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Consciousness is our gateway to experience: It enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine.

Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously gave us the ‘God is dead’ phrase was interested in the sources of morality. He warned that the emergence of something (whether an organ, a legal institution, or a religious ritual) is never to be confused with its acquired purpose: ‘Anything in existence, having somehow come about, is continually interpreted anew, requisitioned anew, transformed and redirected to a new purpose.’ This is a liberating thought, which teaches us to never hold the history of something against its possible applications. Even if computers started out as calculators, that doesn’t prevent us from playing games on them. (47) (quoting Nietzsche, the Genealogy of Morals)

Pick up a pinecone and count the spiral rows of scales. You may find eight spirals winding up to the left and 13 spirals winding up to the right, or 13 left and 21 right spirals, or other pairs of numbers. The striking fact is that these pairs of numbers are adjacent numbers in the famous Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... Here, each term is the sum of the previous two terms. The phenomenon is well known and called phyllotaxis. Many are the efforts of biologists to understand why pinecones, sunflowers, and many other plants exhibit this remarkable pattern. Organisms do the strangest things, but all these odd things need not reflect selection or historical accident. Some of the best efforts to understand phyllotaxis appeal to a form of self-organization. Paul Green, at Stanford, has argued persuasively that the Fibonacci series is just what one would expects as the simplest self-repeating pattern that can be generated by the particular growth processes in the growing tips of the tissues that form sunflowers, pinecones, and so forth. Like a snowflake and its sixfold symmetry, the pinecone and its phyllotaxis may be part of order for free

Everyone was busy down in the town streets. Some are searching for wealth, others seeking glory. Some want to be become famous, while others want to be worthy…it’s a rotten world actually.

In the time you will live, there will be heroes around. Simple men, honest men who work two jobs, go to school, raise a family, and serve our God. An older couple who have the courage to seek out the truth while enduring the scorn and ridicule of their children and friends. A young man, a special spirit, who will take on a body that is deformed- and yet you will never see hime unhappy or without a smile on his face. A young mother who will care for a daughter while she suffers a painful death, and yet never doubt or loose faith that her Father loves them both. In your worl famous people will be hard to find. But you will be surrounded by heroes, you will meet them everyday. They will be the simple people who struggle but never give up, those who strive to be happy despite the cares of the physical world, those who dream of the day when they will find the truth, those who search for understanding as to why they were born, why there is pain, or what it all means, and yet continure to endure, knowing in their soul, somewhere deep inside, that there has to be an answer. These are the heroes that our Father needs down on earth. And you will be a hero. We already know that.

Their [girls] sexual energy, their evaluation of adolescent boys and other girls goes thwarted, deflected back upon the girls, unspoken, and their searching hungry gazed returned to their own bodies. The questions, Whom do I desire? Why? What will I do about it? are turned around: Would I desire myself? Why?...Why not? What can I do about it? The books and films they see survey from the young boy's point of view his first touch of a girl's thighs, his first glimpse of her breasts. The girls sit listening, absorbing, their familiar breasts estranged as if they were not part of their bodies, their thighs crossed self-consciously, learning how to leave their bodies and watch them from the outside. Since their bodies are seen from the point of view of strangeness and desire, it is no wonder that what should be familiar, felt to be whole, become estranged and divided into parts. What little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired. Girls learn to watch their sex along with the boys; that takes up the space that should be devoted to finding out about what they are wanting, and reading and writing about it, seeking it and getting it. Sex is held hostage by beauty and its ransom terms are engraved in girls' minds early and deeply with instruments more beautiful that those which advertisers or pornographers know how to use: literature, poetry, painting, and film. This outside-in perspective on their own sexuality leads to the confusion that is at the heart of the myth. Women come to confuse sexual looking with being looked at sexually ("Clairol...it's the look you want"); many confuse sexually feeling with being sexually felt ("Gillete razors...the way a woman wants to feel"); many confuse desiring with being desirable. "My first sexual memory," a woman tells me, "was when I first shaved my legs, and when I ran my hand down the smooth skin I felt how it would feel to someone else's hand." Women say that when they lost weight they "feel sexier" but the nerve endings in the clitoris and nipples don't multiply with weight loss. Women tell me they're jealous of the men who get so much pleasure out of the female body that they imagine being inside the male body that is inside their own so that they can vicariously experience desire. Could it be then that women's famous slowness of arousal to men's, complex fantasy life, the lack of pleasure many experience in intercourse, is related to this cultural negation of sexual imagery that affirms the female point of view, the culture prohibition against seeing men's bodies as instruments of pleasure? Could it be related to the taboo against representing intercourse as an opportunity for a straight woman actively to pursue, grasp, savor, and consume the male body for her satisfaction, as much as she is pursued, grasped, savored, and consumed for his?

It's an easy guess, why some get famous over night and not during the day.

The mathematics of Malthus? A quick Internet search led him to information about a prominent nineteenth-century English mathematician and demographist named Thomas Robert Malthus, who had famously predicted an eventual global collapse due to overpopulation.

One of the biggest misperceptions about places of genius, I’m discovering, is that they are akin to paradise. They are not. Paradise is antithetical to genius. Paradise makes no demands, and creative genius takes root through meeting demands in new and imaginative ways. “The Athenians matured because they were challenged on all fronts,” said Nietzsche, in a variation of his famous “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” line.

Psychic is the new normal.

Die Judenfrage,' it used to be called, even by Jews. 'The Jewish Question.' I find I quite like this interrogative formulation, since the question—as Gertrude Stein once famously if terminally put it—may be more absorbing than the answer. Of course one is flirting with calamity in phrasing things this way, as I learned in school when the Irish question was discussed by some masters as the Irish 'problem.' Again, the word 'solution' can be as neutral as the words 'question' or 'problem,' but once one has defined a people or a nation as such, the search for a resolution can become a yearning for the conclusive. Endlösung: the final solution.

Paul famously wrote, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”5 How often do we measure Christian ideas and beliefs by these criteria?

It’s almost as if Bronson, Ginsberg and Bowie craved the freedom of letting go, of pushing their mind aside and allowing the vampires and demons and all the other freaks to run them so that they could slip away elsewhere

When Kate was younger, stories were her friends when she found people challenging. She searched them out, hiding among them in the library and tucking herself into their pages. She folded herself into the shape of Hermione Granger or George from The Famous Five or Catherine Moreland from Northanger Abbey and tried to be them for a day. When she started secondary school her friends were the characters she met in the pages of her books. They sat with her in the library as she snuck mouthfuls of sandwich behind books so the librarian wouldn't see. (The librarian always saw, but pretended not to.)

God’s power, it turns out, comes in God’s willingness to abdicate power. God saves the world through submission to the point of solidarity with human weakness. Jesus’ final teaching to his disciples was to wash their feet and then tell them to go and do likewise, to act as servants to the world. Too often, Christians have done just the opposite.

Jahan took a breath and composed herself. “When I was a little sort of girl and I would see a gentleman or a lady with good, clean clothes I would run and hide my face. But after I graduated from the Korphe School, I felt a big change in my life. I felt I was clear and clean and could go before anybody and discuss anything. And now that I am already in Skardu, I feel that anything is possible. I don’t want to be just a health worker. I want to be such a woman that I can start a hospital and be an executive, and look over all the health problems of all the women in the Braldu. I want to become a very famous woman of this area,” Jahan said, twirling the hem of her maroon silk headscarf around her finger as she peered out the window, past a soccer player sprinting through the drizzle toward a makeshift goal built of stacked stones, searching for the exact word with which to envision her future. “I want to be a… ‘Superlady’” she said, grinning defiantly, daring anyone, any man, to tell her she couldn’t. p. 313

Can what's buried beneath the ground on Oak Island possibly be worth what the search for it has already cost? Six lives, scores of personal fortunes, piles of wrecked equipment, and tens of thousands of man-hours have been spent so far, and that's not to mention the blown minds and broken spirits that lie in the wake of what is at once the world's most famous and frustrating treasure hunt.

Echoing a famous argument by the philosopher Karl Popper, most scientists today insist that the dividing line between science and pseudoscience is whether advocates of a hypothesis deliberately search for evidence that could falsify it and accept the hypothesis only if it survives.

However, many a pirate has tried to make his name on the High Seas by searching for famous, long-lost treasures. These include the fabled wreck of the good ship Petunia, the infamous magic stash of the Enchantress of the Northlands, and, of course, the toothbrush collection of Blackjaw Hawkins.

For me, writing stories set, well, wherever they're best set, is a form of cultural curiosity that is uniquely Scottish - we're famous for travelling in search of adventure.

When I think of Tao, I think of the artist Bob Ross and his famous painting techniques. I can hear him say, “It’s your tree, you can make it look any way you want to.

No matter the reason, the people didn’t turn on Jesus because they were Jews. They turned on Jesus because they were human.

As Stewart Brand, that great theologian of the information age, famously put it, “We are gods and might as well get good at it.

Research shows that those who believe in a wrathful God are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety disorders than those who believe in a loving, merciful God.

the Bible is the second most important revelation of God to humanity. The most important revelation of God is Jesus himself.

I was a distant father. I'd just go off and write. I did the thing that screws up kids more than anything else in America. I went and got myself a little bit famous.

Part of the beauty—and it is the original flaw in this type of literature, from which the famous Lundis are not exempt—lies in the impression made on the readers. It is a collective Venus, of which we have but one truncated limb if we confine ourselves to the thought of the author, for it is fully realised only in the minds of his readers. In them it finds completion.

