Ness Love Quotes

It's not that you should never love something so much that it can control you. It's that you need to love something that much so you can never be controlled. It's not a weakness. It's your best strength.

If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don't give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise.

i like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more. i like your body. i like what it does, i like its hows. i like to feel the spine of your body and its bones, and the trembling -firm-smooth ness and which i will again and again and again kiss, i like kissing this and that of you, i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs, and possibly i like the thrill of under me you so quite new.

Being a leader is making the people you love hate you a little more each day.

Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.

We share out craziness, our neuroses, our little bit of screwed-up-ness that comes from our family. We share it. And it feels like love.

His noise is getting quieter, but I can still see it there still- See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it against his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and- "Oh, God," he says, looking away suddenly. "Viola, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" But I just put my hand to the back of his neck- And he says, "Viola-?" And I pull myself towards him- And I kiss him. And it feels like, finally.

What is it that inspires you? What do you love to do? What would you do for free? At the beginning of my busi-ness career, my why was to become a millionaire, not a good why! And why not? Because that is an aspiration rather than a why. Aspirations, I have found, won’t fuel me when the going gets tough. But a true “why” will.

They're your parents. They're meant to love you because. Never in spite.

You love him," he says. Not an asking, just a fact. "I do," I say. Also a fact.

Just because we mess up doesn’t mean all the lessons we learned are undone. Healing can be imperfect.

I still love the book-ness of books, the smell of books: I am a book fetishist—books to me are the coolest and sexiest and most wonderful things there are.

Viola?" he says. And I turn to look at him - And when I do, I can hear everything he's thinking. Everything. Clearer than before, clearer than seems possible - And I'm not even sure I'm supposed to, but I look him in the eyes and I see it - In the middle of everything he's feeling - Even after we fought - Even after I doubted him - Even after I hurt him - I see how much he loves me.

Maybe hearts don't ever stop breaking once broken.

His absence is so big it's like he's there.

It was so much easier to be loved than to have to do any of the desperate work of loving.

And love and care have all kinds of different faces, and within them, there’s room for understanding, and for forgiveness, and for more.

We're each other's questions, aren't we? The question that never gets an answer.

As scary as this can be I want you to know no matter how broken you feel, and how seemingly unlikely it is, we are never too broken to heal.

Imperfection is beautiful. To anyone who has ever felt broken beyond repair, this is for you. If you’ve ever been excluded, or told you were not enough, know that you are enough, and beautifully complete.

It is a pure soul who can hold true the in­no­cence and time­less­ness of pas­sion in an­oth­er soul. Each un­veil­ing the great­est pieces of the oth­er, locked to­geth­er at the heart for eter­ni­ty

You know those plants that are always trying to find the light? Maybe they were planted in a location that didn’t necessarily facilitate growth, but inexplicably they make a circuitous route to not only survive but bloom into a beautiful plant. That was me—my whole life.

...he prayed fundamentally as a gesture of love for what had gone and would go and could be loved in no other way. When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world, so he prayed as a lament, as a consolation, and as a hope....

I love that you're worried,' she says, 'but you're worried about all the wrong things.

I got paralyzed by things. I’m pretty sure that ‘I hate uncertainty’ was my first full sentence as a baby.

Because when you have this much personality, there’s a fear lurking just below the surface: If you knew all of me, you wouldn’t love me anymore.

we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another,

The Female Orgasm. The Big O. That elusive, reclusive Loch Ness of the labia. Does it prove the existence of God, or just His twisted sense of humor?

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that acceptance is the key to so much, and we find so much freedom in feeling fierce about what we’re accepting.

It's love. But it's a different kind," "Doesn't make it any less love, though.

Her love for me made me as tall as the mountains

The Mayor's wrong - He's wrong forever and ever - It's not that you should never love something so much it can control you. It's that you need to love something that much so you can never be controlled.

What is it that inspires you? What do you love to do? What would you do for free? At the beginning of my busi-ness career, my why was to become a millionaire—not a good why! And why not? Because that is an aspiration rather than a why. Aspirations, I have found, won’t fuel me when the going gets tough. But a true “why” will.

Being normal is being completely unique, because nobody’s the same. Normal, honey? Who is she, anyway?

Life ain't fair. It ain't. Not never. It's pointless and stupid and there's only suffering and pain and people who want to hurt you. You can't love nothing or no one cuz it'll all be taken away or ruined and you'll be left alone and constantly having to fight, constantly having to run just to stay alive.

