Naive Heart Quotes

In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.

He might have been naive, but he didn't care; he said he's rather die with his heart on his sleeve than end up another cynic.

Trustful people are the pure at heart, as they are moved by the zeal of their own trustworthiness.

As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we supposed. And we ourselves are, too.

Keep your innocence and ignorance aside, and expose yourself to dangerous situations, and understand the deeper secrets of life.

All the hours he spent theorizing about magic seemed so naive now. The main ingredient in transformation was not magic, it was pain.

you said. if it is meant to be. fate will bring us back together. for a second i wonder if you are really that naive. if you really believe fate works like that. as if it lives in the sky staring down at us. as if it has five fingers and spends its time placing us like pieces of chess. as if it is not the choices we make. who taught you that. tell me. who convinced you. you’ve been given a heart and a mind that isn’t yours to use. that your actions do not define what will become of you. i want to scream and shout it’s us you fool. we’re the only ones that can bring us back together. but instead i sit quietly. smiling softly through quivering lips thinking. isn’t it such a tragic thing. when you can see it so clearly but the other person doesn’t.

The state of interbeing is a vulnerable state. It is the vulnerability of the naive altruist, of the trusting lover, of the unguarded sharer. To enter it, one must leave behind the seeming shelter of a control-based life, protected by walls of cynicism, judgment, and blame.

There is nothing like young love. It comes at a time before the heart knows to protect itself, when everything important is raw and exposed—the perfect environment for a soul-sucking, heart-crushing burst.

Mara leans over and whispers in my ear, “I know you’re charmingly naive when it comes to matters of the heart, but you just stopped him in his tracks.

Is not life exactly what it ought to be, in a certain sense? Isn't it only the naive who find all of this baffling? If you've a notion of what man's heart is, wouldn't you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man's frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself?

Walking away from you with a broken heart is easier to handle than selling my soul to make love with you. I'm sorry, Adrian. I might be lonely, and naive, and all the things you think about me. But I'm also true to myself, and I won't denigrate my feelings for you. They're much too precious in a world that offers so little love.

The heart fools the mind, where eyes went deaf to words, that fell on blinded ears to easy to fall in love.

It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and senseless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart.

Don't tell me there's no place for innocent hearts in this world. Don't tell me I need to accept what I don't believe in. I respect it. Don't confuse my values for my stubbornness, although I am stubborn. Don't confuse my positive attitude for being naive. Allow me to wrap my heart around you for a moment. Listen to this. Innocent hearts may not belong anywhere in this world but they are big enough for any heart in this world. Innocent hearts belong in innocent hearts. Innocent hearts belong in the hearts of those who genuinely want happiness.

At the heart of the novelist's craft lies an optimism which thinks that the knowledge we gather from our everyday experience, if given proper form, can become valuable knowledge about reality.

They ranged from naive to obtuse to hateful, with personalities unencumbered with charisma and minds unclouded by thought.

I know I seem naive," Evangeline pressed on. " I know my faith in love might appear foolish. I also know it might not be enough. But I'm not doing this because I believe I'll win. I'm actually a little afraid I'm going to lose. I no longer think love is a guarantee of victory or of happily ever after. But I think it's a reason to fight for those things. I know my attempt to save Jacks could end in fiery explosion, but I'd rather go up in flames with him than watch while he burns.

The accumulation of grief over one lifetime is more then one heart can bear."Robert explained."Only the heartless could withstand more.Or the very young,those too naive to truly understand loss.

It never works that way. Once that ugliness has been forced into you, it becomes part of your blood, dilutes it, races through your heart and back out again, staining everything as it goes. The ugliness never goes away, never comes out, no matter what you do. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive. All you can do is hope to control it.

It’s naive for us to think that we can end all violence,abuse,hatred and racism...when as a nation many consider just talking about the subject taboo & uncomfortable. #TRUTH

Much protest is naive; it expects quick, visible improvement and gives up when such improvement does not come. Protestors who hold out longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal. If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence that anyone's individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.

Cynicism creates a numbness toward life. Cynicism begins with a wry assurance that everyone has an angle. Behind every silver lining is a cloud. The cynic is always observing, critiquing, but never engaging, loving, and hoping. ... To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit. ... Cynicism begins, oddly enough, with too much of the wrong kind of faith, with naive optimism or foolish confidence. At first glance, genuine faith and naive optimism appear identical since both foster confidence and hope.But the similarity is only surface deep.Genuine faith comes from knowing my heavenly Father loves, enjoys, and cares for me. Naive optimism is groundless. It is childlike trust without the loving Father. ... Optimism in the goodness of people collapses when it confronts the dark side of life. ... Shattered optimism sets us up for the fall into defeated weariness and, eventually, cynicism. You'd think it would just leave us less optimistic, but we humans don't do neutral well. We go from seeing the bright side of everything to seeing the dark side of everything. We feel betrayed by life. ... The movement from naive optimism to cynicism is the new American journey. In naive optimism we don't need to pray because everything is under control. In cynicism we can't pray because everything out of control, little is possible. With the Good Shepherd no longer leading us through the valley of the shadow of death, we need something to maintain our sanity. Cynicism's ironic stance is a weak attempt to maintain a lighthearted equilibrium in a world gone mad. ... Without the Good Shepherd, we are alone in a meaningless story. Weariness and fear leave us feeling overwhelmed, unable to move. Cynicism leaves us doubting, unable to dream. The combination shuts down our hearts, and we just show up for life, going through the motions.

I wanted to save myself from that drug that contaminates the body and veins and not from the other drug, you know that drug that enters through your eyes and your private area, the one that settles into your heart to screw it up, that damn drug that naive people call love. The stupid drug that’s just as dangerous and deadly as the one that you find on the streets wrapped up in little packages.

As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.

No Child of Yours I saw a child hide in the corner So I went and asked her name She was so naive and so petite With such a tiny frame. 'No one,' she replied, that's what I am called I have no family, no one at all I eat, I sleep, I get depressed There is no life, I have nothing left.' 'Why hide in the corner?' I had to ask twice Because I've been hurt, it not very nice I tried to stop it, it was out of my control I feared for myself I wanted to go. I begged for my sorrow to disappear I turned in my bed, oh God, I knew they were near 'So come on little girl, where do you go A path ahead, or a path to unknown?' With that she arose, her head hung low She held herself for only she knows Her tears held back, her heart like ice It looks as though she has paid the price. The ice started melting, her tears to flow The memories flood back, still so many years to go The pain, the anger all built up inside Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It will get better, just wait and see You'll get a life, though you'll never be fire Open your heart and love yourself The abuse you suffered was NOT your fault.

How naive and foolish the young are to imagine that they understand the loneliness of great age, the outliving of your contemporaries, anyone to whom your century of memory might make any sense.

The source ran somewhere, far away from him, ran and ran invisibly, had nothing to do with his life any more. And at several times he suddenly became scared on account of such thoughts and wished that he would also be gifted with the ability to participate in all of this childlike-naive occupations of the daytime with passion and with his heart, really to live, really to act, really to enjoy and to live instead of just standing by as a spectator.

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct but that they are also good. Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, sentimental, foolish, a dope; disagree with someone one the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, cold-hearted, a sellout, evil-in league with the devil, he might say, if he didn't think religious terminology too coarse for our secular age. To this day one will hear of people who fell for Communism in a big way let off the hook because they were sincere; if one's heart is in the right place, nothing else matters, even if one's naive opinions made it easier for tyrants to murder millions.

a natural disaster memories of him came in waves and hurricanes he was a natural disaster a perfect storm an ocean of hope and the act of being naive but i do not regret jumping in not one bit because i was able to drown and still learn how to swim

The surface of love was a feeling, but beyond this thin layer, there was a fathomless, winding maze of caverns offering many places to see and explore. Wren used to think romantic passion only grew more intense in the depths. But this belief was naive and impractical, a by-product of a certainty-obsessed culture that equates love with longing and views ambivalence as a fatal flaw. Wren saw now how passion was delicate and temporary, a visitor, a feeling that would come and go. Feelings fled under pressure; feelings did not light the darkness. What remained strong in the deep, the hard times, was love as an effort, a doing, a conscious act of will. Soulmates, like her and Lewis, were not theoretical and found. They were tangible, built.

