Some Specific Moment Quotes

Countless writers express countless ideas on so many bits of paper, and at some unknown moment some specific book, even some specific sentence, will be the right one for the right person. We never know when some scrap of literature will have its finest hour.

Well, anyway, her death changed our lives for the better, because it brought a kind of awareness, a specific sense of purpose and appreciation we hadn't had before. Would I trade that in order to have her back? In a fraction of a millisecond. But I won't ever have her back. So I have taken this, as her great gift to us. But. Do I block her out? Never. Do I think of her? Always. In some part of my brain, I think of her every single moment of every single day.

Jen watched as Sally and Jacque's eyes got wider and wider. "Damn," Jen muttered under her breath just as strong arms came around her and she felt warm breath against her neck. "I believe this is our song," Decebel purred in her ear. Jen swore at any moment she was going to be a puddle on the floor and Jacque would have to sop her up with some Bounty paper towels. Why she thought specifically of Bounty paper towels, she had no idea. She was trying really hard to focus on anything but Decebel's warmth against her. To her complete mortification he began to move…with the beat. Sally and Jacque's jaws dropped. Jen mouthed, "Save me," to her two best friends, but evil traitors that they were, they both started dancing and completely ignored her plea. Oh, those two heifers are going down, she promised herself. After a few moments, Jen decided she could either look goofy standing stiff while Decebel danced or she could throw caution to the wind and bring it.

THE ONE THING YOU MUST DO There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life. It's as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human being come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don't do it, it's as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It's a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It's like a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on. You say, "But look, I'm using the dagger. It's not lying idle." Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought to serve for that. You say, "But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and the rest." But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself. Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don't, you will be like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You'll be wasting valuable keenness and forgetting your dignity and purpose.

I love like a lawnmower in the desert. I love like a solar-powered lunar vehicle. I love like a wind-powered kite factory. Some might even say I love like an ice cube in an oven, but I’d vehemently disagree. It’s not an ice cube, it’s an ice sculpture—of your heart, and it’s melting at this very moment.

I became totally absorbed into this forest existence. It was an unparalleled period when aloneness was a way of life; a perfect opportunity, it might seem, for meditating on the meaning of existence and my role in it all. But I was far too busy learning about the chimpanzees'lives to worry about the meaning of my own. I had gone to Gombe to accomplish a specific goal, not to pursue my early preoccupation with philosophy and religion. Nevertheless, those months at Gombe helped to shape the person I am today-I would have been insensitive indeed if the wonder and the endless fascination of my new world had not had a major impact on my thinking. All the time I was getting closer to animals and nature, and as a result, closer to myself and more and more in tune with the spiritual power that I felt all around. For those who have experienced the joy of being alone with nature there is really little need for me to say much more; for those who have not, no words of mine can even describe the powerful, almost mystical knowledge of beauty and eternity that come, suddenly, and all unexpected. The beauty was always there, but moments of true awareness were rare. They would come, unannounced; perhaps when I was watching the pale flush preceding dawn; or looking up through the rustling leaves of some giant forest tree into the greens and browns and the black shadows and the occasionally ensured bright fleck of blue sky; or when I stood, as darkness fell, with one hand on the still warm trunk of a tree and looked at the sparkling of an early moon on the never still, softly sighing water of Lake Tanganyika.

When I met Wittgenstein, I saw that Schlick's warnings were fully justified. But his behavior was not caused by any arrogance. In general, he was of a sympathetic temperament and very kind; but he was hypersensitive and easily irritated. Whatever he said was always interesting and stimulating and the way in which he expressed it was often fascinating. His point of view and his attitude toward people and problems, even theoretical problems, were much more similar to those of a creative artist than to those of a scientist; one might almost say, similar to those of a religious prophet or a seer. When he started to formulate his view on some specific problem, we often felt the internal struggle that occurred in him at that very moment, a struggle by which he tried to penetrate from darkness to light under an intense and painful strain, which was even visible on his most expressive face. When finally, sometimes after a prolonged arduous effort, his answers came forth, his statement stood before us like a newly created piece of art or a divine revelation. Not that he asserted his views dogmatically ... But the impression he made on us was as if insight came to him as through divine inspiration, so that we could not help feeling that any sober rational comment of analysis of it would be a profanation.

THE ONE THING YOU MUST DO There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life. It's as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human being come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don't do it, it's as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It's a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It's like a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on. You say, "But look, I'm using the dagger. It's not lying idle." Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought to serve for that. You say, "But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and the rest." But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself. Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don't, you will be like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You'll be wasting valuable keenness and forgetting your dignity and purpose.

Cupid, that chubby cherub love dispenser, is dead. But before he died, he appointed me his apprentice in love. I loved Cupid, and that was precisely why I killed him. I strangled him. Then I shot him 17 times with his heart-shaped arrows. Then I burned his body while I roasted and toasted marshmallows and toasted to the good times he brought to the world. Then I took his ashes and mixed them in cake batter and literally consumed him. Mark it down: I have officially taken over as the foremost authority on love. I can't fly around like he could, but I have other endearing qualities. I can’t think of any at the moment, but I must have some.

What about free will? . . . There's that too. I never understood why people think they're mutually exclusive. Ask me, our entire lives aren't planned out for us- just some things. Specific events along the way, crossroads we're meant to come to. Tests, maybe, to measure our progress. But we always have choices, and those choices can send us along an unplanned path . . . there are some things that are meant to happen at a certain moment and in a certain way. No matter which path you choose, which decisions you make along your own particular journey, those pivotal moments appear to be set in stone. Maybe they represent the specific lessons we're meant to learn . . . Things we have to face. Things we have to learn. Responsibilities we have to fulfill. And mistakes we have to correct.

But my life, oh, my life, had been a constant search for an enormous dream in which my fellow creatures and animals, plants, chimeras, stars, and minerals were in a pre-established harmony, a dream that is forgotten because it must be forgotten, and is sought desperately, and only sporadically does one find its tragic fragments in the warmth of a person, in some specific situation, a glance - in memory too, of course, in some specific pain, some moment. I loved that harmony with a passion; I loved it in voices, voices. And then, instead of harmony, there was nothing but scraps and tatters. And perhaps that alone is what it means to be a poet.

What is important is that you get your house in order at each stage of the journey so that you can proceed. “If some day it be given to you to pass into the inner temple, you must leave no enemies behind.”—de Lubicz For example, if you never got on well with one of your parents and you have left that parent behind on your journey in such a way that the thought of that parent arouses anger or frustration or self-pity or any emotion . . . you are still attached. You are still stuck. And you must get that relationship straight before you can finish your work. And what, specifically, does “getting it straight” mean? Well, it means re-perceiving that parent, or whoever it may be, with total compassion . . . seeing him as a being of the spirit, just like you, who happens to be your parent . . . and who happens to have this or that characteristic, and who happens to be at a certain stage of his evolutionary journey. You must see that all beings are just beings . . . and that all the wrappings of personality and role and body are the coverings. Your attachments are only to the coverings, and as long as you are attached to someone else’s covering you are stuck, and you keep them stuck, in that attachment. Only when you can see the essence, can see God, in each human being do you free yourself and those about you. It’s hard work when you have spent years building a fixed model of who someone else is to abandon it, but until that model is superceded by a compassionate model, you are still stuck. In India they say that in order to proceed with one’s work one needs one’s parents’ blessings. Even if the parent has died, you must in your heart and mind, re-perceive that relationship until it becomes, like every one of your current relationships, one of light. If the person is still alive you may, when you have proceeded far enough, revisit and bring the relationship into the present. For, if you can keep the visit totally in the present, you will be free and finished. The parent may or may not be . . . but that is his karmic predicament. And if you have been truly in the present, and if you find a place in which you can share even a brief eternal moment . . . this is all it takes to get the blessing of your parent! It obviously doesn’t demand that the parent say, “I bless you.” Rather it means that he hears you as a fellow being, and honors the divine spark within you. And even a moment in the Here and Now . . . a single second shared in the eternal present . . . in love . . . is all that is required to free you both, if you are ready to be freed. From then on, it’s your own individual karma that determines how long you can maintain that high moment.

Think of a good joke. “Yesterday I walked into a bar. You know how it goes. You walk into a bar, and you expect a bartender, maybe some video poker. A man needs his distractions. No guy wants to get off work and go into some bar and see a penguin mixing drinks…” In conversation we switch between first-, second-, and third-person points of view. The constant shift controls the intimacy and authority of our story; for instance, “I walked” has the authority of first person. Second person addresses the listeners and enlists them: “You walk.” And the shift to third person controls the pace, “No guy wants,” by moving from the specific “I” to the general “guy.

Maybe PTSD really is triggered by a single incident, a stressor, as it's known in the psychiatric community, and maybe the attack at Al-Waleed was that stressor for me, but as I have learned in the intervening years, I was not damaged by that moment alone. In fact, while there are specific memories that resurface with some frequency, like the suicide bomber in Sinjar or the order riot at Al-Waleed, I find myself most traumatized by the overall experience of being in a combat zone like Iraq, where you are always surrounded by war but rarely aware of when or how violence will arrive. Like so many of my fellow veterans, I understand now how that it is the daily adrenaline rush of a war without front lines or uniforms, rather than the infrequent bursts of bloody violence, that ultimately damages the modern warrior's mind.

The avatar smiled silkily as it leaned closer to him, as though imparting a confidence. "Never forget I am not this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side. "We are quicker; we live faster and more completely than you do, with so many more senses, such a greater store of memories and at such a fine level of detail. We die more slowly, and we die more completely, too. Never forget I have had the chance to compare and contrast the ways of dying. [...] "I have watched people die in exhaustive and penetrative detail," the avatar continued. "I have felt for them. Did you know that true subjective time is measured in the minimum duration of demonstrably separate thoughts? Per second, a human—or a Chelgrian—might have twenty or thirty, even in the heightened state of extreme distress associated with the process of dying in pain." The avatar's eyes seemed to shine. It came forward, close to his face by the breadth of a hand. "Whereas I," it whispered, "have billions." It smiled, and something in its expression made Ziller clench his teeth. "I watched those poor wretches die in the slowest of slow motion and I knew even as I watched that it was I who'd killed them, who at that moment engaged in the process of killing them. For a thing like me to kill one of them or one of you is a very, very easy thing to do, and, as I discovered, absolutely disgusting. Just as I need never wonder what it is like to die, so I need never wonder what it is like to kill, Ziller, because I have done it, and it is a wasteful, graceless, worthless and hateful thing to have to do. "And, as you might imagine, I consider that I have an obligation to discharge. I fully intend to spend the rest of my existence here as Masaq' Hub for as long as I'm needed or until I'm no longer welcome, forever keeping an eye to windward for approaching storms and just generally protecting this quaint circle of fragile little bodies and the vulnerable little brains they house from whatever harm a big dumb mechanical universe or any conscience malevolent force might happen or wish to visit upon them, specifically because I know how appallingly easy they are to destroy. I will give my life to save theirs, if it should ever come to that. And give it gladly, happily, too, knowing that trade was entirely worth the debt I incurred eight hundred years ago, back in Arm One-Six.

To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe. It was a conundrum, one Sazed wrestled with. He wanted someone, something, to force him to have faith. He wanted to have to believe because of the proof shown to him. Yet, the believers whose words now filled his mind would have said he already had proof. Had he not, in his moment of despair, received an answer? As he had been about to give up, TenSoon had spoken. Sazed had begged for a sign and received it. Was it chance? Was it providence? In the end, apparently, it was up to him to decide. He slowly returned the letters and journals to his metalminds, leaving his specific memory of them empty - yet retaining the feelings they had prompted in him. Which would he be? Believer or skeptic? At the moment, neither seemed a patently foolish path. I do want to believe, he thought. That's why I've spent so much time searching. I can't have it both ways. I simply have to decide. Which would it be? He sat for a few moments, thinking, feeling, and - most important - remembering. I sought help, Sazed thought. And something answered. Sazed smiled, and everything seemed a little brighter. Breeze was right, he thought, standing and organizing his things as he prepared to go. I was not meant to be an atheist. The thought seemed a little too flippant for what had just happened to him. As he picked up his metal sheets and prepared to go meet with the First Generation, he realized that kandra passed outside his humble little cavern, completely oblivious to the important decision he'd just made. But, that was how things often went, it seemed. Some important decisions were made on a battlefield or in a conference room. But others happened quietly, unseen by others. That didn't make the decision any less important to Sazed. He would believe. Not because something had been proven to him beyond his ability to deny. But because he chose to.

I'm reading a book that actually scares me. It is not a form of fear that is embodied in some irrational phobia of a specific object, living being, or an event, but a fear of words, of actions of beings towards one another, how one word or command wrongly distributed can destroy someone or many people. How following blindly into the paths of something you truly believe is right without any rationale to back it up or the thought of the consequences it can cause may blindly lead others to their death. How in that moment, thinking you're doing it for the right reasons, you ignore all the laws of nature that tell you that human life is sacred and that no one man's ideals can ever compensate for its loss. To have the power to destroy and cause suffering without much care. This is a fear of what humanity is turning into, and such a future truly scares me.

After a moment or two a man in brown crimplene looked in at us, did not at all like the look of us and asked us if we were transit passengers. We said we were. He shook his head with infinite weariness and told us that if we were transit passengers then we were supposed to be in the other of the two rooms. We were obviously very crazy and stupid not to have realized this. He stayed there slumped against the door jamb, raising his eyebrows pointedly at us until we eventually gathered our gear together and dragged it off down the corridor to the other room. He watched us go past him shaking his head in wonder and sorrow at the stupid futility of the human condition in general and ours in particular, and then closed the door behind us. The second room was identical to the first. Identical in all respects other than one, which was that it had a hatchway let into one wall. A large vacant-looking girl was leaning through it with her elbows on the counter and her fists jammed up into her cheekbones. She was watching some flies crawling up the wall, not with any great interest because they were not doing anything unexpected, but at least they were doing something. Behind her was a table stacked with biscuits, chocolate bars, cola, and a pot of coffee, and we headed straight towards this like a pack of stoats. Just before we reached it, however, we were suddenly headed off by a man in blue crimplene, who asked us what we thought we were doing in there. We explained that we were transit passengers on our way to Zaire, and he looked at us as if we had completely taken leave of our senses. 'Transit passengers? he said. 'It is not allowed for transit passengers to be in here.' He waved us magnificently away from the snack counter, made us pick up all our gear again, and herded us back through the door and away into the first room where, a minute later, the man in the brown crimplene found us again. He looked at us. Slow incomprehension engulfed him, followed by sadness, anger, deep frustration and a sense that the world had been created specifically to cause him vexation. He leaned back against the wall, frowned, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'You are in the wrong room,' he said simply. `You are transit passengers. Please go to the other room.' There is a wonderful calm that comes over you in such situations, particularly when there is a refreshment kiosk involved. We nodded, picked up our gear in a Zen-like manner and made our way back down the corridor to the second room. Here the man in blue crimplene accosted us once more but we patiently explained to him that he could fuck off.

Here are some affirmations specific to self-love. Pick one or two that work for you and pummel yourself with them: • I deserve and receive massive amounts of love every moment of every day. • I am one with The Universe. The Universe is awesome and so am I. • My heart is open. Love pours in and out. • I receive all the good that life has to offer me. • I am brilliant, bright, and beautiful. • I love how tall I am and I love the size of my ass.

The beauty of good writing is that it transports the reader inside another person’s experience in some other physical place and culture and, at its best, evokes a palpable feeling of being in a specific moment in time and space.

Guilt is not merely a concern with the past; it is a present-moment immobilization about a past event. And the degree of immobilization can run from mild upset to severe depression. If you are simply learning from your past, and vowing to avoid the repetition of some specific behavior, this is not guilt. You experience guilt only when you are prevented from taking action now as a result of having behaved in a certain way previously. Learning from your mistakes is healthy and a necessary part of growth. Guilt is unhealthy because you are ineffectively using up your energy in the present feeling hurt, upset and depressed about a historical happening. And it’s futile as well as unhealthy. No amount of guilt can ever undo anything.

It was women’s individual experiences of victimization that produced our widespread moral and political opposition to it. And at the same time, there was something about the hashtag itself—its design, and the ways of thinking that it affirms and solidifies—that both erased the variety of women’s experiences and made it seem as if the crux of feminism was this articulation of vulnerability itself. A hashtag is specifically designed to remove a statement from context and to position it as part of an enormous singular thought. A woman participating in one of these hashtags becomes visible at an inherently predictable moment of male aggression: the time her boss jumped her, or the night a stranger followed her home. The rest of her life, which is usually far less predictable, remains unseen. Even as women have attempted to use #YesAllWomen and #MeToo to regain control of a narrative, these hashtags have at least partially reified the thing they’re trying to eradicate: the way that womanhood can feel like a story of loss of control. They have made feminist solidarity and shared vulnerability seem inextricable, as if we were incapable of building solidarity around anything else. What we have in common is obviously essential, but it’s the differences between women’s stories—the factors that allow some to survive, and force others under—that illuminate the vectors that lead to a better world. And, because there is no room or requirement in a tweet to add a disclaimer about individual experience, and because hashtags subtly equate disconnected statements in a way that can’t be controlled by those speaking, it has been even easier for #MeToo critics to claim that women must themselves think that going on a bad date is the same as being violently raped.