Letting go of that idea that I needed to be normal or that I somehow wasn’t normal just because I needed to prioritize self-care to be healthy is the biggest gift I’ve ever given myself. Being normal is being completely unique, because nobody’s the same.

It's not that you should never love something so much it can control you. It's that you need to love something that much so you can never be controlled.

There’s a rhyme and reason behind my effervescent spirit, and no, I did not wake up like this. It took a lot of trauma and tears to become the person you see today.

There are endless sexy shapes, colors, forms, and kinds of people who deserve celebration. It’s each one of our jobs to reject that comparison of what we think beauty is and realize we are the motherfucking beauty.

Though if love was an animal, Garret knew, it would probably be the Loch Ness Monster. If it didn’t exist, that didn’t matter. People made models of it, put it in the water, and took photos. The hoax of it was good enough. The idea of it. Though some people feared it, wished it would just go away, had their lives insured against being eaten alive by it.

And I feel her against me - And I think Viola - I think VIOLA! - I think VIOLA!!!!

And I look right into his eyes, right into him as far as I can see, because I want him to hear me, I want him to hear me with everything I mean and feel and say.

And right on cue, Viola yells, " TODD! " And I hit him with everything I got - Every bit of her behind me - Every piece of anger and frustrayshun and nothingness - Every moment I didn't see her - Every moment I worried - Everything - Every little tiny thing I know about her - I send it right into the center of him - VIOLA

Mikey," she says, but not like she's about to say anything more, just like she's identifying me, making a place for me here that's mine to exist in. I want her so much, my heart feels heavy, like I'm grieving. Is this what they meant about that stomach feeling? They didn't say it felt this sad.

Todd!” she says again but this time in a way that asks me to look at her and I do and she stops Angharrad at the edge of the square and she’s looking at me, looking right into my eyes– And I read her– And I know exactly what she’s thinking– And my Noise and my heart and my head fill up fit to burst, fill up like I’m gonna explode– Cuz she’s saying– She’s saying with her eyes and her face and her whole self– “I know,” I say back to her, my voice husky. “Me, too.” And then I turn to the Mayor and I’m filled with her, with her love for me and my love for her– And it makes me big as an effing mountain– And I take it and I slam all of it into the Mayor–

Life is so much a daily exercise in learning to love yourself and forgive yourself, over and over.

During the nuit blanche I think: Henry, my love, I can love you better now that you cannot hurt me. I can love you more gaily. More loosely. I can endure space and distance and betrayals. Only the best, the best and the strongest. Henry, my love, the wanderer, the artist, the faithless one who has loved me so well. Believe me, nothing has changed in me toward you except my courage. I cannot walk with one love ever. My head is strong, my head, but to walk, to walk into love I need miracles, the miracles of excess, and white heat, and two-ness! Lie here, breathing into my hair, over my neck. No hurt will come from me. No criticalness, no judgment. I bear you in my womb.

You can’t be fiercely loving without also being passionate - and sometimes passionate isn’t pretty. What might seem testy is actually scar tissue, the residual effects of trauma that I lived through.

Joy can live beside sorrow. Life is messy, unpredictable, and seldom tied into neat little boxes.

Comparing ourselves to people on social media is as risky as using WebMD to diagnose yourself. You’ll end up way more stressed than before - just don’t even go there.

COOL·NESS [KOOL-NIS] -noun CATCHING your mom gazing at the crazy crowd like she finally gets it WATCHING your dad head-banging like he’s Finn’s twin brother LEARNING that your new friends Tash and Kallie are a thousand times more complicated than you realized, and loving them for it FEELING every one of your boyfriend’s pounding drumbeats, and thinking it’s the most romantic music ever written REALIZING you’re completely unique . . . even in a crowd

It wasn’t until I had lost everything I thought I wanted that I realized being an adult wasn’t about being ‘normal,’ or having a life that seems enviable to people from the outside. Being a fulfilled and successful adult has required accepting that I do have an inner child who was hurt and traumatized. It’s my job as an adult to nurture him, alongside all the other parts of me that make me who I am.

Cuz when I held you for the first time this morning and fed you from my own body, I felt so much love for you it was almost like pain, almost like I couldn't stand it one longer.

Our grief was leading us all towards Mexican food.

