Shock Absorber Quotes

People who love horror films are people with boring lives... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news.

Great tragedies have great consequences. They ripple through the fabric of this world and the next. When the loss is too great for either world to bear, Everlost absorbs the shock, like a cushion between the two.

frog. It was this spongelike rubber cushion that absorbed the first terrific shock of a thousand-pound horse galloping over a hard surface at high speed.

When the gates of mockery and abuse is opened, the heart becomes a shock absorber

Juliette," he says. He touches my hand so gently it startles me. "Did you notice? it seems I am immune to your gift." He studies my eyes. "Isn't that incredible? Did you notice"? he asks again. "When you tried to escape? did you feel it...? Warner who misses absolutely nothing. Warner who absorbs every single detail. Of course he knows. But I'm shocked by the tenderness in his voice. The sincerity with which he wants to know. He's like a feral dog, crazed and wild, thirsty for chaos, simultaneously aching for recognition and acceptance. Love.

That is one great thing about having someone by your side. They are a shock absorber to the madness of experience.

See confusion as confusion. Acknowledge suffering as suffering. Feel pain and sorrow and divisiveness. Experience anger or fear or shock for what they are. But you don't have to think of them as evil - as intrinsically bad, as needing to be destroyed or driven from our midst. On the contrary, they need to be absorbed, healed, made whole. (15)

A fortunate birth, in other words, is a shock absorber." -The Thought Experiment

The kiss was so consuming that Nick got lost in it, all his senses absorbed by it. It was still crazy to think this was the Doc he was kissing, to think he was getting turned on just sitting here and kissing Kelly. He would have to pole-vault over that hurdle too, because this was too damn good to pass up just because it was weird.

For a torture to be effective, the pain has to be spread out; it has to come at regular intervals, with no end in sight. The water falls , drop after drop after drop, like the second hand of a watch, carving up time. The shock of each individual drop is insignificant, but the sensation is impossible to ignore. At first, one might manage to think about other things, but after five hours, after ten hours, it becomes unendurable. The repeated stimulation excites the nerves to a point where they literally explode, and every sensation in the body is absorbed into that one spot on the forehead---indeed, you come to feel that you are nothing but a forehead, into which a fine needle is being forced millimeter by millimeter. You can’t sleep or even speak, hypnotized by a suffering that is greater than any mere pain. In general, the victim goes mad before a day has passed.

Deep and liquid markets in a country’s domestic economy are the essential shock absorbers through which the perilous waters of international financial integration can be navigated.

A master bestows the divine experience of cosmic consciousness when his disciple, by meditation, has strengthened his mind to a degree where the vast vistas would not overwhelm him. Mere intellectual willingness or open-mindedness is not enough. Only adequate enlargement of consciousness by yoga practice and devotional bhakti can prepare one to absorb the liberating shock of omnipresence.

I was dizzy in that room. I felt faint with disbelief. I held on to the seat of my chair to stay upright. I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t absorb any of it.

I first met Winston Churchill in the early summer of 1906 at a dinner party to which I went as a very young girl. Our hostess was Lady Wemyss and I remember that Arthur Balfour, George Wyndman, Hilaire Belloc and Charles Whibley were among the guests… I found myself sitting next to this young man who seemed to me quite different from any other young man I had ever met. For a long time he seemed sunk in abstraction. Then he appeared to become suddenly aware of my existence. He turned on me a lowering gaze and asked me abruptly how old I was. I replied that I was nineteen. “And I,” he said despairingly, “am thirty-two already. Younger than anyone else who counts, though, “he added, as if to comfort himself. Then savagely: “Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is this allotted span for all we must cram into it!” And he burst forth into an eloquent diatribe on the shortness of human life, the immensity of possible human accomplishment—a theme so well exploited by the poets, prophets, and philosophers of all ages that it might seem difficult to invest it with new and startling significance. Yet for me he did so, in a torrent of magnificent language which appeared to be both effortless and inexhaustible and ended up with the words I shall always remember: “We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow worm.” By this time I was convinced of it—and my conviction remained unshaken throughout the years that followed. Later he asked me whether I thought that words had a magic and music quite independent of their meaning. I said I certainly thought so, and I quoted as a classic though familiar instance the first lines that came into my head. Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. His eyes blazed with excitement. “Say that again,” he said, “say it again—it is marvelous!” “But I objected, “You know these lines. You know the ‘Ode to a Nightengale.’ ” He had apparently never read or heard of it before (I must, however, add that next time I met him he had not learned not merely this but all of the odes to Keats by heart—and he recited them quite mercilessly from start to finish, not sparing me a syllable). Finding that he liked poetry, I quoted to him from one of my own favorite poets, Blake. He listened avidly, repeating some lines to himself with varying emphases and stresses, then added meditatively: “I never knew that old Admiral had found so much time to write such good poetry.” I was astounded that he, with his acute susceptibility to words and power of using them, should have left such tracts of English literature entirely unexplored. But however it happened he had lost nothing by it, when he approached books it was “with a hungry, empty mind and with fairly srong jaws, and what I got I *bit*.” And his ear for the beauty of language needed no tuning fork. Until the end of dinner I listened to him spellbound. I can remember thinking: This is what people mean when they talk of seeing stars. That is what I am doing now. I do not to this day know who was on my other side. Good manners, social obligation, duty—all had gone with the wind. I was transfixed, transported into a new element. I knew only that I had seen a great light. I recognized it as the light of genius… I cannot attempt to analyze, still less transmit, the light of genius. But I will try to set down, as I remember them, some of the differences which struck me between him and all the others, young and old, whom I have known. First and foremost he was incalculable. He ran true to no form. There lurked in his every thought and world the ambush of the unexpected. I felt also that the impact of life, ideas and even words upon his mind, was not only vivid and immediate, but direct. Between him and them there was no shock absorber of vicarious thought or precedent gleaned either from books or other minds. His relationship wit

Basically people who love horror movies are people with boring lives. They want to be stimulated, and they need to reassure themselves, because when a really scary movie is over, you’re reassured to see that you’re still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That’s the real reason we have horror films—they act as shock absorbers—and if they disappeared altogether it would mean losing one of the few ways we have to ease the anxiety of the imagination. And I bet you’d see a big leap in the number of serial killers and mass murderers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news, right?

SHOCK ABSORBERS Veterans scream in their dreams, reliving nightmares so that we can sleep peacefully

Memory, both individual and collective, turns out to be the greatest shock absorber of all.

On the road of life, God sometimes allows you to come upon a pothole. Your faith is your shock absorber.

To run away is the only defense of something rigid against an overwhelming force. Therefore the good shock absorber has not only "give," but also stability or "weight.

Fear no more," said Clarissa. Fear no more the heat o' the sun; for the shock of Lady Bruton asking Richard to lunch without her made the moment in which she had stood shiver, as a plant on the river-bed feels the shock of a passing oar and shivers: so she rocked: so she shivered. Millicent Bruton, whose lunch parties were said to be extraordinarily amusing, had not asked her. No vulgar jealousy could separate her from Richard. But she feared time itself, and read on Lady Bruton's face, as if it had been a dial cut in impassive stone, the dwindling of life; how year by year her share was sliced; how little the margin that remained was capable any longer of stretching, of absorbing, as in the youthful years, the colours, salts, tones of existence, so that she filled the room she entered, and felt often as she stood hesitating one moment on the threshold of her drawing-room, an exquisite suspense, such as might stay a diver before plunging while the sea darkens and brightens beneath him, and the waves which threaten to break, but only gently split their surface, roll and conceal and encrust as they just turn over the weeds with pearl.

Both Nazi Germany and the United States reduced their out-groups, Jews and African-Americans, respectively, to an undifferentiated mass of nameless, faceless scapegoats, the shock absorbers of the collective fears and setbacks of each nation.

the brain doesn’t actually sit inside the skull; it floats, protected by a natural shock absorber called cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF for short. CSF is produced at a rate of about two cups per day from inside the brain’s deep, hidden chambers: the ventricles.

