy and somehow both long and short at the same time. I think of the Beatles,since I've just seen them in Meredith's room. It's artist hair.Musician hair. I-pretend-I-don't-care-but-I-really-do-hair. Beautiful hair. "It's okay,I didn't see you either. Are you all right,then?" Oh my.He's English. "Er.Does Mer live here?" Seriously,I don't know any American girl who can resist an English accent. The boy clears his throat. "Meredith Chevalier? Tall girl? Big,curly hair?" Then he looks at me like I'm crazy or half deaf,like my Nanna Oliphant. Nanna just smiles and shakes her head whenever I ask, "What kind of salad dressing would you like?" or "Where did you put Granddad's false teeth?" "I'm sorry." He takes the smallest step away from me. "You were going to bed." "Yes! Meredith lives there.I've just spent two hours with her." I announce this proudly like my brother, Seany, whenever he finds something disgusting in the yard. "I'm Anna! I'm new here!" Oh God. What.Is with.The scary enthusiasm? My cheeks catch fire, and it's all so humiliating. The beautiful boy gives an amused grin. His teeth are lovely-straight on top and crooked on the bottom,with a touch of overbite. I'm a sucker for smiles like this,due to my own lack of orthodontia. I have a gap between my front teeth the size of a raisin. "Etienne," he says. "I live one floor up." "I live here." I point dumbly at my room while my mind whirs: French name, English accent, American school. Anna confused. He raps twice on Meredith's door. "Well. I'll see you around then, Anna." Eh-t-yen says my name like this: Ah-na. My heart thump thump thumps in my chest.

I was wondering if you..." He cringes, then sighs. "Never mind." "He wants you to teach him how to sign," Ridoc finishes, rocking back on his heels in clear boredom. "Ridoc!" Sawyer glares his way. "What? You made that way more painful than it had to be. For fuck's sake, it was like you were leading up to asking her out or something." He visibly shudders. "What if he had been?" I counter. "Then I'd be stuck cleaning little pieces of him off our shared floor when Riorson ripped him to shreds." Ridoc shakes his head. "So messy." "First, Xaden has more than enough confidence to survive me being asked out.

How do you do, Mr Linton. And may I ask what position you occupy under my son?” Immediately, my mind flashed back several months, to a dark hotel room in Egypt, the messy double bed, and all the positions I had occupied under Mr Rikkard Ambrose. Thank God that my face was too tanned to really blush. Still, I could feel my ears burning.

Cedar groaned and picked up her spoon with her bright blue fingers. While the rest of her was the fiery brown of the cedar wood she’d been carved from, her fingers were covered in blue paint up to her knuckles. You could tell a lot about Cedar’s current art projects by the color of her fingers. She didn’t mind getting messy. She just sanded the paint off.

Athens may stand in our minds as the political ideal, but Rome is the ultimate pragmatist. The Romans had their ideal political system – the Republic – but they lost it in messy civil war. A system that worked well for hundreds of years, the Roman Republic was much loved and lamented by many surviving writers. Nobly born men competed to hold office and follow an electoral hierarchy: the cursus honorum.

I woke, remembering a dream from the night before. Pictures of frightened children lingered in my mind as I approached them with a hunger unsated by mundane appetites. I recalled how flesh smelled: sweet. The texture was tender, yet it was bitter to the taste. Blood was messy and dripped down my chin. The demon, the cold-blooded monster mingled with my DNA: a gift from one of my parents brought to daylight by evil people.

As philosopher Brian Keeley has pointed out, by weaving every niggling anomaly into a grand unifying theory, conspiracy theories can look stronger than the official stories by sheer virtue of completeness. Conspiracy theories “always explain more than competing theories, because by invoking a conspiracy, they can explain both the data of the received account and the errant data that the received theory fails to explain.” But this apparent virtue, Keeley argues, is an illusion. You can find anomalies everywhere if you look hard enough. Our understanding of complex events will always contain errors, contradictions, and gaps. History is messy, people are fallible. “Given the imperfect nature of our human understanding of the world, we should expect that even the best possible theory would not explain all the available data,” Keeley concludes.

Remember that I have been a legalist. We are the ones who throw stones. We are quick to judge without knowledge. We feed rumors and incline our heads to hear more. We label the messy people and gossip about the sinners and shake our heads in disgust. And when you have been a legalist in ministry, it’s not pretty. And it’s not ministry. And it couldn’t possibly be what the Jesus had in mind when He said, “Go and teach them about me.

You are A PART of a greater whole. You are already greater than you could ever know. If you only knew your own greatness. If you only knew your magic. If you only knew that you are an expansive, limitless, beautiful being. You are your own individual, unique, flawed, messy, stubborn, flesh and blood, human part of it all, and it’s fucking mind blowing. There is stardust in your DNA. The love of God is flowing through your veins. You are important.

But most of all, I hope you find yourself out there. I hope you figure out your heart, I hope you figure out your mind. I hope you learn how to be kind to yourself, how to embrace the journey you are on. I hope you learn how to be proud of the person you are becoming; I hope you learn how to be proud of where you are—even if it isn’t exactly where you want to be. I hope you learn to fall in love with the process, with the messiness of life and the confusion of it all.

It's like she's pulling Post-it notes out of her hair and lecturing from them, one of my peers once complained about the teaching style of my beloved teacher Mary Ann Caws. ...Ditto Eileen Myles, who tells a great story about a student at UC San Diego once complaining that her lecturing style was like 'throwing a pizza at us.' My feeling is, you should be so lucky to get a pizza in the face from Eileen Myles, or a Post-it note plucked from the nest of Mary Ann Caws's hair.

