Resolutions Deep Quotes

Abuse doesn’t come from people’s inability to resolve conflicts but from one person’s decision to claim a higher status than another. So while it is valuable, for example, to teach nonviolent conflict-resolution skills to elementary school students—a popular initiative nowadays—such efforts contribute little by themselves to ending abuse. Teaching equality, teaching a deep respect for all human beings — these are more complicated undertakings, but they are the ones that count.

Shine in any season of your life! Head on with confidence in your life’s pilgrim! In deep faith, countless hope and unconditional love blessed by the Almighty. Newness of each rising day, bringing forth colourful sunsets. Enkindle your soul once more with courage, joy and love, flowing in a river of awakening & sharing: with a heart who once knew that hurt, pain, loss… means to SHINE!

My New Year's Eve is always 2 July, the night before my birthday. That's the night I make my resolutions. And this year scares the life out of me, because no matter how successful, how good things appear, there is always a deep core of failure within me, although I am trying to deal with it. My biggest fear, this coming year, is that I will be waking up alone. It makes me wonder how many bodies will be fished out of the Thames, how many decaying corpses will be found in one-room flats. I'm just being realistic.

We all look for strategies or techniques that will free us from the pain of relationships and the hard work good relationships demand. We hope that better planning, more effective communication, clear role definitions, conflict resolution strategies, gender studies, and personality typing--to name just a few -- will make the difference. There may be value in these things, but if they were all we needed, Jesus' life, death, and resurrection would be unnecessary or, at best, redundant. Skills and techniques appeal to us because they promise that relational problems can be fixed by tweaking our behavior without altering the bent of our hearts. But the Bible says something very different. It says that Christ is the only real hope for relationships because only he can dig deep enough to address the core motivations and desires of our hearts. Most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength. Self-reliance is almost always a component of a bad relationship.

Deep tiredness loosens the strictures of identity. Things flicker, twinkle, and vibrate at the edges. They grow less determinate and more porous and lose some of their resolution. This particular in-difference lends them an aura of friendliness. Rigid delimitation with respect to one’s surroundings is suspended:

Especially the deep, post-holiday extremes of January and February, when, no longer buoyed by festivities and merriments, you’re confronted with the empty expanse of a new year, discarded resolutions in your wake, resigned to your own inability to change.

I feel like we’re in an action movie like True Lies. I’m Jamie Lee Curtis, and you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger.” “I’ll be back,” Jakob said in a deep Austrian accent, and I laughed.

You speak as if you envied him." "And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy." Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if possible. She made her plan; she would speak of something totally different—the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying, "You will not ask me what is the point of envy.—You are determined, I see, to have no curiosity.—You are wise—but I cannot be wise. Emma, I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment." "Oh! then, don't speak it, don't speak it," she eagerly cried. "Take a little time, consider, do not commit yourself." "Thank you," said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not another syllable followed. Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in her—perhaps to consult her;—cost her what it would, she would listen. She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it; she might give just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence, relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his.—They had reached the house. "You are going in, I suppose?" said he. "No,"—replied Emma—quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which he still spoke—"I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not gone." And, after proceeding a few steps, she added—"I stopped you ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you pain.—But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation—as a friend, indeed, you may command me.—I will hear whatever you like. I will tell you exactly what I think." "As a friend!"—repeated Mr. Knightley.—"Emma, that I fear is a word—No, I have no wish—Stay, yes, why should I hesitate?—I have gone too far already for concealment.—Emma, I accept your offer—Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to you as a friend.—Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?" He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression of his eyes overpowered her. "My dearest Emma," said he, "for dearest you will always be, whatever the event of this hour's conversation, my dearest, most beloved Emma—tell me at once. Say 'No,' if it is to be said."—She could really say nothing.—"You are silent," he cried, with great animation; "absolutely silent! at present I ask no more." Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most prominent feeling. "I cannot make speeches, Emma:" he soon resumed; and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing.—"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am.—You hear nothing but truth from me.—I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.—Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have been a very indifferent lover.—But you understand me.—Yes, you see, you understand my feelings—and will return them if you can. At present, I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice.

Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried - "My heart will break!" What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief - I wept. "Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass," said the calm Madame Beck. To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly - "Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving. "Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke. "But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman - "Sortez d'ici!" "I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she threatened pertinaciously. "Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant!" He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt. "What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent - a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character." "You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what I see; it must have and give solace. Leave me!" This time, in the "leave me" there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself - re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death. "It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he. "It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said.

Because life has many deep valleys and bottomless precipices, you will always need high bridges and resolution is the highest bridge you can ever have!

They told tales as they sat at their work, and every one related what wonderful things he had seen or experienced. One afternoon I heard an old man among them say that God knew every thing, both what had happened and what would happen. That idea occupied my whole mind, and towards evening, as I went alone from the court, where there was a deep pond, and stood upon some stones which were just within the water, the thought passed through my head, whether God actually knew everything which was to happen there. Yes, he has now determined that I should live and be so many years old, thought I; but, if I now were to jump into the water here and drown myself, then it would not be as he wished; and all at once I was firmly and resolutely determined to drown myself. I ran to where the water was deepest, and then a new thought passed through my soul. "It is the devil who wishes to have power over me!" I uttered a loud cry, and, running away from the place as if I were pursued, fell weeping into my mother's arms. But neither she nor any one else could wring from me what was amiss with me.

An erect figure, a steady countenance, a neat dress, a genteel air, an oratorical period, a resolute, determined spirit, often do more than deep erudition or indefatigable application.

Because this painting has never been restored there is a heightened poignance to it somehow; it doesn’t have the feeling of unassailable permanence that paintings in museums do. There is a small crack in the lower left, and a little of the priming between the wooden panel and the oil emulsions of paint has been bared. A bit of abrasion shows, at the rim of a bowl of berries, evidence of time’s power even over this—which, paradoxically, only seems to increase its poetry, its deep resonance. If you could see the notes of a cello, when the bow draws slowly and deeply across its strings, and those resonant reverberations which of all instruments’ are nearest to the sound of the human voice emerge—no, the wrong verb, they seem to come into being all at once, to surround us, suddenly, with presence—if that were made visible, that would be the poetry of Osias Beert. But the still life resides in absolute silence. Portraits often seem pregnant with speech, or as if their subjects have just finished saying something, or will soon speak the thoughts that inform their faces, the thoughts we’re invited to read. Landscapes are full of presences, visible or unseen; soon nymphs or a stag or a band of hikers will make themselves heard. But no word will ever be spoken here, among the flowers and snails, the solid and dependable apples, this heap of rumpled books, this pewter plate on which a few opened oysters lie, giving up their silver. These are resolutely still, immutable, poised for a forward movement that will never occur. The brink upon which still life rests is the brink of time, the edge of something about to happen. Everything that we know crosses this lip, over and over, like water over the edge of a fall, as what might happen does, as any of the endless variations of what might come true does so, and things fall into being, tumble through the progression of existing in time. Painting creates silence. You could examine the objects themselves, the actors in a Dutch still life—this knobbed beaker, this pewter salver, this knife—and, lovely as all antique utilitarian objects are, they are not, would not be, poised on the edge these same things inhabit when they are represented. These things exist—if indeed they are still around at all—in time. It is the act of painting them that makes them perennially poised, an emergent truth about to be articulated, a word waiting to be spoken. Single word that has been forming all these years in the light on the knife’s pearl handle, in the drops of moisture on nearly translucent grapes: At the end of time, will that word be said?

The doorbell rings and I sink into a heap on the carpet. With any luck, whoever is down there will just go away. But I’m just starting to think nothing goes away, no matter how deep you try to bury it.

Your sankalpa is like deeply sown seed of resolution that you plant deep inside your being. You connect with it and silently speak this resolution to yourself — stating it as if it has already come to fruition.

Taken thus by surprise, it was several moments before she was able to decide whether to make herself known to him, or to await a formal introduction. The strict propriety in which she had been reared urged her to adopt the latter course; then she remembered that she was not a young girl any longer, but a guardian-aunt ... To flinch before what would certainly be an extremely disagreeable interview would be the act, she told herself, of a pudding-heart. Bracing herself resolutely, she got up from the writing-table, and turned, saying, in a cool, pleasant tone: 'Mr Calverleigh?' He had picked up a newspaper from the table in the centre of the room, and was glancing through it, but he lowered it, and looked enquiringly across at her. His eyes, which were deep-set and of a light grey made the more striking by the swarthiness of his complexion, held an expression of faint surprise; he said: 'Yes?