He who tastes, knows,” goes the old Sufi saying. France’s most famous epicure, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, believed that food is the mirror to our souls: “Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you what you are.

What was once an anonymous medium where anyone could be anyone—where, in the words of the famous New Yorker cartoon, nobody knows you’re a dog—is now a tool for soliciting and analyzing our personal data. According to one Wall Street Journal study, the top fifty Internet sites, from CNN to Yahoo to MSN, install an average of 64 data-laden cookies and personal tracking beacons each. Search for a word like “depression” on Dictionary.com, and the site installs up to 223 tracking cookies and beacons on your computer so that other Web sites can target you with antidepressants. Share an article about cooking on ABC News, and you may be chased around the Web by ads for Teflon-coated pots. Open—even for an instant—a page listing signs that your spouse may be cheating and prepare to be haunted with DNA paternity-test ads. The new Internet doesn’t just know you’re a dog; it knows your breed and wants to sell you a bowl of premium kibble.

For just as it is not the desire to become famous but the habit of being laborious that enables us to produce a finished work, so it is not the activity of the present moment but wise reflexions from the past that help us to safeguard the future.

I went thence to the Old Neck, where I was led into a careful searching out of the secret workings of the mystery of iniquity, which, under a cover of religion exalts itself against that pure spirit which leads in the way of meekness and self-denial.

There was no one else like him alive. In his day, he was the mightiest man on earth, high-born and powerful. He ordered a boat that would ply the waves. He announced his plan: to sail the swan’s road and search out that king, the famous prince who needed defenders.

Often a whole life is devoted to this substitute. As long as the true need is not felt and understood, the struggle for the symbol of love will continue. It is for this very reason that an aging, world-famous photographer who had received many international awards could say to an interviewer, “I’ve never felt what I have done was good enough.” And he does not question why he has felt this way. Apparently, it has never occurred to him that the depression he reports could be related to his fusion with the demands of his parents.

One [event] is the discovery of the anesthetic properties of chloroform [in 1847] by James Simpson of Scotland. Following the reports of [William] Morton’s demonstration [1846], he tried ether but, dissatisfied, searched for a substitute and came upon chlorophorm. He was an obstetrician. His use of anesthesia to alleviate the pains of childbirth was violently opposed by the Scottish clergy on the ground that pain was ordained by the scriptural command, “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children”, and that it was impious to attempt to avert it by anesthetic agents. And it was Simpson who stilled this opposition by his own famous quotation from scripture; he pointed out that when Eve was born, God cast Adam into deep sleep before performing upon him the notable costalectomy. Anesthesia was thus permissible by scriptural precedent.

God is one with the powerless, one with the hopeless, one with the broken. And we know this because of Jesus. Jesus is the most fully realized revelation of God that we’ve got, and what we can see of God in the life of Jesus is the perfect example of self-limitation and humility.

I had, by then, done my share of reading on Philadelphia, so I knew that, in another time, when the Task was here in Philadelphia, the city had fallen victim to a fever. And among the men who combatted this fever was Benjamin Rush, a famous doctor, which is hard to countenance given the theory he put forth in defense of the city. Colored people were immune to the fever, he told Philadelphia, and more than immune, their very presence could alter the air itself, sucking up the scourge and holding it captive in our fetid black bodies. And so tasking men were brought in by the hundreds on the alleged black magic of our bodies. They all died. And when the city began to fill with their corpses, its masters searched for a space far from the whites who were felled by the disease. And they chose a patch of land where no one lived, and tossed us into pits. Years later, after the fever had been forgotten, after the war had birthed this new country, they built rows and rows of well-appointed houses right on top of those people, and and named a square for their liberating general. It struck me that even here, in the free North, the luxuries of this world were built right on top of us.

Horklump M.O.M. Classification: X The Horklump comes from Scandinavia but is now widespread throughout northern Europe. It resembles a fleshy, pinkish mushroom covered in sparse, wiry black bristles. A prodigious breeder, the Horklump will cover an average garden in a matter of days. It spreads sinewy tentacles rather than roots into the ground to search for its preferred food of earthworms. The Horklump is a favourite delicacy of gnomes but otherwise has no discernible use. Horned Serpent M.O.M. Classification: XXXXX Several species of Horned Serpents exist globally: large specimens have been caught in the Far East, while ancient bestiaries suggest that they were once native to Western Europe, where they have been hunted to extinction by wizards in search of potion ingredients. The largest and most diverse group of Horned Serpents still in existence is to be found in North America, of which the most famous and highly prized has a jewel in its forehead, which is reputed to give the power of invisibility and flight. A legend exists concerning the founder of Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Isolt Sayre, and a Horned Serpent. Sayre was reputed to be able to understand the serpent, which offered her shavings from its horn as the core of the first ever American-made wand. The Horned Serpent gives its name to one of the houses of Ilvermorny.

The subject matter is perhaps best characterized as “the subjective quality of experience.” When we perceive, think, and act, there is a whir of causation and information processing, but this processing does not usually go on in the dark. There is also an internal aspect; there is something it feels like to be a cognitive agent. This internal aspect is conscious experience. Conscious experiences range from vivid color sensations to experiences of the faintest background aromas; from hard-edged pains to the elusive experience of thoughts on the tip of one’s tongue; from mundane sounds and smells to the encompassing grandeur of musical experience; from the triviality of a nagging itch to the weight of a deep existential angst; from the specificity of the taste of peppermint to the generality of one’s experience of selfhood. All these have a distinct experienced quality. All are prominent parts of the inner life of the mind. We can say that a being is conscious if there is something it is like to be that being, to use a phrase made famous by Thomas Nagel.1

The idea of freedom is complex and it is all-encompassing. It’s the idea that the economy must remain free of government persuasion. It’s the idea that the press must operate without government intrusion. And it’s the idea that the emails and phone records of Americans should remain free from government search and seizure. It’s the idea that parents must be the decision makers in regards to their children's education — not some government bureaucrat. But most importantly, it is the idea that the individual must be free to pursue his or her own happiness free from government dependence and free from government control. Because to be truly free is to be reliant on no one other than the author of our destiny. These are the ideas at the core of the Republican Party, and it is why I am a Republican. So my brothers and sisters of the American community, please join with me today in abandoning the government plantation and the Party of disappointment. So that we may all echo the words of one Republican leader who famously said, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.

M. de Charlus and M. de Sidonia had each of them immediately detected the other’s vice, which was in both cases that of soliloquising in society, to the extent of not being able to stand any interruption. Having decided at once that, in the words of a famous sonnet, there was ‘no help,’ they had made up their minds not to be silent but each to go on talking without any regard to what the other might say.

This education startled even a man who had dabbled in fifty educations all over the world; for, if he were obliged to insist on a Universe, he seemed driven to the Church. Modern science guaranteed no unity. The student seemed to feel himself, like all his predecessors, caught, trapped, meshed in this eternal drag-net of religion. In practice the student escapes this dilemma in two ways: the first is that of ignoring it, as one escapes most dilemmas; the second is that the Church rejects pantheism as worse than atheism, and will have nothing to do with the pantheist at any price. In wandering through the forests of ignorance, one necessarily fell upon the famous old bear that scared children at play; but, even had the animal shown more logic than its victim, one had learned from Socrates to distrust, above all other traps, the trap of logic -- the mirror of the mind. Yet the search for a unit of force led into catacombs of thought where hundreds of thousands of educations had found their end. Generation after generation of painful and honest-minded scholars had been content to stay in these labyrinths forever, pursuing ignorance in silence, in company with the most famous teachers of all time. Not one of them had ever found a logical highroad of escape.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up,

In his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl writes, “Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life.” He quotes Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” But then Frankl made a crucial, helpful point: It’s fruitless to try to think in the abstract about what life in general means. The meaning of one’s life is only discernible within the specific circumstances of one’s own specific life. In the concentration camp, he writes, “We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and right conduct.

...most gentlemen of breeding considered themselves amateurs at all kinds of disciplines. Go all the way back to Jefferson, who collected fossils and wrote about botany and invented household tools and studied animals. He was an amateur anthropologist and even an amateur theologian who famously cut all the miracles out of the New Testament because he thought Jesus made a whole lot more sense without the supernatural material mucking up the good moral philosophy.

Someone will ask later, sometimes searching for a name, his own or someone else's why I neglected his sadness or his love or his reason or his delirium or his hardships: and he'll be right: it was my duty to name you, you, someone far away and someone close by, to name someone for his heroic scar, to name a woman for her petal, the arrogant one for his fierce innocence, the forgotten one for his famous obscurity. But I didn't have enough time or ink for everyone

The journeys that people took had always interested him; his own life was a constant journeying, though not quite so constant as it had been before he had his wives and children. Usually he only agreed to scout for the Texans if they were going in a direction he wanted to go himself, in order to see a particular hill or stream, to visit a relative or friend, or just to search for a bird or animal he wanted to observe. Also, he often went back to places he had been at earlier times in his life, just to see if the places would seem the same. In most cases, because he himself had changed, the places did not seem exactly as he remembered them, but there were exceptions. The simplest places, where there was only rock and sky, or water and rock, changed the least. When he felt disturbances in his life, as all men would, Famous Shoes tried to go back to one of the simple places, the places of rock and sky, to steady himself and grow calm again.

