“
To some,Islam is nothing but a code of rules and regulations.But,to those who understand,it is a perfect vision of life
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”
Yasmin Mogahed
“
The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.
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”
Emma Goldman (Anarchism and Other Essays)
“
A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life. And he adapts his mind to that regulating factor, he ceases to accuse others as the cause of his condition, and builds himself up in strong and noble thoughts; ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress, and as a means of the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.
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”
James Allen (As a Man Thinketh)
“
The temple of the most high begins with the body which houses our life, the essence of our existence. Africans are in bondage today because they approach spirituality through religion provided by foreign invaders and conquerors. We must stop confusing religion and spirituality. Religion is a set of rules, regulations and rituals created by humans, which was suppose to help people grow spiritually. Due to human imperfection religion has become corrupt, political, divisive and a tool for power struggle. Spirituality is not theology or ideology. It is simply a way of life, pure and original as was given by the Most High of Creation. Spirituality is a network linking us to the Most High, the universe, and each other…
”
”
P.K. Nvenge
“
We are beginning to comprehend a basic truth hitherto neglected, that our physical condition is determined very largely by our emotional condition, and our emotional life is profoundly regulated by our thought life.
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”
Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking)
“
Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, concludes, “Your grades in school, your scores on the SAT, mean less for life success than your capacity to co-operate, your ability to regulate your emotions, your capacity to delay your gratification, and your capacity to focus your attention. Those skills are far more important—all the data indicate—for life success than your IQ or your grades.
”
”
Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)
“
It’s all part of the life-cycle of an economy. First it’s lawless capitalism until that starts to impede growth. Next comes regulation, law enforcement, and taxes. After that: public benefits and entitlements. Then, finally, overexpenditure and collapse.
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Andy Weir (Artemis)
“
Cheating in relationship is a sign of self-regulation failure. When it happens ones, it is a mistake. When it happens twice, it is unfortunate. But when it happens thrice or more, it is a pattern indicating primitive, uncivilized inhuman behavior.
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”
Abhijit Naskar (Wise Mating: A Treatise on Monogamy (Humanism Series))
“
Love never comes with a brochure of rules and regulations, a prospectus with guides of what is acceptable and what is abominable. It’s a standard to follow your heart, and that’s what I did and if doing that hurt you, then I’m sorry… sorry for coming in your life and wasting your time, for causing you an anguish so great that you could not bear the sight of me. Today, I am proud to stand up and honour myself and proclaim to the world… yes, I loved someone more than myself. I loved someone truly, madly, deeply!
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Faraaz Kazi (Truly, Madly, Deeply)
“
Psychopathy is like sunlight. Overexposure can hasten one’s demise in grotesque, carcinogenic fashion. But regulated exposure at controlled and optimal levels can have a significant positive impact on well-being and quality of life.
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”
Kevin Dutton (The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success)
“
Manager Mangione,” Ping said, “algorithmic regulation was to
have been a system of governance where more exact data, collected
from MEG citizens’ minds via neuralinks, would be used to organize
Human life more efficiently as a CORPORATE collective. Except no
one to this point in Human existence has been able to identify the
mind. The CORPORATE can only receive data from the NET on
behaviours which indicate feelings or intentions. I & I cannot . . .
”
”
Brian Van Norman (Against the Machine: Evolution)
“
War has changed.
It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines.
War--and it's consumption of life--has become a well-oiled machine.
War has changed.
ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities.
Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control…everything is monitored and kept under control.
War…has changed.
The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction, and he who controls the battlefield, controls history.
War…has changed.
When the battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine.
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”
David Hayter
“
Jesus lived and died in vain if He did not teach us to regulate the whole of life by the eternal law of love. Gandhi, quoted in Merton, p. 38
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”
Thomas Merton (Gandhi on Non-Violence)
“
Full sexual consciousness and a natural
regulation of sexual life mean the end of
mystical feelings of any kind. In other words,
natural sexuality is the deadly enemy of
mystical religion. The church, by making
the fight over sexuality the center of its
dogmas and of its influence over the masses,
confirms this concept.
”
”
Wilhelm Reich
“
The "non-profit" institution neither supplies goods or services not controls. Its "product" is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their "product" is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.
”
”
Peter F. Drucker (Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices)
“
Behind the facade of elected government are a bunch of corporate controlled gangsters running the country.
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”
Steven Magee
“
The biggest criminals that I have met in life are working for the government. They make mass murderers look like amateurs.
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”
Steven Magee
“
For children to know and regulate their emotions, and be socially connected, they need to experience this kind of interaction many hundreds of times in the critical period and then to have it reinforced later in life.
”
”
Norman Doidge (The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science)
“
Grit, persistence, adaptability, financial literacy, interview skills, human relationships, conversation, communication, managing technology, navigating conflicts, preparing healthy food, physical fitness, resilience, self-regulation, time management, basic psychology and mental health practices, arts, and music—all of these would help students and also make school seem much more relevant. Our fixation on college readiness leads our high school curricula toward purely academic subjects and away from life skills. The purpose of education should be to enable a citizen to live a good, positive, socially productive life independent of work.
”
”
Andrew Yang (The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future)
“
it's definitely best for little children to have a regular life, especially if they can regulate it themselves.
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”
Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Goes on Board)
“
It was fucking cold. The rover and trailer regulate their own temperatures just fine, but things weren’t hot enough in the bedroom. Story of my life.
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”
Andy Weir (The Martian)
“
Since it is possible that you might depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.
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”
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
“
Blame is a Defense Against Powerlessness
Betrayal trauma changes you. You have endured a life-altering shock, and are likely living with PTSD symptoms— hypervigilance, flashbacks and bewilderment—with broken trust, with the inability to cope with many situations, and with the complete shut down of parts of your mind, including your ability to focus and regulate your emotions.
Nevertheless, if you are unable to recognize the higher purpose in your pain, to forgive and forget and move on, you clearly have chosen to be addicted to your pain and must enjoy playing the victim.
And the worst is, we are only too ready to agree with this assessment! Trauma victims commonly blame themselves. Blaming oneself for the shame of being a victim is recognized by trauma specialists as a defense against the extreme powerlessness we feel in the wake of a traumatic event. Self-blame continues the illusion of control shock destroys, but prevents us from the necessary working through of the traumatic feelings and memories to heal and recover.
”
”
Sandra Lee Dennis
“
Your grades in school, your scores on the SAT, mean less for life success than your capacity to co-operate, your ability to regulate your emotions, your capacity to delay your gratification, and your capacity to focus your attention. Those skills are far more important—all the data indicate—for life success than your IQ or your grades.
”
”
Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)
“
when you avoid solitude, you miss out on the positive things it brings you: the ability to clarify hard problems, to regulate your emotions, to build moral courage, and to strengthen relationships.
”
”
Cal Newport (Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World)
“
The highest branch of solitary amusement is reading; but even in the choice of books the fancy is first employed; for in reading, the heart is touched, till its feelings are examined by the understanding, and the ripening of reason regulate the imagination. This is the work of years, and the most important of all employments.
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”
Mary Wollstonecraft (Original Stories From Real Life; with Conversations, Calculated To Regulate the Affections and Form the Mind to Truth and Goodness)
“
If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish all doubt as to the right way of looking at it, you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary... • If you accustom yourself to this view of life you will regulate your expectations accordingly, and cease to look upon all its disagreeable incidents, great and small, its sufferings, its worries, its misery, as anything unusual or irregular; nay, you will find that everything is as it should be, in a world where each of us pays the penalty of existence in his own peculiar way.
”
”
Arthur Schopenhauer (Studies in Pessimism: The Essays)
“
As you grow in true spiritual power and understanding you will actually find that many outer rules and regulations will become unnecessary; but this will be because you have really risen above them; never, never, because you have fallen below them. This point in your development, where your understanding of Truth enables you to dispense with certain outer props and regulations, is the Spiritual Coming of Age. When you really are no longer spiritually a minor, you will cease to need some of the outer observances that formerly seemed indispensable; but your resulting life will be purer, truer, freer, and less selfish than it was before; and that is the test.
”
”
Emmet Fox (The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life)
“
From early infancy, it appears that our ability to regulate emotional states depends upon the experience of feeling that a significant person in our life is simultaneously experiencing a similar state of mind.
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”
Gabor Maté (Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It)
“
It struck me how the human capacity for receptivity is a kind of birthright, an asset given to us in the moment of our creation by which we are intended to regulate the currency of our souls. Unless we give back to life as much as we take from it, this faculty will fail us sooner or later.
”
”
Rachel Cusk (Second Place)
“
We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour, each day, making choices. We choose the thoughts we allow ourselves to think, the passions we allow ourselves to feel, and the actions we allow ourselves to perform. Each choice is made in the context of whatever value system we have selected to govern our lives. In selecting that value system, we are, in a very real way, making the most important choice we will ever make.
Those who believe there is one God who made all things and who governs the world by this providence will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who hold in reverence that being who gave them life and worship Him through adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving will make choices different from those who do not. Those who believe that mankind are all of a family and that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who believe in a future state in which all that is wrong here will be made right will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who subscribe to the morals of Jesus will make many choices different from those who do not.
Since the foundation of all happiness is thinking rightly, and since correct action is dependent on correct opinion, we cannot be too careful in choosing the value system we allow to govern our thoughts and actions.
And to know that God governs in the affairs of men, that He hears and answers prayers, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, is, indeed, a powerful regulator of human conduct.
”
”
Benjamin Franklin (the Art of Virtue: His Formula for Successful Living)
“
Our words allow us to enter each other’s affective niches, even at extremely long distances. You can regulate your friend’s body budget (and he yours) even if you are an ocean apart—by phone or email or even just by thinking about one another.
”
”
Lisa Feldman Barrett (How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain)
“
God said, "Thou shalt not kill" - does the theft of a little money make it quite all right for us to do so? If it's said that this commandment applies only to illegal killing, what's to prevent human beings from similarly agreeing among themselves to legalize certain types of rape, adultery, or perjury? Considering that God has forbidden us even to kill ourselves, can we really believe that purely human arrangements for the regulation of mutual slaughter are enough, without any divine authority, to exempt executioners from the sixth commandment? Isn't that like saying that this particular commandment has no more validity than human laws allow it? - in which case the principle can be extended indefinitely, until in all spheres of life human beings decide just how far God's commandments may conveniently be observed.
”
”
Thomas More
“
The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations—it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.
”
”
Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest)
“
It may come as a surprise that living life in a full and expanded way is one of the most difficult challenges we face as human beings.
”
”
Laurence Heller (Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship)
“
But rules and regulations, laws and teachings, didn’t save my life that day; breaking the rules set me free from the bondage of depression. Sometimes breaking the rules is necessary.
”
”
Anna LeBaron (The Polygamist's Daughter: A Memoir)
“
90 percent of the serotonin in our bodies—the neurotransmitter that when abundant makes us feel happy, and when depleted makes us feel depressed—is produced in our guts, and gut microbes play a major role in regulating its production (Yano et al. 2015).
”
”
Merlin Sheldrake (Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures)
“
The path I tread is lonely. There's not now and will never be a Prince Charming, or a best friend, or a nerdy sidekick for me. They all exist in the normal world with its own rules and regulations, a world I once knew but foolishly chose to leave behind. I'm an abandoned soul drifting beneath the veil of cold night.
”
”
Amy Belasen
“
For indeed, grace is the key to it all. It is not our lavish good deeds that procure salvation, but God's lavish love and mercy. That is why the poor are as acceptable before God as the rich. It is the generosity of God, the freeness of his salvation, that lays the foundation for the society of justice for all. Even in the seemingly boring rules and regulations of tabernacle rituals, we see that God cares about the poor, that his laws make provision for the disadvantaged. God's concern for justice permeated every part of Israel's life. It should also permeate our lives.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just)
“
It is acknowledged that neither convict prisons, nor the hulks, nor any system of hard labour ever cured a criminal. These forms of chastisement only punish him and reassure society against the offences he might commit. Confinement, regulation, and excessive work have no effect but to develop with these men profound hatred, a thirst for forbidden enjoyment, and frightful recalcitrations.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The House of the Dead or Prison Life in Siberia with an introduction by Julius Bramont)
“
Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant. He is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control, which necessarily regulate his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting. He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or foolish, reasonable or irrational, without his will being for any thing in these various states.
”
”
Paul-Henri Thiry d'Holbach
“
People try to create order. Discipline. Rules. It gives them peace. A sense of regulation. Of strength. It makes them feel in control. But life is chaos, reader. The sooner you learn this, the better.
”
”
Cory Anderson (What Beauty There Is (What Beauty There Is #1))
“
If you pay attention, when you are seeking something, you will move towards your goal. More importantly, however, you will acquire the information that allows your goal itself to transform. A totalitarian never asks, “What if my current ambition is in error?” He treats it, instead, as the Absolute. It becomes his God, for all intents and purposes. It constitutes his highest value. It regulates his emotions and motivational states, and determines his thoughts. All people serve their ambition. In that matter, there are no atheists. There are only people who know, and don’t know, what God they serve.
”
”
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
“
Changes in Meaning:
Finally, chronically traumatized people lose faith that good things can happen and people can be kind and trustworthy. They feel hopeless, often believing that the future will be as bad as the past, or that they will not live long enough to experience a good future. People who have a dissociative disorder may have different meanings in various dissociative parts. Some parts may be relatively balanced in their worldview, others may be despairing, believing the world to be a completely negative, dangerous place, while other parts might maintain an unrealistic optimistic outlook on life
”
”
Suzette Boon (Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists)
“
Life, my brethren, is like plum-cake. In some the plums are all on the top, and we eat them gayly, till we suddenly find they are gone. In others the plums sink to the bottom, and we look for them in vain as we go on, and often come to them when it is too late to enjoy them. But in the well-made cake, the plums are wisely scattered all through, and every mouthful is a pleasure. We make our own cakes, in a great measure, therefore let us look to it, my brethren, that they are mixed according to the best receipt, baked in a well regulated oven, and gratefully eaten with a temperate appetite.
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (An Old-Fashioned Girl)
“
The internet reminds us on a daily basis that it is not at all rewarding to become aware of problems that you have no reasonable hope of solving. And, more important, the internet already is what it is. It has already become the central organ of contemporary life. It has already rewired the brains of its users, returning us to a state of primitive hyperawareness and distraction while overloading us with much more sensory input than was ever possible in primitive times. It has already built an ecosystem that runs on exploiting attention and monetizing the self. Even if you avoid the internet completely—my partner does: he thought #tbt meant “truth be told” for ages—you still live in the world that this internet has created, a world in which selfhood has become capitalism’s last natural resource, a world whose terms are set by centralized platforms that have deliberately established themselves as near-impossible to regulate or control.
”
”
Jia Tolentino (Trick Mirror)
“
We have learned that mother trees recognize and talk with their kin, shaping future generations. In addition, injured trees pass their legacies on to their neighbors, affecting gene regulation, defense chemistry, and resilience in the forest community.
”
”
Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate — Discoveries from a Secret World)
“
Dreams and freedom are the same. In order for them to be, they come with a price.
”
”
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
“
My usual instruction to students when they are preparing to write their examinations is "think before you answer the questions". I am convinced that some multiple choice answers could be so close that you might not know the very one that answers the question correctly! Such is life. To choose your suitable dreams, you must think well!
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (The Great Hand Book of Quotes)
“
Like most Negroes in America, he lived in a nation with statutes and decrees that consigned him as an equal but not equal, his life bound by a set of rules and regulations in matters of equality that largely did not apply to him. His world, his wants, his needs were of little value to anyone but himself.