We're lucky Esme thought to add an extra room. No one was planning for Ness-Renesmee." I frowned at him, my thoughts channeled down a less pleasant path. "Not you too," I complained. "Sorry, love. I hear it in their thoughts all the time, you know. It's rubbing off on me. I sighed. My baby, the sea serpent. Maybe there was no help for it. Well, I wasn't giving in.

I can read it. I can read her. Cuz she’s thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She’s wondering if the hope at the end of our hope is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma’s. And she;s taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she’s taking the song of my pa and she’s weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own. And it hurts her, but it’s an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it’s good, but it hurts. She hurts. I know all this. I know it’s true. Cuz I can read her. I can read her Noise even tho she ain’t got none. I know who she is. I know Viola Eade.

Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.

Maybe there didn’t have to be any other reasons. Maybe love made you stupid. Maybe loneliness did.

When they were together like that, they had been their own private universe, bounded just by themselves, a population of two. They were the world, and the world was them.

So I’m telling my story - the whole story - to show that some masterpieces start off a mess.

There are a million ways to reach recovery. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t find a way that works for you.

You end up hating so many people that without even noticing, you start to hate everyone. Including yourself. But that's the trick, you see? The trick that makes everything survivable. You've got to love somebody.

Fundamentalist Christianity: fascinating. These people actually believe that the world is twelve thousand years old. Swear to God. Based on what? I asked them. "Well, we looked at all the people in the Bible and we added 'em up all the way back to Adam and Eve, their ages? Twelve thousand years." "Well, how fucking scientific, OK. I didn't know that you'd gone to so much trouble there. That's good. You believe the world's twelve thousand years old?" "That's right." "OK, I got one word to ask you, a one word question, ready?" "Uh huh." "Dinosaurs." You know, the world's twelve thousand years old and dinosaurs existed, and existed in that time, you'd think it would been mentioned in the fucking Bible at some point: And O, Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus... with a splinter in its paw. And the disciples did run a-screamin'. "What a big fucking lizard, Lord!" "I'm sure gonna mention this in my book," Luke said. "Well, I'm sure gonna mention it in my book," Matthew said. But Jesus was unafraid. And he took the splinter from the brontosaurus paw, and the brontosaurus became his friend. And Jesus sent him to Scotland where he lived in a loch, O so many years, attracting fat American families with their fat fuckin' dollars to look for the Loch Ness Monster. And O the Scots did praise the Lord: "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!" Twelve thousand years old. But I actually asked this guy, "OK, dinosaur fossils-- how does that fit into your scheme of life? What's the deal?" He goes: "God put those here to test our faith." "I think God put you here to test my faith, dude. I think I've figured this out." Does that-- That's what this guy said. Does that bother anyone here? The idea that God might be fucking with our heads? Anyone have trouble sleeping restfully with that thought in their head? God's running around burying fossils: "Ho ho! We'll see who believes in me now, ha ha! I'm a prankster God. I am killing me, ho ho ho!" You know? You die, you go to St. Peter: "Did you believe in dinosaurs?" "Well, yeah. There were fossils everywhere. (trapdoor opens) Aaaaarhhh!" "You fuckin' idiot! Flying lizards? You're a moron. God was fuckin' with you!" "It seemed so plausible, aaaaaahh!" "Enjoy the lake of fire, fucker!" They believe this. But you ever notice how people who believe in Creationism usually look pretty unevolved. Eyes really close together, big furry hands and feet? "I believe God created me in one day." Yeah, looks like he rushed it. Such a weird belief. Lots of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he's gonna want to see a fucking cross, man? "Ow." Might be why he hasn't shown up yet. "Man, they're still wearing crosses. Fuck it, I'm not goin' back, Dad. No, they totally missed the point. When they start wearing fishes, I might show up again, but... let me bury fossils with you, Dad. Fuck 'em, let's fuck with 'em! Hand me that brontosaurus head, Dad.

But you can’t make war personal,” I say, “or you’ll never make the right decisions.” “And if you didn’t make personal decisions, you wouldn’t be a person. All war is personal somehow, isn’t it? For somebody? Except it’s usually hate.” “Lee—” “I’m just saying how lucky he is to have someone love him so much they’d take on the whole world.” His Noise is uncomfortable, wondering what I’m looking like, how I’m responding. “That’s all I’m saying.” “He’d do it for me,” I say quietly. I’d do it for you too, Lee’s Noise says. And I know he would. But those people who die because we do it, don’t they have people who’d kill for them? So who’s right?

If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don’t give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise. Keep your head down. Keep your stamina. Keep swimming...