In order to find meaning and readerly pleasure in the universe the writer reveals to us, we feel we must search for the novel’s secret center, and we therefore try to embed every detail of the novel in our memory, as if learning each leaf of a tree by heart.

wished that he would also be gifted with the ability to participate in all of this childlike-naive occupations of the daytime with passion and with his heart, really to live, really to act, really to enjoy and to live instead of just standing by as a spectator.

I used to believe, bless my naive little heart, that I had something to offer the robbed dead. Not revenge-there’s no revenge in the world that could return the tiniest fraction of what they’ve lost-and not justice, whatever that means, but the one thing left to give them: the truth. I was good at it. I had one, at least, of the things that make a great detective: the instinct for truth, the inner magnet whose pull tells you beyond any doubt what’s dross, what’s alloy, and what’s the pure, uncut metal. I dug out the nuggets without caring when they cut my fingers and brought them in my cupped hands to lay on graves, until I found out-Operation Vestal again-how slippery they were, how easily they crumbled, how deep they sliced and, in the end, how very little they were worth.

There is nothing like young love. It comes at a time before the heart knows to protect itself, when everything important is raw and exposed—the perfect environment for a soul-sucking, heart-crushing burst. It burns brightest, hits hardest, and touches deepest. It’s why Facebook flames erupt two decades later between high school sweethearts. Between two naive and innocent souls, anything can happen. Soulmates or Tragedy. And sometimes, both.

More profoundly, Nihilist "simplification" may be seen in the universal prestige today accorded the lowest order of knowledge, the scientific, as well as the simplistic ideas of men like Marx, Freud, and Darwin, which underlie virtually the whole of contemporary thought and life. We say "life," for it is important to see that the Nihilist history of our century has not been something imposed from without or above, or at least has not been predominantly this; it has rather presupposed, and drawn its nourishment from, a Nihilist soil that has long been preparing in the hearts of the people. It is precisely from the Nihilism of the commonplace, from the everyday Nihilism revealed in the life and thought and aspiration of the people, that all the terrible events of our century have sprung. The world-view of Hitler is very instructive in this regard, for in him the most extreme and monstrous Nihilism rested upon the foundation of a quite unexceptional and even typical Realism. He shared the common faith in "science," "progress," and "enlightenment" (though not, of course, in "democracy"), together with a practical materialism that scorned all theology, metaphysics, and any thought or action concerned with any other world than the "here and now," priding himself on the fact that he had "the gift of reducing all problems to their simplest foundations." He had a crude worship of efficiency and utility that freely tolerated "birth control", laughed at the institution of marriage as a mere legalization of a sexual impulse that should be "free", welcomed sterilization of the unfit, despised "unproductive elements" such as monks, saw nothing in the cremation of the dead but a "practical" question and did not even hesitate to put the ashes, or the skin and fat, of the dead to "productive use." He possessed the quasi-anarchist distrust of sacred and venerable institutions, in particular the Church with its "superstitions" and all its "outmoded" laws and ceremonies. He had a naive trust in the "natural mom, the "healthy animal" who scorns the Christian virtues--virginity in particular--that impede the "natural functioning" of the body. He took a simple-minded delight in modern conveniences and machines, and especially in the automobile and the sense of speed and "freedom" it affords. There is very little of this crude Weltanschauung that is not shared, to some degree, by the multitudes today, especially among the young, who feel themselves "enlightened" and "liberated," very little that is not typically "modern.

It’s naive for us to think that we can end all violence,abuse,hatred and racism...when as a nation many consider just talking about the subjects taboo & uncomfortable. #TRUTH

I'm working on a poem about heartbreak that I've been working on forever (give or take). The problem is that I've never had my heart broken, so I'm having a hard time.

From naive, lonely princess to winner of hearts and minds less than a month, Jasmine managed to make people feel at ease with her while still maintaining her rule as leader.

In most cases, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.

Let us finally consider how naive it is altogether to say: "Man ought to be such and such!" Reality shows us an enchanting wealth of types, the abundance of a lavish play and change of forms — and some wretched loafer of a moralist comments: "No! Man ought to be different." He even knows what man should be like, this wretched bigot and prig: he paints himself on the wall and comments, "Ecce homo!" But even when the moralist addresses himself only to the single human being and says to him, "You ought to be such and such!" he does not cease to make himself ridiculous. The single human being is a piece of fatum from the front and from the rear, one law more, one necessity more for all that is yet to come and to be. To say to him, "Change yourself!" is to demand that everything be changed, even retroactively. And indeed there have been consistent moralists who wanted man to be different, that is, virtuous — they wanted him remade in their own image, as a prig: to that end, they negated the world! No small madness! No modest kind of immodesty! Morality, insofar as it condemns for its own sake, and not out of regard for the concerns, considerations, and contrivances of life, is a specific error with which one ought to have no pity — an idiosyncrasy of degenerates which has caused immeasurable harm. We others, we immoralists, have, conversely, made room in our hearts for every kind of understanding, comprehending, and approving. We do not easily negate; we make it a point of honor to be affirmers. More and more, our eyes have opened to that economy which needs and knows how to utilize everything that the holy witlessness of the priest, the diseased reason in the priest, rejects — that economy in the law of life which finds an advantage even in the disgusting species of the prigs, the priests, the virtuous. What advantage? But we ourselves, we immoralists, are the answer.

Men don’t want to give the truth. They can’t face the fact that they’re assholes.’ But I realized that women can’t face the truth because often they are really naive. Really. If a woman had so much intuition, wouldn’t she know that the guy was just not that into her? Wouldn’t she realize after her friends told her so? Wouldn’t she comprehend by listening to herself crib about him continuously? Why do so many women ask for the truth when truth is staring at them right in the face? It’s probably because women need to hear it. From him. The man that she has given her heart to. That’s the real reason. She needs to hear him say the words, ‘I don’t love you. We can never have a future.’ And how many men have actually said that? None. Because they always want to leave the window of ‘opportunity’ open for a ‘what if’. And that’s why women will be shattered over a break-up for a far longer time than men. Men don’t need explanations. They think, ‘It wasn’t meant to be.’ And have another glass of beer and go back to working on their Excel sheets in the morning.

Blood that was warm has now run cold bled every day have hearts become old Telling I am the story of my past and of the ghosts at which it is aghast Life as a child was a wonderful rhapsody Free from the fetters of rational prosody Naively making brute reality a parody Revelling in a soul filled with life's melody Poverty struck and child became destitute wailing and whimpering like a wretched prostitute Of pleasure and pain does a society constitute for Man is not for God to substitute Life is a parody of paradoxical Irony Fate rules not without a touch of Tyranny While the rich belch on their goblets of honey the wretched etch on the tablets of agony

There is nothing like young love. It comes at a time before the heart knows to protect itself, when everything important is raw and exposed—the perfect environment for a soul-sucking, heart-crushing burst. It burns brightest, hits hardest, and touches deepest. It’s why Facebook flames erupt two decades later between high school sweethearts. Between two naive and innocent souls, anything can happen. Soulmates or Tragedy. And sometimes, both.

