Stability And Security Quotes

What is she looking for?  She thought she had found it with Kyle.  But maybe she hadn’t. Perhaps she was looking for stability, security, sameness because her growing-up years had seemed so fragmented, and she often felt unsure of how she fit in.  Maybe stability isn’t all she is looking for.

In the name of stability and security, they condemn only the violence that challenges the status quo, never the violence that perpetuates it.

Your love is as stable as you are: It's not about how good a person makes you feel, but rather what good you can do for them.

Pick a leader who will make their citizens proud. One who will stir the hearts of the people, so that the sons and daughters of a given nation strive to emulate their leader's greatness. Only then will a nation be truly great, when a leader inspires and produces citizens worthy of becoming future leaders, honorable decision makers and peacemakers. And in these times, a great leader must be extremely brave. Their leadership must be steered only by their conscience, not a bribe.

A NATION'S GREATNESS DEPENDS ON ITS LEADER To vastly improve your country and truly make it great again, start by choosing a better leader. Do not let the media or the establishment make you pick from the people they choose, but instead choose from those they do not pick. Pick a leader from among the people who is heart-driven, one who identifies with the common man on the street and understands what the country needs on every level. Do not pick a leader who is only money-driven and does not understand or identify with the common man, but only what corporations need on every level. Pick a peacemaker. One who unites, not divides. A cultured leader who supports the arts and true freedom of speech, not censorship. Pick a leader who will not only bail out banks and airlines, but also families from losing their homes -- or jobs due to their companies moving to other countries. Pick a leader who will fund schools, not limit spending on education and allow libraries to close. Pick a leader who chooses diplomacy over war. An honest broker in foreign relations. A leader with integrity, one who says what they mean, keeps their word and does not lie to their people. Pick a leader who is strong and confident, yet humble. Intelligent, but not sly. A leader who encourages diversity, not racism. One who understands the needs of the farmer, the teacher, the doctor, and the environmentalist -- not only the banker, the oil tycoon, the weapons developer, or the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyist. Pick a leader who will keep jobs in your country by offering companies incentives to hire only within their borders, not one who allows corporations to outsource jobs for cheaper labor when there is a national employment crisis. Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance. Stability, not fear and terror. Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate. Convergence, not segregation. Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies. Most importantly, a great leader must serve the best interests of the people first, not those of multinational corporations. Human life should never be sacrificed for monetary profit. There are no exceptions. In addition, a leader should always be open to criticism, not silencing dissent. Any leader who does not tolerate criticism from the public is afraid of their dirty hands to be revealed under heavy light. And such a leader is dangerous, because they only feel secure in the darkness. Only a leader who is free from corruption welcomes scrutiny; for scrutiny allows a good leader to be an even greater leader. And lastly, pick a leader who will make their citizens proud. One who will stir the hearts of the people, so that the sons and daughters of a given nation strive to emulate their leader's greatness. Only then will a nation be truly great, when a leader inspires and produces citizens worthy of becoming future leaders, honorable decision makers and peacemakers. And in these times, a great leader must be extremely brave. Their leadership must be steered only by their conscience, not a bribe.

Stability and security are just illusions. But they are necessary illusions because without them there would be no way of going on.

The recent renewal of hostilities in the Middle East and cross-border casualties and damage prove once again the fragility of unilateral decisions and quick fixes and their failure to ensure safety and STABILITY. Israelis and Palestinians need to move fast towards a permanent settlement to enjoy lasting peace and SECURITY.

Ultimately, Investing is about holistic ROI. It’s not about just owning stocks or crypto or flipping for quick income. When we talk about holistic ROI, we are looking at our long term profit, short term profit, income security, cash flow, social impact, environmental impact, spiritual impact, stability of the permaculture economy, and more. That’s how we see it at Mayflower-Plymouth.

Nichts ist stabiler als die Fahrt in den Abgrund.

We start a relationship with someone not only because of how great they are but how great they make us feel. And because they have granted us this extraordinary gift—a chance to experience love, joy, compassion, and security —it is our exclusive privilege to make them feel wonderful about themselves, especially during days when they, themselves, don't feel so wonderful.

That is marriage. Security and stability with the occasional what the hell was I thinking?

I think there's something to the old saying that women use sex to get love, and men use love to get sex. And love is really just a word we use to describe a close bond, or relationship, between two people. Men have been programmed to want sex, so they do whatever is necessary to be in a relationship with a woman. And a woman is programmed to want the stability and (financial) security of a relationship, so she offers the man what he wants: sex.

Work is the only only only remedy for life: for happiness, for interest, for stability, for security. Hard, willed work. Oh work!

That's because true travel, the kind with no predetermined end, is one of the most selfish endeavors we can possibly undertake-an act in which we focus solely on our own fulfillment, with little regard to those we leave behind. After all, we're the ones venturing out into the big crazy world, filling up journals, growing like weeds. And we have the gall to think they're just sitting at home, soaking in security and stability. It is only when we reopen these wrapped and ribboned boxes, upon our triumphant return home, that we discover nothing is the way we had left it before.

Now a government is secure insofar as it has God for its foundation and His Will for its guide; but this, surely, is not a description of Liberal government. It is, in the Liberal view, the people who rule, and not God; God Himself is a "constitutional monarch" Whose authority has been totally delegated to the people, and Whose function is entirely ceremonial. The Liberal believes in God with the same rhetorical fervor with which he believes in Heaven. The government erected upon such a faith is very little different, in principle, from a government erected upon total disbelief, and whatever its present residue of stability, it is clearly pointed in the direction of Anarchy.

The honeymoon phase is special in that it brings together the relief of reciprocated love with the excitement of a future still to be created. What we often don't realize is that the exuberance of the beginning is fueled by its undercurrent of uncertainty. We set out to make love more secure and dependable, but in the process, inevitably we dial down its intensity. On the path of commitment, we happily trade a little passion for a bit more certainty, some excitement for some stability.

Thus, maintaining a good image of the parent is mistakenly perceived by the patient as being essential to stability and security; yet, paradoxically, its preservation perpetuates self-hatred.

We liken the passion of the beginning to adolescent intoxication—both transient and unrealistic. The consolation for giving it up is the security that waits on the other side. Yet when we trade passion for stability, are we not merely swapping one fantasy for another? As Stephen Mitchell points out, the fantasy of permanence may trump the fantasy of passion, but both are products of our imagination.