My default is to be really critical of myself, but the world will do that for me, so I gotta make sure I always know I have my back.

Joyful accomplishments exist next to painful memories. I found a lot of my healing when I realized that my suffering didn’t undo my joy.

All the souls to explore! - It's not so necessary to love, really, as it is to settle something deep with all of those who really matter. Love and hate are the same things, differently sifted through personal... pride, or what have you... personal pride or even just personal-ness.

We are all a beautiful jumble of layers, parts, and mixtures of experiences, but my most important part, and in my opinion everyone’s most valuable part, is the one that chooses self-love instead of self-harm in the grand sweeping ways but also the little ways every single day. Learning to parent yourself, with soothing compassionate love, forgiving yourself, and learning from all the decisions you made to get you to where you are - that’s the key to being fulfilled. Learning to be the dream parent cheerleader to yourself. It’s been in you the whole time. And no matter how down you get, you can always make a gorgeous recovery.

One thing I have come to notice in my life is that recovery for me has not been linear. It’s more two steps forward, three back, five forward, two back, so I’m always improving but there are setbacks within the improvement.

Colour outside the lines, live outside the box. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do, or not. Don’t be afraid, listen to your heart. Heaven is a state of being – of one-ness, and Hell is a state of being – lost. We simply need to live as we best define ourselves, find our own ways of being who we are in our world. There is no requirement - only freedom of choice. We should not be judged if we are doing what we think best according to our perceptions at any given time. Guilt should be discarded, moved beyond - what matters is who we choose to be in the next moment, given what we might have learned. We continually create ourselves anew. Forgiving someone is a great way to show love, and forgive yourself too for the hurt you held onto far too long. Take back the energy you have wasted on these things and reclaim your power to be your next best self. Honour the past but refresh, expand, renew, fulfill. Heaven is within us, always reachable.

I need you to scry for Lousha," he said. "You told me once that you could." "Yeah, I can get you in her vicinity." Garreth had taken Lucia's scent into him and could find her from miles away. "That'll work." Witches could come in handy, he supposed. "But I don't do gratis." Garreth bluidy hated witches! "Charge me what you will! Just give me the fucking coordinates." In the background, he heard Bowen say, "Mari, never let it be said that I doona support your extortion--" "Entrepreneurial-ness," she corrected. "But a family discount, love, would no' be amiss." "The whole family? Fine," she said. "I'm scrying." While Garreth waited, she groused about how extended the "MacRieve pack" was.

Never love something so much it can be used to control you.

no matter how much my life changes I am enough, and I am loved in and of myself and by myself, I’ll be good.

Joy can live beside sorrow.

That which besets me is indifference. I can't be bothered about people. Or rather, won't. For I avoid, carefully, all occasions for being bothered... Indifference is a form of sloth, and sloth in its turn is one of the symptoms of loveless-ness. One isn't lazy about what one loves. The problem is: how to love?

It's like a cat bell, so pretty yet alarming, because i know I'm letting myself fall when maybe I should fly away. But the loneliness inside, it's so fucking painful. It's that longing feeling that scratches to escape and makes you want to blurt out all kinds of gushy crap just to get the girl to look at you...I hate it. Love its melty-ness and hate its leash around my neck.

It's not that you should never love something so much it can control you. It's that you need to love something that much so you can never be controlled It's not a weakness- It's your best strength- ... I know it in my heart- Right now- Todd Hewitt- There's nothing we can't do together- And we're gonna win-

Love is not jealous.