Most people think the Lego corporation assembled a crack team of world-class experts to engineer Mini-Florida on a computer, but I’m not buying it.” “You aren’t?” asked Coleman. “It’s way too good.” Serge pointed at a two-story building in Key West. “Examine the meticulous green shutters on Hemingway’s house. No, my money is on a lone-wolf manic type like the famous Latvian Edward Leedskalnin, who single-handedly built the Coral Castle back in the twenties. He operated in secret, moving multi-ton hewn boulders south of Miami, and nobody knows how he did it. Probably happened here as well: The Lego people conducting an exhaustive nationwide search among the obsessive-compulsive community. But they had to be selective and stay away from the ones whose entire houses are filled to the ceiling with garbage bags of their own hair. Then they most likely found some cult guru living in a remote Lego ashram south of Pueblo with nineteen wives, offered him unlimited plastic blocks and said, ‘Knock yourself out.

Earlier that night, after dinner, I had sung a few folk songs for Paul. He had inquired about what I had learned during the school year and, already steeped in summer and drawing a blank, I offered a few songs I had memorized from Lan. I sang, in my best effort, a classic lullaby Lan used to sing. The song, originally performed by the famous Khanh Ly, describes a woman singing among corpses strewn across sloping leafy hills. Searching the faces of the dead, the singer asks in the song's refrain, "And which of you, which of you are my sister?

Did you ever hear what happened to Oliver Cromwell’s head? It was originally lashed to the roof of Westminster Hall as a potent warning not to mess with the government of the day, but in 1685 a violent storm blew it off its perch and a captain of the guard had it away and hid it up his chimney, where it stayed until he admitted the crime on his death bed. So can you picture the scene? Cromwell died in 1658. 27 years later this geezer nicks his head and shoves it up his chimney. He’s about to croak it, the whole family’s gathered around his death bed, everybody’s in tears and they’re all wondering if he’ll come out with any famous last words. Perhaps, “Farewell, my children, forever. I go to your father,” or maybe, “Let us pass over the river and rest under the shade of the trees,” or even, “Don’t let it end like this, tell them I said something.” Not this fucking joker! No! What does he say? He says, “Here Jackie, the sausages tasted a bit off tonight. Did I ever tell you I nicked Oliver Cromwell’s head and shoved it up the chimney? It’s still there,” and he draws back the veil of his earthly life and succumbs to eternal peace. They all look at each other, “What did he fucking say?” “He said he nicked Oliver Cromwell’s head.” “What do you mean; he nicked Oliver Cromwell’s head?” “That’s what he said, don’t blame me!” “Fuck’s sake!” “Well, do you think we should look?” “Don’t talk bollocks! You honestly want to look up the chimney to see if Oliver Cromwell’s head’s up there?” “I’m just saying …..” Anyway, one of them had a look up the chimney, found the head and by 1710 it was appearing in a freak show under the banner, ‘The Monster’s Head.’ True story

The name Patrick Modiano drew a blank in the States when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2014. But in Paris, his home city, his many novels (more than thirty) are read, the screenplay he wrote for Louis Malle’s masterpiece Lacombe, Lucien remains a favorite, and the songs he wrote for Françoise Hardy you hear in cafés and on the radio. Still, Modiano, as man and artist, remains a mystery man. The search for phantoms of history is his basic plotline, the searches as well as the enigmatic love stories, all of which take place along the streets of Paris.

To whom should we listen? The loudest voices? The most educated? The formerly marginalized? The formerly powerful? Those with the most retweets? Those who have traditionally spoken for God are now looked at askance by many people, and with good reason. Too often they’ve used their Christian platform for political and military gain. They’ve forgotten that the story of God, exemplified in Jesus, is an abdication of power. It’s a story of self-limitation and humility. It’s a story lived in solidarity with those at the margins. To whom should we listen? To Jesus on the cross.

And so, O Sancho, our works must not stray beyond the limits imposed by the Christian religion that we profess. In slaying giants, we must slay pride; in our generosity and magnanimity, we must slay envy; in our tranquil demeanor and serene disposition, we must slay anger; in eating as little as we do and keeping vigil as much as we do, we must slay gluttony and somnolence; in our faithfulness to those whom we have made the mistresses of our thoughts, we must slay lewdness and lust; in wandering all over the world in search of opportunities to become famous knights as well as good Christians, we must slay sloth.

Equally bad deals have been made with Big Tech. In many ways, Silicon Valley is a product of the U.S. government’s investments in the development of high-risk technologies. The National Science Foundation funded the research behind the search algorithm that made Google famous. The U.S. Navy did the same for the GPS technology that Uber depends on. And the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of the Pentagon, backed the development of the Internet, touchscreen technology, Siri, and every other key component in the iPhone. Taxpayers took risks when they invested in these technologies, yet most of the technology companies that have benefited fail to pay their fair share of taxes.

At an age when Names, offering us the image of the unknowable that we have invested in them and simultaneously designating a real place for us, force us accordingly to identify the one with the other, to a point where we go off to a city to seek out a soul that it cannot contain but which we no longer have the power to expel from its name, it is not only to cities and ruins that they give an individuality, as do allegorical paintings, nor is it only the physical world that they spangle with differences and people with marvels, it is the social world as well: so every historic house, every famous residence or palace, has its lady or its fairy, as forests have their spirits and rivers their deities.

And so, O Sancho, our works must not stray beyond the limits imposed by the Christian religion that we profess. In slaying giants, we must slay pride; in our generosity and magnanimity, we must slay envy; in our tranquil demeanour and serene disposition, we must slay anger; in eating as little as we do and keeping vigil as much as we do, we must slay gluttony and somnolence; in our faithfulness to those whom we have made the mistresses of our thoughts, we must slay lewdness and lust; in wandering all over the world in search of opportunities to become famous knights as well as good Christians, we must slay sloth.6 Here, Sancho, you have the means by which the high praise brought by fame can be achieved.

Adele took her place in front of the audience and began to sing. "Miss Eyre, perhaps you can tell me what he's saying?" Mrs. Fairfax said. "The only other person in the house who speaks French is the master, and he hates to translate anymore." Jane glanced at Mr. Rochester, but he stared straight ahead. Jane listened to the song. "The first few lines are about a famous dancer ... in a club ... She wore flowers in her hair and a dress that ... oh." Adele sang in detail about how much the dress covered. Or didn't cover. Jane blushed and glanced at Mr. Rochester, searching for a reaction to the scandalous lyrics. But he just listened. Not scandalized. "So, yes, the dancer wore a dress," Jane continued, with slightly less detail. "And she was in love with a ... dealer. Of cards. And at night, they ... oh my." Adele sang of a very special hug. Jane's cheeks flamed. "Perhaps Mr. Rochester should translate." She turned to Mr. Rochester, who coughed. He waved his hand. "Please continue, Miss Eyre. You're doing such a fine job." Now Adele sang of the woman's roving eye, and another man visiting while her lover was away. "They continued to love each other," Jane said quickly, maybe a bit desperately. In the last verse, the boyfriend found out about her infidelity, and stabbed the dancer and her other lover. "That escalated quickly," said Helen. She also spoke French, but no one had asked her to translate. "And they both lived happily ever after," Jane blurted. She was going to have to teach Adele some new songs.

The great Persian Sufi poet Rumi beautifully describes the mind of befriending emotions in his famous poem, “Guest House”:         This being human is a guest house         Every morning a new arrival.         A joy, a depression, a meanness,         some momentary awareness comes         as an unexpected visitor.         Welcome and entertain them all!         Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,         who violently sweep your house         empty of its furniture,         still, treat each guest honorably.         He may be clearing you out         for some new delight.         The dark thought, the shame, the malice,         meet them at the door laughing,         and invite them in.         Be grateful for whoever comes,         because each has been sent         as a guide from beyond.

In camp, too, a man might draw the attention of a comrade working next to him to a nice view of the setting sun shining through the tall trees of the Bavarian woods (as in the famous water color by Dürer), the same woods in which we had built an enormous, hidden munitions plant. One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of our hut, dead tired, soup bowls in hand, a fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds glowing in the west and the whole sky alive with clouds of ever-changing shapes and colors, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, “How beautiful the world could be!

The central figure of Buddhism is not a god but a human being, Siddhartha Gautama. According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama was heir to a small Himalayan kingdom, sometime around 500 BC. The young prince was deeply affected by the suffering evident all around him. He saw that men and women, children and old people, all suffer not just from occasional calamities such as war and plague, but also from anxiety, frustration and discontent, all of which seem to be an inseparable part of the human condition. People pursue wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content. Those who live in poverty dream of riches. Those who have a million want two million. Those who have two million want 10 million. Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied. They too are haunted by ceaseless cares and worries, until sickness, old age and death put a bitter end to them. Everything that one has accumulated vanishes like smoke. Life is a pointless rat race. But how to escape it? At the age of twenty-nine Gautama slipped away from his palace in the middle of the night, leaving behind his family and possessions. He travelled as a homeless vagabond throughout northern India, searching for a way out of suffering. He visited ashrams and sat at the feet of gurus but nothing liberated him entirely – some dissatisfaction always remained. He did not despair. He resolved to investigate suffering on his own until he found a method for complete liberation. He spent six years meditating on the essence, causes and cures for human anguish. In the end he came to the realisation that suffering is not caused by ill fortune, by social injustice, or by divine whims. Rather, suffering is caused by the behaviour patterns of one’s own mind. Gautama’s insight was that no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction. When the mind experiences something distasteful it craves to be rid of the irritation. When the mind experiences something pleasant, it craves that the pleasure will remain and will intensify. Therefore, the mind is always dissatisfied and restless. This is very clear when we experience unpleasant things, such as pain. As long as the pain continues, we are dissatisfied and do all we can to avoid it. Yet even when we experience pleasant things we are never content. We either fear that the pleasure might disappear, or we hope that it will intensify. People dream for years about finding love but are rarely satisfied when they find it. Some become anxious that their partner will leave; others feel that they have settled cheaply, and could have found someone better. And we all know people who manage to do both.