Often, it is this anguish of parting - the death of a loved one, the breaking apart of a deep relationship, even the growing up of our children - that propels us into the search for a reality that will never let us down; so this opening passage illustrates, through the experience of Maitreyi, the state of seriousness, of being shocked into alertness, that makes one ready to absorb spiritual insight.

Living in history builds your own shock absorber, because you’ll learn that there are lots of old solutions to new problems. If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate—you can’t coach and you can’t lead.

But while the residents were shocked by the violence, they were also often surprised by the mundaneness of it all. Discovered the extent of perversity the heart is capable of as they sat at home with nothing to do, and found that it was possible, faced with the stench of unimaginable evil, for a human being to grow bored, yawn, be absorbed by the problem of a missing sock, by neighborly irritations, to feel hunger skipping like a little mouse inside a tummy and return, once again, to the pressing matter of what to eat.... There they were, the most commonplace of them, those quite mismatched with the larger-than-life questions, caught up in the mythic battles of past vs. present, justice vs. injustice—the most ordinary swept up in extraordinary hatred, because extraordinary hatred was, after all, a commonplace event.

I know that sometimes things should be left in the past, that knowing isn't always better. Sometimes the truth is so horrible that it must be uncovered in bits and pieces, snippets here and there, absorbed slowly, as the whole of it at once is simply too shocking to bear. And sometimes the truth changes everything...

Be a real friend to those you love. It will give you the absorbers to overcome the shocks of love when they come.

The relation between the white and black races in Africa in many ways resembles the relation between the two sexes. If the one of the two sexes were told that they did not play any greater part in the life of the other sex than this other sex plays within their own existence, they would be shocked and hurt. […] If they (white people) had been told that they played no more important part in the lives of the Natives than the Natives played in their own lives, they would have been highly indignant and ill at ease. If you had told the Natives that they played no greater part in the life of the white people than the white people played in their lives, they would never have believed you, but would have laughed at you. Probably in Natives circles, stories are passing about, and being repeated, which prove the all-absorbing interest of the white people in the Kikuyu or Kavirondo, and their complete dependence upon them.

You’re the shock absorber. From the Titans’ point of view, you stop the masses from realising the extent of their subjugation. You relieve them of the need to exercise raw financial and political power in the protection of their interests where those interests collide with the law. But…you also protect ordinary humans from the consequences of that subjugation as best you can. Yours is an equivocal profession. But I hear you’re not entirely an asshole.

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place your sight can knock on, echoing; but here within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze will be absorbed and utterly disappear: just as a raving madman, when nothing else can ease him, charges into his dark night howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels the rage being taken in and pacified. She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen into her, so that, like an audience, she can look them over, menacing and sullen, and curl to sleep with them. But all at once as if awakened, she turns her face to yours; and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny, inside the golden amber of her eyeballs suspended, like a prehistoric fly. - Black Cat

I knew that they were about to attack the man and I was both afraid and angry, repelled and fascinated. I both wanted it and feared the consequences, was outraged and angered at what I saw and yet surged with fear; not for the man or of the consequences of an attack, but of what the sight of violence might release in me. And beneath it all there boiled up all the shock-absorbing phrases that I had learned all my life. I seemed to totter on the edge of a great dark hole.

We live and work with a divided consciousness. It is a beautiful enough shock to fall in love with another adult, to feel the possibility of unbearable sorrow at the loss of that other, essential, personality, expressed just so, that particular touch. But love of an infant is of a different order. It is twinned love, all absorbing, a blur of boundaries and messages. It is uncomfortably close to self-erasure, and in the face of it one's fat ambitions, desperations, private icons, and urges fall away into a dreamlike BEFORE that haunts and forces itself into the present with tough persistence.

When I saw them in Africa, I thought these birds were the greatest fliers of all. Hardly beating their wings, they fly for hours, swooping upwards on air currents with no sign of physical effort. But when they land, they pitch forward on their stubby legs without stopping. They skid along on their bellies, their necks straining to absorb the shock of the landing. Their beaks dig into the sand and they collide with anything in their path. Quite often they break their wings or beaks or spines and remain for the rest of their lives in the scrubby thickets not far from where they crash. The crippled birds sit there blind, paralyzed or in shock, and struggle slowly back and forth to their nests. Some hop on one leg, some drag their crippled wings behind them like broken umbrellas. I wonder whether they ever envy their brothers soaring in the air or if they're glad to be grounded and past their trial.

there’s no substitute for constant study to master one’s craft. Living in history builds your own shock absorber, because you’ll learn that there are lots of old solutions to new problems. If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate—you can’t coach and you can’t lead. History lights the often dark path ahead; even if it’s a dim light, it’s better than none. If you can’t be additive as a leader, you’re just like a potted plant in the corner of a hotel lobby: you look pretty, but you’re not adding substance to the organization’s mission.

One should not grow attached to other people, Doctor,” said Margarete, when he came to the door, and he didn’t know if she was speaking for him or for herself. Her eyes were red, and he wanted to comfort her, but he couldn’t think of what to say. He had thought he was inured to death by then, even prided himself on the calmness with which he absorbed the news of the most recent passing. He who had once stared in shock at the frozen soldier without a jaw. But the great Rzedzian’s body seemed horribly small, the stiffening fingers too familiar, and the way his lip drew back over his teeth reminded him of the corpse of an animal.

But derivatives did create new dangers. If you were making a loan, and you were confident you could hedge some of the credit risk of that loan, you might be tempted to make a larger and riskier loan. And the instruments themselves often had leverage embedded in them, so investors could be exposed to greater losses than they realized. Firms weren’t required by law to post any collateral (or “margin”) to make derivatives trades, and the market wasn’t requiring them to post much, either. This meant fewer shock absorbers for the system if those trades went bad. That’s why Warren Buffett had called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction.

Do you realize the illicit sensuous delight I get from picking my nose? I always have, ever since I was a child. There are so many subtle variations of sensation. A delicate, pointed-nailed fifth finger can catch under dry scabs and flakes of mucus in the nostril and draw them out to be looked at, crumbled between fingers, and flicked to the floor in minute crusts. Or a heavier, determined forefinger can reach up and smear down-and-out the soft, resilient, elastic greenish-yellow smallish blobs of mucus, roll them round and jellylike between thumb and forefinger, and spread them on the under-surface of a desk or chair where they will harden into organic crusts. How many desks and chairs have I thus secretively befouled since childhood? Or sometimes there will be blood mingled with the mucus: in dry brown scabs, or bright sudden wet red on the finger that scraped too rudely the nasal membranes. God, what a sexual satisfaction! It is absorbing to look with new sudden eyes on the old worn habits: to see a sudden luxurious and pestilential “snot-green sea,” and shiver with the shock of recognition.

The natural world gives us many examples of the great effectiveness of this way. The Chinese philosophy of which judo itself is an expression—Taoism—drew attention to the power of water to overcome all obstacles by its gentleness and pliability. It showed how the supple willow survives the tough pine in a snowstorm, for whereas the unyielding branches of the pine accumulate snow until they crack, the springy boughs of the willow bend under its weight, drop the snow, and jump back again. If, when swimming, you are caught in a strong current, it is fatal to resist. You must swim with it and gradually edge to the side. One who falls from a height with stiff limbs will break them, but if he relaxes like a cat he will fall safely. A building without 'give' in its structure will easily collapse in storm or earthquake, and a car without the cushioning of tires and springs will soon come apart on the road. The mind has just the same powers, for it has give and can absorb shocks like water or a cushion. But this giving way to an opposing force is not at all the same thing as running away. A body of water does not run away when you push it; it simply gives at the point of the push and encloses your hand. A shock absorber does not fall down like a bowling-pin when struck; it gives, and yet stays in the same place. To run away is the only defense of something rigid against an overwhelming force. Therefore the good shock absorber has not only 'give,' but also stability or 'weight.

