Spontaneous Plans Quotes

Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.

Plans are invitation to disappointment.

I guess sometimes the greatest memories are made in the most unlikely of places, further proof that spontaneity is more rewarding than a meticulously planned life.

But isn't this a dance? Isn't all of this a dance? Isn't that what we do with words? Isn't that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it's choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest -- the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

You can devise all the plans in the world, but if you don’t welcome spontaneity; you will just disappoint yourself.

There was something horribly depressing, she felt, about watching the weather report. That life could be planned like the perfect summer picnic drained it of spontaneity.

Embrace spontaneity, never be afraid to try new things or discover new paths. Don't let over-planning and routine poison your life.

I like your…outfit.” His eyes took in the naked flesh that was visible below the edge of the shirttail. “I like your outfit too. You’re looking awfully casual this morning, Professor.” He leaned forward and gave her a heated look. “Miss Mitchell, you’re lucky I decided to put on any clothes at all.” He chuckled at her fierce blush and disappeared into the kitchen. Oh, gods of all virgins who are planning to have sex with their sex-god (no blasphemy intended) boyfriends, please don’t let me spontaneously combust when he finally takes me to bed. I really need a Gabriel-induced orgasm, especially after last night. Please. Please. Pretty please…

Every man should make the effort occasionally to throw the rule book out,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if the relationship is BDSM or vanilla – every man should go out of his way to make the woman in his world feel desired and wanted. It’s worth the effort and planning to occasionally appear spontaneous.

I don't know, Mom. Now that I'm about to graduate, I plan on being more spontaneous." Mom opened her eyes and burst out laughing. I said, "Got spontaneity on the calendar for next Tuesday.

Spontaneity is one of the joys of existence, especially if you prepare for it in advance.

A good plan allows for plenty of spontaneity and room for change - but without a plan at all, it's difficult to work toward something significant over time.

Real love isn't just a euphoric, spontaneous feeling—it's a deliberate choice—a plan to love each other for better and worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health.

But isn’t this a dance? Isn’t all of this a dance? Isn’t that what we do with words? Isn’t that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it’s choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest—the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

But spontaneity is not by any means a blind, disorderly urge, a mere power of caprice. A philosophy restricted to the alternatives of conventional language has no way of conceiving an intelligence which does not work according to plan, according to a one-at-a-time order of thought. Yet the concrete evidence of such an intelligence is right to hand in our own thoughtlessly ordered bodies. For the Tao does not 'know' how it produces the universe just as we do not 'know' how we construct our brains.

I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible. It’s best that I be as clear about this as I can—I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course). If you can see things this way (or at least try to), we can work together comfortably. If, on the other hand, you decide I’m crazy, that’s fine. You won’t be the first.

Many people wake up in middle age with the realization that in their youthful romances and early marriages, they were drawn to precisely the kinds of partners they were trying to avoid. All too often we marry stand-ins for our alchoholic fathers, shadowy replacements for our angry mothers, surrogates with whom we try to work out our unfinished childhood dramas. Or we fall in love with someone who incarnates the virtues or vices opposite our own. An orderly man who plans his days marries a spontaneous woman who lets things lie where they fall, lives in the moment, and is perpetually late for appointments.

In my view, prescribing antidepressant drugs is too often a quick and easy substitute for developing treatment plans that address the totality of health concerns and lifestyle factors that have an impact on wellness, including emotional wellness.

Frequently, beauty is playful like dancing sunlight, it cannot be predicted, and in the most unlikely scene or situation can suddenly emerge. This spontaneity and playfulness often subverts our self-importance and throws our plans and intentions into disarray. Without intending it, we find ourselves coming alive with a sense of celebration and delight. The pedestrian sequence of a working day breaks, a new door opens and the heart recognizes the silent majesty of the ordinary. The things we never notice, like health, friends and love, emerge from their subdued presence and stand out in their true radiance as gifts we could never have earned or achieved. Beauty

I have seen travel plans happen only when they were made overnight.

Rule #1 of Traveling- Don't even think of answering questions that contain the word "plan"?

I thought: But isn’t this a dance? Isn’t all of this a dance? Isn’t that what we do with words? Isn’t that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it’s choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest—the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

There is an inner working of intelligence behind the movement of energy in the world. This natural or organic intelligence is conscious and sure in its plan and method, not by choice or intention but intuitively and spontaneously, as a movement of pure beauty and harmony.

..the best strategy for giving is a two-fold approach: a basic plan combined with a willingness to consider spontaneous giving when unique opportunities arise.

...and it is generally understood that a party hardly ever goes the way it is planned or intended. This last, of course, excludes, those dismal slave parties, whipped and controlled and dominated, given by an ogreish professional hostess. These are not parties at all but acts and demonstrations, about as spontaneous as peristalsis and as interesting as it's end product.

The line between spontaneity and stupidity can be very thin.

He does always say that sound planning is the backbone of spontaneity.

Spontaneity is overrated. Movies and television shows would like us to believe that life is better for party goers who dare to jump into pools with their clothes on. But behind the scenes, it's all carefully scripted. The water is the right temperature. Lighting and angles are carefully considered. Dialogue is memorized. And that's why it's so appealing - because someone carefully planned it all. Once you realize this, life gets a whole lot simpler.

that younger people are so used to text-based communications, where they have time to gather their thoughts and precisely plan what they are going to say, that they are losing their ability to have spontaneous conversation. She argues that the muscles in our brain that help us with spontaneous conversation are getting less exercise in the text-filled world, so our skills are declining. When we did the large focus group where we split the room by generation—kids on the left, parents on the right—a strange thing happened. Before the show started, we noticed that the parents’ side of the room was full of chatter. People were talking to one another and asking how they had ended up at the event and getting to know people. On the kids’ side, everyone was buried in their phones and not talking to anyone around them.

VACILANDO v. Traveling when the experience itself is more important than the destination. The best laid plans are not usually conducive to spontaneous adventures. Not sure where to go? Great! Throw the map and the plans out the window, and follow your heart for a while instead. verb

The elite gets things wrong, says Douglas Carswell in The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy, ‘because they endlessly seek to govern by design a world that is best organized spontaneously from below’. Public policy failures stem from planners’ excessive faith in deliberate design. ‘They consistently underrate the merits of spontaneous, organic arrangements, and fail to recognize that the best plan is often not to have one.

Accept myself, and expect more of myself. Give myself limits to give myself freedom. Make people happier by acknowledging that they’re not feeling happy. Plan ahead to be spontaneous; only with careful preparation do I feel carefree. Accomplish more by working less. Happiness doesn’t always make me feel happy. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection. It’s very hard to make things easier. My material desires have a spiritual aspect. Hell is other people. Heaven is other people. What was “happiness,” anyway, and was it even possible to make myself happier?

In the end she read it. It seemed to me that she shrank, as if I had unloaded a weight on her. And I had the impression that she was making a painful effort to free from some corner of herself the old Lila, the one who read, wrote, drew, made plans spontaneously—the naturalness of an instinctive reaction. When she succeeded, everything seemed pleasantly light.

Reagan’s activity in foreign affairs is not an improvisation, is not a chain of spontaneous initiatives, but a carefully planned and coordinated action, something of an integrated front of action under the slogans of world advocacy of the idea of freedom.

I was drawn to him because of his spontaneity” turns into “Why can’t you make a plan and stick to it?” “I fell for her outgoing personality and great sense of humor” turns into “Do you really have to talk to every single person at the party? And were you flirting with that guy?

We didn’t see anyone that day. We had no expectations. Everything was spontaneous. There wasn’t a single moment of stress. We laughed like crazy all afternoon – though I couldn’t tell you what about. And there was definitely something in the air – call it magic if you like – because that was the happiest Christmas any of us could remember, which makes me think that perhaps, like luck, magic is something we can make for ourselves. It isn’t something you can buy. It doesn’t come as standard. And you don’t need to plan, or to overspend, or to wrack your brains trying to come up with some extraordinary way to celebrate. Because sometimes it’s the little things that bring us the greatest pleasure.

On 11 September 2012 crowds of friendly locals in Kabul, Afghanistan, were chanting the usual ‘Death to America’ slogans. At the same time American flags were torched from London to Sydney. And in Benghazi, Libya, a group of ‘spontaneous protesters’ arrived at the US consulate with rocket-propelled grenades and savagely murdered the US ambassador. In Washington, members of the Obama administration were, as we have already seen, showing that they weren’t taking any of this personally. It wasn’t about them and it certainly wasn’t about their ambassador, who had in fact been murdered by terrorists in a pre-planned attack. The administration was still claiming all this was caused by an excerpt from an amateur film which had been up on YouTube for weeks.

When we notice someone suffering and immediately decide to help them, it “says” to our associates, “See how easily I’m moved to help others? When people near me are suffering, I can’t help wanting to make their situation better; it’s just who I am.” This is a profoundly useful trait to advertise; it means you’ll make a great ally. The more time other people spend around you, the more they’ll get to partake of your spontaneous good will. It’s this function of charity that accounts for a lot of the puzzles we discussed earlier. For one, it explains why we donate so opportunistically. Most donors don’t sketch out a giving strategy and follow through as though it were a business plan.

Some of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen, and some of the greatest folks I’ve ever met, were in places that were never on my radar before I left home.

spontaneity is more rewarding than a meticulously planned life.

It's a sight I plan to remember, this spontaneous unity when faced with disaster.

Plan for the worst. Hope for the best. Bismillah welcome spontaneous :)

One cannot make plans to acquire happiness; it has to be unbidden and spontaneous only than it can give us peace.

I am when i act with spontaneity, improvisation on a planned life.

The most exciting roads I’ve ever traversed, the best meals I’ve ever eaten and the most wonderful accommodations I’ve ever stayed in were discovered during the ride, not beforehand.

The genocide [in Rwanda] was not a spontaneous eruption of tribal hatred, it was planned by people wanting to keep power. There was a long government-led hat campaign against the Tutsis.

Rave emerged spontaneously, neither planned or designed. It was a genuine grass roots phenomenon, egalitarian and welcoming. Thousands danced in fields all through the night, out under the moon, in order to achieve a trance-like, ecstatic state. It was a form of communion and it was pagan as fuck. Needless to say, it couldn't last. The press and the government, appalled by such non-violent having-of-a-good-time, moved quickly to crush it. Ultimately, though, they weren't quick enough. Rave grew too big too quickly, and it attracted the attention of those who felt they could make money from such events. Once this happened and the superstar DJs and the superclubs arrived, the focus shifted from the raw crowd back to the event itself. Rave's spell was broken.

Revolution must be distinguished from revolt, coup d’état, palace takeover. A coup or a palace takeover may be planned, but a revolution—never. Its outbreak, the hour of that outbreak, takes everyone, even those who have been striving for it, unawares. They stand amazed at the spontaneity that appears suddenly and destroys everything in its path. It demolishes so ruthlessly that in the end it may annihilate the ideals that called it into being.

I might have liked to share a dance with you. If I may be so bold to say.   I thought: But isn’t this a dance? Isn’t all of this a dance? Isn’t that what we do with words? Isn’t that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it’s choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest—the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends. I

A warm breeze scudded through the crowd, perfumed with celebration: burnt sugar, the sourness of beer, the warm, golden scent of hay. Here was life in all its sweetness, surprising her when she least expected it, twisting forethought into revelation, reminding her that plans sometimes proved unnecessary, that occasionally everything came together spontaneously, as though the universe were an ever-resolving pattern that wanted to please her in the end.

the price signals of supply and demand provided the only means yet discovered of coordinating the desires and actions of millions of freely acting individuals, without government compulsion, in what Hayek called a “spontaneous order.

Spontaneity vs. Fixed Plans For the young, traveling without fixed plans is half the fun; for the old, it is half the terror. The tourist is perpetually old; the adventurer, forever young. We are enfeebled by final destinations; renewed by lingering journeys.

Naturalness has something to do with our wildness, beyond the civilizing influences of the everyday mind. The everyday mind fabricates. It plans. It manages. It interprets and seeks meaning. Its energy is tight. Naturalness is the part of the self that is unconstructed, spontaneous, free, unmade, and without plans or agendas. It is a part of you that is at ease in your own skin, and it does not resist being present. This part of you is aligned with the realm of the body and can be felt there. The body is, after all, an animal.

The charm of a city, now we come to it, is not unlike the charm of flowers. It partly depends on seeing time creep across it. Charm needs to be fleeting. Nothing could be less palatable than a museum-city propped up by prosthetic devices of concrete. Paris is not in danger of becoming a museum-city, thanks to the restlessness and greed of promoters. Yet their frenzy to demolish everything is less objectionable than their clumsy determination to raise housing projects that cannot function without the constant presence of an armed police force… All these banks, all these glass buildings, all these mirrored facades are the mark of a reflected image. You can no longer see what’s happening inside, you become afraid of the shadows. The city becomes abstract, reflecting only itself. People almost seem out of place in this landscape. Before the war, there were nooks and crannies everywhere. Now people are trying to eliminate shadows, straighten streets. You can’t even put up a shed without the personal authorization of the minister of culture. When I was growing up, my grandpa built a small house. Next door the youth club had some sheds, down the street the local painter stored his equipment under some stretched-out tarpaulin. Everybody added on. It was telescopic. A game. Life wasn’t so expensive — ordinary people would live and work in Paris. You’d see masons in blue overalls, painters in white ones, carpenters in corduroys. Nowadays, just look at Faubourg Sainte-Antoine — traditional craftsmen are being pushed out by advertising agencies and design galleries. Land is so expensive that only huge companies can build, and they have to build ‘huge’ in order to make it profitable. Cubes, squares, rectangles. Everything straight, everything even. Clutter has been outlawed. But a little disorder is a good thing. That’s where poetry lurks. We never needed promoters to provide us, in their generosity, with ‘leisure spaces.’ We invented our own. Today there’s no question of putting your own space together, the planning commission will shut it down. Spontaneity has been outlawed. People are afraid of life.

Oh, gods of all virgins who are planning to have sex with their sex-god (no blasphemy intended) boyfriends, please don’t let me spontaneously combust when he finally takes me to bed. I really need a Gabriel-induced orgasm, especially after last night. Please. Please. Pretty please…

Be spontaneous! When was the last time you did something completely out of character? You have to open yourself to trying new things, especially those that you may previously never have thought of doing, or had been too hesitant to attempt. This is how you open doors of opportunity for positive growth. When we try new experiences, we allow ourselves to feel again. Everything in life can’t be planned. Sometimes you just need to let your hair down and live in the moment. Being spontaneous will keep your life interesting and exciting. So instead of saying no, start saying yes!

We drive northwest for an hour to Michigan. Michigan is pretty much like rural New Jersey, except it's flattened out and well planned and pristine. Michigan would be New Jersey if you ran over it with a steamroller, excavated everything, and then put it back in neat rows with lots of space for everyone to move around in. It is practical and pretty, and it's a place where nothing spontaneous happens. This is a place where nothing happens unless people sit around and have a meeting about it first. The people are mostly white, which is weird, and the squirrels are black, also weird.

There is no more precious currency than the unfettered liberty to explore while engaged in an "Idea Economy". You cannot centrally plan the "Idea Economy" any more than you can plan fun or spontaneity. Regulations are restraints in an "Idea Economy". The entrepreneur is either free to experiment or not.

If you want to really live, you have to be spontaneous. Life is spontaneous. Be available to this moment. Allow this moment to lead you. Don’t plan for it otherwise you will live in empty gestures, obsessed with dead routine, just thinking as if, if you plan your life completely, some day or other the great happening is going to result.