The famous Dubner maggid, a gaon, was asked by an admiring student: “How is it that you always have the perfect parable for the topic under discussion?” The gaon smiled. “I’ll answer with a parable.” And he told the following story: A lieutenant of the Tsar’s cavalry, riding through a small shtetl, drew his horse up in astonishment, for on the side of a barn he saw a hundred chalked circles—and in the center of each was a bullet hole! The lieutenant excitedly stopped the first passerby, crying, “Who is the astonishing marksman in this place? Look at all those bull’s-eyes!” The passerby sighed. “That’s Shepsel, the shoemaker’s son, who is a little peculiar.” “I don’t care what he is,” said the lieutenant. “Any man who can shoot that well—” “Ah,” the pedestrian said, “you don’t understand. You see, first Shepsel shoots—then he draws the circle.” The gaon smiled. “That’s the way it is with me. I don’t search for a parable to fit the subject. I introduce the subject for which I have a perfect parable.

Near the exit to the blue patio, DeCoverley Pox and Joaquin Stick stand by a concrete scale model of the Jungfrau, ... socking the slopes of the famous mountain with red rubber hot-water bags full of ice cubes, the idea being to pulverize the ice for Pirate's banana frappes. With their nights' growths of beard, matted hair, bloodshot eyes, miasmata of foul breath, DeCoverley and Joaquin are wasted gods urging on a tardy glacier. Elsewhere in the maisonette, other drinking companions disentangle from blankets (one spilling wind from his, dreaming of a parachute), piss into bathroom sinks, look at themselves with dismay in concave shaving mirrors, slab water with no clear plan in mind onto heads of thinning hair, struggle into Sam Brownes, dub shoes against rain later in the day with hand muscles already weary of it, sing snatches of popular songs whose tunes they don't always know, lie, believing themselves warmed, in what patches of the new sunlight come between the mullions, begin tentatively to talk shop as a way of easing into whatever it is they'll have to be doing in less than an hour, lather necks and faces, yawn, pick their noses, search cabinets or bookcases for the hair of the dog that not without provocation and much prior conditioning bit them last night. Now there grows among all the rooms, replacing the night's old smoke, alcohol and sweat, the fragile, musaceous odor of Breakfast:flowery, permeating, surprising, more than the color of winter sunlight, taking over not so much through any brute pungency or volume as by the high intricacy to the weaving of its molecules, sharing the conjuror's secret by which-- though it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off--- the genetic chains prove labyrinthine enough to preserve some human face down ten or twenty generations. . . so the same assertion-through-structure allows this war morning's banana fragrance to meander, repossess, prevail. Is there any reason not to open every window, and let the kind scent blanket all Chelsea? As a spell, against falling objects. . . .

There are tiny mites living in our eyelashes. Hal Roach was a famous director who used to hire drunk and insane people to generate creative ideas. To attract female goats, Billy goats urinate on their own heads. Jewish people do not eat pork. Khazaria was a medieval Turkic kingdom that adopted Judaism as its official religion; it was the only non-Semitic state to become Jewish after Israel. The largest economy in the United States is California. More deer are killed by drivers than by hunters. The automotive center of the world is in Detroit. If the earth were ever to stop spinning, all the oceans would flow to the north and south poles. Around 16 to 20 percent of the terms searched on Google are said to have been never searched before. Bamboo can grow 35 inches per day making it the fastest growing woody plant in the world. The heaviest insect found on the earth is ‘Giant Weta’. It weighs more than a pound and is found in New Zealand. The CIA is expected to release the JFK assassination records to the public no later than 10/26/2017.

And in fact the jealous lover is, like contemporaries, too close to the events, he can know nothing of them, and it is for the uninvolved that a series of adulteries takes on the precision of history, expanding into lists, quite dispassionate in themselves and saddening only for another jealous lover such as I was, who cannot avoid comparing his own case to the one he is hearing about, and wondering whether, for the woman he doubts, there does not exist another equally famous list. But he will never know, it is as if there is a general conspiracy, a joke of which he is the victim, in which everyone cruelly participates and which involves, while the woman he loves flits from one man to another, holding a blindfold over his eyes which he constantly tries to tear off, but without success, for everyone keeps him in the dark, poor soul, kind people out of kindness, unkind out of unkindness, vulgar people from a taste for low jokes, well-brought-up people from politeness and good manners, and everyone in observance of one of those conventions which the world calls principles.

I must say what had struck me as the most serious sign that she was anticipating my accusation was that she had said, “I think Mlle Vinteuil will be there this evening,” and I had replied in the cruelest way possible, saying, “You didn’t tell me you’d seen Mme Verdurin.” When Albertine seemed to be unkind, instead of admitting my sadness to her, I became aggressive. Analyzing my conduct on that principle, the famous rule that my answers had always to express the opposite of what I was feeling, I can be sure that if I told her that night I was going to leave her, it was because—even before I had quite realized it—I was afraid she was going to want more freedom (what this dangerous freedom would exactly be I could not have said, but the kind of freedom that would have allowed her to deceive me, or at least prevented me from being certain that she was not deceiving me) and I wanted to be clever and show her, out of pride, that I did not care, just as, at Balbec, I had wanted her to have a high opinion of me and, later, had wanted her to have so much to do that she could not be bored with me.

He found Rhy standing in the middle of his room, his back to Kell as he considered himself in a full-length mirror. From this angle, Kell couldn’t see Rhy’s face, and for a moment, a memory surged into his mind, of Rhy waiting for him to wake—only it hadn’t been Rhy, of course, but Astrid wearing his skin, and they were in Rhy’s chambers then, not his. But for an instant the details blurred and he found himself searching Rhy for any pendants or charms, searching his floor for blood, before the past crumbled back into memory. “About time,” said Rhy, and Kell was secretly relieved when the voice that came from Rhy’s lips was undoubtedly his brother’s. “What brings you to my room?” he asked, relief bleeding into annoyance. “Adventure. Intrigue. Brotherly concern. Or,” continued the prince lazily, “perhaps I’m just giving your mirror something to look at besides your constant pout.” Kell frowned, and Rhy smiled. “Ah, there it is! That famous scowl.” “I don’t scowl,” grumbled Kell. Rhy shot a conspiratorial look at his own reflection. Kell sighed and tossed his coat onto the nearest couch before heading for the alcove off his chamber.

We were working on the idea about dogs’ Internet searches, and first we debated whether the sketch should feature real dogs or Henrietta and Viv in dog costumes (because cast members were always, unfailingly, trying to get more air time, we quickly went with the latter). Then we discussed where it should take place (the computer cluster in a public library, but, even though all this mattered for was the establishing shot, we got stalled on whether that library should be New York’s famous Main Branch building on Fifth Avenue, with the lion statues in front, a generic suburban library in Kansas City, or a generic suburban library in Jacksonville, Florida, which was where Viv was from). Then we really got stalled on the breeds of dogs. Out of loyalty to my stepfather and Sugar, I wanted at least one to be a beagle. Viv said that it would work best if one was really big and one was really little, and Henrietta said she was fine with any big dog except a German Shepherd because she’d been bitten by her neighbor’s German Shepherd in third grade. After forty minutes we’d decided on a St. Bernard and a Chihuahua—I eventually conceded that Chihuahuas were funnier than beagles. We decided to go with the Florida location for the establishing shot because the lions in front of the New York Main Branch could preempt or diminish the appearance of the St. Bernard. Then we’d arrived at the fun part, which was the search terms. With her mouth full of beef kebab, Viv said, “Am I adopted?” With my mouth full of spanakopita, I said, “Am I a good girl?” With her mouth full of falafel, Henrietta said, “Am I five or thirty-five?” “Why is thunder scary?” I said. “Discreet crotch-sniffing techniques,” Henrietta said. “Cheap mani-pedis in my area,” Viv said. “Oh, and cheapest self-driving car.” “Best hamburgers near me,” I said. “What is halitosis,” Henrietta said. “Halitosis what to do,” I said. “Where do humans pee,” Viv said. “Taco Bell Chihuahua male or female,” I said. “Target bull terrier married,” Viv said. “Lassie plastic surgery,” Henrietta said. “Funny cat videos,” I said. “Corgis embarrassing themselves YouTube,” Viv said. “YouTube little dog scares away big dog,” I said. “Doghub two poodles and one corgi,” Henrietta said. “Waxing my tail,” I said. “Is my tail a normal size,” Viv said.