I WANT her though, to take the same from me. She touches me as if I were herself, her own. She has not realized yet, that fearful thing, that I am the other, she thinks we are all of one piece. It is painfully untrue. I want her to touch me at last, ah, on the root and quick of my darkness and perish on me, as I have perished on her. Then, we shall be two and distinct, we shall have each our separate being. And that will be pure existence, real liberty. Till then, we are confused, a mixture, unresolved, unextricated one from the other. It is in pure, unutterable resolvedness, distinction of being, that one is free, not in mixing, merging, not in similarity. When she has put her hand on my secret, darkest sources, the darkest outgoings, when it has struck home to her, like a death, "this is _him!_" she has no part in it, no part whatever, it is the terrible _other_, when she knows the fearful _other flesh_, ah, dark- ness unfathomable and fearful, contiguous and concrete, when she is slain against me, and lies in a heap like one outside the house, when she passes away as I have passed away being pressed up against the _other_, then I shall be glad, I shall not be confused with her, I shall be cleared, distinct, single as if burnished in silver, having no adherence, no adhesion anywhere, one clear, burnished, isolated being, unique, and she also, pure, isolated, complete, two of us, unutterably distinguished, and in unutterable conjunction. Then we shall be free, freer than angels, ah, perfect. VIII AFTER that, there will only remain that all men detach themselves and become unique, that we are all detached, moving in freedom more than the angels, conditioned only by our own pure single being, having no laws but the laws of our own being. Every human being will then be like a flower, untrammelled. Every movement will be direct. Only to be will be such delight, we cover our faces when we think of it lest our faces betray us to some untimely fiend. Every man himself, and therefore, a surpassing singleness of mankind. The blazing tiger will spring upon the deer, un-dimmed, the hen will nestle over her chickens, we shall love, we shall hate, but it will be like music, sheer utterance, issuing straight out of the unknown, the lightning and the rainbow appearing in us unbidden, unchecked, like ambassadors. We shall not look before and after. We shall _be_, _now_. We shall know in full. We, the mystic NOW. (From the poem the Manifesto)

It took a long time, but my heart now feels full when I think of him. When you fall in love again—which I have—it's funny the other things that come back in with that open-ness. You have this ghost chorus of the lovers who came before, but they're benign now, they're good spirits.

They’re weak and strong and they make mistakes, like anyone, like he has. And love and care have all kinds of different faces, and within them, there’s room for understanding, and for forgiveness, and for more. More and more and more. Sometimes

These are the three stages of enlightenment, the three glimpses of satori. 1. The first stage enlightenment: A Glimpse of the Whole The first stage of enlightenment is short glimpse from faraway of the whole. It is a short glimpse of being. The first stage of enlightenment is when, for the first time, for a single moment the mind is not functioning. The ordinary ego is still present at the first stage of enlightenment, but you experience for a short while that there is something beyond the ego. There is a gap, a silence and emptiness, where there is not thought between you and existence. You and existence meet and merge for a moment. And for the first time the seed, the thirst and longing, for enlightenment, the meeting between you and existence, will grow in your heart. 2. The second stage of enlightenment: Silence, Relaxation, Togetherness, Inner Being The second stage of enlightenment is a new order, a harmony, from within, which comes from the inner being. It is the quality of freedom. The inner chaos has disappeared and a new silence, relaxation and togetherness has arisen. Your own wisdom from within has arisen. A subtle ego is still present in the second stage of enlightenment. The Hindus has three names for the ego: 1. Ahamkar, which is the ordinary ego. 2. Asmita, which is the quality of Am-ness, of no ego. It is a very silent ego, not aggreessive, but it is still a subtle ego. 3. Atma, the third word is Atma, when the Am-ness is also lost. This is what Buddha callas no-self, pure being. In the second stage of enlightenment you become capable of being in the inner being, in the gap, in the meditative quality within, in the silence and emptiness. For hours, for days, you can remain in the gap, in utter aloneness, in God. Still you need effort to remain in the gap, and if you drop the effort, the gap will disappear. Love, meditation and prayer becomes the way to increase the effort in the search for God. Then the second stage becomes a more conscious effort. Now you know the way, you now the direction. 3. The third stage of enlightenment: Ocean, Wholeness, No-self, Pure being At the third stage of enlightenment, at the third step of Satori, our individual river flowing silently, suddenly reaches to the Ocean and becomes one with the Ocean. At the third Satori, the ego is lost, and there is Atma, pure being. You are, but without any boundaries. The river has become the Ocean, the Whole. It has become a vast emptiness, just like the pure sky. The third stage of enlightenment happens when you have become capable of finding the inner being, the meditative quality within, the gap, the inner silence and emptiness, so that it becomes a natural quality. You can find the gap whenever you want. This is what tantra callas Mahamudra, the great orgasm, what Buddha calls Nirvana, what Lao Tzu calls Tao and what Jesus calls the kingdom of God. You have found the door to God. You have come home.

I knew it,” Conor grumbled. “These kinds of stories always have stupid princes falling in love.” He started walking back to the house. “I thought this was going to be good.”With one swift movement, the monster grabbed Conor’s ankles in a long, strong hand and flipped him upside down, holding him in mid-air so his T-shirt rucked up and his heartbeat thudded in his head.As I was saying, said the monster.