If we’re willing to look in a deep way underneath the appearances, what we expect to discover—or perhaps hope to discover—is some great, shining image. Most people, deep in their unconscious, want to find an idea of themselves, an image of themselves, that’s really good, quite wonderful, quite worthy of admiration and approval. Yet, when we start to peer underneath our image, we find something quite surprising—maybe even a bit disturbing at first. We begin to find no image. If you look right at this moment, underneath your idea of yourself, and you don’t insert another idea or another image, but if you just look under however you define yourself and you see it’s just an image, it’s just an idea, and you peer underneath it, what you find is no image, no idea of yourself. Not a better image, not a worse image, but no image. Because this is so unexpected, most people will move away from it almost instinctively. They’ll move right back into a more positive image. But if we really want to know who we are, if we want to get to the bottom of this particular way in which we suffer, arising from believing ourselves to be something we’re not, then we have to be willing to look underneath the image, underneath the idea that we have of each other, and most specifically of ourselves.

All writers struggle at some point with the problem of balance between authority and involvement, seduction and revelation. Specifically, beginning writers wonder how much description to employ, and more advanced writers ask how much plot is too much or too little. And there is no better place to find answers than in the Victoria's Secret catalogue--or in any ad for lingerie--where the arts of seduction and revelation are so successfully practiced. After all, the secret of the effective lingerie ad is the secret of effective storytelling--to provide, moment by moment, the illusion of imminent expose, to give the viewer (read: reader) the uncanny sense that something fundamentally compelling is always just about to be revealed. Lingerie ads and storytelling balance the veiled and the unveiled, the seen and the unseen, the shown and the about-to-be-shown. In short, it is the art of the tease, the craft of selective 'coverage,' that, not just in lingerie but in storytelling, works to enthrall.

Many of the women I glance at are intentionally not looking at me. They are avoiding all eye contact, seemingly staring into some specific spot on the street that does not contain a man's eyes. If they glance and notice I'm looking at them, they look away very quickly. What I see in that moment is someone being careful. Very very careful.

Some people save money for a downpayment on a house, or a new car, or for retirement. That’s great, of course. But saving does not require a goal of purchasing something specific. You can save just for saving’s sake. And indeed you should. Only saving for a specific goal makes sense in a predictable world. But ours isn’t. Saving is a hedge against life’s inevitable ability to surprise the hell out of you at the worst possible moment. Savings without a spending goal gives you options and flexibility, the ability to wait and the opportunity to pounce. It gives you time to think. It lets you change course on your own terms. Every bit of savings is like taking a point in the future that would have been owned by someone else and giving it back to yourself.

No one has been able to aggregate more intention data on what consumers like than Google. Google not only sees you coming, but sees where you’re going. When homicide investigators arrive at a crime scene and there is a suspect—almost always the spouse—they check the suspect’s search history for suspicious Google queries (like “how to poison your husband”). I suspect we’re going to find that U.S. agencies have been mining Google to understand the intentions of more than some shopper thinking about detergent, but cells looking for fertilizer to build bombs. Google controls a massive amount of behavioral data. However, the individual identities of users have to be anonymized and, to the best of our knowledge, grouped. People are not comfortable with their name and picture next to a list of all the things they have typed into the Google query box. And for good reasons. Take a moment to imagine your picture and your name above everything you have typed into that Google search box. You’ve no doubt typed in some crazy shit that you would rather other people not know. So, Google has to aggregate this data, and can only say that people of this age or people of this cohort, on average, type in these sorts of things into their Google search box. Google still has a massive amount of data it can connect, if not to specific identities, to specific groups.

Many people experience a sense of rage and very strong anger toward their parents and others who hurt them. Ultimately that is also a thought. It doesn’t really exist in this very pure and present moment. It doesn’t really exist. So actually what we are really carrying is nothing but a bunch of thoughts. When we let go of those thoughts then nothing else is required. We are free... ...Whenever you suffer, whenever you struggle, don’t go outside trying to find out what is wrong with your life. Don’t treat your life like you treat your car. When something is wrong with the car we get out, open the hood, see what’s wrong with the engine, and fix it. But life is not like a car. Life is consciousness. Life is not something outside of us. Therefore whenever we feel that we are suffering, tormented, or challenged we should always look into our consciousness. Immediately we discover that we are having a very evil affair with an evil thought. That’s all there is. Just that thought. Such thoughts always come with a specific idea and with some kind of voice: “I am good. I am bad. I am poor. I don’t have this or that. I am not enlightened.” It is always associate with a concept and a belief system. Until we are awakened to the ultimate truth we are completely ruled by our thoughts. Thoughts are always dictating reality to us. So in that sense thought is the ultimate empire of propaganda. Thought is always coloring and defining reality.

The “noble” person has a completely naïve and non-reflective awareness of his own value and of his fullness of being, an obscure conviction which enriches every conscious moment of his existence, as if he were autonomously rooted in the universe. This should not be mistaken for “pride.” Quite on the contrary, pride results from an experienced diminution of this “naive” self-confidence. It is a way of “holding on” to one’s value, of seizing and “preserving” it deliberately. The noble man’s naive self-confidence, which is as natural to him as tension is to the muscles, permits him calmly to assimilate the merits of others in all the fullness of their substance and configuration. He never “grudges” them their merits. On the contrary: he rejoices in their virtues and feels that they make the world more worthy of love. His naive self-confidence is by no means “compounded” of a series of positive valuations based on specific qualities, talents, and virtues: it is originally directed at his very essence and being. Therefore he can afford to admit that another person has certain “qualities” superior to his own or is more “gifted” in some respects—indeed in all respects. Such a conclusion does not diminish his naïve awareness of his own value, which needs no justification or proof by achievements or abilities. Achievements merely serve to confirm it. On the other hand, the “common” man (in the exact acceptation of the term) can only experience his value and that of another if he relates the two, and he clearly perceives only those qualities which constitute possible differences. The noble man experiences value prior to any comparison, the common man in and through a comparison. For the latter, the relation is the selective precondition for apprehending any value. Every value is a relative thing, “higher” or “lower,” “more” or “less” than his own. He arrives at value judgments by comparing himself to others and others to himself

At any given moment, millions of systems are at work all around us. The blood pumping through our veins. The planets. The food chain. They're all super-specific systems linked to one another. Some of the systems occur organically as a greater part of the universe, like surprises and sunsets. But others are just made-up. Like, why is the school day eight hours long? And why is it that, even though I'm the smartest person in the world, I can't vote? The arbitrariness of it all is the thing that drives me nuts.

My Personal Super Shortcut To Happiness - When you prefer to lighten up your self-awareness, allow yourself to focus on your strongest joy, passion, and excitement. It is something you can do at every moment of your life, whenever you become aware of not feeling well. Always choose, out of all available joys, passions and excitements, as small as they may be, whatever makes you feel good about yourself. Act on the joy you determine as the passion of the moment, and enjoy it as long as it is fun for you. When it stops being enjoyable or when there is something else, which you become aware of, as more pleasurable, do it. You do not need any reason to have in order to embrace what interests you. You do not need any reason either, to stop doing something in the middle, when it does not excite you anymore. Whatever you choose to follow as your joy, as small and insignificant as it may appear, have no expectations, how this little joy can take you to your big dreams. Enjoy it only because you like it, and not because you expect some specific outcome in the future.

The formerly absolute distinction between time and eternity in Christian thought--between nunc movens with its beginning and end, and nunc stans, the perfect possession of endless life--acquired a third intermediate order based on this peculiar betwixt-and-between position of angels. But like the Principle of Complementarity, this concord-fiction soon proved that it had uses outside its immediate context, angelology. Because it served as a means of talking about certain aspects of human experience, it was humanized. It helped one to think about the sense, men sometimes have of participating in some order of duration other than that of the nunc movens--of being able, as it were, to do all that angels can. Such are those moments which Augustine calls the moments of the soul's attentiveness; less grandly, they are moments of what psychologists call 'temporal integration.' When Augustine recited his psalm he found in it a figure for the integration of past, present, and future which defies successive time. He discovered what is now erroneously referred to as 'spatial form.' He was anticipating what we know of the relation between books and St. Thomas's third order of duration--for in the kind of time known by books a moment has endless perspectives of reality. We feel, in Thomas Mann's words, that 'in their beginning exists their middle and their end, their past invades the present, and even the most extreme attention to the present is invaded by concern for the future.' The concept of aevum provides a way of talking about this unusual variety of duration-neither temporal nor eternal, but, as Aquinas said, participating in both the temporal and the eternal. It does not abolish time or spatialize it; it co-exists with time, and is a mode in which things can be perpetual without being eternal. We've seen that the concept of aevum grew out of a need to answer certain specific Averroistic doctrines concerning origins. But it appeared quite soon that this medium inter aeternitatem et tempus had human uses. It contains beings (angels) with freedom of choice and immutable substance, in a creation which is in other respects determined. Although these beings are out of time, their acts have a before and an after. Aevum, you might say, is the time-order of novels. Characters in novels are independent of time and succession, but may and usually do seem to operate in time and succession; the aevum co-exists with temporal events at the moment of occurrence, being, it was said, like a stick in a river. Brabant believed that Bergson inherited the notion through Spinoza's duratio, and if this is so there is an historical link between the aevum and Proust; furthermore this durée réelle is, I think, the real sense of modern 'spatial form,' which is a figure for the aevum.

What are you thinking you need to do?” “I’m not thinking anything,” I said. “That’s the problem.” “Are you sure? Thoughts feel different once you get connected with the energy.” I gave him a puzzled look. “The words you have habitually willed through your head in an attempt to logically control events,” he explained, “stop when you give up your control drama. As you fill up with inner energy, other kinds of thoughts enter your mind from a higher part of yourself. These are your intuitions. They feel different. They just appear in the back of your mind, sometimes in a kind of daydream or mini-vision, and they come to direct you, to guide you.” I still didn’t understand. “Tell us what you were thinking about when we left you alone earlier,” Father Carl said. “I’m not sure I remember it all,” I said. “Try.” I tried to concentrate. “I was thinking about Wil, I guess, about whether he was close to finding the Ninth Insight, and about Sebastian’s crusade against the Manuscript.” “What else?” “I was wondering about Marjorie, about what happened to her. But I don’t understand how this helps me know what to do.” “Let me explain,” Father Sanchez said. “When you have acquired enough energy, you are ready to consciously engage evolution, to start it flowing, to produce the coincidences that will lead you forward. You engage your evolution, in a very specific way. First, as I said, you build sufficient energy, then you remember your basic life question—the one your parents gave you—because this question provides the overall context for your evolution. Next you center yourself on your path by discovering the immediate, smaller questions that currently confront you in life. These questions always pertain to your larger question and define where you currently, are in your lifelong quest. “Once you become conscious of the questions active in the moment, you always get some kind of intuitive direction of what to do, of where to go. You get a hunch about the next step. Always. The only time this will not occur is when you have the wrong question in mind. You see, the problem in life isn’t in receiving answers. The problem is in identifying your current questions. Once you get the questions right, the answers always come. “After you get an intuition of what might happen next,” he continued, “then the next step is to become very alert and watchful. Sooner or later coincidences will occur to move you in the direction indicated by the intuition.

I recall a discussion with a highly-respected psychotherapist colleague and friend on the significance of the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. My friend stated that the trouble with Romeo and Juliet was that they hadn't had adequate counseling. If they had had, they would not have committed suicide. Taken aback, I protested that I didn't think that was Shakespeare's point at all, and that Shakespeare, as well as the other classical writers who have created and molded the literature which speaks to us age after age, is in this drama picturing how sexual love can grasp a man and woman and hurl them into heights and depths—the simultaneous presence of which we call tragic. But my friend insisted that tragedy was a negative state and we, with our scientific enlightenment, had superseded it—or at least ought to at the earliest possible moment. I argued with him, as I do here, that to see the tragic in merely negative terms is a profound misunderstanding. Far from being a negation of life and love, the tragic is an ennobling and deepening aspect of our experience of sexuality and love. An appreciation of the tragic not only can help us avoid some egregious oversimplifications in life, but it can specifically protect us against the danger that sex and love will be banalized also in psychotherapy.

Has he invited you to dinner, dear? Gifts, flowers, the usual?” I had to put my cup down, because my hand was shaking too much. When I stopped laughing, I said, “Curran? He isn’t exactly Mr. Smooth. He handed me a bowl of soup, that’s as far as we got.” “He fed you?” Raphael stopped rubbing Andrea. “How did this happen?” Aunt B stared at me. “Be very specific, this is important.” “He didn’t actually feed me. I was injured and he handed me a bowl of chicken soup. Actually I think he handed me two or three. And he called me an idiot.” “Did you accept?” Aunt B asked. “Yes, I was starving. Why are the three of you looking at me like that?” “For crying out loud.” Andrea set her cup down, spilling some tea. “The Beast Lord’s feeding you soup. Think about that for a second.” Raphael coughed. Aunt B leaned forward. “Was there anybody else in the room?” “No. He chased everyone out.” Raphael nodded. “At least he hasn’t gone public yet.” “He might never,” Andrea said. “It would jeopardize her position with the Order.” Aunt B’s face was grave. “It doesn’t go past this room. You hear me, Raphael? No gossip, no pillow talk, not a word. We don’t want any trouble with Curran.” “If you don’t explain it all to me, I will strangle somebody.” Of course, Raphael might like that . . . “Food has a special significance,” Aunt D said. I nodded. “Food indicates hierarchy. Nobody eats before the alpha, unless permission is given, and no alpha eats in Curran’s presence until Curran takes a bite.” “There is more,” Aunt B said. “Animals express love through food. When a cat loves you, he’ll leave dead mice on your porch, because you’re a lousy hunter and he wants to take care of you. When a shapeshifter boy likes a girl, he’ll bring her food and if she likes him back, she might make him lunch. When Curran wants to show interest in a woman, he buys her dinner.” “In public,” Raphael added, “the shapeshifter fathers always put the first bite on the plates of their wives and children. It signals that if someone wants to challenge the wife or the child, they would have to challenge the male first.” “If you put all of Curran’s girls together, you could have a parade,” Aunt B said. “But I’ve never seen him physically put food into a woman’s hands. He’s a very private man, so he might have done it in an intimate moment, but I would’ve found out eventually. Something like that doesn’t stay hidden in the Keep. Do you understand now? That’s a sign of a very serious interest, dear.” “But I didn’t know what it meant!” Aunt B frowned. “Doesn’t matter. You need to be very careful right now. When Curran wants something, he doesn’t become distracted. He goes after it and he doesn’t stop until he obtains his goal no matter what it takes. That tenacity is what makes him an alpha.” “You’re scaring me.” “Scared might be too strong a word, but in your place, I would definitely be concerned.” I wished I were back home, where I could get to my bottle of sangria. This clearly counted as a dire emergency. As if reading my thoughts, Aunt B rose, took a small bottle from a cabinet, and poured me a shot. I took it, and drained it in one gulp, letting tequila slide down my throat like liquid fire. “Feel better?” “It helped.” Curran had driven me to drinking. At least I wasn’t contemplating suicide.

Is there a bird among them, dear boy?” Charity asked innocently, peering not at the things on the desk, but at his face, noting the muscle beginning to twitch at Ian’s tense jaw. “No.” “Then they must be in the schoolroom! Of course,” she said cheerfully, “that’s it. How like me, Hortense would say, to have made such a silly mistake.” Ian dragged his eyes from the proof that his grandfather had been keeping track of him almost from the day of his birth-certainly from the day when he was able to leave the cottage on his own two legs-to her face and said mockingly, “Hortense isn’t very perceptive. I would say you are as wily as a fox.” She gave him a little knowing smile and pressed her finger to her lips. “Don’t tell her, will you? She does so enjoy thinking she is the clever one.” “How did he manage to have these drawn?” Ian asked, stopping her as she turned away. “A woman in the village near your home drew many of them. Later he hired an artist when he knew you were going to be somewhere at a specific time. I’ll just leave you here where it’s nice and quiet.” She was leaving him, Ian knew, to look through the items on the desk. For a long moment he hesitated, and then he slowly sat down in the chair, looking over the confidential reports on himself. They were all written by one Mr. Edgard Norwich, and as Ian began scanning the thick stack of pages, his anger at his grandfather for this outrageous invasion of his privacy slowly became amusement. For one thing, nearly every letter from the investigator began with phrases that made it clear the duke had chastised him for not reporting in enough detail. The top letter began, I apologize, Your Grace, for my unintentional laxness in failing to mention that indeed Mr. Thornton enjoys an occasional cheroot… The next one opened with, I did not realize, Your Grace, that you would wish to know how fast his horse ran in the race-in addition to knowing that he won. From the creases and holds in the hundreds of reports it was obvious to Ian that they’d been handled and read repeatedly, and it was equally obvious from some of the investigator’s casual comments that his grandfather had apparently expressed his personal pride to him: You will be pleased to know, Your Grace, that young Ian is a fine whip, just as you expected… I quite agree with you, as do many others, that Mr. Thornton is undoubtedly a genius… I assure you, Your Grace, that your concern over that duel is unfounded. It was a flesh wound in the arm, nothing more. Ian flipped through them at random, unaware that the barricade he’d erected against his grandfather was beginning to crack very slightly. “Your Grace,” the investigator had written in a rare fit of exasperation when Ian was eleven, “the suggestion that I should be able to find a physician who might secretly look at young Ian’s sore throat is beyond all bounds of reason. Even if I could find one who was willing to pretend to be a lost traveler, I really cannot see how he could contrive to have a peek at the boy’s throat without causing suspicion!” The minutes became an hour, and Ian’s disbelief increased as he scanned the entire history of his life, from his achievements to his peccadilloes. His gambling gains and losses appeared regularly; each ship he added to his fleet had been described, and sketches forwarded separately; his financial progress had been reported in minute and glowing detail.