There is no man,” he began, “however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man—so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise—unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded. I know that there are young fellows, the sons and grandsons of famous men, whose masters have instilled into them nobility of mind and moral refinement in their schooldays. They have, perhaps, when they look back upon their past lives, nothing to retract; they can, if they choose, publish a signed account of everything they have ever said or done; but they are poor creatures, feeble descendants of doctrinaires, and their wisdom is negative and sterile. We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world

For almost all astronomical objects, gravitation dominates, and they have the same unexpected behavior. Gravitation reverses the usual relation between energy and temperature. In the domain of astronomy, when heat flows from hotter to cooler objects, the hot objects get hotter and the cool objects get cooler. As a result, temperature differences in the astronomical universe tend to increase rather than decrease as time goes on. There is no final state of uniform temperature, and there is no heat death. Gravitation gives us a universe hospitable to life. Information and order can continue to grow for billions of years in the future, as they have evidently grown in the past. The vision of the future as an infinite playground, with an unending sequence of mysteries to be understood by an unending sequence of players exploring an unending supply of information, is a glorious vision for scientists. Scientists find the vision attractive, since it gives them a purpose for their existence and an unending supply of jobs. The vision is less attractive to artists and writers and ordinary people. Ordinary people are more interested in friends and family than in science. Ordinary people may not welcome a future spent swimming in an unending flood of information. A darker view of the information-dominated universe was described in the famous story “The Library of Babel,” written by Jorge Luis Borges in 1941.§ Borges imagined his library, with an infinite array of books and shelves and mirrors, as a metaphor for the universe. Gleick’s book has an epilogue entitled “The Return of Meaning,” expressing the concerns of people who feel alienated from the prevailing scientific culture. The enormous success of information theory came from Shannon’s decision to separate information from meaning. His central dogma, “Meaning is irrelevant,” declared that information could be handled with greater freedom if it was treated as a mathematical abstraction independent of meaning. The consequence of this freedom is the flood of information in which we are drowning. The immense size of modern databases gives us a feeling of meaninglessness. Information in such quantities reminds us of Borges’s library extending infinitely in all directions. It is our task as humans to bring meaning back into this wasteland. As finite creatures who think and feel, we can create islands of meaning in the sea of information. Gleick ends his book with Borges’s image of the human condition: We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and of the future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognize creatures of the information.

home of Elon Simpson. We were right off of Washington Square, a part of the city marked by well-appointed brownstones with shuttered windows and a park hailing back to this country’s birth. Here was the seat of this city’s Quality—and the seat of our dead. I had, by then, done my share of reading on Philadelphia, so I knew that, in another time, when the Task was here in Pennsylvania, the city had fallen victim to a wave of fever. And among the men who combatted this fever was Benjamin Rush, a famous doctor, which is hard to countenance given the theory he put forth in defense of the city. Colored people were immune to the fever, he told Philadelphia, and more than immune, their very presence could alter the air itself, sucking up the scourge and holding it captive in our fetid black bodies. And so tasking men were brought in by the hundreds on the alleged black magic of our bodies. They all died. And when the city began to fill with their corpses, its masters searched for a space far from the whites who were felled by the disease. And they chose a patch of land where no one lived, and tossed us into pits. Years later, after the fever had been forgotten, after the war had birthed this new country, they built rows and rows of well-appointed houses right on top of those people, and named a square for their liberating general. It struck me that even here, in the free North, the luxuries of this world were built right on top of us.

THE DEFENDANT: Thank you, your Honor. I stand before your Honor humbly and painfully aware that we are here today for one reason: Because of my actions that I pled guilty to on August 21, and as well on November 29. I take full responsibility for each act that I pled guilty to, the personal ones to me and those involving the President of the United States of America. Viktor Frankl in his book, "Man's Search for Meaning," he wrote, "There are forces beyond your control that can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation." Your Honor, this may seem hard to believe, but today is one of the most meaningful days of my life. The irony is today is the day I am getting my freedom back as you sit at the bench and you contemplate my fate. I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the fateful day that I accepted the offer to work for a famous real estate mogul whose business acumen I truly admired. In fact, I now know that there is little to be admired. I want to be clear. I blame myself for the conduct which has brought me here today, and it was my own weakness, and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light. It is for these reasons I chose to participate in the elicit act of the President rather than to listen to my own inner voice which should have warned me that the campaign finance violations that I later pled guilty to were insidious.

Spirituality is more about whether or not we can sleep at night than about whether or not we go to church. It is about being integrated or falling apart, about being within community or being lonely, about being in harmony with Mother Earth or being alienated from her. Irrespective of whether or not we let ourselves be consciously shaped by any explicit religious idea, we act in ways that leave us either healthy or unhealthy, loving or bitter. What shapes our actions is our spirituality. And what shapes our actions is basically what shapes our desire. Desire makes us act and when we act what we do will either lead to a greater integration or disintegration within our personalities, minds, and bodies—and to the strengthening or deterioration of our relationship to God, others, and the cosmic world. The habits and disciplines5 we use to shape our desire form the basis for a spirituality, regardless of whether these have an explicit religious dimension to them or even whether they are consciously expressed at all. Spirituality concerns what we do with desire. It takes its root in the eros inside of us and it is all about how we shape and discipline that eros. John of the Cross, the great Spanish mystic, begins his famous treatment of the soul’s journey with the words: “One dark night, fired by love’s urgent longings.”6 For him, it is urgent longings, eros, that are the starting point of the spiritual life and, in his view, spirituality, essentially defined, is how we handle that eros.

In a sense the rise of Anabaptism was no surprise. Most revolutionary movements produce a wing of radicals who feel called of God to reform the reformation. And that is what Anabaptism was, a voice calling the moderate reformers to strike even more deeply at the foundations of the old order. Like most counterculture movements, the Anabaptists lacked cohesiveness. No single body of doctrine and no unifying organization prevailed among them. Even the name Anabaptist was pinned on them by their enemies. It meant rebaptizer and was intended to associate the radicals with heretics in the early church and subject them to severe persecution. The move succeeded famously. Actually, the Anabaptists rejected all thoughts of rebaptism because they never considered the ceremonial sprinkling they received in infancy as valid baptism. They much preferred Baptists as a designation. To most of them, however, the fundamental issue was not baptism. It was the nature of the church and its relation to civil governments. They had come to their convictions like most other Protestants: through Scripture. Luther had taught that common people have a right to search the Bible for themselves. It had been his guide to salvation; why not theirs? As a result, little groups of Anabaptist believers gathered about their Bibles. They discovered a different world in the pages of the New Testament. They found no state-church alliance, no Christendom. Instead they discovered that the apostolic churches were companies of committed believers, communities of men and women who had freely and personally chosen to follow Jesus. And for the sixteenth century, that was a revolutionary idea. In spite of Luther’s stress on personal religion, Lutheran churches were established churches. They retained an ordained clergy who considered the whole population of a given territory members of their church. The churches looked to the state for salary and support. Official Protestantism seemed to differ little from official Catholicism. Anabaptists wanted to change all that. Their goal was the “restitution” of apostolic Christianity, a return to churches of true believers. In the early church, they said, men and women who had experienced personal spiritual regeneration were the only fit subjects for baptism. The apostolic churches knew nothing of the practice of baptizing infants. That tradition was simply a convenient device for perpetuating Christendom: nominal but spiritually impotent Christian society. The true church, the radicals insisted, is always a community of saints, dedicated disciples in a wicked world. Like the missionary monks of the Middle Ages, the Anabaptists wanted to shape society by their example of radical discipleship—if necessary, even by death. They steadfastly refused to be a part of worldly power including bearing arms, holding political office, and taking oaths. In the sixteenth century this independence from social and civic society was seen as inflammatory, revolutionary, or even treasonous.

There is no man,” he began, “however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man — so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise — unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded. I know that there are young fellows, the sons and grandsons of famous men, whose masters have instilled into them nobility of mind and moral refinement in their schooldays. They have, perhaps, when they look back upon their past lives, nothing to retract; they can, if they choose, publish a signed account of everything they have ever said or done; but they are poor creatures, feeble descendants of doctrinaires, and their wisdom is negative and sterile. We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you are not the result of training at home, by a father, or by masters at school, they have sprung from beginnings of a very different order, by reaction from the influence of everything evil or commonplace that prevailed round about them. They represent a struggle and a victory. I can see that the picture of what we once were, in early youth, may not be recognisable and cannot, certainly, be pleasing to contemplate in later life. But we must not deny the truth of it, for it is evidence that we have really lived, that it is in accordance with the laws of life and of the mind that we have, from the common elements of life, of the life of studios, of artistic groups — assuming that one is a painter — extracted something that goes beyond them.