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

Lefebvre’s concept of heterotopia (radically different from that of Foucault) delineates liminal social spaces of possibility where “something different” is not only possible, but foundational for the defining of revolutionary trajectories. This “something different” does not necessarily arise out of a conscious plan, but more simply out of what people do, feel, sense, and come to articulate as they seek meaning in their daily lives. Such practices create heterotopic spaces all over the place. We do not have to wait upon the grand revolution to constitute such spaces. Lefebvre’s theory of a revolutionary movement is the other way round: the spontaneous coming together in a moment of “irruption,” when disparate heterotopic groups suddenly see, if only for a fleeting moment, the possibilities of collective action to create something radically different. That coming together is symbolized by Lefebvre in the quest for centrality. The traditional centrality of the city has been destroyed. But there is an impulse towards and longing for its restoration which arises again and again to produce far-reaching political effects, as we have recently seen in the central squares of Cairo, Madrid, Athens, Barcelona, and even Madison, Wisconsin and now Zuccotti Park in New York City. How else and where else can we come together to articulate our collective cries and demands?

But isn’t this a dance? Isn’t all of this a dance? Isn’t that what we do with words? Isn’t that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it’s choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest—the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

But isn't this a dance? Isn't all of this a dance? Isn't that what we do with words? Isn't that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of its choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest- the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

But isn't this a dance? Isn't all of this a dance? Isn't that what we do with words? Isn't that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave them to chance? Some of it's choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest--the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

It does not come naturally to me to be spontaneous, and admittedly that is the only way in which it can come. As soon as you have planned to do something spontaneously, you actually haven’t. Why wouldn’t you choose to plan something ahead of time rather than ‘see how it goes’? I can tell you how it will go, my friend – not as well as it would have if you had planned it.

It seemed that his spontaneous roaming was a well-planned learning expedition. I suspect that his rebellion and degeneracy were also premeditated. Apparently, they were a kind of intellectual rule, akin to a monastic rule, designed to lead to enlightenment. Unfortunately, his study curriculum also involved a significant degree of self-destruction as the fastest path to self-discovery.

I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible. It’s best that I be as clear about this as I can—I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves

The central values by which most men have lived, in a great many lands at a great many times—these values, almost if not entirely universal, are not always harmonious with each other. Some are, some are not. Men have always craved for liberty, security, equality, happiness, justice, knowledge, and so on. But complete liberty is not compatible with complete equality—if men were wholly free, the wolves would be free to eat the sheep. Perfect equality means that human liberties must be restrained so that the ablest and the most gifted are not permitted to advance beyond those who would inevitably lose if there were competition. Security, and indeed freedoms, cannot be preserved if freedom to subvert them is permitted. Indeed, not everyone seeks security or peace, otherwise some would not have sought glory in battle or in dangerous sports. Justice has always been a human ideal, but it is not fully compatible with mercy. Creative imagination and spontaneity, splendid in themselves, cannot be fully reconciled with the need for planning, organization, careful and responsible calculation. Knowledge, the pursuit of truth—the noblest of aims—cannot be fully reconciled with the happiness or the freedom that men desire, for even if I know that I have some incurable disease this will not make me happier or freer. I must always choose: between peace and excitement, or knowledge and blissful ignorance. And so on... If these ultimate human values by which we live are to be pursued, then compromises, trade-offs, arrangements have to be made if the worst is not to happen. So much liberty for so much equality, so much individual self-expression for so much security, so much justice for so much compassion.

He neither knew where he was, nor whither he was going, he could have no plan because he could foresee nothing, everything happening was inevitable and unexpected, he was an act in a whole chain of acts; and, though his movements had to conform to those of others, spontaneously, as part of some infinitely flexible plan, which he could not comprehend very clearly even in regard to its immediate object, he could rely on no one but himself.

Eating for us was spontaneous and based solely on what mood we were in when we were 5 minutes away from eating time. But my life was so busy, what could I do about it? As luck would have it, the email from FlyLady this morning was about Menu Planning. I remembered reading something in her book about it. This email was about spontaneous eating leading to an unhealthy lifestyle. It’s like FlyLady was a “fly” on my wall with special insight into my life! Whoa-oh!

In her book Alone Together, MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle convincingly makes the case that younger people are so used to text-based communications, where they have time to gather their thoughts and precisely plan what they are going to say, that they are losing their ability to have spontaneous conversation. She argues that the muscles in our brain that help us with spontaneous conversation are getting less exercise in the text-filled world, so our skills are declining.

Even as we improved as teachers and as students, the children continued to have raging impulse-control problems; the very thing that made them spontaneous and immediate could also make them mean...The other teachers and I had dreamed of taking the kids on field trips, to remove them from the grip and tangle of life -- of a day on the beach; of sandy, sacramental hot dogs; of playing in the ocean, making sculptures, and drawing with sticks. But we could barely manage them in class.

There are two types of women in particular who inspire my envy. The first is an ebullient one, happily engaged from morning until night, able to enjoy things like group lunches, spontaneous vacations to Cartagena with gangs of girlfriends, and planning other people's baby showers. The bigger existential questions don't seem to plague her, and she can clean her stove without ever once thinking, What's the point? It just gets dirty again anyway and then we die. Why don't I just stick my head...

The Institute had explored the behavior of a great variety of complex systems—corporations in the marketplace, neurons in the human brain, enzyme cascades within a single cell, the group behavior of migratory birds—systems so complex that it had not been possible to study them before the advent of the computer. The research was new, and the findings were surprising. It did not take long before the scientists began to notice that complex systems showed certain common behaviors. They started to think of these behaviors as characteristic of all complex systems. They realized that these behaviors could not be explained by analyzing the components of the systems. The time-honored scientific approach of reductionism—taking the watch apart to see how it worked—didn’t get you anywhere with complex systems, because the interesting behavior seemed to arise from the spontaneous interaction of the components. The behavior wasn’t planned or directed; it just happened. Such behavior was therefore called “self-organizing.

The dark, uncontrolled, primordial part of a person informs them that they are alive. Living free entails accepting a slew of wildness. All wild animals act by instinct. Human instinct and intuitive thought allow us to gain insights and new beliefs, which human rationalization confirms. Logic and intuition work well together, if both sources of mental visualization are drawn from when most apropos. Planning carefully should never replace the spirit for improvisation. Acting recklessly is no substitute for measured evaluation. Nonetheless, a dash of craziness makes most people more endearing than the calculating banker whose ledger driven life causes them to see life in terms of money pouches. Letting go of all conceptions of what is, and dreaming what could be, is a form of delusion. Knowing the difference between fantasy and reality does not mean that a person should disdain imaginative acts. I need to recognize when it is time to stop woolgathering and come back down to reality and work in the pebbly bedrock of the here and now.

Since it’s not our conscious mind that produces dreams, it’s therefore our unconscious mind. Our conscious mind experiences the dream, but it’s not the author of the dream. Dreams prove that we have two minds, which is astounding in itself – how much consideration do people give to the fact that they have a second mind, which they know practically nothing about? – and also prove that our second mind has unparalleled creativity and power, on a par with any god. The average person, if they had to sit down every day and plan a dream, including how to make a dreamworld, how to populate it with people and give them all things to say and do, would soon find it a terrible, daunting chore. They wouldn’t have any idea how to go about the task. Yet the second mind – the unconscious mind – performs the task effortlessly, on the hoof, night after night. It doesn’t think twice about it. It just does it. It spontaneously creates a world and people to inhabit it and play out complicated stories about deeply personal issues that haunt our consciousness.

would have had it begin no other way and certainly not with a long, titillating courting process, during which we slowly revealed what we already knew was inside us. All that pretending that it was something else is like swimming through currents of lies, self-delusion and hypocrisy. Besides, there is no real excitement without spontaneity. Planning dulls the senses and the wonder of discovery. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are wrong there. Being prepared isn’t always best. And while surprise isn’t always best, it’s so often better.

This change in communication may have some side effects, though. In her book Alone Together, MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle convincingly makes the case that younger people are so used to text-based communications, where they have time to gather their thoughts and precisely plan what they are going to say, that they are losing their ability to have spontaneous conversation. She argues that the muscles in our brain that help us with spontaneous conversation are getting less exercise in the text-filled world, so our skills are declining. When we did the large focus group where we split the room by generation—kids on the left, parents on the right—a strange thing happened. Before the show started, we noticed that the parents’ side of the room was full of chatter. People were talking to one another and asking how they had ended up at the event and getting to know people. On the kids’ side, everyone was buried in their phones and not talking to anyone around them. It made me wonder whether our ability and desire to interact with strangers is another muscle that risks atrophy in the smartphone world. You

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert talks about this phenomenon in his 2006 book, Stumbling on Happiness. “The greatest achievement of the human brain is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist in the realm of the real,” he writes. “The frontal lobe—the last part of the human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age—is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and experience the future before it happens.” This time travel into the future—otherwise known as anticipation—accounts for a big chunk of the happiness gleaned from any event. As you look forward to something good that is about to happen, you experience some of the same joy you would in the moment. The major difference is that the joy can last much longer. Consider that ritual of opening presents on Christmas morning. The reality of it seldom takes more than an hour, but the anticipation of seeing the presents under the tree can stretch out the joy for weeks. One study by several Dutch researchers, published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life in 2010, found that vacationers were happier than people who didn’t take holiday trips. That finding is hardly surprising. What is surprising is the timing of the happiness boost. It didn’t come after the vacations, with tourists bathing in their post-trip glow. It didn’t even come through that strongly during the trips, as the joy of travel mingled with the stress of travel: jet lag, stomach woes, and train conductors giving garbled instructions over the loudspeaker. The happiness boost came before the trips, stretching out for as much as two months beforehand as the holiday goers imagined their excursions. A vision of little umbrella-sporting drinks can create the happiness rush of a mini vacation even in the midst of a rainy commute. On some level, people instinctively know this. In one study that Gilbert writes about, people were told they’d won a free dinner at a fancy French restaurant. When asked when they’d like to schedule the dinner, most people didn’t want to head over right then. They wanted to wait, on average, over a week—to savor the anticipation of their fine fare and to optimize their pleasure. The experiencing self seldom encounters pure bliss, but the anticipating self never has to go to the bathroom in the middle of a favorite band’s concert and is never cold from too much air conditioning in that theater showing the sequel to a favorite flick. Planning a few anchor events for a weekend guarantees you pleasure because—even if all goes wrong in the moment—you still will have derived some pleasure from the anticipation. I love spontaneity and embrace it when it happens, but I cannot bank my pleasure solely on it. If you wait until Saturday morning to make your plans for the weekend, you will spend a chunk of your Saturday working on such plans, rather than anticipating your fun. Hitting the weekend without a plan means you may not get to do what you want. You’ll use up energy in negotiations with other family members. You’ll start late and the museum will close when you’ve only been there an hour. Your favorite restaurant will be booked up—and even if, miraculously, you score a table, think of how much more you would have enjoyed the last few days knowing that you’d be eating those seared scallops on Saturday night!

I try to keep most of myself neatly contained off-site. In the home I focus on turning the wheel of the household so we can enjoy a smooth, healthy life without disaster or illness. This involves perpetual planning. For example, I cook seven waffles for Sam every weekend, filled with extra eggs, to be toasted quickly for high-protein breakfasts all week. But such forethought can feel labored, no fun - so I try to balance it out with something spontaneous, maybe an invented breakfast game or a surprising waffle topping. Harris would say mostly I just try to control everything.

I am not a man who plans. I trust existence so much that planning means distrust. I know the existence has helped me up to this moment, and I have never done anything. The next moment also will be taken care of. To me, this trust is real religion.. Living a life of spontaneity without any plan, trusting whatsoever happens is the right thing. And when I say whatsoever, I mean whatsoever, because we don't have any plan, we cannot have any judgment of what happens. If we have a plan, then there is every possibility of disappointment. Our vision is small; existence is infinite. So whatsoever we can decide will be of no significance. In fact, it will create all kinds of hindrances. If existence is going to the south and we plan to go to the north, then there will be a tension between you and existence. This is the cause of so many people around the world living in anxiety, anguish, tension, disappointment, frustration. The reason is, that in the first place they started expecting, hoping, desiring, planning. Existence is not at fault. Existence is not deposing their proposals. Existence is simply going on its own way; and my experience is to just go with existence. I call it the "let-go way.

There was something about those birds in the glass aviary that was foreboding and sad. They could fly, but they had no sky. The one who had escaped- the homing pigeon- was mourned, but shouldn't he have been celebrated? He had freedom; he had escaped his predictable route between Malibu and Bel-Air and was now flying in bigger and brighter skies, with a flight plan that was spontaneous and new. And then there was the girl: I had forced myself to forget her but was only successful for an hour or two, and then she would creep back in, the way a spider returns to a musty corner of a room to spin her web.

Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room. Winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so pantherlike in the movement, something so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eyeteeth long and pointed. But the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organized plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorn through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm, and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity, of anger and hellish rage, which came over the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere his blow could fall, and grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the "ting" of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging. We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us. "You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!" With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor. Realizing the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall. "We have learnt something… much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us. He fears time, he fears want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of the wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he returns.

The last week of shooting, we did a scene in which I drag Amanda Wyss, the sexy, blond actress who played Tina, across the ceiling of her bedroom, a sequence that ultimately became one of the most visceral from the entire Nightmare franchise. Tina’s bedroom was constructed as a revolving set, and before Tina and Freddy did their dance of death, Wes did a few POV shots of Nick Corri (aka Rod) staring at the ceiling in disbelief, then we flipped the room, and the floor became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor and Amanda and I went to work. As was almost always the case when Freddy was chasing after a nubile young girl possessed by her nightmare, Amanda was clad only in her baby-doll nightie. Wes had a creative camera angle planned that he wanted to try, a POV shot from between Amanda’s legs. Amanda, however, wasn’t in the cameramen’s union and wouldn’t legally be allowed to operate the cemera for the shot. Fortunately, Amy Haitkin, our director of photography’s wife, was our film’s focus puller and a gifted camera operator in her own right. Being a good sport, she peeled off her jeans and volunteered to stand in for Amanda. The makeup crew dapped some fake blood onto her thighs, she lay down on the ground, Jacques handed her the camera, I grabbed her ankles, and Wes called, “Action.” After I dragged Amy across the floor/ceiling, I spontaneously blew her a kiss with my blood-covered claw; the fake blood on my blades was viscous, so that when I blew her my kiss of death, the blood webbed between my blades formed a bubble, a happy cinematic accident. The image of her pale, slender, blood-covered legs, Freddy looming over her, straddling the supine adolescent girl, knife fingers dripping, was surreal, erotic, and made for one of the most sexually charged shots of the movie. Unfortunately it got left on the cutting-room floor. If Wes had left it in, the MPAA - who always seemed to have it out for Mr. Craven - would definitely have tagged us with an X rating. You win some, you lose some.

I see in the papers that the singer, Frank Ifield, popular in the fifties, is planning a comeback. I remember reviewing his debut at the Palladium under the insane misapprehension that he was blind. (I had him confused with a blind vocalist who bore a similar name.) I watched agape with admiration while he strolled around the stage with every appearance of knowing where he was going, and I burst into spontaneous applause as he strode down to within a foot of the orchestra pit without the least sign of fear. By the end of his act I was misty with tears at the thought of his courage. I often wonder what he thought when he read the review in which I congratulated him on the gallantry with which he had overcome the handicap of sightlessness.

ominous murmur ran through the legion of onlookers, who had heretofore maintained an uncharacteristic silence. Their resentment was palpable. Five days later Coligny was assassinated, and the streets of Paris ran with blood as the entire Huguenot wedding party was hunted down and slaughtered in one of the most infamous episodes in French history, known today as the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. But this horrific mass murder, which claimed more than five thousand martyrs over the course of a week, was no spontaneous bloodletting. Rather, it was the denouement of a carefully constructed plot that utilized the unsuspecting Margot as both victim and bait to lure Coligny and his faction to their doom, an intrigue planned, instigated, and executed by the one individual in France powerful enough

The first obstacle [to liberal education] is the learning situation itself. What is the ideal learning situation? It is the more or less continuous contact between a student and his teacher, who is another student, more advanced in many ways, but still learning himself. This situation usually does not prevail; in fact, it is extremely rare. Since the immemorial, institutions of learning, especially higher learning, have been established, called „schools“ — and the ambiguity of the term becomes immediately apparent. Institutionalization means ordering activities into certain patters; in the case of learning activities, into classes, schedules, courses, curriculums, examinations, degress, and all the venerable and sometimes ridiculous paraphernalia of academic life. The point is that such institutionalization cannot be avoided: both the gregarious and the rational character of man compel him to impose upon himself laws and regulations. Moreover, the discipline of learning itself seems to require an orderly and planned procedure. And yet we all know how this schedule routine can interfere with the spontaneity of questioning and of leaning and the occurrence of genuine wonderment. A student may even never become aware that there is the possibility of spontaneous learning which depends merely on himself and on nobody and nothing else. Once the institutional character of learning tends to prevail, the goal of liberal education may be completely lost sight of, whatever other goals may be successfully reached. And I repeat, this obstacle is not extraneous to learning. It is prefigured in the methodical and systematic character of exploratory questioning. It has to be faced over and over again.