We all need the comforting illusion of stability and security in this shaky rooftop of a thing we call life. Tevye is right; we are all fiddlers, trying to scratch out a simple tune without breaking our necks.

health, social life, job, house, partners, finances; leisure use, leisure amount; working time, education, income, children; food, water, shelter, clothing, sex, health care; mobility; physical safety, social safety, job security, savings account, insurance, disability protection, family leave, vacation; place tenure, a commons; access to wilderness, mountains, ocean; peace, political stability, political input, political satisfaction; air, water, esteem; status, recognition; home, community, neighbors, civil society, sports, the arts; longevity treatments, gender choice; the opportunity to become more what you are that's all you need

The historian and essayist Pamela Haag has written a whole book about marriages like Danica and Stefan’s, which she calls “melancholy marriages.” Analyzing the plight of these “semi-happy couples,” she explains: A marriage adds things to your life, and it also takes things away. Constancy kills joy; joy kills security; security kills desire; desire kills stability; stability kills lust. Something gives; some part of you recedes. It’s something you can live without, or it’s not. And maybe it’s hard to know before the marriage which part of the self is expendable . . . and which is part of your spirit.

I was also troubled by the apparent over-confidence of a generation that has only known stability, growth and prosperity. I thought our people should understand how vulnerable Singapore was and is, the dangers that beset us, and how we nearly did not make it. Most of all, I hope that they will know that honest and effective government, public order and personal security, economic and social progress did not come about as the natural course of events.

You get what you design for. Chester, your peer in Development, is spending all his cycles on features, instead of stability, security, scalability, manageability, operability, continuity, and all those other beautiful ’itties.

Stability and security comes in life when you become rooted in your inner self. It's like establishing your Ashram in your inner space. It works like a divine address where the things meant for you can come or send you invitation.

With the myth of the State out of the way, the real mutuality and reciprocity of society and individual became clear. Sacrifice might be demanded of the individual, but never compromise: for though only the society could give security and stability, only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice - the power of change, the essential function of life. The Odonian society was conceived as a permanent revolution, and revolution begins in the thinking mind.

The length of the fall is dictated by how far we had climbed. The outcome of the fall is dictated by whether we’re holding on to that which we’re climbing, or we’re letting God hold onto us.

People who need regulation often leave therapy sessions feeling calmer, stronger, safer, more able to handle the world. Often they don't know why. Nothing obviously helpful happened - telling a stranger about your pain sounds nothing like a certain recipe for relief. And the feeling inevitably dwindles, sometimes within minutes, taking the warmth and security with it. But the longer a patient depends, the more his stability swells, expanding infinitesimally with ever session as length is added to a woven cloth with each pass of the shuttle, each contraction of the loom. And after he weaves enough of it, the day comes when the patient will unfurl his independence like a pair of spread wings. Free at last, he catches a wind and rides into other lands. (172)

The world oscillates endlessly between pleasure and pain,” she continued. “There can be no security, no stability here. These are to be found in God alone.

I wasn’t very good at just floating along. I didn’t like upheaval. I liked security and schedules and stability because they appeased the squarest parts of my heart

The more we construct lives that prioritize safety, the bigger the prison we construct around ourselves.

I want to be my own stability and security. I want someone to love, and someone to love me.

I gave you a few laughs and showed you a good time, but there was no future with me. So although it was fun while it lasted, you made up your mind to choose the stability and security a rich man can offer.” She shook her head. “No.” “No?” “If you look in your heart, you know that’s not true.” “So, what is it then, he went into a jealous rage and he threatened you?” “Yes.” “With your life?” “No.” “Well then...” “With yours.

I stare at my plate, unable to confess even to Kelsey what I’ve discovered in the past couple of months—that my dependence on Dean and my lack of career or even job stability is downright frightening. Without Dean or my own financial security, it’s just a few short steps to a life of constant transition and uncertainty.

A rock sits on the ground while a flower sits on a thin stem a few inches above the ground. Both are stable in their positions. If the flower tries to mimic the stone’s stability and falls on the ground, it will die. You have to find your own stability in life. What is stablility for someone else may cause pain and fear in your life.

Where do you think your family’s misery comes from, Zetian? Don’t you think they’d become different people if you could get them out of this place and give them all the food and security they’ve lacked in their lives?- Xiuying

One would think that having grown up broke would make one desperate for financial stability, eager to rest in the economic security of a good job. Rather, it gave me the freedom to take chances. I knew how to get by on next to nothing.

young people are ambivalent about adulthood. As Arnett argues, they want the security and stability adulthood brings, but they don’t want to settle into a daily grind. They don’t want to limit their spontaneity or put limits on their dreams.

Emotionally mature people have a secure sense of self. They don’t feel threatened when other people see things differently, nor are they afraid of seeming weak if they don’t know something. So when you have an insight to share with them, they listen and consider what you tell them. They may not agree, but thanks to their natural curiosity they’ll try to understand your point of view. John Gottman, well-known for his research into relationships and marital stability, describes this trait as a willingness to be influenced by others, and counts it among his seven principles for a sustainable, happy relationship (1999).

To build refuges of my own making is to construct fortresses of sand at ocean’s edge, where the relentless tides of time will leave my most magnificently constructed walls as perfectly flat sand. And now that I am subject to the very tides that destroyed these walls of mine, I am left with the reality that my single and sole refuge can only be the God who created both tides and sand.

When we were in our mother’s womb, we felt secure—protected from heat, cold, and hunger. But the moment we were born and came into contact with the world’s suffering, we began to cry. Since then, we have yearned to return to the security of our mother’s womb. We long for permanence, but everything is changing. We desire an absolute, but even what we call our “self” is impermanent. We seek a place where we can feel safe and secure, a place we can rely on for a long time. When we touch the ground, we feel the stability of the earth and feel confident. When we observe the steadiness of the sunshine, the air, and the trees, we know that we can count on the sun to rise each day and the air and the trees to be there tomorrow. When we build a house, we build it on ground that is solid. Before putting our trust in others, we need to choose friends who are stable, on whom we can rely.

What about order? Stability? Security? I’ve tried to keep you away from unpleasant things. But don’t tell me you don’t know how peace is achieved. With how much sacrifice and how much blood. Be grateful that I’ve allowed you to see the other side and devote yourself to the good, while I, Abbes, Lieutenant Peña Rivera, and others kept the country in order so you could write your poems and your speeches. I’m sure that with your acute intelligence, you understand me perfectly.