No matter what happened, he would protect her. Anyone who dared hurt her would wish he was never born. Resolution and conviction settled deep within him and soothed his nerves. She was his Queen, his mate, his soul, his everything.

Born in me as well, all those years ago, was an intense love of life, a resolution to escape from ordinariness, an immense curiosity about the world and the way it works, and a deep compassion for anyone who is honestly seeking a better way.

Good powerlessness (because there is also a bad powerlessness) allows you to “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). You stop holding yourself up, so you can be held. There, wonderfully, you are not in control and only God needs to be right. That is always the very special space of any positive powerlessness and vulnerability, but it is admittedly rare. Faith can only happen in this very special threshold space. You don’t really do faith, it happens to you when you give up control and all the steering of your ship. Frankly, we often do it when we have no other choice. Faith hardly ever happens when we rush to judgment or seek too-quick resolution of anything. Thus you see why faith will invariably be a minority and suspect position. And you also see why the saints always said that faith is a gift. You fall into it more than ever fully choosing it, and only then do you know how grace, love, and God can sustain you and strengthen you at very deep levels.

Amongst so many strange things: the predictable sun, the countless stars, the trees that resolutely put on the same green splendor each time their season mysteriously comes round, the river that ebbs and flows, the shimmering yellow sand and summer air, the pulsating body which is born, grows old and dies, all the vast distances and the passing days, enigmas which we all in our innocence believe to be familiar, amongst all these presences that seem oblivious to ours, it is understandable that one day, in the face of the inexplicable, we experience the unpleasant feeling that we are just voyagers through a phantasmagoria... But, despite its intensity, that feeling, which we all have sometimes, does not last and does not go deep enough to unsettle our lives. One day, when we least expect it, it suddenly overwhelms us.

Ibn al-Qayyim has a profound statement in his book Al-Fawaid. Referring to the effect of negative and sinful thoughts, he said: “You should repulse a thought. If you do not do so, it will develop into a desire. You should therefore wage war against it. If you do not do so, it will become a resolution and firm intention. If you do not repulse this, it will develop into a deed. If you do not make up for it by doing the opposite [the opposite of that evil deed], it will become a habit. It will then be very difficult for you to give it up”. Another similar quote: “You should know the initial stage of every knowledge that is within your choice is your thoughts and notions. These thoughts and notions lead you into fantasies. These fantasies lead towards the will and desire to carry out [those fantasies]. These wills and desires demand the act should be committed. Repeatedly committing these acts causes them to become a habit. So the goodness of these stages lies in the goodness of thoughts and notions, and the wickedness of these thoughts lies in the wickedness of thoughts and notions”. May Allah be pleased with him! He offers a deep insight into something so subtle. We should all memorise these words and use it whenever we feel unable to control the tsunami of negative thoughts that overtake our minds.

To be told, “The past is the past and we are new creatures in Christ, so don’t worry about what you can’t change,” at first relieves the need to face the unsightly reality of the destructive past. After a time, however, the unclaimed pain of the past presses for resolution, and the only solution is to continue to deny.3 The result is either a sense of deep personal contempt for one’s inability to forgive and forget, or a deepened sense of betrayal toward those who desired to silence the pain of the abuse in a way that feels similar to the perpetrator’s desire to mute the victim. Hiding the past always involves denial; denial of the past is always a denial of God.

Out of that night and day of unconditional wrath, folks would've expected to see any city, if it survived, all newly reborn, purified by flame, taken clear beyond greed, real-estate speculating, local politics--instead of which, here was this weeping widow, some one-woman grievance committee in black, who would go on and save up and lovlingly record and mercilessly begrudge every goddamn single tear she ever had to cry, and over the years to come would make up for them all by developing into the meanest, cruelest bitch of a city, even among cities not notable for their kindness. To all appearance resolute, adventurous, manly, the city would not shake that terrible all-night rape, when "he" was forced to submit, surrending, inadmissably, blindly feminine, into the Hellfire embrace of "her" beloved. He spent the years afterward forgetting and fabulating and trying to get back some self-respect. But inwardly, deep inside, "he" remained the catamite of Hell, the punk at the disposal of all the denizens thereof, the bitch in men's clothing.

Our problem is not that as children our needs were unmet, but that, as adults, they are still unmourned! In fact, neediness itself tells us nothing about how much we need from others; it tells us how much we need to grieve the irrevocably barren past and evoke our own inner source of nurturance. What was missed can never be made up for, only mourned and let go of. We are grieving the irretrievable aspect of what we lost and the irreplaceable aspect of what we missed. Only these two realizations led to resolution of grief because only these acknowledge, without denial, how truly bereft we were or are. From the pit of this deep admission that something is irrevocably over and gone we finally stand clear of the insatiable need to find it again from our parents or partner. To have sought it was to have denied how utter was its absence.

I have always found it difficult not to be moved by Jerusalem, even when I hated it—and God knows I have hated it for the sheer human cost of it. But the sight of it, from afar or inside the labyrinth of its walls, softens me. Every inch of it holds the confidence of ancient civilizations, their deaths and their birthmarks pressed deep into the city's viscera and onto the rubble of its edges. The deified and the condemned have set their footprints in its sand. It has been conqured, razed and, rebuilt so many times that its stones seem to possess life, bestowed by the audit trail of prayer and blood. Yet somehow, it exhales humility. It sparks an inherent sense of familiary in me—that doubtless, irrefutable Palestinian certainty that I belong to this land. It possesses me, no matter who conquers it, because its soil is the keeper of my roots, of the bones of my ancestors. Because it knows the private lust that flamed the beds of all my foremothers. Because I am the natural seed of its passionate, tempestuous past. I am a daughter of the land, and Jerusalem reassures me of this inalienable right, far more than the yellowed property deeds, the Ottoman land registries, the iron keys to our stolen homes, or UN resolutions and decrees of superpowers could ever do.

The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible--for she often read aloud when her husband was absent--soon awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Having no fear of my kind mistress before my eyes, (she had given me no reason to fear,) I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and without hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters...Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade the continuance of her [reading] instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief.... Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband. The effect of his words, on me, was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences--cold and harsh--sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought. It was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery, against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit: the white man's power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man. "Very well," thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be a slave." I instinctively assented to the proposition; and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. This was just what I needed; and got it at a time, and from a source, whence I least expected it.... Wise as Mr. Auld was, he evidently underrated my comprehension, and had little idea of the use to which I was capable of putting the impressive lesson he was giving to his wife.... That which he most loved I most hated; and the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence.

If we are lucky, we can find a moment on the 31st to take a deep breath and sit very still. We can focus on all that is right with the world and all that is wrong — on all the ways we have striven for personal decency in our lives and, alas, on all the ways we have failed. We can recall the people we have loved who we have lost, and ponder the friends and family who deserve more attention than we give them. And maybe those are the only resolutions that matter: the ones that focus on others.

A couple that can argue well can also live together well. This does not mean that arguing is valued in and of itself. However, conflict is inevitable when two different people try to share their lives at many different levels. It is very important that neither is scared to speak up. It is vital that each can honestly say how they feel and what they think. Each must know that they are respected, even if disagreed with. Only in this way, can a genuine, open, and deep bond be grown between the two.

History belongs, above all, to the active and powerful man, the man who fights one great battle, who needs the exemplary men, teachers, and comforters and cannot find them among his contemporary companions. Thus, history belongs to Schiller: for our age is so bad, said Goethe, that the poet no longer encounters any useful nature in the human life surrounding him. Looking back to the active men, Polybius calls political history an example of the right preparation for ruling a state and the most outstanding teacher, something which, through the memory of other people's accidents, advises us to bear with resolution the changes in our happiness. Anyone who has learned to recognize the sense of history in this way must get annoyed to see inquisitive travellers or painstaking micrologists climbing all over the pyramids of the great things of the past. There, in the place where he finds the stimulation to breath deeply and to make things better, he does not wish to come across an idler who strolls around, greedy for distraction or stimulation, as among the accumulated art treasures of a gallery. In order not to despair and feel disgust in the midst of weak and hopeless idlers, surrounded by apparently active, but really only agitated and fidgeting companions, the active man looks behind him and interrupts the path to his goal to take a momentary deep breath. His purpose is some happiness or other, perhaps not his own, often that of a people or of humanity collectively. He runs back away from resignation and uses history as a way of fighting resignation. For the most part, no reward beckons him on, other than fame, that is, becoming a candidate for an honoured place in the temple of history, where he himself can be, in his turn, a teacher, consoler, and advisor for those who come later.