Doug sees beneath all of her Hope-ness. Her sees her all the way to her white-hot rage, and her fear. What Doug doesn’t see, is that most of the time, it’s much to bear, and that really, when everything is stripped away, she is just as scared as what life dishes up as the next person, that inside she is that Swarovski hummingbird displayed so innocently on her credenza, all light-reflecting surfaces and fragile as glass.

Yes", Kumiko said, seriously. "Exactly that. The extraordinary happens all the time. So much, we can't take it. Life and happiness and heartache and love. If we couldn't put it in story - " "And explain it -" "No!" she said, suddenly sharp. "Not explain. Stories do not explain. They seem to, but all they provide is a starting point. The story never ends at the end. There is always after. And even within itself, even by saying that this version is the right one, it suggests other versions, versions that exist in parallel. No, story is not an explanation, it is a net, a net through which the truth flows. The net catches some of the truth, but not all, never all, only enough so that we can live with the extraordinary without it killing us." She sagged a little, as if exhausted by this speech. "As it surely, surely would.

The truth is I’ve only ever had one addiction. The white whale of addictions: escape. From as far back as I can remember there has always been a better place than wherever I am. A better me than whoever I was. Books helped me escape when I was young. Not just because of my precocious angsty-ness and early onset existential crises; they were literal escape.

I just wanna be fit and have good blood pressure and feel good with my clothes off and I do. I love my body but I think that there’s always a part of me that wishes I looked more like Antoni or like an underwear model. But then again, I still really love to binge eat at McDonald’s at night, so...you know.

He opens his voice, showing me other sunrises he has seen, where the fields turn golden and the Source and his one in particular stood up from their early morning labours to watch it rise, a memory as simple as that, yet covered in joy and loss and love and grief- And hope.

When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents, all of us, every man and woman and boy and girl, and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity's potential for building a better world, and so he prayed as a lament, as a consolation, and as a hope.

Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown. An ardent Jehovah’s Witness once tried to convince me that if there were a God of love, he would certainly provide mankind with a reliable and infallible textbook for the guidance of conduct. I replied that no considerate God would destroy the human mind by making it so rigid and unadaptable as to depend upon one book, the Bible, for all the answers. For the use of words, and thus of a book, is to point beyond themselves to a world of life and experience that is not mere words or even ideas. Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.

Jenna is the kind of beautiful that I can get lost in. Lost from all the fucked-up-ness in my head. She’s the kind of beautiful that laughs at all my non funny jokes because she gets me. She’s the kind of beautiful that’ll put me in my place without batting an eye. Jenna is the kind of beautiful that can transform a non believing man like me into a man who wants more. A man who can fall hard, stumbling over his own two feet because he’s so tangled up in her.

He loved physical books with the same avidity other people loved horses or wine or prog rock. He'd never really warmed to ebooks because they seemed to reduce a book to a computer file, and computer files were disposable things, things you never really owned. He had no emails from ten years ago but still owned every book he bought that year. Besides, what was more perfect an object than a book? The different rags of paper, smooth or rough under your fingers. The edge of the page pressed into your thumbprint as you turned a new chapter. The way your bookmark - fancy, modest, scrap paper, candy wrapper - moved through the width of it, marking your progress, a little further each time you folded it shut.

The Greek myth of Narcissus is directly concerned with a fact of human experi­ence, as the word Narcissus indicates. It is from the Greek word narcosis, or numb­ness. The youth Narcissus mistook his own reflection in the water for another person. This extension of himself by mirror numbed his perceptions until he became the servomechanism of his own extended or repeated image. The nymph Echo tried to win his love with fragments of his own speech, but in vain. He was numb. He had adapted to his extension of himself and had become a closed system. Now the point of this myth is the fact that men at once become fascinated by any extension of themselves in any ma­terial other than themselves. There have been cynics who insisted that men fall deep­est in love with women who give them back their own image. Be that as it may, the wisdom of the Narcissus myth does not convey any idea that Narcissus fell in love with anything he regarded as himself. Obviously he would have had very different feelings about the image had he known it was an extension or repetition of himself. It is, perhaps, indicative of the bias of our intensely technological and, therefore, narcotic culture that we have long interpreted the Narcissus story to mean that he fell in love with himself, that he imagined the reflection to be Narcissus!