Stalin was the most audible and powerful spokesman in the campaign against what he contemptuously called uravnilovka (leveling). His hostility - voiced in sarcastic and dismissive terms - was so deep and so clearly enunciated that it rapidly became state policy and social doctrine. He believed in productive results, not through spontaneity or persuasion, but through force, hierarchy, reward, punishment, and above all differential wages. He applied this view to the whole of society. Stalin's anti-egalitarianism was not born of the five-year plan era. He was offended by the very notion and used contemptuous terms such as "fashionable leftists", "blockheads", "petty bourgeois nonsense" and "silly chatter," thus reducing the discussion to a sweeping dismissal of childish, unrealistic, and unserious promoters of equality. The toughness of the delivery evoked laughter of approval from his audience.

Though not true in all cases, people with ADHD often have trouble planning ahead. Planning means organizing a number of different options into a workable game plan and anticipating what will happen in various scenarios. Executive function differences in the ADHD brain often don’t accommodate these common skills. One upside of not being natural planners is that people with ADHD can be really good at going with the flow, making things work in real time. It’s not unusual for a person with ADHD to be attracted to a partner who is a good planner. In courtship, her ability to organize and plan helps to make things happen, and his easygoing nature provides liveliness and spontaneity. They both benefit and thrive. After kids, though, the ADHD partner’s inability to plan becomes a real negative as the organizational demands imposed by taking care of children require that both pitch in to keep life from becoming overwhelming.

It's basically an act of faith, hoping that a small idea will unspool into a bigger whole. Sometimes, in fact often, it doesn't and it just runs out of steam. The hope for me is that it will snowball. the best way to put it is that I have no particular method or technique per se, other than this: I plan nothing, I outline nothing, I start with an idea or an image or a line of dialogue and see where it leads me. Because I never know what the next page will contain, let alone the end of the book, I am perpetually surprised by the course that my characters take. The writing process is as full of surprises and twists for me as the reading experience is for my readers. I love the spontaneity of writing this way, the possibilities left open, the feeling that I am not constrained or committed to any given path. Every day, I am surprised by something. It may not be the most efficient way of writing, but it has served me well thus far.

The intellectual life may be kept clean and healthful if man will live the life of nature and not import into his mind difficulties which are none of his. No man need be perplexed in his speculations. Not less conspicuous is the preponderance of nature over will in all practical life. There is less intention in history than we ascribe to it. We impute deep-laid far-sighted plans to Cæsar and Napoleon; but the best of their power was in nature, not in them. Our life might be much easier and simpler than we make it; that the world might be a happier place than it is; that there is no need of struggle, convulsions, and despairs, of the wringing of the hands and the gnashing of the teeth; that we miscreate our own evil. A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine. No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes is the object. Not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. The world is very empty, and is indebted to this gilding, exalting soul for all its pride. He may see what he maketh. Our dreams are the sequel of our waking knowledge. The visions of the night bear some proportion to the visions of the day. Hideous dreams are exaggerations of the sins of the day. We see our evil affections embodied in bad physiognomies. The same reality pervades all teaching. The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise. If he can communicate himself he can teach, but not you words. He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives. There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; then is a teaching, and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he never quite lose the benefit. The effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. The great man knew not that he was great. It look a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment. But now, every thing he did, even to the lifting of his finger or the eating of bread, looks large, all-related, and is called an institution. We are full of these superstitions of sense, the worship of magnitude. We call the poet inactive, because he is not a president, a merchant, or a porter. We adore an institution, and do not see that it is founded on a thought which we have. But real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a calling, our marriage, our acquisition of an office, and the like, but in a silent thought by the wayside as we walk; in a thought which revises our entire manner of life and says,—‘Thus hast thou done, but it were better thus.

First, READ this book a chapter a day. We suggest at least five days a week for the next seven weeks, but whatever works for your schedule. Each chapter should only take you around ten minutes to read. Second, READ the Bible each day. Let the Word of God mold you into a person of prayer. We encourage you to read through the Gospel of Luke during these seven weeks and be studying it through the lens of what you can learn from Jesus about prayer. You are also encouraged to look up and study verses in each chapter that you are unfamiliar with that spark your interest. Third, PRAY every day. Prayer should be both scheduled and spontaneous. Choose a place and time when you can pray alone each day, preferably in the morning (Ps. 5:3). Write down specific needs and personal requests you’ll be targeting in prayer over the next few weeks, along with the following prayer: Heavenly Father, I come to You in Jesus’ name, asking that You draw me into a closer, more personal relationship with You. Cleanse me of my sins and prepare my heart to pray in a way that pleases You. Help me know You and love You more this week. Use all the circumstances of my life to make me more like Jesus, and teach me how to pray more strategically and effectively in Your name, according to Your will and Your Word. Use my faith, my obedience, and my prayers this week for the benefit of others, for my good, and for Your glory. Amen. May we each experience the amazing power of God in our generation as a testimony of His goodness for His glory! My Scheduled Prayer Time ___:___ a.m./p.m. My Scheduled Prayer Place ________________________ My Prayer Targets Develop a specific, personalized, ongoing prayer list using one or more of the following questions: What are your top three biggest needs right now? What are the top three things you are most stressed about? What are three issues in your life that would take a miracle of God to resolve? What is something good and honorable that, if God provided it, would greatly benefit you, your family, and others? What is something you believe God may be leading you to do, but you need His clarity and direction on it? What is a need from someone you love that you’d like to start praying about? 1. ______________________________________________ 2. ______________________________________________ 3. ______________________________________________ 4. ______________________________________________ 5. ______________________________________________ 6. ______________________________________________

There are human tempers, bland, glowing, and genial, within whose influence it is as good for the poor in spirit to live, as it is for the feeble in frame to bask in the glow of noon. Of the number of these choice natures were certainly both Dr. Bretton’s and his mother’s. They liked to communicate happiness, as some like to occasion misery: they did it instinctively; without fuss, and apparently with little consciousness; the means to give pleasure rose spontaneously in their minds. Every day while I stayed with them, some little plan was proposed which resulted in beneficial enjoyment. Fully occupied as was Dr. John’s time, he still made it in his way to accompany us in each brief excursion. I can hardly tell how he managed his engagements; they were numerous, yet by dint of system, he classed them in an order which left him a daily period of liberty. I often saw him hard-worked, yet seldom over-driven, and never irritated, confused, or oppressed. What he did was accomplished with the ease and grace of all-sufficing strength; with the bountiful cheerfulness of high and unbroken energies. Under his guidance I saw, in that one happy fortnight, more of Villette, its environs, and its inhabitants, than I had seen in the whole eight months of my previous residence. He took me to places of interest in the town, of whose names I had not before so much as heard; with willingness and spirit he communicates much noteworthy information.

Brain imaging studies suggest that a couple brain areas in particular are involved in cognitive control: the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the lateral prefrontal cortex (lateral PFC). We’ll be referring to these together as the “cognitive control regions” of the brain. There is still some debate about the precise role played by each of these regions, but one plausible characterization is that the ACC is a kind of smoke detector, and the lateral PFC is the fire response team. Like a smoke detector, the ACC is in constant monitoring mode, waiting to detect a whiff of danger, such as an instance of cognitive conflict. In the case of the Stroop task, we’ve got two automatic processes that are in conflict: the identification of a typeface or color versus the automatic processing of a simple word (assuming you’re literate and it’s your native language). This conflict alerts the ACC, which then sends out an alarm to the lateral PFC to come deal with the situation. The lateral PFC is responsible for many higher cognitive functions, such as the integration of conscious and unconscious knowledge, working memory (the small spotlight of consciousness that allows us to focus on explicit information), and conscious planning. Most relevantly, when it comes to the case of the Stroop task, the lateral PFC also exerts control over other areas of the brain by strengthening the activation of task-relevant networks at the expense of other networks. By weakening certain neural pathways, the lateral PFC essentially tells them to stop doing what they are doing, which is the neural equivalent of fire-retarding foam. In the Stroop task presented above,

Sometimes, though, friendship is like love. You can’t plan for it. It finds you in unlikely places. Or in the most obvious place imaginable. One evening, I get back from a run and am doubled over, recovering and panting in front of my building. The entrance opens and a woman pops out, taking out her rubbish. ‘I’m not loitering,’ I tell her when she gives me a funny look. ‘Oh, I didn’t think you were loitering,’ she says. ‘I thought you lived here.’ ‘Oh. I do. I do live here. On the third floor.’ We introduce ourselves. Her name is Hannah and she’s from the Netherlands. As she turns to go back inside, I say, ‘Hey! Do you want to swap numbers? Just in case … there’s a fire or something?’ I can tell my year is already changing me. Talking to strangers has made me less shy and even though I still had to make it a bit weird with the whole fire thing. A few weeks later, Hannah and her husband have Sam and me over for dinner in their flat because we stored a package for them when they were on holiday. Hannah has hundreds of books and I leave her flat with an armful to borrow. A few months later Hannah texts out of the blue, saying, ‘Want to grab a coffee with me right now?’ And I do. The elusive perfect friend-date: spontaneous, with good coffee, great conversation and no commute. We’d also had the spark, both having read several of the same books, both of us the same age, both of us struggling with similar things. She’d been living downstairs the entire time. But if I hadn’t gone through so many friend-dates and false starts, I know I would have asked for her number when we met. In fact, given how I normally treated my neighbours in London and how insular I was before all this began, I probably would have just pretended to be loitering.

Around Christmas 2003, we visited Chris’s parents in Texas. I found myself exceptionally hungry, though I couldn’t figure out why. When we came back to California, I just felt something was off. Could I be…pregnant? Nah. I bought a pregnancy test just in case. Chris and I had always planned to have children, but we weren’t in a rush about it. In fact, we had only recently decided to be “a little less careful.” It was a compromise between our spontaneous impulses and our careful planning instincts, which we both shared. We figured, if it happens somewhere in the next year… I was upstairs in the house working when I decided to take a break and check things out. Wow. WOW!!! Chris happened to be home fiddling with something in the garage. I ran downstairs, holding the stick in my hand. When I got there, I held it up, waving. “Hey, babe,” he said, looking at me as if I were waving a sword. “Come here,” I said. “I have to show you something.” He came over. I showed him the stick. “Okay?” “Look!” “What is it?” “Look at this!” Obviously, he wasn’t familiar with home pregnancy tests. Maybe that’s a guy thing-given that the tests reveal either your worst nightmare or one of the most exciting events of your life. I’d wager every woman in America knows what they are and how they work. Slowly it dawned on him. “Oh my God,” he said, stunned. “Are you…?” “Yes!” We confirmed it at the doctor’s soon after. I know you’re supposed to wait something like twelve weeks before telling anyone-there’s so much that can go wrong-but we couldn’t keep that kind of secret to ourselves for more than a few days. We ended up sending packages with an ultrasound and baby booties-one pink, one blue-to our parents, telling them we had a late Christmas surprise and to call us so we could be on the phone when they opened them.

PRAYER is not a technique, it is not a ritual, it is not a formality. There is no pattern to it. It is a spontaneous outpouring of the heart, so don't ask how, because there is no how and there cannot be any how to it. Whatsoever happens in the moment is right. If tears come, good. If you sing, good. If you dance, good. If nothing comes and you simply remain silent, good. Because prayer is not in the expression; it is not in the container, it is in the content. Sometimes silence is prayerful, sometimes singing is prayerful. It depends on you, it depends on the heart. Listen to your heart, feel your moment, and let it be. And whatsoever happens is good. Sometimes nothing will happen, but that is what is happening. You allow it, you don't impose your will on it. When you ask how, you are trying to impose your will, you are trying to plan. That's how prayer has been missed. Prayer has to arise in you, it has to flower in you. And each moment has its own prayer, and each mood has its own prayer. Sometimes you may feel very sad, because sadness also belongs to God. Sadness is also divine. There is no necessity to always be happy. Then sadness is your prayer. Then let your heart cry and let your eyes pour down tears. Then let sadness be offered to God. Whatsoever is there in your heart, let it be offered to the Divine Feet -- joy or sadness, sometimes even anger. Sometimes one is angry with God. If you cannot be angry with God, you have not yet known love. Sometimes one is really in a deep rage. Then let anger be your prayer. Fight with God -- He is yours, you are His, and love knows no formality. Love can survive all fights. If it cannot survive a fight, then it is not love. Never be inauthentic with God because that is the way of not being with Him. Whom are you trying to deceive? The smile on your face is not going to deceive God; your truth will be known to Him. He can only know your truth; lies don't exist for Him. So let the truth be there. Talk to Him as one talks to one's lover, one's friend, one's mother. Talk to Him as one talks to a small child. Let the moment decide, let the moment be decisive, and the truth of the moment should be your prayer. That's my answer: the truth of the moment, whatsoever it is, unconditionally, should be your prayer. And once you allow the truth of the moment to possess you, you will start growing, and you will know tremendous beauties of prayer.

I’d been reflecting on this--the drastic turn my life and my outlook on love had taken--more and more on the evenings Marlboro Man and I spent together, the nights we sat on his quiet porch, with no visible city lights or traffic sounds anywhere. Usually we’d have shared a dinner, done the dishes, watched a movie. But we’d almost always wind up on his porch, sitting or standing, overlooking nothing but dark, open countryside illuminated by the clear, unpolluted moonlight. If we weren’t wrapping in each other’s arms, I imagined, the quiet, rural darkness might be a terribly lonely place. But Marlboro Man never gave me a chance to find out. It was on this very porch that Marlboro Man had first told me he loved me, not two weeks after our first date. It had been a half-whisper, a mere thought that had left his mouth in a primal, noncalculated release. And it had both surprised and melted me all at once; the honesty of it, the spontaneity, the unbridled emotion. But though everything in my gut told me I was feeling exactly the same way, in all the time since I still hadn’t found the courage to repeat those words to him. I was guarded, despite the affection Marlboro Man heaped upon me. I was jaded; my old relationship had done that to me, and watching the crumbling of my parents’ thirty-year marriage hadn’t exactly helped. There was just something about saying the words “I love you” that was difficult for me, even though I knew, without a doubt, that I did love him. Oh, I did. But I was hanging on to them for dear life--afraid of what my saying them would mean, afraid of what might come of it. I’d already eaten beef--something I never could have predicted I’d do when I was living the vegetarian lifestyle. I’d gotten up before 4:00 A.M. to work cattle. And I’d put my Chicago plans on hold. At least, that’s what I’d told myself all that time. I put my plans on hold. That was enough, wasn’t it? Putting my life’s plans on hold for him? Marlboro Man had to know I loved him, didn’t he? He was so confident when we were together, so open, so honest, so transparent and sure. There was no such thing as “give-and-take” with him. He gave freely, poured out his heart willingly, and either he didn’t particularly care what my true feelings were for him, or, more likely, he already knew. Despite my silence, despite my fear of totally losing my grip on my former self, on the independent girl that I’d wanted to believe I was for so long…he knew. And he had all the patience he needed to wait for me to say it.