I met you here a few years back. Too young too naive to understand the lows and the highs. We talked everyday and soon you were my best friend. It was instant, Shakespeare kind of tale but the only thing which prevented it from blossoming was the restrictions I had and the distance between us. I told you go ahead and find someone else and soon we were distant as ever. Maybe I broke your heart when I put my walls up against the relationship or maybe I was too young to understand what you wanted. I wanted to give my career a shot. I went away and gave you space ; came back after a few years and found you unrecognizable. You didn't believe a word I said, so distant and oh so cold. But I was happy for you as you had found real love and I accepted that. Then why did you have to blame me for? I never understood and will never do. Maybe that's why young loves are complicated and have a special place in our hearts

Rea­sons Why I Loved Be­ing With Jen I love what a good friend you are. You’re re­ally en­gaged with the lives of the peo­ple you love. You or­ga­nize lovely ex­pe­ri­ences for them. You make an ef­fort with them, you’re pa­tient with them, even when they’re side­tracked by their chil­dren and can’t pri­or­i­tize you in the way you pri­or­i­tize them. You’ve got a gen­er­ous heart and it ex­tends to peo­ple you’ve never even met, whereas I think that ev­ery­one is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but re­ally I was jeal­ous that you al­ways thought the best of peo­ple. You are a bit too anx­ious about be­ing seen to be a good per­son and you def­i­nitely go a bit over­board with your left-wing pol­i­tics to prove a point to ev­ery­one. But I know you re­ally do care. I know you’d sign pe­ti­tions and help peo­ple in need and vol­un­teer at the home­less shel­ter at Christ­mas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us. I love how quickly you read books and how ab­sorbed you get in a good story. I love watch­ing you lie on the sofa read­ing one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other gal­axy. I love that you’re al­ways try­ing to im­prove your­self. Whether it’s running marathons or set­ting your­self chal­lenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to ther­apy ev­ery week. You work hard to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I think I prob­a­bly didn’t make my ad­mi­ra­tion for this known and in­stead it came off as ir­ri­ta­tion, which I don’t re­ally feel at all. I love how ded­i­cated you are to your fam­ily, even when they’re an­noy­ing you. Your loy­alty to them wound me up some­times, but it’s only be­cause I wish I came from a big fam­ily. I love that you al­ways know what to say in con­ver­sa­tion. You ask the right ques­tions and you know ex­actly when to talk and when to lis­ten. Ev­ery­one loves talk­ing to you be­cause you make ev­ery­one feel im­por­tant. I love your style. I know you think I prob­a­bly never no­ticed what you were wear­ing or how you did your hair, but I loved see­ing how you get ready, sit­ting in front of the full-length mir­ror in our bed­room while you did your make-up, even though there was a mir­ror on the dress­ing ta­ble. I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in No­vem­ber and that you’d pick up spi­ders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not. I love how free you are. You’re a very free per­son, and I never gave you the sat­is­fac­tion of say­ing it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you be­cause of your bor­ing, high-pres­sure job and your stuffy up­bring­ing, but I know what an ad­ven­turer you are un­der­neath all that. I love that you got drunk at Jack­son’s chris­ten­ing and you al­ways wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never com­plained about get­ting up early to go to work with a hang­over. Other than Avi, you are the per­son I’ve had the most fun with in my life. And even though I gave you a hard time for al­ways try­ing to for al­ways try­ing to im­press your dad, I ac­tu­ally found it very adorable be­cause it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to any­where in his­tory, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beau­ti­ful and clever and funny you are. That you are spec­tac­u­lar even with­out all your sports trophies and mu­sic cer­tifi­cates and in­cred­i­ble grades and Ox­ford ac­cep­tance. I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked my­self, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of my­self, ei­ther. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

It is naive to think you know someone so well. To think that whatever time you have shared in knowing their habits, their history, their stories, their weaknesses, their strengths, their wounds, and deepest corners of their heart could ever sum them up-- is unjust. It is a shame to be unaware of the shifts and changes that happen every day, every moment, right before your eyes. The little crinkles around her eyes that get ever-so-slightly deeper and wiser. The silver linings of her hair. The wonders of time and how they show their presence in such ways. You may think that a flower is simply a flower. A flower that looks and smells just as simply as it always has. Or that the ocean is simply salt water and blue. The flower is always moving, changing, blossoming, and giving life to the birds and the bees. The ocean's tides rise and fall with the phases of the moon. The currents change direction. And depending on how the sun hits the water, the colors and shades of blue are in fact, infinite. Everything around you and everyone is always changing. Take time to smell the roses. Take time to watch the tide. Take time to see your love with new eyes. It would be a shame to miss it.

If one scratches just beneath the surface of the moral outlook of many Americans, one bumps into the rather naively but also often vehemently held assumption that the individual is the architect of his or her own morality built out of value “blocks” that the individual independently picks and stacks. We suddenly run into the ghost of Friedrich Nietzsche. There are real and very important differences between what we now call values and the virtues as they had traditionally been understood.

The smile that curled his lips was as arrogant as it was beautiful. “You need to accept the fact that you’re Orange and that you’re always going to be alone because of it.” A measure of calm had returned to Clancy’s voice. His nostrils flared when I tried to turn the door handle again. He slammed both hands against it to keep me from going anywhere, towering over me. “I saw what you want,” Clancy said. “And it’s not your parents. It’s not even your friends. What you want is to be with him, like you were in the cabin yesterday, or in that car in the woods. I don’t want to lose you, you said. Is he really that important?” Rage boiled up from my stomach, burning my throat. “How dare you? You said you wouldn’t—you said—” He let out a bark of laughter. “God, you’re naive. I guess this explains how that League woman was able to trick you into thinking you were something less than a monster.” “You said you would help me,” I whispered. He rolled his eyes. “All right, are you ready for the last lesson? Ruby Elizabeth Daly, you are alone and you always will be. If you weren’t so stupid, you would have figured it out by now, but since it’s beyond you, let me spell it out: You will never be able to control your abilities. You will never be able to avoid being pulled into someone’s head, because there’s some part of you that doesn’t want to know how to control them. No, not when it would mean having to embrace them. You’re too immature and weak-hearted to use them the way they’re meant to be used. You’re scared of what that would make you.” I looked away. “Ruby, don’t you get it? You hate what you are, but you were given these abilities for a reason. We both were. It’s our right to use them—we have to use them to stay ahead, to keep the others in their place.” His finger caught the stretched-out collar of my shirt and gave it a tug. “Stop it.” I was proud of how steady my voice was. As Clancy leaned in, he slipped a hazy image beneath my closed eyes—the two of us just before he walked into my memories. My stomach knotted as I watched my eyes open in terror, his lips pressed against mine. “I’m so glad we found each other,” he said, voice oddly calm. “You can help me. I thought I knew everything, but you…” My elbow flew up and clipped him under the chin. Clancy stumbled back with a howl of pain, pressing both hands to his face. I had half a second to get the hell out, and I took it, twisting the handle of the door so hard that the lock popped itself out. “Ruby! Wait, I didn’t mean—!” A face appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Lizzie. I saw her lips part in surprise, her many earrings jangling as I shoved past her. “Just an argument,” I heard Clancy say, weakly. “It’s fine, just let her go.

At times he felt, deep in his chest, a dying, quiet voice, which admonished him quietly, lamented quietly; he hardly perceived it. And then, for an hour, he became aware of the strange life he was leading, of him doing lots of things which were only a game, of, though being happy and feeling joy at times, real life still passing him by and not touching him. As a ball-player plays with his balls, he played with his business-deals, with the people around him, watched them, found amusement in them; with his heart, with the source of his being, he was not with them. The source ran somewhere, far away from him, ran and ran invisibly, had nothing to do with his life any more. And at several times he suddenly became scared on account of such thoughts and wished that he would also be gifted with the ability to participate in all of this childlike-naive occupations of the daytime with passion and with his heart, really to live, really to act, really to enjoy and to live instead of just standing by as a spectator.

Some people are just time bombs, waiting to explode. Inevitably taking with them anyone foolish enough to get close. You were my time bomb, waiting to detonate my heart & leave ruins in the wake of your aftermath. And I was naive enough to have ignored that eminent threat.