He had no choice in the matter, if he left her hanging by the straps she'd end up being banged against the side of the aircraft. Not good for her, not good for the plane's stability. You always fastened down a cargo, you didn't leave it loose in the back of a plane. That was all he was doing, he told himself putting his arms around her to hold her limp body still, letting her head loll back against his shoulder. Keeping the cargo secure. It was his own damn fault he was getting hard again.

So, what is it that I bring to her?” [Angus] “Strength. Security. Stability. All the best ‘s’ words.” [Truman] Truman smirked and so did Angus.

for though only the society could give security and stability, only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice—the power of change, the essential function of life.

They use your feelings against you so you feel responsible for supporting their emotional security, stability, and self-esteem.

Stability allows a person the freedom of choice, my friend. People can pursue their dreams only when they are living in a society where survival is not a daily threat. In a society without security and stability, there are no intellectuals or businessmen or artists or geniuses. Man is constantly in fight or flight mode. nothing better than an animal. Where is the chance then to allow ideas to be nurtured or dreams to be pursued? That is the way all humans were before we formed societies. Civilisation is very fragile. All it takes is a few decades of chaos for us to forget humanity and turn into animals. Our base natures can take over very fast. We can forget that we are sentient beings, with laws and codes and ethics.

This was, as far as he was concerned, the real mystery of civilization – and for all that he exploited it he was, by the end, no closer to understanding it. This willingness of otherwise intelligent (well, reasonably intelligent) people to parcel up and then bargain away appalling percentages of their very limited lives, all in service to someone else. And the rewards? Ah, some security, perhaps. The cement that is stability. A sound roof, something on the plate, the beloved offspring each one destined to repeat the whole travail. And was that an even exchange?

A farmer feels insecure because of unseasonal rains, lack of rains, pests etc. He hopes to get stability in life when his children get jobs in city. A job goer is stressed due to insecurities of corporate world. She dreams of a peaceful and stable life somewhere in a remote village where she would grow her own food and eat. Mind keeps looking for peace and stability somewhere in future. And that's the trap.

The security of society lies in custom and unconscious instinct, and the basis of the stability of society, as a healthy organism, is the complete absence of any intelligence amongst its members. The great majority of people being fully aware of this, rank themselves naturally on the side of that splendid system that elevates them to the dignity of machines, and rage so wildly against the intrusion of the intellectual faculty into any question that concerns life, that one is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

What we build certainly might look like a refuge, but if it wasn't designed by God it's something more akin to a leaky tent in the middle of a category 5 hurricane on a Monday morning. Nothing about it is good.

Why is it that none of the things I construct ever make me feel safe? The answer lies in the fact that safety can’t be created. It can only be found. And the only thing I've found that’s never been created is God.

Neddy Nelson: Have you read that Kissinger report he's supposed to have submitted to the National Security Council in 1974? The one where Henry Kissinger warns that the greatest threat to the future of Americans is overpopulation in Third World countries? How's it go? We need the minerals and natural resources of Africa? Pretty quick now, those banana republics will fall apart as their populations rise too high? The only way America can protect its prosperity and political stability will be to depopulate the Third World? Should we be surprised that the AIDS virus showed up about 1975? Do you understand what the term "depopulate" means?

… the countryside and the village are symbols of stability and security, of order. Yet they are also, as I have noted, liminal spaces, at a very narrow remove from the atavistic Wild. Arcadia is not the realm even of Giorgione and of Claude, with its cracked pillars and thunderbolts, its lurking banditti; still less is it Poussin’s sun-dappled and regularised realm of order, where, although the lamb may be destined for the altar and the spit, all things proceed with charm and gravity and studied gesture; least of all is it the degenerate and prettified Arcady of Fragonard and Watteau, filled with simpering courtier-Corydons, pallid Olympians, and fat-arsed putti. (It is only family piety that prevents me from taking a poker to an inherited coffee service in gilt porcelain with bastardised, deutero-Fragonard scenes painted on the sides of every damned thing. Cue Wallace Greenslade: ‘… “Round the Horne”, with Marie Antoinette as the dairymaid and Kenneth Williams as the manager of the camp-site….’) No: Arcadia is the very margin of the liminal space between the safe tilth and the threatening Wild, in which Pan lurks, shaggy and goatish, and Death proclaims, from ambush, et in Arcadia ego. Arcadia is not the Wide World nor the Riverbank, but the Wild Wood. And in that wood are worse than stoats and weasels, and the true Pan is no Francis of Assisi figure, sheltering infant otters. The Wild that borders and penetrates Arcady is red in tooth and claw.

Sacrifice might be demanded of the individual, but never compromise: for though only the society could give security and stability, only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice—the power of change, the essential function of life.

The advantages of a hereditary Monarchy are self-evident. Without some such method of prescriptive, immediate and automatic succession, an interregnum intervenes, rival claimants arise, continuity is interrupted and the magic lost. Even when Parliament had secured control of taxation and therefore of government; even when the menace of dynastic conflicts had receded in to the coloured past; even when kingship had ceased to be transcendental and had become one of many alternative institutional forms; the principle of hereditary Monarchy continued to furnish the State with certain specific and inimitable advantages. Apart from the imponderable, but deeply important, sentiments and affections which congregate around an ancient and legitimate Royal Family, a hereditary Monarch acquires sovereignty by processes which are wholly different from those by which a dictator seizes, or a President is granted, the headship of the State. The King personifies both the past history and the present identity of the Nation as a whole. Consecrated as he is to the service of his peoples, he possesses a religious sanction and is regarded as someone set apart from ordinary mortals. In an epoch of change, he remains the symbol of continuity; in a phase of disintegration, the element of cohesion; in times of mutability, the emblem of permanence. Governments come and go, politicians rise and fall: the Crown is always there. A legitimate Monarch moreover has no need to justify his existence, since he is there by natural right. He is not impelled as usurpers and dictators are impelled, either to mesmerise his people by a succession of dramatic triumphs, or to secure their acquiescence by internal terrorism or by the invention of external dangers. The appeal of hereditary Monarchy is to stability rather than to change, to continuity rather than to experiment, to custom rather than to novelty, to safety rather than to adventure. The Monarch, above all, is neutral. Whatever may be his personal prejudices or affections, he is bound to remain detached from all political parties and to preserve in his own person the equilibrium of the realm. An elected President – whether, as under some constitutions, he be no more than a representative functionary, or whether, as under other constitutions, he be the chief executive – can never inspire the same sense of absolute neutrality. However impartial he may strive to become, he must always remain the prisoner of his own partisan past; he is accompanied by friends and supporters whom he may seek to reward, or faced by former antagonists who will regard him with distrust. He cannot, to an equal extent, serve as the fly-wheel of the State.