Every person has a secret inventory of "things". I call them objects of attachment - things that refuse to be forgotten. Perhaps it's a place, a smell, a business card. Whatever it is, they refuse to go unnoticed. These objects are enchanted, taking us back to another time or another place, where things are very different from the way they are now. They make us nostalgic. Playing back memories like old black and white movies, flickering with shimmer and warmth. They are hard to avoid - popping up when your mind is distracted. And regardless of what you threw away, or donated to charity, that is where you find yourself - staring at the game of Scrabble, wondering exactly how each piece used to fit. While I know my inventory and have studied it well, I often wonder which objects I am attached to. And I find myself hoping that one day you find me, unexpectedly tucked away in the back of your closet, or a messy desk drawer - and remember exactly what we once were.

ultimately, most of us would choose a rich and meaningful life over an empty, happy one, if such a thing is even possible. “Misery serves a purpose,” says psychologist David Myers. He’s right. Misery alerts us to dangers. It’s what spurs our imagination. As Iceland proves, misery has its own tasty appeal. A headline on the BBC’s website caught my eye the other day. It read: “Dirt Exposure Boosts Happiness.” Researchers at Bristol University in Britain treated lung-cancer patients with “friendly” bacteria found in soil, otherwise known as dirt. The patients reported feeling happier and had an improved quality of life. The research, while far from conclusive, points to an essential truth: We thrive on messiness. “The good life . . . cannot be mere indulgence. It must contain a measure of grit and truth,” observed geographer Yi-Fu Tuan. Tuan is the great unheralded geographer of our time and a man whose writing has accompanied me throughout my journeys. He called one chapter of his autobiography “Salvation by Geography.” The title is tongue-in-cheek, but only slightly, for geography can be our salvation. We are shaped by our environment and, if you take this Taoist belief one step further, you might say we are our environment. Out there. In here. No difference. Viewed that way, life seems a lot less lonely. The word “utopia” has two meanings. It means both “good place” and “nowhere.” That’s the way it should be. The happiest places, I think, are the ones that reside just this side of paradise. The perfect person would be insufferable to live with; likewise, we wouldn’t want to live in the perfect place, either. “A lifetime of happiness! No man could bear it: It would be hell on Earth,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman. Ruut Veenhoven, keeper of the database, got it right when he said: “Happiness requires livable conditions, but not paradise.” We humans are imminently adaptable. We survived an Ice Age. We can survive anything. We find happiness in a variety of places and, as the residents of frumpy Slough demonstrated, places can change. Any atlas of bliss must be etched in pencil. My passport is tucked into my desk drawer again. I am relearning the pleasures of home. The simple joys of waking up in the same bed each morning. The pleasant realization that familiarity breeds contentment and not only contempt. Every now and then, though, my travels resurface and in unexpected ways. My iPod crashed the other day. I lost my entire music collection, nearly two thousand songs. In the past, I would have gone through the roof with rage. This time, though, my anger dissipated like a summer thunderstorm and, to my surprise, I found the Thai words mai pen lai on my lips. Never mind. Let it go. I am more aware of the corrosive nature of envy and try my best to squelch it before it grows. I don’t take my failures quite so hard anymore. I see beauty in a dark winter sky. I can recognize a genuine smile from twenty yards. I have a newfound appreciation for fresh fruits and vegetables. Of all the places I visited, of all the people I met, one keeps coming back to me again and again: Karma Ura,

Hear me out,” Marin said. “It’s smart to want to be safe. It’s a natural instinct. If we protect ourselves—our bodies, our minds, our hearts—we can avoid all these messy things. Being embarrassed. Making mistakes. Looking dumb. Getting our hearts broken. But there’s a huge price to pay for that safety. And usually that price is being alone or being stuck. Whether that’s stuck in a job or a relationship or in a place you don’t want to be. Everything has a price. For whatever reason, something in you wants to be safe. Girls in movies are safe.

James Pennebaker, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Writing to Heal, has done some of the most important and fascinating research I’ve seen on the power of expressive writing in the healing process. In an interview posted on the University of Texas’s website, Pennebaker explains, “Emotional upheavals touch every part of our lives. You don’t just lose a job, you don’t just get divorced. These things affect all aspects of who we are—our financial situation, our relationships with others, our views of ourselves, our issues of life and death. Writing helps us focus and organize the experience.” Pennebaker believes that because our minds are designed to try to understand things that happen to us, translating messy, difficult experiences into language essentially makes them “graspable.” What’s important to note about Pennebaker’s research is the fact that he advocates limited writing, or short spurts. He’s found that writing about emotional upheavals for just fifteen to twenty minutes a day on four consecutive days can decrease anxiety, rumination, and depressive symptoms and boost our immune systems.

As Harvard University psychologist Mahzarin Banaji puts it, there is no “bright line separating self from culture,” and the culture in which we develop and function enjoys a “deep reach” into our minds. It’s for this reason that we can’t understand gender differences in female and male minds – the minds that are the source of our thoughts, feelings, abilities, motivations, and behavior – without understanding how psychologically permeable is the skull that separates the mind from the sociocultural context in which it operates. When the environment makes gender salient, there is a ripple effect on the mind. We start to think of ourselves in terms of our gender, and stereotypes and social expecations become more prominent in the mind. This can change self-perception, alter interests, debilitate or enhance ability, and trigger unintentional discrimination. In other words, the social context influences who you are, how you think, and what you do. And these thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors of yours, in turn, become part of the social context. It’s intimate. It’s messy. And it demands a different way of thinking about gender.

In an interview posted on the University of Texas’s website, Pennebaker explains, “Emotional upheavals touch every part of our lives. You don’t just lose a job, you don’t just get divorced. These things affect all aspects of who we are—our financial situation, our relationships with others, our views of ourselves, our issues of life and death. Writing helps us focus and organize the experience.” Pennebaker believes that because our minds are designed to try to understand things that happen to us, translating messy, difficult experiences into language essentially makes them “graspable.