...the presence of others has become even more intolerable to me, their conversation most of all. Oh, how it all annoys and exasperates me: their attitudes, their manners, their whole way of being! The people of my world, all my unhappy peers, have come to irritate, oppress and sadden me with their noisy and empty chatter, their monstrous and boundless vanity, their even more monstrous egotism, their club gossip... the endless repetition of opinions already formed and judgments already made; the automatic vomiting forth of articles read in those morning papers which are the recognised outlet of the hopeless wilderness of their ideas; the eternal daily meal of overfamiliar cliches concerning racing stables and the stalls of fillies of the human variety... the hutches of the 'petites femmes' - another worn out phrase in the dirty usury of shapeless expression! Oh my contemporaries, my dear contemporaries... Their idiotic self-satisfaction; their fat and full-blown self-sufficiency: the stupid display of their good fortune; the clink of fifty- and a hundred-franc coins forever sounding out their financial prowess, according their own reckoning; their hen-like clucking and their pig-like grunting, as they pronounce the names of certain women; the obesity of their minds, the obscenity of their eyes, and the toneless-ness of their laughter! They are, in truth, handsome puppets of amour, with all the exhausted despondency of their gestures and the slackness of their chic... Chic! A hideous word, which fits their manner like a new glove: as dejected as undertakers' mutes, as full-blown as Falstaff... Oh my contemporaries: the ceusses of my circle, to put it in their own ignoble argot. They have all welcomed the moneylenders into their homes, and have been recruited as their clients, and they have likewise played host to the fat journalists who milk their conversations for the society columns. How I hate them; how I execrate them; how I would love to devour them liver and lights - and how well I understand the Anarchists and their bombs!

You know that feeling of invincibility you sometimes get, especially when young and testing yourself - well that could be because actually know deep down that we are indeed eternal. We come into this world to live a life, to experience it, from somewhere else, some other plane, but we are programmed by all around us to deny or forget this - until one day we may remember again. That feeling of blissful reconnection with our source can be invoked through nature, beautiful writing or art or music, any detailed craft or work of discovery or personal dedication, meditation or other mentally balancing practice, or even through religious experience if there is a pure communion (not a pretence of it). But we should not yearn to return too soon, we should accept that we have come here for the duration of each life, and revel in the chance to learn and grow on this splendid planet. We can draw a deep sense of being-ness. peace, and love from this connection, which will sustain us through any trial. Once nurtured, this becomes stronger than any other connection, so of course our relationships here are most joyful when they allow us the personal freedom to spend time developing and celebrating that connection. Our deepest friendships form with those we can share such time and experiences with - discussing, meditating, immersing ourselves in nature, or creating our music, art, written or other works. Our journeys here are voyages of discovery, opening out the wonders within and all around. What better companions could we have than those who are able to fully share in such delights with us?

I expected to be happy, but let me tell you something. Anticipating happiness and being happy are two entirely different things. I told myself that all I wanted to do was go to the mall. I wanted to look at the pretty girls, ogle the Victoria's Secret billboards, and hit on girls at the Sam Goody record store. I wanted to sit in the food court and gorge on junk food. I wanted to go to Bath and Body Works, stand in the middle of the store, and breathe. I wanted to stand there with my eyes closed and just smell, man. I wanted to lose myself in the total capitalism and consumerism of it all, the pure greediness, the pure indulgence, the pure American-ness of it all. I never made it that far. I didn't even make it out of the airport in Baltimore with all its Cinnabons, Starbucks, Brooks Brothers, and Brookstones before realizing that after where we'd been, after what we'd seen, home would never be home again.

We continued dancing as a swift gale wheeled through the hills of Santa Cruz. Xuan leaned down to whisper into my ear, his lips lightly brushing the helix. “Once upon a time there was a boy, and he loved a girl very much. He was sad because he didn’t think the girl noticed him. Until one day the uni- verse intervened and a beautiful comet brought them together after a tragic accident occurred that day. The boy and the girl found comfort and friendship in each other that night. And something new and extraordinary began to blossom under the heavens, something that would burn with such bright- ness that all the stars would be in awe. And the boy fell madly in love with the girl and promised to always find her, in this life and the next.” “That’s my favorite story.” Xuan smiled. “It’s the best one I’ve ever told, Ms. Steel.