Some people are just time bombs, waiting to explode. Inevitably taking with them anyone foolish enough too get close. You were my time bomb, waiting to detonate my heart & leave ruins in the wake of your aftermath. And I was naive enough to have ignored that eminent threat.

And then, for an hour, he became aware of the strange life he was leading, of him doing lots of things which were only a game, of, though being happy and feeling joy at times, real life still passing him by and not touching him. As a ball-player plays with his balls, he played with his business-deals, with the people around him, watched them, found amusement in them; with his heart, with the source of his being, he was not with them. The source ran somewhere, far away from him, ran and ran invisibly, had nothing to do with his life any more. And at several times he suddenly became scared on account of such thoughts and wished that he would also be gifted with the ability to participate in all of this childlike-naive occupations of the daytime with passion and with his heart, really to live, really to act, really to enjoy and to live instead of just standing by as a spectator.

Woman thus emerged as the inessential who never returned to the essential, as the absolute Other, without reciprocity. All the creation myths express this conviction that is precious to the male, for example, the Genesis legend, which, through Christianity, has spanned Western civilization. Eve was not formed at the same time as man; she was not made either from a different substance or from the same clay that Adam was modeled from: she was drawn from the first male’s flank. Even her birth was not autonomous; God did not spontaneously choose to create her for herself and to be directly worshiped in turn: he destined her for man; he gave her to Adam to save him from loneliness, her spouse is her origin and her finality; she is his complement in the inessential mode. Thus, she appears a privileged prey. She is nature raised to the transparency of consciousness; she is a naturally submissive consciousness. And therein lies the marvelous hope that man has often placed in woman: he hopes to accomplish himself as being through carnally possessing a being while making confirmed in his freedom by a docile freedom. No man would consent to being a woman, but all want there to be women. “Thank God for creating woman.” “Nature is good because it gave men woman.” In these and other similar phrases, man once more asserts arrogantly and naively that his presence in this world is an inevitable fact and a right, that of woman is a simple accident—but a fortunate one. Appearing as the Other, woman appears at the same time as a plenitude of being by opposition to the nothingness of existence that man experiences in itself; the Other, posited as object in the subject’s eyes, is posited as in-itself, thus as being. Woman embodies positively the lack the existent carries in his heart, and man hopes to realize himself by finding himself through her.

Not so long ago, I was just a silly pup. The runt of my litter. Self-involved, naive, impatient to see the world. Well, I'd certainly gotten my wish. I'd seen far too much of the world. I'd seen enough pain and danger and death to last several lifetimes. I was no longer Byx, the innocent daydreamer, curious and carefree. The pup who could gaze for hours at a swarm of rainbow-winged butterbats dancing on the wind. The old Byx didn't gallop into battle to kill eshwins, yelling in triumph like a fool as they fell. Perhaps Tobble was right that better times awaited us. Perhaps the old Byx was hiding somewhere deep in my heart. Perhaps. But for now I had to go wash the blood from my fur.

As for my own answers to any of this? I have none. I'm far more confused than before I first went. I've had no great epiphanies, no profound realisations, but since returning home I've resigned myself to this one thing: that, putting the economics and politics of it all aside - naive as that may be - what it all boils down to is individuals. It's a simple interaction between just two people: one, a person with opportunities and choices, and who could get a flight out tomorrow should they choose; the other, a person with few options - if any. If nothing else, it's a gesture. An attempt. Food and a tent for Toto. Burns dressing for Jose. A little operating theatre with car batteries and boiled instruments, where Roberto can ply his trade. Free HIV treatment for Elizabeth, who'll never be cured and will always live in a hut anyway, but who'll have a longer, healthier life because of it. And sometimes it's little more than a bed in which to die peacefully, attended to by family and health workers... but hey, that's no small thing in some parts. My head says it's futile. My heart knows differently.

Whether or not the historical Buddha actually suffered from the kind of primitive agonies Winnicott expounded upon, the meditations he taught in the aftermath of his awakening “hold” the mind just as Winnicott described a mother “holding” an infant. In making the observational posture of mindfulness central to his technique, the Buddha established another version of “an auxiliary ego-function” in the psyches of his followers, one that enabled them, to go back to his metaphor of pulling out an arrow, to tend to their own wounds with both their minds and their hearts. Far from eliminating the ego, as I naively believed I should when I first began to practice meditation, the Buddha encouraged a strengthening of the ego so that it could learn to hold primitive agonies without collapse.

Some kisses pronounced themselvesthe judgment of conviction love,Some kisses are given with an eyeSome kisses are given with the memory.There are silent kisses, kisses noblesThere enigmatic kisses, sincereSome kisses are given only soulsThere forbidden kisses, true.Some kisses calcined and hurt,Some kisses captivate sensesThere mysterious kisses that have leftthousand wandering and lost dreams.There problematic kisses enclosinga key that no one has decipheredSome kisses engender tragedyfew have defoliated roses brooch.There perfumed kisses, warm kissesthrobbing in intimate longings,Some kisses on the lips leave tracesas a field of sun between two ice.Some kisses seem liliesby sublime, naive and pure,There treacherous and cowardly kisses,There cursed and perjured kisses.Judas kisses Jesus and leaves printin the face of God, felony,while Magdalena with kissesfortifies pious agony.From then kisses throbslove, betrayal and pain,in human weddings they seemthe breeze playing with flowers.There are kisses that produce ravingsloving hot and mad passion,you know them well are my kissesinvented by me, for your mouth.Flame kisses printed on trailThey take the grooves of a forbidden love,kisses storm, wild kissesour lips only been tested.Do you remember the first ...? Indefinable;Your face covered with blushes luridand in the throes of terrible emotion,Your eyes were filled with tears.Do you remember that one evening in excess crazyI saw you jealous imagining grievances,He flunked you in my arms ... a kiss vibrated,and then ... did you see? Blood on my lips.I taught you to kiss: cold kissesThey are impassive rock heart,I taught you how to kiss with my kissesinvented by me, for your mouth

In some countries, the strictly Progressive man reveals himself to be just as much as if not more prejudiced than the typical Reactionary. There is at times a sort of arrogant condescension in one's gushing, bleeding-heartedness, in that, behind the mask of social activism, one is acting on behalf of one's perceived 'inferiors'. He may promote himself as the savior of the world; he may pat on the head all those he insidiously assumes to be the lesser, whether in status or class or ability, and treat them as helpless children: but the biggest danger of all is that by his own conscience he may feel for them, think for them, and thus, decide for them. It is with such, this artificial brand of empathy, and self-righteousness and narcissism, that we always naively yet so ignorantly pity 'the others', and ultimately, in our schemes to secure them, we merely hold them down.

I know I seem naive. I know my faith in love might appear foolish. I also know it might not be enough. But I'm not doing this because I believe I'll win. I'm actually a little afraid I'm going to lose. I no longer think love is a guarantee of victory or of happily ever after. But I think it's a reason to fight for those things. I know my attempt to save Jacks could end in a fiery explosion, but I'd rather go up in flames with him than watch while he burns.

I know I seem naive,” Evangeline pressed on. “I know my faith in love might appear foolish. I also know it might not be enough. But I’m not doing this because I believe I’ll win. I’m actually a little afraid I’m going to lose. I no longer think love is a guarantee of victory or of happily ever after. But I think it’s a reason to fight for those things. I know my attempt to save Jacks could end in a fiery explosion, but I’d rather go up in flames with him than watch while he burns

And Petschek had asked—because he was genuinely puzzled by this—why so many people, Americans especially, seemed to feel that happiness was an entitlement. By dint of his own experiences as a refugee and a wanderer, Petschek found the notion to be strangely naive and immature—especially here at the bottom of a chasm whose ramparts offered such irrefutable testimony not only to the smallness of human affairs but also to the universe’s implacable indifference to those hopes and longings.