I want to keep you.” “Hey … that was my line.” His smile is fucking huge. “This isn’t a proposal because I don’t think I want one of those, and I have no idea if you ever would again either, but this is me saying you’re it for me. I’m never changing my mind about you. I want to move in together and discover each other’s bad habits. I want you to burn dinner and for me to be too messy for your liking. I want to argue and disagree, but once that’s over, I want us to be stronger for it. Because nothing can change how I feel about you, and I want to work to make you mine for the rest of our lives.

A honey pie, lovingly made. The tiny sugar bee, still perched on the edge of the flaky crust, mocked me. That little bee nibbling on her honey pie. A pulse of sheer heat lit up my sex, licked down my thighs, tweaked my nipples. I shoved another messy bite into my mouth, relishing the taste, wanting...him. This was his work, made with his hands, his skill, his mind. My grumpy man with the ability to create sweetness in the most unexpected of ways. Somehow, at the back of my mind, I'd known from the start. From the way he'd all but ordered me to try his brest. How he'd watched me eat it with that strange intent look upon his face. Pride. That was what it was. He was proud of his work. I ate up my honey pie without pause, devouring it until it was nothing more than a sticky paste on my fingers, buttery crumble on my lips. Moaning, I licked my skin clean like a cat might. I swore I felt claws prickling, aching to come out. Because he had known, and I hadn't. Was it a joke to him? What had he said? The chef was temperamental. Oh, how he must have laughed on the inside at that. With a growl, I washed my hands and headed for the door, half of me more turned on than I'd ever been in my life, the other half ready to tear into the most irritating man I'd ever met.

Disability justice, when it’s really happening, is too messy and wild to really fit into traditional movement and nonprofit industrial complex structures, because our bodies and minds are too wild to fit into those structures. Which is no surprise, because nonprofits, while created in the ’60s to manage dissent, in many ways overlap with “charities”—the network of well-meaning institutions designed on purpose to lock up, institutionalize, and “help the handicapped.” Foundations have rarely ever given disabled people money to run our own shit. Nonprofits need us as clients and get nervous about us running the show. Disability justice means the show has to change—or get out of the way.

You’ve encountered it, I’m sure: friends who are obsessed by the need to get their children’s (or their own) teeth straightened, their thighs sculpted, their breasts or their backyards professionally redesigned … They want the perfect career trajectory, the perfect holiday, the perfect pesto, the perfect latte, the perfect eyebrow, the perfect orgasm … They yearn for perfect politicians (ha!), perfect banks, perfect cars, perfect shoes, perfect kitchens … our new angst springs from the discovery that our lives are falling short of some crazy ideal of perfection clogging our minds like a cancer … Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.12

He is even more horrifically beautiful than I was able to recall. They're all beautiful, unless they're hideous. That's the nature of the Folk. Our mortal minds cannot conceive of them; our memory blunts their power. His every finger sparks with a ring. An etched and jeweled breast-plate in polished gold hangs from his shoulders, covering a frothy white shirt. Boots curl up at his toes and rise high over his knees. His tail is visible, curled to one side of his leg. I suppose he has decided it is no longer something he needs to hide. At his brow, of course, is the Blood Crown. He regards me with gold-rimmed black eyes, a smirk hovering at the corners of his mouth. His black hair tumbles around his face, unbound and a little messy, as though he's recently risen from someone's bed.

Just keep in mind,” Dex warned the Council, “that if this goes anything like the time I accidentally gave her limbium, there’s going to be a lot of Sophie-vomit. So if that’s going to trigger a hurlfest for you guys, this could get really messy really fast.” “Actually, I think I have an elixir that will help with that,” Elwin told him. “I’ll grab some when I go back for Bullhorn.” “You’re bringing your banshee here?” Grady asked. Elwin nodded. “The last time I worked on Sophie’s allergy, he was the only way I knew if something was or wasn’t helping.” Right. Because banshees could tell when someone was either close to dying—or really, really, really close to dying. “Gotta say, it’s not sounding like a whole lot of fun to be the moonlark right now,” Stina mumbled. “And it’s not feeling very awesome, either.

In the words of Andy Grove: “To understand a company’s strategy, look at what they actually do rather than what they say they will do.”…. Here is a way to frame the investments that we make in the strategy that becomes our lives: we have resources – which include personal time, energy, talent and wealth – and we are using them to try to grow several “businesses” in our personal lives… How should we devote our resources to these pursuits? Unless you manage it mindfully, your personal resource allocation process will decide investments for you according to the “default” criteria that essentially are wired into your brain and your heart. As is true in companies, your resources are not decided and deployed in a single meeting or when you review your calendar for the week ahead. It is a continuous process –and you have, in your brain, a filter for making choices about what to prioritize. But it’s a messy process. People ask for your time and energy every day, and even if you are focused on what’s important to you, it’s still difficult to know which are the right choices. If you have an extra ounce of energy or a spare 30 minutes, there are a lot of people pushing you to spend them here rather than there. With so many people and projects wanting your time and attention, you can feel like you are not in charge of your own destiny. Sometimes that’s good: opportunities that you never anticipated emerge. But other times, those opportunities can take you far off course… The danger for high-achieving people is that they’ll unconsciously allocate their resources to activities that yield the most immediate, tangible accomplishments… How you allocate your own resources can make your life turn out to be exactly as you hope or very different from what you intend.

I’m drawn to the Jewish notion of the soul, nephesh, which is not something preexistent but emergent—forming in and through physicality and relational experience. This suggests that we need our bodies to claim our souls. The body is where every virtue lives or dies, but more: our bodies are access points to mystery. And in some way that barely makes sense to me, I’m sure that we have to have feet planted on the ground, literally and metaphysically, to reach towards what is beyond and above us. Our bodies tell us the truth of life that our minds can deny: that we are in any moment as much about softness as fortitude. Always in need of care and tenderness. Life is fluid, evanescent, evolving in every cell, in every breath. Never perfect. To be alive is by definition messy, always leaning towards disorder and surprise. How we open or close to the reality that we never arrive at safe enduring stasis is the matter, the raw material, of wisdom.