Although they made it their own, the Vikings were not the first explorers of the North Atlantic. For at least two centuries before the beginning of the Viking Age, Irish monks had been setting out in their curachs in search of remote islands where they could contemplate the divine in perfect solitude, disturbed only by the cries of seabirds and the crashing of the waves on the shore. The monks developed a tradition of writing imrama, travel tales, the most famous of which is the Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis (The Voyage of St Brendan the Abbot). The Navigatio recounts a voyage purported to have been made by St Brendan (d. c. 577) in search of the mythical Isles of the Blessed, which were believed to lie somewhere in the western ocean. The imrama certainly show a familiarity with the North Atlantic–the Navigatio, for example, describes what are probably icebergs, volcanoes and whales–but they also include so many fantastical and mythological elements that it is impossible to disentangle truth from invention. There is no evidence to support claims that are often made that St Brendan discovered America before the Vikings, but Irish monks certainly did reach the Faeroe Islands and Iceland before them. Ash from peat fires containing charred barley grains found in windblown sand deposits at Á Sondum on Sandoy in the southern Faeroes has been radiocarbon-dated to between the fourth and sixth centuries AD. Although no trace of buildings has yet been found, the ash probably came from domestic hearths and had been thrown out onto the sand to help control erosion, which was a common practice at the time. As peat was not used as a fuel in Scandinavia at this time but was widely used in Britain and Ireland, this evidence suggests that seafaring Irish monks had discovered the Faeroes not long after Ireland’s conversion to Christianity. No physical traces of an Irish presence in Iceland have been found in modern times, but early Viking settlers claimed that they found croziers and other ecclesiastical artefacts there. There are also two papar place-names (see here) associated with Irish monks, Papos and Papey, in the east of Iceland. The monks, all being celibate males, did not found any permanent self-sustaining communities in either place: they were always visitors rather than settlers.

what makes life worth living when we are old and frail and unable to care for ourselves? In 1943, the psychologist Abraham Maslow published his hugely influential paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,” which famously described people as having a hierarchy of needs. It is often depicted as a pyramid. At the bottom are our basic needs—the essentials of physiological survival (such as food, water, and air) and of safety (such as law, order, and stability). Up one level are the need for love and for belonging. Above that is our desire for growth—the opportunity to attain personal goals, to master knowledge and skills, and to be recognized and rewarded for our achievements. Finally, at the top is the desire for what Maslow termed “self-actualization”—self-fulfillment through pursuit of moral ideals and creativity for their own sake. Maslow argued that safety and survival remain our primary and foundational goals in life, not least when our options and capacities become limited. If true, the fact that public policy and concern about old age homes focus on health and safety is just a recognition and manifestation of those goals. They are assumed to be everyone’s first priorities. Reality is more complex, though. People readily demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice their safety and survival for the sake of something beyond themselves, such as family, country, or justice. And this is regardless of age. What’s more, our driving motivations in life, instead of remaining constant, change hugely over time and in ways that don’t quite fit Maslow’s classic hierarchy. In young adulthood, people seek a life of growth and self-fulfillment, just as Maslow suggested. Growing up involves opening outward. We search out new experiences, wider social connections, and ways of putting our stamp on the world. When people reach the latter half of adulthood, however, their priorities change markedly. Most reduce the amount of time and effort they spend pursuing achievement and social networks. They narrow in. Given the choice, young people prefer meeting new people to spending time with, say, a sibling; old people prefer the opposite. Studies find that as people grow older they interact with fewer people and concentrate more on spending time with family and established friends. They focus on being rather than doing and on the present more than the future.

Looks like everybody's asleep. Don't they keep a light on for you?" "They probably figured I wouldn't be needing it." "Sorry to disappoint your cousins." "Not to mention me.I'm gravely disappointed at the way this evening has ended.You're going to ruin my reputation as a lady-killer." He flashed her one of his famous smiles. He opened the door and climbed down.When he rounded the front of the truck, he paused beside her open window. "Good night,Marilee. I appreciate the ride home. I just wish you didn't have to make that long drive back to town all alone." "I'll be fine.I've got my radio to keep me company." "You could always coe inside and bunk in my room." "What a generous offer.But once again, I'm afraid I'll have to decline,though I have to admit that I've had more fun in a few hours with you than I've had in years." The minute the words were out of her mouth,she wanted to call them back. What was it about Wyatt that had her trusting him enough to reveal such a thing? Though she barely knew him,he'd uncovered an inherent goodness in him that was rare and wonderful. This had been one of the best nights of her life. Still,he'd gone very quiet.As though digesting her words and searching for hidden meanings. As he turned away she called boldly, "What? No kiss good night? Just because I refused to spend the night with you?" He turned back with a smile, but it wasn't his usual silly grin.Instead, she noted,there was a hint of danger in that smile. He studied her intently before reaching out as though to touch her face. Then he seemed to think better of it and withdrew his hand as if he'd been burned. His eyes locked on hers. "I've already decided that I'll never be able to just kiss you and walk away.So a word of warning,pretty little Marilee. When I kiss you,and I fully intend to kiss you breathless,be prepared to go the distance. There's a powerful storm building up inside me,and when it's unleashed,it's going to be one hell of an earth-shattering explosion.For both of us." He walked away then and didn't look back until he'd reached the back door. Startled by the unexpected intensity of his words,Marilee put the truck in gear and started along the gravel lane. As her vehicle ate up the miles back to town,she couldn't put aside the look she'd seen in his eyes.The carefully banked passion she'd taken such pains to hide had left her more shaken than she cared to admit. In truth,she was still trembling. And he hadn't even touched her.

I miss Diana more than I can express. The world seems a colder place without her luminous presence. To had had Diana’s friendship, to have known her personally, has been a gift beyond comparison. She brought joy and pride and a touch of glamour to my life for years. I loved and admired her without reservation. When Patrick recognized her picture on magazine covers, I thought how incredible it was that we actually knew the beautiful, famous Diana. Best of all, we knew she was even lovelier inside. I read her letters, feeling deeply touched that she continued to care for us. Seeing her in person--warm, unpretentious, and radiant--was a thrill that lasted a long, long time. It truly was, “like being brushed by angels’ wings,” as my friend at the funeral had said. Whoever would have thought when I called for a nanny so many years ago, that magic would enter my life. My family and I watched her dazzling progress from a shy teenager to a multi-faceted and charismatic woman. She fulfilled her many roles so beautifully. Yet to me, Diana was a beloved friend, not the world-famous Princess of Wales. Behind the glamour, I saw the qualities I’d always admired in her--kindness, integrity, and grace in all she did. Above all, Diana was born to be a mother. Showing affection was as natural to her as breathing. I saw her tender care for my young son. I know she was an utterly devoted mother to her own boys, giving them unconditional love and deriving her greatest joy in life from them. I’ve wished so often that her life had been a fairytale, that Diana had been spared the pain and loneliness she suffered. But without the despair, she might not have developed the strength and humanity that reached out to people everywhere. Diana instinctively looked beyond her own problems to ease the pain and distress of others. She touched so many people in her short lifetime. I never thought it would end this way--that she would die so young. I will always remember, as the last hymn faded into silence at her funeral, the solemn tread of the soldiers’ boots--so haunting, so final--as they carried her casket through the Abbey. I couldn’t bear that she was leaving forever. For months now, I’ve searched for some solace in this tragedy. I hope that Diana’s untimely death and the worldwide mourning for her have silenced forever those who belittled her values and doubted her appeal. She rests peacefully now beyond reproach--young and beautiful. Diana, you were greater than we realized. We will never, never forget you.

This way please,' said a voice. In the door stood Dr Sesame, the famous Dr Sesame, whose reputation as a sympathetic and, according to some, also a kind-hearted man had spread throughout the town and beyond. He had also written a popular pamphlet on sexual problems, which had given Pinneberg the courage to write making an appointment for Emma and himself. This, then, was the Dr Sesame at present standing in the doorway, and saying 'This way, please.' Dr Sesame searched on his desk for the letter. 'You wrote to me, Mr Pinneberg... saying you couldn't have any children just yet because you couldn't afford it?' 'Yes,' said Pinneberg, dreadfully embarrassed. 'You can start undressing,' said the doctor to Emma, and carried on: 'And you want to know an entirely reliable means of prevention. Hm, an entirely reliable means...' He smiled sceptically behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. 'I read about it in your book... These pessoirs...' 'Pessaries,' said the doctor. 'Yes, but they don't suit every woman. And it's always a bit of a business. It depends on whether your wife would be nimble-fingered enough...' He looked up at her. She had already taken off her blouse and skirt. Her slim legs made her look very tall. 'Well, let's go next door,' said the doctor. 'You needn't have taken your blouse off for this, young lady.' Emma went a deep red. 'Oh well, leave it off now. Come this way. One moment, Mr Pinneberg.' The two of them went into the next room. Pinneberg watched them go. The top of the doctor's head reached no farther than the 'young lady's' shoulders. How beautiful she was! thought Pinneberg yet again; she was the greatest girl in the world, the only one for him. He worked in Ducherow, and she worked here in Platz, and he never saw her more than once a fortnight, so his joy in her was always fresh, and his desire for her absolutely inexpressible. Next door he heard the doctor asking questions on and off in a low voice, and an instrument clinking on the side of a bowl. He knew that sound from the dentist's; it wasn't a pleasant one. Then he winced violently. Never had he heard that tone from Emma. She was saying in a high, clear voice that was almost a shriek - 'No, no, no!' And once again, 'No!' And then, very softly, but he still heard it: 'Oh God.' Pinneberg took three steps to the door - What was that? What could it be? What about these rumours that those kind of doctors were terrible lechers? But then Dr Sesame spoke again - impossible to hear what he said - and the instrument clinked again. There was a long silence.