Deep in the minds of most energetic persons lies some strong desire, some strong ambition, or some resolute hope, which unconsciously moulds, or, at least, influences their every act. No matter what their circumstances in life may be, or how much they may yield to those circumstances for a time, the one idea remains ever the same. This is, in fact, one of the secrets of how individual force of character comes out at times. The great idea, whatever it may be, sits enthroned in the mind, and round it gather subordinate wishes and resolves, as the feudal nobles round the King, and so goes on the chain down the whole gamut of man’s nature from the taming or suppression of his wildest passions down to the commonplace routine of his daily life. And yet we wonder at times to see, when occasion offers, with what astonishing rapidity certain individuals assert themselves, and how, when a strange circumstance arises, some new individual arises along with it, as though the man and the hour were predestined for each other. We need not wonder if we will but think that all along the man was ready, girt in his armour, resolved in his cause, and merely awaiting, although, perhaps, he knew it not, the opportunity to manifest himself.

At the 2010 USSF Healing Justice People’s Movement Assembly, one of many large scale gatherings on topics to occur at the USSF to draft resolutions and visionary future plans, I heard Cara say something that has stuck with me ever since: “Our movements themselves need to be healing, or there is no point to them.” This shook me. The idea that movements themselves could and should be spaces of healing, that care didn’t have to be a sideline to “the real work” but could be the work, was like a deep drink of clear water. It was something I’d been longing for for years. I think healing justice is a space of longing.

Beautiful makes you come back for more. It makes you ask questions. It's vast, unknowable and magnificent. That's part of its power. It makes you think about the experience it's giving you. Beauty flourishes on sorrow. It's enriched by the knowledge that life is fleeting, sometimes cruel and often ends without resolution. That's what makes beauty deep. When you're looking for someone, you're looking for some aspect of yourself, even if you don't know it. What we're searching for is what we lack. No dream can live up to its expectations. Ownership is brief; in fact, it's a fiction. And beauty? Beauty is a discovery that diminishes the truth of reality.

You need to get home, both of you. Louis, I’d like to keep the letters here, if you don’t mind. I want to go over them again.” I came to my feet. “And ask the stars about them?” Jesse nodded. Armand only shook his head, gloomy. There were bruises under his eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday. “Ask the-fine. Splendid. Keep them if you like. Burn them. Turn them to gold or silver or lead. In the morning I’ll wake up and none of this will have happened.” “No, lordling,” I said to him. “You’re never going to wake like that again, and you’re never going to be able to forget.” “Bugger you, waif.” “And you.” He walked past both of us without another glance or another word, opened the door, and disappeared into the night. I went to Jesse and wrapped my arms around him. After only a second’s hesitation, his arms lifted to embrace me, too. “I don’t want to go,” I whispered. I felt his chest expand beneath my cheek. “This is going to be much more difficult than I anticipated.” “Which part?” “All of it.” He brought a hand to my hair, his fingers weaving through. “Things are about to change rapidly now, Lora. He’ll come back to us stronger and stronger. He’s going to crave you more and more, and not having you will eat him raw.” I frowned up at him. “What do you mean?” Jesse tucked a strand behind my ear, his eyes emerald dark, his lashes tipped with candlelight. “It will be in his nature. He’ll feel compelled to claim you, and he won’t stop trying to do that. Ever. When that happens-“ “That is not bloody going to happen.” “When that happens,” he said again resolutely, “I want you to remember two things. One: I’ve loved you since before he even knew you lived. Two: Spare a little pity for him. This isn’t entirely his fault. He was born into his role, just as you and I were. But, Lora-of-the-moon-only a little pity, all right?” “My pity may reach as deep and wide as the ocean,” I answered. “But my heart is already claimed.” To prove it, I clutched his shirt and lifted myself to my toes and brought my lips to his. Sweeter than raspberry jam, warmer than candle flame, softer than bread. People often spoke with religious rapture of milk and honey, but if I had nothing but Jesse to consume for the rest of my days, I’d die a heathen beast, content.

Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid For that good hand thou sent’st the Emperor. Here are the heads of thy two noble sons, And here’s thy hand in scorn to thee sent back. Thy grief their sports! thy resolution mock'd, That woe is me to think upon thy woes More than remembrance of my father’s death. [Exit.] Marc. Now let hot Aetna cool in Sicily, And be my heart an ever-burning hell! These miseries are more than may be borne. To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal, But sorrow flouted at is double death. Luc. Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound And yet detested life not shrink thereat! That ever death should let life bear his name, Where life hath no more interest but to breathe. [Lavinia kisses Titus.] Marc. Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless As frozen water to a starvèd snake. Tit. When will this fearful slumber have an end? Marc. Now farewell, flatt’ry; die, Andronicus. Thou dost not slumber. See thy two sons’ heads, Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here, Thy other banished son with this dear sight Struck pale and bloodless; and thy brother, I, Even like a stony image cold and numb. Ah, now no more will I control thy griefs. Rent off thy silver hair, thy other hand, Gnawing with thy teeth, and be this dismal sight The closing up of our most wretched eyes. Now is a time to storm. Why art thou still? Tit. Ha, ha, ha! Marc. Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour. Tit. Why, I have not another tear to shed. Besides, this sorrow is an enemy And would usurp upon my wat’ry eyes And make them blind with tributary tears. Then which way shall I find Revenge’s cave? For these two heads do seem to speak to me And threat me I shall never come to bliss Till all these mischiefs be returned again Even in their throats that hath committed them. Come, let me see what task I have to do. You heavy people, circle me about That I may turn me to each one of you And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs. The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head, And in this hand the other will I bear. And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employed in these arms. Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth. As for thee, boy, go get thee from my sight. Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay. Hie to the Goths and raise an army there. And if you love me, as I think you do, Let’s kiss and part, for we have much to do. Exeunt.

The northern boreal world was unique and unlike any other on earth, still undisturbed, with deep linkages to other sub-artic cultures and its unbroken chain of story-lives going back into the pre-Columbian past. The forests are as yet uncut, the greed of great cities for water and power has, as yet, dammed up only a few of its rivers. It has not been trampled by gold-seekers and ideology-mad politicos and marked by the uncounted deaths that has made Siberia a land of tears and terror and pollution. It is still clean and mostly aboriginal and the call of the wild is a melody arriving from inside us, out of our own distant past. Somewhere in the world there are rock paintings created by the ancestors of each one of us, and there are songs behind the dancing figures, and thoughts behind the songs. It is a past to be reckoned with, replete with action, violence, wars, discord, resolution, and courage, star-legends with episodes following one on the heels of another.

In the EPJ results, there were two statistically distinguishable groups of experts. The first failed to do better than random guessing, and in their longer-range forecasts even managed to lose to the chimp. The second group beat the chimp, though not by a wide margin, and they still had plenty of reason to be humble. Indeed, they only barely beat simple algorithms like “always predict no change” or “predict the recent rate of change.” Still, however modest their foresight was, they had some. So why did one group do better than the other? It wasn’t whether they had PhDs or access to classified information. Nor was it what they thought—whether they were liberals or conservatives, optimists or pessimists. The critical factor was how they thought. One group tended to organize their thinking around Big Ideas, although they didn’t agree on which Big Ideas were true or false. Some were environmental doomsters (“We’re running out of everything”); others were cornucopian boomsters (“We can find cost-effective substitutes for everything”). Some were socialists (who favored state control of the commanding heights of the economy); others were free-market fundamentalists (who wanted to minimize regulation). As ideologically diverse as they were, they were united by the fact that their thinking was so ideological. They sought to squeeze complex problems into the preferred cause-effect templates and treated what did not fit as irrelevant distractions. Allergic to wishy-washy answers, they kept pushing their analyses to the limit (and then some), using terms like “furthermore” and “moreover” while piling up reasons why they were right and others wrong. As a result, they were unusually confident and likelier to declare things “impossible” or “certain.” Committed to their conclusions, they were reluctant to change their minds even when their predictions clearly failed. They would tell us, “Just wait.” The other group consisted of more pragmatic experts who drew on many analytical tools, with the choice of tool hinging on the particular problem they faced. These experts gathered as much information from as many sources as they could. When thinking, they often shifted mental gears, sprinkling their speech with transition markers such as “however,” “but,” “although,” and “on the other hand.” They talked about possibilities and probabilities, not certainties. And while no one likes to say “I was wrong,” these experts more readily admitted it and changed their minds. Decades ago, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote a much-acclaimed but rarely read essay that compared the styles of thinking of great authors through the ages. To organize his observations, he drew on a scrap of 2,500-year-old Greek poetry attributed to the warrior-poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” No one will ever know whether Archilochus was on the side of the fox or the hedgehog but Berlin favored foxes. I felt no need to take sides. I just liked the metaphor because it captured something deep in my data. I dubbed the Big Idea experts “hedgehogs” and the more eclectic experts “foxes.” Foxes beat hedgehogs. And the foxes didn’t just win by acting like chickens, playing it safe with 60% and 70% forecasts where hedgehogs boldly went with 90% and 100%. Foxes beat hedgehogs on both calibration and resolution. Foxes had real foresight. Hedgehogs didn’t.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration:—feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee! And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, not any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