As someone who had grown up with structure and assumed I had to plan my life and goals down to every detail, I found it exhilarating to be so spontaneous. To wake up and let things go with the flow.

This is self-abandonment: to live in the moment, not feeling the pressure to achieve something, not thinking about winning or losing, not worrying about acting foolish, breaking away from the neurosis of restraint or defense, enjoying the beauty of the moment yet not holding on to it, letting go without thinking about the need to let go, feeling the happiness without hoping for the happiness to continue, having no ego or attachment to anything. It is not work but pure play. It is not a matter of striving but wu-wei. It is not something planned for but a spontaneous event.

There is nothing wrong with spontaneous worship, just as there’s nothing wrong with two friends meeting by chance, grabbing a sandwich from a shop, and going off together for an impromptu picnic. But if the friends get to know one another better and decide to meet more regularly, they might decide that, though they could indeed repeat the picnic from time to time, a better setting for their friendship, and a way of showing that friendship in action, might be to take thought over proper meals for one another and prepare thoroughly. In the same way, good Christian liturgy is friendship in action, love taking thought, the covenant relationship between God and his people not simply discovered and celebrated like the sudden meeting of friends, exciting and worthwhile though that is, but thought through and relished, planned and prepared—an ultimately better way for the relationship to grow and at the same time a way of demonstrating what the relationship is all about. In particular, Christian worship is all about the church celebrating God’s mighty acts, the acts of creation and covenant followed by the acts of new creation and new covenant. The church needs constantly to learn, and constantly to be working on, the practice of telling and retelling the great stories of the world and Israel, especially the creation and the Exodus; the great promises that emerged from those stories; and the ways in which those promises came to their fruition in Jesus Christ. The reading of scripture—the written account of those stories—has therefore always been central to the church’s worship. It isn’t only that people need to be reminded what the stories say. It’s that these stories should be rehearsed in acts of celebration and worship, “telling out the greatness of the Lord,” as Mary sang in the Magnificat. Good liturgy uses tried and tested ways of making sure that scripture is read thoroughly and clearly, and is constantly on the lookout for ways of doing it even more effectively—just as good liturgy is also eager to discover better and better ways of singing and praying the Psalms together, so that they come to be “second nature” within the memory, imagination, and spirituality of all the worshipping faithful, not just of a few musically minded leaders.

Perhaps this is how life translates, and we all bumble through taking opportunistic advantage, passing off the accidental as the creative plan, the deliberate expression of a sometimes ordered intelligence.

sound planning is the backbone of spontaneity.

Not every person fits neatly into categories. Life doesn't always stick to a planned itinerary.

There was a time in the beginning when I too questioned the plan—staring out over the deadlands, the wastelands, at the dry, desert landscape, the hellfires that burned over the horizon, the masses growing in number, filling in one valley after another. The way the earth cracked open, strange appendages and tentacles spooling out of the steaming cracks. The forests at the edge of the mountains spilling creatures on four legs, humping and galloping over the foliage, and into the high grasses as the growth turned into spoil. And up over the range lurked flying beasts with cracked, leathery wings—thick purple veins running through the expanding, unfurling flesh—elongated skulls holding back rows of sharp teeth, chittering in the settling gloam. Below the hills, pools of water, sometimes blue, but more likely a mossy green, a dark scum, filled with gelatinous blobs, covered with spiky hairs, a collection of yellowing eyes atop what might have been considered some kind of head. And snapping at my own heels, the furry creatures with mottled, diseased skin revealed in chunks, snouts exposed to show the fractured, bony skulls beneath it all, long, slavering tongues distending, lapping at the foul air around us. (In His House)

Jacobs had begun to see links between the order of the natural world and man-made systems, and how dynamic order emerged spontaneously from many individual decisions. Her belief that planning required flexibility and a light touch was bolstered by a growing fascination with chaos theory and fractals, and a theory of systems that put a premium on diversity over uniformity.

Creative leaps are not always graceful, beautiful, or turn out the way we think they will. We often feel ridiculous. Sometimes we take leaps spontaneously, completely unprepared for the changes that happen when we do. Other times we plan and debate, trying to get all our details perfect first. As soon as our feet have left the ground, we may convince ourselves we’ve made a mistake, simply because we are not used to how leaping feels.

That’s what this is, Zoe. This is a week for you to remember how to live your life. A week of no plans, no phone calendar. No fuckin’ self-help books. A week of making crumbs in your car and cleaning them out when we get home because it will not make or break your life. A week of doing spontaneous shit just because it’s fun.

Individual experiences of the Kundalini process vary greatly, but the fundamental signs of the rising Kundalini that a person may experience include: • Feeling different, not fitting in • A deep dissatisfaction or a yearning for inner development • Inner sensations of light, sound, current, or heat • A heightened inner or outer awareness; increased sensitivity • Feelings of energy flowing or vibrating within • Special abilities, capacities, and talents • Non-ordinary phenomena; altered states • Spontaneous bodily movements or breathing patterns • Emotional fluctuations; psychological issues coming forward • Atypical sensations or sensitivities • An interest in spiritual growth or in metaphysics or the esoteric • Compassion and a desire to help others • A sense that something non-ordinary, transformative, or holy is happening within • Personal development, and optimally, spiritual transformation and realization CHAPTER 2 BENEFITS OF ASCENSION KUNDALINI And once the latent spirit is awoken, it bolts up the spine, creating other important changes. Maybe the most important of these is the opening of the chakras, the centers of energy that govern our energetic body. All seven must be open so that the Kundalini can rise. There are many people who have devoted their entire life to awakening their Kundalini through meditation practice and spiritual study. Everything takes so much time, really. If you are one who is attuned to the universal energy, the cycle of awakening Kundalini will be easier for you, rather than random. So, what are the rewards of awakening the Kundalini? • Increased intelligence and IQ capacity As you begin your awakening process, your mind becomes clearer, and your mental capacity deepens and enriches in potential. You will be able to multitask and plan more than ever before, and you may even see that your IQ number is actually increasing as your kundalini travels within. It will touch your third eye and crown chakra as shakti energy spins and moves through your chakras, opening these mental capacities as effortlessly as it acts on your heart and healing. • Greater sense of peace, bliss, and tranquility One of kundalini awakening's most commonly experienced benefits includes an increased sense of peace, bliss, tranquility, and confidence in the universe that you are exactly where you should be. Chalk it up to meditation or yoga or even being in nature, but it is also true that when your kundalini awakening begins and becomes sustained, you can find a deep and lasting peace even in moments beyond nature or meditation. You will begin to notice how that equilibrium remains in an inner space that you always and everywhere bring with you.

Fear is certainly a significant hindrance to becoming more hospitable, the second and perhaps greater barrier has to do with time, or what we refer to as a lack of margin. Margin is the space between our load and our limits between vitality and fatigue. It is the opposite of overload and therefore the remedy for that troublesome condition. Without margin, we are incapable of relational spontaneity in our neighborhood. Without margin we are only interested in opportunities to serve our neighbors. Without margin we are unable to even think about planning time to spend with others. Margin creates buffers. It gives us room to breathe, freedom to act, and time to adapt. Only then will we be able to nourish our relationships only then will we be available and interruptible for the purposes of God.

The spontaneity in his training and reviews and even on game day was at times effective, but mostly it was confusing and largely based on results, not behaviours. We would pick something up and just run with it, whether it was part of our greater plan or not.

Fate, however, with its twisted sense of humor, had other plans. Instead of a tale of love freely given, our narrative was written in the ink of obligation and duty. The shackles of Bratva politics and tradition dictated our union, taking away the choice, the spontaneity, and the joy of discovery.

Spontaneous combustion due to sexual frustration was not the way he planned to die, but right now, it was a serious possibility.

To resist, is already to preserve one’s heart and one’s brain. But above all, it must be to act, to do something concrete, to perform reasoned and useful actions.’ There was only one goal, Vildé declared, a goal to be shared by all resisters, regardless of their political beliefs, and that was to bring about the ‘rebirth of a pure and free France’. Here and there, as the freezing winter began to ease, the first acts of armed resistance, of the sabotage of trains and the blowing up of German depots, were being planned. What the occupiers most feared, the transformation of isolated and spontaneous gestures of rebellion into concerted acts of hostility, was just about to start.

People who live ordinary, mundane lives have not gotten in touch with the mythical being inside them. You can pave the path to enlightenment by understanding the plan written on your soul, by nurturing the relationships that give you context and meanings, and by enacting your mythical drama. Out of that is born love and compassion. Out of that comes fulfillment and completion.

In a world where change is constant and uninterrupted, believing that the centralized planning of scientists, politicians and state bureaucrats is more efficient than the spontaneous order of human cooperation, in the search for solutions to disease, climate change and the end of poverty, is so intensely naive that even the purity of a child will seem wiser.

This approach to planning suggests that entrepreneurs can achieve success by pursuing a linear, rational, critical path model, one completely unrelated to the spontaneous trial-and-error process that characterizes the inevitably messy early years of every startup. Planning is nothing more than an attempt to bring order to a process that is chaotic by nature, and plan writing a technique that provides structure to the academic exercise.

Hayek disagreed with the widespread idea that large industrial economies required planning. To the contrary, he argued it was only the hidden hand of the market—what he would later term spontaneous order—that could bring structure to an infinitely complex web of interdependent economic relationships. Along the lines of Frank Knight and Henry Simons, Hayek contended that the allocation in a mass society was best handled by the price system. Only prices could instantaneously respond to a multivalent onrush of human wants, desires, and constraints. Planners would always be one beat behind. Their plans would distort and disorient buyers and sellers.

I wanted to be somebody who made plans and had friends and knew when the farmers’ market was in the neighborhood. I wanted to be spontaneous and informed. I wanted to somehow just know when the Chuck Close exhibit was at the Met and then have the motivation to go. As opposed to suggesting, yet again, that we have sandwiches and watch old movies on TV—and not even toasted sandwiches, because that’s just extra work for nothing. I wanted to be that guy. Or perhaps I merely wished that I wanted to be that guy. Wanting to want something isn’t the same as wanting it. I suppose what I really wanted, then, was to give more of a shit, because about certain things, I simply did not.

Even when one man kills another, we separate the accidental from the spontaneous and the spontaneous from the carefully planned—despite the fact that such distinctions provide no comfort to the dead.

Erstatt kaos med struktur – skap en langsiktig plan for når og hva du skal spise, også når det gjelder godsaker som vil gi deg velbefinnende. Grunnlaget er at du helt skal unngå enhver spontan beslutning, og at du aldri skal spise noe som ikke inngår i planen. Spis bare mat som du liker. Du kan ikke lure underbevisstheten din. Velg kjøtt dersom du alltid har likt det, og velg fet mat, salat eller frukt dersom det er slikt du liker. Det viktige er å ta kontroll over mengden og bryte den ubevisste spisingen din. Etter hvert kan du utforske nye matretter. Lær deg å kjenne sulten din – det meste du spiser i løpet av et måltid, er ikke for å dempe sultfornemmelsen, men for å gi deg selv en belønning. Skjær suksessivt ned på porsjonene dine, og ta tiden på hvor lang tid det tar før du på ny blir sulten. Velg mat som er mettende – industrien lager bevisst mat som er letttygd og lettdrukket. Sukker og raske karbohydrater metter ikke lenge. Fullkorn, fiberrike grønnsaker og proteiner gir rask og langvarig metthet. Også fett gir en metthet som varer lenge, men det tar en stund før metthetsfølelsen slår inn. Spis derfor langsomt når det ligger fet mat på tallerkenen.

You didn’t lost control,” she whispered. “I did, during parts of it.” His voice was that of a man who had just awakened after a long sleep. He began to gather the disparate streams of her hair into a single river. “Did you plan this?” “You’re asking if I deliberately set out to seduce you? No, it was entirely spontaneous.” At his silence, Beatrix lifted her head and grinned down at him. “You probably think I’m a hussy.” His thumb edged the swollen curve of her lower lip. “Actually, I was thinking about how to get you upstairs to the bedroom. But now that you mention it…you are a hussy.” Her grin lingered as she nipped playfully at the tip of his thumb. “I’m sorry for having set you off earlier. Cam is going to work with the horse from now on. I’ve never had to answer to anyone before--I’ll have to get accustomed to it.” “Yes,” he said. “Starting now.” Beatrix might have protested his autocratic tone, except there was still a dangerous glint in his eyes, and she understood that he was chafing just as she was. He wasn’t comfortable with any woman having such power over him. Very well. She would certainly not be submissive to him in all things, but she could yield to him on a few points. “I promise to be more careful from now on,” she said. Christopher didn’t smile, precisely, but his lips took on a wry curve.

In 1925, a master plan was instituted to blend the French neo-classical design with the tropical background. The Art Deco movement, both in Havana and in Miami Beach, took hold during the late 1920’s, and is found primarily in the residential section of Miramar. Miramar is where most of the embassies are located, including the massive Russian embassy. The predominant street is Fifth Avenue known as La Quinta Avenida, along which is found the church of Jesus de Miramar, the Teatro Miramar and the Karl Marx Theater. There is also the Old Miramar Yacht Club and the El Ajibe Restaurant, recently visited and televised by Anthony Bourdain on his show, “No Reservations.” Anthony Bourdain originally on the Travel Channel is now being shown on CNN. The modern five-star Meliá Habana hotel, known for its cigar bar, is located opposite the Miramar Trade Centre. Started in 1772, el Paseo del Prado, also known as el Paseo de Marti, became the picturesque main street of Havana. It was the first street in the city to be paved and runs north and south, dividing Centro Habana from Old Havana. Having been designed by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, a French landscape architect, it connects the Malecón, the city’s coastal esplanade, with a centrally located park, Parque Central. Although the streets on either side are still in disrepair, the grand pedestrian walkway goes for ten nicely maintained blocks. The promenade has a decorated, inlaid, marble terrazzo pavement with a balustrade of small posts. It is shaded by a tree-lined corridor and has white marble benches for the weary tourist. Arguably, the Malecón is the most photographed street in Havana. It lies as a bulwark just across the horizon from the United States, which is only 90, sometimes treacherous miles away. It is approximately 5 miles long, following the northern coast of the city from east to west. This broad boulevard is ideal for the revelers partaking in parades and is the street used for Fiesta Mardi Gras, known in Cuba as Los Carnavales. It has at times also been used for “spontaneous demonstrations” against the United States. It runs from the entrance to Havana harbor, alongside the Centro Habana neighborhood to the Vedado neighborhood, past the United States Embassy on the Calle Calzada.

things went quickly awry. Thermonuclear bombs were still not well understood and the weapon, code-named CASTLE BRAVO, turned out to be three times more powerful than expected, a total of some 15 megatons. A four-mile-wide fireball engulfed everything around ground zero in under a second. Birds spontaneously combusted in the sky, and small animals as far away as 345 miles were found to have suffered retinal burns from the nuclear flash. Poisonous radioactivity ultimately covered an area nearly the size of New Jersey,

Brihaspati stands for hindsight and Shukra stands for foresight. Brihaspati is associated with the planet Jupiter, known in astrology for enhancing rationality, while Shukra is associated with the planet Venus, known for enhancing intuition. Brihaspati has two eyes and so, is very balanced. Shukra is one-eyed and so, rather imbalanced. Brihaspati is logical, cautious and backward looking while Shukra is spontaneous, bold and forward-thinking. Brihaspati relies on tradition and past history, or case studies. Shukra believes in futuristic creative visualization and scenario planning; his father Bhrigu is associated with the science of forecasting. Brihaspati relies on memory while Shukra prefers imagination. Both

Action Plan: Sit in a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted for ten minutes. If you have family in the house, you might tell them not to bother you during these few minutes. Close your eyes and take five slow, deep diaphragmatic breaths (as described in the previous breathing exercise). Breathing helps ground you in the present and calm you enough to become the “silent watcher” of your thoughts. Imagine yourself sitting in a chair inside of your brain, as the observer of your thoughts. This visualization helps you separate yourself from the thoughts you are observing. Wait for a thought to enter your mind and simply notice it. You might even say to yourself, “There’s a thought entering my brain.” If the thought triggers an emotion, like anxiety or sadness, notice the emotion without judging it. You might say to yourself, “That thought triggered the feeling of sadness.” Don’t linger on the emotion or judge yourself for having it. Just move on to observing the next thought. Notice the patterns and frequency of your thoughts and how they arise spontaneously, even as you sit and observe. See them as powerless objects that float in and out of your mind, like blowing leaves or clouds. As you come to the end of this ten-minute time, remind yourself that your thoughts are not you and they have no power over you. By observing them as “blowing leaves,” you will reduce the emotional triggers they produce, giving you more peace of mind and contentment.