What is your name?” she said crossing her legs. “I am Raj Singhania, owner of Singhania group of Industries and I am on my way to sign a 1000 crore deal.” “Oh my God, Oh my God!” she said laughing and looked at Bobby from top to bottom. “What’s with this OMG thing and girls, stop saying that. I am not going to propose you anytime soon. But it’s OK. I can understand how girls feel when they meet famous dudes like me,” Bobby said smiling. “What kind of an idiot are you?” she said laughing. “Indeed, a very rare one. The one that you find after searching for millions of years,” Bobby said. “Do you always talk like this?” she said laughing. “Only to strangers on bus or whenever I get bored,” Bobby said. “OK, tell me your real name,” she said. “My name is Mogaliputta Tissa and I am here to save the world.” “Oh no not again!” she said squeezing her head with both her hands. “I know you are dying inside to kiss me,” Bobby said flashing a smile. “Why would I kiss you?” she said with a pretended sternness. “Because, you are impressed with my intelligence level and the hotness quotient, I can see that in your eyes.” “You think you are hot! Oh no! You look like that cartoon guy in 7 up commercial,” she said laughing. “Thank you. He was the coolest guy I saw on TV,” Bobby said. “OK fine, let’s calm down. Tell me your real name,” she said calmly. “I don’t remember my name,” Bobby said calmly. “What kind of idiot forgets his name?” she said staring into Bobby’s eyes. “I am suffering from multiple personality disorder and I forgot my present personality’s name. Can you help me out?” Bobby said with an innocent look on his face. “I will kill you with my hair clip. Leave me alone,” she said and closed her eyes. “You look like a Pomeranian puppy,” Bobby said looking at her hair. “Don’t talk to me,” she said. “You look very beautiful,” Bobby said. “Nice try but I am not going to open my eyes,” she said. “Your ear rings are very nice. But I think that girl in the last seat has better rings,” Bobby said. “She is not wearing any ear rings. I know because I saw her when I was getting inside. It takes just 5 seconds for a girl to know what other girls around her are wearing,” she said with her eyes still closed. “Hey, look. They are selling porn CDs at a roadside shop,” Bobby said. “I have loads of porn in my personal computer. I don’t need them,” she said. “OMG, that girl looks hotter than you,” Bobby said. “I will not open my eyes no matter what. Even if an earthquake hits the road, I will not open my eyes,” she said crossing her arms over her chest. Bobby turned back and waved his hand to the kid who was poking his mom’s ear. The kid came running and halted at Bobby’s seat. “This aunty wants to give you a chocolate if you tell her your name,” Bobby whispered to the kid and the kid perked up smiling. “Hello Aunty! Wake up, my name is Bintu. Give me my chocolate, Aunty, please!” the kid said yanking at the girl’s hand. All of a sudden, she opened her eyes and glared at the kid. “Don’t call me aunty. What would everyone think? I am a teenage girl. Go away. I don’t have anything to give you,” she said and the kid went back to his seat. “This is what happens when you mess with an intelligent person like me,” Bobby said laughing. “Shut up,” she said. “OK dude.” “I am not a dude. Stop it.” “OK sexy. Oops! OK Saxena,” “I will scream.” “OK. Where do you study?” “Why should I tell you?” “Are you suffering from split personality disorder like me?” Bobby said staring into her eyes. “Shut up. Don’t talk to me,” she said with a pout. “What the hell! I have enlightened your mind with my thoughts, told you my name and now you are acting like you don’t know me. Girls are mad.

The process of receiving teaching depends upon the student giving something in return; some kind of psychological surrender is necessary, a gift of some sort. This is why we must discuss surrendering, opening, giving up expectations, before we can speak of the relationship between teacher and student. It is essential to surrender, to open yourself, to present whatever you are to the guru, rather than trying to present yourself as a worthwhile student. It does not matter how much you are willing to pay, how correctly you behave, how clever you are at saying the right thing to your teacher. It is not like having an interview for a job or buying a new car. Whether or not you will get the job depends upon your credentials, how well you are dressed, how beautifully your shoes are polished, how well you speak, how good your manners are. If you are buying a car, it is a matter of how much money you have and how good your credit is. But when it comes to spirituality, something more is required. It is not a matter of applying for a job, of dressing up to impress our potential employer. Such deception does not apply to an interview with a guru, because he sees right through us. He is amused if we dress up especially for the interview. Making ingratiating gestures is not applicable in this situation; in fact it is futile. We must make a real commitment to being open with our teacher; we must be willing to give up all our preconceptions. Milarepa expected Marpa to be a great scholar and a saintly person, dressed in yogic costume with beads, reciting mantras, meditating. Instead he found Marpa working on his farm, directing the laborers and plowing his land. I am afraid the word guru is overused in the West. It would be better to speak of one’s “spiritual friend,” because the teachings emphasize a mutual meeting of two minds. It is a matter of mutual communication, rather than a master-servant relationship between a highly evolved being and a miserable, confused one. In the master-servant relationship the highly evolved being may appear not even to be sitting on his seat but may seem to be floating, levitating, looking down at us. His voice is penetrating, pervading space. Every word, every cough, every movement that he makes is a gesture of wisdom. But this is a dream. A guru should be a spiritual friend who communicates and presents his qualities to us, as Marpa did with Milarepa and Naropa with Marpa. Marpa presented his quality of being a farmer-yogi. He happened to have seven children and a wife, and he looked after his farm, cultivating the land and supporting himself and his family. But these activities were just an ordinary part of his life. He cared for his students as he cared for his crops and family. He was so thorough, paying attention to every detail of his life, that he was able to be a competent teacher as well as a competent father and farmer. There was no physical or spiritual materialism in Marpa’s lifestyle at all. He did not emphasize spirituality and ignore his family or his physical relationship to the earth. If you are not involved with materialism, either spiritually or physically, then there is no emphasis made on any extreme. Nor is it helpful to choose someone for your guru simply because he is famous, someone who is renowned for having published stacks of books and converted thousands or millions of people. Instead the guideline is whether or not you are able actually to communicate with the person, directly and thoroughly. How much self-deception are you involved in? If you really open yourself to your spiritual friend, then you are bound to work together. Are you able to talk to him thoroughly and properly? Does he know anything about you? Does he know anything about himself, for that matter? Is the guru really able to see through your masks, communicate with you properly, directly? In searching for a teacher, this seems to be the guideline rather than fame or wisdom.

THE CHASM – THE DIFFUSION MODEL WHY EVERYBODY HAS AN IPOD Why is it that some ideas – including stupid ones – take hold and become trends, while others bloom briefly before withering and disappearing from the public eye? Sociologists describe the way in which a catchy idea or product becomes popular as ‘diffusion’. One of the most famous diffusion studies is an analysis by Bruce Ryan and Neal Gross of the diffusion of hybrid corn in the 1930s in Greene County, Iowa. The new type of corn was better than the old sort in every way, yet it took twenty-two years for it to become widely accepted. The diffusion researchers called the farmers who switched to the new corn as early as 1928 ‘innovators’, and the somewhat bigger group that was infected by them ‘early adaptors’. They were the opinion leaders in the communities, respected people who observed the experiments of the innovators and then joined them. They were followed at the end of the 1930s by the ‘sceptical masses’, those who would never change anything before it had been tried out by the successful farmers. But at some point even they were infected by the ‘hybrid corn virus’, and eventually transmitted it to the die-hard conservatives, the ‘stragglers’. Translated into a graph, this development takes the form of a curve typical of the progress of an epidemic. It rises, gradually at first, then reaches the critical point of any newly launched product, when many products fail. The critical point for any innovation is the transition from the early adaptors to the sceptics, for at this point there is a ‘chasm’. According to the US sociologist Morton Grodzins, if the early adaptors succeed in getting the innovation across the chasm to the sceptical masses, the epidemic cycle reaches the tipping point. From there, the curve rises sharply when the masses accept the product, and sinks again when only the stragglers remain. With technological innovations like the iPod or the iPhone, the cycle described above is very short. Interestingly, the early adaptors turn away from the product as soon as the critical masses have accepted it, in search of the next new thing. The chasm model was introduced by the American consultant and author Geoffrey Moore. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Mahatma Gandhi

If you were destined to be a poet, then you won't brainstorm for lines that rhymes. If you were destined to be a celebrity, then you shouldn't start searching for fans. If you are truly a god, then let others worship you!

Although a partner’s compensation depends in large part on the amount of business he brings to the Firm, no one goes out to knock on doors. The Firm waits for the phone to ring. And ring it does, not because McKinsey sells, but because McKinsey markets. It does this in several different ways, all of them designed to make sure that on the day a senior executive decides she has a business problem, one of the first calls she makes is to the local office of McKinsey. The Firm produces a steady stream of books and articles, some of them extremely influential, such as the famous In Search of Excellence by Peters and Waterman.* McKinsey also publishes its own scholarly journal, The McKinsey Quarterly, which it sends gratis to its clients, as well as to its former consultants, many of whom now occupy senior positions at potential clients. The Firm invites (and gets) a lot of coverage by journalists. Many McKinsey partners and directors are internationally known as experts in their fields.

Amanollah Khan had tried to assert rights for women in the 1920s, together with his queen Soraya, who famously cast off her veil in public. The royal couple also began promoting the education of girls, banned the selling of them for marriage, and put restrictions on polygyny. The backlash was severe. To many Afghans, and particularly to the majority who did not live in Kabul, the reforms seemed outrageous: Tribal men would lose future income if daughters could no longer be sold or traded as wives. In 1929, under threat of a coup, the king was forced to abdicate.

The feeling of being trapped was familiar to Victor Frankel, a famous Jewish psychiatrist who survived WWII concentration camps. He wrote the classic book, Man’s Search for Meaning.2 It is striking that in spite of the extreme physical hardships Frankel endured, for him the most difficult part of the ordeal was not knowing if and when it was going to end—which is similar if not identical to what patients in chronic pain experience.

His most famous and controversial work was a hand printed, limited edition of Plato’s dialogue, Phaedrus, separately described in his “A Search for the Typographic Form of Plato’s Phaedrus”.

The sprinter unwisely indulges his arrogance against the marathon runner, and likewise, parents who encourage their children's narcissism do them no favours. It is best to accomplish something before becoming famous, because if the fame comes first, it often precludes accomplishment..."You don't build a career by playing Carnegie Hall. You build a career and then Carnegie Hall will invite you to play".

Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.