But what about the things that you CANNOT do with the electronic version [of a book]? You cannot drop the computer on the floor in a fit of pique, or slam it shut. You cannot leave a bookmark with a note on it in a computer and then come upon it after several years and feel happy you've found something you thought you had lost. You cannot get any sort of tactile pleasure from rubbing the pages of a computer. (Maybe some people do get a tactile pleasure from rubbing their computers, but they are not people I have any interest in knowing anything about.) Reading on a computer screen gives you no sense of time or investment. The page always looks the same, and everything else is always in the same exact spot. When reading a book, no matter how large or small it is, a tension builds, concurrent with your progress through its pages. I get a nervous excitement as I see the number of pages that remain to be read draining inexorably from the right to the left... I've never sat down at a new computer and, prior to using it, felt a deep and abiding need to open it up and sniff it as deeply as I can, the way I have with my a book...and though a computer will inarguably hold far more information than even the largest of books, sitting down at a computer has never provided me with that delicious anticipatory sense that I am about to be utterly and rhapsodically transported by the words within it. I've never looked across the room at my computer and fondly remembered things that I once read in it. I can while away hours at a time just standing in front of my books and relive my favourite passages by merely gazing at their spines. I have never walked into a room full of computers, far from home, and immediately felt a warm familiarity come over me, the way I have with every library I've ever set foot in. It is not so much that I am anti-computer; I am resolutely and stubbornly pro-book.

You will also be tempted to try to hold onto a sense of presence, to make a steady state of it. It will not work. If you are lucky, you’ll just miss the moment and be frustrated. If you are successful in holding on, things will be much worse. At some point you will discover that what you are holding is not real; it is something you yourself have contrived. You will also discover that you have been suppressing and deceiving yourself in order to keep it. . . . In trying to maintain a state, we are naturally expressing our deep desire for wakeful presence in love. But it is a wrong way of expressing it. This way becomes willful so quickly and insidiously that we lose touch with our relationship with grace . . . And grace, thank God, is not dependent upon our state of mind. Some traditions would disagree with my advice. Much of the spirituality of the early Christian desert, for example, advised using all one’s mental strength to hold onto remembrance of Christ. Some Hindu and Buddhist disciplines encourage a similar forcefulness. Such effortful concentration may have a place in monastic settings and can be helpful as a temporary mental stretch before yielding into simple presence. But I do not recommend it as a steady diet for people who live in the world of families, homes, and workplaces. I have tried it myself, and it only created great trouble for me. I became depressed and irritable inside and absolutely obnoxious around friends and family. . . . I suggest you become familiar with the feeling you have inside when you make a resolution or strive to cling to something . . . Get to know the feeling well, so that whenever you feel it you can stop what you’re doing, take a breath, relax, yield a little, and let your real self turn to the real God. . . Seek to encourage yourself instead of manipulating yourself. Cultivate your receptivity to the little interior glances instead of grasping for them. Live, love, and yearn with unbearable passion, but don’t try to make it happen and don’t try to hold on when it does happen.

Charles Bean, the official historian of Australia’s part in World War I, was unusual in dealing closely with the deeds of the soldiers on the front line, and not just the plans and orders of their leaders. At the end of his account of the Gallipoli landing in the Official History, he asked what made the soldiers fight on. What motive sustained them? At the end of the second or third day of the Landing, when they had fought without sleep until the whole world seemed a dream, and they scarcely knew whether it was a world of reality or of delirium – and often, no doubt, it held something of both; when half of each battalion had been annihilated, and there seemed no prospect before any man except that of wounds or death in the most vile surroundings; when the dead lay three deep in the rifle-pits under the blue sky and the place was filled with stench and sickness, and reason had almost vanished – what was it then that carried each man on? It was not love of a fight. The Australian loved fighting better than most, but it is an occupation from which the glamour quickly wears. It was not hatred of the Turk. It is true that the men at this time hated their enemy for his supposed ill-treatment of the wounded – and the fact that, of the hundreds who lay out, only one wounded man survived in Turkish hands has justified their suspicions. But hatred was not the motive which inspired them. Nor was it purely patriotism, as it would have been had they fought on Australian soil. The love of country in Australians and New Zealanders was intense – how strong, they did not realise until they were far away from their home. Nor, in most cases was the motive their loyalty to the tie between Australia and Great Britain. Although, singly or combined, all these were powerful influences, they were not the chief. Nor was it the desire for fame that made them steer their course so straight in the hour of crucial trial. They knew too well the chance that their families, possibly even the men beside them, would never know how they died. Doubtless the weaker were swept on by the stronger. In every army which enters into battle there is a part which is dependent for its resolution upon the nearest strong man. If he endures, those around him will endure; if he turns, they turn; if he falls, they may become confused. But the Australian force contained more than its share of men who were masters of their own minds and decisions. What was the dominant motive that impelled them? It lay in the mettle of the men themselves. To be the sort of man who would give way when his mates were trusting to his firmness; to be the sort of man who would fail when the line, the whole force, and the allied cause required his endurance; to have made it necessary for another unit to do his own unit’s work; to live the rest of his life haunted by the knowledge that he had set his hand to a soldier’s task and had lacked the grit to carry it through – that was the prospect which these men could not face. Life was very dear, but life was not worth living unless they could be true to their idea of Australian manhood.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration:—feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee! And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompence. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

The king does seal himself from his subjects and will not speak on such matters, but the Grudge price must be set and so it shall be. For the desecration of the Third Deep: one thousand urk heads. For the lost lives of two hundred and thirteen dawi in defiance of such barbarism: two thousand urk heads. For the abduction of Queen Morga, the lustre of Azul, and those others of King Kazador’s blood: their safe return with five thousand urk heads, or the restoration of their remains to the Ancestor Chambers of Karak Azul and no fewer than six thousand of the greenskin dead. Of Kazador’s son, the king does forbid our speaking beyond the pages of the kron. The prince is no longer of sound mind and the king does command his confinement until he can be found recovered. Let it be known that that for the brutal shaming of brave Prince Kazrik upon the very seat of the Iron Throne itself, King Kazador will accept no price. May this grudge against the urk of Black Crag stand forevermore. The greatly wronged king did then rouse from his grief to issue one mighty decree: half his wealth to any that returns his lost kin, and the pick of his own treasures to any that can avenge his son’s torture upon the squatter king. The thanes did each raise voice against so rash and unprecedented an oath, but the king, so mined of passion that even the wealth of Karak Azul could afford him no joy, was resolute. Thus is it recorded, and by Grimnir let it soon be done.

Even though her stomach already ached from the hearty supper, she consumed every bite of the pie and even tamped up the leftover pastry crumbs with the back of the fork’s tines. Licking the fork clean, she glanced at Thad and caught his amused grin. Mortified, she lowered the fork and ducked her head. Hadn’t Mama taught her better manners? What must Thad think, witnessing her childish display? He reached across the table and cupped her hand. Her face flaming, she peeked at him through her lashes. “Don’t hide from me, Sadie Wagner.” His deep voice, kind yet resolute, sent her heart to thudding against her rib cage. His hand tightened on hers. “Look at me.” Slowly, she raised her head, but her cheeks blazed so hot it took all of her effort to meet his gaze rather than looking past his shoulder to the flowered wallpaper behind him. His eyes smiled even while he maintained a serious expression. “You never have to be ashamed around me. You enjoyed the pie—what’s wrong with that?” He gave her hand a little tug, his brows briefly coming together. “Too many people hunker behind a shield of indifference instead of letting folks know what they really think. I call that putting on airs, and it isn’t honest.” His face relaxed, his smile enfolding her in a blanketing contentment unlike anything she’d experienced before in a man’s company. “So you just be yourself. Always be honest with me, Sadie, no matter what. All right?