She met a lot of people, and some people who weren’t people. The more rural houses occasionally played host to minor demons and lesser fairies and local geo-specific nature spirits and elementals who lent street cred to the establishment in return for God knows what in the way of goods and services, she didn’t ask. There was a certain romance to these beings; they seemed to embody the very promise of magic, which was to deliver unto her a world greater than the one into which she had been born. The moment when you walk into a room, and the guy playing pool has a pair of red leather wings sticking out of his back, and the chick smoking on the balcony has eyes of liquid golden fire—at that moment you think you’ll never be sad or bored or lonely again.

James wondered for a moment whether this was the first time someone had used a witchlight rune stone as stage lighting before his mind went blank. Christopher made a small noise in the back of his throat, and Thomas stared wide-eyed. The mermaid had human legs. They were long and really quite shapely, James had to admit, loosely draped in diaphanous skirts made of woven exotic seaweeds. Unfortunately, from the waist up she was the front half of a gaping, staring fish. Her scales were shiny metallic silver and reflected the light in a way that almost, but not quite, distracted from her dinner-plate-size, unblinking yellow eyes. The audience went mad, cheering and hooting twice as loudly as before. One of the werewolves howled, "CLARIBELLA!" in a mournful, yearning voice. "May I present," Matthew cried with a grin, "Claribella the Mermaid!" The crowd whistled and banged their approval. James, Christopher, and Thomas struggled to find words. "The mermaid's backwards," said James, having regained some of his vocabulary--though perhaps not all of it. "Matthew hired a reverse mermaid," Thomas agreed. "But why?" "I wonder what kind of fish she is," said Christopher. "Are mermaids a specific kind of fish? Sharks or herring, or such?" "I had kippers this morning," said Thomas sadly. The backward mermaid began to swing her hips side to side, with the ease of a practiced cabaret dancer. Her mouth bobbed open and closed in rhythm with the music. Her small fins, on either side of her body, flapped.

The Last Words of Jesus Some of the most profound lessons of the scriptures are contained in the brief but poignant words Jesus uttered from the cross. There is a sermon in each, but let us focus on Jesus’ words when he said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). I see a number of meanings in these words. He had finished the bitter cup, the cup of trembling, right down to the last taste of vinegar on his lips, offered mockingly in response to his request “I thirst” (John 19:28). He had completed his mission, his Father’s will; the grand moment in the Father’s plan of mercy and happiness had been accomplished. But that grand moment also included his suffering. No other throughout the long ages of man has ever—nor will ever—suffer to the degree he did, yet there came a time in that suffering when he could say, “It is finished.” It was finished, and that will likewise be true of each human soul. No matter what we have suffered, are now suffering, or may yet suffer, there will come a time when we will all echo his words: “It is finished!” Our tears will be changed, and though they will continue to flow, they will be tears of relief, tears of gratitude, tears of joy. The former things will have passed away. That passing away will be so complete and the rejoicing so full that we will not remember, save for the lessons we have learned, our past pain. Isaiah, who was specifically enjoined to speak words of comfort to the people, recorded the Lord’s words: “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice” (Isaiah 65:17–18).

It is worth pausing for a second to reflect on Snow’s willingness to pursue his investigation this far. Here we have a man who had reached the very pinnacle of Victorian medical practice—attending on the queen of England with a procedure that he himself had pioneered—who was nonetheless willing to spend every spare moment away from his practice knocking on hundreds of doors in some of London’s most dangerous neighborhoods, seeking out specifically those houses that had been attacked by the most dread disease of the age. But without that tenacity, without that fearlessness, without that readiness to leave behind the safety of professional success and royal patronage, and venture into the streets, his “grand experiment”—as Snow came to call it—would have gone nowhere. The miasma theory would have remained unchallenged.

Rich Purnell sipped coffee in the silent building. Only his cubicle illuminated the otherwise dark room. Continuing with his computations, he ran a final test on the software he'd written. It passed. With a relieved sigh, he sank back in his chair. Checking the clock on his computer, he shook his head. 3:42am. Being an astrodynamicist, Rich rarely had to work late. His job was the find the exact orbits and course corrections needed for any given mission. Usually, it was one of the first parts of a project; all the other steps being based on the orbit. But this time, things were reversed. Iris needed an orbital path, and nobody knew when it would launch. A non-Hoffman Mars-transfer isn't challenging, but it does require the exact locations of Earth and Mars. Planets move as time goes by. An orbit calculated for a specific launch date will work only for that date. Even a single day's difference would result in missing Mars entirely. So Rich had to calculate many orbits. He had a range of 25 days during which Iris might launch. He calculated one orbital path for each. He began an email to his boss. "Mike", he typed, "Attached are the orbital paths for Iris, in 1-day increments. We should start peer-review and vetting so they can be officially accepted. And you were right, I was here almost all night. It wasn't that bad. Nowhere near the pain of calculating orbits for Hermes. I know you get bored when I go in to the math, so I'll summarize: The small, constant thrust of Hermes's ion drives is much harder to deal with than the large point-thrusts of presupply probes. All 25 of the orbits take 349 days, and vary only slightly in thrust duration and angle. The fuel requirement is nearly identical for the orbits and is well within the capacity of EagleEye's booster. It's too bad. Earth and Mars are really badly positioned. Heck, it's almost easier to-" He stopped typing. Furrowing his brow, he stared in to the distance. "Hmm." he said. Grabbing his coffee cup, he went to the break room for a refill. ... "Rich", said Mike. Rich Purnell concentrated on his computer screen. His cubicle was a landfill of printouts, charts, and reference books. Empty coffee cups rested on every surface; take-out packaging littered the ground. "Rich", Mike said, more forcefully. Rich looked up. "Yeah?" "What the hell are you doing?" "Just a little side project. Something I wanted to check up on." "Well... that's fine, I guess", Mike said, "but you need to do your assigned work first. I asked for those satellite adjustments two weeks ago and you still haven't done them." "I need some supercomputer time." Rich said. "You need supercomputer time to calculate routine satellite adjustments?" "No, it's for this other thing I'm working on", Rich said. "Rich, seriously. You have to do your job." Rich thought for a moment. "Would now be a good time for a vacation?" He asked. Mike sighed. "You know what, Rich? I think now would be an ideal time for you to take a vacation." "Great!" Rich smiled. "I'll start right now." "Sure", Mike said. "Go on home. Get some rest." "Oh, I'm not going home", said Rich, returning to his calculations. Mike rubbed his eyes. "Ok, whatever. About those satellite orbits...?" "I'm on vacation", Rich said without looking up. Mike shrugged and walked away.

Your character and soul, intelligence and creativity, love and experiences, goodness and talents, your bright and lovely self are entwined with your body, and she has delivered the whole of you to this very day. What a partner! She has been a home for your smartest ideas, your triumphant spirit, your best jokes. You haven’t gotten anywhere you’ve ever gone without her. She has served you well. Your body walked with you all the way through childhood—climbed the trees and rode the bikes and danced the ballet steps and walked you into the first day of high school. How else would you have learned to love the smell of brownies, toasted bagels, onions and garlic sizzling in olive oil? Your body perfectly delivered the sounds of Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and Bon Jovi right into your memories. She gave you your first kiss, which you felt on your lips and in your stomach, a coordinated body venture. She drove you to college and hiked the Grand Canyon. She might have carried your backpack through Europe and fed you croissants. She watched Steel Magnolias and knew right when to let the tears fall. Maybe your body walked you down the aisle and kissed your person and made promises and threw flowers. Your body carried you into your first big interview and nailed it—calmed you down, smiled charmingly, delivered the right words. Sex? That is some of your body’s best work. Your body might have incubated, nourished, and delivered a whole new human life, maybe even two or three. She is how you cherish the smell of those babies, the feel of their cheeks, the sound of them calling your name. How else are you going to taste deep-dish pizza and French onion soup? You have your body to thank for every good thing you have ever experienced. She has been so good to you. And to others. Your body delivered you to people who needed you the exact moment you showed up. She kissed away little tears and patched up skinned knees. She holds hands that need holding and hugs necks that need hugging. Your body nurtures minds and souls with her presence. With her lovely eyes, she looks deliberately at people who so deeply need to be seen. She nourishes folks with food, stirring and dicing and roasting and baking. Your body has sat quietly with sad, sick, and suffering friends. She has also wrapped gifts and sent cards and sung celebration songs to cheer people on. Her face has been a comfort. Her hands will be remembered fondly—how they looked, how they loved. Her specific smell will still be remembered in seventy years. Her voice is the sound of home. You may hate her, but no one else does.

Unnecessary Creation gives you the freedom to explore new possibilities and follow impractical curiosities. Some of the most frustrated creative pros I’ve encountered are those who expect their day job to allow them to fully express their creativity and satisfy their curiosity. They push against the boundaries set by their manager or client and fret continuously that their best work never finds its way into the end product because of restrictions and compromises. A 2012 survey sponsored by Adobe revealed that nearly 75 percent of workers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan felt they weren’t living up to their creative potential. (In the United States, the number was closer to 82 percent!) Obviously, there’s a gap between what many creatives actually do each day and what they feel they are capable of doing given more resources or less bureaucracy. But those limitations aren’t likely to change in the context of an organization, where there is little tolerance for risk and resources are scarcer than ever. If day-to-day project work is the only work that you are engaging in, it follows that you’re going to get frustrated. To break the cycle, keep a running list of projects you’d like to attempt in your spare time, and set aside a specific time each week (or each day) to make progress on that list. Sometimes this feels very inefficient in the moment, especially when there are so many other urgent priorities screaming for your attention, but it can be a key part of keeping your creative energy flowing for your day-to-day work. You’ll also want to get a notebook to record questions that you’d like to pursue, ideas that you have, or experiments that you’d like to try. Then you can use your pre-defined Unnecessary Creation time to play with these ideas. As Steven Johnson explains in his book Where Good Ideas Come From, “A good idea is a network. A specific constellation of neurons—thousands of them—fire in sync with each other for the first time in your brain, and an idea pops into your consciousness. A new idea is a network of cells exploring the adjacent possible of connections that they can make in your mind.”18

About Danielle, I remember, my feelings were no more specific than pleasant anxiousness. She hadn’t caught me, obviously enough, at a very erotic moment in my life. I had never been much of a pickup artist—a few ghastly encounters in my twenties had seen to that—and the alternative prospect of a euphoric romance not only exhausted me but, in fact, struck me as impossible. This wasn’t because of any fidelity to my absent wife or some aversion to sex, which, I like to think, grabs me as much as the next man. No, it was simply that I was uninterested in making, as I saw it, a Xerox of some old emotional state. I was in my mid-thirties, with a marriage more or less behind me. I was no longer vulnerable to curiosity’s enormous momentum. I had nothing new to murmur to another on the subject of myself and not the smallest eagerness about being briefed on Danielle’s supposedly unique trajectory—a curve described under the action, one could safely guess, of the usual material and maternal and soulful longings, a few thwarting tics of character, and luck good and bad. A life seemed like an old story.

AS ALL-CONSUMING AS the economic crisis was, my fledgling administration didn’t have the luxury of putting everything else on hold, for the machinery of the federal government stretched across the globe, churning every minute of every day, indifferent to overstuffed in-boxes and human sleep cycles. Many of its functions (generating Social Security checks, keeping weather satellites aloft, processing agricultural loans, issuing passports) required no specific instructions from the White House, operating much like a human body breathes or sweats, outside the brain’s conscious control. But this still left countless agencies and buildings full of people in need of our daily attention: looking for policy guidance or help with staffing, seeking advice because some internal breakdown or external event had thrown the system for a loop. After our first weekly Oval Office meeting, I asked Bob Gates, who’d served under seven previous presidents, for any advice he might have in managing the executive branch. He gave me one of his wry, crinkly smiles. “There’s only one thing you can count on, Mr. President,” he said. “On any given moment in any given day, somebody somewhere is screwing up.” We went to work trying to minimize screw-ups.

Let’s assume for a moment that we are starting to write a novel using Fred’s goal of wanting desperately to be first to climb the mountain. The reader now forms his story question. But the story has to start someplace, and it has to show dynamic forward movement. Let’s further assume, then, that Fred comes up with a game plan for his quest. He decides that his first step must be to borrow sufficient money to equip his expedition. So he walks into the Ninth District Bank of Cincinnati, sits down with Mr. Greenback, the loan officer, and boldly states his goal, thus: “Mr. Greenback, I want to be first to climb the mountain. But I must have capital to fund my expedition. Therefore I am here to convince you that you should lend me $75,000.” At this point, the reader sees clearly that this short-term goal relates importantly to the long-term story goal and the story question. So just as he formed a story question, the reader now forms a scene question, which again is a rewording of the goal statement: “Will Fred get the loan?” Here is a note so important that I want to set it off typographically: The scene question cannot be some vague, philosophical one such as, “Are bankers nice?” or “What motivates people like Fred?” The question is specific, relates to a definite, immediate goal, and can be answered with a simple yes or no.

I read Dickens and Shakespear without shame or stint; but their pregnant observations and demonstrations of life are not co-ordinated into any philosophy or religion: on the contrary, Dickens's sentimental assumptions are violently contradicted by his observations; and Shakespear's pessimism is only his wounded humanity. Both have the specific genius of the fictionist and the common sympathies of human feeling and thought in pre-eminent degree. They are often saner and shrewder than the philosophers just as Sancho-Panza was often saner and shrewder than Don Quixote. They clear away vast masses of oppressive gravity by their sense of the ridiculous, which is at bottom a combination of sound moral judgment with lighthearted good humor. But they are concerned with the diversities of the world instead of with its unities: they are so irreligious that they exploit popular religion for professional purposes without delicacy or scruple (for example, Sydney Carton and the ghost in Hamlet!): they are anarchical, and cannot balance their exposures of Angelo and Dogberry, Sir Leicester Dedlock and Mr Tite Barnacle, with any portrait of a prophet or a worthy leader: they have no constructive ideas: they regard those who have them as dangerous fanatics: in all their fictions there is no leading thought or inspiration for which any man could conceivably risk the spoiling of his hat in a shower, much less his life. Both are alike forced to borrow motives for the more strenuous actions of their personages from the common stockpot of melodramatic plots; so that Hamlet has to be stimulated by the prejudices of a policeman and Macbeth by the cupidities of a bushranger. Dickens, without the excuse of having to manufacture motives for Hamlets and Macbeths, superfluously punt his crew down the stream of his monthly parts by mechanical devices which I leave you to describe, my own memory being quite baffled by the simplest question as to Monks in Oliver Twist, or the long lost parentage of Smike, or the relations between the Dorrit and Clennam families so inopportunely discovered by Monsieur Rigaud Blandois. The truth is, the world was to Shakespear a great "stage of fools" on which he was utterly bewildered. He could see no sort of sense in living at all; and Dickens saved himself from the despair of the dream in The Chimes by taking the world for granted and busying himself with its details. Neither of them could do anything with a serious positive character: they could place a human figure before you with perfect verisimilitude; but when the moment came for making it live and move, they found, unless it made them laugh, that they had a puppet on their hands, and had to invent some artificial external stimulus to make it work.