Many systems require slack in order to work well. Old reel-to-reel tape recorders needed an extra bit of tape fed into the mechanism to ensure that the tape wouldn’t rip. Your coffee grinder won’t grind if you overstuff it. Roadways operate best below 70 percent capacity; traffic jams are caused by lack of slack. In principle, if a road is 85 percent full and everybody goes at the same speed, all cars can easily fit with some room between them. But if one driver speeds up just a bit and then needs to brake, those behind her must brake as well. Now they’ve slowed down too much, and, as it turns out, it’s easier to reduce a car’s speed than to increase it again. This small shock—someone lightly deviating from the right speed and then touching her brakes—has caused the traffic to slow substantially. A few more shocks, and traffic grinds to a halt. At 85 percent there is enough road but not enough slack to absorb the small shocks.

EFFERVESCE AND OBSESSION   Under the influence of this sensational climax I am reminded of the inundated calm before the storm as I find my mind to see through those same eyes that I have before. The curving slippage of her dynamic vehemence hums over me in a refreshing fixation that imbues this inseparable bond of the eternities. Her single touch sends shock waves down my entire vessel sending our bodies into a confluence of luscious allure. Her hips begin weaving in and out gently oscillating against me in a balmy nubile urge of effervesce and obsession. Again I occlude her recumbent orifice with the soft clasp of my wet lips, satiating my guest with an all-stimulating and interplanetary escape. In a largo samba-like motion I simultaneously absorb and alleviate the tension lingering beneath her plum fuselage as an overflowing ovulation of seismic and fulminating convulsage travels through the apex of her feminous core, following the crevice between her legs like the gentle waters that flow through the shaded gorge. As she levitates into a liberating reflex of celestial zest her panting grip begins to measure the odometer of our obsession.

Mankind can only now begin to hope again, now that I have lived. Thus I am necessarily a man of Destiny. For when Truth battles against the lies of millennia there will be shock waves, earthquakes, the transposition of hills and valleys such as the world has never yet imagined even in its dreams. The concept “politics” then becomes entirely absorbed into the realm of spiritual warfare. All the mighty worlds of the ancient order of society are blown into space—for they are all based on lies: there will be wars the like of which have never been seen on earth before. Only after me will there be grand politics on earth.

Three Moonie 65-megaton hydrogen bombs exploded nearly simultaneously at very high altitude. With no air around the bombs to absorb the initial blast of the explosions, and convert the energy into mechanical shock waves——all the nuclear energy blasted out in its electromagnetic form. It was a brutally intense pulse of Compton recoil electrons and photoelectrons that created huge electric and magnetic fields that were MURDER on sensitive electronic equipment at tremendous distances. The electro-magnetic fields, coupled with electric and computer systems, producing huge voltage spikes in the circuits and damaging current surges along all signal paths, fusing precision engineered memory and micro-boards and virtual drives and CPUs into fried silicon laced junk! Nanobots to Nanoscrap in Nanoseconds!

Homer-Dixon says increasing complexity makes societies more resilient only up to a point. Connections between villages might mean one comes to the other’s aid in an attack. But as the villages become more tightly coupled, both may suffer when one is attacked. A loose network absorbs shock; a tightly coupled one transmits it. That is happening in the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries go into lockdown; people stop shopping, traveling, and producing; and the effects ricochet through a tightly coupled global economy. The global supply chains of money, materials, people, energy, and component parts that underpin industries falter and break. Airlines go under as they are not set up to weather even a temporary disappearance of travelers. Malaria worsens in Africa as insecticide and antimalarial bed net deliveries falter. Microcredit that underpins small businesses throughout the developing world defaults because payment collectors are locked down, causing ramifications throughout an economy.

His expression was perturbed, as if he’d been reminded of something he had wanted to forget. But as his gaze slid over her bewildered face, his mouth curved a little, and he settled into the cradle of her body with an insolent familiarity that temporarily robbed her of breath. “Mr. Rohan … how … why … what are you doing here?” He replied without moving, as if he were planning to lie there and converse all day. His infinitely polite tone was an unsettling contrast to the intimacy of their position. “Miss Hathaway. What a pleasant surprise. As it happens, I’m visiting friends. And you?” “I live here.” “I don’t think so. This is Lord Westcliff’s estate.” Her heart thundered in her breast as her body absorbed the details of him. “I didn’t mean precisely here, I meant over there, on the other side of the woods. The Ramsay estate. We’ve just taken up residence.” She couldn’t seem to stop herself from chattering in the aftermath of nerves and fright. “What was that noise? What were you doing? Why do you have that tattoo on your arm? It’s a pooka—an Irish creature—isn’t it?” That last question earned her an arrested stare. Before Rohan could reply, the other two men approached. From her prone position, Amelia had an upside-down view of them. Like Rohan, they were in their shirtsleeves, with waistcoats left unbuttoned. One of them was a portly old gentleman with a shock of silver hair. He held a small wood-and-metal sextant, which had been strung around his neck on a lanyard. The other, black-haired man looked to be in his late thirties. He wasn’t as tall as Rohan, but he had an air of authority tempered with aristocratic arrogance. Amelia made a helpless movement, and Rohan lifted away from her with fluid ease. He helped her stand, his arm steadying her. “How far did it go?” he asked the men. “Devil take the rocket,” came a gravelly reply. “What is the woman’s condition?” “Unharmed.” The silver-haired gentleman remarked, “Impressive, Rohan. You covered a distance of fifty yards in no more than five or six seconds.” “I would hardly miss a chance to leap on a beautiful woman,” Rohan said, causing the older man to chuckle.

I am running out of space--the platform is ending--I seize the handle and swing myself in, my muscles absorbing the pull forward. Tris stands inside the car, wearing a small, crooked smile. Her black jacket is zipped up to her throat, framing her face in darkness. She grabs my collar and pulls me in for a kiss. As she pulls away, she says, “I always loved watching you do that.” I grin. “Is this what you had planned?” Caleb demands from behind me. “For her to be here when you kill me? That’s--” “Kill him?” Tris asks me, not looking at her brother. “Yeah, I let him think he was being taken to his execution,” I say, loud enough that he can hear. “You know, sort of like he did to you in Erudite headquarters.” “I…it isn’t true?” His face, lit by the moon, is slack with shock. I notice that his shirt’s buttons are in the wrong buttonholes. “No,” I say. “I just saved your life, actually.” He starts to say something, and I interrupt him. “Might not want to thank me just yet. We’re taking you with us. Outside the fence.” Outside the fence--the place he once tried so hard to avoid that he turned on his own sister. It seems a more fitting punishment than death, anyway. Death is so quick, so certain. Where we’re going now, nothing is certain.

He shoulders past me, pours himself a glass of milk from the fridge, and downs it. “Of course you don’t just get them, Mom. You have to earn them.” “I see. And how does that happen?” Another glass of milk disappears down Steven’s gullet. “Save some for cereal tomorrow,” I say. “You’re not the only human in this house.” “Maybe you should go out and get another carton, then. It’s your job, right?” My hand flies with a will of its own, makes contact; and a bright palm print blooms on the right side of Steven’s face. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t raise his own hand, doesn’t react at all, except to say, “Nice, Mom. Real nice. One day, that’s gonna be a crime.” “You little shit.” He’s smug now, which makes everything worse. “I’ll tell you how I earned the pin. I got recruited. Recruited, Mom. They needed volunteers from the boys’ school to make the rounds to the girls’ schools and explain a few things. I accepted. And for the past three days, I’ve been going out in the field and demonstrating how the bracelets work. Look.” He pushes up one sleeve and brandishes the burn mark around his wrist. “We go in pairs, and we take turns. All so girls like Sonia know what will happen.” As if to defy me once more, he drains his glass of milk and licks his lips. “By the way, I wouldn’t encourage her to pick the sign language back up.” “Why the hell not?” I’m still trying to absorb the fact that my son has purposefully shocked himself “so girls like Sonia know what will happen.” “Mom. Honestly. You of all people should get it.” His voice has taken on the timbre of someone much older, someone tired of explaining how things are. “Signing defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to do here.