”
”
James McBride (The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store)
“
For him morality was neither conformism nor philosophic wisdom, but living the infinite fullness of possibilities. He believed in morality’s capacity for intensification, in stages of moral experience, and not merely, as most people do, in stages of moral understanding, as if it were something cut-and-dried for which people were just not pure enough. He believed in morality without believing in any specific moral system. Morality is generally understood to be a sort of police regulations for keeping life in order, and since life does not obey even these, they come to look as if they were really impossible to live up to and accordingly, in this sorry way, not really an ideal either. But morality must not be reduced to this level. Morality is imagination. This was what he wanted to make Agathe see. And his second point was: Imagination is not arbitrary. Once imagination is left to caprice, there is a price to pay.
”
”
Robert Musil (The Man Without Qualities)
“
You can't really know God if you ignore his laws, especially the ones that regulate the most intimate spheres of life. You may be responsible and healthy, but you will also be shallow and inconsequential.
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”
David Brooks (Bobos in Paradise)
“
Sometimes, it is necessary for me to step back from my emotions and my life. I need to be the outsider looking in, sitting in the objective chair, as a witness. As opposed to being so entangled in my feelings, that they become a noose around my neck.
”
”
Jaeda DeWalt
“
We can make our partners into the source of our hope, love, strength, ability to feel or regulate our own emotions, as well as the source of our meaning and purpose in life. Our partners can be the inspiration for these things, as well as the objects or focus of our love, but they should not be the source of it. You are the source of your happiness, love, courage, emotional regulation and purpose, and the sooner that you can release your partner from being the source of these experiences the better for everyone involved
”
”
Jessica Fern (Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy)
“
Life and water are inseparable. Three quarters of the earth's surface is covered by water, just as three quarters of your body is made up of water. Even in the driest desert where rain may come just once every few years, the cycles of life are based on waiting for the arrival of water. Our bodies are not so patient.
Every cell in your body needs water to survive, and that means that drinking plenty of clean, fresh water can make you stronger healthier and smarter. Water carries oxygen and fuel to your cells, lubricates your joints, regulates your body temperature, and plays a key roll in just about every function of your body.
My number one roadie, POODIE, says, "You can't make a turd without grease.
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”
Willie Nelson (The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart)
“
Playing nice" comes naturally when our neuroception detects safety and promotes physiological states that support social behavior. However, pro-social behavior will not occur when our neuroception misreads the environmental cues and triggers physiological states that support defensive strategies. After all, "playing nice" is not appropriate or adaptive behavior in dangerous or life-threatening situations. In these situations, humans - like other mammals - react with more primitive neurobiological defense systems. To create relationships, humans must subdue these defensive reactions to engage, attach, and form lasting social bonds. Humans have adaptive neurobehavioral systems for both pro-social and defensive behaviors.
”
”
Stephen W. Porges (The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation)
“
The magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labour, since the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labour by the necessities of the public, and to allow the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists.
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”
Thomas More (Utopia)
“
When we are freed from the rules and regulations that are so often imposed on us in the name of God, we discover that creativity is the natural result of spirituality. And if this is true, then our soul is the primary material for all artistic expression.
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”
Erwin Raphael McManus (The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art)
“
Both men and women who have children as a rule regulate their lives largely with reference to them, and children cause perfectly ordinary men and women to act unselfishly in certain ways, of which perhaps life insurance is the most definite and measurable.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Marriage and Morals)
“
It would be something fine if we could learn how to bless the lives of children. They are the people of new life. Children are the only people nobody can blame. They are the only ones always willing to make a start; they have no choice. Children are the ways the world begin again and again.
"But in general, our children have no voice--that we will listen to. We force, we blank them into the bugle/bell regulated lineup of the Army/school, and we insist on silence.
"But even if we cannot learn to bless their lives (our future times), at least we can try to find out how we already curse and burden their experience: how we limit the wheeling of their inner eyes, how we terrify their trust, and how we condemn the raucous laughter of their natural love. What's more, if we will hear them, they will teach us what they need; they will bluntly formulate the tenderness of their deserving.
”
”
June Jordan
“
when two young people marry—even virtuous ones—it might also be fine if some circumstance checked their passion;
if the memory of some prior attachment or disappointed affection made it, on one side at least, a match based on
esteem rather than love. That would have them looking beyond the present moment, trying to make the whole of life
worthwhile by making plans to regulate a friendship which ought to last until death.
”
”
Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman)
“
I go from Wikipedia to a government page about C-PTSD as it relates to veterans. I read the list of symptoms. It is very long. And it is not so much a medical document as it is a biography of my life: The difficulty regulating my emotions. The tendency to overshare and trust the wrong people. The dismal self-loathing. The trouble I have maintaining relationships. The unhealthy relationship with my abuser. The tendency to be aggressive but unable to tolerate aggression from others.
”
”
Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know)
“
Overindulgence” is a deprivation of constructive attention, a refusal to teach social/life skills, a refusal to teach self-regulation in social situations, a refusal to teach how to distinguish between wants and needs. Desires are indulged at the place where needs are starved.
”
”
Sarah Schulman (Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair)
“
I knew the law would decide that I was his property, and would probably still give his daughter a claim to my children; but I regarded such laws as the regulations of robbers, who had no rights that I was bound to respect.
”
”
Harriet Ann Jacobs (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself)
“
The realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite.
”
”
Karl Marx
“
A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life.
”
”
James Allen (As a Man Thinketh)
“
The rover and trailer regulate their own temperatures just fine, but things weren’t hot enough in the bedroom. Story of my life.
”
”
Andy Weir (The Martian)
“
Why so eager to jump in and direct someone else's life when you can't stick to your own goals and resolutions?
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich
“
Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.
”
”
Marcus Aurelius (Stoic Six Pack (Illustrated): Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Golden Sayings, Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus, Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion)
“
If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it.
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”
George Gilder (Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy)
“
The existence of strict moral principles has invariably
signified that the biological, and specifically the sexual
needs of man were not being satisfied. Every moral regulation is in itself sex-negating, and all compulsory morality is life-negating.
”
”
Wilhelm Reich (The Sexual Revolution: Toward a Self-governing Character Structure)
“
countries that combine free markets with more taxation, social spending, and regulation than the United States (such as Canada, New Zealand, and Western Europe) turn out to be not grim dystopias but rather pleasant places to live, and they trounce the United States in every measure of human flourishing, including crime, life expectancy, infant mortality, education, and happiness
”
”
Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress)
“
For half an hour, the machine that regulates my feeding tube has been beeping out into the void. I cannot imagine anything so inane or nerve-racking as this piercing beep beep beep pecking away at my brain. As a bonus, my sweat has unglued the tape that keeps my right eyelid closed, and the stuck-together lashes are tickling my pupil unbearably. And to crown it all, the end of my urinary catheter has become detached and I am drenched. Awaiting rescue, I hum an old song by Henri Salvador: "Don't you fret baby, it'll be all right.
”
”
Jean-Dominique Bauby (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death)
“
To maintain a lifestyle of worship, we must attend to it on a daily basis. If you regulate worship to a once-a-week event, you really do not understand it, and it will take a low priority in your life.
”
”
A.W. Tozer (The Purpose of Man: Designed to Worship)
“
Further, in countries where wealth comes from rent-seeking, political patronage, or regulatory capture (which, I remind the reader, is how the powerful and the insiders use regulation to scam the public, or red tape to slow down competition), wealth is seen as zero-sum.*2
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (Incerto, #5))
“
He had neither companions nor friends, church nor creed. He lived his spiritual life without any communion with others, visiting his relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they died. He performed these two social duties for old dignity's sake but conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic life.
”
”
James Joyce (Dubliners)
“
Claims have been made that I've been on a strict workout routine regulated by co-stars, whipped into shape by trainers I've never met, eating sprouted grains I can't pronounce and ultimately losing 14 pounds off my 5'3" frame. Losing 14 pounds out of necessity in order to live a healthier life is a huge victory. I'm a petite person to begin with, so the idea of my losing this amount of weight is utter lunacy. If I were to lose 14 pounds, I'd have to part with both arms. And a foot.
”
”
Scarlett Johansson
“
For a considerable portion of humanity today, it is possible and indeed likely that one's neighbor, one's colleague, or one's employer will have a different mother tongue, eat different food, and follow a different religion than oneself. It is a matter of great urgency, therefore, that we find ways to cooperate with one another in a spirit of mutual acceptance and respect.
In such a world, I feel, it is vital for us to find genuinely sustainable and universal approach to ethics, inner values, and personal integrity-an approach that can transcend religious, cultural, and racial differences and appeal to people at a sustainable, universal approach is what I call the project of secular ethics.
All religions, therefore, to some extent, ground the cultivation of inner values and ethical awareness in some kind of metaphysical (that is, not empirically demonstrable) understanding of the world and of life after death. And just as the doctrine of divine judgment underlies ethical teachings in many theistic religions, so too does the doctrine of karma and future lives in non-theistic religions.
As I see it, spirituality has two dimensions. The first dimension, that of basic spiritual well-being-by which I mean inner mental and emotional strength and balance-does not depend on religion but comes from our innate human nature as beings with a natural disposition toward compassion, kindness, and caring for others. The second dimension is what may be considered religion-based spirituality, which is acquired from our upbringing and culture and is tied to particular beliefs and practices. The difference between the two is something like the difference between water and tea.
On this understanding, ethics consists less of rules to be obeyed than of principles for inner self-regulation to promote those aspects of our nature which we recognize as conducive to our own well-being and that of others.
It is by moving beyond narrow self-interest that we find meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in life.
”
”
Dalai Lama XIV (Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World)
“
I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and without an end. If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui. Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
“
Those of us who know not the secret of properly regulating our own existence on this tumultuous sea of foolish troubles we call life are constantly in a state of misery while vainly trying to appear happy and contented. We stagger in the attempt to keep our moral equilibrium and see forerunners
of the tempest in every cloud that floats on the horizon. Yet there is joy and beauty in the roll of the billows as they sweep outward toward eternity. Why not enter into their spirit, or, like Liethse, ride upon the hurricane itself?
”
”
Kakuzō Okakura
“
These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good. They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that turn wich Reason approves, and whic Feeling, perharps, too ofter opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life, and certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life, and enable it to be better regulated, mofe equable, quieter on the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë
“
It may be said that the Master was plagued in his last match by modern rationalism, to which fussy rules were everything, from which all the grace and elegance of Go as art had disappeared, which quite dispensed with respect for elders and attached no importance to mutual respect as human beings. From the way of Go the beauty of Japan and the Orient had fled. Everything had become science and regulation. The road to advancement in rank, which controlled the life of a player, had become a meticulous point system. One conducted the battle only to win, and there was no margin for remembering the dignity and the fragrance of Go as an art. The modern way was to insist upon doing battle under conditions of abstract justice...
”
”
Yasunari Kawabata (The Master of Go (Vintage International))
“
Meditation is one of Mother Nature’s most powerful medicines and has no apparent side effects. It’s been scientifically proven that meditation helps calm the mind and de-stress the body. It also helps regulate blood pressure, lowers depression, induces the ‘relaxation response’, rewires the circuitry of your brain, enhances positive emotions, increases overall life satisfaction . . . And that’s just for starters!
”
”
Melissa Ambrosini (Mastering Your Mean Girl: The best-selling self-help guide for women)
“
His ambition was not to become wealthy or to be well known, an image which society for some reason dictates each individual should prescribe to, instead his only ambition was to be at peace with himself, if he could achieve that than anything else he might need would follow. From now on he would question all things in life, but especially the rules and regulations of all authority institutions; he would take nothing on face value and only would accept what he personally knew to undeniably be true.
”
”
Andrew James Pritchard (Charnel House)
“
I've come to read and hear many unlikely things about the times when people lived in freedom, i.e., the unorganized savage state. But the most unlikely thing, it seems to me, is this: how could the olden day governmental power - primitive though it was - have allowed people to live without anything like our Table, without the scheduled walks, without the precise regulation of mealtimes, getting up and going to bed whenever it occurred to them? Various historians even say that, apparently, in those times, light burned in the streets all night long, and all night long, people rode and walked the streets. This I just cannot comprehend in any way. Their faculties of reason may not have been developed, but they must have understood more broadly that living like that amounted to mass murder - literally - only it was committed slowly, day after day. The State (humaneness) forbade killing to death any one person but didn't forbid the half-killing of millions. To kill a man, that is, to decrease the sum of a human life span by fifty years - this was criminal. But decreasing the sum of many humans' lives by fifty million years - this was not criminal. Isn't that funny?
”
”
Yevgeny Zamyatin (We)
“
When Southam began injecting people with HeLa cells in 1954, there was no formal research oversight in the United States. Since the turn of the century, politicians had been introducing state and federal laws with hopes of regulating human experimentation, but physicians and researchers always protested. The bills were repeatedly voted down for fear of interfering with the progress of science, even though other countries—including, ironically, Prussia—had enacted regulations governing human research as early as 1891.
”
”
Rebecca Skloot (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks)
“
When you learn to force yourself to go to the gym or start your homework or eat a salad instead of a hamburger, part of what’s happening is that you’re changing how you think,” said Todd Heatherton, a researcher at Dartmouth who has worked on willpower studies.5.11 “People get better at regulating their impulses. They learn how to distract themselves from temptations. And once you’ve gotten into that willpower groove, your brain is
”
”
Charles Duhigg (The Power Of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business)
“
Goleman identified the five components of emotional intelligence as self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.
”
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Brandon Goleman (Emotional Intelligence: For a Better Life, success at work, and happier relationships. Improve Your Social Skills, Emotional Agility and Discover Why it Can Matter More Than IQ. (EQ 2.0))
“
A complex system, contrary to what people believe, does not require complicated systems and regulations and intricate policies. The simpler, the better. Complications lead to multiplicative chains of unanticipated effects. Because of opacity, an intervention leads to unforeseen consequences, followed by apologies about the “unforeseen” aspect of the consequences, then to another intervention to correct the secondary effects, leading to an explosive series of branching “unforeseen” responses, each one worse than the preceding one. Yet simplicity has been difficult to implement in modern life because it is against the spirit of a certain brand of people who seek sophistication so they can justify their profession.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder)
“
All types of societies are limited by economic factors. Nineteenth century civilization alone was economic in a different and distinctive sense, for it chose to base itself in a motive rarely acknowledged as valid in history of human societies, and certainly never before raised to the level of justification of action and behavior in everyday life, namely, gain. The self-regulating market system was uniquely derived from this principle. The mechanism which the motive gain set in motion was comparable in effectiveness only to the most violent outburst of religious fervor in history. Within a generation the whole human world was subjected to its undiluted influence.
”
”
Karl Polanyi
“
He lived his spiritual life without any communion with others, visiting his relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they died. He performed these two social duties for old dignity's sake but conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic life.
”
”
James Joyce
“
To maintain a lifestyle of worship, we must attend to it on a daily basis. If you regulate worship to a once-a-week event, you really do no understand it, and it will take a low priority in your life.
”
”
A.W. Tozer (The Purpose of Man: Designed to Worship)
“
The future of the next generation relies on astronomers obtaining a full understanding of
the rapidly changing human environmental conditions and the halting of biologically toxic corporate
government policies. The overloading of the electromagnetic environment is one of these disastrous
policies that must stop.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Currently we see around us an ever more apparent loss of vigor of our society: increasing fixity of the power structure and bureaucratization of all levels of life; impotence of political institutions to carry off great projects; the proliferation of regulations affecting all aspects of public, private, and commercial life; the spread of irrationalism; the banalization of opular culture; the loss of willingness by individuals to take risks, to fend for themselves or think for themselves; economic stagnation and decline, the decleration of the rate of technological innovation...Everywhere you look, the writing is on the wall.