My laboratory is a place where I write. I have become proficient at producing a rare species of prose capable of distilling ten years of work by five people into six published pages, written in a language that very few people can read and that no one ever speaks. This writing relates the details of my work with the precision of a laser scalpel, but its streamlined beauty is a type of artifice, a size-zero mannequin designed to showcase the glory of a dress that would be much less perfect on any real person. My papers do not display the footnotes that they have earned, the table of data that required painstaking months to redo when a graduate student quit, sneering on her way out that she didn’t want a life like mine. The paragraph that took five hours to write while riding on a plane, stunned with grief, flying to a funeral that I couldn’t believe was happening. The early draft that my toddler covered in crayon and applesauce while it was still warm from the printer. Although my publications contain meticulous details of the plants that did grow, the runs that went smoothly, and the data that materialized, they perpetrate a disrespectful amnesia against the entire gardens that rotted in fungus and dismay, the electrical signals that refused to stabilize, and the printer ink cartridges that we secured late at night through nefarious means. I

In the eyes of the vast majority of white Americans, the refusal of the southern states to fully free or enfranchise former slaves and their descendants was not an issue worthy of any further disruption to the civil stability of the United States. Black Americans were exchanged for a sense of white security.

It is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under the influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that every man will attain to the fullness of his worth, to all the dignity of his being, and that mankind will accomplish with order and with calmness...the progress ordained for it.

Modern life favors work, social engagement, travel, and the development of a career over the needs of home. We're expected to override the complaints of the soul for stability and security, so that we can move without hindrance into an exciting and fulfilling future. We see homesickness as a childish malady, inappropriate in the mature adult, who needs to keep home in perspective and become increasingly independent. But the soul always complains when it has been slighted, and the emotional sicknesses associated with modern life show that the spirit of home has been violated. Aimlessness, boredom, and irresponsibility are common problems, and they may be traced back to a loss of home. All signs indicate that our society is suffering from profound homesickness. The soul's need for home has to do not only with shelter and a house, but with more subtle forms, like the feeling that one is living in the right place, being around people who offer a sense of belonging, doing work that is truly appropriate, feeling maternally protected and enlivened by the natural world, and belonging to a nation and a world community. These larger sources of home ask for our attention and commitment, but they also have gifts for the heart, and each one of them contribute to the enchantment of everyday existence.

We may be captive when we choose financial stability over artistic freedom, when we live our lives like agoraphobics, confusing the safety of a locked house with security. The cage oh habit. The cage of ego. The cage of ambition. The cage of materialism. The line between freedom from fear and freedom from danger is not always easy to discern

How can we embrace poverty as a way to God when everyone around us wants to become rich? Poverty has many forms. We have to ask ourselves: 'What is my poverty?' Is it lack of money, lack of emotional stability, lack of a loving partner, lack of security, lack of safety, lack of self-confidence? Each human being has a place of poverty. That’s the place where God wants to dwell! 'How blessed are the poor,' Jesus says (Matthew 5:3). This means that our blessing is hidden in our poverty. We are so inclined to cover up our poverty and ignore it that we often miss the opportunity to discover God, who dwells in it. Let’s dare to see our poverty as the land where our treasure is hidden.

The reigning belief today is that closeness between persons is a moral good. The reigning aspiration today is to develop individual personality through experiences of closeness and warmth with others. The reigning myth today is that the evils of society can all be understood as evils of impersonality, alienation, and coldness. The sum of these three is an ideology of intimacy: social relationships of all kinds are real, believable, and authentic the closer they approach the inner psychological concerns of each person. This ideology transmutes political categories into psychological categories. This ideology of intimacy defines the humanitarian spirit of a society without gods: warmth is our god. The history of the rise and fall of public culture at the very least calls this humanitarian spirit into question. The belief in closeness between persons as a moral good is in fact the product of a profound dislocation which capitalism and secular belief produced in the last century. Because of this dislocation, people sought to find personal meanings in impersonal situations, in objects, and in the objective conditions of society itself. They could not find these meanings; as the world became psychomorphic, it became mystifying. They therefore sought to flee, and find in the private realms of life, especially in the family, some principle of order in the perception of personality. Thus the past built a hidden desire for stability in the overt desire for closeness between human beings. Even as we have revolted against the stern sexual rigidities of the Victorian family, we continue to burden close relations with others with these hidden desires for security, rest, and permanence. When the relations cannot bear these burdens, we conclude there is something wrong with the relationship, rather than with the unspoken expectations. Arriving at a feeling of closeness to others is thus often after a process of testing them; the relationship is both close and closed. If it changes, if it must change, there is a feeling of trust betrayed. Closeness burdened with the expectation of stability makes emotional communication—hard enough as it is—one step more difficult. Can intimacy on these terms really be a virtue?

Escape is a good novel, a gripping movie, a holiday - not something I can imagine being forced into. I am used to thinking of travel as an escape from security and predictability and stability, not a journey in search of these things. I am used to thinking of home as something that gets left behind at the start of a journey, not something you might be travelling perilously towards.

She said, 'Claudia, I know you are so happy right now that it's hard to imagine things will ever be bad. But there will come a day when you'll be sitting across from him as he is eating his breakfast, and all you will think is why? And then you'll get over it, and things will go back to normal.' That is marriage. Security and stability with the occasional 'what the hell was I thinking?

Country Future Index. It’s an alternative to the GNP measurement, taking into account debt, political stability, environmental health and the like. A useful cross-check on the GNP, and it helps tag countries that could use our help. We identify those, go to them and offer them a massive capital investment, plus political advice, security, whatever they need. In return we take custody of their bioinfrastructure.