MENS REA”: On January 16, 1944, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and one of his deputies, Randolph Paul, personally visited the President Franklin D. Roosevelt in order to coerce him to finally act and do something to help refugees escaping The Holocaust. More diplomatic efforts had failed, so Morgenthau's approach strengthened. The report brought to the President reveals a desperate and necessary act to coerce a response from an administration that was systematically and overtly preventing both private and official help for the victims escaping Hitler. The report documents a pattern of attempts by the State Department to obstruct rescue opportunities and block the flow of Holocaust information to the United States. Morgenthau warned that the refugee issue had become “a boiling pot on [Capitol] Hill,” and Congress was likely to pass the rescue resolution if faced with a White House unwilling to act. Roosevelt understood the deep implications and pre-empted Congress by establishing the War Refugee Board. The result was “Executive Order 9417” creating the War Refugee Board, issued on January 22, 1944.

With his deep understanding of the needs of the Church, Pius X often saw things with a most remarkable clarity. An interesting conversation of the Holy Pontiff with a group of Cardinals was reported in the French clerical publication, “L’Ami du Clerge.” The Pope asked them: “What is the thing we most need, today, to save society?” “Build Catholic schools,” said one. “No.” “More churches,” said another. “Still no.” “Speed up the recruiting of priests,” said a third. “No, no,” said the Pope, “the MOST necessary thing of all, at this time, is for every parish to possess a group of laymen who will be at the same time virtuous, enlightened, resolute, and truly apostolic.

Kaluza revealed that in a universe with an additional dimension of space, gravity and electromagnetism can both be described in terms of spatial ripples. Gravity ripples through the familiar three spatial dimensions, while electromagnetism ripples through the fourth. An outstanding problem with Kaluza's proposal was to explain why we don't see this fourth spatial dimension. It was here that Klein made his mark by suggesting the resolution explained above: dimensions beyond those we directly experience can elude our senses and our equipment if they're sufficiently small.

Now, are ye goin’ to let me teach ye how to swim?” Reckoning ’twas better to let Elise have her way than to have the topic turn back to Albert, she reluctantly agreed. “’ Tis terrifyin’,” she murmured as she stared out at the calm water . From somewhere inside her, a little voice whispered, ye’ve been through far more terrifyin’ times than this. Taking a deep breath and straightening her back, she decided she could at least try. “Verra well,” she said in a resolute tone. “But I swear, if ye let me drown, I’ll haunt ye all the rest of my days.” Elise laughed heartily. “I swear, I’ll no’ let ye drown. Albert would kill me.

In just one example of many, Rosa Parks’s quiet but resolute refusal to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus at exactly the right moment coalesced into forces that propelled the civil rights movement. As Parks recalls, “When [the bus driver] saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ ”1 Contrary to popular belief, her courageous “no” did not grow out of a particularly assertive tendency or personality in general. In fact, when she was made a secretary to the president of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP she explained, “I was the only woman there, and they needed a secretary, and I was too timid to say no.”2 Rather, her decision on the bus grew out of a deep conviction about what deliberate choice she wanted to make in that moment. When the bus driver ordered her out of her seat, she said, “I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night.”3 She did not know how her decision would spark a movement with reverberations around the world. But she did know her own mind. She knew, even as she was being arrested, that “it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind.”4 Avoiding that humiliation was worth the risk of incarceration. Indeed, to her, it was essential. It is true that we are (hopefully) unlikely to find ourselves facing a situation like the one faced by Rosa Parks. Yet we can be inspired by her. We can think of her when we need the courage to dare to say no. We can remember her strength of conviction when we need to stand our ground in the face of social pressure to capitulate to the nonessential.

The country converted the Gestapo headquarters into a museum called "The Topography of Terror," a deep dive into the founding of the Third Reich. As for the man who oversaw these atrocities, Germany chose quite literally to pave over the Fuhrer's gravesite. There can be no more pedestrian resolution than that. In Germany, displaying the swastika, is a crime, punishable by up to three years in prison. In the United States, the rebel flag is incorporated into official state flag of Mississippi.

the Stoic indifference to pain and adversity and worldly success sprang from a deep fatalism—“Fate leads the willing,” Epictetus says at one point, “and drags the unwilling”—that is foreign to both Plato and Aristotle.§ Stoics were even more resolutely convinced than the Epicureans that everything we know, or can know, must come entirely from our senses—in other words, out of the very depths of the cave. It certainly was not geared to win the Stoics many friends at the Academy, which fought the men of the stoa with

When we start designing something, we sketch out ideas with a big, thick Sharpie marker, instead of a ball-point pen. Why? Pen points are too fine. They’re too high-resolution. They encourage you to worry about things that you shouldn’t worry about yet, like perfecting the shading or whether to use a dotted or dashed line. You end up focusing on things that should still be out of focus. A Sharpie makes it impossible to drill down that deep. You can only draw shapes, lines, and boxes. That’s good. The big picture is all you should be worrying about in the beginning.

as is becoming increasingly clear to those who have attempted these types of minor corrections, willpower, tips, and vague resolutions are not sufficient by themselves to tame the ability of new technologies to invade your cognitive landscape—the addictiveness of their design and the strength of the cultural pressures supporting them are too strong for an ad hoc approach to succeed. In my work on this topic, I’ve become convinced that what you need instead is a full-fledged philosophy of technology use, rooted in your deep values, that provides clear answers to the questions of what tools you should use and how you should use them and, equally important, enables you to confidently ignore everything else.

All theories of violence have a piece in the picture. To see the whole picture, however, we need to consider all theories simultaneously. We cannot separate one issue or approach from another. For example, while working on nationality factors that contribute to violence, we must remember economics. While working on economics, we must remember race and gender. While working on sexism we have to remember health issues. While working on health issues we have to remember sexual orientation. While working on sexual orientation we have to remember racism. We need multileveled awareness. While considering social issues, we must remember biology and genetics, the warrior instinct, and appreciate the diversity in religious viewpoints as well.

if you can feel into both sides and articulate them, growing together happens. The solution to war is not peace but growing together.

In fact, we or someone else can become terrifying, even while we are trying to save the day by insisting others be more egalitarian and conscious. Often such well-meaning, group "consciousness bringers" are unaware of how they push others about. Any one of us can unwittingly hurt others simply by being unaware of the powers we have and how we use them. If we are not careful, the very attempt to "raise consciousness" can simply recycle the very abusive behavior we hope to correct.

if you are consistently afraid of groups, perhaps you are either too ambitious and want to save everyone, or think that you must be managing the situations at hand. In this case, it may be helpful to remember that if you want to do too much, you will have to depend on using your own power, and that dependence will exhaust you and make you uncertain. We do not need leaders who can change the world because of their personal power, because change is inherent in people and nature. Our communities, however, need our essential selves and our awareness, not our power, to notice and track such changes. Our world needs our awareness of the roles, themes, and feelings we experience. Insecurity occurs if we push to succeed. Let nature help with the work. We do not need more of the standard kind of leaders, but instead are looking for sensitive facilitators with moment-to-moment awareness.

It has been my hope that now, without more war, we can learn from history that we are more than one side or the other. The unresolved suffering caused by hurt and its result, unrelenting retaliation, can only dissolve by detachment from one role or the other. Perennial spiritual wisdom teaches the same principle: detach from this world, this person, her successes, and failures. Until now, such detachment meant nonviolence and the transcendence of the material plane. Now detachment can have another meaning. Detachment must no longer lead to disinterest in and disconnection from the world, but to a new kind of immersion in the Dreaming. This kind of immersion in conflicts, coupled with appreciation of all sides, can replace transcendence as a goal.