And Petschek had asked—because he was genuinely puzzled by this—why so many people, Americans especially, seemed to feel that happiness was an entitlement. By dint of his own experiences as a refugee and a wanderer, Petschek found the notion to be strangely naive and immature—especially here at the bottom of a chasm whose ramparts offered such irrefutable testimony not only to the smallness of human affairs but also to the universe’s implacable indifference to those hopes and longings. Yet

To love is a natural instinct. To be loved is “something”. To be loved like crazy, like their life depends on you is a once-in-a-lifetime feeling. How many of us can keep their right hand on their heart and say that they have actually experienced something like that? Not many, I guess. Because you know what, once-in-a-lifetime moments, well, come once in a lifetime. You either have to extremely, enormously and tremendously lucky or have to manage to fascinate a poet or a painter or someone really very naive or mentally unsound.

Her face… is without expression. But what should it express in the moments when nothing speaks to her heart? … she does not have… that falseness which sometimes seduces, but invariably deceives. She does not know how to disguise an empty phrase with a studied smile… Though she has the most beautiful teeth in the world, she only laughs at what she finds truly amusing… You should see what a picture of naive … gaiety she sees when we play games; her look of pure joy, goodness and compassion when she is near some poor wretch she is anxious to help

Incidentally, it is very naive to say What for? At no time have governments been moralists. They never imprisoned people and executed them for having done something. They imprisoned and executed them to keep them from doing something. They imprisoned all those POW’s, of course, not for treason to the Motherland, because it was absolutely clear even to a fool that only the Vlasov men could be accused of treason. They imprisoned all of them to keep them from telling their fellow villagers about Europe. What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve for.

The road that brought Gogol from the depths of Little Russia intersected with Nevsky Prospect, “all-powerful Nevsky Prospect,” in the heart of the capital. His art was born at that crossroads. It had the provinces in its blood, as Andrei Sinyavsky puts it, in two senses: because Little Russia supplied the setting and material for more than half of his tales, and, more profoundly, because even in Petersburg, Gogol preserved a provincial’s “naive, external, astonished and envious outlook.” He did not write from within Ukrainian popular tradition, he wrote looking back at it.

The thing about Dostoevsky's characters is that they are alive. By which I don't just mean that they're successfully realized or developed or "rounded". The best of them live inside us, forever, once we've met them. Recall the proud and pathetic Raskolnikov, the naive Devushkin, the beautiful and damned Nastasya of The Idiot, the fawning Lebyedev and spiderish Ippolit of the same novel; C&P's ingenious maverick detective Porfiry Petrovich (without whom there would probably be no commercial crime fiction w/ eccentrically brilliant cops); Marmeladov, the hideous and pitiful sot; or the vain and noble roulette addict Aleksey Ivanovich of The Gambler; the gold-hearted prostitutes Sonya and Liza; the cynically innocent Aglaia; or the unbelievably repellent Smerdyakov, that living engine of slimy resentment in whom I personally see parts of myself I can barely stand to look at; or the idealized and all too-human Myshkin and Alyosha, the doomed human Christ and triumphant child-pilgrim, respectively. These and so many other FMD creatures are alive-retain what Frank calls their "immense vitality"-not because they're just skillfully drawn types or facets of human beings but because, acting withing plausible and morally compelling plots, they dramatize the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious-the ones with the most at stake. Plus, without ever ceasing to be 3-D individuals, Dostoevsky's characters manage to embody whole ideologies and philosophies of life: Raskolnikov the rational egoism of the 1860's intelligentsia, Myshkin mystical Christian love, the Underground Man the influence of European positivism on the Russian character, Ippolit the individual will raging against death's inevitability, Aleksey the perversion of Slavophilic pride in the face of European decadence, and so on and so forth....

The British Bible translator J. B. Phillips, after completing his work on this section of Scripture, could not help reflecting on what he had observed. In the 1955 preface to his first edition of Acts, he wrote: It is impossible to spend several months in close study of the remarkable short book … without being profoundly stirred and, to be honest, disturbed. The reader is stirred because he is seeing Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in human history. The newborn Church, as vulnerable as any human child, having neither money, influence nor power in the ordinary sense, is setting forth joyfully and courageously to win the pagan world for God through Christ…. Yet we cannot help feeling disturbed as well as moved, for this surely is the Church as it was meant to be. It is vigorous and flexible, for these are the days before it ever became fat and short of breath through prosperity, or muscle-bound by overorganization. These men did not make ‘acts of faith,’ they believed; they did not ‘say their prayers,’ they really prayed. They did not hold conferences on psychosomatic medicine, they simply healed the sick. But if they were uncomplicated and naive by modern standards, we have ruefully to admit that they were open on the God-ward side in a way that is almost unknown today.1

As a ball-player plays with his balls, he played with his business-deals, with the people around him, watched them, found amusement in them; with his heart, with the source of his being, he was not with them. The source ran somewhere, far away from him, ran and ran invisibly, had nothing to do with his life any more. And at several times he suddenly became scared on account of such thoughts and wished that he would also be gifted with the ability to participate in all of this childlike-naive occupations of the daytime with passion and with his heart, really to live, really to act, really to enjoy and to live instead of just standing by as a spectator.

A philosopher I admire wrote that a coward is not a coward “on account of a cowardly heart or lungs or cerebrum … he is like that because he has made himself into a coward by his actions … A coward is defined by the deed he has done.” I would wake up sweating, throw off my sheet, and stare into the hot, empty darkness. What if there was a collective will to cowardice, when men and women in their millions, a whole nationful, did cowardly deeds? Was there a way out of that? And how naive the cast-iron idealism I had been brought up with, believing we were moderate, tolerant people, steeped in civilized ways. I should have been differently taught, told how casual we are about cruelty, depravity. I had grown to adulthood nourished on monumental lies.

The thing about Dostoevsky's characters is that they are alive. By which I don't just mean that they're successfully realized or developed or "rounded". The best of them live inside us, forever, once we've met them. Recall the proud and pathetic Raskolnikov, the naive Devushkin, the beautiful and damned Nastasya of The Idiot, the fawning Lebyedev and spiderish Ippolit of the same novel; C&P's ingenious maverick detective Porfiry Petrovich (without whom there would probably be no commercial crime fiction w/ eccentrically brilliant cops); Marmeladov, the hideous and pitiful sot; or the vain and noble roulette addict Aleksey Ivanovich of The Gambler; the gold-hearted prostitutes Sonya and Liza; the cynically innocent Aglaia; or the unbelievably repellent Smerdyakov, that living engine of slimy resentment in whom I personally see parts of myself I can barely stand to look at; or the idealized and all too-human Myshkin and Alyosha, the doomed human Christ and triumphant child-pilgrim, respectively. These and so many other FMD creatures are alive-retain what Frank calls their "immense vitality"-not because they're just skillfully drawn types or facets of human beings but because, acting within plausible and morally compelling plots, they dramatize the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious-the ones with the most at stake. Plus, without ever ceasing to be 3-D individuals, Dostoevsky's characters manage to embody whole ideologies and philosophies of life: Raskolnikov the rational egoism of the 1860's intelligentsia, Myshkin mystical Christian love, the Underground Man the influence of European positivism on the Russian character, Ippolit the individual will raging against death's inevitability, Aleksey the perversion of Slavophilic pride in the face of European decadence, and so on and so forth....

I used to believe, bless my naive little heart, that I had something to offer the robbed dead. Not revenge—there’s no revenge in the world that could return the tiniest fraction of what they’ve lost—and not justice, whatever that means, but the one thing left to give them: the truth. I was good at it. I had one, at least, of the things that make a great detective: the instinct for truth, the inner magnet whose pull tells you beyond any doubt what’s dross, what’s alloy and what’s the pure, uncut metal. I dug out the nuggets without caring when they cut my fingers and brought them in my cupped hands to lay on graves, until I found out—Operation Vestal again—how slippery they were, how easily they crumbled, how deep they sliced and, in the end, how very little they were worth. In Domestic Violence, if you can get one bruised girl to press charges or go to a shelter, then there’s at least one night when her boyfriend is not going to hit her. Safety is a small debased currency, copper-plated pennies to the gold I had been chasing in Murder, but what value it has it holds. I had learned, by that time, not to take that lightly. A few safe hours and a sheet of phone numbers to call: I had never been able to offer a single murder victim that much.