Military security has to rest, ultimately, on economic and polit ical stability. One of the effects of the rapidity of change in the world today is that there can no longer be static stability; there can only be dynamic stability. A nation or society that fails to keep pace with change is in danger of flying apart. It is important that we recognize this, but equally important that in trying to maintain a dynamic stability we remember

The language of the court was, of course, not as poetic as the language of the marsh. Yet Kya saw similarities in their natures. The judge, obviously the alpha male, was secure in his position, so his posture was imposing, but relaxed and unthreatened as the territorial boar. Tom Milton, too, exuded confidence and rank with easy movements and stance. A powerful buck, acknowledged as such. The prosecutor, on the other hand, relied on wide, bright ties and broad-shouldered suit jackets to enhance his status. He threw his weight by flinging his arms or raising his voice. A lesser male needs to shout to be noticed. The bailiff represented the lowest-ranking male and depended on his belt hung with glistening pistol, clanging wad of keys, and clunky radio to bolster his position. Dominance hierarchies enhance stability in natural populations, and some less natural, Kya thought.

Alongside the development of theatres came the growth of an acting culture; in essence it was the birth of the acting profession. Plays had generally been performed by amateurs - often men from craft guilds. Towards the end of the sixteenth century there developed companies of actors usually under the patronage of a powerful or wealthy individual. These companies offered some protection against the threat of Puritan intervention, censorship, or closure on account of the plague. They encouraged playwrights to write drama which relied on ensemble playing rather than the more static set pieces associated with the classical tradition. They employed boys to play the parts of women and contributed to the development of individual performers. Audiences began to attend the theatre to see favourite actors, such as Richard Burbage or Will Kempe, as much as to see a particular play. Although the companies brought some stability and professionalism to the business of acting - for instance, Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's, subsequently the King's, Men, continued until the theatres closed (1642) - they offered little security for the playwright. Shakespeare was in this respect, as in others, the exception to the rule that even the best-known and most successful dramatists of the period often remained financially insecure.

At a higher level of abstraction, the behavioral correlates of life history strategies can be framed within the five-factor model of personality. Among the Big Five, agreeableness and conscientiousness show the most consistent pattern of associations with slow traits such as restricted sociosexuality, long-term mating orientation, couple stability, secure attachment to parents in infancy and romantic partners in adulthood, reduced sex drive, low impulsivity, and risk aversion across domains. Conscientiousness and (to a smaller extent) agreeableness are also the most reliable personality predictors of physical health and longevity; the contribution of neuroticism is mixed and may depend on the specific facets considered. The life history correlates of neuroticism are much less straightforward; for example, high neuroticism tends to predict increased short-term mating in women but reduced short-term mating in men, with much cross-cultural variation. There is also evidence that slow life history–related traits can be associated with social anxiety and insecurity, which is consistent with a general profile of risk aversion and behavioral inhibition. As a first approximation, then, metatrait alpha can be treated as a broadband correlate of slow strategies, with the caveat that neuroticism may be elevated at both ends of the continuum.

The Muslim world in general, the Arab world in particular was confirmed in its grievances, particularly that the West was prepared to use its overwhelming military superiority to keep Muslims subordinate. 'Europe', the Europe of the Franco-German plan to create a federal union strong enough to stand on terms of equality with the United States as a world power, had been humiliated by the failure of its efforts to avert the war. Liberal opinion, dominant throughout the European media and academia, strong also in their American equivalents, was outraged by the spectacle of raw military force supplanting reason and legality as the means by which relations between states were ordered. Reality is an uncomfortable companion, particularly to people of good will. George H.W. Bush's proclamation of a new world order had persuaded too many in the West that the world's future could be managed within a legal framework, by discussion and conciliation. The warning uttered by his son that the United States was determined to bring other enemies of nuclear and regional stability to book - Iran, North Korea - was founded by his political opponents profoundly unsettling. The reality of the Iraq campaign of March - April 2003 is, however, a better guide to what needs to be done to secure the safety of our world than any amount of law-making or treaty-writing can offer.

To expect an addict to give up her drug is like asking the average person to imagine living without all her social skills, support networks, emotional stability and sense of physical and psychological comfort. Those are the qualities that, in their illusory and evanescent way, drugs give the addict. People like Serena and Celia and the others whose portraits have appeared in this book perceive their drugs as their “rock and salvation.” Thus, for all the valid reasons we have for wanting the addict to “just say no,” we first need to offer her something to which she can say “yes.” We must provide an island of relief. We have to demonstrate that esteem, acceptance, love and humane interaction are realities in this world, contrary to what she, the addict, has learned all her life. It is impossible to create that island for people unless they can feel secure that their substance dependency will be satisfied as long as they need it.

We do everything wrong: instead of spending years perfecting our technology, we build a minimum viable product, an early product that is terrible, full of bugs and crash-your-computer-yes-really stability problems. Then we ship it to customers way before it’s ready. And we charge money for it. After securing initial customers, we change the product constantly—much too fast by traditional standards—shipping new versions of our product dozens of times every single day.

There’s a groundlessness in life after loss, as if somebody is pulling the rug out from under you again and again. It’s hard to find anything stable and secure to stand on, and when you do, there’s always the fear that it’s going to be taken away. Know that this sense of not having legs to stand on is completely normal and is a very real sensation brought on by loss. It’s not pleasant by any means—in fact, it can be downright terrifying—but it is an expected part of grief.

She was without memory: Roche had decided that some time ago. She was without consistency or even coherence. She knew only what she was and what she had been born to; to this knowledge she was tethered; it was her stability, enabling her to adventure in security. Adventuring, she was indifferent, perhaps blind, to the contradiction between what she said and what she was so secure of being; and this indifference or blindness, this absence of the sense of the absurd, was part of her unavailability.

He recognized that need, in Odonian terms, as his "cellular function." the analogic term for the individual's individuality, the work he can do best, therefore his best contribution to his society. A healthy society would let him exercise that optimum function freely, in the coordination of all such functions finding its adaptability and strength. That was a central idea of Odo's Analogy. That the Odonian society on Anarres had fallen short of the ideal did not, in his eyes, lessen his responsibility to it; just the contrary. With the myth of the State out of the way, the real mutuality and reciprocity of society and the individual became clear. Sacrifice mught be demanded of the individual, but never compromise: for though only the society could give security and stability, only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice -- the power of change, the essential function of life. The Odonian society was conceived as a permanent revolution, and revolution begins in the thinking mind.