”
”
Robert Zubrin (The Case for Mars)
“
Rudeness instantly establishes a set of norms, a set of regulatory orders, authority, and power. To be rude is to go against an established accepted concept or ordered regulation. Thus rudeness could be in kind, a deviation from the norm. Rudeness can also be in kind an instantiation outside a set foundation. A deviation from a norm holds the same set foundation as the norm, their disagreement merely a manner of degrees.
”
”
Dew Platt (The Rudeness of Soul)
“
A policing of sex: that is, not the rigor of a taboo, but the necessity of regulating sex through useful and public discourses. A few examples will suffice. One of the great innovations in the techniques of power in the eighteenth century was the emergence of “population” as an economic and political problem: population as wealth, population as manpower or labor capacity, population balanced between its own growth and the resources it commanded. Governments perceived that they were not dealing simply with subjects, or even with a “people,” but with a “population,” with its specific phenomena and its peculiar variables: birth and death rates, life expectancy, fertility, state of health, frequency of illnesses, patterns of diet and habitation.
”
”
Michel Foucault (The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction)
“
Until the end of his life, whenever the subject of the vast growth of the LBJ Company and associated business enterprises was raised, Lyndon Johnson would emphasize that he owned none of it (“All that is owned by Mrs. Johnson.… I don’t have any interest in government-regulated industries of any kind and never have had”).
”
”
Robert A. Caro (Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #2))
“
These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good. They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that turn which Reason approves, and which Feeling, perhaps too often opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life, and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall. As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: take it to your Maker--show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave--ask Him how you are to bear the pains He has appointed--kneel in His presence, and pray with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for patience in extreme need. Certainly, at some hour, though perhaps not at your hour, the waiting hours will stir; in some shape, though perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for which it bled, the healing herald will descend.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Villette)
“
What meaning our lives may seem to have is the work of a relatively well-constituted emotional system. As consciousness gives us the sense of being persons, our psychophysiology is responsible for making us into personalities who believe the existential game to be worth playing. We may have memories that are unlike those of anyone else, but without the proper emotions to liven those memories they might as well reside in a computer file as disconnected bits of data that never unite into a tailor-made individual for whom things seem to mean something. You can conceptualize that your life has meaning, but if you do not feel that meaning then your conceptualization is meaningless and you are nobody. The only matters of weight in our lives are colored by rainbows or auroras of regulated emotion which give one a sense of that “old self.” But a major depression causes your emotions to evaporate, reducing you to a shell of a person standing alone in a drab landscape. Emotions are the substrate for the illusion of being a somebody among somebodies as well as for the substance we see, or think we see, in the world. Not knowing this ground-level truth of human existence is the equivalent of knowing nothing at all.
”
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Thomas Ligotti (The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror)
“
Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution, and all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous shadow—the shadow of law. So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to a master,—so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil,—so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best regulated administration of slavery.
”
”
Solomon Northup (Twelve Years a Slave: Plus Five American Slave Narratives, Including Life of Frederick Douglass, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Life of Josiah Henson, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Up From Slavery)
“
Philosophy is not an occupation of a popular nature, nor is it pursued for the sake of self-advertisement. Its concern is not with words, but with facts. It is not carried on with the object of passing the day in an entertaining sort of way and taking the boredom out of leisure. It moulds and builds the personality, orders one’s life, regulates one’s conduct, shows one what one should do and what one should leave undone, sits at the helm and keeps one on the correct course as one is tossed about in perilous seas. Without it no one can lead a life free of fear or worry. Every hour of the day countless situations arise that call for advice, and for that advice we have to look to philosophy.
”
”
Seneca (Letters from a Stoic)
“
The tea-masters held that real appreciation of art is only possible to those who make of it a living influence. Thus they sought to regulate their daily life by the high standard of refinement which obtained in the tea-room. In all circumstances serenity of mind should be maintained, and conversation should be conducted as never to mar the harmony of the surroundings. The cut and color of the dress, the poise of the body, and the manner of walking could all be made expressions of artistic personality. These were matters not to be lightly ignored, for until one has made himself beautiful he has no right to approach beauty. Thus the tea-master strove to be something more than the artist,—art itself.
”
”
Kakuzō Okakura (The Book of Tea)
“
Non-alcoholic ways in which parents may not 'be there' for the children can include:
- violence and sexual abuse
- workholism
- gambling
- transquilliser addiction-
- womanizing
- frequent journeys abroad
- death
- suicide
- being unemployed or unemployable
- frequent hospitalisation
- mental or physical handicap
- excessive religiosity
- rigid rules and regulations
- homes where children are never allowed to be themselves but must always be pleasing to adults
”
”
David Stafford (Codependency: How to break free and live your own life)
“
Apart from the peace and emptiness of the landscape, there is a special smell about winter in Provence which is accentuated by the wind and the clean, dry air. Walking in the hills, I was often able to smell a house before I could see it, because of the scent of woodsmoke coming from an invisible chimney. It is one of the most primitive smells in life, and consequently extinct in most cities, where fire regulations and interior decorators have combined to turn fireplaces into blocked-up holes or self-consciously lit "architectural features." The fireplace in Provence is still used - to cook on, to sit around, to warm the toes, and to please the eye - and fires are laid in the early morning and fed throughout the day with scrub oak from the Luberon or beech from the foothills of Mont Ventoux. Coming home with the dogs as dusk fell, I always stopped to look from the top of the valley at the long zigzag of smoke ribbons drifting up from the farms that are scattered along the Bonnieux road. It was a sight that made me think of warm kitchens and well-seasoned stews, and it never failed to make me ravenous.
”
”
Peter Mayle (A Year in Provence (Provence, #1))
“
Principles of Liberty
1. The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law.
2. A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.
3. The most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally strong people is to elect virtuous leaders.
4. Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.
5. All things were created by God, therefore upon him all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible.
6. All men are created equal.
7. The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.
8. Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
9. To protect man's rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law.
10. The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people.
11. The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical.
12. The United States of America shall be a republic.
13. A constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.
14. Life and Liberty are secure only so long as the Igor of property is secure.
15. The highest level of securitiy occurs when there is a free market economy and a minimum of government regulations.
16. The government should be separated into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.
17. A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power.
18. The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written constitution.
19. Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to the government, all others being retained by the people.
20. Efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority.
21. Strong human government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.
22. A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men.
23. A free society cannot survive a republic without a broad program of general education.
24. A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.
25. "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."
26. The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity.
27. The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest.
28. The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race.
”
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Founding Fathers
“
The inferior man regulates his life by externals: inasmuch as he is constrained by desire for long life, reputation, riches, rank or offspring, he is not free. The superior man is of another sort, and of him it may be said, with Chuan Tzu, 'that they live in accordance with their own nature. In the whole world they have no equal. They regulate their life by inward things.
”
”
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
“
We soothe newborns, but parents soon start teaching their children to tolerate higher levels of arousal, a job that is often assigned to fathers. (I once heard the psychologist John Gottman say, “Mothers stroke, and fathers poke.”) Learning how to manage arousal is a key life skill, and parents must do it for babies before babies can do it for themselves. If that gnawing sensation in his belly makes a baby cry, the breast or bottle arrives. If he’s scared, someone holds and rocks him until he calms down. If his bowels erupt, someone comes to make him clean and dry. Associating intense sensations with safety, comfort, and mastery is the foundation of self-regulation, self-soothing, and self-nurture, a theme to which I return throughout this book.
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
Even when emotions seem to overtake life, such as when we are depressed or anxious or angry, it is important to remember that those emotions still give us important information. Rather than judging our emotions, practice acceptance of them and open your mind to their messages. Rejecting emotions or trying to push them away usually intensifies them. If the message is not heard, it needs to get louder. As an example, invalidation by others tends to intensify emotions, and self-invalidation has the same effect.
”
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Lane Pederson (DBT Skills Training for Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment Settings)
“
Patience isn't tested when it is self-imposed and the duration is self-regulated. Patience is hardly tested when the outcome means little to you. However, when circumstances beyond your control force you to wait with baited breath knowing the outcome will affect your life substantially, that is the true test of patience. It is a cage inside a burning building where every exit is blocked by angels calmly advising you to wait a moment longer. Your choice is to either trust their words or madly claw through them.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year)
“
The institutions that regulate the public life of a country always influence the general mentality – such is the prestige of power. People have progressively developed the habit of thinking, in all domains, only in terms of being ‘in favour of’ or ‘against’ any opinion, and afterwards they seek arguments to support one of these two options. This is an exact transposition of the party spirit.
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”
Simone Weil (On the Abolition of All Political Parties)
“
I have sat through entire conferences on adolescent human behavior without ever hearing the words power and sex, even though to me they are what teen life is all about. When I bring it up, usually everyone nods and thinks it’s marvelously refreshing how a primatologist looks at the world, then continue on their merry way focusing on self-esteem, body image, emotion regulation, risk-taking, and so on. Given a choice between manifest human behavior and trendy psychological constructs, the social sciences always favor the latter. Yet among teens, there is nothing more obvious than the exploration of sex, the testing of power, and the seeking of structure.
”
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Frans de Waal (Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves)
“
the magic happens once you accept that you can’t regulate others’ emotions or experiences that’s when you begin to live your most authentic life some people will not “get” you, but what matters is that you get you be kind, help others, and don’t forget to live for yourself
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Yung Pueblo (The Way Forward (The Inward Trilogy))
“
The whole social order that separates people into the decent and indecent, that regulates accepted orders of bodily and economic exchange, is ruptured by a Christ who gave his life for all, but most particularly the despised, a Christ who died at the hands of a colonial empire.
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”
Linn Marie Tonstad (Queer Theology: Beyond Apologetics)
“
The assertion that religion is a tool for preserving social order and for organising large-scale cooperation may vex many people for whom it represents first and foremost a spiritual path. However, just as the gap between religion and science is smaller than we commonly think, so the gap between religion and spirituality is much bigger. Religion is a deal, whereas spirituality is a journey. Religion gives a complete description of the world, and offers us a well-defined contract with predetermined goals. ‘God exists. He told us to behave in certain ways. If you obey God, you’ll be admitted to heaven. If you disobey Him, you’ll burn in hell.’ The very clarity of this deal allows society to define common norms and values that regulate human behaviour. Spiritual journeys are nothing like that. They usually take people in mysterious ways towards unknown destinations. The quest usually begins with some big question, such as who am I? What is the meaning of life? What is good? Whereas many people just accept the ready-made answers provided by the powers that be, spiritual seekers are not so easily satisfied. They are determined to follow the big question wherever it leads, and not just to places you know well or wish to visit. Thus for most people, academic studies are a deal rather than a spiritual journey, because they take us to a predetermined goal approved by our elders, governments and banks.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
“
In bottom-up approaches [to processing trauma], the body's sensation and movement are the entry points and changes in sensorimotor experience are used to support self-regulation, memory processing, and success in daily life. Meaning and understanding emerge from new experiences rather than the other way around.
Through bottom-up interventions, a shift in the somatic sense of self in turn affects the linguistic sense of self.
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”
Pat Ogden (Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology))
“
The most effective way to prevent what’s bad is to promote what’s good. The best way to influence behavior is not to control and regulate, but to inspire and motivate. You get more for your efforts when they’re applied in a positive direction. Instead of fighting against what you dislike, work to build and support what you value and desire. The answer to despair is not to despise it, for that only adds to it. The answer is to overwhelm it with goodness and love. Focus your attention and energy on what works, and make more of it. Celebrate what is good and right, useful and valuable, and allow it to grow. Nurture, promote and support what you love about life. Delight in the good things, and give the power of your joy to them. Be a positive force by acting with positive purpose. Give your awareness and energy to the good side of life, and make it stronger than ever.
”
”
Ralph S. Marston Jr.
“
I am grabbed by the scruff of the neck and pitched clean out of the room. It seems that this sudden aversion stems from human disgust with those barely visible and totally insignificant insects which I harbor. A heartless and most callous attitude! How can such inconsiderate behavior possibly be justified by the presence in my coat of one or two thousand footling fleas? The answer is, of course, that Article One of those Laws of Love (by which all humans creatures regulate their lives) specifically enjoins that «ye shall love one another for so long as it serves thine individual interest.»
”
”
Natsume Sōseki (我是猫)
“
[Immigrants] who come from anywhere there is hunger, unemployment, oppression, and violence and who clandestinely cross the borders of countries that are prosperous, peaceful, and rich in opportunity, are certainly breaking the law, but they are exercising a natural and moral right which no legal norm or regulation should try to eliminate: the right to life, to survival, to escape the infernal existence they are condemned to by barbarous regimes entrenched on half the earth's surface. If ethical considerations had any pervasive effect at all, the women and men who brave the Straits of Gibraltar or the Florida Keys or the electric fences of Tijuana or the docks of Marseilles in search of work, freedom, and a future should be received with open arms.
”
”
Mario Vargas Llosa (The Language of Passion: Selected Commentary)
“
The very same bourgeois mentality which extols the manufacturing division of labour, the life-long annexation of the worker to a partial operation, and the unconditional subordination of the detail worker to capital, extols them as an organisation of labour which increases productivity - denounces just as loudly every kind of deliberate social control and regulation of the social process of production, denounces it as an invasion of the inviolable property rights, liberty and self-determining genius of the individual capitalist. It is characteristic that the inspired apologists of the factory system can find nothing worse to say of any proposal for the general organisation of social labour, than that it would transform the whole of society into a factory.
”
”
Karl Marx (Das Kapital)
“
What I have observed over the past twenty years has increased my sense of urgency about the need for spiritual practice among us. If we do not learn to honor and strengthen the inner life of spirit, all the external changes in the world cannot save us. New laws, regulations, and technological fixes are all susceptible to human corruption and self-interest. If we do not know ourselves as beings created to reflect the divine image, we will lose the immense opportunity for transformation God has offered us in the gift of life itself. And if the love of God embodied in Christ cannot turn us, how shall we be turned?
”
”
Marjorie, J. Thompson (Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life)
“
A child's (or an adult's) nervous system may detect danger or a threat to life when the child enters a new environment or meets a strange person. Cognitively, there is no reason for them to be frightened. But often, even if they understand this, their bodies betray them. Sometimes this betrayal is private; only they are aware that their hearts are beating fast and contracting with such force that they start to sway. For others, the responses are more overt. They may tremble. Their faces may flush, or perspiration may pour from their hands and forehead. Still others may become pale and dizzy and feel precipitously faint.
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Stephen W. Porges (The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation)
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Still, some parents and professionals view these interests as yet another undesirable symptom of autism, one that makes it even more difficult for the child to fit in. Often their instinct is to discourage the child, to redirect his attention and suggest interests that are more socially acceptable and conventional. But discouraging an enthusiasm can be just another way of dismantling a strategy that helps a child with autism feel better regulated—or, worse, removing a source of interest and joy. A more helpful approach is to do as Jessy Park’s parents did and use the enthusiasm as a way to expand the child’s outlook and improve the child’s life.
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Barry M. Prizant (Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism)
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Morality is a just a shadow of right action. Right action isn’t the highest degree of morality any more than agapè is the highest degree of love. When you understand and are able to act from right action, morality is no longer necessary; it’s instantly obsolete and discarded. This is at the heart of the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna, as a moral creature, throws down his weapon and refuses to launch a war. Krishna converts him to a creature of right action by freeing him from delusion and Arjuna takes up his weapon and launches the war. Right action has nothing to do with right or wrong, good or evil, naughty or nice. It is without altruism or compassion. Morality is the set of rules and regulations that you use to navigate through life when you’re still trying to steer your ship rather than let it follow the flow.
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Jed McKenna (Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing (The Enlightenment Trilogy Book 1))
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I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized, when I knew that I would spend my life in the liberation struggle. To be an African in South Africa means that one is politicized from the moment of one's birth, whether one acknowledges it or not...His life is circumscribed by racist laws and regulations that cripple his growth, dim his potential, and stunt his life...I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, From henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.