Everyone today who feels that he is a “good man” is completely incapable of taking a stand on any issue at all, other than with dishonest falseness — an abysmal falsity, which is, however, innocent falsity, true-hearted falsity, blue-eyed falsity, virtuous falsity. These “good people” — collectively they are now utterly and completely moralized and, so far as their honesty is concerned, they’ve been disgraced and ruined for all eternity. Who among them could endure even one truth “about human beings”! ... Or, to ask the question more precisely, who among them could bear a true biography! Here are a couple of indications: Lord Byron recorded some very personal things about himself, but Thomas Moore was “too good” for them. He burned his friend’s papers. The executor of Schopenhauer’s will, Dr. Gwinner, is alleged to have done the same thing, for Schopenhauer had also recorded some things about himself and also perhaps against himself (“eis auton” [against himself]). The capable American Thayer, the biographer of Beethoven, all of a sudden stopped his work: at some point or other in this venerable and naive life he could no longer continue ... Moral: What intelligent man nowadays would still write an honest word about himself? — He would already have to be a member of the Order of Holy Daredevils. We have been promised an autobiography of Richard Wagner. Who has any doubts that it will be a prudent autobiography?

more than anything.” He turned to Jean Louise. “Seven-thirty tonight and no Landing. We’ll go to the show.” “Okay. Where’re you all going?” “Courthouse. Meeting.” “On Sunday?” “Yep.” “That’s right, I keep forgetting all the politicking’s done on Sunday in these parts.” Atticus called for Henry to come on. “Bye, baby,” he said. Jean Louise followed him into the livingroom. When the front door slammed behind her father and Henry, she went to her father’s chair to tidy up the papers he had left on the floor beside it. She picked them up, arranged them in sectional order, and put them on the sofa in a neat pile. She crossed the room again to straighten the stack of books on his lamp table, and was doing so when a pamphlet the size of a business envelope caught her eye. On its cover was a drawing of an anthropophagous Negro; above the drawing was printed The Black Plague. Its author was somebody with several academic degrees after his name. She opened the pamphlet, sat down in her father’s chair, and began reading. When she had finished, she took the pamphlet by one of its corners, held it like she would hold a dead rat by the tail, and walked into the kitchen. She held the pamphlet in front of her aunt. “What is this thing?” she said. Alexandra looked over her glasses at it. “Something of your father’s.” Jean Louise stepped on the garbage can trigger and threw the pamphlet in. “Don’t do that,” said Alexandra. “They’re hard to come by these days.” Jean Louise opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again. “Aunty, have you read that thing? Do you know what’s in it?” “Certainly.” If Alexandra had uttered an obscenity in her face, Jean Louise would have been less surprised. “You—Aunty, do you know the stuff in that thing makes Dr. Goebbels look like a naive little country boy?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jean Louise. There are a lot of truths in that book.” “Yes indeedy,” said Jean Louise wryly. “I especially liked the part where the Negroes, bless their hearts, couldn’t help being inferior to the white race because their skulls are thicker and their brain-pans shallower—whatever that means—so we must all be very kind to them and not let them do anything to hurt themselves and keep them in their places. Good God, Aunty—” Alexandra was ramrod straight. “Well?” she said. Jean Louise said, “It’s just that I never knew you went in for salacious reading material, Aunty.” Her aunt was silent, and Jean Louise continued: “I was real impressed with the parable where since the dawn of history the rulers of the world have always been white, except Genghis Khan or somebody—the author was real fair about that—and he made a killin’ point about even the Pharaohs were white and their subjects were either black or Jews—” “That’s true, isn’t it?” “Sure, but what’s that got to do with the case?” When Jean Louise felt apprehensive, expectant, or on edge, especially when confronting her aunt, her brain clicked to the meter of Gilbertian tomfoolery. Three sprightly figures

What does it take to use the life we already have in order to make us wiser rather than more stuck? What is the source of wisdom at a personal, individual level? To the degree that I've understood the teachings, the answer to these questions seems to have to do with bringing everything that we encounter to the path. Everything naturally has a ground, path and fruition. This is like saying that everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. But it is also said that the path itself is both the ground and the fruition. So, one sometimes reads, the path is the goal. This path has one very distinct characteristic, it is not prefabricated, it doesn't already exist. The path that we're talking about is the moment by moment evolution of our experience. The moment by moment evolution of the world of phenomena. The moment by moment evolution of our thoughts and our emotions. The path is not Route 66 destination Los Angeles. It's not as if we can take out a map and figure out that this year we might make it to Gallup, New Mexico and maybe by 2001 we'll be in LA. The path is uncharted. It comes into existence moment by moment and at the same time drops away behind us. It's like riding in a train sitting backwards. We can't see where we're headed, only where we've been. This is a very encouraging teaching because it says the source of wisdom is whatever is going to happen to us today. The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant. We're always in some kind of mood. It might be sadness, it might be anger, it might be not much of anything, just a kind of blur. It might be humor or contentment. In any case, whatever it is, that's the path. When something hurts in life, we don't usually think of it as our path or as the source of wisdom. In fact we think that the reason we're on the path is to get rid of this painful feeling. When I get to LA I won't feel this way anymore. At that level of wanting to get rid of our feeling, we naively cultivate a subtle aggression against ourselves. However the fact is that anyone who has used the moments and days and years of his or her life to become wiser, kinder, and more at home in the world has learned from what has happened right now. We can aspire to be kind right in the moment, to relax and open our heart and mind to what is in front of us right in the moment. Now is the time. If there is any possibility for enlightenment, it's right now. Not at some future time. Now is the time. Now is the only time.

And then Rosie moved quickly to tears. 'I love them, Rex. I love them [our kids] so much.' All Rosie's anguish, and sorrow, and hopelessness was pouring our of her eyes and straight through the phone. Her suffering coursed through his veins and clung to his heart. And then his ex-wife asked so simply, so innocently, so naively, 'Isn't that enough?" And then Rosie fell into full sobs. ... And then Rex, invoking all the love he still had for Rosie, said something so plan, and so true. But so difficult. 'No, baby. It's not enough..

And then Rosie moved quickly to tears. 'I love them, Rex. I love them [our kids] so much.' All Rosie's anguish, and sorrow, and hopelessness was pouring our of her eyes and straight through the phone. Her suffering coursed through his veins and clung to his heart. And then his ex-wife asked so simply, so innocently, so naively, 'Isn't that enough?" And then Rosie fell into full sobs. ... And then Rex, invoking all the love he still had for Rosie, said something so plain, and so true. But so difficult. 'No, baby. It's not enough..