He forced his mind back to the kitchen and the mess she’d created. He found himself smiling for no reason at all. If he wasn’t already falling for her, this mess definitely turned the tide. She’d tried. For him. She had no clue how to cook, but she’d gotten up early, looked up cooking videos and tried to make him breakfast. He went back to his room and got his cell phone so he could take pictures. Lots of them. He added a video of the entire room. He wanted to have both to remember this moment. His woman, doing her best, giving him a priceless gift. The question came up in interview after interview: What did one get for the man who had everything and could get anything he wanted? You gave him this. A messy kitchen and burned pots and pans. Flour all over your face and clothes. You gave him something no one else had ever bothered to do or would think of doing. Yeah. He was falling hard. And he was framing the damn pictures and putting them up on his wall

Instead of relying on the Newtonian metaphor of clockwork predictability, complexity seems to be based on metaphors more closely akin to the growth of a plant from a tiny seed, or the unfolding of a computer program from a few lines of code, or perhaps even the organic, self-organized flocking of simpleminded birds. That's certainly the kind of metaphor that Chris Langton has in mind with artificial life: his whole point is that complex, lifelike behavior is the result of simple rules unfolding from the bottom up. And it's likewise the kind of metaphor that influenced Arthur in the Santa Fe economics program: "If I had a purpose, or a vision, it was to show that the messiness and the liveliness in the economy can grow out of an incredibly simple, even elegant theory. That's why we created these simple models of the stock market where the market appears moody, shows crashes, takes off in unexpected directions, and acquires something that you could describe as a personality.

One of the things that I’ve always felt missing from funerals and services is the voice of the man or woman who was the deceased’s partner in life. I’ve always wanted to hear from the person who’d loved them more than anyone. Biblically, the two become one flesh--the spouse is their other half. It has always seemed to me that his or her voice was critical to truly understanding who the deceased was in life. I also felt that American Sniper had told only part of Chris’s story--an angry part in much of it. There was so much more to him that I wanted the world to know. People said Chris was blessed that I hung in there during his service to our country; in fact, I was the one who was blessed. I wanted everyone to hear me say that. Beforehand, a friend suggested I have a backup in case I couldn’t finish reading my speech--a “highway option,” as Chris used to call it: the way out if things didn’t go as planned. I refused. I didn’t want a way out. It wasn’t supposed to be easy. Knowing that I had to go through with it, that I had to finish--that was my motivator. That was my guarantee that I would finish, that I would keep moving into the future, as painful as it surely would be. When you think you cannot do something, think again. Chris always said, “The body will do whatever the mind tells it to.” I am counting on that now. I stand before you a broken woman, but I am now and always will be the wife of a man who is a warrior both on the battlefield and off. Some people along the way told Chris that through it all, he was lucky I stayed with him. I am standing before you now to set the record straight. Remember this: I am the one who is literally, in every sense of the word, blessed that Chris stayed with me. I feel compelled to tell you that I am not a fan of people romanticizing their loved ones in death. I don’t need to romanticize Chris, because our reality is messy, passionate, full of every extreme emotion known to man, including fear, compassion, anger, pain, laughing so hard we doubled over and hugged it out, laughing when we were irritated with each other and laughing when we were so in love it felt like someone hung the moon for only us… I looked at the kids as I neared the end, talking to them and only them. Tears ran from their faces. Bubba’s head hung down. It broke my heart. I kept reading. Then I was done.

Tell me what you and my dad were talking about." Jay jerked away from her as if she'd just slapped him. And Violet realized that she might as well have. He sat up quickly, as if his mind had suddenly cleared from the sensuous haze, and abruptly the teasing grin was wiped clean from his face. "Never mind," she blurted, trying to backpedal. "Forget I said anything." She wanted to go back to where they just were. But it was too late. The determined set of his jaw told her that. "No," he said harshly. "I think we should talk about this, Violet." Even the way he said her name was suddenly hard and angry. "Your dad told me what happened today...out in the woods. He told me that you tracked down the guy who's been killing all the girls around here...that you put yourself in danger." Violet couldn't tell if he was angry or annoyed...or both. He ran his hand through his messy hair in an agitated gesture that indicated he was getting all worked up. "And it's not like it was the first time you've done that. Trouble seems to follow you wherever you go, and you're the only person I know who doesn't seem to care. I don't even want to think about what could have happened to you if I hadn't shown up last night while Grady was...assaulting you." He paused as if it really was too much to think about, and then he continued to rail at her. "You can't even go to the mall safely. I made a promise to your parents, and you just wandered off without even telling me where you were going." His voice was suddenly too abrasive, and it felt to Violet like he was scratching his nails across a chalkboard. She bristled against the accusation in his tone, and suddenly he wasn't the only one who was upset. "And you didn't speak to me for a week!" she lashed back at him. "What was that all about? I spent the entire week waiting for you to stop ignoring me. And all because I didn't bother to check in with you? You don't get to tell me what to do! You're not my father, you know." "Thanks for clarifying that, Violet," he said sardonically. "It would be creepy if you got your boyfriend and your father confused." Violet practically jumped when he said the word boyfriend. Obviously she'd noticed that they'd gone beyond just friendship, but she hadn't been entirely sure what that meant for them. Apparently Jay had it all figured out. But that didn't mean he could push her around.