No matter how eloquent its apologists, science will continue to he the focus of suspicion and resentment. In a deep sense, it really is the most transgressive aspect of the social organism. Part of the duty of institutional science, therefore, is to maintain, in the face of all these atavistic fancies, its own firm independence as well as the sovereignty of the intellectual outlook that makes scientific thinking possible. Scientists should do so as tactfully as possible, but they must do so resolutely.

Article F: Alternobaric Vertigo and Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. Charles D. Bluestone, MD; J. Douglas Swarts, PhD; Joseph M. Furman, MD, PhD; Robert F. Yellon, MD. Case Report: Persistent Alternobaric Vertigo at Ground Level due to Chronic Toynbee phenomenon. Laryngoscope 2012;122(4):868–72. The term “alternobaric vertigo” was coined by Lundgren in 1965 to describe vertigo in deep-sea divers, but also referred to aircraft pilots in 1966. It occurs during ascent and rarely descent and is a result of asymmetrical middle-ear pressures. Classically the vertigo due to this pathogenesis is transient but may last for several minutes. It is frequently associated with nausea and vomiting. It has been reproduced in pressure chamber experiments with some divers and fliers, but has not been reported spontaneously at ground level (Figure F–1). FIGURE F–1. Alternobaric vertigo can occur during ascent in an airplane or when scuba diving. We encountered a 15-year-old female with bilateral tympanostomy tubes who manifested persistent severe vertigo, at ground level, secondary to a unilateral middle-ear pressure of +200 mm H2O elicited by an obstructed tympanostomy tube in the presence of chronic nasal obstruction. She had had long-term tubes placed due to recurrent and chronic otitis media. Physical examination revealed achondroplasia, which is an autosomal dominate disorder characterized by abnormal bone growth, short arms and legs, short stature and a large head, which is associated with otitis media. The pathogenesis of otitis media in these individuals may be related to abnormal anatomy causing Eustachian tube dysfunction. Balance testing was abnormal, Eustachian tube function tests revealed dysfunction of tube. Surgery was performed to replace the obstructed tube with a patent one, and an adenoidectomy and bilateral inferior turbinate reduction to relieve the chronic nasal obstruction. Postoperatively balance testing was normal, Eustachian tube function remained dysfunctional, but she had complete resolution of her vertigo following the surgery. FIGURE F–2. Pathogenesis of alternobaric vertigo due to the “Toynbee phenomenon” One tympanostomy was obstructed and when swallowing, she developed high positive pressure in the middle ear, but in the ear with a patent tube, the pressure did not remain in the middle ear. We believed this was a previously unreported scenario in which closed-nose swallowing insufflated air into her middle ears, resulting in sustained positive middle-ear pressure in the ear with the obstructed tube. Swallowing, when the nose is obstructed, can result in abnormal negative or positive pressures in the middle ear, which has been termed the “Toynbee phenomenon.” We concluded that in patients who have vertigo, consideration should be given to the possibility that nasal obstruction and the “Toynbee phenomenon” are involved (Figure F–2). CHAPTER 7 PATHOLOGY The pathology of the ET may or may not be involved in the pathogenesis of otitis media, whereas the

Let’s hope 2018 will be a better year.' I don’t know why this statement sounds to me as one full of defeat and hopelessness. It is a statement that many people repeat one year after another, even though they know deep inside that it is a fake form of optimism we console ourselves with, like a scared child singing in a dark alley to keep himself distracted from darkness.

Interactions should support reading digital text skimming for salience, deep reading for comprehension and evaluation, as well as support for following and evaluating inbound and outbound citations, implicit links and high resolution explicit links. Annotations which ‘live’ in their own dynamic environment, text for thought–and so much more. Interactions should also support sitting under a tree and reading a paper book with beautiful typography and nothing to come between you and the physical paper pages of the document, be it book or paper or whatever else you would like to read. Of course, in due course interactions will include all of those, at once.

of Europe, into a museum examining the consequences of that fateful decision. The country converted the Gestapo headquarters into a museum called the Topography of Terror, a deep dive into the founding of the Third Reich. As for the man who oversaw these atrocities, Germany chose quite literally to pave over the Führer’s gravesite. There could be no more pedestrian resolution than that.

This is not to say that the race question is any nearer resolution in Brazil than anywhere else - simply that racist ideology faces a more difficult task in Brazil on account of the racial confusion and the range of race mixtures that exist there. Discrimination confronts a web of racial lines as unpredictable as the lines of the human palm. This invalidation of racism by virtue of the scattering of its object is far more subtle and effective than ideological struggle, whose ambiguity invariably revives the very problem it seeks to resolve. Racism will never end so long as it is combated frontally in terms of rational rebuttal. It can be defeated only through an ironic give-and-take founded precisely on racial differences: not at all through the legitimation of differences by legal means, but through an ultimately violent interaction grounded in seduction and voracity. One thinks of the Bishop of Pernambuco; one thinks of the words 'How good he was, my little Frenchman!' He is very good-looking, so he is sanctified - and eaten. He is granted something greater than the right to exist: the prestige of dying. If racism is a violent abreaction in response to the Other's seductive power (rather than to the Other's difference), it can surely be defused only by an increase in seductiveness itself. So many other cultures enjoy a more original situation than ours. For us everything is predictable: we have extraordinary analytical means but no situation to analyse. We live theoretically well beyond our own events: hence our deep melancholy. For others destiny still flickers: they live it, but it remains for them, in life as in death, something forever indecipherable. As for us, we have abolished 'elsewhere' . Cultures stranger than ours live in prostration (before the heavens, before destiny); we live in consternation (at the absence of destiny). Nothing can come from anywhere except from us. This is, in a way, the most absolute misfortune.

I have always found it difficult not to be moved by Jerusalem, even when I hated it—and God knows I have hated it for the sheer human cost of it. But the sight of it, from afar or inside the labyrinth of its walls, softens me. Every inch of it holds the confidence of ancient civilizations, their deaths and their birthmarks pressed deep into the city's viscera and onto the rubble of its edges. The deified and the condemned have set their footprints in its sand. It has been conquered, razed and, rebuilt so many times that its stones seem to possess life, bestowed by the audit trail of prayer and blood. Yet somehow, it exhales humility. It sparks an inherent sense of familiarity in me—that doubtless, irrefutable Palestinian certainty that I belong to this land. It possesses me, no matter who conquers it, because its soil is the keeper of my roots, of the bones of my ancestors. Because it knows the private lust that flamed the beds of all my foremothers. Because I am the natural seed of its passionate, tempestuous past. I am a daughter of the land, and Jerusalem reassures me of this inalienable right, far more than the yellowed property deeds, the Ottoman land registries, the iron keys to our stolen homes, or UN resolutions and decrees of superpowers could ever do.

He had known from the moment he saw her that she was dangerous, but he’d had no idea how lethal. She had pulled feelings to the surface that he thought he’d been in control of and now it was here—he felt it all and he was completely lost. Terrified. He adored her. He couldn’t stand the thought of this ending. He had felt something almost this deep and powerful once before, when he was much younger. He had been twenty-four when he found the beautiful, raven-haired Felicia. In her arms, in her body, he had come to life. He’d never fallen so hard before, and certainly not since. He had been surprised by the passion and commitment he felt, but he let it sweep him away. He loved her hard for a year, and then he had to leave on a mission. He went to Somalia. When the conflict was at its worst, it was her face in his mind that helped him get through, gave him purpose, something strong and powerful to fight for. He had pledged his life to her; he was going to love her till the day he died. When he got home he found out it had all been a lie; she had never been his. She’d been unfaithful since before he left; she cut him loose the first day he was back. It had been an ugly, bitter parting that left everyone scarred—mostly him. To say his heart was ripped apart didn’t touch it. For a couple of years at least the pain was so bad he thought it might kill him. When the pain stopped, he was empty inside. He made a firm resolution: that would never happen to him again. His involvement with women was purely recreational from that point on. He wasn’t about to be vulnerable to a woman, open himself to that kind of pain. Yet beside him, all gentle and sweet, was an incredible woman. He wanted to pull her into his arms, tell her how much he loved her, how far he’d go to make her happy, beg her to either change her plans or include him. But he wouldn’t. It was too risky. Another deal like the last one would kill him. He wouldn’t give his heart. The problem was, without meaning to, without wanting to, he had. *