I wanted to let you to know that I agree to the match and I will marry you.” He couldn’t suppress a chuckle at her regal demeanor. “Well, I should certainly hope so as our engagement is a foregone conclusion. The contracts have already been drawn up.” Ian reached to touch her silken hair, unable to resist her. Her eyes narrowed as she rose from her seat. “I would have you know, Your Grace, that it was not a ‘foregone conclusion.’ In fact, I was not going to marry you at all! I have been doing everything I can to avoid becoming leg-shackled to you and I was going to run away!” His jaw clenched. Ian had hoped to dispel her feelings that he was a monster and apparently had failed far worse than he had ever anticipated. “And just where were you planning to run to?” he asked icily, unwilling to acknowledge the pain in his heart. Angelica did not flinch at his tone. Her skirts rustled as she paced the room. “I would have used the money I made from my stories to rent a flat somewhere in the city and support myself with short stories until I finished a novel. I heard that the lady who wrote Pride and Prejudice made one hundred forty pounds.” “That would not be enough to buy your pretty gowns,” he mocked, his temper rising at her sheer ignorance and ingratitude. “Gowns can go to the devil!” she retorted, cheeks growing pink in indignation. She looked down at her pale-blue satin opera gown as if offended by the shimmering elegance adorning her exquisite form. “Besides, they are not sensible garb for an author, I should say.” The way Angelica glibly spoke of living in squalor and subjecting herself to the sordid dangers of London rather than being his duchess made him clench his fists. Did she really think he was a fate worse than death? Or was she truly that naive? “What play are we going to see?” she asked in a blatant attempt to change the subject. Ian did not intend to let her off that easily. Inspiration struck him. Oh, he would take her to a “play” for certain. A play that she would never forget. “Something pitiful and tragic,” he said with an evil smile. It was high time his bride received a taste of reality. “I think you will be quite affected.” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion at his tone but she nodded in assent, ever displaying her indomitable courage. “I will get my cape.” “Put on a sensible pair of boots as well.” Ian’s heart twisted with bitterness. He would show her a fate worse than death. ***

I think it is physically impossible for you to be as naive as you’re acting,

I have big dreams and big goals. But also big limitations, which means III never reach the big goals unless I have the wisdom to recognize the chains that bind me. Only then will I be able to figure out a way to work within them instead of ignoring them or naively wishing they'll cease to exist. I'm on a perennial quest to find balance. Writing helps me do that. To quote Neruda: Tengo que acordarme de todos, recoger las briznas, los hilos del acontecer harapiento (I have to remember everything, collect the wisps, the threads of untidy happenings). That line is ME. But my memory is slipping and that's one of the scariest aspects about all this. How can I tell my story, how can I create a narrative around my life, if I cant even remember the details? But I do want to tell my story, and so I write. I write because I want my parents to understand me. I write to leave something behind for them, for my brother Micah, for my boyfriend Jack, and for my extended family and friends, so I won't just end up as ashes scattered in the ocean and nothing else. Curiously, the things I write in my journal are almost all bad: the letdowns. the uncertainties. the anxieties. the loneliness. The good stuff I keep in my head and heart, but that proves an unreliable way of holding on because time eventually steals all memories-and if it doesn't completely steal them, it distorts them, sometimes beyond recognition, or the emotional quality accompanying the moment just dissipates. Many of the feelings I write about are too difficult to share while I'm alive, so I am keeping everything in my journal password-protected until the end. When I die I want my mom to edit these pages to ensure they are acceptable for publication-culling through years of writing, pulling together what will resonate, cutting references that might be hurtful. My hope is that my writing will offer insight for people living with, or loving someone with, chronic illness.

I have big dreams and big goals. But also big limitations, which means I'II never reach the big goals unless I have the wisdom to recognize the chains that bind me. Only then will I be able to figure out a way to work within them instead of ignoring them or naively wishing they'll cease to exist. I'm on a perennial quest to find balance. Writing helps me do that. To quote Neruda: Tengo que acordarme de todos, recoger las briznas, los hilos del acontecer harapiento (I have to remember everything, collect the wisps, the threads of untidy happenings). That line is ME. But my memory is slipping and that's one of the scariest aspects about all this. How can I tell my story, how can I create a narrative around my life, if I cant even remember the details? But I do want to tell my story, and so I write. I write because I want my parents to understand me. I write to leave something behind for them, for my brother Micah, for my boyfriend Jack, and for my extended family and friends, so I won't just end up as ashes scattered in the ocean and nothing else. Curiously, the things I write in my journal are almost all bad: the letdowns. the uncertainties. the anxieties. the loneliness. The good stuff I keep in my head and heart, but that proves an unreliable way of holding on because time eventually steals all memories-and if it doesn't completely steal them, it distorts them, sometimes beyond recognition, or the emotional quality accompanying the moment just dissipates. Many of the feelings I write about are too difficult to share while I'm alive, so I am keeping everything in my journal password-protected until the end. When I die I want my mom to edit these pages to ensure they are acceptable for publication-culling through years of writing, pulling together what will resonate, cutting references that might be hurtful. My hope is that my writing will offer insight for people living with, or loving someone with, chronic illness.

Given that Žižek in Less Than Nothing describes “the key question” of philosophy as that of “how thought is possible in a universe of matter,” so that we should focus our efforts on “the very rise of representation or appearing out of the flat stupidity of being” if we are to avoid “the very rise of representation or appearing out of the flat stupidity of being” if we are to avoid “a regression to a 'naive' ontology of spheres or levels,” the issue of whether this project is most radically accomplished by Schelling or Hegel is more than a matter of intra-textual consistency or classico-philological accuracy, but touches the very heart of what Žižek takes to be the program of speculative philosophy.

Past Evangeline felt so naive to present-day Evangeline. And yet, a part of present-day Evangeline envied her former self's effortless belief in hope and the magic of love.

We don’t have time, and even if we did, there’s no reason to waste it.” Silence. “Would it be better to wait until Nura returned?” Zeryth almost laughed. Oh, Tare. So sweet. So naive. No, it certainly wouldn’t. In fact, he considered the fact that Nura had not yet returned to be of very deliberate benefit to this situation. “She’ll understand,” he said, and gave Tare a confident, sparkling smile.

The surface of love was a feeling, but beyond this thin layer, there was a fathomless, winding maze of caverns offering many places to see and explore. Wren used to think romantic passion only grew more intense in the depths. But this belief was naive and impractical, a by-product of a certainty-obsessed culture that equates love with longing and views ambivalence as a fatal flaw. Wren saw now how passion was delicate and temporary, a visitor, a feeling that would come and go. Feelings fled under pressure; feelings did not light the darkness. What remained strong in the deep, the hard times, was love as an effort, a doing, a conscious act of will. Soulmates, like her and Lewis, were not theoretical and found. They were tangible, built.

It showed you what you do deserve. Those relationships didn’t actually hurt you; they showed you an unhealed part of yourself, a part that was preventing you from being truly loved. That’s what happens when we finally get past hurtful experiences and terrible relationships: We realize we are worth more, and so we choose more. We realize how we blindly or naively said “yes” to someone or gave them our mind and heart space when we didn’t have to. We realize our role in choosing what we want in our lives, and by experiencing what seems like the worst, we finally acknowledge that it feels so wrong because we deserve so much more.

It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.

I, too, am among those unable to step outside the realm of worldly distinctions. I hide my excesses of joy and sorrow beneath a robe of false contentment and drown in a pool of tears unseen by others. How I envy those naive enough to covet the glory of others. Do they not realize that tears fall not only on the sleeves of worn and tattered kimonos? The jewels that spill, glittering, onto my brocade are the very water of life, but they are mistaken for mere ornament. Although no one notices, my heart is shattered into a thousand pieces.

We were in those years of inexperience when one still thinks with the heart, when one believes unquestioningly in the ideas written down by the philosophers, when one feels as one's own the sweetness of verses sprung forth from happiness, the bitterness of poems wrung from despair. We were in those years when words are born not of emptiness but of the essence of one's being. We were in the years of inexperience, unencumbered by the deathly triviality of life, and so we could speak naively about elevated things, things experience discards because they are as useless and unnecessary as a patch of sky.

Like most pain that we withhold from God’s touch, my paper pregnancy (apparently now also barren) had fostered a fermentation within my heart. My hurt was expanding beyond “just” the issues of childbearing and was touching the broader vision for my life. I was looking at life through the lens of being overlooked by God. I kept my eyes closed to keep the others around me from view — those whom, I naively assumed, could more easily proclaim the truths of God in song because they had what I wanted. Then I saw a vision on the back of my eyelids: the word family scribbled across a piece of paper. The paper had a nail through its center, affixing it to a cross. The Lord whispered inside my spirit as I saw it: If you never have a family, will you still love Me? I walked out of church that day, hardened. Had it really come to this? The very idea that what I most feared — becoming stamped with the word barren — was now not only a possibility but a suggestion . . . and from God?