In 1997 an IBM computer called Deep Blue defeated the world chess champion Garry Kasparov, and unlike its predecessors, it did not just evaluate trillions of moves by brute force but was fitted with strategies that intelligently responded to patterns in the game. [Y]ou might still object that chess is an artificial world with discrete moves and a clear winner, perfectly suited to the rule-crunching of a computer. People, on the other hand, live in a messy world offering unlimited moves and nebulous goals. Surely this requires human creativity and intuition — which is why everyone knows that computers will never compose a symphony, write a story, or paint a picture. But everyone may be wrong. Recent artificial intelligence systems have written credible short stories, composed convincing Mozart-like symphonies, drawn appealing pictures of people and landscapes, and conceived clever ideas for advertisements. None of this is to say that the brain works like a digital computer, that artificial intelligence will ever duplicate the human mind, or that computers are conscious in the sense of having first-person subjective experience. But it does suggest that reasoning, intelligence, imagination, and creativity are forms of information processing, a well-understood physical process. Cognitive science, with the help of the computational theory of mind, has exorcised at least one ghost from the machine.

The doorbell rings again, and I thank God for small miracles. "Hold again," I say as I hold against my shoulder. I walk over, smiling because I know that Nicole must be going out of her mind. "Did you for--" "Hello, Officer Covey." Eli grins as he leans against the doorframe. "I was hoping you were home. We didn't get a chance to finish our conversation." Not even thinking, I close the door and stand there. Holy shit. What the hell? "Heather?" Nicole's voice is a buzzing in my ear. Or is that my suddenly frantic pulse? "Hmm?" I can't speak. Eli Walsh is at my freaking house. "Is that whole I think it is?" I rise onto my tiptoes and peek out the peephole. Sure enough, he's right there, smiling as if he has not a care in the world. "Yup." "Are you fucking kidding?" Nicole screams. "Holy shit, Nic. What the hell do I do?" My heart continues to race, and I'm completely freaking out. Nicole chuckles and then proceeds to yell again. "Open the goddamn door!" I look in the mirror and groan. I have on shorts and an oversized sweatshirt, which now has a beautiful pizza stain on the front. My hair is in a messy bun, I'm not wearing any makeup, and I have my glasses on instead of my contacts. I can't believe this. Eli knocks again. "Heather, I can hear you on the other side." My hand presses against the wood and I close my eyes, "What do you want, Eli?" "Heather! Open the fucking door right now!" Nicole's voice raises in my ear. "Shut up!" I yell at my jackass best friend. "I didn't say anything," Eli answers.

Ladies,” he said as he stepped forward. “I’m afraid we don’t have enough tents or saddles to add you to the group.” “I already tried to stop them,” Elaine said, “but they insisted.” She turned to Phoebe. “Eddie and Gladys are known for being a little hardheaded.” “Among other things,” Maya added wryly. “That one’s Eddie, and that one’s Gladys,” she said, pointing. “We’re not additions,” Eddie said, “we’re replacements.” Gladys dug through the large black purse strapped over her forearm and pulled out a checkbook. “We met a nice couple at Ronan’s last night, and they couldn’t say yes fast enough when we offered to buy their spots on the cattle drive.” “They said they’re gonna stay in town and get a hot stone massage every day instead.” “But--” “We already paid,” Eddie said. “Five hundred bucks a pop. Figured it would be worth it if we could see some sexy cowboys. We’ve taken riding lessons from Shane Stryker, but he refuses to take off his shirt for us. I hope you’re not going to be so stubborn.” Phoebe thought Zane might call off the whole thing, after all, but all he did was mutter, “Fine. Head inside, I’ll bring your things.” She supposed the novices were a bit of a challenge and senior novices would be even more of one, but to her mind, the older women were quirky and delightful. “We’re mighty excited about this trip,” Gladys said. “Eddie here has wanted to go on a cattle drive since she first saw City Slickers.” She winked. “Not that either of us have a hankering to help with a birthing, mind you. It looked a tad messy.” Phoebe was charmed.

Finally, finally, I was thrown into this tiny, dark cell. It all went quiet. But I instantly noticed the warmth. And I could just make out the shape of the room under the crack in my blindfold. I waited. I was half-naked with my camouflage jacket pulled back halfway down my back, and I was huddled over shivering. I must have looked a mess. I could taste the snot smeared down my face. A hand pulled my blindfold off and a light went on. “Recognize this, Bear?” a voice said softly. I squinted. The DS was pointing at a white cross on his arm. I didn’t react. I needed to double-check in my mind. “This means the end of the exercise--Endex. Remember?” I did, but still I didn’t react yet. I needed to check once more in my mind. Then, finally, I nodded weakly at him. And he smiled back. It was the end. “Well done, buddy. Now take a seat, take five, and get this brew down you. The quack will be in to see you in a few minutes.” The DS put a blanket around my shoulders. A smile spread across my face and I felt a tear of relief trickle down my cheek. For an hour a psychiatrist then debriefed me. He told me that I had done well and had resisted effectively. I felt just so relieved. I loved that psychiatrist. The real lesson of this was twofold: Control your mind; and Don’t get caught. As the DS said, “Remember, at the end of the day, these guys are on your side. They are British, they aren’t a real enemy. If they were, then that’d be when things would get messy. So remember: do not get captured!” It is a lesson I have never forgotten, and is probably why I have, over the years, become very, very good at getting out of all sorts of scrapes.