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Nelson Mandela (Long Walk to Freedom)
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the Catholic Church not only didn’t oppose abortion but actually regulated it until the mid-nineteenth century. It was made a mortal sin mostly for population reasons.8 Napoleon III wanted more soldiers, and Pope Pius IX wanted all the teaching positions in the French schools—plus the doctrine of papal infallibility—so they traded. Also,
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Gloria Steinem (My Life on the Road)
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Ideas about the withering away of the family found strong parallels in the political commitment to the withering
away of law. The great majority of jurists shared the view that under socialism, morality and limited norms would supercede law and the state in governing social relations. A classless society would have no need of law to regulate and coerce human behavior. In the words of the jurist M. Kozlovskii, "Law is born with the division of society into classes and it dies with the death of class society.
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Wendy Z. Goldman (Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936)
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Most importantly, Enki was the custodian of the ‘Me’, perhaps pronounced something like Meh, an untranslatable Sumerian expression which the great Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer explained as the ‘fundamental, unalterable, comprehensive assortment of powers and duties, norms and standards, rules and regulations, relating to… civilized life’.
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Paul Kriwaczek (Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization)
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A civil servant can make rules that are friendly to an industry such as banking—and then go off to J.P. Morgan and recoup a multiple of the difference between his or her current salary and the market rate. (Regulators, you may recall, have an incentive to make rules as complex as possible so their expertise can later be hired at a higher price.)
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life)
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That being said, is there anything to say in support of utopian thinking? Everything, if the meaning of the word is somewhat restricted. If utopia means the highest set of values we want to defend and see implemented in social life, nothing prevents us from hanging on to all of them even if we know that they will never be perfectly compatible with each other. If utopia is a regulative idea of the optimum and not an assurance that we have mastered the skill to produce the optimum, then utopia is a necessary part of our thinking. But it would be a puerile fantasy to pretend that we know how to rid the world of scarcity, suffering, hatred, and injustice: nobody knows that. Whatever can be done in softening these conditions can be done only in specific points, on small scales, by inches. That this should be so unacceptable to the genuine utopian mentality which looks for the vision of the Last Day, the great leap, the final battle; everything else seems (and is, indeed) grey, boring, lacking pathos, requiring specific knowledge instead.
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Leszek Kołakowski
“
According to the Turnaround paper, which was written by a consultant named Brooke Stafford-Brizard, high-level noncognitive skills like resilience, curiosity, and academic tenacity are very difficult for a child to obtain without first developing a foundation of executive functions, a capacity for
self-awareness, and relationship skills. And those skills, in turn, stand atop an infrastructure of qualities built in the first years of life, qualities like secure attachment, the ability to manage stress, and self-regulation.
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Paul Tough (Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why)
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Ungratified sexuality is readily transformed into rage. "Prison explosions" are outbreaks of sadism resulting from the absence of sexual gratification. Hence, when 33,000 workers leave their employment site all at once precisely in spring, there can be no doubt that the unsatisfying sex-economic conditions in the Soviet Union are the cause. By "sex-economic conditions" we mean more than just the possibility of a regulated and satisfying love life; over and above this we mean everything that is related to pleasure and the joy of life in one's work.
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Wilhelm Reich (The Mass Psychology of Fascism)
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An artist must regulate his life.
Here is a time-table of my daily acts. I rise at 7.18; am inspired from 10.23 to 11.47. I lunch at 12.11 and leave the table at 12.14. A healthy ride on horse-back round my domain follows from 1.19 pm to 2.53 pm. Another bout of inspiration from 3.12 to 4.7 pm. From 5 to 6.47 pm various occupations (fencing, reflection, immobility, visits, contemplation, dexterity, natation, etc.)
Dinner is served at 7.16 and finished at 7.20 pm. From 8.9 to 9.59 pm symphonic readings (out loud). I go to bed regularly at 10.37 pm. Once a week (on Tuesdays) I awake with a start at 3.14 am.
My only nourishment consists of food that is white: eggs, sugar, shredded bones, the fat of dead animals, veal, salt, coco-nuts, chicken cooked in white water, mouldy fruit, rice, turnips, sausages in camphor, pastry, cheese (white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish (without their skin). I boil my wine and drink it cold mixed with the juice of the Fuschia. I have a good appetite but never talk when eating for fear of strangling myself.
I breathe carefully (a little at a time) and dance very rarely. When walking I hold my ribs and look steadily behind me.
My expression is very serious; when I laugh it is unintentional, and I always apologise very politely.
I sleep with only one eye closed, very profoundly. My bed is round with a hole in it for my head to go through. Every hour a servant takes my temperature and gives me another.
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Erik Satie
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In the Gaia theory air, water, and soil are major components of one central organism, planet Earth. What we typically think of as life - the plants and animals that inhabit the earth - has evolved merely to regulate the chemistry of the biosphere. Humans are insignificant participants, far less important to the life cycle than termites. Even the imbalance that we have created by adding massive quantities of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere may be brought back to acceptable levels by other organisms functioning in their capacity to correct excesses.
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David Easton (The Rammed Earth House)
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When the brain can’t moderate our biological stress response, it goes into a state of constant hyperarousal and reactivity. Inflammatory hormones and chemicals keep coursing through the body at the slightest provocation. In other words, when a child is young and his brain is still developing, if he is repeatedly thrust into a state of fight or flight, this chronic stress state causes these small, chemical markers to disable the genes that regulate the stress response—preventing the brain from properly regulating its response for the rest of his life.
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Donna Jackson Nakazawa (Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal)
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In fact, there are all sorts of great institutions and human enterprises that the Bible doesn’t address or regulate. And so we are free to invent them and operate them in line with the general principles for human life that the Bible gives us. But marriage is different. As the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship says, God “established marriage for the welfare and happiness of humankind.” Marriage did not evolve in the late Bronze Age as a way to determine property rights. At the climax of the Genesis account of creation we see God bringing a woman and a man together to unite them in marriage. The Bible begins with a wedding (of Adam and Eve) and ends in the book of Revelation with a wedding (of Christ and the church). Marriage is God’s idea.
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Timothy J. Keller (The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God)
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The “non-profit” institution neither supplies goods or services nor controls. Its “product” is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human-change agents. Their “product” is a cured patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.
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Peter F. Drucker (Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices)
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If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish all doubt as to the right way of looking at it, you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary... If you accustom yourself to this view of life you will regulate your expectations accordingly, and cease to look upon all its disagreeable incidents, great and small, its sufferings, its worries, its misery, as anything unusual or irregular; nay, you will find that everything is as it should be, in a world where each of us pays the penalty of existence in his own peculiar way.
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Arthur Schopenhauer (Studies in Pessimism: The Essays)
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The wood wide web has been mapped, traced, monitored, and coaxed to reveal the beautiful structures and finely adapted languages of the forest network. We have learned that mother trees recognize and talk with their kin, shaping future generations. In addition, injured tress pass their legacies on to their neighbors, affecting gene regulation, defense chemistry, and resilience in the forest community. These discoveries have transformed our understanding of trees from competitive crusaders of the self to members of a connected, relating, communicating system. Ours is not the only lab making these discoveries-there is a burst of careful scientific research occurring worldwide that is uncovering all manner of ways that trees communicate with each other above and below ground.
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Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World)
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By processing information from the environment through the senses, the nervous system continually evaluates risk. I have coined the term neuroception to describe how neural circuits
distinguish whether situations or people are safe, dangerous, or life-threatening. Because of our heritage as a species, neuroception takes place in primitive parts of the brain, without our conscious awareness.
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Stephen W. Porges (The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation)
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It’s become common to mock students demanding safe spaces, but look carefully at the collisions in American politics right now and you find that everyone is demanding safe spaces—the fear is not that the government is regulating speech but that protesters are chilling speech, that Twitter mobs rove the land looking for an errant word or misfired joke. In our eagerness to discount our opponents as easily triggered snowflakes, we’ve lost sight of the animating impulse behind much of politics and, indeed, much of life: the desire to feel safe, to know you can say what you want without fear.
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Ezra Klein (Why We're Polarized)
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Our politicians tell us we are free, even though most governments take over 50% of what we earn. They claim we get services that we need for our hard-earned money, even though we could buy the same services at half the price from the private sector. Today, we ridicule the slave-owners' claim that they "gave back" to their slaves by housing, clothing, feeding them, and bestowing upon them the "benefits" of civilization instead of leaving them in their native state. We see this as a self-serving justification for exploitation. In the future, we will view being forcibly taxed to pay for things we don't want, such as bombs for the Middle East, subsidies for tobacco, other people's abortions, regulations that put small businesses out of business, prisons for people trying to feel good, keeping life-saving medications out of the hands of dying people, etc., as taking away our freedom. When even a small portion of our lives is spent enslaved, that part tends to dominate the rest of our time. If we don't put our servitude first as we structure the remainder of our lives, our masters will make sure we regret it. How much freedom do we need to survive and how much do we need to thrive?
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Mary J. Ruwart
“
(( قُلْ مَن يَرْزُقُكُم مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ وَالْأرْضِ أَمَّن يَمْلِكُ السَّمْعَ وَالأبْصَارَ وَمَن يُخْرِجُ الْحَيَّ مِنَ المَيِّتِ وَيُخْرِجُ المَيِّتَ مِنَ الْحَيِّ وَمَن يُدَبِّرُ الأَمْرَ ۚ فَسَيَقُولُونَ اللَّهُ ۚ فَقُلْ أَفَلَا تَتَّقُونَ))
"Say: Who is it that sustains you (in life) from the sky and from the earth? Or who is it that has power over hearing and sight? And who is it that brings out the living from the dead and the dead from the living? And who is it that rules and regulates all affairs? They will say, 'Allah'. Say, Will you not then Show piety (to Him)?"
Holy Qur'an 10:31
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Zakir Naik (The Concept of GOD in Major Religions)
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A modern fad which has gained widespread acceptance amongst the semi-educated who wish to appear secular is the practice of meditation. They proclaim with an air of smug superiority, ‘Main mandir-vandir nahin jaata, meditate karta hoon (I don’t go to temples or other such places, I meditate).’ The exercise involves sitting lotus-pose (padma asana), regulating one’s breathing and making your mind go blank to prevent it from ‘jumping about like monkeys’ from one (thought) branch to another. This intense concentration awakens the kundalini serpent coiled at the base of the spine. It travels upwards through chakras (circles) till it reaches its destination in the cranium. Then the kundalini is fully jaagrit (roused) and the person is assured to have reached his goal. What does meditation achieve? The usual answer is ‘peace of mind’. If you probe further, ‘and what does peace of mind achieve?’, you will get no answer because there is none. Peace of mind is a sterile concept which achieves nothing. The exercise may be justified as therapy for those with disturbed minds or those suffering from hypertension, but there is no evidence to prove that it enhances creativity. On the contrary it can be established by statistical data that all the great works of art, literature, science and music were works of highly agitated minds, at times minds on the verge of collapse. Allama Iqbal’s short prayer is pertinent: Khuda tujhey kisee toofaan say aashna kar dey Keh terey beher kee maujon mein iztiraab naheen (May God bring a storm in your life, There is no agitation in the waves of your life’s ocean.)
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Khushwant Singh (The End Of India)
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When you use the 5 Steps, your self-regulation improves and you can start getting a handle on managing your anxiety. This doesn’t mean it will go away entirely; you actually don’t want it to, because anxiety is telling you something about your life that you need to know. It does mean, however, that your anxiety will decrease over time, and you will learn to manage it—it will work for you and not against you. Anxiety is not an illness; it is a warning signal that something needs attention in your life. It is normal to feel periods of anxiety. The Neurocycle method can help you find and manage what needs attention.
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Caroline Leaf (Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess: 5 Simple, Scientifically Proven Steps to Reduce Anxiety, Stress, and Toxic Thinking)
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If this is so, why should any man bother about moral rules and regulations? Why should any man conform to laws formulated by a people whose outlook on the universe probably differed diametrically from his own? Why should any man obey a regulation which is denounced, by his common-sense, as a hodge-podge of absurdities, and why should he model his whole life upon ideals invented to serve the temporary needs of a forgotten race of some past age? These questions Nietzsche asked himself. His conclusion was a complete rejection of all fixed codes of morality, and with them of all gods, messiahs, prophets, saints, popes,
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H.L. Mencken (The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche)
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The origin of the word ‘trauma’ is the Greek for ‘wound’. Trauma is a wound. How I think about it is that if I wounded you, if I cut your flesh, the healing would involve scar tissue forming. If the wound was great enough, you’d get a big scar, and it would be without nerve endings so you wouldn’t feel, and it would be much less flexible than your normal tissue. Trauma is when there is a loss of feeling and there is a reduced flexibility in responding to the world. This is a response to a wound. Trauma is a psychic wound that hardens you psychologically that then interferes with your ability to grow and develop. It pains you and now you’re acting out of pain. It induces fear and now you’re acting out of fear. So without knowing it, your whole life is regulated by fear and pain that you’re trying to escape from in various ways. Trauma is not what happens to you, it’s what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you. Trauma is that scarring that makes you less flexible, more rigid, less feeling and more defended.
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Gabor Maté
“
JUST FOR TODAY Just for today I will be happy. This assumes that what Abraham Lincoln said is true, that ‘most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.’ Happiness is from within; it is not a matter of externals. Just for today I will try to adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my family, my business, and my luck as they come and fit myself to them. Just for today I will take care of my body. I will exercise it, care for it, nourish it, not abuse it nor neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my bidding. Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration. Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways; I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don’t want to do, as William James suggests, just for exercise. Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, dress as becomingly as possible, talk low, act courteously, be liberal with praise, criticise not at all, nor find fault with anything and not try to regulate nor improve anyone. Just for today I will try to live through this day only, not to tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do things for twelve hours that would appall me if I had to keep them up for a lifetime. Just for today I will have a program. I will write down what I expect to do every hour. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. It will eliminate two pests, hurrying and indecision. Just for today I will have a quiet half-hour all by myself and relax. In this half-hour sometimes I will think of God, so as to get a little more perspective into my life. Just for today I will be unafraid, especially I will not be afraid to be happy, to enjoy what is beautiful, to love, and to believe that those I love, love me. If we want to develop a mental attitude that will bring us peace and happiness, here is Rule 1: Think and act cheerfully, and you will feel cheerful.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living)
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To the ancients, bears symbolized resurrection. The creature goes to sleep for a long time, its heartbeat decreases to almost nothing. The male often impregnates the female right before hibernation, but miraculously, egg and sperm do not unite right away. They float separately in her uterine broth until much later. Near the end of hibernation, the egg and sperm unite and cell division begins, so that the cubs will be born in the spring when the mother is awakening, just in time to care for and teach her new offspring. Not only by reason of awakening from hibernation as though from death, but much more so because the she-bear awakens with new young, this creature is a profound metaphor for our lives, for return and increase coming from something that seemed deadened.
The bear is associated with many huntress Goddesses: Artemis and Diana in Greece and Rome, and Muerte and Hecoteptl, mud women deities in the Latina cultures. These Goddesses bestowed upon women the power of tracking, knowing, 'digging out' the psychic aspects of all things. To the Japanese the bear is the symbol of loyalty, wisdom, and strength. In northern Japan where the Ainu tribe lives, the bear is one who can talk to God directly and bring messages back for humans. The cresent moon bear is considered a sacred being, one who was given the white mark on his throat by the Buddhist Goddess Kwan-Yin, whose emblem is the crescent moon. Kwan-Yin is the Goddess of Deep Compassion and the bear is her emissary.