How to scale and enter the risen path was largely unknown. It all might begin in darkness, but it cast a shadow that, when viewed from the ground, was too bleak. Demolition was once a question not of “whether, but when,” until one photographer spent a year on the trail documenting what was there. 4 The scenes were “hallucinatory”—wildflowers, Queen Anne’s lace, irises, and grasses wafted next to hardwood ailanthus trees that bolted up from the soil on railroad tracks, on which rust had accumulated over the decades. 5 Steel played willing host to an exuberant, spontaneous garden that showed fealty to its unusual roots. Tulips shared the soilbed with a single pine tree outfitted with lights for the winter holidays, planted outside of a building window that opened onto the iron-bottomed greenway with views of the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty to the left and traffic, buildings, and Tenth Avenue to the right. 6 Wading through waist-high Queen Anne’s lace was like seeing “another world right in the middle of Manhattan.” 7 The scene was a kind of wildering, the German idea of ortsbewüstung, an ongoing sense of nature reclaiming its ground. 8 “You think of hidden things as small. That is how they stay hidden. But this hidden thing was huge. A huge space in New York City that had somehow escaped everybody’s notice,” said Joshua David, who cofounded a nonprofit organization with Robert Hammonds to save the railroad. 9 They called it the High Line. “It was beautiful refuse, which is kind of a scary thing because you find yourself looking forward and looking backwards at the same time,” architect Liz Diller told me in our conversation about the conversion of the tracks into a public space, done in a partnership with her architectural firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and James Corner, Principal of Field Operations, and Dutch planting designer Piet Oudolf. Other architectural plans proposed turning the High Line into a “Street in the Air” with biking, art galleries, and restaurants, but their team “saw that the ruinous state was really alive.” Joel Sternfeld, the “poet-keeper” of the walkway, put the High Line’s resonance best: “It’s more of a path than a park. And more of a Path than a path.” 10

While abstract conceptual thought has no tangible, concrete existence, it is the product of a scarce, material body, subject to nature’s causal laws. Indeed, actors rely on the regularity of such causal laws to successfully reach their goals. When actors make choices, utilizing their knowledge and preferences, they deliberately implement causes in the world for the sake of creating particular effects. If an actor’s environment did not operate on reliable, causal laws, action would be impossible. An actor could never hope to predict the effects of his behavior based on past experiences, and therefore the achievement of his ends would have to take place without any expectation that one particular cause leads to a particular effect. Without a causally-stable external reality, every behavior would produce new, unique effects, about which no systematic prediction could ever be made. Actors would exist in a perpetual state of random flux, wherein any type of planning or prediction would be impossible. In sum, the world in which action takes place is and must be governed on the basis of cause and effect.

There never seemed to be any spontaneity with Pauline. If she saw you, she meant to. If she spoke to you, she’d already planned what to say so it came out sharply and perfectly.

Life is naturally spontaneous, but know when to be DELIBERATE. Life happens, but you're a decision maker.

In Windhoek Gottschalk once asked Wenstrup if he thought it made sense to try to plan one's life. Wenstrup didn't think so, at least as far as he was concerned. Plans ran the danger of being too rigid. They killed all spontaneity and led too quickly toward old age. He hardly thought about the future at all and had no idea what would become of him.

With the word, God spoke the world into being, and in the death and resurrection of the word of God, God speaks forth the making new of all things. Likewise, in our own contexts, utterance, the speaking forth of the word, is a powerful avenue for the cultivation and keeping of the text, a making new, of time and place. Utterance is a saying or telling of a text, reissuing it in space or time. Quotation, in part or in whole; the conscious thinking of a text, planned or spontaneous; printing and reprinting: utterance is both a function of preservation and a making new, as contextual differences renew the word and world in the iterations of the text.

In other words, I not only allow spontaneity in my schedule; I encourage it. Joseph’s critique is driven by the mistaken idea that the goal of a schedule is to force your behavior into a rigid plan. This type of scheduling, however, isn’t about constraint—it’s instead about thoughtfulness. It’s a simple habit that forces you to continually take a moment throughout your day and ask: “What makes sense for me to do with the time that remains?” It’s the habit of asking that returns results, not your unyielding fidelity to the answer.

What’s going on?  What news?” I said glancing between the two. Sam gave Clay a sharp look. “You didn’t tell her?” “He’s not talking to me, yet,” I said, wondering what bad news Sam had to share. Sam shook his head at Clay.  “You’ve dug your own hole then, son.”  He focused on me.  “A group of Forlorn have asked Elder Joshua to approach you for an unofficial kind of Introduction.  Joshua approved, but he made it clear they were to keep it brief and then leave, unless any of them had a further request of him.” The meaning of Sam’s words sunk in deep like a vicious bite.  It also explained his less than warm greeting.  He stood in my living room as an Elder on pack business, not as family or a friend.  I struggled to contain my anger. “I thought I was done with that.  We had a deal.”  I crossed my arms and coldly regarded Sam.  “I know I said I was done.” The carefully, composed expression on Sam’s face faltered a bit.  “Honey, there are rules we must follow to keep peace in the pack.  Clay had six months to convince you of his suit.  That time has passed.  That means unMated can once again approach you, with permission.” My mouth popped open.  Six months.  Permission from an Elder.  That’s why they’d stationed Joshua here.  A backup plan because they knew I didn’t want to Claim Clay.  They failed to understand I didn’t want to Claim anyone.  I’d never been free.  I clenched my fists.  My temper boiled. “That’s complete crap,” I gritted out.  “First of all, I didn’t reject anyone.  Second, no one ever told me about this stupid rule.”  My voice rose to a yell, and I took a deep breath and closed my eyes briefly to restrain myself.  When I reopened them, I felt more in control and able to speak calmly.  “You know what?  I don’t care what the pack rules are.  I gave you my word and my time.  Now, I expect you to keep yours.  I worked hard to get here, Sam.  I won’t let anyone take this away from me.”  My hands shook.  That Sam had cared for me in the past and given me a place to call home for two years, kept my tongue marginally civil. “By not completing the Claim, you’ve become eligible again.  Charlene was granted a special consideration because, at that time, we weren’t even sure a Claiming would be possible between a human and a werewolf.  Now that we know it is, you fall under the same rules,” Sam explained calmly, his face again carefully devoid of emotion. “No, I don’t.”  I knew I could stand there and argue all day with Sam, and he wouldn’t budge.  It would always be whatever’s best for the pack with him.  “Is this why Clay was beat up?” Clay made a noise—like a snort of disagreement—behind me. “Feel free to jump in at any time,” I said, turning to arch an eyebrow at him.  He remained mute, but his eyes softened when he looked at me. Sam spoke up from behind me, but I didn’t turn to look at him. “Gabby, it’s the reason he’s been fighting.  He’s not relinquishing his tie to you.  Every time an unMated shows up here, he will challenge that man for his right for an Introduction.  Did Clay get beat up?  Only as a byproduct of handing out beatings.” Clay steadily met my gaze the entire time.  It broke my heart a little to know he was fighting so hard to keep me, and all I’d given him in those six months was a kiss.  Not even spontaneously given, but relinquished as part of a bribe.  I hadn’t rejected him.  I just didn’t want to be forced into a choice.  If I chose to be with Clay, I wanted it to be on our terms. “Why

This change in communication may have some side effects, though. In her book Alone Together, MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle convincingly makes the case that younger people are so used to text-based communications, where they have time to gather their thoughts and precisely plan what they are going to say, that they are losing their ability to have spontaneous conversation. She argues that the muscles in our brain that help us with spontaneous conversation are getting less exercise in the text-filled world, so our skills are declining.

Bucky lived and worked to help the world. He didn’t live to pay his bills, to plan for retirement, to make sure he had enough at any time, to make sure he could afford the next project, or to do anything. He felt that if he were doing the things that he was inspired to do to help the world, all those things would be taken care of by the One that commissioned him to do the work. I know that most people on hearing this are prone to think, of course it works fine when you are a Buckminster Fuller, but Bucky knew that it works for everyone. The individual may not have Bucky’s talents to bring them world prominence, but they can do what is theirs to do and not have to think of earning a living if they want to make a pact with God as Bucky did. That sounds as if God is in to bargaining, but it is not that, it is simply the way it is, a spiritual principle. We were created to be channels for God and when we assume that role and expect to be prospered in so doing, it will be that way for us—for anyone! That is why Bucky’s life and message have to be heard, because the answer to the world’s need for prosperity is to stop living to make a living and start living to give the gift of your unique self to the world. Bucky affirmed this: “Yes I am quite confident there is nothing that I have undertaken to do that others couldn’t do equally well or better under the same economic circumstances. I was supported only by my faith in God and my vigorously pursued working assumption that it is God’s intent to make humans an economic success so that they can and may in due course fulfill an essential—and only mind-renderable—functioning in Universe....This would terminate humanity’s need to ‘earn a living,’ i.e., doing what others wanted done only for others’ ultimately selfish reasons. This attending only to what needs to be done for all humanity in turn would allow humanity, the time to effectively attend to the Universe-functioning task for the spontaneous performance of which God—the eternal, comprehensive, intellectual integrity usually referred to as ‘nature’ or as ‘evolution’—had included humans in the grand design of eternally regenerative Universe.(1) In

Jill’s story is typical of those of so many other suffering individuals: My lupus story began in 1992, when I was thirty-two years old. I had experienced severe joint pains, fatigue, and a red facial rash. The blood tests came back specific for lupus. At first I thought this was good news—a diagnosis, now we can do something about it. Well, I was then told there is no cure and I would have to live with it and take medication for the rest of my life. I was even told by the rheumatologist that I might die from it. Even with the medications, I had a constant low-grade fever, low energy, a bright red face, stiffness, and joint pain. I could not accept this death sentence and a life dependent on toxic drugs. I researched everything I could find about this disease and tried changing to a vegetarian diet and alternative medicine with some degree of success. I lived in Virginia and took a train trip up to New Jersey to visit Dr. Fuhrman. I was convinced to take the next step to regain my health and decided to adopt a healthier, “whole foods diet” and do some fasting. Soon I felt like a teenager again; my face was cool and white for the first time in years, my joints felt great, and I had lots of energy. I lost a little weight and looked great. I went back to visit my rheumatologist, who was on staff at a teaching hospital. I just knew he was going to be interested in my story and recovery from lupus. When I started to tell him of my experience and my newfound good health, he wrote “spontaneous recovery” in the chart. I was shocked. He was not the least bit interested in hearing the details of my recovery, and practically walked out of the room when I started to explain what happened. Now, nine years later, I remain free from the symptoms of lupus. Lupus is no longer part of my life. I play tennis and compete on a local team. No one who knows me today would ever guess that I used to be in so much pain that I couldn’t even shake someone’s hand.

Modern art is a waste of time. When the zombies show up, you can't worry about art. Art is for people who aren't worried about zombies. Besides zombies and icebergs, there are other things that Soap has been thinking about. Tsunamis, earthquakes, Nazi dentists, killer bees, army ants, black plague, old people, divorce lawyers, sorority girls, Jimmy Carter, giant quids, rabid foxes, strange dogs, new anchors, child actors, fascists, narcissists, psychologists, ax murderers, unrequited love, footnotes, zeppelins, the Holy Ghost, Catholic priests, John Lennon, chemistry teachers, redheaded men with British accents, librarians, spiders, nature books with photographs of spiders in them, darkness, teachers, swimming pools, smart girls, pretty girls, rich girls, angry girls, tall girls, nice girls, girls with superpowers, giant lizards, blind dates who turn out to have narcolepsy, angry monkeys, feminine hygiene commercials, sitcoms about aliens, things under the bed, contact lenses, ninjas, performances artists, mummies, spontaneous combustion, Soap has been afraid of all of these things at one time or another, Ever since he went to prison, he's realized that he doesn't have to be afraid. All he has to do is come up with a plan. Be prepared. It's just like the Boy Scouts, except you have to be even more prepared. You have to prepare for everything that the Boy Scouts didn't prepare you for, which is pretty much everything.

Scott doesn’t suspect anything, right?” I ask. “Are you kidding? He knows pretty much everything,” Travis says as if there was ever a doubt. “What? Did you tell him?” I accuse. “Etty, he’s turning thirty. He’d have to be a moron to not know there is going to be a party. You always order food from the same place, and we both live in a shoe box, so your parents’ house is the only place that could fit more than five people. It didn’t take Einstein.” I chew on my bottom lip. “We will have to do something spontaneous,” I say, nodding my head. “Slow down,” he says, holding up his hands. “Don’t go crazy. The party we planned is fine.” Why does everyone always say that to me? Like they think I go overboard on everything. Which is so untrue. Everything I plan is with love, and I am in complete control the whole time. It’s the plans that have a mind of their own. I mean, did I ask the magician to put my mom in that box for his ‘Disappearing Trick’ even though my mother’s claustrophobic? No. And after I calmed her down and she drank a bottle of wine I think even she appreciated that it was a pretty cool trick. And my dad fumbling with the keys to get her unlocked and punching out the magician− it was so romantic. Sadly, I did lose my security deposit on that one.

The Linux world behaves in many respects like a free market or an ecology, a collection of selfish agents attempting to maximize utility which in the process produces a self-correcting spontaneous order more elaborate and efficient than any amount of central planning could have achieved. Here, then, is the place to seek the “principle of understanding”. The “utility function” Linux hackers are maximizing is not classically economic, but is the intangible of their own ego satisfaction and reputation among other hackers. (One may call their motivation “altruistic”, but this ignores the fact that altruism is itself a form of ego satisfaction for the altruist). Voluntary cultures that work this way are not actually uncommon; one other in which I have long participated is science fiction fandom, which unlike hackerdom has long explicitly recognized “egoboo” (ego-boosting, or the enhancement of one’s reputation among other fans) as the basic drive behind volunteer activity. Linus, by successfully positioning himself as the gatekeeper of a project in which the development is mostly done by others, and nurturing interest in the project until it became self-sustaining, has shown an acute grasp of Kropotkin’s “principle of shared understanding”. This quasi-economic view of the Linux world enables us to see how that understanding is applied. We may view Linus’s method as a way to create an efficient market in “egoboo” — to connect the selfishness of individual hackers as firmly as possible to difficult ends that can only be achieved by sustained cooperation. With the fetchmail project I have shown (albeit on a smaller scale) that his methods can be duplicated with good results. Perhaps I have even done it a bit more consciously and systematically than he.