Raging storm. The universe booms around me. She approaches. Frightfully, I stand. Yes. Stuck. Stuck in wonderment. Something so strong, so beautiful. Swirling around me. Will it absorb me? Maybe. Or might it pass by? It could. Rolling waves of rage and chaos. Cracks of thunder echo in my chest. I am in the storm now. How? Dancing in the wind. In her chaos. Can I become a part of her forever? I must be able to. This feeling, so wonderful. Maybe she will only pass me by. Leave me to fall from the sky? I hope not. This raging storm around me. So dangerous. So pure. Nothing but nature in her utter glory. Pushing me into motion. I spin in the midst of her, taking in the power. The walls of motion. Confusion surrounds me. Particles forcing together and cracking apart. I’m frightful again, the noise overpowering me. I hunch into a ball, scared of what will become of me. Still suspended in the air. But she silences. The sky clears around me. It must be the eye of the storm. The center of everything. The center of her. Yes. The sunshine blinds me. I raise my hand to shield my face. The silence a melody in my ear. Ah, finally soothed. How extraordinary this is, floating and rising. It overcomes me. This space. Joy? But then I feel the air shift. The power making my hair rise. And suddenly, I’m moving again. She moves along. This raging, rolling storm. The air sucking me up and down. Ripping me apart. Spinning. Spinning. Spinning. Fear consumes me again as the storm takes hold. Confusion. So much confusion. I cry, thinking I might die. But it’s over. I look at my hands. My feet. Back on the ground. She rolls away. Spinning beautifully onward. My, the power. But the question. Always the question. Do I love? Do I hate? Her beautiful, frightening glory. My dear raging storm. I drop the note into my lap. My hand comes up, covering my mouth in shock. I blink down at the note, trying to slow down my heart rate. Because Noah wrote this. He wrote all of this. And he wrote it about me. About how I make him feel. I think back to his project. How he told me it was about me. The eye of the storm. Chaos. Confusion. Awe.

I had eight magazines of 5.56mm bullets and ChemLights. As team lead, I carried flares, an extra radio, and an extra antenna stuffed in a cargo pocket. I had a computer and a medical pack containing QuikClot, bandages, needles, and tourniquets. I had water and food, too. I weighed about 250 pounds without my gear, and more than 325 with it. With every step I took, I could feel my spine compressing like a shock absorber.

21. THE HABIT OF INDISCRIMINATE SPENDING. The spend-thrift cannot succeed, mainly because he stands eternally in FEAR OF POVERTY. Form the habit of systematic saving by putting aside a definite percentage of your income. Money in the bank gives one a very safe foundation of COURAGE when bargaining for the sale of personal services. Without money, one must take what one is offered, and be glad to get it. 22. LACK OF ENTHUSIASM. Without enthusiasm one cannot be convincing. Moreover, enthusiasm is contagious, and the person who has it, under control, is generally welcome in any group of people. 23. INTOLERANCE. The person with a "closed" mind on any subject seldom gets ahead. Intolerance means that one has stopped acquiring knowledge. The most damaging forms of intolerance are those connected with religious, racial, and political differences of opinion. 24. INTEMPERANCE. The most damaging forms of intemperance are connected with eating, strong drink, and sexual activities. Overindulgence in any of these is fatal to success. 25. INABILITY TO COOPERATE WITH OTHERS. More people lose their positions and their big opportunities in life, because of this fault, than for all other reasons combined. It is a fault which no well-informed business man, or leader will tolerate. 26. POSSESSION OF POWER THAT WAS NOT ACQUIRED THROUGH SELF EFFORT. (Sons and daughters of wealthy men, and others who inherit money which they did not earn). Power in the hands of one who did not acquire it gradually, is often fatal to success. QUICK RICHES are more dangerous than poverty. 27. INTENTIONAL DISHONESTY. There is no substitute for honesty. One may be temporarily dishonest by force of circumstances over which one has no control, without permanent damage. But, there is NO HOPE for the person who is dishonest by choice. Sooner or later, his deeds will catch up with him, and he will pay by loss of reputation, and perhaps even loss of liberty. 28. EGOTISM AND VANITY. These qualities serve as red lights which warn others to keep away. THEY ARE FATAL TO SUCCESS. 29. GUESSING INSTEAD OF THINKING. Most people are too indifferent or lazy to acquire FACTS with which to THINK ACCURATELY. They prefer to act on "opinions" created by guesswork or snap-judgments. 30. LACK OF CAPITAL. This is a common cause of failure among those who start out in business for the first time, without sufficient reserve of capital to absorb the shock of their mistakes, and to carry them over until they have established a REPUTATION. 31. Under this, name any particular cause of failure from which you have suffered that has not been included in the foregoing list.

Tunneling leads us to borrow so that we are using the same physical resources less effectively, placing us one step behind. Because we tunnel, we neglect, and then we find ourselves needing to juggle. The scarcity trap becomes a complicated affair, a patchwork of delayed commitments and costly short-term solutions that need to be constantly revisited and revised. We do not have the bandwidth to plan a way out of this trap. And when we make a plan, we lack the bandwidth needed to resist temptations and persist. Moreover, the lack of slack means that we have no capacity to absorb shocks. And all this is compounded by our failure to use the precious moments of abundance to create future buffers.

Some' paintings are considered heretical," she said irritably. "Ah, but that isn't the fault of the painting. It's the prejudice of the viewer. For instance, isn't the fault of your 'dress' that when you turn it looks like a pond rippling beneath a full moon at midnight. Or that you resemble a naiad rising from the depths in it. It is the opinion of this particular viewer." Her head went back in shock. And instead of casting her eyes down bashfully again, or fluttering her lashes in coy confusion or responding with a mumbled thank-you... she locked her eyes with his. Her eyes were so soft. Like the hearts of pansies. But they were also surprisingly intensely searching, and he thought he could feel them probing his soul. Sorting through impressions. Hot color swept her cheekbones as she absorbed the impact of this observation. She was attempting to decode it. So she wasn't immune to the compliment. She simply didn't trust it. In truth, he hadn't fully expected to say it himself. Where on earth had it come from? This was what unnerved him. And to think he'd once thought her face ordinary.

set myself the task of starting with a blank sheet of paper and asking not what it means to be a “conservative” or a “liberal” today (frankly, who cares?) but rather how we maximize the resilience and self-propulsion of every citizen and community in America—that is, their ability to both absorb shocks and keep progressing in this age of accelerations. It is a different approach to politics—a necessary one, I believe—and it yields a political agenda unlike anything on offer in America today.

I learned rather quickly not to be shocked in this place. Just absorb the information, process it, then act accordingly. There is no room for shock.

Your circulatory system could be augmented for greater pumping efficiency. Your legs could be modified with artificial muscles that would increase their shock absorbency to prevent blackouts. If your blood was made synthetic, you would see vast improvements to your oxygen-production capabilities. Currently, your internal organs are vulnerable to impact and ill-suited for the high-mobility combat we are accustomed to… All these modifications are possible with the United Kingdom’s technology,

Following up the butt strike, your weapon is now at your left shoulder, held in rifle grip with the right hand palm-down at the handle of the weapon and the left hand palm-up maybe one third to one half the distance up the stick. To execute the rap, bring the right hand in toward the right hip while the left hand pushes the barrel end outward into the opponent's face. The weapon retraces the path it originally took from middle guard to the left shoulder, only in reverse. In practice you will find that the left elbow acts like a shock absorber, causing the end of the stick to snap back. Redirect this rebound up to your right shoulder, while letting your left hand slide down to bat grip. Follow through with an overight strike. Practice these three moves in sequence: underight butt, overleft rap, overight strike from bat grip. Your weapon will trace a 'V,' moving from one shoulder to another. Slam I have also seen this technique referred to as a “bar strike” because you are striking with the portion of the stick between the hands, which is like a bar. The slam is typically performed with the hands palm down in staff grip, equidistant from the ends, and thrown so that the stick is horizontal. Realize, though, that the slam can be thrown with multiple grips in multiple orientations. From the middle guard, throw the stick forward and diagonally, parallel to your adversary, striking him in the chest. Don't just shove the opponent, but aim for an explosive strike that knocks him back on impact. If the attacker crouches and lunges in to tackle, jam the portion of the stick between your hands into the juncture of the opponent's right shoulder and neck.