Creating “Correct” Children in the Classroom One of the most popular discipline programs in American schools is called Assertive Discipline. It teaches teachers to inflict the old “obey or suffer” method of control on students. Here you disguise the threat of punishment by calling it a choice the child is making. As in, “You have a choice, you can either finish your homework or miss the outing this weekend.” Then when the child chooses to try to protect his dignity against this form of terrorism, by refusing to do his homework, you tell him he has chosen his logical, natural consequence of being excluded from the outing. Putting it this way helps the parent or teacher mitigate against the bad feelings and guilt that would otherwise arise to tell the adult that they are operating outside the principles of compassionate relating. This insidious method is even worse than outand-out punishing, where you can at least rebel against your punisher. The use of this mind game teaches the child the false, crazy-making belief that they wanted something bad or painful to happen to them. These programs also have the stated intention of getting the child to be angry with himself for making a poor choice. In this smoke and mirrors game, the children are “causing” everything to happen and the teachers are the puppets of the children’s choices. The only ones who are not taking responsibility for their actions are the adults. Another popular coercive strategy is to use “peer pressure” to create compliance. For instance, a teacher tells her class that if anyone misbehaves then they all won’t get their pizza party. What a great way to turn children against each other. All this is done to help (translation: compel) children to behave themselves. But of course they are not behaving themselves: they are being “behaved” by the adults. Well-meaning teachers and parents try to teach children to be motivated (translation: do boring or aversive stuff without questioning why), responsible (translation: thoughtless conformity to the house rules) people. When surveys are conducted in which fourth-graders are asked what being good means, over 90% answer “being quiet.” And when teachers are asked what happens in a successful classroom, the answer is, “the teacher is able to keep the students on task” (translation: in line, doing what they are told). Consulting firms measuring teacher competence consider this a major criterion of teacher effectiveness. In other words if the students are quietly doing what they were told the teacher is evaluated as good. However my understanding of ‘real learning’ with twenty to forty children is that it is quite naturally a bit noisy and messy. Otherwise children are just playing a nice game of school, based on indoctrination and little integrated retained education. Both punishments and rewards foster a preoccupation with a narrow egocentric self-interest that undermines good values. All little Johnny is thinking about is “How much will you give me if I do X? How can I avoid getting punished if I do Y? What do they want me to do and what happens to me if I don’t do it?” Instead we could teach him to ask, “What kind of person do I want to be and what kind of community do I want to help make?” And Mom is thinking “You didn’t do what I wanted, so now I’m going to make something unpleasant happen to you, for your own good to help you fit into our (dominance/submission based) society.” This contributes to a culture of coercion and prevents a community of compassion. And as we are learning on the global level with our war on terrorism, as you use your energy and resources to punish people you run out of energy and resources to protect people. And even if children look well-behaved, they are not behaving themselves They are being behaved by controlling parents and teachers.

You, Joelle, are fucking goddamn mind-blowingly beautiful. I have no idea how you don't see it. Those glasses that you think made you look nerdy? If they're nerdy, then nerdy is so incredibly hot. Because when you wear your glasses, you look smart and sexy. Your hair that you think is unruly and messy? It's not. It's wild. And wild is so fucking hot, I can't even begin to tell you." He presses his eyes shut and shakes his head, like he can barely contain the thought. "I can't take my eyes off it. Every time you brush past me and I feel your hair on my skin, I get goose bumps. And your skin is so soft that every time I've touched you, I've almost lost my damn mind. Like when you were on my lap kissing me, I honest to god thought I was going to pass out. I mean, did you not feel my boner against you? You felt so fucking good I could barely take it." My eyes are wide as I soak in every word he says. "When we started working in the same space together, I overheard you mention how big your ass is when you were joking with your mom and aunt. Why? Your ass is a fucking national treasure. Why do you think I spent so much time grabbing it while we were fooling around?" Against his palm, I let out a muffled "oh" sound. It's the sound I make when I've figured out an especially challenging crossword puzzle clue. These are some damn good points he's making. Shaking his head, he looks away for a split second, like he's so frustrated, so hell-bent on getting these words out that he needs a moment to collect himself. His eyes cut back to me. "Do you have any idea the way people look at you? Everywhere you go, people can't take their eyes off you. Nonstop. And you don't even notice it because you're too focused on others. Do you have any clue how sexy it is? Everyone else is so concerned with their image and what people think of them. But you don't give it a second thought. Even if you don't realize it, you come off so sure of yourself. It's the hottest thing ever.

I woke in bed, sweating and breathing heavily. It was the third time I’d had this nightmare: reliving that horrible feeling of falling, out of control, toward the ground. I was now on month two of just lying there prone, supposedly recovering. But I wasn’t getting any better. In fact, if anything, my back felt worse. I couldn’t move and was getting angrier and angrier inside. Angry at myself; angry at everything. I was angry because I was shit-scared. My plans, my dreams for the future hung in shreds. Nothing was certain any more. I didn’t know if I’d be able to stay with the SAS. I didn’t even know if I’d recover at all. Lying unable to move, sweating with frustration, my way of escaping was in my mind. I still had so much that I dreamt of doing. I looked around my bedroom, and the old picture I had of Mount Everest seemed to peer down. Dad’s and my crazy dream. It had become what so many dreams become--just that--nothing more, nothing less. Covered in dust. Never a reality. And Everest felt further beyond the realms of possibility than ever. Weeks later, and still in my brace, I struggled over to the picture and took it down. People often say to me that I must have been so positive to recover from a broken back, but that would be a lie. It was the darkest, most horrible time I can remember. I had lost my sparkle and spirit, and that is so much of who I am. And once you lost that spirit, it is hard to recover. And once you lose that spirit, it is hard to recover. I didn’t even know whether I would be strong enough to walk again--let alone climb or soldier again. And as to the big question of the rest of my life? That was looking messy from where I was. Instead, all my bottomless, young confidence was gone. I had no idea how much I was going to be able to do physically--and that was so hard. So much of my identity was in the physical. Now I just felt exposed and vulnerable. Not being able to bend down to tie your shoelaces or twist to clean your backside without acute and severe pain leaves you feeling hopeless. In the SAS I had both purpose and comrades. Alone in my room at home, I felt like I had neither. That can be the hardest battle we ever fight. It is more commonly called despair. That recovery was going to be just as big a mountain to climb as the physical one. What I didn’t realize was that it would be a mountain, the mountain, that would be at the heart of my recovery. Everest: the biggest, baddest mountain in the world.