(...) To discuss such, ah, personal matters on the air, especially in an educational setting, is really quite in poor taste.” “It wasn’t that personal,” I say. “Everyone who’s been on social media knows what happened with the 'Bugle' stuff. Also, you know, my locker still says FEMINAZI.” Dr. Guinn clears his throat. “I meant your discussion about . . . feminine hygiene.” It takes me a minute to understand. “Are you trying to say that tampons aren’t allowed on the morning announcements?” Dr. Guinn studies me for a moment. (...) “I’m just trying to ensure that this is an environment where everyone feels comfortable.” Look, I get it. Tampons are embarrassing. Periods are embarrassing. PMS, for some reason, is not, but that’s because it has somehow become a synonym for being in a bad mood while female. The whole specific business with the bleeding, though, is still not cool, except in certain woke corners of the internet. (...) But it’s weird to have Dr. Guinn tell me how embarrassing periods are. The man has never had one in his life—why does he get to have an opinion about it? “Could it be,” I say, in as conciliatory a tone as I can manage, “that maybe it’s not an environment where everyone feels comfortable . . . if we’re not allowed to talk publicly about something that is a normal, healthy part of life for every menstruating student and teacher at Willoughby?

Echad is first mentioned in the garden. It says a man and a woman, when they join together, become echad, or “one.” But that word echad is more explosive with meaning than just one flesh. It can literally mean to fuse together at the deepest part of our beings. Two becoming one, completely glued together, completely meshing. I still remember one of the hardest conversations I have had with Alyssa. We were just starting to date again, and were sitting in the car after a wonderful date night. We knew marriage was a possibility on the horizon, and I felt like I finally had to share things in my past that would affect her if we got married. I was incredibly nervous, as well as terrified of rejection or hurt, but I realized that if intimacy were to grow, I had to get vulnerable. For marriage to be what it truly is—two people becoming one in mind, body, soul, and spirit—I had to be honest. I remember sharing with her many things, but specifically some details of my sexual past. My teenage years were littered with me almost worshiping sexual fulfillment in pornography, partying, and girls. And I say worship, because that was where I got my worth, value, and purpose as well as what I most lived for (which is what the definition of worship is). I had to apologize and ask forgiveness from Alyssa for things I had done before I even knew her because of echad—one form of complete and utter intimacy. Because of that beauty, mystery, and power, God created it to function best in a man and a woman coming together for life and constantly echading or fusing together. I needed forgiveness because I had betrayed echad. I had betrayed oneness. I had betrayed intimacy. And if I wasn’t honest about it, it’d be a little part of my life or heart that Alyssa didn’t know—thus blocking echad. But something really peculiar happened in that moment. With the grace and forgiveness of Jesus, Alyssa forgave me. She heard all that I was and am, and still wanted to walk this journey with me. I still remember the tenderness in her voice as she spoke truth and forgiveness over me. In that moment I was exposed and known, and yet because of Alyssa’s grace, I was at the same time loved. And that is where intimacy is found—to be fully loved and to be fully known. To be fully loved, but not fully known will always allow us to buy the lie that “if they only knew the real me, they wouldn’t want me anymore.” And to be fully known but not fully loved feels sharp, painful, at a level of rejection that hurts so bad. But to be fully known and at the same time fully loved, now that is intimacy. I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Intimacy is certainly romantic in some aspects, but at its deepest level, it’s much more than that. It can be experienced with friends and family, not just spouses and loved ones.

In some cultures, apprentice shamans receive a call as well as shamanic knowledge, powers, and spirit relationships from shaman elders or shamans within their own families. Benefactors may set up arduous training designed to foster specific achievements or trials and initiations that the apprentice must successfully complete. They may lead an apprentice through specific cultural rites of passage. Benefactors may also transmit knowledge, powers, and spirit relationships to the apprentice at the moment of their death. A shaman who has passed may return to an apprentice in dreams, as might that shaman's helping spirits. Potential shamans selected by shaman elders are usually (though not always) chosen at a young age, when the elders notice something special or extraordinary about them. Sometimes something special happens during or shortly after their day of birth or the child is heard talking or seen behaving in certain ways that indicate spirit connection or possession. Sometimes the initiate experiences unique, profound visions or dreams or successfully performs healing without training. The initiate might display an undeniable compulsion to learn shamanism at a young age when other children are focused on play or learning to hunt or fight, or an initiate might be able to easily memorize long stories or songs. Elder shamans are always on the watch for individuals showing signs of contact with the spirits.

The story of Adam and Eve, as used by the Eastern church to account for our inherited weakness to withstand temptation as an effect of Adam and Eve's sin, can fruitfully be understood today without a historical Adam and Eve but instead with an evolutionary and social understanding of human beings. In the course of biological and social evolution, any group of creatures capable of any degree of relationship to God that fails to be properly related to God commensurate with their stage of development-any such group will have some network or other of social relations that are not as God intends. People born into a particular social group inherit that social network and act more or less in accord with it, and so inherit the effects of its sin. By being formed and shaped by the inherited social network, each individual is "weakened" in its ability to wrestle with the temptations to which its ontological nature as finite creature is subject. When a fall occurred, when a prepeople or people did not live up to the intentions of God in their common life commensurate to their stage of development, it was probably not at any one specific time; it may have occurred at different times for different groups until failure to be properly related to God was universal in all societies. But by historic times, human development is at a stage that the story of Adam and Eve is a fitting type or model of our situation in relation to God: human beings seeking to provide for themselves apart from God and God's purposes. This ancient understanding of original sin and evil seems to me both illuminating and, with the evolutionary understanding that I have added to it, thoroughly defensible. I can easily apply it to myself and also use it to understand other people, as I have done in presenting Pascal's analysis of our condition. Some theologians are willing to grant that the story of an actual Adam and Eve is not necessary for Christian theology, but they still hold that there had to have been a historical situation of original righteousness or innocence and an actual fall from this state. Otherwise, God, not human beings, would be responsible for our condition, and the goodness of creation would be fatally compromised.' My account does have a temporal dimension. All of us are born without an awareness of God in our lives. God is near us as our creator, generating us each moment of time; but it is as if God is, so to speak, behind us, and we, by looking only in front of us, do not perceive God in our world at all. So we do not take God into account in our lives. This is when distortion in our hearts, minds, and desires begins to occur. Our de facto personality, with our self at the center of all reality, is innocent when we are an infant but ceases to be innocent as it is reinforced by society's way of life, encouraging us to walk away from God and so into evil. We walk away from God by pursuing earthly goods and in

6-30. “I will now tell you the truth of the objective world, as it is. What is seen is absolutely nothing but sight. I shall now give you the proof of this statement. Listen with attention. All that is seen has an origin and there must therefore be an antecedent cause for it. What is origin except that the thing newly appears? The world is changing every moment and its appearance is new every moment and so it is born every moment. Some say that the birth of the universe is infinite and eternal each moment. Some may contest the point saying that the statement is true of a specific object or objects but not of the world which is the aggregate of all that is seen. The scholiasts of Vijnana answer them thus: The external phenomena are only momentary projections of the anamnesis of the continuous link, namely, the subject and the worldly actions which are based on them. But the intellect which collates time, space and phenomena is infinite and eternal at each moment of their appearance and it is called Vijnana by them. Others say that the universe is the aggregate of matter—mobile and immobile. (The atomists maintain that the universe is made up of five elements, earth, air, fire, water and ether which are permanent and of things like a pot, a cloth, etc., which are transient. They are still unable to prove the external existence of the world, because they admit that happenings in life imply their conceptual nature. It follows that the objects not so involved are useless.)

Most of my friends put their preferred pronoun in their Instagram bios—he/she, him/her, they/their—but I respond to any and all of them. I like to think of it as collecting pronouns: the more I get, the more fun I’m having. To get the obvious out of the way, because that’s apparently important to people, I think of myself as post-gender. I was trying to figure out how to explain that because sometimes it’s a paragraph and sometimes it’s a term paper depending on who I’m talking to, and I have no idea who will be reading this in the aftermath. Then I noticed that one of my fellow passengers has a cat with him, and that’s perfect. When you visit a friend and find they have a cat, you just see it as a cat in all its pure catness, it doesn’t require further definition. You’ll probably get a name, and if you ask, whether it was born male or female, but even after you have that information you still don’t think of it any differently. It’s not a He-Cat or a She-Cat or a They-Cat. It’s just a cat. And unless the cat’s name has any gender-specific connotations you’ll probably forget pretty fast which gender it was born into. My name is Theo, and by that logic, I am a cat. What I was or was not born into has nothing to do with how I see myself. It’s not about going from one gender to another, or suggesting that they don’t exist. Some of my friends say that the moment you talk about gender you invalidate the conversation because you’re accepting the limits of outmoded paradigms, but I’m not sure I agree with that. I just think gender shouldn’t matter. If you’re a man, aren’t there moments when you feel more female, like when you’re listening to music, or your cheek is being gently stroked, or you see a spectacularly handsome man walk into the room? If you’re a woman, aren’t there moments when you feel more male, when you have to be strong in the face of conflict, or stand behind your opinion, or when a spectacularly beautiful woman walks into the room? Well, in those moments, you are all of those things, so why deny that part of yourself? For me, it’s not about being binary or non-binary. It’s about moving the needle to the center of the dial and accepting all definitions as equally true while remaining free to shift in emphasis from moment to moment. It’s about being a Person, not a She-Person or a He-Person or a They-Person. (...) When you go into a clothing store, you don’t just go to the “one size fits all” rack. You look for clothes that fit your waist, hips, legs, chest, and neck, clothes that complement your form and shape, and reflect not just how you see yourself but how you want to be seen by others. If it’s still not quite right, and you can afford it, you get the clothes tailored to fit exactly who you are. That’s what I’m doing. Post-gender is one term for it. Another might be tailored gender. Maybe bespoke gender. But definitely not one-size-fits-all. The world doesn’t get to decide what best fits who I am and how I choose to be seen. I do.

I've spent time with a lot of very busy people: business leaders, prominent journalists, multiple presidents. Despite the unusually high demands on their schedules, something they all have in common is that they carve out time for reading, and for consuming information that may not seem to have anything to do with their jobs. When President Obama released summer reading lists or his top book recommendations for the year, a chorus of 'yeah, right' could occasionally be heard from certain corners of the internet, where skeptics who doubted he had time to read contemporary literature liked to hang out. But President Obama read all those books, and many more. Taking time after a long day to sit down and read some Chinese science fiction, a novel by Jesmyn Ward, or even one of Ron Chernow's biographies was an escape, but it also oxygenated Obama's brain. There may not have been a specific moment when he consciously connected the dots between a novel he read two years earlier and the issue at hand, but moving beyond your own experience is an important part of developing the kind of perspective that helps with decision-making. It's also how the most effective people connect. Developing broad general knowledge gives you the flexibility to adapt to your audience on the fly, as well as the ability to naturally relate to diverse groups. And besides, have you ever recommended a book to someone who ended up really loving it? It's a unique way of understanding someone better, and that kind of communication goes both ways.

Are you wondering what to write? Let’s start with some general statements that are useful each and every day. Then we’ll create statements that address specific emotional states like depression, anxiety, and feelings of stress. We’ll also create statements that pertain to specific situations such as sleep, relationships, parenting, job, school, health, skills, talents, and leisure activities. GENERAL STATEMENTS Here are some useful statements to write each and every day. Select two or three that resonate with you. You are not limited to these examples. You can write whatever you wish as long as it is a POSITIVE statement in the PRESENT TENSE that begins with ‘I AM’ and uses the PROGRESSIVE ‘ing’ form of the verb. At first, while learning the technique, you might want to use the statements suggested in this book. REMEMBER: Each POSITIVE, PRESENT TENSE, PROGRESSIVE statement is something you would like to be true. But you are writing it as if it already is true. In other words: I am writing positive statements. I am wanting them to be true. I am noticing that they are becoming true. I recommend writing at least two general statements every day. Here are some examples: I am embracing each and every day. I am enjoying today. I am living in the present moment. I am looking forward to today. I am having a productive day. I am staying focused. I am handling things well. I am taking things as they come. I am coping well with problems. I am focusing on the positives. I am moving smoothly through the day. I am confidently coping with challenges. I am noticing how well the day is going. I am feeling fully and deeply alive. Select two or three statements from the above list and write them here.

To my great distress, I sometimes hear people say, in their zeal for fervency and efficacy in prayer, that we should never qualify our prayer requests with the words "if it be Your will." Some will even say that to attach those words, those conditional terms, to our prayers is an act of unbelief. We are told today that in the boldness of faith we are to "name it and claim it." I suppose I should be more measured in my response to this trend, but I can't think of anything more foreign to the teaching of Christ. We come to the presence of God in boldness, but never in arrogance. Yes, we can name and claim those things God has clearly promised in Scripture. For instance, we can claim the certainty of forgiveness if we confess our sins before Him, because He promises that. But when it comes to getting a raise, purchasing a home, or finding healing from a disease, God hasn't made those kind of specific promises anywhere in Scripture, so we are not free to name and claim those things. As I mentioned earlier, when we come before God, we must remember two simple facts-who He is and who we are. We must remember that we're talking to the King, the Sovereign One, the Creator, but we are only creatures. If we will keep those facts in mind, we will pray politely. We will say, "By Your leave," "As You wish," "If You please," and so on. That's the way we go before God. To say that it is a manifestation of unbelief or a weakness of faith to say to God "if it be Your will" is to slander the very Lord of the Lord's Prayer. It was Jesus, after all, who, in His moment of greatest passion, prayed regarding the will of God. In his Gospel, Luke tells us that immediately following the Last Supper: Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. When He came to the place, He said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." And He was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:39-44) It is important to see what Jesus prays here. He says, "Not My will, but Yours, be done." Jesus was not saying, "I don't want to be obedient" or "I refuse to submit." Jesus was saying: "Father, if there's any other way, all things being equal, I would rather not have to do it this way. What You have set before Me is more ghastly than I can contemplate. I'm entering into My grand passion and I'm terrified, but if this is what You want, this is what I'll do. Not My will, but Your will, be done, because My will is to do Your will." I also want you to notice what happened after Jesus prayed. Luke tells us that an angel came to Him and strengthened Him. The angel was the messenger of God. He came from heaven with the Father's answer to Jesus' prayer. That answer was this: "You must drink the cup." This is what it means to pray that the will of God would be done. It is the highest expression of faith to submit to the sovereignty of God. The real prayer of faith is the prayer that trusts God no matter whether the answer is yes or no. It takes no faith to "claim," like a robber, something that is not ours to claim. We are to come to God and tell Him what we want, but we must trust Him to give the answer that is best for us. That is what Jesus did.

To speak of a communication failure implies a breakdown of some sort. Yet this does not accurately portray what occurs. In truth, communication difficulties arise not from breakdown but from the characteristics of the system itself. Despite promising beginnings in our intimate relationships, we tend over time to evolve a system of communication that suppresses rather than reveals information. Life is complicated, and confirming or disconfirming the well-being of a relationship takes effort. Once we are comfortably coupled, the intense, energy-consuming monitoring of courtship days is replaced by a simpler, more efficient method. Unable to witness our partners’ every activity or verify every nuance of meaning, we evolve a communication system based on trust. We gradually cease our attentive probing, relying instead on familiar cues and signals to stand as testament to the strength of the bond: the words “I love you,” holidays with the family, good sex, special times with shared friends, the routine exchange, “How was your day?” We take these signals as representative of the relationship and turn our monitoring energies elsewhere. ... Not only do the initiator’s negative signals tend to become incorporated into the existing routine, but, paradoxically, the initiator actively contributes to the impression that life goes on as usual. Even as they express their unhappiness, initiators work at emphasizing and maintaining the routine aspects of life with the other person, simultaneously giving signals that all is well. Unwilling to leave the relationship yet, they need to privately explore and evaluate the situation. The initiator thus contrives an appearance of participation,7 creating a protective cover that allows them to “return” if their alternative resources do not work out. Our ability to do this—to perform a role we are no longer enthusiastically committed to—is one of our acquired talents. In all our encounters, we present ourselves to others in much the same way as actors do, tailoring our performance to the role we are assigned in a particular setting.8 Thus, communication is always distorted. We only give up fragments of what really occurs within us during that specific moment of communication.9 Such fragments are always selected and arranged so that there is seldom a faithful presentation of our inner reality. It is transformed, reduced, redirected, recomposed.10 Once we get the role perfected, we are able to play it whether we are in the mood to go on stage or not, simply by reproducing the signals. What is true of all our encounters is, of course, true of intimate relationships. The nature of the intimate bond is especially hard to confirm or disconfirm.11 The signals produced by each partner, while acting out the partner role, tend to be interpreted by the other as the relationship.12 Because the costs of constantly checking out what the other person is feeling and doing are high, each partner is in a position to be duped and misled by the other.13 Thus, the initiator is able to keep up appearances that all is well by falsifying, tailoring, and manipulating signals to that effect. The normal routine can be used to attest to the presence of something that is not there. For example, initiators can continue the habit of saying, “I love you,” though the passion is gone. They can say, “I love you” and cover the fact that they feel disappointment or anger, or that they feel nothing at all. Or, they can say, “I love you” and mean, “I like you,” or, “We have been through a lot together,” or even “Today was a good day.