The Governing Vessel is the sea of the yang channels.” Su When The Governing Vessel is the Yang aspect of the “Human Battery.” It starts at the intersection of CV-1 and runs posteriorly to Governing Vessel 1 (GV-1) at the tip of the coccyx bone at the end of the spine. From GV-1 the Governing Vessel ascends the centerline of the body running over the spine to GV-15, which is the point that the head and the spine connect. From GV-15 the Governing Vessel follows the centerline of the head up and over onto the face. It then descends down the centerline of the face until it connects with Conception Vessel at GV-28. Given the yang characteristics of the Governing Vessel it is harder and more resilient to strikes than the softer Conception Vessel. Consider how the body is designed according to Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Science. The Yang surfaces of the body are the natural shock absorbers of the body. Let us say that someone is going to strike you with a whip. Will you just stand there and take the strike across the front of your body? I doubt it. Your natural defenses will cause you to turn your back to the strike. The strike would fall on the Yang surfaces of the body. Thus allowing you to protect the more vulnerable yin surfaces. This description illustrates the difference between a Yang surface and a Yin surface. The Yang surfaces of the body can take more physical abuse than the Yin surfaces. This should be a major clue to the martial artist. The fact that the body is designed to protect the Yin over the Yang illustrates that attacks to Yin are more traumatic to the body.

Many of the men brought aboard suffered from “shell shock,” or “combat fatigue,” as it is called in this war. But call it what you like, we did not have to be psychiatrists to realize that the human mind can look at one scene just so long, can absorb meaning and reality to just a certain point. With these men that point had been passed. Their minds had refused to accept the pictures which their senses presented;

They were all unconscious worshippers of the State. Whether the State they worshipped was the Fascist State or the incarnation of quite another dream, they thought of it as something that transcended both its citizens and their lives. Whether it was tyrannical or paternalistic, dictatorial or democratic, it remained to them monolithic, centralized, and remote. This was why the political leaders and my peasants could never understand one another. The politicians oversimplified things, even while they clothed them in philosophical expressions. Their solutions were abstract and far removed from reality; they were schematic halfway measures, which were already out of date. Fifteen years of Fascism had erased the problem of the South from their minds and if now they thought of it again they saw it only as a part of some other difficulty, through the fictitious generalities of party and class and even race...All of them agreed that the State should be something about it, something concretely useful, and beneficent, and miraculous, and they were shocked when I told them that the State, as they conceived it, was the greatest obstacle to the accomplishment of anything...We can bridge the abyss only when we succeed in creating a government in which the peasants feel they have some share...Plans laid by a central government, however much good they may do, still leave two hostile Italys on either side of the abyss. The difficulties we were discussing, I explained to them, were far more complex than they realized...First of all, we are faced with two very different civilizations, neither of which can absorb the other...The second aspect of the trouble is economic, the dilemma of poverty. The land has been gradually impoverished: the forests have been cut down, the rivers have been reduced to mountain streams that often run dry, and livestock has become scarce. Instead of cultivating trees and pasture lands there has been an unfortunate attempt to raise wheat in soil that does not favor it. There is no capital, no industry, no savings, no schools; emigration is no longer possible, taxes are unduly heavy, and malaria is everywhere. All this is in large part due to the ill-advised intentions and efforts of the State, a State in which the peasants cannot feel they have a share, and which has brought them only poverty and deserts...We must make ourselves capable of inventing a new form of government, neither Fascist, nor Communist, nor even Liberal, for all three of these are forms of the religion of the State. We must rebuild the foundations of our concept of the State with the concept of the individual, which is its basis...The individual is not a separate unit, but a link, a meeting place of relationships of every kind...The name of this way out is autonomy. The State can only be a group of autonomies, an organic federation, The unit or cell through which the peasants can take part in the complex life of the nation must be the autonomous or self-governing rural community. This is the only form of government which can solve in our time the three interdependent aspects of the problem of the South; which can allow the co-existence of two different civilizations, without one lording it over the other or weighing the other down; which can furnish a good chance for escape from poverty...But the autonomy or self-government of the community cannot exist without the autonomy of the factory, the school, and the city, of every form of social life. This is what I learned from a year of life underground.

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh' (Genesis 2:24 NRSV). This radically upside-down statement would have shocked the original readers of Genesis and should shock us too. I don't know of any culture where men are depicted as clinging to their wives. Certainly within a patriarchal world, this is getting things backwards. There the wife leaves her parents and is absorbed into her husband's family.

21. The habit of indiscriminate spending. The spendthrift cannot succeed, mainly because he stands eternally in fear of poverty. Form the habit of systematic saving by putting aside a definite percentage of your income. Money in the bank gives one a very safe foundation of courage when bargaining for the sale of personal services. Without money, one must take what one is offered, and be glad to get it. 22. Lack of enthusiasm. Without enthusiasm one cannot be convincing. Moreover, enthusiasm is contagious, and the person who has it, under control, is generally welcome in any group of people. 23. Intolerance. The person with a closed mind on any subject seldom gets ahead. Intolerance means that one has stopped acquiring knowledge. The most damaging forms of intolerance are those connected with religious, racial, and political differences of opinion. 24. Intemperance. The most damaging forms of intemperance are connected with eating, strong drink, and sexual activities. Over-indulgence in any of these is fatal to success. 25. Inability to cooperate with others. More people lose their positions and their big opportunities in life, because of this fault, than for all other reasons combined. It is a fault which no well-informed businessman or leader will tolerate. 26. Possession of power that was not acquired through self effort. (Sons and daughters of wealthy men, and others who inherit money which they did not earn). Power in the hands of one who did not acquire it gradually is often fatal to success. Quick riches are more dangerous than poverty. 27. Intentional dishonesty. There is no substitute for honesty. One may be temporarily dishonest by force of circumstances over which one has no control, without permanent damage. But, there is no hope for the person who is dishonest by choice. Sooner or later, his deeds will catch up with him, and he will pay by loss of reputation, and perhaps even loss of liberty. 28. Egotism and vanity. These qualities serve as red lights which warn others to keep away. They are fatal to success. 29. Guessing instead of thinking. Most people are too indifferent or lazy to acquire facts with which to think accurately. They prefer to act on “opinions” created by guesswork or snap-judgments. 30. Lack of capital. This is a common cause of failure among those who start out in business for the first time, without sufficient reserve of capital to absorb the shock of their mistakes, and to carry them over until they have established a reputation. 31. Under this, name any particular cause of failure from which you have suffered that has not been included in the foregoing list.

After you practice punching standing up, you need to practice lunging with your front punch and a follow-up punch with the rear hand. A full motion punch would have the body at an angle and the rear leg extended to help keep balance while your weight would be directed behind the striking hand. Generally after you punch you land and retract your hand. Then you retract your rear leg closer, erecting your previously forward-leaning torso. You can then follow with a rear hand strike with the same motion. Once you have learned these striking techniques, you need to practice them on punching mitts. Following the correct sequential execution will make the mitts fly far backwards. Your training partner should be holding the mitts in front of his face with his elbows locked, using them as shock absorbers. After you practice each hand, execute a combination of three strikes ensuring you finish each one of them. Remember, your first strike ends when your arm has retracted, but your shoulder was kept forward in the direction of the strike.