I leave him there and head for the kitchen, sighing when I see a chair shoved over to the counter, Maddie standing on it, digging through the cabinets. “What do you think you’re doing, little girl?” “Looking for the Lucky Charms,” she says as I pull her down and set her on her feet. “I’m afraid we’re all out.” I grab a box of Cheerios. “How about these?” She makes a face of disgust. “Raisin Bran?” Another face. “How about some cottage cheese?” She pretends to gag. “Uh, well, how about—?” “How about I take you out for breakfast?” Jonathan suggests, stepping into the kitchen. “Pancakes, sausage, eggs…” “Bacon!” Maddie declares. “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, you know, with the whole you being you thing.” “Me being me,” he says. “Yeah, chances are you’ll get recognized and then have to explain this whole thing and well, you know, I’m not sure it’s worth it for some breakfast.” “But it might be bacon,” Maddie whines. Jonathan hesitates, thinking it over, glancing between us before he says, “I know somewhere we can go.” Mrs. McKleski’s place. Landing Inn. That’s where he takes us. Maddie and I stand in the woman’s foyer in our pajamas, while Jonathan wears just the leather pants from the Knightmare costume. Mrs. McKleski looks at us like we’ve gone crazy, and I instantly want to be anywhere else in the world, but it’s too late, because Maddie’s been promised some bacon. “You want breakfast,” Mrs. McKleski says. “That’s what you’re telling me?” He nods. “Yes, ma'am.” She stares at him. Hard. I expect a denial, because this whole idea is absurd, but after a moment, she lets out a resigned sigh. “Fine, but go put on some clothes,” she says. “This is an inn, Mr. Cunningham, not Chippendales. I won’t have you at my breakfast table looking like a gigolo.” He cocks an eyebrow at the woman. “Wasn’t aware you knew what a gigolo was.” “Go,” she says pointedly, “before I change my mind.” “Yes, ma’am,” he says, flashing her a smile before turning to me and nodding toward the stairs. “Join me?” I stare at him, not moving. He steps closer. “Please?” “Fine,” I mumble, glancing at Maddie, not wanting to cause a scene. “Hey, sweetheart, why don’t you have a seat in the living room?” “Nonsense,” Mrs. McKleski says. “She can come help me cook. Teach her some responsibility. Not sure her father ever learned any.” Jonathan scowls before again motioning for me to follow him. “And no hanky-panky,” Mrs. McKleski calls to us as we start upstairs. “What’s the hanky-panky?” Maddie asks, following the woman to the kitchen. “She means the hokey-pokey,” I yell down before Mrs. McKleski can answer, because there’s no telling how that woman would explain it. “Oh, I like the hokey-pokey!” Maddie looks at the woman with confusion. “Why don’t you wanna play it?” “Too messy,” Mrs. McKleski grumbles. “All that turning yourself around.” Shaking my head, I go upstairs, stalling right inside the room as Jonathan sorts through his belongings to find some clothes.

Sam was about to travel to Asia with her boyfriend and she was fretting about what her backers would think if she released some of her new songs while she was 'on vacation'. She was worried that posting pictures of herself sipping a Mai Tai was going to make her look like an asshole. What does it matter? I asked her, where you are whether you're drinking a coffee, a Mai Tai or a bottle of water? I mean, aren't they paying for your songs so that you can... live? Doesn't living include wandering and collecting emotions and drinking a Mai Tai, not just sitting in a room writing songs without ever leaving the house? I told Sam about another songwriter friend of mine, Kim Boekbinder, who runs her own direct support website through which her fans pay her monthly at levels from $5 to $1,000. She also has a running online wishlist of musical gear and costumes kindof like a wedding registry, to which her fans can contribute money anytime they want. Kim had told me a few days before that she doesn't mind charging her backers during what she calls her 'staring at the wall time'. She thinks this is essential before she can write a new batch of songs. And her fans don't complain, they trust her process. These are new forms of patronage, there are no rules and it's messy, the artists and the patrons they are making the rules as they go along, but whether these artists are using crowdfunding (which is basically, front me some money so I can make a thing) or subscription services (which is more like pay me some money every month so that I can make things) or Patreon, which is like pay per piece of content pledge service (that basically means pay me some money every time I make a thing). It doesn't matter, the fundamental building block of all of these relationships boils down to the same simple thing: trust. If you're asking your fans to support you, the artist, it shouldn't matter what your choices are, as long as you're delivering your side of the bargain. You may be spending the money on guitar picks, Mai Tais, baby formula, college loans, gas for the car or coffee to fuel your all-night writing sessions. As long as art is coming out the other side, and you're making your patrons happy, the money you need to live (and need to live is hard to define) is almost indistinguishable from the money you need to make art. ... (6:06:57) ... When she posts a photo of herself in a vintage dress that she just bought, no one scolds her for spending money on something other than effects pedals. It's not like her fan's money is an allowance with nosy and critical strings attached, it's a gift in the form of money in exchange for her gift, in the form of music. The relative values are... messy. But if we accept the messiness we're all okay. If Beck needs to moisturize his cuticles with truffle oil in order to play guitar tracks on his crowdfunded record, I don't care that the money I fronted him isn't going towards two turntables or a microphone; just as long as the art gets made, I get the album and Beck doesn't die in the process.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl ditch Darius like that,” an amused voice came from behind me and I turned to find a guy looking at me from a seat at a table in the corner. He had dark hair that curled in a messy kind of way, looking like it had broken free of his attempts to tame it. His green eyes sparkled with restrained laughter and I couldn’t help but stare at his strong features; he looked almost familiar but I was sure I’d never met him before. “Well, even Dragons can’t just get their own way all of the time,” I said, moving closer to him. Apparently that had been the right thing to say because he smiled widely in response to it. “What’s so great about Dragons anyway, right?” he asked, though a strange tightness came over his posture as he said it. “Who’d want to be a big old lizard with anger management issues?” I joked. “I think I’d rather be a rabbit shifter - at least bunnies are cute.” “You don’t have a very rabbity aura about you,” he replied with a smile which lit up his face. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.” “It is. Although a rabbit might be exactly the kind of ruler we need; shake it up from all these predators.” “Maybe that’s why I can’t get on board with this fancy food. It’s just not meant for someone of my Order... although I’m really looking for a sandwich rather than a carrot,” I said wistfully. He snorted a laugh. “Yeah I had a pizza before I came to join the festivities. I’m only supposed to stay for an hour or so anyway... show my face, sit in the back, avoid emotional triggers...” He didn’t seem to want to elaborate on that weird statement so I didn’t push him but I did wonder why he’d come if that was all he was going to do. “Well, I didn’t really want to come at all so maybe I can just hide out back here with you?” I finished the rest of my drink and placed my glass on the table as I drifted closer to him. Aside from Hamish, he was the first person I’d met at this party who seemed at least halfway genuine. “Sure. If you don’t mind missing out on all the fun,” he said. “I’m sorry but am I talking to Roxanya or Gwendalina? You’re a little hard to tell apart.” I rolled my eyes at those stupid names. “I believe I originally went by Roxanya but my name is Tory.” “You haven’t taken back your royal name?” he asked in surprise. “I haven’t taken back my royal anything. Though I won’t say no to the money when it comes time to inherit that. You didn’t give me your name either,” I prompted. You don’t know?” he asked in surprise. “Oh sorry, dude, are you famous? Must be a bummer to meet someone who isn’t a fan then,” I teased. He snorted a laugh. “I’m Xavier,” he said. “The Dragon’s younger brother.” “Oh,” I said. Well that was a quick end to what had seemed like a pleasant conversation. “Actually... I should probably go... mingle or something.” I started to back away, searching the crowd for Darcy. I spotted her on the far side of the room, engaged in conversation with Hamish and a few of his friends. The smile on her face was genuine enough so I was at least confident she didn’t need rescuing. (Tory)