According to the [evolutionist explanation of the instinct of animals], instinct is the expression of the heredity of a species, of an accumulation of analogous experiences down the ages. This is how they explain, for example, the fact that a flock of sheep hastily gathers together around the lambs the moment it perceives the shadow of a bird of prey, or that a kitten while playing already employs all the tricks of a hunter, or that birds know how to build their nests. In fact, it is enough to watch animals to see that their instinct has nothing of an automatism about it. The formation of such a mechanism by a purely cumulative . . . process is highly improbable, to say the least. Instinct is a nonreflective modality of the intelligence; it is determined, not by a series of automatic reflexes, but by the “form”—the qualitative determination—of the species. This form is like a filter through which the universal intelligence is manifested. . . The same is also true for man: his intelligence too is determined by the subtle form of his species. This form, however, includes the reflective faculty, which allows of a singularization of the individual such as does not exist among the animals. Man alone is able to objectivize himself. He can say: “I am this or that.” He alone possesses this two-edged faculty. Man, by virtue of his own central position in the cosmos, is able to transcend his specific norm; he can also betray it, and sink lower; "The corruption of the best is corruption at its worst." A normal animal remains true to the form and genius of its species; if its intelligence is not reflective and objectifying, but in some sort existential, it is nonetheless spontaneous; it is assuredly a form of the universal intelligence even if it is not recognized as such by men who, from prejudice or ignorance, identify intelligence with discursive thought exclusively.

Systems 1 and 2 are both active whenever we are awake. System 1 runs automatically and System 2 is normally in a comfortable low-effort mode, in which only a fraction of its capacity is engaged. System 1 continuously generates suggestions for System 2: impressions, intuitions, intentions, and feelings. If endorsed by System 2, impressions and intuitions turn into beliefs, and impulses turn into voluntary actions. When all goes smoothly, which is most of the time, System 2 adopts the suggestions of System 1 with little or no modification. You generally believe your impressions and act on your desires, and that is fine—usually. When System 1 runs into difficulty, it calls on System 2 to support more detailed and specific processing that may solve the problem of the moment. System 2 is mobilized when a question arises for which System 1 does not offer an answer, as probably happened to you when you encountered the multiplication problem 17 × 24. You can also feel a surge of conscious attention whenever you are surprised. System 2 is activated when an event is detected that violates the model of the world that System 1 maintains. In that world, lamps do not jump, cats do not bark, and gorillas do not cross basketball courts. The gorilla experiment demonstrates that some attention is needed for the surprising stimulus to be detected. Surprise then activates and orients your attention: you will stare, and you will search your memory for a story that makes sense of the surprising event. System 2 is also credited with the continuous monitoring of your own behavior—the control that keeps you polite when you are angry, and alert when you are driving at night. System 2 is mobilized to increased effort when it detects an error about to be made. Remember a time when you almost blurted out an offensive remark and note how hard you worked to restore control. In summary, most of what you (your System 2) think and do originates in your System 1, but System 2 takes over when things get difficult, and it normally has the last word.

My wife and I have had the joy of working with thousands of college students and have engaged in countless conversations with them about what they’re going to do as they approach graduation. Up to that point, they had felt safe and secure knowing they were simply coming back to campus for another year of school. But now that they were being kicked out of the nest, they felt a strong need to pray, get counsel, pursue options, and make decisions. As I chat with these twenty-one to twenty-five-year olds, I love to pose an unusual question. “If you could do anything with your life, what would you want to do? Just for a moment, free your mind from school loans or parents’ wishes or boyfriend pressure. Put no constraints or parameters on it. Write down what you would love to do with your life if you got to choose.” There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those! Most have never allowed their mind or heart to think that broadly or freely. They’ve been conditioned to operate under some set of exterior expectations or self-imposed limitations. A few have sat there so long staring at that blank sheet, I thought they might pass out! They finally get an inspirational thought, and begin enthusiastically scribbling something. They finish with a smile, pass it over to me, and I take a look. Nine out of ten times I pass it back to them, look deep into their eyes and quietly say, “Go do this.” There is a reason they feel so excited about the specific direction, cause, or vocation they wrote down. It’s because God is the One who put it in their heart. “Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). “Are you delighting yourself in the Lord?” I ask the graduating senior. “I am certainly seeking to,” they reply. “Well then,” I respond, “you’ve just written down the desires of your heart. So, go for it.” Too simplistic or idealistic? I probably do have a more “wide-open” view of helping a person discover God’s direction for their life, but I believe this exercise strikes at the core of understanding what each of us were designed to do.

And you know what else they probably pray for every night?” I paused for a moment before saying, “Someone to save them. We could be that someone. We could end this plague. We could save the world. But I can’t do it alone. I’m gonna need your help, specifically the help of our tier 1s and tier 2s.” The crowd started murmuring to each other. “So, that’s what this speech is about—I’m asking for volunteers for this final mission. Now, I know what I’m asking, and I know it’s a lot. I’m basically asking you to risk your lives to help me fight the hardest battle ever. And I can’t guarantee your safety, nor can I guarantee our success… but still, we have to try. For the greater good, we have to try. Because we’ve come too far to give up now. That’s why we’re gonna give this one last mission our best effort. We’re gonna all come together and push hard through the finish line. And with our newly crafted dragon equipment and all the new class upgrades, I believe our chance of success is higher than ever before. So, with that in mind, what say you, my friends? Who’s with me? Who’s gonna help me put an end to the nightly plagues?” There was a brief moment of silence as my final words echoed through the night. But then Devlin spoke up. “I’m with you, Steve! Always.” “Me, too!” yelled Bob. “An epic fight between good and evil?! Can’t miss out on that!” shouted Arthur. “I got your back, bro!” yelled Obsidian Fist. Dozens of more tier 1s and 2s volunteered and made themselves heard. As I watched their hands shot up into the air, I smiled and let out a breath of relief. “Were you worried that there wouldn’t be enough volunteers?” the mayor whispered to me. “Yeah, kinda…” I whispered back. Then he smiled at me. “You’re their general, Steve. They’re not going to let you go off into battle alone… and neither would I.” He shook my hand. “Great speech, by the way. I’ll take it from here.” “Thank you, sir,” I said as I handed him the microphone. The mayor’s voice boomed over the speakers. “Alright, well said. Let’s give it up for General Steve!” Everyone clapped and cheered. “For those of you that volunteered, we’ll be heading out in a day or two. We still need to make preparations for the trip, and Cole still needs to fit the new armor to the golem suits, so all that is going to take some time. I’d suggest you use this time wisely—spend it with family, friends and loved ones. Eat with them, relax with them, be merry and carefree. Because when it is time to go, we’ll be in it to fight the battle of our lives.” The tier 1s and 2s in the crowd nodded.

And by the end of March one of them had already begun his journey. Twenty-two years old, an A.B. and LL.B. of Harvard, Francis Parkman was back from a winter trip to scenes in Pennsylvania and Ohio that would figure in his book and now he started with his cousin, Quincy Adams Shaw, for St. Louis. He was prepared to find it quite as alien to Beacon Hill as the Dakota lands beyond it, whither he was going. He was already an author (a poet and romancer), had already designed the great edifice his books were to build, and already suffered from the mysterious, composite illness that was to make his life a long torture. He hoped, in fact, that a summer on the prairies might relieve or even cure the malady that had impaired his eyes and, he feared, his heart and brain as well. He had done his best to cure it by systematic exercise, hard living in the White Mountains, and a regimen self-imposed in the code of his Puritan ancestors which would excuse no weakness. But more specifically Parkman was going west to study the Indians. He intended to write the history of the conflict between imperial Britain and imperial France, which was in great part a story of Indians. The Conspiracy of Pontiac had already taken shape in his mind; beyond it stretched out the aisles and transepts of what remains the most considerable achievement by an American historian. So he needed to see some uncorrupted Indians in their native state. It was Parkman’s fortune to witness and take part in one of the greatest national experiences, at the moment and site of its occurrence. It is our misfortune that he did not understand the smallest part of it. No other historian, not even Xenophon, has ever had so magnificent an opportunity: Parkman did not even know that it was there, and if his trip to the prairies produced one of the exuberant masterpieces of American literature, it ought instead to have produced a key work of American history. But the other half of his inheritance forbade. It was the Puritan virtues that held him to the ideal of labor and achievement and kept him faithful to his goal in spite of suffering all but unparalleled in literary history. And likewise it was the narrowness, prejudice, and mere snobbery of the Brahmins that insulated him from the coarse, crude folk who were the movement he traveled with, turned him shuddering away from them to rejoice in the ineffabilities of Beacon Hill, and denied our culture a study of the American empire at the moment of its birth. Much may rightly be regretted, therefore. But set it down also that, though the Brahmin was indifferent to Manifest Destiny, the Puritan took with him a quiet valor which has not been outmatched among literary folk or in the history of the West.

The Extraordinary Persons Project In fact, Ekman had been so moved personally—and intrigued scientifically—by his experiments with Öser that he announced at the meeting he was planning on pursuing a systematic program of research studies with others as unusual as Öser. The single criterion for selecting apt subjects was that they be “extraordinary.” This announcement was, for modern psychology, an extraordinary moment in itself. Psychology has almost entirely dwelt on the problematic, the abnormal, and the ordinary in its focus. Very rarely have psychologists—particularly ones as eminent as Paul Ekman—shifted their scientific lens to focus on people who were in some sense (other than intellectually) far above normal. And yet Ekman now was proposing to study people who excel in a range of admirable human qualities. His announcement makes one wonder why psychology hasn't done this before. In fact, only in very recent years has psychology explicitly begun a program to study the positive in human nature. Sparked by Martin Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania long famous for his research on optimism, a budding movement has finally begun in what is being called “positive psychology”—the scientific study of well-being and positive human qualities. But even within positive psychology, Ekman's proposed research would stretch science's vision of human goodness by assaying the limits of human positivity Ever the scientist, Ekman became quite specific about what was meant by “extraordinary.” For one, he expects that such people exist in every culture and religious tradition, perhaps most often as contemplatives. But no matter what religion they practice, they share four qualities. The first is that they emanate a sense of goodness, a palpable quality of being that others notice and agree on. This goodness goes beyond some fuzzy, warm aura and reflects with integrity the true person. On this count Ekman proposed a test to weed out charlatans: In extraordinary people “there is a transparency between their personal and public life, unlike many charismatics, who have wonderful public lives and rather deplorable personal ones.” A second quality: selflessness. Such extraordinary people are inspiring in their lack of concern about status, fame, or ego. They are totally unconcerned with whether their position or importance is recognized. Such a lack of egoism, Ekman added, “from the psychological viewpoint, is remarkable.” Third is a compelling personal presence that others find nourishing. “People want to be around them because it feels good—though they can't explain why,” said Ekman. Indeed, the Dalai Lama himself offers an obvious example (though Ekman did not say so to him); the standard Tibetan title is not “Dalai Lama” but rather “Kundun,” which in Tibetan means “presence.” Finally, such extraordinary individuals have “amazing powers of attentiveness and concentration.

There are many types of teachers out there from many traditions. Some are very ordinary and some seem to radiate spirituality from every pore. Some are nice, some are indifferent, and some may seem like sergeants in boot camp. Some stress reliance on one’s own efforts, others stress reliance on the grace of the guru. Some are very available and accessible, and some may live far away, grant few interviews, or have so many students vying for their time that you may rarely get a chance to talk with them. Some seem to embody the highest ideals of the perfected spiritual life in their every waking moment, while others may have many noticeable quirks, faults and failings. Some live by rigid moral codes, while others may push the boundaries of social conventions and mores. Some may be very old, and some may be very young. Some may require strict commitments and obedience, while others may hardly seem to care what we do at all. Some may advocate very specific practices, stating that their way is the only way or the best way, while others may draw from many traditions or be open to your doing so. Some may point out our successes, while others may dwell on our failures. Some may stress renunciation or even ordination into a monastic order, while others seem relentlessly engaged with “the world.” Some charge a bundle for their teachings, while others give theirs freely. Some like scholarship and the lingo of meditation, while others may never use or even openly despise these formal terms and conceptual frameworks. Some teachers may be more like friends or equals that just want to help us learn something they happened to be good at, while others may be all into the hierarchy, status and role of being a teacher. Some teachers will speak openly about attainments, and some may not. Some teachers are remarkably predictable in their manner and teaching style, while others swing wide in strange and unpredictable ways. Some may seem very tranquil and mild mannered, while others may seem outrageous or rambunctious. Some may seem extremely humble and unimposing, while others may seem particularly arrogant and presumptuous. Some are charismatic, while others may be distinctly lacking in social skills. Some may readily give us extensive advice, and some just listen and nod. Some seem the living embodiment of love, and others may piss us off on a regular basis. Some teachers may instantly click with us, while others just leave us cold. Some teachers may be willing to teach us, and some may not. So far as I can tell, none of these are related in any way to their meditation ability or the depths of their understanding. That is, don’t judge a meditation teacher by their cover. What is important is that their style and personality inspire us to practice well, to live the life we want to live, to find what it is we wish to find, to understand what we wish to understand. Some of us may wander for a long time before we find a good fit. Some of us will turn to books for guidance, reading and practicing without the advantages or hassles of teachers. Some of us may seem to click with a practice or teacher, try to follow it for years and yet get nowhere. Others seem to fly regardless. One of the most interesting things about reality is that we get to test it out. One way or another, we will get to see what works for us and what doesn’t, what happens when we do certain practices or follow the advice of certain teachers, as well as what happens when we don’t.

It is in the heart that the mystery of spiritual conception takes place. This is not the physical heart but what the Sufis call the heart of hearts. The heart of hearts is the heart of the Self which is on the right side of the physical body. In the moment of spiritual conception a special energy is infused into this heart which makes it spin in a particular way. I once had a vision in which my heart was cut open with a knife, taken out and breathed upon—the dust was blown off—and then spun. My teacher did not interpret this inner happening but said that I would come to understand it. Years later I heard her say to someone else that once the heart has been spun in this way it remains spinning for the rest of that person’s incarnation. The divine energy of the Self vibrates at a higher frequency to our ordinary human self. Through the spinning of the heart, the higher consciousness of the Self is able to be integrated into the lower vehicles, into the denser dimensions of the human being. All the wayfarer’s spiritual work has been a preparation for this moment, and from now on the work will be to give birth to this seed of consciousness, to attune one’s waking consciousness to the higher vibrations of the Self that are now spinning within the heart. This is the gradual process of awakening to the consciousness of the heart, opening the eye of the heart through which the Beloved is able to experience His creation. Sufis are known as “a brotherhood of migrants who ‘keep watch’ on the world and for the world,” because through the open eye of His lovers’ hearts the Beloved keeps watch on the world. Through His lovers’ hearts humanity is kept attuned to the Beloved. Just as a single heart is spun when the individual is ready to contain the higher energy of the Self, so does this same process happen with a group. When the group has a central core bonded together in love then its collective heart, its central core of light, is spun. In order to help this process, groups of souls that have been bonded together in past lifetimes are forming specific groups. They hold the spiritual core of the group that allows many others to be included in this dynamic unfolding. The spinning hearts of the lovers of God are forming the map made of points of light which I referred to in the previous chapter. At this time His lovers are being positioned around the planet. Some have already been positioned. Some are moving to physical locations while others are having their hearts awakened to this hidden purpose. Slowly this map is being unfolded, and in certain important places lovers are forming clusters of points of light. Certain spiritual groups have been formed or are being formed to contain these clusters as dynamic centers of light. When this map of light around the world is fully unfolded it will be able to contain and transform the energy structure of the planet. It has the potential to be the bond that will enable the world soul, the anima mundi, to be impregnated with a higher consciousness. The hearts of His lovers form part of the hidden heart of the world. As this map is unfolding so their spinning hearts can open the heart of the world. At this moment in cosmic time the planet is being aligned with its inner source, allowing the world to be infused with a certain cosmic energy that can dramatically speed up the evolution of this planet. If the heart of the world opens, it can receive this frequency of cosmic energy and directly implant it into the hearts of people. This would alter human life more than we could imagine. It is to help in this opening of the heart that many old souls have incarnated at this particular time and are working together. (p. 36 - 38)

In the contemporary world there are two classes of bad plans-the plans invented and put into practice by men who do not accept our ideal postulates, and the plans invented and put into practice by the men who accept them, but imagine that the ends proposed by the prophets can be achieved by wicked or unsuitable means. Hell is paved with good intentions, and it is probable that plans made by well-meaning people of the second class may have results no less disastrous than plans made by evil-intentioned people of the first class. Which only shows, yet once more, how right the Buddha was in classing unawareness and stupidity among the deadly sins. Let us consider a few examples of bad plans belonging to these two classes. In the first class we must place all Fascist and all specifically militaristic plans. Fascism, in the words of Mussolini, believes that "war alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it." Again, "a doctrine which is founded upon the harmful postulate of peace is hostile to Fascism." The Fascist, then, is one who believes that the bombardment of open towns with fire, poison and explosives (in other words, modern war) is intrinsically good. He is one who rejects the teaching of the prophets and believes that the best society is a national society living in a state of chronic hostility towards other national societies and preoccupied with ideas of rapine and slaughter. He is one who despises the non-attached individual and holds up for admiration the person who, in obedience to the boss who happens at the moment to have grabbed political power, systematically cultivates all the passions (pride, anger, envy, hatred) which the philosophers and the founders of religions have unanimously condemned as the most maleficent, the least worthy of human beings. All fascist planning has one ultimate aim: to make the national society more efficient as a war machine. Industry, commerce and finance are controlled for this purpose. The manufacture of substitutes is encouraged in order that the country may be self-sufficient in time of war. Tariffs and quotas are imposed, export bounties distributed, exchanges depreciated for the sake of gaining a momentary advantage or inflicting loss upon some rival. Foreign policy is conducted on avowedly Machiavellian principles; solemn engagements are entered into with the knowledge that they will be broken the moment it seems advantageous to do so; international law is invoked when it happens to be convenient, repudiated when it imposes the least restraint on the nation's imperialistic designs. Meanwhile the dictator's subjects are systematically educated to be good citizens of the Fascist state. Children are subjected to authoritarian discipline that they may grow up to be simultaneously obedient to superiors and brutal to those below them. On leaving the kindergarten, they begin that military training which culminates in the years of conscription and continues until the individual is too decrepit to be an efficient soldier. In school they are taught extravagant lies about the achievements of their ancestors, while the truth about other peoples is either distorted or completely suppressed. the press is controlled, so that adults may learn only what it suits the dictator that they should learn. Any one expressing un-orthodox opinions is ruthlessly persecuted. Elaborate systems of police espionage are organized to investigate the private life and opinions of even the humblest individual. Delation is encouraged, tale-telling rewarded. Terrorism is legalized. Justice is administered in secret; the procedure is unfair, the penalties barbarously cruel. Brutality and torture are regularly employed.