I told him to watch out,' the Roach says. .... 'But would he listen? I'd have ordered him, if not for the little matter of him being the High King.' 'Cardan sent you?' I ask. 'Not exactly,' says the Roach, moving the light so that I can see the person with him, the one I elbowed. The High King of Elfhame in plain brown wool, a cloak on his back of a fabric so dark it seems to absorb light, leaf blade in the scabbard on his hip. He wears no crown on his brow, no rings on his fingers, nor gold point limning his cheekbones. He looks every inch a spy from the Court of Shadows, down to the sneaky smile pulling at a corner of his beautiful mouth. Looking at him, I feel a little light-headed from some combination of shock and disbelief. 'You shouldn't be here.' 'I said that, too,' the Roach goes on. 'Really, I miss the days when you were in charge. High Kings shouldn't be gallivanting around like common ruffians.' Cardan laughs. 'What about uncommon ruffians?' I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, and his laugh gutters out. The Roach turns his gaze to the ceiling. I am abruptly aware that I am in a nightgown Oriana lent me, one that is entirely too diaphanous.

Yes. It was OK. Diljá isn’t as terrible as you think,’ he said, and Særós wondered if he was the family’s shock absorber, the one who would always go the extra distance to keep everyone happy.

vitamin or mineral yet identified that is not available from low-carbohydrate sources—and many grain foods only appear to have a good nutritional profile because they’ve been enriched at the factory. Enrichment was instituted when it became clear that people whose diets depended on milled grains were developing nutritional deficiency diseases. It is likely that your nutritional profile will improve. That said, we do recommend taking a well-formulated, iron-free multivitamin daily. WHAT ABOUT “GOOD CARBS”? No doubt you’ve heard that there are “good carbs.” It may come as a shock, then, to learn that once they are digested and absorbed there is chemically no difference between one source of sugar and another. A molecule of glucose derived from brown rice is identical to a molecule of glucose derived from a convenience store slushy. The brown rice brings a few vitamins along with

Oil imports nearly tripled between 1967 and 1973. With US demand for imports so strong, there was virtually no cushion of extra oil supplies on global markets to help absorb a shock to supplies. The Arab embargo kept about 4.4 million barrels of oil a day off the market: 9 percent of the total supply. For the first time in its history, the United States could not make up for the loss. The shock was unprecedented. Gasoline prices, which had hovered along at the same level year after year for decades, spiked. In some markets, crude oil prices jumped from $5.40 a barrel to $17 a barrel—a 600 percent increase in a matter of weeks.

Studies in psychoneuroimmunology show that if we plunge too quickly into any major change, even a good one, our bodies and minds can’t absorb the shock. We must give our psychological and physiological systems time to adjust. We do this by allowing something that neuroscientist and cultural anthropologist Mario Martinez calls “mourning the known misery.

my head so it absorbs the shock of slamming against the roof.

Barry Leace ignored the insult. He checked his sonar and cursed under his breath. They had moved too far ahead of the Benthos, Geo-Tech Industries’ (GTI) mobile deep-sea lab community and submarine docking station. The billion-dollar mother ship resembled a domed sports arena, with a false flat surface for an underbelly, dangling three mammoth shock absorbers for legs. Hovering just above the turbulent seafloor in neutral buoyancy, the 46,000-square-foot titanium structure reminded Leace of a monstrous man-o’-war as it followed them north through the most hostile environment on the planet.

In one sense the House of Commons is the most unrepresentative of representative assemblies. It is an elaborate conspiracy to prevent the real clash of opinion which exists outside from finding an appropriate echo within its walls. It is a social shock absorber placed between privilege and the pressure of popular discontent. The new Member’s first experience of this is when he learns that passionate feelings must never find expression in forthright speech...The classic Parliamentary style of speech is understatement. It is a style unsuited to the representative of working people because it slurs and mutes the deep antagonisms which exist in society.

I wished Karl was here so I could tell him about all this. That is one great thing about having someone by your side. They are a shock absorber to the madness of experience.

it seems best to view deacons as servants who do whatever is necessary to allow the elders to accomplish their God-given calling of shepherding and teaching the church.

The harsh dimness that follows loss isn’t static, but charged with the energy of immanent change. Hurt, I was left with a choice: wallow and stay in the dark, or seek light and fight to reach it. These two paths emerged. I had this choice to make. Loss is the shocking catalyst of transformation. I saw that this mountain valley, haunted by senseless murders, darker, had absorbed unthinkable violence and turned it into mesmerizing light.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a severe muscle wasting disease caused by mutations in the X-linked DYSTROPHIN gene. This is a large gene that encodes a big protein which acts as an essential shock absorber in muscle fibres. Boys carrying certain mutations in DYSTROPHIN suffer major muscle loss that usually results in death in the teenage years. Females with the same mutation are usually symptom-free. The reason for this is that muscle has a very unusual structure. It is called a syncytial tissue, which means that lots of individual cells fuse and operate almost like one giant cell, but with lots of discrete nuclei. This is why most females with a DYSTROPHIN mutation are symptom-free. There is enough normal DYSTROPHIN protein encoded by the nuclei that switched off the mutated DYSTROPHIN gene to keep this syncytial tissue functioning healthily

Companies operating close to the edge financially may lack the resources to absorb an external shock—and as a result may see their market position degrade during a downturn.*

Loss is the shocking catalyst of transformation. I saw that this mountain valley, haunted by senseless murders, darker, had absorbed unthinkable violence and turned it into mesmerizing light. My rape became my catalyst. Rape gave me cause to flee the muteness—forced me into making a bold and forceful change. I chose to fight to find a way to leave to seek my own strength and beauty. I was searching to find the way to make light.

his way of thinking, the spreading of risk could actually exacerbate the consequences of otherwise isolated problems—a view not shared by his original boss at the Fed, Alan Greenspan. “These changes appear to have made the financial system able to absorb more easily a broader array of shocks, but they have not eliminated risk,” he said in a speech in 2006. “They have not ended the tendency of markets to occasional periods of mania and panic. They have not eliminated the possibility of failure of a major financial intermediary. And they cannot fully insulate the broader financial system from the effects of such a failure.” Geithner understood that the Wall Street boom would eventually falter, and he knew from his experience in Japan that it was not likely to end well. Of course, he had no way of knowing precisely how or when that would happen, and no amount of studying or preparation could have equipped him to deal with the events that began in early March 2008.

The harsh dimness that follows loss isn’t static, but charged with the energy of immanent change. Hurt, I was left with a choice: wallow and stay in the dark, or seek light and fight to reach it. These two paths emerged. I had this choice to make. Loss is the shocking catalyst of transformation. I saw that this mountain valley, haunted by senseless murders, darker, had absorbed unthinkable violence and turned it into mesmerizing light. My rape became my catalyst. Rape gave me cause to flee the muteness – forced me into making a bold and forceful change. I chose to fight to find a way to leave to seek my own strength and beauty. I was searching to find the way to make light.

Free,' Wing protested, shaking himself as if to throw off his own shock in order to protect Darsey. She sensed his anger at any blame being attached to her and it made her cringe with guilt. She had done this to him and she deserved to be blamed. Horror rose in her, pushing its way past shock and carrying her voice with it. 'I crippled you. I stole your frond,' she choked, still struggling to absorb what had happened. 'I'm so sorry. It's all my fault-' Her mind was almost screaming, much louder than her words, but she didn't understand why Free staggered back and Wing's remaining frond furled tight, to tuck hard against his throat. It was only when he hurled the row of seats between them and gripped her by the arms that she became aware of his distress 'Darse, calm,' he ordered, releasing her, but mentally underlining his demand until the thoughts roaring through all their minds grew quieter. However, despite being muted, they were still there, running frantically fast from Darsey's head to her frond. 'Calm,' Wing instructed more soothingly and then frowned at the words he could still sense. 'None such,' he denied vehemently. 'I don't hate you. Not ever and you're not the...the alien in some monster movie. And you don't eat your mates.' He paused and raised an eyebrow at her. 'Do you?