The Linux world behaves in many respects like a free market or an ecology, a collection of selfish agents attempting to maximize utility which in the process produces a self-correcting spontaneous order more elaborate and efficient than any amount of central planning could have achieved. Here, then, is the place to seek the “principle of understanding”. The “utility function” Linux hackers are maximizing is not classically economic, but is the intangible of their own ego satisfaction and reputation among other hackers. (One may call their motivation “altruistic”, but this ignores the fact that altruism is itself a form of ego satisfaction for the altruist). Voluntary cultures that work this way are not actually uncommon; one other in which I have long participated is science fiction fandom, which unlike hackerdom has long explicitly recognized “egoboo” (ego-boosting, or the enhancement of one’s reputation among other fans) as the basic drive behind volunteer activity. Linus, by successfully positioning himself as the gatekeeper of a project in which the development is mostly done by others, and nurturing interest in the project until it became self-sustaining, has shown an acute grasp of Kropotkin’s “principle of shared understanding”. This quasi-economic view of the Linux world enables us to see how that understanding is applied. We may view Linus’s method as a way to create an efficient market in “egoboo” — to connect the selfishness of individual hackers as firmly as possible to difficult ends that can only be achieved by sustained cooperation. With the fetchmail project I have shown (albeit on a smaller scale) that his methods can be duplicated with good results. Perhaps I have even done it a bit more consciously and systematically than he. Many people (especially those who politically distrust free markets) would expect a culture of self-directed egoists to be fragmented, territorial, wasteful, secretive, and hostile. But this expectation is clearly falsified by (to give just one example) the stunning variety, quality, and depth of Linux documentation. It is a hallowed given that programmers hate documenting; how is it, then, that Linux hackers generate so much documentation? Evidently Linux’s free market in egoboo works better to produce virtuous, other-directed behavior than the massively-funded documentation shops of commercial software producers. Both the fetchmail and Linux kernel projects show that by properly rewarding the egos of many other hackers, a strong developer/coordinator can use the Internet to capture the benefits of having lots of co-developers without having a project collapse into a chaotic mess. So to Brooks’s Law I counter-propose the following: Provided the development coordinator has a communications medium at least as good as the Internet, and knows how to lead without coercion, many heads are inevitably better than one.

Here was life in all its sweetness, surprising her when she least expected it, twisting forethought into revelation, reminding her that plans sometimes proved unnecessary, that occasionally everything came together spontaneously, as though the universe were an ever-resolving pattern that wanted to please her in the end

I love occasional spontaneity, but most things require planning. Hair, for instance.

She didn’t worry that she was boring him, as Old Jane would’ve done. It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. He was paid to listen to her and make her feel like the most interesting person in the world, and so, by George, she would be. His lips pressed into a small smile that stayed. A very small smile. Sometimes almost imaginary. Jane wished that it might be bigger, that it might beam at her, but she supposed that wasn’t the Nobley way. Then when she’d decided that his smile was a figment, Mr. Nobley said--or whispered, rather-- “Let’s go look at your paintings.” What a delight, this man. How he kept surprising her, tossing aside his uptight propriety for her sake, murmuring plans for meeting in secret, fibbing to the others that he would withdraw early, then waiting upstairs for her to do the same. With a thrill to look around for watchers and scramble into her chamber, shutting the door behind them. Jane stood with her back to the door, her hands still on the knob, breathing hard and trying to laugh quietly. He was leaning against the wall, smiling. The moment was giddily awkward as she waited to see what he had in mind, if he would suddenly shed Mr. Nobley and become some other man entirely. If he would break any other rules. The wait was agonizing. She realized she didn’t know what she wanted him to do. “I would love to see those paintings,” he said, his voice still proper. “Of course,” she said. Of course he was still Mr. Nobley, of course the man, the actor, was not falling in love with her. And a relief it was, too, as she realized she wasn’t ready to let go of Pembrook Park yet. Somehow she had to be by the day after tomorrow. She presented the first painting, and he held it at arm’s length for some time before saying, “This is you,” though the portrayal was not photo-realistic. “I couldn’t quite get the eyes,” she said. “You got them just right.” He didn’t look away from the painting when he said, “They are beautiful.” Jane didn’t know whether to thank him or clear her throat, so she did neither and instead handed him the second painting or her window and the tree. “Ah,” was all he said for some time. He glanced back and forth between both paintings. “I like this second one best. Beside it, the portrait looks stiff, as though you were too cautious, measuring everything, taking away the spontaneity. The fearlessness of this window scene is a better style for you. I think, Miss Erstwhile, that you do very well when you loosen up and let the color fly.” He was right, and it felt good to admit it. Her next painting would be better. “I should let you retire.” He held the self-portrait a minute longer, gazing at it as she had sometimes felt him look at her--unblinking, curious, even urgent. She peeped through the keyhole to make sure no one was in the corridor before opening the door and letting him slip out. After a moment, she peered again and could see nothing, then Mr. Nobley’s face dropped into view. He was crouching outside her door, looking back. “Miss Erstwhile?” he whispered. “Yes, Mr. Nobley?” “Tomorrow evening, will you reserve for me the first two dances?” “Yes, Mr. Nobley.” She could hear how her voice was full of smile.

Some mistakenly assume that a prayer meeting needs to be spontaneous and unstructured in order to be Spirit-filled and dynamic. Spontaneity is usually birthed in structure. Without structure, there is no direction or vision for where you want to go. One of the problems we have all experienced with prayer meetings is feeling purposeless in our prayer efforts. If there is no system, order, or clear plan for a prayer meeting, it is easy for even the most “spiritual” people to pray for about ten minutes, and afterward feel bored. However, when you start with a plan, you have clear purpose in how to move forward.

Only in the classroom of silence can we gain the calm and clarity that allow us to know when to wait patiently and when to push forward impatiently, when to plan diligently and when to live spontaneously. It is in the quiet of our own hearts that we learn how to calmly manage the present and passionately create the future. It is this calmness and clarity that will allow us to realize what we are called to and what matters most. Finding our place in the world and beginning to fulfill our mission is then nothing more than a matter of time. A man or woman who takes time in quiet reflection sincerely seeking to find his or her place in the world will not be ignored. First will come the inner calm, then will come the desire to serve, and then will come a wonderful clarity of purpose. Guided by that calm and clarity, we begin to affect what we can affect, and only then do we truly begin to have an effect.

In newer countries, you often find two types of public square: one that is older, organic, chaotic, and populated; and one that is recent, planned, orderly, and deserted. The first type predates the nation-state and accretes over time to accommodate the habits and needs, mainly commercial ones, of ordinary city dwellers. Its names are maidan, souq, bazaar, market. The second is constructed according to a master plan to embody the idealized qualities of the nation, often with grandiose results. The first thrusts people together in a public space, a hive if activity. Its essence is accidental and spontaneous. The second leaves nothing to chance. It tells people that they are subservient to the state and, in a sense, irrelevant to it [George Packer, "History: Influence on Humanity"].

Everything that has ever happened to me that has been important has not been something that I've hoped for, or looked for, or manipulated -- it's all been predicated on my ability to take a new road when it presented itself and to go with it." (On Beauty: Susan Sarandon, Vogue, January 8, 2016)

It had been, in Robin’s view, the most perfect proposal, ever, in the history of matrimony. He had even had a ring in his pocket, which she was now wearing; a sapphire with two diamonds, it fitted perfectly, and all the way into town she kept staring at it on her hand as it rested on her lap. She and Matthew had a story to tell now, a funny family story, the kind you told your children, in which his planning (she loved that he had planned it) went awry, and turned into something spontaneous. She loved the tramps, and the moon, and Matthew, panicky and flustered, on one knee; she loved Eros, and dirty old Piccadilly, and the black cab they had taken home to Clapham. She

The aspiring writer comes home after a hard day’s work in the plastic shop. Maybe he has a few beers, or a cocktail, but soon he retires to his writing. There he discovers the aroma of burning lavender incense, and a soft red glow streaming from his reading lamp. The strings of a violin sing out softly, romantically. He notices his favorite notebook lying on his desk, submissively, with her blank naked pages spread open for him. He fondles his ballpoint pen and gawks at her 9.75 by 7.5-inch-wide ruled lines. He simply sits and stares at her awhile, lustfully, admiring the soft red lines that run down her legs to form margins. He smiles, feeling shy and perhaps a little apprehensive about this, what is for him, inevitable endeavor. He glances at his eager pen for a moment. It is a small pen. She reassures him that it is not the size of the pen that counts, but rather his prowess with it.        Not having any sort of plan in mind, all the more excited by the spontaneity of it, he sets to writing. He starts out softly, gently, and careful at first, forming each letter of each word with intimate precision. The inhibitions drop with each gentle stroke of his pen. Soon he is inside and one with the inviting quarter blank page. His pen is feverishly scratching against the warm paper. Madly he is marking the page. The blood in his head pounds, as he lets all his energy, all the everything inside him spill out onto the page. Faster and faster he writes with wild abandon, pushing it out onto her! “More” she moans. He grunts a primal grunt that rises up thick and full, from somewhere in the depths of his very soul, and he writes on! From under his pen she screams out in shades of purple passion ecstasy! “YES! OH GOOD GOD, YES! GIVE IT TO ME! YOU MAD MAD POET!” So he writes on, harder and faster, striving for climax. Until it seems at any moment, his pen might explode and spray thick creamy bubbling blue ink everywhere! He comes! To the end of the page. With the ink still wet and strangely sticky between her pages, he closes the notebook. Feeling drained, he lies his head against her soft cardboard cover and dozes off to dream the dreams that writers dream…           Rainbow

Plowshares actions aren’t improvised or spontaneous; they’re planned as much as a year in advance. The first step, according to one veteran, involves “wearing away of the ego, disarming the self, forming community, doing an in-depth analysis of our times.” The volunteers pray together, read the Bible together, learn to trust one another without hesitation. They must be willing to risk their lives and sacrifice their freedom together. No one else can be harmed or endangered by the action—a fundamental rule. And everyone who plays a supporting role in it, often recruited from the more than a hundred and fifty Catholic Worker houses across the country, must be protected from arrest and conspiracy charges.

After Steve’s death I received letters of condolence from people all over the world. I would like to thank everyone who sent such thoughtful sympathy. Your kind words and support gave me the strength to write this book and so much more. Carolyn Male is one of those dear people who expressed her thoughts and feelings after we lost Steve. It was incredibly touching and special, and I wanted to express my appreciation and gratitude. I’m happy to share it with you. It is with a still-heavy heart that I rise this evening to speak about the life and death of one of the greatest conservationists of our time: Steve Irwin. Many people describe Steve Irwin as a larrikin, inspirational, spontaneous. For me, the best way I can describe Steve Irwin is formidable. He would stand and fight, and was not to be defeated when it came to looking after our environment. When he wanted to get things done--whether that meant his expansion plans for the zoo, providing aid for animals affected by the tsunami and the cyclones, organizing scientific research, or buying land to conserve its environmental and habitat values--he just did it, and woe betide anyone who stood in his way. I am not sure I have ever met anyone else who was so determined to get the conservation message out across the globe, and I believe he achieved his aim. What I admired most about him was that he lived the conservation message every day of his life. Steve’s parents, Bob and Lyn, passed on their love of the Australian bush and their passion for rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife. Steve took their passion and turned it into a worldwide crusade. The founding of Wildlife Warriors Worldwide in 2002 provided Steve and Terri with another vehicle to raise awareness of conservation by allowing individuals to become personally involved in protecting injured, threatened, or endangered wildlife. It also has generated a working fund that helps with the wildlife hospital on the zoo premises and supports work with endangered species in Asia and Africa. Research was always high on Steve’s agenda, and his work has enabled a far greater understanding of crocodile behavior, population, and movement patterns. Working with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and the University of Queensland, Steve was an integral part of the world’s first Crocs in Space research program. His work will live on and inform us for many, many years to come. Our hearts go out to his family and the Australia Zoo family. It must be difficult to work at the zoo every day with his larger-than-life persona still very much evident. Everyone must still be waiting for him to walk through the gate. His presence is everywhere, and I hope it lives on in the hearts and minds of generations of wildlife warriors to come. We have lost a great man in Steve Irwin. It is a great loss to the conservation movement. My heart and the hearts of everyone here goes out to his family. Carolyn Male, Member for Glass House, Queensland, Australia October 11, 2006

Kate had always been a planner. It had come from her childhood spent alone with her policeman father, one in which she ran the house and their lives because his job gave him little time to handle housework or cooking, and what time they had he wanted to spend with his daughter. As an adult, she’d still write out shopping lists on a magnetic pad affixed to the fridge, adding to the list daily to ensure nothing would be forgotten. Before the advent of GPS, she would plan a journey or trip in a notebook with military precision, working out arrival times or stops along the way, and when it came to work, no one was more methodical than Kate Young. Chris was the yin to her yang, with a devil-may-care attitude and a zest for spontaneity. They balanced each other: he lifting her from too solemn an outlook on life, and she grounding him whenever he had a wild whim to do something so utterly crazy it bordered on foolhardy. Her world was full of order. Some found her too serious-minded and were irritated by her attitude. Others, like William Chase, praised her for it. It got results.

But we both know that whatever comes our way, we'll greet it with a smile and a barely half-formed plan. It's who we are, still spontaneous and slightly crazy but together, no matter what.

Ciaran’s gaze locks onto mine before he lifts me and takes me over the threshold, something he’s been doing for the past five years. I told him that the only time he needed to do that was right after the wedding, but he seems to think he should always be romantic and spontaneous. He told me that the only time a relationship goes downhill is when you don’t show the other person just how much you love them, and he plans to show me his love every day for the rest of his life. I may doubt many things in life, but I never doubt the fact that I’m the center of his universe, and he’s the center of mine.

The other dog, however, was now snuffling at the trunk of the Sierra. Gordievsky could hear muffled Russian voices overhead. As the dog circled the car, Caroline Ascot reached for a weapon that had never been deployed before in the Cold War or any other. She placed Florence [her baby] on the trunk directly over the hidden spy and began changing her nappy, which the baby, with immaculate timing, had just filled. She then dropped the soiled and smelly diaper next to the inquisitive Alsatian. The dog duly slunk off, offended. Olfactory diversion was never part of the plan. The nappy ruse had been completely spontaneous and highly effective.

But isn’t this a dance? Isn’t all of this a dance? Isn’t that what we do with words? Isn’t that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it’s choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest—the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

Never have a spontaneous moment in your life again. If you're going to have a hangover, it should be scheduled on your calendar months in advance. Rigid enjoyment of planning can get you high. Militant time management will enable you to ignore how maladjusted you would be if you had the time to notice it in the first place. Discipline is not anal compulsion; it's a lifestyle that breeds power. The only insult I've ever received in my adult life was when someone asked me, 'Do you have a hobby?' A HOBBY?! DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING DABBLER?!

When do you feel most creative? When do you feel most social? When do you most want to be alone? Are you spontaneous or do you like to make plans far in advance? What are (at least) three things that energize you? What are (at least) three things that exhaust you? What are three everyday-ish activities or parts of daily your routine that you just love and feel good about? What is your ideal evening activity/nightly routine if you hope to get a good night’s sleep? What are three everyday-ish activities that you hate doing or dread? When you’re going about your day, do you like having background noise? What kind? What activities do you like doing alone? What activities do you prefer to do with other people? How much does your physical appearance matter to you? What effect does your appearance have on your mood? When do you feel most attractive? Least attractive? Your Environment Do you prefer being indoors or outdoors? When do you crave being outside? What makes you want to be inside more? How much does tidiness matter to you? What about cleanliness? Does the answer change if you’re talking about home versus work versus public spaces versus other people’s spaces?

Some of the worst moments of Tina’s life had happened there in that waiting room. Later, Luca would say it had been spontaneous. He’d picked up the ring the day before and planned to propose to her in a few months, or maybe in a year, but then, that day in the waiting room, he asked himself why he was waiting. As he pushed the ring onto her finger, Tina’s life folded and rearranged itself. Time was no longer linear, and every moment of her life was happening at the same time. She sensed a future, hiding just out of sight. It was a beautiful future, full of joy, just like her past. The joy had always been there, and it had taken the second love of her life to show her the way. Or perhaps it was the third great love of her life, if you counted Muffins.

Ericsson is skeptical that deliberate practice could ever feel as enjoyable as flow. In his view, “skilled people can sometimes experience highly enjoyable states (‘flow’ as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) during their performance. These states are, however, incompatible with deliberate practice. . . .” Why? Because deliberate practice is carefully planned, and flow is spontaneous. Because deliberate practice requires working where challenges exceed skill, and flow is most commonly experienced when challenge and skill are in balance. And, most important, because deliberate practice is exceptionally effortful, and flow is, by definition, effortless.