The Blue Moon Wish Spell The “Blue Moon” is when there are 2 full moons in one month, it is in the horoscopic symbol of Pisces. To see the dates for the blue moon click here. It illuminates intuition, creativity, and compassion.  This is the time that you should start thinking about all your wishes and intentions. As a practitioner of witchcraft, you should make sure that you perform this ritual since such an astrological opportunity only occurs “once in a Blue Moon”.  Requirements a quartz crystal a cinnamon stick A blue pen a blue candle a sheet of parchment paper 3 safety pins a glass  of spring water or wine A piece silver cord or string, of a length of 24 inches a square of blue cloth Vial of success potion (not mandatory) 1 book of matches On the day before of the Blue Moon, collect all the above items and then set a specific time for performing the spell without any distractions.  Quietly sit down with all your items as listed above and place them before you on a table.  Shut your eyes and bring your mind to silence, after that, concentrate on your breathing.  The moment you feel clear and grounded, you can open your eyes and start the spell. While lighting the candle, think of 3 things that you would like to occur by the year’s end. You can also wish for something that takes place once in a blue moon. (rarely) Pat success oil on your, wrists, temple and your neck for a boost in case you have some. Envision one particular wish coming true while holding the quartz crystal in your hands. Vision yourself doing the thing you are wishing for, or clearly see something that you wish for happen before you. Pick your pen and paper up and start writing down your wishes as you keenly visualize them. Note them down in their order of importance to you.   After you note down the three wishes on your piece of parchment, separately tear them out Attach each of your wishes to the square piece of cloth using a safety pin Place the cinnamon stick in the middle of the cloth and then inwardly fold the sides of the cloth. After that, roll it up. Tightly seal your projections by wrapping the string around the cloth nine times and after that, tie steadily with a knot. Take your wishes and walk outside with them while holding the libation of your choice. Look up to the sky or the moon.  Lift up your glass and say the following words; “On this eve of the Blue Moon, out my intents go. I request they be received, and it is so” Place the cloth containing your wishes in a concealed place where you are the only one who can see it often all the way through the coming few months as a reminder to the wishes you have made.

A still more sobering social media example of a different kind, one so important that it could well have influenced the presidential election of 2016, was the cooperation between Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, was largely the creation of Steve Bannon and his billionaire sponsor, Robert Mercer. One former co-executive referred to Cambridge Analytica as “Bannon’s arsenal of weaponry to wage a culture war on America using military strategies.” Cambridge Analytica combined a particularly vicious version of traditional “dirty tricks” with cutting-edge social media savvy. The dirty tricks, according to its former CEO, Alexander Nix, included bribery, sting operations, the use of prostitutes, and “honey traps” (usually involving sexual behavior, sometimes even initiated for the purposes of obtaining compromising photographs) to discredit politicians on whom it conducted opposition research. The social media savvy included advanced methods developed by the Psychometrics Centre of Cambridge University. Aleksandr Kogan, a young Russian American psychologist working there, created an app that enabled him to gain access to elaborate private information on more than fifty million Facebook users, information specifically identifying personality traits that influenced behavior. Kogan had strong links to Facebook, which failed to block his harvesting of that massive data; he then passed the data along to Cambridge Analytica. Kogan also taught at the Saint Petersburg State University in Russia; and given the links between Cambridge Analytica and Russian groups, the material was undoubtedly made available to Russian intelligence. So extensive was Cambridge Analytica’s collection of data that Nix could boast, “Today in the United States we have somewhere close to 4 or 5 thousand data points on every individual…. So we model the personality of every adult across the United States, some 230 million people.” Whatever his exaggeration, he was describing a new means of milieu control that was invisible and potentially manipulable in the extreme. Beyond Cambridge Analytica or Kogan, Russian penetration of American social media has come to be recognized as a vast enterprise involving extensive falsification and across-the-board anti-Clinton messages, with special attention given to African American men in order to discourage them from voting. The Russians apparently reached millions of people and surely had a considerable influence on the outcome of the election. More generally, one can say that social media platforms can now create a totality of their own, and can make themselves available to would-be owners of reality by means of massive deception, distortion, and promulgation of falsehoods. The technology itself promotes mystification and becomes central to creating and sustaining cultism. Trump is the first president to have available to him these developments in social media. His stance toward the wild conspiracism I have mentioned is to stop short of total allegiance to them, but at the same time to facilitate them and call them forth in his tweets and harbor their followers at his rallies. All of this suggests not only that Trump and the new social media are made for each other, but also that the problem will long outlive Trump’s brief, but all too long, moment on the historical stage.

I can’t pee if I know you’re listening.” His mouth snapped shut as he swallowed a gulp too quickly, and he blinked at me as if a speck of dust were caught in his eye. “What?” “I don’t want to have the door open—ever—when we’re doing our business in the bathroom. Some things should stay a mystery.” He watched me for a moment then shrugged. “Okay…that’s fine.” “And I don’t want you to carry my purse—not ever. I hate that, and I actually feel a level of severe moral reprehension about men carrying their spouses’ purses. Don’t even reach for it. You can have your own purse if you want one, but I don’t want you touching my purse.” His mouth was pressed together in a stiff line and eyes were watching me like I was the most fascinating creature he’d ever seen. “And sounds,” I continued. “I know you’ll make them, but you need to be cognizant of them, like farting. Try to do it elsewhere so I can’t hear. I’ll do the same with you. Make an effort, you know? It’s like, why share that with anyone?” “Burping too?” I thought about that then shook my head. “I’m glad you asked. For some reason I feel like loud, long burps are okay, but little burps are disgusting. So, let’s just say no to burps unless we’re having a contest.” He stared at me for a beat, nodded. “I can see that. That makes sense. I have a request.” “Sure, go for it.” “Don’t talk about your period—ever. I don’t want to see evidence of it either.” “Ever? But what about if you want to do something and I’m….” “Then we’ll put it on the calendar. We can have a code for it so I’ll know when it’s happening. I just don’t want to talk about it.” I frowned at that, nodded. “Then I don’t want to hear about stomach or digestion problems—unless something is really wrong and you need to go to the doctor.” “Sounds good.” “And,” I continued, thinking of another item, “I want you to kiss me when you leave and kiss me when you come home.” Quinn gave me a quick smile then leaned forward and brushed a kiss against my mouth. “I like that one.” He settled back against the couch. “Same goes for you. And you should also tell me you love me, every day.” “I love you and I will. That’s a good one. You should say it too.” “I’ll say it too, and I love you. Anything else?” I studied him, tried to think of other specific requests, came up empty. At length I shook my head. “I can’t think of any more, but if I do I’ll email them to you.” He stuck his hand out for me to take, saying, “I can agree to those terms.

Types of Forex Strategy Traders Figuring out how to exchange isn't simple particularly with regards to the unfamiliar trade market. You will presumably need to learn it through a Forex exchanging framework. A few people believe that dealers are jack of all methodologies of exchanging yet that is not how things work. The way to fruitful exchanging is to turn into the expert of a couple of exchanging techniques. These couple of exchanging methodologies can take you far. Forex procedure dealer frameworks are broadly utilized by various individuals since they give you structure, a bunch of rules and an arrangement to follow as well. There are sure techniques that are at present utilized in the Forex market and they can even cause you to pick what Forex system broker would be best for you to make due in this market. Indicator Driving Trading Systems These exchanging bargains are planned by the individuals who look at that as a specific set up is working at the present time, yet utilizing this framework calls for wary managing. That is on the grounds that it simply works for the current second. This Forex exchanging framework can't give you uphold for quite a while. The framework utilizes pointers for producing an exchanging signal against the value activity. The pointers consistently slack and subsequently, they will in general give late just as false signals. They are not forward-thinking regardless. Something to be thankful for about this exchanging bargain is that it takes a gander at the graphs and numerous beginner merchants think that it’s valuable and enticing. They think of it as' not difficult to utilize and comprehend. Harmonic trading system The Harmonic trading system framework perceives value designs with the Fibonacci augmentations just as following data and afterward it figures the defining moments in the business sectors. It is an intricate type of exchanging which will call for significant practice. On the off chance that you ace it by training, at that point you will discover it among outstanding amongst other exchanging frameworks as it can offer more significant yields against the danger. You can utilize it for exchanging any sort of market. Technical Trading Systems These are perhaps the most ordinarily utilized exchanging bargains that are basic among Forex merchants. They incorporate climbing triangles, banner examples, shoulder examples, heads and various different examples to allow you to exchange the business sectors. These exchanging frameworks are truly useful and you utilize monetary information from earlier years to anticipate the market patterns and take an action. The Forex technique broker or the Forex exchanging frameworks empower you to ensure that you don't lose while you exchange from the solace of your own home. In any case, be certain that Forex exchanging frameworks are not lucrative aides. You actually need to utilize your own insight in exchanging and assemble loads of exchanging data request to put your cash in the perfect spot. Exchanging isn't some tea. On the off chance that you think by utilizing the exchanging gives you can guarantee making enormous amounts of cash, at that point you are incorrect. You should utilize your experience and viable information to guarantee that the Forex procedure broker you use demonstrates to control you in productive exchanging.

Neither of them spoke much on the way back to the station, and Morgan was desperate to change out of her soiled uniform. As if reading her mind, Ben parked up, saying, ‘You can go get changed, shower then come up to the office.’ ‘I’d better go and speak to my sergeant, tell him where I’m going. They might be short on patrol if I come up now.’ ‘You sort yourself out, and I’ll speak to Mads. He won’t mind; the DCI requested we ask you as soon as possible.’ That wasn’t strictly true, he knew. He’d requested Ben find someone ASAP. He hadn’t specifically requested Morgan, but she didn’t need to know that. She went in the direction of the women’s locker room, and he headed to the patrol sergeant’s office. Knocking on the door, he walked in without waiting to be asked. ‘Mads.’ ‘Ben, how’s it going? Is Morgan with you, is she coping okay? It’s a bit much for your first independent patrols.’ ‘She’s fine; at least she seems it. Look, I need some help. We’re desperately short-staffed and Tom said to find someone today. I’ve asked her and she’s happy to come up and do a three-month attachment. It will be a massive help.’ ‘What? It’s her second day. Don’t you want someone slightly more experienced and who’s willing to take on the extra caseload? Dan has been wanting to come up for months. He’d be more than happy to.’ Ben shut the door and lowered his voice. ‘Dan’s difficult; I can’t work with him. Not at the moment. This is the biggest murder case I’ve ever worked on, and I need to be focused. I can’t afford to spend all day wasting my effort trying to keep him in line. Morgan’s keen and has been on the case from the moment it was called in. I think she’ll be okay.’ ‘I think she won’t, she’s inexperienced.’ ‘Yes, but she’s confident and I have faith in her. Don’t forget, you owe me one.

There is one thing in this world that you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there’s nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life. It’s as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don’t do it, it’s as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It’s a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It’s a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on. You say, “But look, I’m using the dagger. It’s not lying idle.” Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought to serve the purpose. You say, “But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and all the rest.” But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself. Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give your life to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don’t, you will be like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You’ll be wasting valuable keenness and foolishly ignoring your dignity and your purpose. —RUMI

David sees it as essential that a guide be able to find the balance between telling the truth and not pushing people so much that they shut down. He told me that when you challenge people, specifically white people's conception of Jefferson, you're in fact challenging their conception of themselves. ...David knows that some visitors to Monticello arrive with an understanding of history that is not only misguided but also harmful. He has a difficult time disentangling this from the current political moment. "That's not the story of who we are," he said, referencing the language of Make America Great Again, "but some people really, for whatever reason, they want to believe that and they want to go back there, right? They want to go back to something that never existed.

He knew that the specific reason behind the Plan was Orren Boyle; he knew that the working of an intricate mechanism, operated by pull, threat, pressure, blackmail—a mechanism like an irrational adding machine run amuck and throwing up any chance sum at the whim of any moment—had happened to add up to Boyle’s pressure upon these men to extort for him this last piece of plunder. He knew also that Boyle was not the cause of it or the essential to consider, that Boyle was only a chance rider, not the builder, of the infernal machine that had destroyed the world, that it was not Boyle who had made it possible, nor any of the men in this room. They, too, were only riders on a machine without a driver, they were trembling hitchhikers who knew that their vehicle was about to crash into its final abyss—and it was not love or fear of Boyle that made them cling to their course and press on toward their end, it was something else, it was some one nameless element which they knew and evaded knowing, something which was neither thought nor hope, something he identified only as a certain look in their faces, a furtive look saying: I can get away with it. Why?—he thought. Why do they think they can?

In a series idea, I look for that one central thing that each important character is most haunted and challenged by—that one way in which they don’t have the life they want, and never will. Because they don’t have this, the characters—as in other types of stories—are generally not happy. They may have moments of satisfaction and resolution, but mostly they suffer and struggle. And they are consistently focused on how life is not giving them what they want in some specific area that obsesses and frustrates them. Their “stakes” are all about that. But

Of the components of IQ tests, Ashkenazim do well on verbal and mathematical questions but score lower than average on visuospatial questions. In most people, these two kinds of ability are highly correlated. This suggests that some specific force has been at work in shaping the nature of Ashkenazi intelligence, as if the population were being adapted not to hunting, which requires excellent visuospatial skills, but to more urban occupations served by the ability to manipulate words and numerals. So it’s striking to find that Ashkenazim, almost from the moment their appearance in Europe was first recorded, around 900 AD, were heavily engaged in moneylending. This was the principal occupation of Jews in England, France and Germany. The trade required a variety of high level skills, including the ability to read and write contracts and to do arithmetic. Literacy was a rare ability in medieval Europe. As late as 1500, only 10% of the population of most European countries was literate, whereas almost all Jews were.7 As for arithmetic, it may be simple enough with the Arabic numerals in use today. But Arabic numerals did not become widespread in Europe until the mid-16th century. Before that, people used Roman numerals, a notation system that has no zero. Calculating interest rates and currency swaps without the use of zero is not a straightforward computation.