When my first attempt failed, fear brought into me a shock... I gave a smile, only to realize that my shock was gone. A smile is a shock absorber!

After a moment to regain his composure, he propped himself up on his elbow to look down at me, desire still lurking in his mesmerizing eyes. “Alera? Are you…all right?” “Narian, we can’t do this.” I was more than a little shocked at the both of us. His brow furrowed, and he ran a hand through his disheveled hair. He took a breath and opened his mouth, then stopped, apparently unable to decide exactly what he wanted to say. “Why not?” “Because,” I said, pushing myself upright. “We’re not married!” He sat up as well and lit the lantern on my bedside table. I pulled my chemise back onto my shoulders and wrapped my arms around my legs while I waited for his reaction. “And marriage, that’s…important to you…for this,” he surmised, trying to work out the basis for my objection. “Yes,” I told him fervently. “Isn’t it to you?” He glanced at the bedclothes, as though he anticipated an unpleasant reaction to what he would say. “Well, no. We don’t have marriage in Cokyri.” My eyebrows shot upward. “You don’t have…marriage? Well then, how do you…I mean, where…where do your children come from?” “We just choose a partner,” he said, ignoring the absurdity of my question. “A woman chooses a man, and if he accepts, he is marked with a tattoo around his forearm. The tattoo is a great honor--men in Cokyri are proud to bear it.” “What about the church?” He shrugged, no longer worrying about how I might react. “Cokyri has no official religion. Some people seek the High Priestess’s approval to be bound, but they come to her of their own accord. Again, it is a choice.” “So…in order to be with me, all you would need is a tattoo?” I spoke tentatively, trying to absorb and understand his words. “Only to signify that I am yours and no one else’s. If that is what we both want.” His closing statement, though subtle, sough confirmation, his steel-blue eyes filled with love and longing. “I choose you,” I said, leaning toward him, and his mouth met mine with such ardor that my senses reeled all over again. He lay down with me on top of him, and it took all my strength of will to pull away. “But we have to be married.” He studied me, concluding that I truly believed in what I said. “Then let’s go get married.” “Now?” I blurted, eyes wide. “Is now a problem?

And when Valentine let the last tender melody fade up into the stars, he put his hands in his lap and hoped it was good enough for the woman he loved. He shifted to straddle the piano bench and wrapped his arms around Ellen’s waist. She curled up against his chest and held on to him as if she were drowning. “Damn you, Val Windham,” she breathed against his neck. “Damn you, damn you. All summer…” She stopped and drew in a shaking sob. He listened, his soul calm enough to absorb any reaction, as long as she was in his arms. “All summer,” she went on, “you climbed around on the roofs and in the trees, hanging bat houses, mucking stalls, wrecking your hands, when you can… My God, Valentine. My God.” She was shocked, Val got that much, but he wasn’t sure what the rest of her reaction was. “I have listened to you,” Ellen said earnestly. Not, I have listened to you play, or I have listened to your music. I have listened to you.

This is the M74 assault weapon. Developed during the war, in about 2025, near as we could tell, it is by far the most advanced infantry weapon ever made. The weapon itself is incredibly impressive, but it is the platform that really makes it incredible. It fires a .202 caliber round that has a small bundle of titanium flechettes imbedded in soft lead and jacketed in a copper alloy. While the caliber sounds small, the Muzzle velocity is fifty eight hundred feet per second, which gives it more kinetic energy than the rounds you fired with your M1.” He handed Jack one of the rounds. It looked like just a bullet, not an entire round. “When the round hits a target, the lead mushrooms like the ammo you are used to, but the flechettes spread out and continue on, tearing through just about any kind of armor you can imagine. Soft targets just cause the flechettes to sprawl through the body and cause maximum damage. The ammunition magazine holds two hundred rounds and weighs less than the twenty round magazine of the M14. The casing is only three quarters of an inch long and the entire round is a little over an inch. It uses a chemical that burns eight times faster than gunpowder and expands over fifteen times more. The reason the round is so small is because the chemical propellant is solid and doesn’t need a shell. It is completely consumed when firing, so nothing to eject. The gun uses a hybrid closed bolt system that completely contains the explosion, routing the excess energy to power the action, and even to help counter the recoil.” “Fifty eight hundred feet per second? Even a bullet that small needs a heck of a lot of energy to get moving that fast. This thing must kick like a mule.” “Actually, the action on the weapon uses a shock absorber filled with a magnetic fluid that changes viscosity depending on what the fire rate is set to. If you fire a single round, it softens up to make recoil almost nonexistent. If you go automatic, it stiffens up to increase the cyclic rate. The weapon itself is made of composite carbon fiber and titanium alloys, with a frictionless surface in the barrel and on all moving components. It’s a bitch to clean because each piece is like wet ice, but it almost never needs cleaning because nothing will stick to any part that matters.” He

Mother Nature is not a living being, but she is a biogeophysical, rationally functioning, complex system of oceans, atmosphere, forests, rivers, soils, plants, and animals that has evolved on Planet Earth since the first hints of life emerged. She has survived the worst of times and thrived in the best of them for nearly four billion years by learning to absorb endless shocks, climate changes, surprises, and even an asteroid or two. That alone makes Mother Nature an important mentor.

Ellie! No!” He rushed to her. “God, no! You can’t be leaving me! Don’t!” He grabbed her face and covered her mouth in a hard, desperate kiss. Her eyes flew open in stunned disbelief; she stopped breathing. He released her mouth but not her face, which he held in his hands, his fingers threaded into her hair. “You can’t go, Ellie, you can’t. Don’t you know how much I love you? God, I’d be nothing without you. I never thought I’d get to feel like this again, but you brought me back to life. You took the loneliness away and brought laughter back into my life. Ellie, you’re everything to me—I can’t make it without you. If you leave, I don’t know what I’ll—” She just stared at him, a slight smile on her face. “Really? You don’t say.” “Listen, I know I’m not a good romantic, I know that. I realized just a little while ago that I—Oh, hell, I told you how responsible I was, not how much you light up my life. I told you about my vow and how I could stick to it, not how life without you would be all gray and sad and awful. I didn’t tell you everything you mean to me. I promised myself I’d take care of that tonight, for sure. I was almost too late.” “Tell me now,” she said. “Now?” he asked, dropping his hands from her face. “Right now,” she insisted. “But I haven’t prepared!” “I know. That’s the whole idea,” she said. “I’m listening.” He cleared his throat. “Ellie. Dammit, you saved my life. I was a wallowing, pathetic, self-pitying—” He stopped talking at the sound of her soft laughter. “You’re not supposed to laugh at my attempts to be romantic.” “Noah, that wasn’t romantic. That made me wonder what I ever saw in you. Start over.” He grabbed her face in his hands again. “I want to be with you forever. I want to lie beside you every night, holding you close, whispering to you that I love you more than anything in the world, that you turned my whole world upside down just when it needed to be turned upside down. I want to make forever promises to you out loud, in front of God, and I want you to promise to be my woman, my wife, my one and only love, my best friend and my conscience. You’re never easy, Ellie, but you’re sure never boring…” “I don’t know about that last part,” she commented. “God, I love you so much. If I lost you, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d go after you, that’s what I’d do. I’d find a way to get you back. You know we’re perfect together. I know you feel it because I can feel you feel it.” He grinned roguishly. “We sure fit together perfect, don’t you think? You told me you loved me—tell me again.” “I love you, Noah. I tried not to. I usually screw up love situations. But, apparently, we have that in common.” She grinned. “A good start.” “You won’t leave me?” “Why would I leave you? I adore you. And unless I’m completely stupid, you just asked me to marry you.” “I did. We should give the kids some time to get used to the idea. And we should find a house that can hold us, but as soon as we can work out the details, we should get married.” “Okay,” she said. “Am I late for rehearsal?” “We were waiting for you,” he explained. “Then Walt said he saw you struggling with luggage and thought maybe you weren’t coming, that you were leaving.” She laughed a bit. “Noah, these are Vanni’s hand-me-downs. I thought I had time to unpack them before the rehearsal.” He was shocked silent for a moment, absorbing this, then he grabbed her and kissed her hard. And he said, “I have a feeling I bit off more than I can chew with you.” “No question about that, Your Holiness.” *