"In the psyche, the bear can be understood as the ability to regulate one's life, especially one's feeling life. Bearish power is the ability to move in cycles, be fully alert, or quiet down into a hibernative sleep that renews one's energy for the next cycle. The bear image teaches that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressure gauge for one's emotional life, and most especially that one can be fierce and generous at the same time. One can be reticent and valuable. One can protect one's territory, make one's boundaries clear, shake the sky if need be, yet be available, accessible, engendering all the same.
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Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run With the Wolves)
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And, under and above it all, there was the fear of death before which he was naked and without defense; he had to go forward and meet his end like any other living thing upon the earth. And regulating his attitude toward death was the fact that he was black, unequal, and despised. Passively, he hungered for another orbit between two poles that would let him live again; for a new mode of life that would catch him up with the tension of hate and love. There would have to hover above him, like the stars in a full sky, a vast configuration of images and symbols whose magic and power could lift him up and make him live so intensely that the dread of being black and unequal would be forgotten; that even death would not matter, that it would be a victory. This would have to happen before he could look them in the face again: a new pride and a new humility would have to be born in him, a humility springing from a new identification with some part of the world in which he lived, and this identification forming the basis for a new hope that would function in him as pride and dignity.
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Richard Wright (Native Son)
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The ecstatic vision and social program sought to rebuild a society upward from its grass roots but on principles of religious and economic egalitarianism, with free healing brought directly to the peasant homes and free sharing of whatever they had in return. The deliberate conjunction of magic and meal, miracle and table, free compassion and open commensality, was a challenge launched not just at Judaism’s strictest purity regulations, or even at the Mediterranean’s patriarchal combination of honor and shame, patronage and clientage, but at civilization’s eternal inclination to draw lines, invoke boundaries, establish hierarchies, and maintain discriminations.
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John Dominic Crossan (The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant)
“
Nature’s ultimate goal is to foster the growth of the individual from absolute dependence to independence — or, more exactly, to the interdependence of mature adults living in community. Development is a process of moving from complete external regulation to self-regulation, as far as our genetic programming allows. Well-self-regulated people are the most capable of interacting fruitfully with others in a community and of nurturing children who will also grow into self-regulated adults. Anything that interferes with that natural agenda threatens the organism’s chances for long-term survival.
Almost from the beginning of life we see a tension between the complementary needs for security and for autonomy. Development requires a gradual and ageappropriate shift from security needs toward the drive for autonomy, from attachment to individuation. Neither is ever completely lost, and neither is meant to predominate at the expense of the other. With an increased capacity for self-regulation in adulthood comes also a heightened need for autonomy — for the freedom to make genuine choices. Whatever undermines autonomy will be experienced as a source of stress. Stress is magnified whenever the power to respond effectively to the social or physical environment is lacking or when the tested animal or human being feels helpless, without meaningful choices — in other words, when autonomy is undermined.
Autonomy, however, needs to be exercised in a way that does not disrupt the social relationships on which survival also depends, whether with emotional intimates or with important others—employers, fellow workers, social authority figures. The less the emotional capacity for self-regulation develops during infancy and childhood, the more the adult depends on relationships to maintain homeostasis. The greater the dependence, the greater the threat when those relationships are lost or become insecure. Thus, the vulnerability to subjective and physiological stress will be proportionate to the degree of emotional dependence. To minimize the stress from threatened relationships, a person may give up some part of his autonomy. However, this is not a formula for health, since the loss of autonomy is itself a cause of stress.
The surrender of autonomy raises the stress level, even if on the surface it appears to be necessary for the sake of “security” in a relationship, and even if we subjectively feel relief when we gain “security” in this manner. If I chronically repress my emotional needs in order to make myself “acceptable” to other people, I increase my risks of having to pay the price in the form of illness. The other way of protecting oneself from the stress of threatened relationships is emotional shutdown. To feel safe, the vulnerable person withdraws from others and closes against intimacy. This coping style
may avoid anxiety and block the subjective experience of stress but not the physiology of it. Emotional intimacy is a psychological and biological necessity. Those who build walls against intimacy are not self-regulated, just emotionally frozen. Their stress from having unmet needs will be high.
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Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
By exiling human judgment in the last few decades, modern law changed role from useful tool to brainless tyrant. This legal regime will never be up to the job, any more than the Soviet system of central planning was, because ti can't think. The comedy of law's sterile logic--large POISON signs warning against common sand, spending twenty-two years on pesticide review and deciding next to nothing, allowing fifty-year-old white men to sue for discrimination--is all too reminiscent of the old jokes we used to hear about life in the Eastern bloc.
Judgement is to law as water is to crops. It should not be surprising that law has become brittle, and society along with it.
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Philip K. Howard (The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America)
“
I use “anticapitalist” because conservative defenders of capitalism regularly say their liberal and socialist opponents are against capitalism. They say efforts to provide a safety net for all people are “anticapitalist.” They say attempts to prevent monopolies are “anticapitalist.” They say efforts that strengthen weak unions and weaken exploitative owners are “anticapitalist.” They say plans to normalize worker ownership and regulations protecting consumers, workers, and environments from big business are “anticapitalist.” They say laws taxing the richest more than the middle class, redistributing pilfered wealth, and guaranteeing basic incomes are “anticapitalist.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist.” They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anticapitalist.”
In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin; the freedom to assassinate unions; the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom not to pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to commodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle-income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism—of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resources and rights—bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.
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Ibram X. Kendi (How to Be an Antiracist)
“
The real object of our scorn might not be in our food safety standards, in the revolving-door regulators, in the rise of industry, or even in the abuse and commodification of men, but in ourselves as agents in this world: for knowing what we want and what we are willing to give up to get it, for understanding that this is a moral outrage we’ve been digging for all along because it verifies what we know but also don’t quite want to acknowledge about ourselves.
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Benjamin Lorr (The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket)
“
I counted my years and found that I have less time to live from here on than I have lived up to now.
I feel like that child who won a packet of sweets: he ate the first with pleasure, but when he realized that there were few left, he began to enjoy them intensely.
I no longer have time for endless meetings where statutes, rules, procedures and internal regulations are discussed, knowing that nothing will be achieved.
I no longer have time to support the absurd people who, despite their chronological age, haven't grown up.
My time is too short:
I want the essence,
my soul is in a hurry.
I don't have many sweets
in the package anymore.
I want to live next to human people,
very human,
who know how to laugh at their mistakes,
and who are not inflated by their triumphs,
and who take on their responsibilities.
Thus, human dignity is defended, and we move towards truth and honesty.
It is the essential that makes life worth living.
I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch hearts, people who have been taught by the hard blows of life to grow with gentle touches of the soul.
Yes, I'm in a hurry, I'm in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I don't intend to waste any of the leftover sweets.
I am sure they will be delicious, much more than what I have eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied
and at peace with my loved ones
and my conscience.
We have two lives.
And the second begins when you realize you only have one.
Credits: Mário Raul de Morais Andrade
(Oct 9, 1893 – Feb 25, 1945)
Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, photographer
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Mario Raul de Morais Andrade
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Women was regarded as a creature whose boundaries are unstable, whose power to control them is inadequate. Deformation attends her. She swells, she shrinks, she leaks, she perforates, she disintegrates. Think of the female life cycle with its bloods, its penetrations, its pregnancies, its changes of shape. Think of the monsters of Greek myth, who are mostly women with deranged boundaries, like Skylla, Medusa, the Sirens, the Harpies, the Amazons, the Sphinx. Self-control is a virtue—physical, mental and moral—which, in the view of the ancients, women categorically do not possess. In order to achieve form or consistency, the female must submit herself to the regulation and articulation of the male.
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Anne Carson
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The money price of labour is necessarily regulated by two circumstances; the demand for labour, and the price of the necessaries and conveniencies of life. The demand for labour, according as it happens to be increasing, stationary, or declining, or to require an increasing, stationary, or declining population, determines the quantities of the necessaries and conveniencies of life which must be given to the labourer; and the money price of labour is determined by what is requisite for purchasing this quantity. Though the money price of labour, therefore, is sometimes high where the price of provisions is low, it would be still higher, the demand continuing the same, if the price of provisions was high.
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Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations (Classics of World Literature))
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The business of America is business," said Calvin Coolidge. Now the business of America is regulation. It is necessary for once free people to take back responsibility for their own affairs. Ultimately, judge-made law and bureaucrat-made regulations and dancing with the czars strike at the compact between citizen and state. By sidestepping the consent of the governed, as regulators do, or expressing open contempt for it, as judges do, the governing class delegitimizes itself. When government is demanding the right to determine every aspect of your life, those on the receiving end should at least demand back that our betters have the guts to do so by passing laws in legislatures of the people's representatives.
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Mark Steyn (After America: Get Ready for Armageddon)
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Work by Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania, Tom Boyce of UCSF, and others demonstrates something outrageous: By age five, the lower a child’s socioeconomic status, on the average, the (a) higher the basal glucocorticoid levels and/or the more reactive the glucocorticoid stress response, (b) the thinner the frontal cortex and the lower its metabolism, and (c) the poorer the frontal function concerning working memory, emotion regulation, impulse control, and executive decision making; moreover, to achieve equivalent frontal regulation, lower-SES kids must activate more frontal cortex than do higher-SES kids. In addition, childhood poverty impairs maturation of the corpus callosum, a bundle of axonal fibers connecting the two hemispheres and integrating their function. This is so wrong—foolishly pick a poor family to be born into, and by kindergarten, the odds of your succeeding at life’s marshmallow tests are already stacked against you.34
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Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
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We can combat existential anguish – the unbearable lightness of our being – in a variety of ways. We can choose to work, play, destroy, or create. We can allow a variety of cultural factors or other people to define who we are, or we can create a self-definition. We decide what to monitor in the environment. We regulate how much attention we pay to nature, other people, or the self. We can watch and comment upon current cultural events and worldly happenings or withdraw and ignore the external world. We can drink alcohol, dabble with recreational drugs, play videogames, or watch television, films, and sporting events. We can travel, go on nature walks, camp, fish, and hunt, climb mountains, or take whitewater-rafting trips. We can build, paint, sing, create music, write poetry, or read and write books. We can cook, barbeque, eat fine cuisine at restaurants or go on fasts. We can attend church services, worship and pray, or chose to embrace agnosticism or atheism. We can belong to charitable organizations or political parties. We can actively or passively support or oppose social and ecological causes. We can share time with family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances or live alone and eschew social intermixing.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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Gaia is a thin spherical shell of matter that surrounds the incandescent interior; it begins where the crustal rocks meet the magma of the Earth’s hot interior, about 100 miles below the surface, and proceeds another 100 miles outwards through the ocean and air to the even hotter thermosphere at the edge of space. It includes the biosphere and is a dynamic physiological system that has kept our planet fit for life for over three billion years. I call Gaia a physiological system because it appears to have the unconscious goal of regulating the climate and the chemistry at a comfortable state for life. Its goals are not set points but adjustable for whatever is the current environment and adaptable to whatever forms of life it carries.
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James E. Lovelock (The Revenge of Gaia)
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We don't need to stop at green or natural burial. "Burial" comes from the anglo-saxon word birgan, "to conceal." Not everyone wants to be concealed under the earth. I don't want to be concealed. Ever since my dark night of the soul in the redwood forest, I've believed the animals I've consumed my whole life should someday have their turn with me. The ancient Ethiopians would place their dead in the lake where they fished, so the fish would have the opportunity to receive back the nutrients. The earth is expertly designed to take back what it has created. Bodies left for carrion in enclosed, regulated spaces could be the answer to the environmental problems of burial and cremation. There is no limit to where our engagement with death can take us.
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Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory)
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One simple and basic fact of life is that no individual – or group of individuals – can ever be wise or knowledgeable enough to run society. Our core fantasy of “government” is that in some remote and sunlit chamber, with lacquered mahogany tables, deep leather chairs and sleepless men and women, there exists a group who are so wise, so benevolent, so omniscient and so incorruptible that we should turn over to them the education of our children, the preservation of our elderly, the salvation of the poor, the provision of vital services, the healing of the sick, the defense of the realm and of property, the administration of justice, the punishment of criminals, and the regulation of virtually every aspect of a massive, infinitely complex and ever-changing social and economic system. These living man-gods have such perfect knowledge and perfect wisdom that we should hand them weapons of mass destruction, and the endless power to tax, imprison and print money – and nothing but good, plenty and virtue will result.
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Stefan Molyneux (Everyday Anarchy: The Freedom of Now)
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We deny responsibility for our actions when we attribute their cause to factors outside ourselves: Vague, impersonal forces—“I cleaned my room because I had to.” Our condition, diagnosis, or personal or psychological history—“I drink because I am an alcoholic.” The actions of others—“I hit my child because he ran into the street.” The dictates of authority—“I lied to the client because the boss told me to.” Group pressure—“I started smoking because all my friends did.” Institutional policies, rules, and regulations—“I have to suspend you for this infraction because it’s the school policy.” Gender roles, social roles, or age roles—”I hate going to work, but I do it because I am a husband and a father.” Uncontrollable impulses—“I was overcome by my urge to eat the candy bar.
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Marshall B. Rosenberg (Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships (Nonviolent Communication Guides))
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Speaking to a foreigner was the dream of every student, and my opportunity came at last. When I got back from my trip down the Yangtze, I learned that my year was being sent in October to a port in the south called Zhanjiang to practice our English with foreign sailors. I was thrilled.
Zhanjiang was about 75 miles from Chengdu, a journey of two days and two nights by rail. It was the southernmost large port in China, and quite near the Vietnamese border.
It felt like a foreign country, with turn-of-the-century colonial-style buildings, pastiche Romanesque arches, rose windows, and large verandas with colorful parasols. The local people spoke Cantonese, which was almost a foreign language. The air smelled of the unfamiliar sea, exotic tropical vegetation, and an altogether bigger world.
But my excitement at being there was constantly doused by frustration. We were accompanied by a political supervisor and three lecturers, who decided that, although we were staying only a mile from the sea, we were not to be allowed anywhere near it. The harbor itself was closed to outsiders, for fear of 'sabotage' or defection. We were told that a student from Guangzhou had managed to stow away once in a cargo steamer, not realizing that the hold would be sealed for weeks, by which time he had perished. We had to restrict our movements to a clearly defined area of a few blocks around our residence.
Regulations like these were part of our daily life, but they never failed to infuriate me. One day I was seized by an absolute compulsion to get out. I faked illness and got permission to go to a hospital in the middle of the city. I wandered the streets desperately trying to spot the sea, without success. The local people were unhelpful: they did not like non-Cantonese speakers, and refused to understand me. We stayed in the port for three weeks, and only once were we allowed, as a special treat, to go to an island to see the ocean.
As the point of being there was to talk to the sailors, we were organized into small groups to take turns working in the two places they were allowed to frequent: the Friendship Store, which sold goods for hard currency, and the Sailors' Club, which had a bar, a restaurant, a billiards room, and a ping-pong room.
There were strict rules about how we could talk to the sailors. We were not allowed to speak to them alone, except for brief exchanges over the counter of the Friendship Store. If we were asked our names and addresses, under no circumstances were we to give our real ones. We all prepared a false name and a nonexistent address. After every conversation, we had to write a detailed report of what had been said which was standard practice for anyone who had contact with foreigners. We were warned over and over again about the importance of observing 'discipline in foreign contacts' (she waifi-lu). Otherwise, we were told, not only would we get into serious trouble, other students would be banned from coming.