The Test of Death -Would you believe someone you trust and swear to tell you the truth? -No -Why? -He may say what he thinks is the truth, which is not so, and I believe that the truth is not given, but taken, snatched, you have to fight to get it, the truth is not free. – We sent you to carry out a dangerous, sensitive task, a matter of life or death, and we sent someone you know is a deceiver and a liar to share it with you, we do not trust him either, but we need him? Do you accept it with him? -Maybe yes and maybe no -How? -Trust here has no place, even if I trust him, I may not implement it with him, and I may implement it with someone I do not trust, everyone in a certain circumstance has the ability of betrayal and treachery, as they have the capacity for honesty and sincerity, I will not trust anyone with a dangerous operation like this, but I will trust the plan; if the plan had taken all possibilities into consideration, including the possibilities of treachery, and if we put alternative plans in case of emergency, I would trust the plan itself, and implement it with those whose presence is required. -What is brainwashing? -It is a radical transformation of ideas in a short period of time, without a convincing reason or explanation. – How does the process work? -The primitive method is by coercive means, such as physical or psychological torture, to implant thoughts directly into the victim’s head. -What is the most advanced method? -By manipulating the surrounding environment of the victim, and passing ideas into his brain indirectly, to convince him that it is the product of chance, or for supernatural reasons such as your pre-written destiny, or that God has chosen you for this moment, and the more convincing the environment, and the more serendipitous, the quality of the process better. -How do you know you are being brainwashed? -I watch my thoughts, if I suddenly decide to switch them without a clear and convincing reason, and within a short period of time, then I have to study the changes in the environment around me, new people, targeted ads on social media, random videos, and everything around me seem to happen by chance It is directly or indirectly related to new ideas. Then research and focus, analyze and elicit, to try and discover the process. -What is long-term brainwashing? -A traditional brainwashing process, but it takes a relatively long time, such as repeating the idea to be cultivated weekly instead of repeating it daily, and this happens if the victim is intelligent and careful observation, so the process is done carefully and slowly so as not to discover it. -Which is more powerful, short-term or long-term brainwashing? -The short; the mind quickly ignores, when passing the idea in separate periods of time, it ignores the old ones, and buries them away in its memory, thus their impact decreases, so we are forced to plant the idea a thousand times instead of a hundred, to increase the momentum and compensate for the lack of influence of the old ideas, and with the presence of spaced periods of time when the process takes a long time, and the chance of discovering the target becomes greater. -What is a mind injection, and how is it done? -It is the process of implanting the ideas that are required to be implanted in it, in direct or indirect ways, and each has its own method and method of injection, some of them rush and some of them take longer than the necessary time, and in both cases, the injection does not take its desired effect, but it is possible that the effect is completely reversed. -How do you know that the injection process is going well? -The new and reprehensible reactions of the victim, especially the spontaneous ones. Which is issued near the end of the injection process.

Physical effects, both long and short term, include: Racing heart, headache, nausea, muscle tension, fatigue, dry mouth, dizzy feelings, increase in breathing rate, aching muscles, trembling and twitching, sweating, disturbed digestion, immune system suppression and memory issues. Your body was designed to endure brief moments of acute stress, but chronic stress (stress that is ongoing) can start to cause chronic health conditions, like cardiovascular disease, insomnia, hormonal dysregulation and so on. If the ordinary physical experience of stress is prolonged, the physical effects can have consequences in the rest of your life… Mental and psychological effects include: Exhaustion and fatigue, feeling on edge, nervousness, irritability, inability to concentrate, lack of motivation, changes to libido and appetite, nightmares, depression, feeling out of control, apathy and so on. Stress can reinforce negative thinking patterns and harmful self-talk, lower our confidence, and kill our motivation. More alarming than this, overthinking can completely warp your perception of events in time, shaping your personality in ways that mean you are more risk averse, more negatively focused and less resilient. When you’re constantly tuned into Stress FM you are not actually consciously aware and available in the present moment to experience life as it is. You miss out on countless potential feelings of joy, gratitude, connection and creativity because of your relentless focus on what could go wrong, or what has gone wrong. This means you’re less likely to recognize creative solutions to problems, see new opportunities and capitalize on them, or truly appreciate all the things that are going right for you. If you are constantly in a low-level state of fear and worry, every new encounter is going to be interpreted through that filter, and interpreted not for what it is, but for what you’re worried it could be.  Broader social and environmental effects include: Damage to close relationships, poor performance at work, impatience and irritability with others, retreating socially, and engaging in addictive or harmful behaviors. A person who is constantly stressed and anxious starts to lose all meaning and joy in life, stops making plans, cannot act with charity or compassion to others, and loses their passion for life. There is very little spontaneity, humor or irreverence when someone’s mind is too busy catastrophizing, right? As you can imagine, the physical, mental and environmental aspects all interact to create one, unified experience of overthinking and anxiety. For example, if you overthink consistently, your body will be flooded with cortisol and other stress hormones. This can leave you on edge, and in fact cause you to overthink even more, adding to the stress, changing the way you feel about yourself and your life. You might then make bad choices for yourself (staying up late, eating bad food, shutting people out) which reinforce the stress cycle you’re in. You may perform worse at work, procrastinating and inevitably giving yourself more to worry about, and so on…

I know I will never see that smile the same way again, it will never bring me instant comfort nor warm my soul the same again. I know I will miss the flood of emotions that released for your touch to point of dehydration. I will miss the small, pulsating, vibrations running through my body as your voice ricochet in my ear. I will miss the beauty I saw in your pain as you took me on a journey through your soul, thu conversations I will miss our inner child's spontaneous and planned play dates. I will miss the silence in my mind commanded by you taking the lead. I will miss daydreaming about loving you forever, because I still had an ounce of hope leftover after a lifetime of searching for you. I will miss you forgiving me after, I recovered from a trigger, never appreciated the punishment that came with it tho. I will miss not being able to protect your heart from the pain I recognize, that your ego guards from your souls innocents that your mind can't tolerate yet. I will miss the feeling I felt knowing you could really be here with me forever because the exchange of laughter, wisdom and moments never ended. I will miss loving the man you are now in life, because even without the potential I see, you are worthy just as you are . I will miss things about you that you will never know, it was never about status or statuses I didn't want the spotlight, I wanted to be behind the scenes. I just wanted to support and love you. I wanted to guide you through parts of life that almost broke me, that I see you encountering. I will miss having somewhere to pour almost all of me. I will miss the possibility of being loved forever, I know I felt it though the roughness of your sore hands as I caressed trying to alleviate yhe pain. I will miss your grumpy days and I still regret not knowing how to comfort you on the hardest ones. I will miss who I sometimes selfishly dreamed I could be if you could just love me in the way I could feel. I'd dream of waiting for u to get home, (its the one we talked about getting after winning the lottery) . In that moment I swear it was the first time my soul wanted another day voluntarily. I will miss you not understanding my text, but we would see eye to eye when they physically met. I will miss you teaching me, and correcting me softly. I will miss you being gentle, when I didn't even know I needed it. I know it was hard sometimes. I will miss loving you beyond myself. I will miss all those moments I wanted to pull u into me and just feel you and kiss you. I wanted you all the time, it took so much to hold back from showing you, it was out of fear. I SHOULD of done it, would of got to this point faster. I regret not loving you with all me authenticly. I will miss what never was a friend, but everything I never had In one.

I know I will never see that smile the same way again, it will never bring me instant comfort nor warm my soul the same again. I know I will miss the flood of emotions that released for your touch to point of dehydration. I will miss the small, pulsating, vibrations running through my body as your voice ricochet in my ear. I will miss the beauty I saw in your pain as you took me on a journey through your soul, thu conversations I will miss our inner child's spontaneous and planned play dates. I will miss the silence in my mind commanded by you taking the lead. I will miss daydreaming about loving you forever, because I still had an ounce of hope leftover after a lifetime of searching for you. I will miss you forgiving me after, I recovered from a trigger, never appreciated the punishment that came with it tho. I will miss not being able to protect your heart from the pain I recognize, that your ego guards from your souls innocents that your mind can't tolerate yet. I will miss the feeling I felt knowing you could really be here with me forever because the exchange of laughter, wisdom and moments never ended. I will miss loving the man you are now in life, because even without the potential I see, you are worthy just as you are . I will miss things about you that you will never know, it was never about status or statuses I didn't want the spotlight, I wanted to be behind the scenes. I just wanted to support and love you. I wanted to guide you through parts of life that almost broke me, that I see you encountering. I will miss having somewhere to pour almost all of me. I will miss the possibility of being loved forever, I know I felt it though the roughness of your sore hands as I caressed trying to alleviate the pain. I will miss your grumpy days and I still regret not knowing how to comfort you on the hardest ones. I will miss who I sometimes selfishly dreamed I could be if you could just love me in the way I could feel. I'd dream of waiting for u to get home, (its the one we talked about getting after winning the lottery) . In that moment I swear it was the first time my soul wanted another day voluntarily. I will miss you not understanding my text, but we would see eye to eye when they physically met. I will miss you teaching me, and correcting me softly. I will miss you being gentle, when I didn't even know I needed it. I know it was hard sometimes. I will miss how you kept things together, always calm and steady, I was the complete opposite, clumsy and messy. You were everything I wasn't, and I loved you for that the most. I will miss thinking of you as my sun, and I will miss you calling me Starr I will miss loving you beyond myself. I will miss all those moments I wanted to pull u into me and just feel you and kiss you. I wanted you all the time, it took so much to hold back from showing you, it was out of fear of rejection of not being enough. I SHOULD of done it, would of got to this point faster. I regret not loving you with all me authenticly. I will miss what never was a friend, but everything I never had In one

A human being in a highly technicized productive unit is simply not allowed to be spontaneous. It just interferes with the plan laid down in advance by the engineers and technicians who decide how he should word, and in this way he, the human being, is profoundly diminished, because he is not permitted to be spontaneous.

A human being in a highly technicized productive unit is simply not allowed to be spontaneous. It just interferes with the plan laid down in advance by the engineers and technicians who decide how he should work, and in this way he, the human being, is profoundly diminished, because he is not permitted to be spontaneous.

Humanitarian procurement for emergency response is spontaneous and often unplanned, because although we may plan for a catastrophe the when it may happen maybe a mystery! To address this, innovative solutions must include putting in place long term agreements (framework agreements), contracts for vendor consigned stocks, pre-positioning of stocks which would predictably be used for a broad range of responses and a cash based intervention option to allow people affected to have their dignity of choice.

By surprising me, John had instantly found a way of making our wedding special and unique, however it turned out. Such a spontaneous ceremony wouldn't work for everyone, of course. But it's worth considering the role that unpredictable events might play in love and whether we can benefit by making more room for improvisation in our relationships. So much of our social experience, especially when it comes to romance, has to do with expectations. Maybe we have an image of the person we will marry long before we've met them. Usually, we call this a type, an ideal. Or maybe we have in our mind's eye the perfect first date—a walk by the lake, a hike in the woods, a romantic restaurant. When it comes to the wedding—an opportunity not only to proclaim our love but also to show off our good taste and social network—we probably know how it should look. Perhaps more importantly, we know how it should not look. If these expectations set us on a course toward genuine happiness, then they are all well and good. But I would argue that in many cases, such plans can become a kind of mind trap, forcing us to pursue a preconceived kind of happiness that we may never reach or that, once reached, may never make us happy.

I plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.

try to keep most of myself neatly contained off-site. In the home I focus on turning the wheel of the household so we can enjoy a smooth, healthy life without disaster or illness. This involves perpetual planning. For example, I cook seven waffles for Sam every weekend, filled with extra eggs, to be toasted quickly for high-protein breakfasts all week. But such forethought can feel labored, no fun—so I try to balance it out with something spontaneous, maybe an invented breakfast game or a surprising waffle topping. Harris would say mostly I just try to control everything. Who is right? We both are, but I admire Harris’s old-world stoicism. He even dresses

Think about how much planning and how much spontaneity you have in your life. Are these two ends of the spectrum balanced or wildly unequal? Do something today that is outside of your schedule, without regard for making money or optimizing efficiency.

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PRAYER is not a technique, it is not a ritual, it is not a formality. There is no pattern to it. It is a spontaneous outpouring of the heart, so don't ask how, because there is no how and there cannot be any how to it. Whatsoever happens in the moment is right. If tears come, good. If you sing, good. If you dance, good. If nothing comes and you simply remain silent, good. Because prayer is not in the expression; it is not in the container, it is in the content. Sometimes silence is prayerful, sometimes singing is prayerful. It depends on you, it depends on the heart. So if I say sing, and you sing because I have told you to sing, then the prayer is false from the very beginning. Listen to your heart, feel your moment, and let it be. And whatsoever happens is good. Sometimes nothing will happen, but that is what is happening. You allow it, you don't impose your will on it. When you ask how, you are trying to impose your will, you are trying to plan. That's how prayer has been missed. Prayer has to arise in you, it has to flower in you. And each moment has its own prayer, and each mood has its own prayer. Sometimes you may feel very sad, because sadness also belongs to God. Sadness is also divine. There is no necessity to always be happy. Then sadness is your prayer. Then let your heart cry and let your eyes pour down tears. Then let sadness be offered to God. Whatsoever is there in your heart, let it be offered to the Divine Feet -- joy or sadness, sometimes even anger. Sometimes one is angry with God. If you cannot be angry with God, you have not yet known love. Sometimes one is really in a deep rage. Then let anger be your prayer. Fight with God -- He is yours, you are His, and love knows no formality. Love can survive all fights. If it cannot survive a fight, then it is not love. Never be inauthentic with God because that is the way of not being with Him. Whom are you trying to deceive? The smile on your face is not going to deceive God; your truth will be known to Him. He can only know your truth; lies don't exist for Him. So let the truth be there. Talk to Him as one talks to one's lover, one's friend, one's mother. Talk to Him as one talks to a small child. Let the moment decide, let the moment be decisive, and the truth of the moment should be your prayer. That's my answer: the truth of the moment, whatsoever it is, unconditionally, should be your prayer. And once you allow the truth of the moment to possess you, you will start growing, and you will know tremendous beauties of prayer.

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Embrace the dichotomy of planning and spontaneity. They are both key ingredients for making your vision a reality.

rather than increasing, corruption decreased. This was not achieved spontaneously, however; instead, a series of measures that were effective in tackling this vice were adopted. Transparency was introduced in law. All documents pertaining to the plan, including the selection of people who benefited from programs, accounts, and invoices were considered to be public documents, open and accessible to any citizen.

I might have liked to share a dance with you. If I may be so bold to say." I thought: But isn't this a dance? Isn't all of this a dance? Isn't that what we do with words? Isn't that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it's choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest -- the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

In light of his criticism, maybe we need to reevaluate Jesus’ commendation — and look more closely at our own church and our own lives. The church at Ephesus was a hardworking church, but without the hot fire of love for Christ, their work was simply a performance. The services were well planned, the pews were packed, and the pastor’s sermons were polished, but Jesus says, “I miss the love you had at first.” He misses the extravagance of love poured out; he misses the spontaneous expressions of praise; he misses the full sacrifice of their hearts. The ministry at the Ephesian church in your neighborhood is very impressive, but Jesus is not pleased.

Primer of Love [Lesson 41] The essence of pleasure is spontaneity. ~ Germaine Greer Lesson 41) Play it mostly by ear mostly, but when time is at a premium, plan a bit. Life is not a busy appointment page on your smartphone, you anal retentive fucktard. Life is all about improvisation. The fickle mood for a sour pickle and a box of Entenmanns's mixed donuts, the sudden urge to watch the entire 5 seasons of Breaking Bad together on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or the instant decision to stay home and prepare a four cheese lasagna instead of going out to a nice Italian restaurant. These are the priceless events than even MasterCard cannot challenge. But if you only have a four day weekend, you two have to be grounded in reality. Don't just climb in the car and drive. Pick a fucking direction. Thank God for GPS.