Sometimes I almost believe her soul looks out of the photograph, almost clears the sill Of the eyes & comes near; though it does not ever Move, it holds me while I look at it. But even today, I can’t conceive of a soul Without seeing a woman’s body. Specifically, Yours, undoing the straps of an evening dress In a convertible, & then lying back, your breasts Holding that hint of dusk mixed with mint And the emptiness of dusk. Someone put it Crudely: to fuck is to know. If that is true, There’s a corollary: the soul is a canary sent Into the mines. The convertible is white, & parked Beneath the black trees shading the river, Mile after mile. Your dress is off by now, And when you come, both above & below me, When you vanish into that one cry which means Your body is no longer quite your own And when your face looks like a face stricken From this world, a saint’s face, your eyes closing On some final city made entirely Of light, & only to be unmade by light Again—at that moment I’m still watching You—half out of reverence & half because The scene is distant, like a landscape, & has Nothing to do with me. Beneath the quiet Of those trees, & that sky, I imagine I’m simply a miner in a cave; I imagine the soul Is something lighter than a girl’s ribbon I witnessed, one afternoon, as it fell—blue, Tossed, withered somehow, & singular, at A friend’s wedding—& then into the river And swirled away. Do I chip away with my hammer? Do I, sometimes, sing or recite? Even though I have to know, in such a darkness, all The words by heart, I sing. And when I come, My eyes are closed fast. I smile, under The earth. They loved fast horses. And someone else Will have to watch them, grazing on short tufts Of spring grass beside the riverbank, When we are gone, when we are light, & grass. . — Larry Levis, from “A Letter,” Winter Stars (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985)

Is it enough to live in a universe whose laws spontaneously create life? Or do you prefer ... God?” She paused, looking embarrassed. “Sorry, after all we’ve been through tonight, I know that’s a strange question.” “Well,” Langdon said with a laugh, “I think my answer would benefit from a decent night’s sleep. But no, it’s not strange. People ask me all the time if I believe in God.” “And how do you reply?” “I reply with the truth,” he said. “I tell them that, for me, the question of God lies in understanding the difference between codes and patterns.” Ambra glanced over. “I’m not sure I follow you.” “Codes and patterns are very different from each other,” Langdon said. “And a lot of people confuse the two. In my field, it’s crucial to understand their fundamental difference.” “That being?” Langdon stopped walking and turned to her. “A pattern is any distinctly organized sequence. Patterns occur everywhere in nature—the spiraling seeds of a sunflower, the hexagonal cells of a honeycomb, the circular ripples on a pond when a fish jumps, et cetera.” “Okay. And codes?” “Codes are special,” Langdon said, his tone rising. “Codes, by definition, must carry information. They must do more than simply form a pattern—codes must transmit data and convey meaning. Examples of codes include written language, musical notation, mathematical equations, computer language, and even simple symbols like the crucifix. All of these examples can transmit meaning or information in a way that spiraling sunflowers cannot.” Ambra grasped the concept, but not how it related to God. “The other difference between codes and patterns,” Langdon continued, “is that codes do not occur naturally in the world. Musical notation does not sprout from trees, and symbols do not draw themselves in the sand. Codes are the deliberate inventions of intelligent consciousnesses.” Ambra nodded. “So codes always have an intention or awareness behind them.” “Exactly. Codes don’t appear organically; they must be created.” Ambra studied him a long moment. “What about DNA?” A professorial smile appeared on Langdon’s lips. “Bingo,” he said. “The genetic code. That’s the paradox.” Ambra felt a rush of excitement. The genetic code obviously carried data — specific instructions on how to build organisms. By Langdon’s logic, that could mean only one thing. “You think DNA was created by an intelligence!” Langdon held up a hand in mock self-defense. “Easy, tiger!” he said, laughing. “You’re treading on dangerous ground. Let me just say this. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had the gut sense that there’s a consciousness behind the universe. When I witness the precision of mathematics, the reliability of physics, and the symmetries of the cosmos, I don’t feel like I’m observing cold science; I feel as if I’m seeing a living footprint ... the shadow of some greater force that is just beyond our grasp.

I was getting dressed back into my clothes from my practice suit when it was like someone unplugged the sound. Dead silence. My back was turned toward the door, but before I even turned around, I knew what this silence meant. It would answer my curious question of what the locker room would look like. Upon turning around and shifting my eyes upward to the 6′4″ Thomas, I immediately felt the inherent need to cover my chest, as someone with a male gaze and a male voice entered the room. Some of the girls grabbed towels, shirts, or whatever was close by and covered the exposed parts of their body. Other girls looked the other way. We were all in various stages of nakedness. None of us said a word. I can’t accurately put into words the feelings of violation when hearing a man’s voice in the locker room where you are fully nude. Thomas walked toward the corner of the locker room and began to change out of a women’s practice suit and get naked. Right in front of us. No introduction, no “Excuse me,” no explanation, no privacy for us. My teammates and I cut wide eyes with each other, not really understanding our emotions in that moment. Of course, we felt awkward, embarrassed, and uncomfortable. I remember specifically feeling betrayed. I thought of how our privacy as females had been entirely dismissed, violated, and ignored. There was no thought to how we would respond or how uncomfortable a male sharing this changing space with us would make us feel. It felt like we were pawns in a sick game catering to the male who claimed our identity but didn’t have the same physiology, anatomy, or chromosomes, to name a few… I desperately wanted to call my mom and dad and tell them of this situation in hopes they would reassure me that I wasn’t crazy in experiencing this as a total violation of our rights to privacy as women.

When I finally get my workload under control/get my candidate elected/find the right romantic partner/sort out my psychological issues, then I can relax, and the life I was always meant to be living can begin.” The person mired in this mentality believes that the reason she doesn’t feel fulfilled and happy is that she hasn’t yet managed to accomplish certain specific things; when she does so, she imagines, she’ll feel in charge of her life and be the master of her time. Yet in fact the way she’s attempting to achieve that sense of security means she’ll never feel fulfilled, because she’s treating the present solely as a path to some superior future state—and so the present moment won’t ever feel satisfying in itself. Even if she does get her workload under control, or meet her soulmate, she’ll just find some other reason to postpone her fulfillment until later on.

Up to a point, the weight and seriousness of such photographs survive better in a book, where one can look privately, linger over the pictures, without talking. Still, at some moment the book will be closed. The strong emotion will become a transient one. Eventually the specificity of the photographs' accusations will fade; the denunciation of particular conflict and attribution of specific crimes will become a denunciation of human cruelty, human savagery as such. The photographer's intentions are irrelevant to this larger process.

Many parents, therapists, and teachers have said some variations of “But he already knows how to behave!” or “If he can behave at school, he can behave at home!”. We must realize that this is false. Your child’s ability to act appropriately hinges on their current state, skills, and available resources at that specific moment. If they could, they would.

Consider a conversation I had with a white friend. She was telling me about a "white) couple she knew who had just moved to New Orleans and bought a house for a mere twenty-five thousand dollars. "Of course," she immediately added, "they also had to buy a gun, and Joan is afraid to leave the house." I immediately knew they had bought a home in a black neighborhood. This was a moment of white racial bonding between this couple who shared the story of racial danger and my friend, and then between my friend and me, as she repeated the story. Through this tale, the four of us fortified familiar images of the horror of black space and drew boundaries between "us" and "them" without ever having to directly name race or openly express our disdain for black space. Notice that the need for a gun is a key part of this story--it would not have the degree of social capital it holds if the emphasis were on the price of the house alone. Rather, the story’s emotional power rests on why a house would be that cheap--because it is in a black neighborhood where white people literally might not get out alive. Yet while very negative and stereotypical representations of blacks were reinforced in that exchange, not naming race provided plausible deniability. In fact, in preparing to share this incident, I texted my friend and asked her the name of the city her friends had moved to. I also wanted to confirm my assumption that she was talking about a black neighborhood. I share the text exchange here: "Hey, what city did you say your friends had bought a house in for $25,000?" "New Orleans. They said they live in a very bad neighborhood and they each have to have a gun to protect themselves. I wouldn’t pay 5 cents for that neighborhood." "I assume it’s a black neighborhood?" "Yes. You get what you pay for. I’d rather pay $500,00 and live somewhere where I wasn’t afraid." "I wasn’t asking because I want to live there. I’m writing about this in my book, the way that white people talk about race without ever coming out and talking about race." "I wouldn’t want you to live there it’s too far away from me!" Notice that when I simply ask what city the house is in, she repeats the story about the neighborhood being so bad that her friends need guns. When I ask if the neighborhood is black, she is comfortable confirming that it is. But when I tell her that I am interested in how whites talks about race without talking about race, she switches the narrative. Now her concern is about not wanting me to live so far away. This is a classic example of aversive racism: holding deep racial disdain that surfaces in daily discourse but not being able to admit it because the disdain conflicts with our self-image and professed beliefs. Readers may be asking themselves, "But if the neighborhood is really dangerous, why is acknowledging this danger a sign of racism?" Research in implicit bias has shown that perceptions of criminal activity are influenced by race. White people will perceive danger simply by the presence of black people; we cannot trust our perceptions when it comes to race and crimes. But regardless of whether the neighborhood is actually more or less dangerous than other neighborhoods, what is salient about this exchange is how it functions racially and what that means for the white people engaged in it. For my friend and me, this conversation did not increase our awareness of the danger of some specific neighborhood. Rather, the exchange reinforced our fundamental beliefs about black people. (p. 44-45)

Researcher Ray Christian sheds some light on the possible role of the unconscious in decision making. He notes that what we perceive at any given moment—our conscious bandwidth—is an extremely small subset of the information stream flowing to the sense organs. Specifically, he estimates that the capacity of our sensory system is 11 megabits per second while our conscious bandwidth is just 16 bits per second.

They attempted to steal this map from us.” I looked closer at the map. Different nations had different symbols on them. I realized, slowly, that many of the symbols corresponded with nations that had been attacked. The House of Stone. The House of Reeds. Even Yithara. “What do these mean?” I asked, pointing to the marks that adorned each of those nations. “Even my husband is several hundred years too young to have ever known the true purpose of this map.” Her brow furrowed. “But myths claim that it marks hidden pools of magic, specific places where it is stronger. Or perhaps, where magical artifacts are hidden. The stories vary.” She shook her head. “To be honest, I suspect that they are all more fiction than fact. But I’m not certain how much that matters. All that matters is that the humans are desperate, and they believe it could be true. Even a sliver of a chance is enough to drive them to…“ “Genocide?” Caduan said, quietly. And Athalena was so still, so silent, for such a long moment that I wondered if perhaps she wouldn’t answer. “Heinous things,” she whispered, at last. “Heinous things. The humans that we welcomed into our walls…” Her voice broke. “They murdered one of my children. I heard the screams, and I ran into my daughter’s room to find them pinning her to the ground. There was blood—” Here, she choked, as if her words were too sharp to swallow. Still, she did not lift her eyes from the table. “There was blood everywhere. They cut open her wrists. There were two Wielders, a Valtain and a Solarie, and they were doing some spell, something to— to harness her, to turn my sweet child into something—

Dear Voyagers, Your cameras have shown us the vastness of the universe, Our eyes too can gaze upon the heavens and revel in nature, But behind our eyes, There’s something called a mind that processes it all. What we call the mind Spins countless tales and stories, With such variety that one could say, For every human that has ever lived, there exists a different image, emotion, analysis, and worldview, and this can be beautiful and at the same time terrifying. I imagine mapping the universe completely, Discovering life in other systems and galaxies, Might be much sooner than charting the map that could explain human existence. So many questions remain for me, Like if, In the coming decades, poverty is eradicated, Freedom is universal, Mars is colonized, and people live there, Cities rise above Venus, Plant-based diets replace meat, Equality reaches every person and no one is questioned for their beliefs, orientations, or thoughts, Diseases are cured, Physical labor becomes meaningless, and robots end the hardship of human toil, Earth’s climate change is halted, Firearm possession is made free, and today’s concerns are all resolved—will everyone then live in peace? My mind, my eyes, they know the answer: “No.” Probably then, Conspiracy theorists Would say it all happened in a studio, Some would claim that veganism’s goal is to destroy chakras, Others would start revolts against order and law, criticizing even that beautiful state. This dissatisfaction doesn’t belong to any specific class or group, It’s what we all are. Environment and culture matter, but I think even if a brain chip were made To transfer every piece of knowledge on Earth, All fields of science, memories, Experiences, languages, and the stories of every civilization, every human, and everything ever experienced to our minds, We’d still harbor doubt. Our efforts to prove ourselves to each other Will be in vain. Perhaps the right path Is to continue and enjoy the unknown, Or maybe to accept and find joy in never truly experiencing joy. I play Hans Zimmer’s “Stay,” Yet my mind continues to drift, Time passes, Those around me age as I move forward towards an unknown destination. Perhaps someone, something, 4.5 billion light years away, Is staring at a point in the sky, They don’t know I’m here in an existential crisis, That Earth is in a fight for survival, How I envy them, Staring into that dark spot in the sky, They too are fortunate for not existing in this moment, Or for their light not having reached me. If Earth’s light reaches them, They would surely grieve for these restless, lost souls, For human history is tied to sorrow, pain, separation, and nothingness. Perhaps the Big Crunch, Absolute nothingness, Is the only cure for this pain— The pain of being and existing. Dear Voyagers, When your signal to Earth is lost, It will feel like the death of a loved one, Even though I know you’re alive somewhere, traversing an unknown path, Something I doubt will happen after human death, And even if it does, It wouldn’t lessen the grief of those left behind who have yet to join that unknown journey. I fear oblivion, I fear the oblivions that disappear from history and memories, as if they never were, Like the meal of a Native American grandmother a thousand years ago, Or the kiss of two lovers and the story of their union and parting, never recorded anywhere.

Every McDonald’s, for instance, looks the same—the company deliberately tries to standardize stores’ architecture and what employees say to customers, so everything is a consistent cue to trigger eating routines. The foods at some chains are specifically engineered to deliver immediate rewards—the fries, for instance, are designed to begin disintegrating the moment they hit your tongue, in order to deliver a hit of salt and grease as fast as possible, causing your pleasure centers to light up and your brain to lock in the pattern. All the better for tightening the habit loop.1.25

Being face-to-face with the angel of the Lord must have been an awe-inspiring experience, but believers today are privileged to communicate with God in a much more personal way. With the combination of God’s written Word and his Spirit living within us, we can hear from him on a daily basis. We can receive encouragement, comfort, and guidance. God may appoint us for some special task or reveal his will in a specific area. We don’t have to wait for the angel of the Lord to make an appearance; we can have a close encounter of the divine kind at any given moment.

The moment I regained my sight I communicated my frustrations to some members of the Lisp sect. Almost immediately I was bombarded by a standard set of responses: Lisp's parentheses are only a superficial matter, Lisp has a huge benefit of code and data being expressed in the same manner (which, obviously, is a huge improvement over XML), Lisp has tremendously powerful metaprogramming facilities that allow programs to write code and modify themselves, Lisp allows for creation of mini-languages specific to the problem at hand, Lisp blurs the distinction between run time and compile time, Lisp, Lisp, Lisp... The list was very impressive. Needless to say none of it made sense.

Consider fast food, for instance. It makes sense—when the kids are starving and you’re driving home after a long day—to stop, just this once, at McDonald’s or Burger King. The meals are inexpensive. It tastes so good. After all, one dose of processed meat, salty fries, and sugary soda poses a relatively small health risk, right? It’s not like you do it all the time. But habits emerge without our permission. Studies indicate that families usually don’t intend to eat fast food on a regular basis. What happens is that a once a month pattern slowly becomes once a week, and then twice a week—as the cues and rewards create a habit—until the kids are consuming an unhealthy amount of hamburgers and fries. When researchers at the University of North Texas and Yale tried to understand why families gradually increased their fast food consumption, they found a series of cues and rewards that most customers never knew were influencing their behaviors.1.24 They discovered the habit loop. Every McDonald’s, for instance, looks the same—the company deliberately tries to standardize stores’ architecture and what employees say to customers, so everything is a consistent cue to trigger eating routines. The foods at some chains are specifically engineered to deliver immediate rewards—the fries, for instance, are designed to begin disintegrating the moment they hit your tongue, in order to deliver a hit of salt and grease as fast as possible, causing your pleasure centers to light up and your brain to lock in the pattern. All the better for tightening the habit loop.1.25 However, even these habits are delicate. When a fast food restaurant closes down, the families that previously ate there will often start having dinner at home, rather than seek out an alternative location. Even small shifts can end the pattern. But since we often don’t recognize these habit loops as they grow, we are blind to our ability to control them. By learning to observe the cues and rewards, though, we can change the routines.