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Jung Chang (Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China)
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Then there is the life-force, the Prana, that works in our vital being and nervous system. The Upanishad speaks of it as the first or supreme Breath; elsewhere in the sacred writings it is spoken of as the chief Breath or the Breath of the mouth, mukhya, asanya; it is that which carries in it the Word, the creative expression. In the body of man there are said to be five workings of the life-force called the five Pranas. One specially termed Prana moves in the upper part of the body and is pre-eminently the breath of life, because it brings the universal life-force into the physical system and gives it there to be distributed. A second in the lower part of the trunk, termed Apana, is the breath of death; for it gives away the vital force out of the body. A third, the Samana, regulates the interchange of these two forces at their meeting-place, equalises them and is the most important agent in maintaining the equilibrium of the vital forces and their functions. A fourth, the Vyana, pervasive, distributes the vital energies throughout the body. A fifth, the Udana, moves upward from the body to the crown of the head and is a regular channel of communication between the physical life and the greater life of the spirit. None of these are the first or supreme Breath, although the Prana most nearly represents it; the Breath to which so much importance is given in the Upanishads, is the pure life-force itself, - first, because all the others are secondary to it, born from it and only exist as its special functions. It is imaged in the Veda as the Horse; its various energies are the forces that draw the chariots of the Gods.
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Sri Aurobindo (The Upanishads, 1st US Edition)
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I want to apologize to you,” she says calmly.
“Oh yeah? For what?” I don’t have time for this. We don’t have time for this. I push away thoughts of what will happen to Hana even if I manage to escape. She’ll be here, in the house . . .
My stomach is clenching and unclenching. I’m worried the bread will come straight back up. I have to stay focused. What happens to Hana isn’t my concern, and it isn’t my fault, either.
“For telling the regulators about 37 Brooks,” she says. “For telling them about you and Alex.”
Just like that, my brain powers down. “What?"
“I told them.” She lets out a tiny exhalation, as though saying the words has given her relief. “I’m sorry. I was jealous.”
I can’t speak. I’m swimming through a fog. “Jealous?” I manage to spit out.
“I—I wanted what you had with Alex. I was confused. I didn’t understand what I was doing.” She shakes her head again.
I have a swinging, seasick feeling. It doesn’t make any sense. Hana—golden girl Hana, my best friend, fearless and reckless. I trusted her. I loved her. “You were my best friend.”
“I know.” Again she looks troubled, as though trying to recall the meaning of the words.
“You had everything.” I can’t stop my voice from rising. The anger is vibrating, ripping through me like a live current. “Perfect life. Perfect grades. Everything.” I gesture to the spotless kitchen, to the sunshine pouring over the marble counters like drizzled butter. “I had nothing. He was my one thing. My only—” The sickness surges up and I take a step forward, clenching my fists, blind with rage. “Why couldn’t you let me have it? Why did you have to take it? Why did you always take everything?
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Lauren Oliver (Requiem (Delirium, #3))
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significantly in his work by psychologist Mary Ainsworth, a Canadian researcher who helped give shape to his ideas and test them. Together, they identified four elements of attachment: •We seek out, monitor, and try to maintain emotional and physical connection with our loved ones. Throughout life, we rely on them to be emotionally accessible, responsive, and engaged with us. •We reach out for our loved ones particularly when we are uncertain, threatened, anxious, or upset. Contact with them gives us a sense of having a safe haven, where we will find comfort and emotional support; this sense of safety teaches us how to regulate our own emotions and how to connect with and trust others. •We miss our loved ones and become extremely upset when they are physically or emotionally remote; this separation anxiety can become intense and incapacitating. Isolation is inherently traumatizing for human beings. •We depend on our loved ones to support us emotionally and be a secure base as we venture into the world and learn and explore. The more we sense that we are effectively connected, the more autonomous and separate we can be.
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Sue Johnson (Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships (The Dr. Sue Johnson Collection Book 2))
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Some scientists refer to the control network as an “emotion regulation” network. They assume that emotion regulation is a cognitive process that exists separately from emotion itself, say, when you’re pissed off at your boss but refrain from punching him. From the brain’s perspective, however, regulation is just categorization. When you have an experience that feels like your so-called rational side is tempering your emotional side—a mythical arrangement that you’ve learned is not respected by brain wiring—you are constructing an instance of the concept “Emotion Regulation.”19
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Lisa Feldman Barrett (How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain)
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Our inner experience is that which we think, feel, remember, perceive, sense, decide, plan and predict. These experiences are actually mental actions, or mental activity (Van der Hart et al., 2006). Mental activity, in which we engage all the time, may or may not be accompanied by behavioral actions. It is essential that you become aware of, learn to tolerate and regulate, and even change major mental actions that affect your current life, such as negative beliefs, and feelings or reactions to the past the interfere with the present. However, it is impossible to change inner experiences if you are avoiding them because you are afraid, ashamed or disgusted by them. Serious avoidance of you inner experiences is called experiential avoidance (Hayes, Wilson, Gifford, & Follettte, 1996), or the phobia of inner experience (Steele, Van der Hart, & Nijenhuis, 2005; Van der Hart et al., 2006).
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Suzette Boon (Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists)
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With the growth of market individualism comes a corollary desire to look for collective, democratic responses when major dislocations of financial collapse, unemployment, heightened inequality, runaway inflation, and the like occur. The more such dislocations occur, the more powerful and internalized, Hayek insists, neoliberal ideology must become; it must become embedded in the media, in economic talking heads, in law and the jurisprudence of the courts, in government policy, and in the souls of participants. Neoliberal ideology must become a machine or engine that infuses economic life as well as a camera that provides a snapshot of it. That means, in turn, that the impersonal processes of regulation work best if courts, churches, schools, the media, music, localities, electoral politics, legislatures, monetary authorities, and corporate organizations internalize and publicize these norms.
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William E. Connolly (The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism)
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My relationship had ended and Red had taken my son. My life was my own and I could do anything I wanted, yet I felt nothing. As I stood staring at the walls, searching inside myself for some kind of emotional response, the nothingness suddenly welled up inside me, like a physical mass, so vast and empty and infinite I was terrified. The very first time I went running, it was from that terror, from the possibility of being sucked down into emptiness for ever, and as I ran I discovered I was able to feel; pressure in my lungs, pain in my legs, my skin perspiring, the pounding of my heart.
My routine was erratic, I ran when I felt like it, usually five or six times a month. So was my style. It was nothing like that of the runners I grew accustomed to seeing, the ones who regulated themselves, jogged two or three times a week, who did a warm-up first and stretching exercises afterwards, the people for whom the activity was a hobby. I ran like my life depended on it, as fast and as hard as I could. Sometimes, passers-by would look beyond me as I ran towards them, with fear in their eyes, trying to see who or what was pursuing me, trying to work out whether they should be running too. As long as I was feeling, I didn’t care.
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Yvvette Edwards (A Cupboard Full of Coats)
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Our dream life allows us to have a look at these subliminal perceptions and shows us that they have an effect upon us. After having an agreeable dream about somebody, even without interpreting the dream, I shall involuntarily look at that person with more interest. The dream image may have deluded me, because of my projections; or it may have given me objective information. To find out which is the correct interpretation requires an honest, attentive attitude and careful thought. But, as is the case with all inner processes, it is ultimately the Self that orders and regulates one's human relationships, so long as the conscious ego takes the trouble to detect the delusive projections and deals with these inside himself instead of outside. It is in this way that spiritually attuned and similarly oriented people find their way to one another, to create a group that cuts across all the usual social and organizational affiliations of people. Such a group is not in conflict with others; it is merely different and independent. The consciously realized process of individuation thus changes a person's relationships. The familiar bonds such as kinship or common interests are replaced by a different type of unity-a bond through the Self.
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C.G. Jung (Man and His Symbols)
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So, let's get back to why the roots are the most important part of a tree. Conceivably, this is where the tree equivalent of a brain is located. Brain? you ask. Isn't that a bit farfetched? Possibly, but now we know that trees can learn. This means they must store experiences somewhere, and therefore, there must be some kind of a storage mechanism inside the organism. Just where it is, no one knows, but the roots are the part of the tree best suited to the task. The old spruce in Sweden also shows that what grows underground is the most permanent part of the tree-and where else would it store important information over a long period of time? Moreover, current research shows that a tree's delicate root networks is full of surprises.
It is now an accepted fact that the root network is in charge of all chemical activity in the tree. And there's nothing earth shattering about that. Many of our internal processes are also regulated by chemical messengers. Roots absorb substances and bring them into the tree. In the other direction, they deliver the products of photosynthesis to the tree's fungal partners and even route warning signals to neighboring trees. But a brain? For there to be something we would recognize as a brain, neurological processes must be involved, and for these, in addition to chemical messages, you need electrical impulses. And these are precisely what we can measure in the tree, and we've been able to do so since as far back as the nineteenth century. For some years now, a heated controversy has flared up among scientists. Can plants think? Are they intelligent?
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Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World)
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The cultural Left has contributed to the formation of this politically useless unconscious not only by adopting “power” as the name of an invisible, ubiquitous, and malevolent presence, but by adopting ideals which nobody is yet able to imagine being actualized.
Among these ideals are participatory democracy and the end of capitalism. Power will pass to the people, the Sixties Left believed only when decisions are made by all those who may be affected by the results. This means, for example, that economic decisions will be made by stakeholders rather than by shareholders, and that entrepreneurship and markets will cease to play their present role. When they do, capitalism as we know it will have ended, and something new will have taken its place.
[…] Sixties leftists skipped lightly over all the questions which had been raised by the experience of non market economies in the so-called socialist countries. They seemed to be suggesting that once we were rid of both bureaucrats and entrepreneurs, “the people” would know how to handle competition from steel mills or textile factories in the developing world, price hikes on imported oil, and so on. But they never told us how “the people” would learn how to do this.
The cultural Left still skips over such questions. Doing so is a consequence of its preference for talking about “the system” rather than about specific social practices and specific changes in those practices. The rhetoric of this Left remains revolutionary rather than reformist and pragmatic. Its insouciant use of terms like “late capitalism” suggests that we can just wait for capitalism to collapse, rather than figuring out what, in the absence of markets, will set prices and regulate distribution. The voting public, the public which must be won over if the Left is to emerge from the academy into the public square, sensibly wants to be told the details. It wants to know how things are going to work after markets are put behind us. It wants to know how participatory democracy is supposed to function.
The cultural Left offers no answers to such demands for further information, but until it confronts them it will not be able to be a political Left. The public, sensibly, has no interest in getting rid of capitalism until it is offered details about the alternatives. Nor should it be interested in participatory democracy –– the liberation of the people from the power of technocrats –– until it is told how deliberative assemblies will acquire the same know-how which only the technocrats presently possess. […]
The cultural Left has a vision of an America in which the white patriarchs have stopped voting and have left all the voting to be done by members of previously victimized groups, people who have somehow come into possession of more foresight and imagination than the selfish suburbanites. These formerly oppressed and newly powerful people are expected to be as angelic as the straight white males were diabolical. If I shared this expectation, I too would want to live under this new dispensation. Since I see no reason to share it, I think that the left should get back into the business of piecemeal reform within the framework of a market economy. This was the business the American Left was in during the first two-thirds of the century.
Someday, perhaps, cumulative piecemeal reforms will be found to have brought about revolutionary change. Such reforms might someday produce a presently unimaginable non market economy, and much more widely distributed powers of decision making. […] But in the meantime, we should not let the abstractly described best be the enemy of the better. We should not let speculation about a totally changed system, and a totally different way of thinking about human life and affairs, replace step-by-step reform of the system we presently have.
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Richard Rorty (Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America)
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The multiplicity of human identity is not just a spiritual principle, it’s a biological fact—a basic ecological reality. ... only 10% of the cells in your body belong to you. The rest are the cells of bacteria and microorganisms that call your body home, and without these symbionts living on and within your physical self, you would be unable to digest and process the nutrients necessary to keep you alive. Your physical body is teeming with a microscopic diversity of life that rivals a rainforest. The insight of the Gaia Theory—that “the Earth system behaves as a single self-regulating system comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human components”—is as much a statement about our own physical bodies as it is about the planet. If we imagine the Earth as the body of a goddess, we can also imagine our own bodies as a sacred home to an ecologically complex and diverse array of microscopic life." -- Alison Leigh Lilly, "Naming the Water: Human and Deity Identity from an Earth-Centered Perspective
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John Halstead
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The major impairments of ADD — the distractibility, the hyperactivity and the poor impulse control — reflect, each in its particular way, a lack of self-regulation. Self-regulation implies that someone can direct attention where she chooses, can control impulses and can be consciously mindful and in charge of what her body is doing. Like time literacy, self-regulation is also a distinct task of development in human life, achieved gradually from young childhood through adolescence and adulthood. We are born with no capacity whatsoever to self-regulate emotion or action.
For self-regulation to be possible, specific brain centers have to develop and grow connections with other important nerve centers, and chemical pathways need to be established. Attention deficit disorder is a prime illustration of how the adult continues to struggle with the unsolved problems of childhood. She is held back precisely where the child did not develop, hampered in those areas where the infant or toddler got stuck during the course of development.
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Gabor Maté (Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It)
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America has succumbed to its own intermediate goal. Purging official discretion, not advancing the public good, has become the goal of the Rule of Law. Better to prevent a bad choice, even at the cost of banning all good choices. Unquestioned assumptions are the most powerful forces in human affairs. If people assume something is right or wrong, they’ll act on it even to the point of self-destruction. Just as the inhabitants of Easter Island built giant statues until there were no more resources to support life on the island, Americans seem content to pile society high with detailed regulations as long as they succeed in preventing anyone with responsibility from actually making a decision.
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Philip K. Howard (The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Senseless Bureaucracy)
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The original Christians regarded the deposit of faith, as finally inseparable from the very living substance of the Gospel in the saving event of Christ crucified, risen and glorified, but as once and for all entrusted to the church through its apostolic foundation in Christ, informing, structuring and quickening its life and faith and mission as the body of Christ in the world... While the deposit of faith was replete with the truth as it is in Jesus, embodying kerygmatic, didactic and theological content, but its very nature it could not be resolved into a system of truths or set of normative doctrines and formulated beliefs, for the truths and doctrines and beliefs entailed could not be abstracted from the embodied form which they were given in Christ in the apostolic foundation of the church without loss of their real substance. Nevertheless in this embodied form "the faith once for all delivered to the saints" constituted the regulative basis for all explicit formulation of Christian truth, doctrine and belief in the deepening understanding of the church and its regular instruction of catechumens and the faithful. app is
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Thomas F. Torrance (The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Faith)
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It may be hard to convince ourselves that something we can't see, hear, touch, taste, or smell can still hurt us so dreadfully. Yet the fact must be faced, just as we've learned a healthy fear of nuclear radiation. Certain scientists, some perhaps acting in a program of deliberate disinformation, keep telling the public that we still don't know whether electropollution is a threat to human health. That's simply not true. Certainly we need to know more, but a multitude of risks have been well documented.
Three dangers overshadow all others. The first has been conclusively proven: ELF electromagnetic fields vibrating at about 30 to 100 hertz, even if they're weaker than the earth's field, interfere with the cues that keep our biological cycles properly timed; chronic stress and impaired disease resistance result. Second, the available evidence strongly suggests that regulation of cellular growth processes is impaired by electropollution, increasing cancer rates and producing serious reproductive problems. Electromagnetic weapons constitute a third class of hazards culminating in climatic manipulation from a sorcerer's-apprentice level of ignorance.
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Robert O. Becker (The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life)
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The United States is also losing the rugged pioneering spirit that once defined it. In 1850, Herman Melville boasted that “we are the pioneers of the world, the advance-guard, sent on through the wilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World.”7 Today many of the descendants of these pioneers are too terrified of tripping up to set foot on any new path. The problem starts with school. In 2013, a school district in Maryland banned, among other things, pushing children on swings, bringing homemade food into school, and distributing birthday invitations on school grounds.8 It continues in college, where professors have provided their charges with “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings.” It extends to every aspect of daily life. McDonald’s prints warning signs on its cups of coffee pointing out that “this liquid may be hot.” Winston Churchill once said to his fellow countrymen, “We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.”9 Today, thanks to a malign combination of litigation, regulation, and pedagogical fashion, sugar-candy people are everywhere.