To straddle that fundamental duality is to be balanced: to have one foot firmly planted in order and security, and the other in chaos, possibility, growth and adventure. When life suddenly reveals itself as intense, gripping and meaningful; when time passes and you’re so engrossed in what you’re doing you don’t notice—it is there and then that you are located precisely on the border between order and chaos. The subjective meaning that we encounter there is the reaction of our deepest being, our neurologically and evolutionarily grounded instinctive self, indicating that we are ensuring the stability but also the expansion of habitable, productive territory, of space that is personal, social and natural. It’s the right place to be, in every sense. You are there when—and where—it matters. That’s what music is telling you, too, when you’re listening—even more, perhaps, when you’re dancing—when its harmonious layered patterns of predictability and unpredictability make meaning itself well up from the most profound depths of your Being.

While a husband or wife might be able to cope with the missing part, children do not fare as well. Babies are not able to rely on reason or intellect to measure the stability of the world around them, so by design, they depend heavily on their senses. There are certain aspects of the marriage relationship that children need to witness routinely. Children need to see an on-going love relationship that includes Mom and Dad enjoying each other as friends and not just parents. They also need to see their parents talking, laughing, working together and resolving conflicts with a mutual respect for each other. We cannot over emphasize this point: the more parents demonstrate love for each other, the more they saturate their child’s senses with confidence of a loving, safe and secure world. That marriage relationship provides children with a layer of love and security that cannot be achieved through the direct parent-child relationship—even during the baby years. When you put all of these factors together, they add up to a healthy home environment.

Although he initiates anti-realism, Kant retains two key elements of realism in his system. First, in order to secure the stability—that is, necessity and universality—of the knowledge organized by the subject, he has to make the experience-organizing faculties of the subject permanent and unchanging. Although it is no substantial object like Descartes’ thinking thing, this view still amounts to a vestigial realism of the subject. Second, in order to escape what he considers to be the incoherence of complete idealism, he posits mind-independent reality in noumena.

Social cohesion is a necessity, and mankind has never yet succeeded in enforcing cohesion by merely rational arguments. Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition, on the one hand; on the other hand, dissolution, or subjection to foreign conquest, through the growth of an individualism and personal independence that makes co-operation impossible. In general, important civilizations start with a rigid and superstitious system, gradually relaxed, and leading, at a certain stage, to a period of brilliant genius, while the good of the old tradition remains and the evil inherent in its dissolution has not yet developed. But as the evil unfolds, it leads to anarchy, thence, inevitably, to a new tyranny, producing a new synthesis secured by a new system of dogma. The doctrine of liberalism is an attempt to escape from this endless oscillation. The essence of liberalism is an attempt to secure a social order not based on irrational dogma, and insuring stability without involving more restraints than are necessary for the preservation of the community. Whether this attempt can succeed only the future can determine.

A photograph develops in a tray of liquid. Previously it’s been just a blank sheet of printing paper shut up in a lightproof envelope; now it has a function, an image, a certainty. We slide the photo quickly into the tray of fixer to secure that clear, vulnerable moment, to make the image harder, unchippable, solid for at least a few years. But what if you plunge it into the fixer and the chemical doesn’t work? This progress, this amorous motion you feel, might refuse to stabilize. Have you seen a picture go on relentlessly developing until its whole surface is black, its celebratory moment obliterated?

Without doubt, images of comfort and wealth, of technological sophistication, have a magnetic allure. Any job in the city may seem better than back-breaking labour in sun-scorched fields. Entranced by the promise of the new, people throughout the world have in many instances voluntarily and in great earnest turned their backs on the old. The consequences, as we have seen in Kenya, can be profoundly disappointing. The fate of the vast majority of those who sever their ties with their traditions will not be to attain the prosperity of the West, but to join the legions of urban poor, trapped in squalor, struggling to survive. As cultures wither away, individuals remain, often shadows of their former selves, caught in time, unable to return to the past, yet denied any real possibility of securing a place in a world whose values they seek to emulate and whose wealth they long to acquire. This creates a dangerous and explosive situation, which is precisely why the plight of diverse cultures is not a simple matter of nostalgia or even of human rights alone, but a serious issue of geopolitical stability and survival. [..] Outside of the major industrial nations, globalization has not brought integration and harmony, but rather a firestorm of change that has swept away languages and cultures, ancient skills and visionary wisdom.

Many aspects of how the Chinese political class manages its economy are antithetical to the Western values of democracy and free markets. But this stance has not put off foreign investors, who are attracted to the government’s willingness to prioritize physical infrastructure, political security, and stability over the health of the population, transparency in decision making, and transparency in the rule of law (if not necessarily the system of governance). In essence, the pursuit of economic growth overrides any views on the political system they invest in. Currently China’s political class has a strategy to evolve from an investment-led exporting economy to one more in line with Western economies, relying on domestic consumption. The transition to this new economic equilibrium will not be linear. China will likely experience significant economic volatility and market gyrations as the structure of its economy shifts. There is also mounting skepticism about China’s ability to manage its debt levels, and the country’s lack of individual political freedoms will continue to hamper its growth prospects. But Chinese policymakers will, no doubt, be focused on continuing to show economic progress in advance of two target dates: 2021—one hundred years after the formation of the Communist Party—and 2049, one hundred years after the formation of the People’s Republic of China.

In supportive work, the therapist cedes great control to the patient. It may seem otherwise. The therapist is setting limits, perhaps implicitly commenting on the patient's behavior or sense of self, and so forth, and on the surface it seems that the therapist is taking responsibility for the patient's progress. but all this activity leads nowhere except, if we succeed, to stability. In supportive therapy, change arises in a more or less miraculous way , through the patient's suddenly feeling secure enough to move in a certain direction, perhaps one unanticipated by the therapist. It is this pathless quality of supportive work - the degree of blind faith it requires of the therapist - that makes it most uncomfortable.

The Clinton administration’s Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA) of 1999, also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act, is probably the most illustrious example of this deregulatory frenzy: this repealed the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, which separated commercial and investment banking and is widely credited with giving the United States 50 crisis-free years of financial stability. With the passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act, commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms and insurance companies were once again allowed to consolidate. Today, many consider the repeal (followed in 2004 by the lifting of the leverage cap on US investment banks) to be an important cause of the late 2000s financial crisis.

You are a fertile God. Many seeds are dropped into the soil. Many do not sprout. Yet beneath the appearance of waste nothing is wasted, nothing lost. Giant trees crash to the forest floor, decompose, and become the soil out of which the saplings arise. Similarly, in human affairs, movements are created, rise, do Your work in the world, decline, go back into the soil, and provide the rich humus out of which new life springs. Generations come and go. Sun and rain, winter and summer, seed time and harvest. Always Your Word remains constant. Your people are called over and over, generation after generation, back into this constancy, back to this mysterious fluid stability—the only security worth having. Can You not waste a little more time on us?