no more stolen moments, let alone hours, in which to discover each other . . . from now on, they were formally betrothed, and that betrothal had its own rules. Maddening, perhaps intentionally so. Luci filched another stuffed date from the tray a sleepy maidservant was carrying back to the kitchen, and followed her father into the library. Her uncle and grandfather, already relaxed in chairs by the fireplace, looked up as she came in. "Luci, you should be in bed." "Papa, I'm not sleepy." He raised his eyebrows at her, but she didn't move. "Papa, I had a message cube from Esmay today." Her uncle Casimir sighed. "Esmay . . . now there's another problem. Berthold, did you get anywhere in the Landsmen's Guild?" "Nowhere. Oh, Vicarios won't oppose us, but that's because of Luci, and his support is half-hearted. It would be different if she hadn't left so young, I think. They don't really remember her, and even though they awarded her the Starmount, and consider her a hero, they do not want a Landbride—any Landbride but especially our Landbride—connected to an outlander family. Cosca told me frankly that even if she moved here, and also her husband, he would oppose it. Nothing good ever came from the stars, he insisted." "And the votes?" "Enough for a challenge, Casi, I'm sure of it. No, the only way out of this is for Esmaya to come and talk to them herself." "Or resign." "Or resign, but—will she?" Luci spoke up. "She mentioned that in her cube." "What—resigning? Why?" "Her precious Fleet seems to think about us the way the Landsmen's Guild thinks about them. She says they have some kind of regulation forbidding officers to marry Landbrides." Her father snorted. "Do they have one forbidding officers to be Landbrides? How ridiculous!" "Are you serious?" Casimir asked. "They have something specific about Landbrides? How would they know?" "I don't know," Luci said. "That's just what she said. And she said why didn't we take in all those women brought back from Our Texas—she was sure they'd fit in." A stunned silence, satisfying by its depth and length. "She what?" Casimir said finally. "Aren't those women—" "Free-birthers and religious cultists," Luci said, with satisfaction. "Exactly." "But—but the priests will object," Berthold said. "Not as badly as the Landsmen's Guild, if they hear of it. Dear God, I thought she had more sense than that!" "She is in love," Luci pointed out, willing now to be magnanimous. "Apparently Fleet is taking Barin's salary to pay for their upkeep—at least some of it—and Esmay's trying to help him out. Nineteen of them, after all, and all those children." "At our expense." Casimir shook his head. "Well, that settles it. She'll have to resign, as soon as I can get word to her. The Trustees will certainly not approve this, if I were willing to let it be known." He gave Luci a hard look. "You didn't tell Philip, I hope." "Of course not." Luci glared at her uncle. Esmay might not have any sense, but she knew what the family honor required. "I hope she does name you Landbride, Luci," Casimir said. "You'll be a good one." Luci had a sudden spasm of doubt. Was she being fair to Esmay, who after all had had so many bad things happen to her? But underneath the doubt, the same exultation she had felt when Esmay gave her the brown mare . . . mine, it's mine, I can take care of it, nobody can hurt it . . . "I wonder if we could place an ansible call," Casimir said. "Surely it's not that urgent,

I was just beginning to wonder how long I would have to wait when finally a guard sauntered up and said, “Galloway, get your stuff, get your bed.” I ran to my cell to get my stuff and I grabbed the toothpaste. The toothpaste was in this clear tube and was clear like hair gel. It had a muted, watered-down mint flavor. Everything you got in jail was made specifically to be as safe as can be. One of the guys told me, “Don’t ever take anything from being locked up. It’s bad luck.” But I told myself, You ain’t coming back. You ain’t getting locked up again, so you’re taking a souvenir. I grabbed that little clear tube and I put it in my pocket and walked out of my cell. As I came out, all of the guys from my cellblock were lined up to say goodbye. The guard had this look on his face like, “What is going on?” I walked down the line shaking each man’s hands. They all told me they were glad they had met me. They told me that I made an impact on them. One guy said, “You came in here and you’ve been to war and back, you’re missing two limbs, but you still had a smile on your face the whole time. You’ve gone through so much and you are able to keep smiling. That motivates me.” I was really touched. I kept going down the line, shaking hands and saying my farewells, and finally I got to Michael Bolton. He said, “Hey, man, I’ve asked people this before and they never follow through with it but I believe you will. Could you print out some TV guides? Because you know we just tell them the number. We don’t know what’s on at what time, what station.” I said, “Yeah, man, I’ll do that.” And I looked around to the other guys and asked, “Does anybody want any crossword puzzles or anything like that?” They all said that would be awesome. “All right, Michael, I’ve got your address so I’m gonna send it to you. And listen, man, I’m gonna give you my email address. When you get out shoot me an email. I want to stay in touch and see how things are going.” I turned to the guard who was still baffled by what was happening and said, “I’m ready.” He rolled his eyes and opened the door. We walked out and they handed me my clothes. I pulled off the orange jumpsuit and tossed it. I changed back into my clothes. I signed everything I had to sign, got some paperwork to take with me, and walked out a free man again. Well, my epic freedom moment was short-lived, because I realized my cell phone was dead. I walked down the road to a gas station and asked if I could use the phone. I called Tracy and told her where I was and asked her to pick me up. When Tracy arrived I hopped in the car and the very first thing I said to her was “I gotta get home. I have to print out some TV guides and I need to write a letter to some of the guys in there.” She started laughing and when she could compose herself enough to talk said, “My sisters and I all said we guarantee Noah is going to come out of jail with new friends. He’s going to be friends with everybody.

Visual agnosia is the inability of the brain to make sense of or make use of some part of an otherwise normal visual stimulus and is typified by the inability to recognize familiar objects or faces. This is distinct from blindness, which is a lack of sensory input to the brain due to damage to the eye, optic nerve, or the primary visual cortex. Visual agnosia is often due to stroke affecting the posterior occipital and/or temporal lobe(s) in the brain. The specific dysfunctions vary depending on the type of agnosia. Some sufferers are unable to copy drawings but are able to manipulate objects with good dexterity. Commonly, patients can name the object, here a tea cup, categorize it, but cannot describe its function; or the reverse, be able to drink from it appropriately but not know its name or describe its uses. Lesion studies clearly demonstrate that even crystallized objects, your left foot, or here a tea cup, are not “things” in long-term memory but are concepts constructed from multiple brain modules at the moment of perception (Farah, 1999).

Once, ten years ago, at a Sunday-afternoon party in some apartment that she remembered now as being labyrinthine, although it probably had only four bedrooms, as opposed to the place she shared with her brother and her father that had two, Mike Shea had seized her by the wrist and pulled her into a dim room and plastered his mouth against hers before she could catch her breath. She had known him since high school, he was part of the crowd she went with then, and he had kissed her once or twice before—she remembered specifically the train station at Fishkill, on a snowy night when they were all coming back from a sledding party—but this was passionate and desperate, he was very drunk, and rough enough to make her push him off if he had not, in the first moment she had come up for air, gently taken off his glasses and placed them on a doilied dresser beside them, and then, in what seemed the same movement, reached behind her to lock the door. It was the odd, drunken gentleness of it, not to mention the snapping hint of danger from the lock, that changed her mind. And after two or three rebukes when he tried to get at the buttons that ran up the back of her dress, she thought, Why not, and although her acquiescence seemed to slow him down a bit, as if he was uncertain of the next step, she was enjoying herself enough by then to undo the last button without prompting and then to pull her bare shoulder and arm up out of the dress—first one then the other—and to pull dress and slip (she didn’t wear a bra, no need) down to her waist in a single gesture. And then—was it just the pleasure of the material against her bare flesh, his shirt front, her wool?—she slowly pushed dress and slip and garter belt and stockings down over her narrow hips until they fell to her feet. And then she stepped out of her shoes. (“Even the shoes?” the priest had whispered in the confessional the following Saturday, as if it was more than he could bear, or imagine—as if, she thought later, he was ready to send her to perdition or ask her for a date.)

Turning Rejection Around What if your friendly, hopeful conversation starter is not met with signals of approval or interest? If the person you approach is fidgety, avoids eye contact, appears uneasy, and exhibits none of the signals of welcome, chances are he or she is not interested in interaction—at least not at that moment. The first thing to do is slow down. Be patient, and give the person time to relax with you. If you present yourself as relaxed and open to whatever develops (whether a good conversation, a valuable working relationship, even friendship or romance), your companion may in time relax too. Use your verbal skills to create an interesting conversation and a sense of ease to break the tension. Don’t pressure yourself to be able to define a relationship from the first meeting. Keep your expectations general, and remember the playfulness factor. Enjoy someone’s company with no strings attached. Don’t fabricate obligations where none exist. It may take several conversations for a relationship to develop. If you had hoped for romance but the feelings appear not to be reciprocated, switch your interest to friendship, which has its own rich rewards. What if you are outright rejected? Rejection at any point—at first meeting, during a date, or well into a relationship—can be painful and difficult for most of us. But there are ways to prevent it from being an all-out failure. One thing I like to tell my clients is that the Chinese word for failure can be interpreted to mean “opportunity.” And opportunities, after all, are there for the taking. It all depends on how you perceive things. There is a technique you can borrow from salespeople to counter your feelings of rejection. High-earning salespeople know that you can’t succeed without being turned down at least occasionally. Some even look forward to rejection, because they know that being turned down this time brings them that much closer to succeeding next time around. They may even learn something in the process. So keep this in mind as you experiment with your new, social self: Hearing a no now may actually bring you closer to the bigger and better yes that is soon to happen! Apply this idea as you practice interacting: Being turned down at any point in the process helps you to learn a little more—about how to approach a stranger, have a conversation, make plans, go on a date, or move toward intimacy. If you learn something positive from the experience, you can bring that with you into your next social situation. Just as in sales, the payoff in either romance or friendship is worth far more than the possible downfall or minor setback of being turned down. A note on self-esteem: Rejection can hurt, but it certainly does not have to be devastating. It’s okay to feel disappointed when we do not get the reaction we want. But all too often, people overemphasize the importance or meaning of rejection—especially where fairly superficial interactions such as a first meeting or casual date are concerned. Here are some tips to keep rejection in perspective: -Don’t overthink it. Overanalysis will only increase your anxiety. -Keep the feelings of disappointment specific to the rejection situation at hand. Don’t say, “No one ever wants to talk to me.” Say, “Too bad the chemistry wasn’t right for both of us.” -Learn from the experience. Ask yourself what you might have done differently, if anything, but then move on. Don’t beat yourself up about it. If those thoughts start, use your thought-stopping techniques (p. 138) to control them. -Use your “Adult” to look objectively at what happened. Remember, rejecting your offer of conversation or an evening out does not mean rejecting your whole “being.” You must continue to believe that you have something to offer, and that there are open, available people who would like to get to know you.

You look as if you’ve just lost your best friend.” Eve took a place beside Jenny on this observation, which leavened Jenny’s sense of desolation with a spike of resentment. “With all my family around me, how could I possibly be in want of companionship?” Eve watched their mutual siblings stepping through a minuet while their brother Valentine held forth at the piano. “The same way I can long to dance while the minuet plays all around me.” Marriage had settled Eve, and impending motherhood had only honed her already formidable instincts. “You’re admiring your husband, Lady Deene, even when you can’t dance with him.” “He’s promised me a waltz, though Valentine will probably find one to play at the speed of a dirge.” She fell silent for a moment as the dancers one-two-three’d around the space created by the music room and an adjoining parlor. “You would make a wonderful mother, Jenny.” The worst pain was not in the words Eve offered, but the combination of pleading and pity with which she offered them. “Becoming a mother usually contemplates becoming a wife first, and I’ve no wish to wed some man for the sole purpose of bearing his babies.” Not the sole purpose… As the dancers twirled and smiled, it occurred to Jenny that Victor had made her promise not to stop painting, but he hadn’t said anything specific about eschewing motherhood. Had he? Another pause in the conversation, while the music played on. Eve, however, was notably tenacious, so Jenny waited for the next salvo, and Eve did not disappoint. “You look at Bernward the way I look at Deene, the way Maggie looks at Benjamin, the way—” “Louisa looks at Joseph, I suppose.” And Sophie at her baron too, of course. They needn’t start on how the Windham brothers regarded their respective wives. “Louisa’s gaze is a touch more voracious. I was going to say, the way Mama looks at Papa.” Ouch. Ouch, indeed. The duke and duchess turned down the room with the grace of a more elegant age, and yet, their gazes spoke volumes about the sheer pleasure of sharing a dance. Jenny stated the obvious as matter-of-factly as possible. “Their Graces dance beautifully.” Eve’s feet were propped on a hassock. She wiggled her toes in time with the music, the left and right foot partnering each other. “Bernward also dances quite well.” Elijah was dancing with Valentine’s lady, Ellen’s preferred partner being ensconced at the keyboard, as usual. “Bernward is dancing carefully, lest Valentine take exception.” Eve twitched her skirts. “Bernward is dancing with one eye on you, you ninnyhammer, and with the certain knowledge that all three of our brothers are waiting for him to come over here and get you to stand up with him. How many more times do you think you can check on the punch bowl between sets without Bernward taking insult?” Check

There was a small, strange moment during which I had this feeling that someone was filming me, which was ridiculous, but it was that specific—”there’s a camera on me”—and then some hard ancient pushed-down thing, a thing I’d felt or thought or feared a long time ago, something I’d since managed to sheathe in an imaginary scabbard inside myself, erupted through its casing like a bursting cyst. I had to really struggle to recover. Something was dislodging itself, as from a cavern inside my body or brain, and this situation seemed so divorced from waking reality that my own dimensions lost their power to persuade. I craned my great head and saw all that yellow-brown plastic catch the light, little pills glinting like ammunition, and then my brain went to work, juggling and generating several internal voices at once: someone’s filming this; this isn’t real; whoever Sean is, it’s not who I think he is; all the details I think I know about things are lies; somebody is trying to see what I’ll do when I run across these bottles; this is a test but there won’t be any grade later; the tape is rolling but I’m never going to see the tape. It is a terrible thing to feel trapped within a movie whose plot twists are senseless. This is why people cry at the movies: because everybody’s doomed. No one in a movie can help themselves in any way. Their fate has already staked its claim on them from the moment they appear onscreen. I looked away; I looked away. Held myself steady for a second and then got back to the work of the cleaning, shaking free of the crazy feelings, and I felt the corners of my mouth, half smiling. Most people can clean their bathroom cabinets without waking up any traumatic memories. Not me, not yet, I guess. But as Dave the art therapist told me once when he found me sulking: it’s not so bad to be special. My journey, he said, was longer and slower. He looked me in the eyes, which impressed me, and told me that my good fortune was to learn what special really meant.

Where is your wife Sarah? It could be inferred from the angel’s question that it was unusual for Sarah not to be there—either in a serving capacity or joining them in the meal (there is no evidence of women eating separately in the ancient world). It could also be inferred from Abraham’s curt response (“there, in the tent”) that this was not just the circumstance of the moment and that she could be sent for. These are not necessary inferences, but there is a possibility that something is indicated here that was transparent to the Israelite reader, yet elusive to us. That is, it is possible that Sarah has had to retreat to the tent and is now confined there—that she has suddenly, much to her shock and consternation, become “indisposed.” Menstruation rendered a woman unclean in the ancient world and would have prohibited her from social contact and from food preparation and serving. The text specifically indicates that she had already gone through menopause (v. 11), but if she were to bear a child, her period would need to restart. The timing would have to be precise here. In v. 6 Abraham asked Sarah to bake some bread, an activity often forbidden to menstruating women in Abraham’s time, so at that point her period had not begun. Yet she would not be confined to her tent unless she actually had her period. If this is the issue, she experienced the onset of her period as dinner is being served. We know even from the Biblical narratives that menstruating women were at times confined to their tents (cf. 31:34–35). This view is also attested in the ancient Near East. Though somewhat speculative, this line of thinking would explain why the announcement that Sarah would bear a child is introduced by a question concerning Sarah’s whereabouts, leading the somewhat embarrassed Abraham to offer the euphemistic explanation that she is “in the tent” as a way of explaining that she is indisposed (note our modern euphemism, “it’s that time of the month”). One could almost imagine a transitional, “Indeed, and that is just the beginning . . .” It would have constituted a remarkable sign of the resumption of her fertility.

FOR A VERY LONG MOMENT WE ALL STOOD IN A FROZEN tableau of hostile indecision. Debs and Recht stared at each other, Deke breathed through his mouth, and I tried to decide whether assisting the fallen woman was technically within my jurisdiction as a blood-spatter analyst. And then there was a clatter at the front door and I heard a minor commotion behind me. “Shit,” a male voice called out, quite clearly. “Shit, shit, shit.” It was impossible to argue with the general sentiment, but nevertheless I turned around to see if I could gather some specifics. A middle-aged man hurried toward us. He was tall and soft-looking and had close-cropped gray hair and a matching beard. He slid to one knee beside Mrs. Aldovar and picked up her hand. “Hey, Emily? Honey?” he said as he patted her hand. “Come on, Em.” I

Say It So You Lift Your Spirits: Even non-Scandinavians and optimists can feel their moods dampen during the dark of night. Luckily there are some easy ways to lift your spirits. Here are three: 1. When describing something in the past, what role do you play in the story? Are more of your most retold stories anchored by a positively or a negatively felt incidents? Those who are most resilient, energetic, caring and involved with others tend to link their stories to redemptive themes. Those who are plagued by down moods often mark their stories with what went wrong and don't include a redeeming detail. These narrative themes affect our choices -- what we think we have to choose from -- and how others see us. 2. We each have many personalities inside us. Some situations enable us to use our best talents and display our best side. Instead of attempting to be a "virtuoso juggler" as many women do, discover the specific situations where you thrive. When you can identify those moments you are better able, like a defensive driver, to see potential danger farther ahead where situations or individuals spark your discomfort or worse. Conversely, knowing where you shine (temperament and talent) means you can make smarter choices about how you work and live -- and with whom. While Marcus Buckingham's book is intended for women, I know three male friends who have found it helpful in how they seek the situations that best serve them -- professionally, personally and socially. 3. We each have a set point along the continuum of pessimistic to optimistic. After winning the lottery or experiencing the death of a loved one, we eventually return to that set point.