She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d re­ally cho­sen. We weren’t in each other’s lives be­cause of any obli­ga­tion to the past or con­ve­nience of the present. We had no shared his­tory and we had no rea­son to spend all our time to­ gether. But we did. Our friend­ship in­ten­si­fied as all our friends had chil­dren – she, like me, was un­con­vinced about hav­ing kids. And she, like me, found her­self in a re­la­tion­ship in her early thir­ties where they weren’t specif­i­cally work­ing to­wards start­ing a fam­ily. By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Ev­ery time there was an­other preg­nancy an­nounce­ment from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And an­other one!’ and she’d know what I meant. She be­came the per­son I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, be­cause she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink with­out plan­ning it a month in ad­vance. Our friend­ship made me feel lib­er­ated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sym­pa­thy or con­cern for her. If I could ad­mire her de­ci­sion to re­main child-free, I felt en­cour­aged to ad­mire my own. She made me feel nor­mal. As long as I had our friend­ship, I wasn’t alone and I had rea­son to be­lieve I was on the right track. We ar­ranged to meet for din­ner in Soho af­ter work on a Fri­day. The waiter took our drinks or­der and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Mar­ti­nis. ‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling wa­ter, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her un­char­ac­ter­is­tic ab­sti­nence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m preg­nant.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imag­ine the ex­pres­sion on my face was par­tic­u­larly en­thu­si­as­tic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an un­war­ranted but in­tense sense of be­trayal. In a de­layed re­ac­tion, I stood up and went to her side of the ta­ble to hug her, un­able to find words of con­grat­u­la­tions. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in va­garies about it ‘just be­ing the right time’ and wouldn’t elab­o­rate any fur­ther and give me an an­swer. And I needed an an­swer. I needed an an­swer more than any­thing that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a re­al­iza­tion that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I re­al­ized the feel­ing I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing was not anger or jeal­ousy or bit­ter­ness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t re­ally gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had dis­ap­peared and there was noth­ing they could do to change that. Un­less I joined them in their spa­ces, on their sched­ules, with their fam­i­lies, I would barely see them. And I started dream­ing of an­other life, one com­pletely re­moved from all of it. No more chil­dren’s birth­day par­ties, no more chris­ten­ings, no more bar­be­cues in the sub­urbs. A life I hadn’t ever se­ri­ously con­tem­plated be­fore. I started dream­ing of what it would be like to start all over again. Be­cause as long as I was here in the only Lon­don I knew – mid­dle-class Lon­don, cor­po­rate Lon­don, mid-thir­ties Lon­don, mar­ried Lon­don – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.

I’ve been operating according to the idea that it is almost impossible to let go of mental patterns that operate unconsciously and that I have to know such a pattern of thinking first in order to let go of it and abide in my true nature. Leave all those mental habits and patterns alone. The self that is apparently operating, that seems to know these patterns and that would ‘let go of them’ is itself simply one such pattern. These patterns of thinking and feeling have taken their shape, over the years, from the belief that we are a separate self, without our making any particular effort. In just the same way, as our experiential conviction that we are not a limited, located self deepens, so our thoughts, feelings and subsequent behaviour will slowly, effortlessly and naturally realign themselves with this new understanding. In order to know our self we do not need to know the mind. No other knowledge than the knowledge that is present right now in this very moment is required to know our self. What does it mean to know our self? We are our self, so we are too close to our self to be able to know our self as an object. Our simply being our self is as close to knowing our self as we will ever come. We cannot get closer than that. In fact, being our self is the knowing of our self, but it is not the knowing of our self as an object. To say ‘I am’, (in other words to assert that we are present), we must know that ‘I am’. Being and knowing are, in fact, one single non-objective experience. But we do not step outside of our self in order to know our own being. We simply are our self. That being of our self is the knowing of our self. This being/knowing is shining in all experience. This experiential understanding dissolves the idea that our self is not present here and now and that it is not known here and now. And when our desire to know or find ourselves as an object is withdrawn, we discover that our own self was and is present all along, shining quietly in the background, as it were, of all experience. As this becomes obvious we discover that it is not just the background but also the foreground. In other words, it is not just the witness but simultaneously the substance of all experience. Completely relax the desire to find yourself as an object or to change your experience in any way. Relax into this present knowing of your own being. See that it is intimate, familiar and loving. See clearly that it is never not with you. It is shining here in this experience, knowing and loving its own being. It runs throughout all experience, closer than close, intimately one with all experience but untouched by it. As this intimate oneness, it is known as love. In its untouchable-ness it is known as peace and in its fullness it is known as happiness. In its openness and willingness to give itself to any possible shape (including the apparent veiling of its own being), it is known as freedom and, as the substance of all things, it is known as beauty. However, more simply it is known just as ‘I’ or ‘this’. Who Is? Q: All these questions about consciousness