K gave talks in the usual places in India between October and March ’64. There is a particularly memorable passage in the fourth talk4 he gave in Bombay on February 16: I am going to describe a scene that took place [at Rajghat]. It actually happened. We [meaning himself] were sitting on the bank of a river, very wide, of an evening. The crows were coming back from across the river, and the moon was just coming over the trees. And there was a man sitting beside us. He was a sanyasi. He did not notice the water and the moon on the water. He did not notice the song of that village man, he did not notice the crows coming back; he was so absorbed in his own problem. And he began to talk quietly with a tremendous sense of sorrow. He was a lustful man, he said, brutal in his demands, never satisfied, always demanding, asking, pushing, driving; and he was striving and he was driven for many years to conquer it. And at last he did the most brutal thing to himself; and from that day he was no longer a man. And as you listened you felt an extraordinary sorrow, a tremendous shock, that a man in search of God could mutilate himself for ever. He had lost all feeling, all sense of beauty. All that he was concerned with was to reach God. He tortured himself, butchered himself, destroyed himself, in order to find that thing which he called God. And as it got dark, the stars came out full, wide, with immense space; and he was totally unaware. And most of us live that way. We have brutalized ourselves through different ways, so completely. We have formed ideas, we live with formulas. All our actions, all our feelings, all our activities are shaped, controlled, subjugated, dominated by the formulas which society, the saints, the religious, the experiences that's one has had, have established. These formulas shape our lives, our activity, our being.

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In a complex world, disturbances are inevitable, making such a capacity to absorb shocks increasingly important.

Laughter is to life what shock absorbers are to automobiles. It won't take the potholes out of the road, but it sure makes the ride smoother.

Juliet?" Charles whispered, his stunned brain trying to absorb what he was seeing and sort it out into something he could understand . . . trying to reason why she was still pregnant when she should've delivered the baby months and months ago . . . trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle that made absolutely no sense.  "Juliet, will you not come and greet me?" As though for approval, she glanced toward Gareth, who had also risen and now stood almost protectively beside her.  And as Charles's confused and uncomprehending gaze went from Gareth's hand, which now supported Juliet's elbow, to his fiancée's swollen belly and finally, to the high chair drawn up beside her which contained a toddler whose curling hair was as bright a gold as Charles's own, he began to understand. It felt as though God had slammed a fist into his stomach. "No," he murmured, shaking his head in denial and stepping backward, his gaze still fixed on Juliet's gently rounded abdomen.  Involuntarily, his fists clenched and he was suddenly afraid that he was going to call out Gareth, his own brother, right here in front of everyone, for what he had done to her.  "No, I . . . this cannot be —" And then Lucien was there, his hand like a vise on Charles's arm as he firmly turned him around and began dragging him out of the room.  Charles resisted, trying to twist his head around, unable to take his disbelieving stare from Juliet's belly, from her face, from her eyes, which met and held his in a silent plea for forgiveness, but Lucien only tightened his grip and pulled him away from the table.  Away from the others. Out the door, which he shut behind him. "Now you know why I did not want you to charge unannounced into this house," he said quietly, as Charles walked a little distance away and leaned his brow against his forearm, and his forearm against the cold stone wall.  There he remained, head bent, totally undone by the confusion and despair of his discovery.  "I am not angry with you, and there is nothing to forgive.  But since you were unaware of the situation, and Juliet is obviously in a delicate condition, you can be sure that I would do everything in my power to protect you both from shock and upset.  I am sorry that you had to learn of things this way." When Charles made no move to acknowledge him, he turned to Amy.  "Who are you?" Amy had stepped up beside Charles, who stood with head bent, shoulders quaking.  "My name's Amy Leighton," she answered.  "I'm a friend of your brother's." "How close a friend are you?" "Well, that's hard to say, really, because —" "She's the only person in this bloody world who hasn't betrayed me!

Once their gaze turned back toward Europe, the puzzle dissolved: West Germany was the obvious equivalent and, indeed, a splendid candidate for the role of the global plan’s European shock-absorbing pillar—certainly not Britain.

Warming up not only reduces the risk of injury, it also prepares the nervous system for action, sends fresh, shock-absorbing synovial fluid around the joints, and focuses the mind for the harder work to come.

Before Antoine could absorb this shock, he heard a rumor that Purcell planned to sell him and his wife to Manuel Lacey, a slave trader from St. Louis. The rumor hardened into fact. Lacey took Antoine and his wife straight to the slave market in New Orleans and sold them as slaves for life. Antoine managed to obtain an audience with Manuel Juan de Salcedo, the last Spanish governor of Louisiana, who served until the territory was transferred to France on November 30, 1803. After Antoine showed the governor his freedom papers from Cuba, the governor, usually portrayed as a corrupt official who tried to squeeze profits from his post, did the right thing. He released Joseph Antoine and his wife from the sale. However, they feared that, under the law, Antoine’s wife would remain a slave until the two of them had served out the full fifteen-year terms of their indenture.

That’s all it takes sometimes. A stranger looking at me a certain way on a certain day. That’s all it can take for my interest to grow until I don’t have a choice but to absorb every part of that person. Until I can practically exist in their life.

Stocks generally change slowly, even when the flows into or out of them change suddenly. Therefore, stocks act as delays or buffers or shock absorbers in systems.

We should require substantial down payments for borrowers, which would make it harder for some families to become homeowners but would help reduce the risk of the terrible collapses we saw in this crisis. Higher down payment requirements would help serve as shock absorbers for the system—much like capital requirements for financial firms or margin requirements for derivatives investors—limiting the risk of excessive booms by limiting highly leveraged borrowing.

Throughout this process, connective tissue plays multiple roles—one of the most important being a shock absorber.

More than any other location in your muscular system, the MTJ acts as a shock absorber and spring during explosive movements.

The second way is dealing with the symptoms of friction troubles. This work includes the “therapy” that Sandra talked about: keeping others and yourself sane and motivated so that you can survive broken systems together and be fortified with the grit and gumption to repair them. Friction fixers also help others deal with symptoms by guiding them through the best—or least bad—paths through the muck. Friction fixers serve as shock absorbers, too: doing routine chores, dealing with reasonable and unreasonable demands and interruptions, and enduring unwarranted cruelty so that others don’t have to.

When I went to Passard's restaurant, the meal began with slices of raw scallop topped with caviar; that reminded me of how shocking it was when Django fed us raw fish all those years ago. Then there was a marvelous Saint-Pierre. Passard had peeled away the skin and prepared the fish with hundreds of bay leaves before covering it back up and steaming the fish until it had absorbed all the flavors of the herb. The man loves herbs and uses them in the most fascinating ways. That also reminded me of Django. There was a fat sweetbread skewered with a sprig of rosemary until it was nothing more than an herbal cloud. And the salad was the tiniest herbs, all different. Beautiful simplicity." Stella was tasting the flavors in her mind as he described them.

The troops were cracking because they could not absorb what was happening to them, because they knew themselves to be utterly powerless (bravery had little survival value when one was on the receiving end of a bombardment), and because they had no confidence that the generals who had put them in danger knew what they were doing. Men whose courage was beyond challenge could and did break down if subjected to enough strain of this kind.