We often think the purpose of criticism is to nail things down. During my years as an art critic, I used to joke that museums love artists the way that taxidermists love deer, and something of that desire to secure, to stabilize, to render certain and definite the open-ended, nebulous, and adventurous work of artists is present in many who work in that confinement sometimes called the art world. A similar kind of aggression against the slipperiness of the work and the ambiguities of the artist's intent and meaning often exists in literary criticism and academic scholarship, a desire to make certain what is uncertain, to know what is unknowable, to turn the flight across the sky into the roast upon the plate, to classify and contain. What escapes categorization can escape detection altogether. There is a kind of counter-criticism that seeks to expand the work of art, by connecting it, opening up its meanings, inviting in the possibilities. A great work of criticism can liberate a work of art, to be seen fully, to remain alive, to engage in a conversation that will not ever end but will instead keep feeing the imagination. Not against interpretation, but against confinement, against the killing of the spirit. Such criticism is itself great art. This is a kind of criticism that does not pit the critic against the text, does not seek authority. It seeks instead to travel with the work and its ideas, to invite it to blossom and invite others into a conversation that might have previously seemed impenetrable, to draw out relationships that might have been unseen and open doors that might have been locked. This is a kind of criticism that respects the essential mystery of art, which is in part its beauty and its pleasure, both of which are irreducible and subjective. The worst criticism seeks to have the last word and leave the rest of us in silence; the best opens up an exchange that need never end.

Mattis and Gary Cohn had several quiet conversations about The Big Problem: The president did not understand the importance of allies overseas, the value of diplomacy or the relationship between the military, the economy and intelligence partnerships with foreign governments. They met for lunch at the Pentagon to develop an action plan. One cause of the problem was the president’s fervent belief that annual trade deficits of about $500 billion harmed the American economy. He was on a crusade to impose tariffs and quotas despite Cohn’s best efforts to educate him about the benefits of free trade. How could they convince and, in their frank view, educate the president? Cohn and Mattis realized they were nowhere close to persuading him. The Groundhog Day–like meetings on trade continued and the acrimony only grew. “Let’s get him over here to the Tank,” Mattis proposed. The Tank is the Pentagon’s secure meeting room for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It might focus him. “Great idea,” Cohn said. “Let’s get him out of the White House.” No press; no TVs; no Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s personal secretary, who worked within shouting distance of the Oval Office. There wouldn’t even be any looking out the window, because there were no windows in the Tank. Getting Trump out of his natural environment could do the trick. The idea was straight from the corporate playbook—a retreat or off-site meeting. They would get Trump to the Tank with his key national security and economic team to discuss worldwide strategic relations. Mattis and Cohn agreed. Together they would fight Trump on this. Trade wars or disruptions in the global markets could savage and undermine the precarious stability in the world. The threat could spill over to the military and intelligence community. Mattis couldn’t understand why the U.S. would want to pick a fight with allies, whether it was NATO, or friends in the Middle East, or Japan—or particularly with South Korea.

He recognized that need, in Odonian terms, as his "cellular function." the analogic term for the individual's individuality, the work he can do best, therefore his best contribution to his society. A healthy society would let him exercise that optimum function freely, in the coordination of all such functions finding its adaptability and strength. That was a central idea of Odo's Analogy. That the Odonian society on Anarres had fallen short of the ideal did not, in his eyes, lessen his responsibility to it; just the contrary. With the myth of the State out of the way, the real mutuality and reciprocity of society and the individual became clear. Sacrifice mught be demanded of the individual, but never compromise: for though only the society could give security and stability, only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice -- the power of change, the essential function of life. The Odonian society was conceived as a permanent revolution, and revolution begins in the thinking mind

Everybody needs a place where they feel protected, secure, and welcome. Everybody yearns for a place where they can relax and be fully themselves. Ideally, the childhood home was one such place. For those of us who felt accepted and loved by our parents, our home provided this warmth. It was a heartwarming place—the very thing that everybody yearns for. And we internalize this feeling from childhood—that of being accepted and welcome—as a fundamental, positive attitude toward life that accompanies us through adulthood: we feel secure in the world and in our own life. We’re self-confident and trusting of others. There’s the notion of basic trust, which is like a home within ourselves, providing us with internal support and protection. Many people, however, associate their childhood with largely negative experiences, some even traumatic. Others had an unhappy childhood, but have repressed those memories. They can barely recall what happened. Then there are those who believe their childhood was “normal” or even “happy,” only to discover, upon closer examination, that they have been deluding themselves. And though people may attempt to repress or, as an adult, downplay childhood experiences of insecurity or rejection, there are moments in everyday life that will reveal how underdeveloped their basic trust remains. They have self-esteem issues and frequently doubt that they are welcome and that their coworkers, romantic partner, boss, or new friend truly likes them. They don’t really like themselves all that much, they have a range of insecurities, and they often struggle in relationships. Unable to develop basic trust, they therefore lack a sense of internal support. Instead, they hope that others will provide them with these feelings of security, protection, stability, and home. They search for home with their partner, their colleagues, in their softball league, or online, only to be disappointed: other people can provide this feeling of home sporadically at best. Those who lack a home on the inside will never find one on the outside. They can’t tell that they’re caught in a trap.

Still, there was a basic contradiction at the heart of Obama’s decision to intervene that contributed to this unraveling. His focus on a front-end solution—consciously trying to avoid the nation-building missteps of George W. Bush—foreclosed any meaningful American role in the postwar stabilization or reconstruction of Libya. There would be no peacekeepers, trainers, or advisers. That distinguished Libya from Iraq and Afghanistan, but also from Bosnia, Kosovo, and virtually every other American intervention since World War II. The absence of boots on the ground deprived the United States of leverage in dealing with Libya’s new leaders. While these leaders squabbled among themselves in Tripoli, the radical jihadi groups helped themselves to assault rifles and machine guns from Colonel Qaddafi’s ransacked armories. As in Iraq half a decade earlier, the lack of security proved to be Libya’s undoing: The militias poured in to fill the vacuum left by Qaddafi. What had been hailed by many as a “model intervention” turned out to be a blueprint for chaos.