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Alan Greenspan (Capitalism in America: An Economic History of the United States)
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Our way would seem quite familiar to the Romans, more by far than the Greek way. Socrates in the Symposium, when Alcibiades challenged him to drink two quarts of wine, could have done so or not as he chose, but the diners-out of Horace's day had no such freedom. He speaks often of the master of the drinking, who was always appointed to dictate how much each man was to drink. Very many unseemly dinner parties must have paved the way for that regulation. A Roman in his cups would've been hard to handle, surly, quarrelsome, dangerous. No doubt there had been banquets without number which had ended in fights, broken furniture, injuries, deaths. Pass a law then, the invariable Roman remedy, to keep drunkenness within bounds. Of course it worked both ways: everybody was obliged to empty the same number of glasses and the temperate man had to drink a great deal more than he wanted, but whenever laws are brought in to regulate the majority who have not abused their liberty for the sake of the minority who have, just such results come to pass. Indeed, any attempt to establish a uniform average in that stubbornly individual phenomenon, human nature, will have only one result that can be foretold with certainty: it will press hardest on the best.
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Edith Hamilton (The Roman Way)
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The three conditions without which healthy growth does not take place can be taken for granted in the matrix of the womb: nutrition, a physically secure environment and the unbroken relationship with a safe, ever-present maternal organism. The word matrix is derived from the Latin for “womb,” itself derived from the word for “mother.” The womb is mother, and in many respects the mother remains the womb, even following birth. In the womb environment, no action or reaction on the developing infant’s part is required for the provision of any of his needs.
Life in the womb is surely the prototype of life in the Garden of Eden where nothing can possibly be lacking, nothing has to be worked for. If there is no consciousness — we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Knowledge — there is also no deprivation or anxiety. Except in conditions of extreme poverty unusual in the industrialized world, although not unknown, the nutritional needs and shelter requirements of infants are more or less satisfied. The third prime requirement, a secure, safe and not overly stressed emotional atmosphere, is the one most likely to be disrupted in Western societies.
The human infant lacks the capacity to follow or cling to the parent soon after being born, and is neurologically and biochemically underdeveloped in many other ways. The first nine months or so of extrauterine life seem to have been intended by nature as the second part of gestation. The anthropologist Ashley Montagu has called this phase exterogestation, gestation outside the maternal body. During this period, the security of the womb must be provided by the parenting environment. To allow for the maturation of the brain and nervous system that in other species occurs in the uterus, the attachment that was until birth directly physical now needs to be continued on both physical and emotional levels. Physically and psychologically, the parenting environment must contain and hold the infant as securely as she was held in the womb.
For the second nine months of gestation, nature does provide a near-substitute for the direct umbilical connection: breast-feeding. Apart from its irreplaceable nutritional value and the immune protection it gives the infant, breast-feeding serves as a transitional stage from unbroken physical attachment to complete separation from the mother’s body. Now outside the matrix of the womb, the infant is nevertheless held close to the warmth of the maternal body from which nourishment continues to flow.
Breast-feeding also deepens the mother’s feeling of connectedness to the baby, enhancing the emotionally symbiotic bonding relationship. No doubt the decline of breast-feeding, particularly accelerated in North America, has contributed to the emotional insecurities so prevalent in industrialized countries. Even more than breast-feeding, healthy brain development requires emotional security and warmth in the infant’s environment. This security is more than the love and best possible intentions of the parents. It depends also on a less controllable variable: their freedom from stresses that can undermine their psychological equilibrium. A calm and consistent emotional milieu throughout infancy is an essential requirement for the wiring of the neurophysiological circuits of self-regulation. When interfered with, as it often is in our society, brain development is adversely affected.
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Gabor Maté (Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It)
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What separates me most deeply from the metaphysicians is: I don’t concede that the ’I’ is what thinks. Instead, I take the ’I’ itself to be a construction of thinking, of the same rank as ‘matter’, ‘thing’, ‘substance’, ‘individual’, ‘purpose’, ‘number’; in other words to be only a regulative fiction with the help of which a kind of constancy and thus ‘knowability’ is inserted into, invented into, a world of becoming. Up to now belief in grammar, in the linguistic subject, object, in verbs has subjugated the metaphysicians: I teach the renunciation of this belief. It is only thinking that posits the ’I’: but up to now philosophers have believed, like the ‘common people’, that in ‘I think’ there lay something or other of unmediated certainty and that this ‘I’ was the given cause of thinking, in analogy with which we ‘understood’ all other causal relations. However habituated and indispensable this fiction may now be, that in no way disproves its having been invented: something can be a condition of life and nevertheless be false.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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Everyone has had the experience of suddenly feeling intense physiological and psychological shifts internally at trading glances with another person; such shifts can be exquisitely pleasurable or unpleasant. How one person gazes at another can alter the other’s electrical brain patterns, as registered by EEGS, and may also cause physiological changes in the body. The newborn is highly susceptible to such influences, with a direct effect on the maturation of brain structures.
The effects of maternal moods on the electrical circuitry of the infant’s brain were demonstrated by a study at the University of Washington, Seattle. Positive emotions are associated with increased electrical activity in the left hemisphere. It is known that depression in adults is associated with decreased electrical activity in the circuitry of the left hemisphere. With this in mind, the Seattle study compared the EEGS of two groups of infants: one group whose mothers had symptoms of postpartum depression, the other whose mothers did not.
“During playful interactions with the mothers designed to elicit positive emotion,” the researchers reported, “infants of non-depressed mothers showed greater left than right frontal brain activation.” The infants of depressed mothers “failed to show differential hemispheric activation,” meaning that the left-side brain activity one would
anticipate from positive, joyful infant-mother exchanges did not occur — despite the mothers’ best efforts.
Significantly, these effects were noted only in the frontal areas of the brain, where the centers for the self-regulation of emotion are located. In addition to EEG changes, infants of depressed mothers exhibit decreased activity levels, gaze aversion, less positive emotion and greater irritability. Maternal depression is associated with diminished infant attention spans. Summarizing a number of British studies, Dale F. Hay, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, suggests “that the experience of the
mother’s depression in the first months of life may disrupt naturally occurring social processes that entrain and regulate the infant’s developing capacities for attention.
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Gabor Maté (Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It)
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There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known the labour of choice, and where the outer world seemed only an extension of our own personality: we accepted and loved it as we accepted our own sense of existence and our own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly, that furniture of our early home might look if it were put up to auction; an improved taste in upholstery scorns it; and is not the striving after something better and better in our surrounding, the grand characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute - or, to satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes the British man from the foreign brute? But heaven knows where that striving might lead us, if our affections had not a trick of twining round those old inferior things - if the loves and sanctities of our life had no deep immovable roots in memory. One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the confused lea age of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those severely regulated minds who are free from the weakness of any attachment that does not rest on a demonstrable superiority of qualities. And there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush than that it stirs an early memory - that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to me merely through my present sensibilities to form and colour, but the long companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys were vivid.
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George Eliot (The Mill on the Floss)
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God caught Day’s falling body before he was able to hit the floor. He dropped to his knees with his lover in his arms and held him close. “Breathe, Leo.” God coaxed while rubbing Day’s cheek. He felt Day take in a few quick breaths before he opened his eyes and stared up at him. God closed his eyes and pressed their foreheads together, not wanting to see what Day was saying. “If he had killed you, I would’ve swallowed my own gun. There’s no life without you,” God whispered just for Day to hear. He felt Day grab onto his neck, holding him close. “Let the paramedics take a look at him, Detective Godfrey.” God raised his head at his captain’s order and slowly lowered Day’s head while he moved back to let them tend to his partner. God watched them closely while they took a few quick vitals before placing him on the stretcher. One of them turned to look at God and his captain. God stepped forward. “His blood pressure’s high and pulse is erratic, so we're going to take him to the hospital to be monitored. He’ll be at St. Mary’s.” “I’m riding with him,” God demanded. “I’m sorry sir, but regulations don’t allow that.” The thin guy answered him as the other paramedic wheeled his man away. God bared his teeth right before he felt a hand come down hard on his shoulder. “Let them do their jobs, because you still have one to do too, Detective. Is that going to be a problem?” His captain leveled a hard stare on him. God paused for a second, then gave a quick jerk of his head and turned in the opposite direction that his love had gone. God walked through the hangar aware of the many eyes that were on him. He just wanted to finish his job so he could go home.
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A.E. Via (Nothing Special)
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The main factor which determines success or failure in human life is the acquisition of certain powers, for Happiness is just the exercise or putting forth of these in actual living, everything else is secondary and subordinate. These powers arise from the due development of certain natural aptitudes which belong (in various degrees) to human nature as such and therefore to all normal human beings. In their developed form they are known as virtues (the Greek means simply "goodnesses," "perfections," "excellences," or "fitnesses"), some of them are physical, but others are psychical, and among the latter some, and these distinctively or peculiarly human, are "rational," i e, presuppose the possession and exercise of mind or intelligence. These last fall into two groups, which Aristotle distinguishes as Goodnesses of Intellect and Goodnesses of Character. They have in common that they all excite in us admiration and praise of their possessors, and that they are not natural endowments, but acquired characteristics But they differ in important ways. (1) the former are excellences or developed powers of the reason as such—of that in us which sees and formulates laws, rules, regularities systems, and is content in the vision of them, while the latter involve a submission or obedience to such rules of something in us which is in itself capricious and irregular, but capable of regulation, viz our instincts and feelings, (2) the former are acquired by study and instruction, the latter by discipline. The latter constitute "character," each of them as a "moral virtue" (literally "a goodness of character"), and upon them primarily depends the realisation of happiness.
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Aristotle (Ethics)
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If we see that God’s intention is to work Himself into us, we shall automatically eat and drink of Him. Mothers know that babies eat and drink automatically, not caring for any forms, manners, or regulations. Infants are better at eating and drinking than adults are. Our eating and drinking are often hindered by all the attention we give to table manners. Sometimes the more we pay attention to manners, the less we enjoy our food. I heard of a Chinese ambassador who attended a formal state dinner in Germany. Because he was so concerned about proper etiquette and table manners, he did not enjoy the food at all. He spent his time watching how others at the dinner conducted themselves and how they used their eating utensils. Table manners kept him from eating. Children are not like this. When my little granddaughter visits us, her grandmother often gives her something to eat. My granddaughter enjoys her food in a spontaneous and informal way. She is a good example of how we should pay less attention to forms and more to eating and drinking. At the very time the Lord Jesus was speaking with the Samaritan woman, the priests in the temple were worshipping God in the formal, systematic, prescribed manner. But where was God at that time? Was He in the temple with [517] the priests, or was He with the woman by the well in Samaria? As we all know, He was with the Samaritan woman. He met with her in the open air, away from the temple and the altar, without religious forms and rituals. Eventually, this Samaritan woman drank of the living water and offered real worship to God. At that time the true worship to God was offered not by the priests in the temple, but by the Samaritan woman who was drinking the living water. The priests worshipped God in vain; the Samaritan woman worshipped Him in reality by drinking Him into her being. The Spirit as the living water was infused into her. God was seeking real worship, and He received it from this Samaritan woman who drank of the Spirit as the living water. Today’s Christians need to see what real worship is. They condemn those in the Lord’s recovery as heretical, when they themselves are heretical and ignorant of the truth. Like the priests in the temple, they are blind to what true worship is. In John 4 the Lord Jesus did not spend time talking to typical Jews according to the Old Testament way of worship. Instead, He conversed with an immoral, semi-heathen woman concerning the worship which satisfies God’s heart. This woman worshipped God in her spirit by drinking of Him as the water to quench her thirst. Thus, God was worshipped by her in a genuine way. How much different this is from formal, religious worship! Throughout the centuries, most Christian worship has been like that of the priests in the temple. Only a small number have worshipped God in spirit by drinking of Him as living water.
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Witness Lee (Life-Study of Exodus (Life-Study of the Bible))
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If you would know, therefore, who are the fascists in America, you must ask yourselves not who are the men and women most vocal in their denunciations of Hitler and Mussolini. The most ardent enemies of those two leaders were some of their rival fascist dictators in Europe. The test of fascism is not one's rage against the Italian and German war lords. The test is—how many of the essential principles of fascism do you accept and to what extent are you prepared to apply those fascist ideas to American social and economic life? When you can put your finger on the men or the groups that urge for America the debt-supported state, thee autarchial corporative state, the state bent on the socialization of investment and the bureaucratic government of industry and society, the establishment of the institution of militarism as the great glamorous public-works project of the nation and the institution of imperialism under which it proposes to regulate and rule the world and, along with this, proposes to alter the forms of our government to approach as closely as possible the unrestrained, absolute government—then you will know you have located the authentic fascist.
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John T. Flynn (As We Go Marching: A Biting Indictment of the Coming of Domestic Fascism in America)
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Godwin on Fenelon and his Valet *
Following is an excerpt from William Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Book II, Chapter II: “Of Justice”:
In a loose and general view I and my neighbour are both of us men; and of consequence entitled to equal attention. But, in reality, it is probable that one of us is a being of more worth and importance than the other. A man is of more worth than a beast; because, being possessed of higher faculties, he is capable of a more refined and genuine happiness. In the same manner the illustrious archbishop of Cambray was of more worth than his valet, and there are few of us that would hesitate to pronounce, if his palace were in flames, and the life of only one of them could be preserved, which of the two ought to be preferred.
But there is another ground of preference, beside the private consideration of one of them being further removed from the state of a mere animal. We are not connected with one or two percipient beings, but with a society, a nation, and in some sense with the whole family of mankind. Of consequence that life ought to be preferred which will be most conducive to the general good. In saving the life of Fenelon, suppose at the moment he conceived the project of his immortal Telemachus, should have been promoting the benefit of thousands, who have been cured by the perusal of that work of some error, vice and consequent unhappiness. Nay, my benefit would extend further than this; for every individual, thus cured, has become a better member of society, and has contributed in his turn to the happiness, information, and improvement of others.
Suppose I had been myself the valet; I ought to have chosen to die, rather than Fenelon should have died. The life of Fenelon was really preferable to that of the valet. But understanding is the faculty that perceives the truth of this and similar propositions; and justice is the principle that regulates my conduct accordingly. It would have been just in the valet to have preferred the archbishop to himself. To have done otherwise would have been a breach of justice.
Suppose the valet had been my brother, my father, or my benefactor. This would not alter the truth of the proposition. The life of Fenelon would still be more valuable than that of the valet; and justice, pure, unadulterated justice, would still have preferred that which was most valuable. Justice would have taught me to save the life of Fenelon at the expense of the other. What magic is there in the pronoun “my,” that should justify us in overturning the decisions of impartial truth? My brother or my father may be a fool or a profligate, malicious, lying or dishonest. If they be, of what consequence is it that they are mine?
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William Godwin
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In the west the prevalent feeling is that nature belongs exclusively to inanimate things and to beasts, that there is a sudden unaccountable break where human-nature begins. According to it, everything that is low in the scale of beings is merely nature, and whatever has the stamp of perfection on it, intellectual or moral, is human-nature. It is like dividing the bud and the blossom into two separate categories, and putting their grace to the credit of two different and antithetical principles. But the Indian mind never has any hesitation in acknowledging its kinship with nature, its unbroken relation with all.
The fundamental unity of creation was not simply a philosophical speculation for India; it was her life-object to realise this great harmony in feeling and in action. With mediation and service, with a regulation of life, she cultivated her consciousness in such a way that everything had a spiritual meaning to her. The earth, water and light, fruits and flowers, to her were not merely physical phenomena to be turned to use and then left aside. They were necessary to her in the attainment of her ideal of perfection, as every note is necessary to the completeness of the symphony. India intuitively felt that the essential fact of this world has a vital meaning for us; we have to be fully alive to it and establish a conscious relation with it, not merely impelled by scientific curiosity or greed of material advantage, but realising it in the spirit of sympathy, with a large feeling of joy and peace.