Choose to see the pure Soul within all beings, even though they may not see it within themselves. Choose to honor the sovereign reality of all beings, even though their words or actions may hurt you. Choose to transform through ecstasy and Grace, even though drama and trauma may seem more natural to you. Choose to live in this miraculous Now moment, even though nostalgia, regrets and fear may entice you to not be Present. Choose to be a blessing to the World and All Life, even though circumstances may encourage you to harden your heart. Choose to love others, even though it may seem naive. Choose to love God with all your being, and know that this is all that is really required. Choose to Live Heaven. Aliyah Ziondra

There are two types of pains, One that hurts you .. And the other that changes you. I'm sure we have all experienced ,both these pains.. It is necessary. .that we do.. As a hurting pain ..that is physical ...makes you bodily strong .. .And a pain in the heart ..constructs your personality Makes you strong ...'Weather beaten'..having faced all kinds of emotional weather.. That is the pain that will change ! A meek you to a brave one.. A naive you to a master A child mind to an adult one .. Fall in Love ...despite the betrayals and separation ..or comfort and support. . There are going to be ups and downs in all relationships ...but that is going to transform you into a desirable being ... 'A diamond has to be cut and rubbed to shine

In these acts of love Jesus created a scandal for devout, religious Palestinian Jews. The absolutely unpardonable thing was not his concern for the sick, the cripples, the lepers, the possessed . . . nor even his partisanship for the poor, humble people. The real trouble was that he got involved with moral failures, with obviously irreligious and immoral people: people morally and politically suspect, so many dubious, obscure, abandoned, hopeless types existing as an eradicable evil on the fringe of every society. This was the real scandal. Did he really have to go so far? . . . What kind of naive and dangerous love is this, which does not know its limits: the frontiers between fellow countrymen and foreigners, party members and non-members, between neighbors and distant people, between honorable and dishonorable callings, between moral and immoral, good and bad people? As if dissociation were not absolutely necessary here. As if we ought not to judge in these cases. As if we could always forgive in these circumstances.[4] Because the shining sun and the falling rain are given both to those who love God and to those who reject God, the compassion of the Son embraces those who are still living in sin. The pharisee lurking within all of us shuns sinners. Jesus turns toward them with gracious kindness. He sustains His attention throughout their lives for the sake of their conversion, “which is always possible to the very last moment.”[5]

Parents tend to see their children’s behavior in very naive terms. We see the fight over a toy as simply a fight over a toy, when actually it is a failure to prefer others. It is selfishness. It is saying to others, “I don’t care about what your wishes are; I want to have what I want.” It is a determination to live in the world in a way that exploits every opportunity to serve oneself.

A worldly wise and somewhat overbearing Lucy asks the good-hearted and somewhat naive Charlie Brown, ‘Charlie, what would you rather do, be captain of the baseball team or marry the cute redheaded girl?’ And Charlie replies innocently, ‘Why can’t I do both?’ to which Lucy responds, ‘It’s the real world, Charlie Brown.’ “60

Buddhism and other religious and ethical systems, however, have long recognized and sought to correct this prejudice in favour of the self. A scholar of Judaism, commenting on the Torah, wrote: ‘In morals, holiness negatively demanded resistance to every urge of nature which made self-serving the essence of human life; and positively, submission to an ethic which placed service to others at the centre of its system.’6 It would be naive to expect that all men could be persuaded to place service to others before service to self. But with sufficient resolve on the part of governments and institutions that influence public opinion and set international standards of behaviour, a greater proportion of the world’s population could be made to realize that self-interest (whether as an individual, a community or a nation) cannot be divorced entirely from the interests of others. Instead of assuming that material progress will bring an improvement in social, political and ethical standards, should it not be considered that an active promotion of appropriate social, political and ethical values might not only aid material progress but also help ensure that its results are wisely and happily distributed? ‘Wealth enough to keep misery away and a heart wise enough to use it’7 was described as the ‘greatest good’ by Aeschylus, who lived in an age when, after decades of war, revolution and tyrannies, Athenian democracy in its morning freshness was beginning to prove itself as a system wonderfully suited to free, thinking men. A

TOO NAIVE Just 15 and caught up in powerful love that existed for her but was illusive to him. An older man seeking his way through her undeveloped body, her inexperienced mind and her desperate heart. So he took advantage, making her promises, deceiving her with words only to reel her in then destroy her. shes in the middle of his game unable to escape, crying,pleading , begging for someone's help to overcome this aching pain. just another worthless man who was only concerned with his dick and not that a young girl's life was at risk. His unfaithful dick,sharing it with many women and having multiple offspring. Pressuring her to have sex with him even though he knew the consequences. A dog, a bastard is what he is, running around humping women without the care of how many females he impregnated. A little boy in a mans frame is all that he illustrated, only the worse he showed and reflected. I say she was just 15 and foolish, unable to make wise choices, unable to help herself, seeking love from an older guy whom she meant nothing to. Just a piece of trash used and thrown away without any hesitance. I say she was just 15 and naive, with her heart held hostage by a little boy in a man's frame. No precaution he took all rush he would choose it didn't even matter if she was too young and not ready for what he expected. Though I'm left to say too naive is what i call it.

The rise of modern science in the seventeenth century-with the attendant attempt to analyze all observable phenomena in terms of mechanical chains of causation-was a knife in the heart of moral philosophy, for it reduced human beings to automatons. If all of the body and brain canbe completely described without invoking anything so empyreal as a mind, let alone a consciousness, then the notion that a person is morally responsible for his actions appears quaint, if not scientifically naive. A machine cannot be held responsible for its actions. If our minds are impotent to affect our behavior, then surely we are no more responsible for our actions than a robot is. It is an understatement to note that the triumph of materialism, as applied to questions of mind and brain, therefore makes many people squirm. For if the mysteries of the mind are reducible to physics and chemistry, then "mind is but the babbling of a robot, chained ineluctably to crude causality," as the neurobiologist Robert Doty put it in 1998.

My good heart and empathetic personality were assumed by many as a weakness. I was unwarily and widely opening doors to my sponge-like heart for people with a strict intent to take advantage of me. I was considered naive and gullible. My charitable practices caused me more pains and heartaches than a long expected feeling of joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction. Dealing with constant depreciation, disrespect, and in few cases even abused, I was being left feeling wronged and victimized. Such treatment sent me into a low-vibration state of mind and ever since I have been attracting and letting all the wrong and toxic people in to my life. In the effect, inadvertently and totally unconsciously, I neglected and deprived myself from having what I deserved best: - true and unconditional love, respect and gratitude. By constantly placing me at "second place”, I depleted myself from positive energy, neglected my own life; its desires, needs, and ended up running on empty. I started losing touch with my own creative inspiration, and my artistic originality suffered a great deal. I started noticing that I was left with no fuel to properly nourish my own body, soul and mind. It is time for me to take charge of my life, place myself first before anyone else, let go of all the “wolfs in sheep’s garment”, and rebuild my dwindling self-esteem. It is time for me to heal and rebuild my essence, give myself proper love, balanced nutrition and attention, and feel again that strong desire to live my life to the fullest. It is time for me to reconstitute, refocus and re-center in order to achieve a blissful feeling of inner peace. I understand that this new development may disappoint some of my "friends" and associates who are used to my giving nature. They will have to accept my transformation given that I cannot go on with my life running on empty, especially since most of my actions remain usually non-reciprocated. It is time for Alex to finally be able to distinguish between those that are really in need and those that are just pure pococurante parasites or scavengers, always expecting of me to cater to their every single need. It is time for me to say "no" to those who under false pretenses entered my sensitive and charitable heart only to take advantage of it and who are always taking but never giving.