So the city became the material expression of a particular loss of innocence—not sexual or political innocence but somehow a shared dream of what a city might at its best prove to be—its inhabitants became, and have remained, an embittered and amnesiac race, wounded but unable to connect through memory to the moment of the injury, unable to summon the face of their violator. Out of that night and day of unconditional wrath, folks would’ve expected to see any city, if it survived, all newly reborn, purified by flame, taken clear beyond greed, real-estate speculating, local politics—instead of which, here was this weeping widow, some one-woman grievance committee in black, who would go on to save up and lovingly record and mercilessly begrudge every goddamn single tear she ever had to cry, and over the years to come would make up for them all by developing into the meanest, cruelest bitch of a city, even among cities not notable for their kindness. To all appearance resolute, adventurous, manly, the city could not shake that terrible all-night rape, when “he” was forced to submit, surrendering, inadmissably, blindly feminine, into the Hellfire embrace of “her” beloved. He spent the years afterward forgetting and fabulating and trying to get back some self-respect. But inwardly, deep inside, “he” remained the catamite of Hell, the punk at the disposal of all the denizens thereof, the bitch in men’s clothing. So,

The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men. Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime had already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people. The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda. The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

In the Old Testament book of 2 Kings, we read the story of Naaman, a wealthy and powerful general of the Syrian army.149 He was suffering terribly, dying slowly of leprosy. Hearing of a powerful God in Israel, he traveled there with both money and a threatening letter from his own ruler. He went to the king of Israel and demanded to be cured of his leprosy. Like so many of us today, Naaman thought money, influence, and expertise could address his suffering. So he went to the person in the culture who had the most of these things and expected a resolution. In response, the Israelite king tore his robes and replied: “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life?” (2 Kings 5:7). In other words, he said, “Don’t look to me to do something only God can do!” The whole Western world today needs to listen to this cry of the king of Israel. When we confront suffering, we think that what will solve it is a change in public policy, or the best expertise in psychology and therapy, or technological advances. But the world’s darkness is too deep to be dispelled merely by such things. It is wrong, in our pride, to believe that we can control and defeat the darkness with our knowledge.

A resolute, decisive, open, courageous character with deep faith in God is what you want to develop.

Repentance is a discovery of the evil of sin, a mourning that we have committed it, a resolution to forsake it. It is, in fact, a change of mind of a very deep and practical character, which makes the man love what once he hated, and hate what once he loved. (Charles Spurgeon)

The true resolution of doubt often involves finding the courage to stay with the doubt until one is able to resolve it at a deep enough level, even if that takes a long time.

The most common response to these complications is to suggest modest hacks and tips. Perhaps if you observe a digital Sabbath, or keep your phone away from your bed at night, or turn off notifications and resolve to be more mindful, you can keep all the good things that attracted you to these new technologies in the first place while still minimizing their worst impacts. I understand the appeal of this moderate approach because it relieves you of the need to make hard decisions about your digital life—you don’t have to quit anything, miss out on any benefits, annoy any friends, or suffer any serious inconveniences. But as is becoming increasingly clear to those who have attempted these types of minor corrections, willpower, tips, and vague resolutions are not sufficient by themselves to tame the ability of new technologies to invade your cognitive landscape—the addictiveness of their design and the strength of the cultural pressures supporting them are too strong for an ad hoc approach to succeed. In my work on this topic, I’ve become convinced that what you need instead is a full-fledged philosophy of technology use, rooted in your deep values, that provides clear answers to the questions of what tools you should use and how you should use them and, equally important, enables you to confidently ignore everything else.

The History of the world shows us that men are not to be counted by their numbers, but by the fire and vigor of their passions; by their deep sense of injury; by their memory of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their clear and steady resolution of either ceasing to live, or of achieving a particular object, which, when it is once formed, strikes off a load of manacle and chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic feelings. All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart. There are seasons in human affairs when qualities, fit enough to conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless, when men must trust to emotion for that safety which reason at such times can never give. These are the feelings which led the ten thousand over the Carduchian mountains; these are the feelings by which a handful of Greeks broke in pieces the power of Persia; and in the fens of the Dutch and in the mountains of the Swiss these feelings defended happiness and revenged the oppressions of man! God calls all the passions out in their keenness and vigor for the present safety of mankind, anger and revenge and the heroic mind, and a readiness to suffer - all the secret strength, all the invisible array of the feelings - all that nature has reserved for the great scenes of the world. When the usual hopes and the common aids of man are all gone, nothing remains under God but those passions which have often proved the best ministers of His purpose and the surest protectors of the world.

If you desire to read the scripture in such a manner as may most effectually answer this end, would it not be advisable, 1. To set apart a little time, if you can, every morning and evening for that purpose 2. At each time if you have leisure, to read a chapter out of the Old, and one out of the New Testament: if you cannot do this, to take a single chapter, or a part of one. 3. To read this with a single eye, to know the whole will of God, and a fixt resolution to do it. In order to know his will, you should, 4. Have a constant eye to the analogy of faith; the connexion and harmony there is between those grand, fundamental doctrines, Original Sin, Justification by Faith, the New Birth, Inward and Outward Holiness. 5. Serious and earnest prayer should be constantly used, before we consult the oracles

The challenges that beset Spain’s new democracy in the 1930s were complex and deep-rooted and thus not susceptible to rapid resolution. In so far as the Republic can be said to have ‘failed’ (another historiographical commonplace), then its failure was a quite specific one: it proved unable to prevent sectors of the officer corps from making a coup. It is not the business of historians to engage in counterfactual speculation, but one could argue that what established the preconditions for a successful coup attempt was not Spain’s deep tensions, but republican-socialist failure to implement key policy reforms in 1931–3: most crucially, perhaps, the failure to demilitarize public order. But, as historians also know, the benefit of hindsight is really only the dangerous illusion of twenty-twenty vision.

There is the status quo, the event that kicks things off, the set of consequences for changing the status quo, the climax or resolution, and then what happens after the fact.

Heaven To live well under this dark shadow, it takes deep breathing and a resolution, for here it is monstrous cold, and the wind has teeth as large as testament. I wrap a sweater around the sleeve of my soul, and night after night, I sit and I stare at pumpkins, at the moon, at roses falling short of themselves. They are thorn and mere bloom, and I no longer know if they are beautiful, just as I no longer know if I am beautiful, and whether I am or I am not, I do not know if it matters, if it ever did. Nevermind. I am still as uncertain, or at least just as chill as this gray sky above, and that one cold hope success, below, and this unsavory room of waning passions in between. I wanted to make music or love, and having the talents for neither, I settled on both. Do you see these scars? They bear the teethmarks of the angels.

This was the unexpected ... unforeseeable resolution of the paradox ... her personal goodness was no longer the issue because it had been replaced by the sweetness of relationship.

We all have a tendency to have a deep and unexamined belief that things should go the way we want them to and from this we end up acting as if everything must be done "my own way or the highway"! The alternative is to act from a place of harmony and cordiality, and to look for ways to compromise. The Buddha's path is, after all, called the Middle Way! So look honestly at the state of your own mind, look for where you may be falling into extremes, into purely self-centered behavior and use mindful metta to return to the Middle.

In the story of Wagner and Wagnerism, we see both the highest and the lowest impulses of humanity entangled. It is the triumph of art over reality and the triumph of reality over art; it is a tragedy of flaws set so deep that after two centuries they still infuriate us as if the man were in the room. To blame Wagner for the horrors committed in his wake is an inadequate response to historical complexity: it lets the rest of civilization off the hook. At the same time, to exonerate him is to ignore his insidious ramifications. It is no longer possible to idealize Wagner: the ugliness of his racism means that posterity's picture of him will always be cracked down the middle. In the end, the lack of a tidy moral resolution should make us more honest about the role that art plays in the world. In Wagner's vicinity, the fantasy of artistic autonomy falls to pieces and the cult of genius comes undone. Amid the wreckage, the artist is liberated from the mystification of "great art”. He becomes something more unstable, fragile, and mutable. Incomplete in himself, he requires the most active and critical kind of listening. So it goes with all art that endures: it is never a matter of beauty proving eternal. When we look at Wagner, we are gazing into a magnifying mirror of the soul of the human species. What we hate in it, we hate in ourselves; what we love in it, we love in ourselves also. In the distance we may catch glimpses of some higher realm, some glimmering temple, some ecstasy of knowledge and compassion. But it is only a shadow on the wall, an echo from the pit. The vision fades, the curtain falls, and we shuffle back in silence to the world as it is.

we become—at a deep and enduring level—resolutely and complacently cruel.

she knew that the heart of God is love, movement in the most basic sense.6 Such love arises out of surrender, and equally out of strength, and yet still ultimately out of a place beyond surrender and strength. As Sally Belfrage says, “Mrs. Hamer was free. She represented a challenge that few could understand: how it was possible to arrive at a place past suffering, to a concern for her torturers as deep as that for her friends. Such people were rare. All of them began by refusing to hate or despise themselves.”7 Nonetheless, for Mrs. Hamer, the way beyond surrender and strength was not through resoluteness, habituation, or sheer will power, but through God. Love like this, love like Mrs. Hamer’s, cannot ground itself. “Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me on,” she testifies.