What fills our hearts and minds will determine our choices.

Another one of my favorite posters at Facebook declares in big red letters, “Done is better than perfect.” I have tried to embrace this motto and let go of unattainable standards. Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst. I agree completely with the advice offered by Nora Ephron in her 1996 Wellesley commencement speech when she addressed the issue of women having both a career and family. Ephron insisted, “It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. It will not be anything like what you think it will be like, but surprises are good for you. And don’t be frightened: you can always change your mind. I know: I’ve had four careers and three husbands.”8 I

I had always thought it was her way of blinding herself to the messiness of the way we lived. Now I realised it was easier for her mind to go out through the air far above the clouds then to acknowledge the ugliness right before her eyes.

Blazer showed him how much nicer it was to live in a clean environment and how much better for one’s general mental state. He taught StevieT that if you lived in a messy environment, your mind got messy and your overall life followed in response. It was an energy thing, according to Blazer. But that’s another story. StevieT also noticed that women felt more comfortable when it was clean.

It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. It will not be anything like what you think it will be like, but surprises are good for you. And don't be frightened: you can always change your mind." (Nora Ephron) (p.126)

Everyone who has lost weight knows this, but we keep forgetting it when we gain weight so that we can once again look forward to an imaginary happy future. Also, participating in the cycle of judging and shaming ourselves followed by feeling accomplished and elated gives us something to do and talk about, a way to pass the time. There’s nothing wrong with this pattern; it’s how our minds work. We intuitively understand that we want something we cannot see or touch, but we don’t know how to name or access it. And so we fall back into believing that being thinner will right everything that is wrong. The only problem is that it’s based on a lie.

George Malcolm: half white, half black, with messy tousled hair, rumpled and tugged between kind of curly and extremely curly. Once, a year or so before, he'd been at our house and he'd pulled out a lock of his hair and used it to teach me about eddies and helixes. It's a circular current into a central station, he'd explained, giving me one to hold. I pulled on the spring. Nature is full of the same shapes, he said, taking me to the bathroom sink and spinning on the top and pointing out the way the water swirled down the drain. Taking me to the bookshelf and flipping open a book on weather and showing me a cyclone. Then a spiral galaxy. Pulling me back to the bathroom sink, to my glass jar of collected seashells, and pointing out the same curl in a miniature conch. See? he said, holding the seashell up to his hair. Yes! I clapped. His eyes were warm with teaching pleasure. It's galactic hair, he said, smiling. At school, George was legendary already. He was so natural at physics that one afternoon the eighth-grade science teacher had asked him to do a preview of the basics of relativity, really fast, for the class. George had stood up and done such a fine job, using a paperweight and a yardstick and the standard-issue school clock, that the teacher had pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet. I'd like to be the first person to pay you for your clarity of mind, the teacher had said. George used the cash to order pizza for the class. Double pepperoni, he told me later, when I'd asked.

Who the f**k is this bitch?” Err, what? It takes my mind a second to register what the f**k that bitch just screamed. Detangling my hands from Greg’s messy brown locks, I turn on wobbly legs and face the person behind the annoying screech. “What the hell did you just call me?” Seething is a good word to describe the way I am feeling in this exact moment. Greg has effectively wound me tight, and then forgot to press release. Lucky or unlucky, depends on which side of the coin you’re on. This bitch is going to be the perfect person to help with that. “Does that belong to you?” I ask Greg. He looks pissed, but not ashamed. Interesting. “Excuse me, Greg. Is this shit yours?” I ask again, pointing my finger at the malnourished bimbo in front of me.