The ‘Sturm und Drang’ was even more complicated in its sociological structure than the West European forms of preromanticism, and not merely because the German middle class and the German intelligentsia had never identified themselves closely enough with the enlightenment to keep their eyes sharply fixed on the aims of the movement and not to deviate from it, but also because their struggle against the rationalism of the absolutist regime was at the same time a struggle against the progressive tendencies of the age. They never became aware of the fact that the rationalism of the princes represented a less serious danger for the future than the anti-rationalism of their own compeers. From being the enemies of despotism they, therefore, became the instruments of reaction and merely promoted the interests of the privileged classes with their attacks on bureaucratic centralization. To be sure, their struggle was not directed against the social levelling tendencies of the system, with which aristocratic and upper middle-class interests were in conflict, but against its generalizing influence and violation of all intellectual distinction and variety. They championed the rights of life, of individual being, natural growth and organic development, against the rigid formalism of the rationalized administration, and meant not only the denial of the bureaucratic state with its mechanical generalization and regimentation, but also the repudiation of the planning and regulating reformism of the enlightenment. And although the idea of the spontaneous, irrational life was still of an indefinite and fluctuating nature and certainly hostile to the enlightenment, but not yet markedly conservative in its purpose, nevertheless, it already contained the essence of the whole philosophy of conservatism. It did not need much now to ascribe a mystical superrationality to this principle of ‘life’, in contrast to which the rationalism of enlightened thought seemed unnatural, inflexible and doctrinaire, and to represent the rise of political and social institutions from historical ‘life’ as a ‘natural’, that is to say, superhuman and superrational growth, in order to protect these institutions against all arbitrary attacks and to secure the continuance of the prevailing system.

Experiments published in 1983 clearly showed that subjects could choose not to perform a movement that was on the cusp of occurring (that is, that their brain was preparing to make) and that was preceded by a large readiness potential. In this view, although the physical sensation of an urge to move is initiated unconsciously, will can still control the outcome by vetoing the action. Later researchers, in fact, reported readiness potentials that precede a planned foot movement not by mere milliseconds but by almost two full seconds, leaving free won’t an even larger window of opportunity. “Conscious will could thus affect the outcome of the volitional process even though the latter was initiated by unconscious cerebral processes,” Libet says. “Conscious will might block or veto the process, so that no act occurs.” Everyone, Libet continues, has had the experience of “vetoing a spontaneous urge to perform some act. This often occurs when the urge to act involves some socially unacceptable consequence, like an urge to shout some obscenity at the professor.” Volunteers report something quite consistent with this view of the will as wielding veto power. Sometimes, they told Libet, a conscious urge to move seemed to bubble up from somewhere, but they suppressed it. Although the possibility of moving gets under way some 350 milliseconds before the subject experiences the will to move, that sense of will nevertheless kicks in 150 to 200 milliseconds before the muscle moves—and with it the power to call a halt to the proceedings. Libet’s findings suggest that free will operates not to initiate a voluntary act but to allow or suppress it. “We may view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as ‘bubbling up’ in the brain,” he explains. “The conscious will then selects which of these initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and abort…. This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious and ethical strictures. These commonly advocate that you ‘control yourself.’ Most of the Ten Commandments are ‘do not’ orders.” And all five of the basic moral precepts of Buddhism are restraints: refraining from killing, from lying, from stealing, from sexual misconduct, from intoxicants. In the Buddha’s famous dictum, “Restraint everywhere is excellent.

Make memories with your children because, in years to come, you will want to remember days such as these. Memories are made up of spontaneous and planned moments. They are shared times of laughter, sadness, and surprise with those you love.

First, they threw materials containing boron. These were to prevent spontaneous chain reactions, because boron is one of the most effective neutron absorbers. Putting some dozens of kilograms of boron into a working reactor is enough to stop its nuclear reaction forever. But during the first days after the accident, they threw about forty tons of boron-containing materials into the reactor's ruins, thousands of times more than should have been needed. In this way, they fought against nuclear hazard. Other materials were also thrown in. They were intended to fill the reactor's pit and form a filtering barrier to stop the spreading radioactivity. Among them were clay, sand, and dolomite. Two thousand six hundred tons during the first days. Last, various things that contained metallic plumbum—lead—were thrown: shot, billets, and other items. The lead was supposed to melt when it came into contact with the hot materials of the reactor. In this way, it would neutralize some of the heat-release. To prevent China Syndrome, about 2400 tons of lead materials were thrown into the reactor. According to the initial plan, the pit of the reactor was to be covered gradually with dry substances. That would diminish radioactive release, and at the same time reduce the heat. Experts considered that these combined actions would cause a decrease in the release, then an increase—a breaching—of hot gases, and then a final decrease. Many reasons prevented these experts from correctly estimating the quantity of released activity. Mistakes in measuring were immense. Nevertheless, these measurements showed first the decrease of radioactive release, and then the increase. And then … hurrah! The release was diminished by hundreds of times. It happened on the evening of May 6.

THE VANISHING ART OF SEIZING THE DAY The hijack of carpe diem is the existential crime of the century – and one that we have barely noticed. It might seem odd to claim that a phrase from a dead Roman poet has been ‘hijacked’, but the evidence is compelling. Who, or what, are the hijackers in question? First, the spirit of ‘seize the day’ has been surreptitiously hijacked by consumer culture, which has recast it as Black Friday shopping sprees and the instant hit of one-click online buying: in essence Just Do It has come to mean Just Buy It. Alongside this is the growing cult of efficiency and time management that has driven us toward hyper-scheduled living, turning the spontaneity of Just Do It into a culture of Just Plan It. A third hijacker is 24/7 digital entertainment that is replacing vibrant life experiences with vicarious, screen-based pleasures, and contributing to a new age of distraction. Rather than Just Do It, we increasingly Just Watch It instead. Finally – and though it might seem counterintuitive – carpe diem has been hijacked by the booming mindfulness movement. While practising mindfulness has many proven benefits, from reducing stress to helping with depression, one of its unintended consequences has been to encourage the idea that seizing the day is primarily about living in the here and now. Just Do It has become Just Breathe. Confronted by these four hijackers, the art of seizing the day is vanishing before our eyes and we urgently need to do something about it, or else risk losing touch with the carpe diem wisdom of humanity that has accumulated over the past two millennia. I will be exploring in detail how this cultural hijacking has happened, and how we might best respond.

To be prepared for anything, one must plan on nothing.

You can file your nails, make appointments, clean a shelf, throw in a load of laundry, or write a thank-you note. One pastor gave a copy of the book of Psalms to everyone in his congregation. He suggests they use it when they have a minute or so of "waiting" time. Why not make a list of what you can accomplish in five minutes so you'll be ready the next time you have a little spare time? ant some quick reminders to get more out of life? • In your Bible underline verses that remind you of how much you're loved by God. Check back when you need to be reminded. • Mend a broken relationship. Don't hesitate to say you're sorry. • Hang around with loving, giving people. Their attitude and joy are contagious. And we need all the love we can get, don't we? • Practice delight! The more you notice and rejoice in what God has done, the more positive and loving you'll feel. e spontaneous and throw a party. You can make just about any occasion special. Now don't laugh, but being spontaneous sometimes takes a little planning. For instance, you'll want to have something fun to eat in the freezer that you can prepare

The intellectual actor For many of those who aspire to be actors or to become better actors, the biggest challenge is to stop thinking and start feeling. Our education system trains young people in thinking and the prizes are given out for analytical skills. But fundamentally this is a cerebral engagement, impassive and rational. And this kind of education – especially at degree level – is often in direct opposition to what actors need to cultivate in themselves. For much of our lives, we are served well by the ability to think logically about what’s happening and make considered, rational decisions about what to do. Indeed, for most professions it’s essential. I’m guessing we would all rather be operated on, or have our taxes done, by someone with the rigour of thinking to be able to analyse a situation and come up with a reliably intelligent plan of attack. But the foremost job of an actor is to commit to the fictional world of a drama and this is not a cerebral activity. The qualities that will really make a performance – spontaneity, impulsiveness, emotional availability, unguarded vulnerability – are neither logical nor intellectual. And these are things we can deliberately cultivate in ourselves. Nicolas Cage: ‘I invite the entire spectrum, shall we call it, of feeling. Because that is my greatest resource as a film actor. I need to be able to feel everything, which is why I refuse to go on any kind of medication. Not that I need to! But my point is, I wouldn’t even explore that, because it would get in the way of my instrument. Which is my emotional facility to be able to perform.

if you are aiming to organise for revolution, then you need to make sure your organisation can possibly lead there, and if it does, that it can cope. Reliance on spontaneity is a complete dead-end, an uprising that has been organised and planned is no less “authentic” than one that arises seemingly at random — remember Occupy was planned, sort of, by Adbusters of all groups. Imagine what an organisation with an actually coherent ultimate aim and that is serious about its aims could do.This is a long way from smug floridity in literary fora, and the quicker we leave that behind, the better.

A few days before the club, Stevie and Erin produced the wares of their dumpster dives. New potatoes, udon noodles, shiitake mushrooms, raspberry doughnuts, baked meringues, feta cheese, frozen peas, farfalle pasta, tomato puree, tinned salmon, plus a load of day-old radishes. "The most important part of any dumpster dive," Erin said, moving her hand expansively over the food, "is showing off what you have found." I processed the food as she'd taught me: cleaning the packaging with diluted bleach and soaking the vegetables in a vinegar-water solution. In the large chrome restaurant kitchen, I spread it all out across the counter and thought about what I'd make. We had bought just one extra ingredient: enormous cuts of T-bone steak. We thought red meat should be a prerequisite for all Supper Clubs. An element of spontaneity had also been agreed on, with no set menu, no dietary requirements- just eat whatever's in front of you and be sure to eat it all. The plan was to spend all night at the restaurant, waiting hours between courses. I made grilled potatoes and spiced salmon for the first course. I roasted radishes and topped them with crumbled feta for the second. Cold noodle salad with shiitake mushrooms and peas for the third, and T-bone steaks cooked rare, with a side of garlic-tomato pasta, for the main course. For dessert I made a strange sort of Eton mess, with chunks of torn doughnuts and smashed meringue covered in cream and sugar.

In the late afternoon of their life, a precautious person outgrows the fulsome myths that fueled their impressionable youth. Perceived truths of a fawning youth no longer appear self-evident. A previously established cultural script and its lavish adornments that guided me to the crucial midpoint were no longer relevant. Impetuous acts of spontaneity that demarked my boisterous and animated youth were now irresponsible affections. When I aged and encountered the red claws of a carnivorous existence, I grew weary of the bone meal journey into the unknown. I was suspicious of other people, mistrustful of my personal abilities, and contemptuous of my nascent life plan. New truths must be uncovered. I must fuse an innovative philosophy out of the modest pinpoints of experience garnered in traversing the rocky terrain of living a thespian’s stage-managed existence. Reaching a critical juncture in life, I need to make sense of the past, come to terms with the present, take a cold-eyed assessment of my future prospects, and decide what to do.

The Ballad of John Axon was the first of a series created by MacColl, Seeger and BBC producer Charles Parker that shone the microphone like a searchlight into obscure or overlooked sectors of British society: fishermen, teenagers, motorway builders, miners, polio sufferers, even the nomadic travelling community. Gathered on the spot, their oral histories were reworked as intelligent and dynamic folk anthropology, attuned to their era’s nuanced tug-of-war between conservatism and progress. The eight programmes, broadcast by the BBC between 1958–64, were experiments conducted on the wireless, splicing spoken word, field recordings, sound effects, traditional folk song and newly composed material into audio essays that verged on the hypnotic. They were given a name that elegantly fused tradition and modernity: radio ballads. Until the mid-1950s standard BBC practice in making radio documentaries involved researchers visiting members of the public – ‘actuality characters’ – and talking to them, perhaps even recording them, then returning to headquarters and working out a script based on their testimonies. The original subjects would then be revisited and presented with the scripted version of their own words. That’s the reason such programmes sound so stilted to modern ears: members of the public are almost always speaking a scriptwriter’s distillation of their spontaneous thoughts. When MacColl and Charles Parker drove up to Stockport in the autumn of 1957 with an EMI Midget tape recorder in their weekend bags, they planned to interview Axon’s widow and his colleagues for information, then turn their findings into a dramatic reconstruction featuring actors and musicians. In fact, they stayed in the area for around a fortnight and ended up with more than forty hours of voices and location recordings. The material, they agreed, was too good to tamper with.

Strong enough to be weak Successful enough to fail Busy enough to make time Wise enough to say "I don't know" Serious enough to laugh Rich enough to be poor Right enough to say "I'm wrong" Compassionate enough to discipline Mature enough to be childlike Important enough to be last Planned enough to be spontaneous Controlled enough to be flexible Free enough to endure captivity Knowledgeable enough to ask questions Loving enough to be angry Great enough to be anonymous Responsible enough to play Assured enough to be rejected Victorious enough to lose Industrious enough to relax Leading enough to serve Poem by Brewer, as cited by Hansel, in Holy Sweat, Dallas Texas, Word, 1987. (p. 29)

Jung postulates that the unconscious and fate conspire against the conscious self to further the growth of the individual. This is one of the main principles for understanding the shadow element of the psyche, as the world we experience will continue to reveal suppressed and unconscious aspects of our minds. Both fate and the unconscious uproot our plans to control life.

Mindful awareness—or mindfulness—spontaneously arises out of this Being mode when we learn to pay attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment, to things as they actually are.

When we were growing up, I chatted all the time with Yngve and we never had any secrets, but at some juncture, perhaps as early as when I was at upper secondary, this changed: from then on I was immensely conscious of who he was and who I was when we were talking, all spontaneity vanished, every statement I made was either planned in advance or analyzed retrospectively, mostly both, apart from when I was drinking, then I regained the old freedom.

Like everything else that took place in the Soviet Union, this upsurge of spontaneous fury had been conceived and planned well in advance.

It's kind of getting on my nerves if you want the truth, listening to her go on and on about how she can't believe she's fallen in love with this young man from Jamaica that she met on vacation, but her problem is that she is afraid of marriage because of what she's seen it do to love, how much you actually lose, for instance, like spontaneity: everything seems to have to be planned out in advance, and she does not always want to know what is going to happen next; and then how about passion: it gets pushed out of the way or maybe even shoved over and down to the bottom of the list of needs to that list of wants and is now considered superfluous, and where there used to be joy and laughter and warm smiles all of a sudden they cross over the picket line and everybody's pissed about something stressed out every day and so she feels that marriage is just so misrepresented, so overrated and not at all redeeming and plus it changes people and she does not want to be changed.

Many anxious people have had a lifetime of people telling them “Don’t worry,” “Don’t stress,” “Don’t over-think it.” As a result of constantly being told to just relax more and chill out, anxious people often end up feeling like there is something fundamentally wrong with their natural self. The “Don’t worry, be happy” message ignores research showing that there are benefits to both optimism and what’s termed defensive pessimism. Successfully navigating anxiety involves learning how to accept, like, and work with your nature rather than fighting against it. Personally, I like my nature, even though I’m anxiety-prone. If you don’t already, I hope you’ll come to understand and like your natural self too. Once anxiety isn’t impeding you, this will be easier to accomplish. If you take nothing else away from this book, understand that there’s nothing wrong with having a predisposition to anxiety. It’s fine to be someone who likes to mull things over and consider things that could go wrong. If you’re not spontaneous or happy-go-lucky by nature, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that either. It’s fine to consider potential negative outcomes . . . as long as you also: --Consider potential positive outcomes. --Recognize that a possible negative outcome isn’t necessarily a reason not to do something. --Recognize your innate capacity to cope with things that don’t go according to plan.