The world asks, as it asks daily: And what can you make, can you do, to change my deep-broken, fractured? I count, this first day of another year, what remains. I have a mountain, a kitchen, two hands.

It’s not about “letting it go.” It’s about letting it in. It’s about letting it deep. It’s about letting it through. It’s about being true to your feelings. It’s about giving your experiences the attention they deserve. And that may take a moment, or it may take years. The trick is not to shame your need to hold on to what has yet to be resolved. “Let it go” is the mantra of the self-avoidant, feigning resolution because they lack the courage or the preparedness to face their feelings. Let’s not play that game. Let’s let things in and through, until they are fully and truly ready to shift. Let’s let it grow into the transformation at its heart. We write our story by fully living it. Not by “letting it go” before its time. You are the sign you have been waiting for.

There’s an eagle feather in my pocket and resolution like a fist clenching my chest and on some deep level I’m dead happy I don’t know what comes next.

We would stick together through every season, seeing, knowing, loving, serving. We would practice relating within the four walls of our home so that when we went out into the world, we would know how to love others well. We would know how to ask good questions because we practiced good question-asking at home. We would know how to show empathy to hurting people because we practiced empathetic communication at home. We would know how to live unoffended because we practiced letting go of our hurts at home. We would know how to extend earnest forgiveness because we practiced forgiving others at home. We would know how to work through differences and disagreements because we practiced effective conflict resolution at home. Family was supposed to be our first community, a gathering of people who accepted and loved us and then taught us to accept and love others well. This was God’s original plan, both to bless people within families and then to bless through families the rest of the world.

The uncertainty principle establishes that regardless of what equipment you use or what techniques you employ, if you increase the resolution of your measurement of one property, there is an unavoidable cost: you necessarily reduce how accurately you can measure a complementary property. As a prime example, the uncertainty principle shows that the more accurately you measure an object’s position, the less accurately you can measure its speed, and vice versa.

His morning hours were set apart for the nourishment of his own soul; not, however, with the view of laying up a stock of grace for the rest of the day--for manna will corrupt if laid by--but rather with the view of "giving the eye the habit of looking upward all the day, and drawing down gleams from the reconciled countenance." He was sparing in the hours devoted to sleep, and resolutely secured time for devotion before breakfast, although often wearied and exhausted when he laid himself to rest. "A soldier of the cross," was his remark, "must endure hardness." Often he sang a psalm of praise, as soon as he arose, to stir up his soul. Three chapters of the Word was his usual morning portion. This he thought little enough, for he delighted exceedingly in the Scriptures: they were better to him than thousands of gold or silver. "When you write," he said to a friend, "tell me the meaning of Scriptures." To another, in expressing his value for the Word, he said, "One gem from that ocean is worth all the pebbles of earthly streams." His chief season of relaxation seemed to be breakfast time. He would come down with a happy countenance and a full soul; and after the sweet season of family prayer, immediately begin forming plans for the day. When he was well, nothing seemed to afford him such true delight as to have his hands full of work. Indeed, it was often remarked that in him you found--what you rarely meet with--a man of high poetic imagination and deep devotion, who nevertheless was engaged unceasingly in the busiest and most laborious activities of his office. His

My practical resolution was very simple. I made a commitment to outwardly demonstrate my delight and appreciation for others whenever I came in contact with them, particularly those with whom I struggled. To make this commitment very practical, I determined that I would smile and demonstrate a welcoming tone of voice each time I encountered others for the first time in a given day. The impact of my encounter with God and the graces he provided through my resolution profoundly changed the relationships in my life.

We must be resolute in ascertaining and pursuing prudent personal goals. How freeing it would be not to want, not to need, and not to covet anything, except for an opportunity to work to my fullest mental, physical, and emotional capacity for people who I respect and care for. I wish to surrender my naked ambition and sense of self-importance in exchange for edifying other people’s lives. I desire to work towards developing a deep affection for the world that surrounds me; exhibit in a more wholesome fashion that I cherish my family; broaden the sphere of personal interest; and labor to expand and explore my creative nature.

We must live life in the present as shaped by the past. The option to begin afresh does not exist. The past days and nights were the sacrificial coals that fired an internal furnace. The dying embers fueled my present being. I need to locate new nutrients to revitalize an unfulfilled soul. I seek to unearth fresh energy sources and forge a renewed resoluteness to slog through the remainder of this gaseous and hard-pressed sojourn. Any prior personal inspiration for living righteously was lost on a remote outpost somewhere along the fractured trail. I go on because I must. I trust that if I industrially seek, I shall ascertain a purpose in life that currently eludes me. If I tread long enough, if I assiduously track sufficient true miles, I shall discover a purpose that fits me. I continue to push forward with an unbowed determination, navigate into the deep unknown with the confidence of an experienced admiral who knows that if he endures the gale forces of self-doubt and persist despite all setbacks that he will discover what he seeks. A person must rely upon personal consciousness as a guiding compass into penetrating the unalleviated obscurity that shrouds the way. I shall always resist the easy path, because it leads to an apocalyptic demise.

This view, that being Nazi and resolutely anti-Soviet/anti-Communist go hand-in-hand, thus making a Nazi a potentially good partner for the United States, was then, and in some instances, continues to be, the prevailing view of US foreign policy leaders, particularly in the CIA. I remind readers here of Operation Paperclip, a plan instituted just after WWII pursuant to which

What I have instead may have been denied to those happy harassed mothers: I have that terrible freedom of which others are justifiably afraid. I now recognize its deep seriousness. I am free to live my life without restraint, and again without witnesses. This is not always a joyous procedure. On certain cold evenings, before the winter has turned into spring, I look out of my window and feel a sudden loneliness. I tell myself that this is due to the absence of the sun, and that once I am back in Nice the loneliness will vanish. My moments of cold sense disconcert me, for so far I have managed to maintain my resolution to live as I have chosen to live, transfixed by what I have assumed will be permanent when in fact it may be no more than temporary.

Just the act of facing the “demon” and standing resolute in the face of previously avoided emotional experiences fosters a deep and abiding sense of power and decreased victimization. Their world immediately starts to open and new choices and opportunities almost magically seem to appear as their realm of allowed experience expands.

The antahkarana is ever active and assumes various forms or ‘modes’ — except in deep sleep, when its activity is latent in itself. One of its modes is the consciousness of itself, which may be called ‘ego-hood’. The ego commonly confuses itself with the real Self. ‘When we say ‘I am restless’, we mean that the antahkarana is restless, but we wrongly transfer the restlessness to our inner Self. Herein lies the essential difference between mere introspection and the knowledge of the inner divine Self, which comes from knowing this philosophy as Shankara knew it. Knowing his philosophy and knowing ‘about’ it are on two different planes. When the antahkarana assumes the mode of doubt or indetermination, it is called ‘mind’ — in the sense used in the statement ‘I cannot make up my ‘mind’. The item ‘mind’ includes resolution, sense-perception, desires and emotions. When the antahkarana has the mode of certainty or determination, it may be called ‘intellect’, including the powers of judgment and reasoning; and when in the mode of reflection and remembrance, it may be called ‘attention’. The ego, the mind, and the intellect function only intermittently; their activity has a birth, growth and death. An argument, for example, begins with the premises and works through a chain of reasoning to a conclusion. ‘Attention’, however, may endure; and this mode of the antahkarana is regarded as the most important, because meditation, contemplation and concentration belong to its province, and these are the activities by which a person uses his antahkarana to seek and find Reality. They are the point of the thorn used to extract the other thorn of avidya.

Curiously, however, we seem to be standing beside one another, holding identical longings yet resolutely believing we’re alone in them.

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