Even when she was a girl, the kitchen was a source of pride and power. A separate vestibule off the main room, it cocooned her in glorious aromas. She had proven herself a skillful and painstaking chef, famous in the family for yaprach that tickled the tongue with notes of tomato, lemon and dried sumac. Shmuel and her half brothers teased that Miryam's date-sized yaprach were tiny, like her. Miryam didn't mind the ribbing; she rolled grape leaves at half their usual size precisely so that her family would recognize them as hers, rather than her stepmother's or her aunts'.

ago, Augustine argued that if God knows something’s

They go out to their work, searching for food…. —Job 24:5 (NKJV) My husband, Keith, and I decided to drive down to Tulip Town and wander the fields of vibrant color the Skagit Valley is famous for. Enchanted, we ordered about twenty different varieties for our half-barrel planters. I loved deciding between the American Dream and the Peking Red, the Black Diamond and the Purissima, the Monte Carlo and the Gudoshnik. We planted the bulbs in September, but it was a bad winter. When spring came, I saw only about one-tenth of the tulips we’d planted. Closer inspection revealed squirrels had lived off our bulbs when other food was really scarce. I was upset and complained loudly, angrily, to Keith, but he only said, “The squirrels needed food.” I grumped about that for a while but slowly came to realize that he was right: Providing nourishment should trump surface beauty every time. I came to see the squirrels as survivors and was glad that the tulips had helped them get through the winter. Lord, help me to understand more quickly that being part of the balance of life means I don’t always get to do things my way. —Rhoda Blecker Digging Deeper: Prv 18:17; Ez 34:18

Irma Grese & Other Infamous SS Female Guards World War 2: A Brief History of the European Theatre World War 2 Pacific Theatre: A Brief History of the Pacific Theatre World War 2 Nazi Germany: The Secrets of Nazi Germany in World War II The Third Reich: The Rise & Fall of Hitler’s Germany in World War 2 World War 2 Soldier Stories: The Untold Stories of the Soldiers on the Battlefields of WWII World War 2 Soldier Stories Part II: More Untold Tales of the Soldiers on the Battlefields of WWII Surviving the Holocaust: The Tales of Survivors and Victims World War 2 Heroes: Medal of Honor Recipients in WWII & Their Heroic Stories of Bravery World War 2 Heroes: WWII UK’s SAS hero Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne World War 2 Heroes: Jean Moulin & the French Resistance Forces World War 2 Snipers: WWII Famous Snipers & Sniper Battles Revealed World War 2 Spies & Espionage: The Secret Missions of Spies & Espionage in WWII   World War 2 Air Battles: The Famous Air Combat that Defined WWII World War 2 Tank Battles: The Famous Tank Battles that Defined WWII World War 2 Famous Battles: D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy World War 2 Submarine Stores: True Stories from the Underwater Battlegrounds The Holocaust Saviors: True Stories of Rescuers who risked all to Save Holocaust Refugees Irma Grese & The Holocaust: The Secrets of the Blonde Beast of Auschwitz Exposed Auschwitz & the Holocaust: Eyewitness Accounts from Auschwitz Prisoners & Survivors World War 2 Sailor Stories: Tales from Our Warriors at Sea World War 2 Soldier Stories Part III: The Untold Stories of German Soldiers World War 2 Navy SEALs: True Stories from the First Navy SEALs: The Amphibious Scout & Raiders   If these links do not work for whatever reason, you can simply search for these titles on the Amazon website to find them. Instant Access to Free Book Package!   As a thank you for the purchase of this book, I want to offer you some

Get Out Of Legal Trouble By Finding A Great Medical Malpractice Lawyer In Baltimore You will save on legal costs when you're taking the time to effectively ensure that your medical malpractice lawyer knows what you need. Your lawyer ought to be well versed on how to get the best outcome for your case. Take these factors into consideration the next time you are searching for the right attorney. Dependable attorneys are famous for having comprehensive, detailed interviews with their clients. The questions, though they might seem excessive, can help the medical malpractice lawyer in learning more about you before going into the courtroom, which will ultimately allow him to offer you the very best representation that they could. Whether it is from a book, online, or through questioning, any attorney worth his salt is usually out to learn more info. You have to find a new attorney immediately if the one you have is uninterested in your case and only asks a few pointless questions. Law firms and independent attorneys are like all other business - they can acquire clients through deception. Look for proof when an attorney claims his work is exceptional in order to validate it. Perform a comprehensive background check to understand their case history, their performance in college and the type of reputation that they've. Online reviews can also help you determine if the legal consultant delivered on his or her promises. There's nothing more important in the attorney-client relationship than good communication. A good, dependable medical malpractice lawyer can make sure that you have a clear understanding of any details they provide. The percentage of winning grows higher when your legal consultant understands and has all the info they need to win your case. Excellent interactions between you and your lawyer are vital to winning your case. When working with a legal consultant, be very specific about what type of attorney you want to hire. You'll need to find a legal consultant that specializes in the kind of law that governs your legal case. Find attorneys who have had success in similar cases. Call for a consultation in order to understand more about the attorney and what other skills or experience they possess in the field your legal case falls under. A medical malpractice lawyer who lacks moral character won't be up front about their ability to represent you. That attorney must be willing to inform you in the event that one is not able to handle your legal case in some way. Be really careful never to fall for attorneys who make false reports about past accomplishments. There are a few attorneys who'll need to work your legal case just to receive that new experience.

Einstein said it most famously: ‘Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.’1

Virginia Satir, one of our most famous family therapists, said, “Families are people factories.

Virginia Satir, one of our most famous family therapists, said, “Families are people factories.” She meant that we learn how to relate to others during our early experiences of our families. The patterns of interacting that we use today were set up early on in our lives and were reinforced over and over again until they became automatic and part of our unconscious. Our peers and others influence us as well, but the basics are learned very early on and inform much of how we think about ourselves and others later on in life.

with you, as your date?” Liam asks me. “Yes,” I say quietly. “I’m so sorry. What can I do for you in return?” “Well, since you offered,” Liam responds, “I would like some information.” “Information?” I ask with a frown. “Yes,” Liam says. “Remember all those deep, dark secrets I said I’d extract from you? Well, if you share them with us, then I’ll be your date for your sister’s wedding.” This is probably the worst thing he could have requested. My mouth feels suddenly very dry. “Um. Isn’t there anything else you might want? Maybe I could dedicate my next book to you?” He laughs lightly. “You’re going to do that anyway once I get your sight back.” I rack my brain, searching for something I could give him. “I’ll have my publisher put out a press release,” I offer, “or maybe schedule an event, like a book launch. We can publicly declare that you’re the hero who helped the semi-famous blind author Winter Rose to see. Even if it doesn’t work, and I can’t see, I’ll pretend like I can, and you’ll probably get tons of research grants and stuff.” “I’m pretty sure that you’re going to do that anyway,” Liam tells me, “because it’s a good story that will sell books.” “Okay,” I mumble, getting desperate. “How about I name a character after you?” “That would be nice,” Liam says. “I’ll take all of the above, but I’ll still need one additional thing to sweeten the pot. Information.” “Why?” I moan in protest. “Because I’m curious,” he answers in a good-natured way. “Come on. It can’t be that bad. Tell me your deepest, darkest secrets.” I sigh. “Are you sure?” “Yes.” “Really? Right here. Right now? In front of Owen?” “Yeah, why not?” Liam says cheerfully. “He’s been telling us way more than we need to know for a while.” “I want to hear, too,” Owen chimes in.  “Entertain us, storyteller!” I spend a moment gathering my composure. I smooth my hands over my legs, and look around uneasily. Taking a deep breath, I try to mentally prepare myself for what I’m about to say to two complete strangers. “Well... three years ago, I was raped.” A hush falls over the car. I can feel the men looking

enderman,” said

Consider Edgar Allen Poe’s famous poem, “The Raven.” Here we have a first-person narrator whose wife or lover, Lenore, has recently died. He is in his library searching through his books to find a way to make her death meaningful—or even understandable. When a raven enters the library, the narrator takes it as a sign and asks a series of increasingly desperate questions. The raven, of course, has long been a symbol for death, and the questions that the narrator asks the raven are all really questions about death. Is there a heaven? Does death come from God or the Devil? Will he ever get over her death? Will he see her again? These are likely the same things he was trying to find out from his books. But while the books may have tried to give answers, the raven—death itself—says only one word: “Nevermore.” So this is a poem that makes claims—or, more specifically, it is a poem that rejects claims. It rejects the notion that anyone can know anything about death, or what happens after death, except that a person who has died no longer exists. All that death “says” to us is “Nevermore.” If we try to go beyond this, we will eventually suffer the narrator’s fate and become insane. Many people would disagree vigorously with this premise. Some people believe that the spirits of the dead become ghosts that we can still communicate with. Others believe in heaven, hell, reincarnation, Nirvana, or some knowable final destination for the soul. I can imagine a number of different ways that one might go about rebutting Poe’s metaphysical truth claims. But it makes no difference whether or not ravens can talk. Nothing about Poe’s poem can be supported, or refuted, by scientific knowledge about the vocalization mechanisms of the Corvus corax. Nor does it matter whether or not Edgar Allen Poe ever knew anybody named Lenore, or owned a “bust of Pallas,” or did or said any of the things described in the poem. “The Raven” makes metaphysical truth claims that we can isolate and evaluate. But these claims do not depend on either the history or the science of the poem turning out to be true.

It is a famous theorem first proved by the great (Italian-) French mathematician Joseph L. Lagrange in 1770 that every number is, indeed, the sum of four squares.