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Rabindranath Tagore (Sadhana)
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The first obstacle [to liberal education] is the learning situation itself. What is the ideal learning situation? It is the more or less continuous contact between a student and his teacher, who is another student, more advanced in many ways, but still learning himself. This situation usually does not prevail; in fact, it is extremely rare. Since the immemorial, institutions of learning, especially higher learning, have been established, called „schools“ — and the ambiguity of the term becomes immediately apparent. Institutionalization means ordering activities into certain patters; in the case of learning activities, into classes, schedules, courses, curriculums, examinations, degress, and all the venerable and sometimes ridiculous paraphernalia of academic life. The point is that such institutionalization cannot be avoided: both the gregarious and the rational character of man compel him to impose upon himself laws and regulations. Moreover, the discipline of learning itself seems to require an orderly and planned procedure. And yet we all know how this schedule routine can interfere with the spontaneity of questioning and of leaning and the occurrence of genuine wonderment. A student may even never become aware that there is the possibility of spontaneous learning which depends merely on himself and on nobody and nothing else. Once the institutional character of learning tends to prevail, the goal of liberal education may be completely lost sight of, whatever other goals may be successfully reached. And I repeat, this obstacle is not extraneous to learning. It is prefigured in the methodical and systematic character of exploratory questioning. It has to be faced over and over again.
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Jacob Klein (Lectures and Essays)
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WHAT IS CALMNESS? Calmness is not a character trait, it’s simply a skill. You have to decide that it matters, that the quality of your presence would be better if you slowed yourself down and were really connected to people and the moment you are living in. Then you practise until gradually it becomes part of you. It benefits everyone around you – they feel peaceful and happy in your presence. It’s exactly what children need in a parent. And it benefits you – with less stress hormones, you live longer and feel better. Calmness is well worth cultivating. Calmness is made up of certain actions; breathing deeper, dropping your shoulders, settling your muscles, feeling your feet strongly planted on the ground, focusing your thoughts on the job in hand in a steady easy way, and not going off into panicked thoughts. Even just counting three or four breaths, in and out, will slow your heartbeat and calm your mind down. Calm people are actually doing these things automatically; when an emergency strikes they intentionally calm themselves more in order to counter the tendency to panic and do the wrong thing. Self-regulating your level of emotional arousal is an incredibly valuable skill for life. All you have to do is notice, am I calm? If not, breathe a couple of times consciously, feel your feet on the ground, and notice how, as the last burst of adrenaline clears away, the calmness response starts to kick in. Practise this for a few days, and soon the natural appeal of calmness will pull you more and more to that peaceful and steady place. Everything is better – the taste of food, the scent of flowers, the feel of the water in your shower, warm on your skin. You will find that time slows down, and you can think more in the pause before you open your mouth. And that has real benefits!
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Steve Biddulph (Raising Girls in the 21st Century: Helping Our Girls to Grow Up Wise, Strong and Free)
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Conceive a world-society developed materially far beyond the wildest dreams of America. Unlimited power, derived partly from the artificial disintegration of atoms, partly from the actual annihilation of matter through the union of electrons and protons to form radiation, completely abolished the whole grotesque burden of drudgery which hitherto had seemed the inescapable price of civilization, nay of life itself. The vast economic routine of the world-community was carried on by the mere touching of appropriate buttons. Transport, mining, manufacture, and even agriculture were performed in this manner. And indeed in most cases the systematic co-ordination of these activities was itself the work of self-regulating machinery. Thus, not only was there no longer need for any human beings to spend their lives in unskilled monotonous labour, but further, much that earlier races would have regarded as highly skilled though stereotyped work, was now carried on by machinery. Only the pioneering of industry, the endless exhilarating research, invention, design and reorganization, which is incurred by an ever-changing society, still engaged the minds of men and women. And though this work was of course immense, it could not occupy the whole attention of a great world-community. Thus very much of the energy of the race was free to occupy itself with other no less difficult and exacting matters, or to seek recreation in its many admirable sports and arts. Materially every individual was a multi-millionaire, in that he had at his beck and call a great diversity of powerful mechanisms; but also he was a penniless friar, for he had no vestige of economic control over any other human being. He could fly through the upper air to the ends of the earth in an hour, or hang idle among the clouds all day long. His flying machine was no cumbersome aeroplane, but either a wingless aerial boat, or a mere suit of overalls in which he could disport himself with the freedom of a bird. Not only in the air, but in the sea also, he was free. He could stroll about the ocean bed, or gambol with the deep-sea fishes. And for habitation he could make his home, as he willed, either in a shack in the wilderness or in one of the great pylons which dwarfed the architecture even of the American age. He could possess this huge palace in loneliness and fill it with his possessions, to be automatically cared for without human service; or he could join with others and create a hive of social life. All these amenities he took for granted as the savage takes for granted the air which he breathes. And because they were as universally available as air, no one craved them in excess, and no one grudged another the use of them.
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Olaf Stapledon (Last and First Men)
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In the first place, this is a history of Europe’s reduction. The constituent states of Europe could no longer aspire, after 1945, to international or imperial status. The two exceptions to this rule—the Soviet Union and, in part, Great Britain—were both only half-European in their own eyes and in any case, by the end of the period recounted here, they too were much reduced. Most of the rest of continental Europe had been humiliated by defeat and occupation. It had not been able to liberate itself from Fascism by its own efforts; nor was it able, unassisted, to keep Communism at bay. Post-war Europe was liberated—or immured—by outsiders. Only with considerable effort and across long decades did Europeans recover control of their own destiny. Shorn of their overseas territories Europe’s erstwhile sea-borne empires (Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal) were all shrunk back in the course of these years to their European nuclei, their attention re-directed to Europe itself.
Secondly, the later decades of the twentieth century saw the withering away of the ‘master narratives’ of European history: the great nineteenth-century theories of history, with their models of progress and change, of revolution and transformation, that had fuelled the political projects and social movements that tore Europe apart in the first half of the century. This too is a story that only makes sense on a pan-European canvas: the decline of political fervor in the West (except among a marginalized intellectual minority) was accompanied—for quite different reasons—by the loss of political faith and the discrediting of official Marxism in the East. For a brief moment in the 1980s, to be sure, it seemed as though the intellectual Right might stage a revival around the equally nineteenth-century project of dismantling ‘society’ and abandoning public affairs to the untrammelled market and the minimalist state; but the spasm passed. After 1989 there was no overarching ideological project of Left or Right on offer in Europe—except the prospect of liberty, which for most Europeans was a promise now fulfilled.
Thirdly, and as a modest substitute for the defunct ambitions of Europe’s ideological past, there emerged belatedly—and largely by accident—the ‘European model’. Born of an eclectic mix of Social Democratic and Christian Democratic legislation and the crab-like institutional extension of the European Community and its successor Union, this was a distinctively ‘European’ way of regulating social intercourse and inter-state relations. Embracing everything from child-care to inter-state legal norms, this European approach stood for more than just the bureaucratic practices of the European Union and its member states; by the beginning of the twenty-first century it had become a beacon and example for aspirant EU members and a global challenge to the United States and the competing appeal of the ‘American way of life’.
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Tony Judt (Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945)
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I now pronounce you husband and wife.
I hadn’t considered the kiss. Not once. I suppose I’d assumed it would be the way a wedding kiss should be. Restrained. Appropriate. Mild. A nice peck. Save the real kisses for later, when you’re deliciously alone. Country club girls don’t make out in front of others. Like gum chewing, it should always be done in private, where no one else can see.
But Marlboro Man wasn’t a country club boy. He’d missed the memo outlining the rules and regulations of proper ways to kiss in public. I found this out when the kiss began--when he wrapped his loving, protective arms around me and kissed me like he meant it right there in my Episcopal church. Right there in front of my family, and his, in front of Father Johnson and Ms. Altar Guild and our wedding party and the entire congregation, half of whom were meeting me for the first time that night. But Marlboro Man didn’t seem to care. He kissed me exactly the way he’d kissed me the night of our first date--the night my high-heeled boot had gotten wedged in a crack in my parents’ sidewalk and had caused me to stumble. The night he’d caught me with his lips.
We were making out in church--there was no way around it. And I felt every bit as swept away as I had that first night. The kiss lasted hours, days, weeks…probably ten to twelve seconds in real time, which, in a wedding ceremony setting, is a pretty long kiss. And it might have been longer had the passionate moment not been interrupted by the sudden sound of a person clapping his hands.
“Woohoo! All right!” the person shouted. “Yes!”
It was Mike. The congregation broke out in laughter as Marlboro Man and I touched our foreheads together, cementing the moment forever in our memory. We were one; this was tangible to me now. It wasn’t just an empty word, a theological concept, wishful thinking. It was an official, you-and-me-against-the-world designation. We’d both left our separateness behind. From that moment forward, nothing either of us did or said or planned would be in a vacuum apart from the other. No holiday would involve our celebrating separately at our respective family homes. No last-minute trips to Mexico with friends, not that either of us was prone to last-minute trips to Mexico with friends. But still.
The kiss had sealed the deal in so many ways.
I walked proudly out of the church, the new wife of Marlboro Man. When we exited the same doors through which my dad and I had walked thirty minutes earlier, Marlboro Man’s arm wriggled loose from my grasp and instinctively wrapped around my waist, where it belonged. The other arm followed, and before I knew it we were locked in a sweet, solidifying embrace, relishing the instant of solitude before our wedding party--sisters, cousins, brothers, friends--followed closely behind.
We were married. I drew a deep, life-giving breath and exhaled. The sweating had finally stopped. And the robust air-conditioning of the church had almost completely dried my lily-white Vera.
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Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels)
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The intellectual life may be kept clean and healthful if man will live the life of nature and not import into his mind difficulties which are none of his. No man need be perplexed in his speculations.
Not less conspicuous is the preponderance of nature over will in all practical life. There is less intention in history than we ascribe to it. We impute deep-laid far-sighted plans to Cæsar and Napoleon; but the best of their power was in nature, not in them.
Our life might be much easier and simpler than we make it; that the world might be a happier place than it is; that there is no need of struggle, convulsions, and despairs, of the wringing of the hands and the gnashing of the teeth; that we miscreate our own evil.
A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine.
No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes is the object.
Not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. The world is very empty, and is indebted to this gilding, exalting soul for all its pride.
He may see what he maketh. Our dreams are the sequel of our waking knowledge.
The visions of the night bear some proportion to the visions of the day. Hideous dreams are exaggerations of the sins of the day. We see our evil affections embodied in bad physiognomies.
The same reality pervades all teaching. The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise. If he can communicate himself he can teach, but not you words. He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives. There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; then is a teaching, and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he never quite lose the benefit.
The effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. The great man knew not that he was great. It look a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment. But now, every thing he did, even to the lifting of his finger or the eating of bread, looks large, all-related, and is called an institution.
We are full of these superstitions of sense, the worship of magnitude. We call the poet inactive, because he is not a president, a merchant, or a porter. We adore an institution, and do not see that it is founded on a thought which we have. But real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a calling, our marriage, our acquisition of an office, and the like, but in a silent thought by the wayside as we walk; in a thought which revises our entire manner of life and says,—‘Thus hast thou done, but it were better thus.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Racial stereotyping. For Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders, the sin of white racism was stereotyping all black people as inferior. It was a prejudice to be sure, but it was predicated on the assumption that all blacks were the same. King objected to stereotyping because he wanted blacks to be treated as individuals and not reduced exclusively to their racial identity (hence the meaning of his famous statement about the content of one's character taking precedence over the color of one's skin).
The postmodern left turns the civil rights model on its head. It embraces racial stereotyping -- racial identity by any other name -- and reverses it, transforming it into something positive, provided the pecking order of power is kept in place. In the new moral scheme of racial identities, black inferiority is replaced by white culpability, rendering the entire white race, with few exceptions, collectively guilty of racial oppression. The switch is justified through the logic of racial justice, but that does not change the fact that people are being defined by their racial characteristic. Racism is viewed as structural, so it is permissible to use overtly positive discrimination (i.e., affirmative action) to reorder society.
This end-justifies-the-means mentality of course predates the postmodern left. It can be found in the doctrine of affirmative action. But the racial theorists of identity politics have taken "positive" discrimination to a whole new level. Whereas affirmative action was justified mainly in terms of trying to give disadvantaged blacks a temporary leg up, the racial theorists of the postmodern left see corrective action as permanent. The unending struggle that ensues necessitates acceptance of a new type of racial stereotyping as a way of life and increasingly as something that needs to be enshrined in administrative regulations and the law.
The idea of positive stereotyping contains all sorts of illiberal troublemaking. Once one race is set up as victim and another as guilty of racism, any means necessary are permitted to correct the alleged unjust distribution of power. Justice becomes retaliatory rather than color blind -- a matter of vengeance rather than justice. The notion of collective racial guilt, once a horror to liberal opinion, is routinely accepted today as the true mark of a progressive. Casualties are not only King's dream of racial harmony but also the hope that someday we can all -- blacks and whites -- rise above racial stereotypes.
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Kim R. Holmes (The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left)
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The Blue Mind Rx Statement
Our wild waters provide vast cognitive, emotional, physical, psychological, social, and spiritual values for people from birth, through adolescence, adulthood, older age, and in death; wild waters provide a useful, widely available, and affordable range of treatments healthcare practitioners can incorporate into treatment plans.
The world ocean and all waterways, including lakes, rivers, and wetlands (collectively, blue space), cover over 71% of our planet. Keeping them healthy, clean, accessible, and biodiverse is critical to human health and well-being.
In addition to fostering more widely documented ecological, economic, and cultural diversities, our mental well-being, emotional diversity, and resiliency also rely on the global ecological integrity of our waters.
Blue space gives us half of our oxygen, provides billions of people with jobs and food, holds the majority of Earth's biodiversity including species and ecosystems, drives climate and weather, regulates temperature, and is the sole source of hydration and hygiene for humanity throughout history.
Neuroscientists and psychologists add that the ocean and wild waterways are a wellspring of happiness and relaxation, sociality and romance, peace and freedom, play and creativity, learning and memory, innovation and insight, elation and nostalgia, confidence and solitude, wonder and awe, empathy and compassion, reverence and beauty — and help manage trauma, anxiety, sleep, autism, addiction, fitness, attention/focus, stress, grief, PTSD, build personal resilience, and much more.
Chronic stress and anxiety cause or intensify a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. Being on, in, and near water can be among the most cost-effective ways of reducing stress and anxiety.
We encourage healthcare professionals and advocates for the ocean, seas, lakes, and rivers to go deeper and incorporate the latest findings, research, and insights into their treatment plans, communications, reports, mission statements, strategies, grant proposals, media, exhibits, keynotes, and educational programs and to consider the following simple talking points:
•Water is the essence of life: The ocean, healthy rivers, lakes, and wetlands are good for our minds and bodies.
•Research shows that nature is therapeutic, promotes general health and well-being, and blue space in both urban and rural settings further enhances and broadens cognitive, emotional, psychological, social, physical, and spiritual benefits.
•All people should have safe access to salubrious, wild, biodiverse waters for well-being, healing, and therapy.
•Aquatic biodiversity has been directly correlated with the therapeutic potency of blue space. Immersive human interactions with healthy aquatic ecosystems can benefit both.
•Wild waters can serve as medicine for caregivers, patient families, and all who are part of patients’ circles of support.
•Realization of the full range and potential magnitude of ecological, economic, physical, intrinsic, and emotional values of wild places requires us to understand, appreciate, maintain, and improve the integrity and purity of one of our most vital of medicines — water.
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Wallace J. Nichols (Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do)