Looking back on all my interviews for this book, how many times in how many different contexts did I hear about the vital importance of having a caring adult or mentor in every young person’s life? How many times did I hear about the value of having a coach—whether you are applying for a job for the first time at Walmart or running Walmart? How many times did I hear people stressing the importance of self-motivation and practice and taking ownership of your own career or education as the real differentiators for success? How interesting was it to learn that the highest-paying jobs in the future will be stempathy jobs—jobs that combine strong science and technology skills with the ability to empathize with another human being? How ironic was it to learn that something as simple as a chicken coop or the basic planting of trees and gardens could be the most important thing we do to stabilize parts of the World of Disorder? Who ever would have thought it would become a national security and personal security imperative for all of us to scale the Golden Rule further and wider than ever? And who can deny that when individuals get so super-empowered and interdependent at the same time, it becomes more vital than ever to be able to look into the face of your neighbor or the stranger or the refugee or the migrant and see in that person a brother or sister? Who can ignore the fact that the key to Tunisia’s success in the Arab Spring was that it had a little bit more “civil society” than any other Arab country—not cell phones or Facebook friends? How many times and in how many different contexts did people mention to me the word “trust” between two human beings as the true enabler of all good things? And whoever thought that the key to building a healthy community would be a dining room table? That’s why I wasn’t surprised that when I asked Surgeon General Murthy what was the biggest disease in America today, without hesitation he answered: “It’s not cancer. It’s not heart disease. It’s isolation. It is the pronounced isolation that so many people are experiencing that is the great pathology of our lives today.” How ironic. We are the most technologically connected generation in human history—and yet more people feel more isolated than ever. This only reinforces Murthy’s earlier point—that the connections that matter most, and are in most short supply today, are the human-to-human ones.

What’s insane about this—other than the fact we’ve never talked about it, not even once—is that I’m not nervous in any way. Just excited. We already feel like a married couple, and I say that in the best, non-boring way possible. He is stability and love. Security and confidence. I’m his tide, and he’s my anchor. Or maybe the sand itself. “Edie Van Der Zee, I want to dip my toes in the waves you make every single day for the rest of my miserable life. I want to fuck you—just you, only you, no one else—and a lot. Every. Single. Day. I want to live with you. I want to parade that fucked-up thing we have that keeps people raising eyebrows and thinking I’m a cradle-snatching douchebag, because fuck ’em, they’ll never have what we have. Will you marry me? I don’t ask for a lot. Not for kids, not for dinner, not for anything to be done in the house. I don’t ask you for anything other than what you’re willing to give me.” Luna peeks from the door, smiling. I turn my body to her, smiling. I expect her to sign me something. Something like “aw, gross,” or “Daddy is being silly again”. But she doesn’t. Instead, she arches one eyebrow, opens her lips, and lets the words fall out, awarding her father with the best present he could ever have. “Say yes.

environment. Yet environment is moving because it is beyond your control, and it is false so long as you do not understand its significance. Does environment include human forms? Why set them apart from nature? We are not concerned so much with nature, because we have almost brought nature under control, but we have not understood the environment created by human beings. Look at the relationship between peoples, between two human beings, and all the conditions which human beings have created that we have not understood, even though we have largely understood and conquered nature through science. So we are not concerned with the stability, with the continuance, of an environment which we understand, because the moment we understand it there is no conflict. That is, we are seeking security, emotional and mental, and we are happy so long as that security is assured and, therefore, we never question environment, and hence the constant movement of environment is a false thing which is creating disturbance in each one. As long as there is conflict, it indicates that we have not understood the conditions placed about us; and that movement of environment remains false so long as we do not inquire into its significance, and we can only discover it in that state of acute consciousness of suffering.

CYBERPOWER is now a fundamental fact of global life. In political, economic, and military affairs, information and information technology provide and support crucial elements of operational activities. U.S. national security efforts have begun to incorporate cyber into strategic calculations. Those efforts, however, are only a beginning. The critical conclusion...is that the United States must create an effective national and international strategic framework for the development and use of cyber as part of an overall national security strategy. Such a strategic framework will have both structural and geopolitical elements. Structural activities will focus on those parts of cyber that enhance capabilities for use in general. Those categories include heightened security, expanded development of research and human capital, improved governance, and more effective organization. Geopolitical activities will focus on more traditional national security and defense efforts. Included in this group are sophisticated development of network-centric operations; appropriate integrated planning of computer network attack capabilities; establishment of deterrence doctrine that incorporates cyber; expansion of effective cyber influence capabilities; carefully planned incorporation of cyber into military planning (particularly stability operations); establishment of appropriate doctrine, education, and training regarding cyber by the Services and nonmilitary elements so that cyber can be used effectively in a joint and/or multinational context; and generation of all those efforts at an international level, since cyber is inherently international and cannot be most effectively accomplished without international partners.

You already know what you know, after all—and, unless your life is perfect, what you know is not enough. You remain threatened by disease, and self-deception, and unhappiness, and malevolence, and betrayal, and corruption, and pain, and limitation. You are subject to all these things, in the final analysis, because you are just too ignorant to protect yourself. If you just knew enough, you could be healthier and more honest. You would suffer less. You could recognize, resist and even triumph over malevolence and evil. You would neither betray a friend, nor deal falsely and deceitfully in business, politics or love. However, your current knowledge has neither made you perfect nor kept you safe. So, it is insufficient, by definition—radically, fatally insufficient. You must accept this before you can converse philosophically, instead of convincing, oppressing, dominating or even amusing. You must accept this before you can tolerate a conversation where the Word that eternally mediates between order and chaos is operating, psychologically speaking. To have this kind of conversation, it is necessary to respect the personal experience of your conversational partners. You must assume that they have reached careful, thoughtful, genuine conclusions (and, perhaps, they must have done the work tha justifies this assumption). You must believe that if they shared their conclusions with you, you could bypass at least some of the pain of personally learning the same things (as learning from the experience of others can be quicker and much less dangerous). You must meditate, too, instead of strategizing towards victory. If you fail, or refuse, to do so, then you merely and automatically repeat what you already believe, seeking its validation and insisting on its rightness. But if you are meditating as you converse, then you listen to the other person, and say the new and original things that can rise from deep within of their own accord. It’s as if you are listening to yourself during such a conversation, just as you are listening to the other person. You are describing how you are responding to the new information imparted by the speaker. You are reporting what that information has done to you—what new things it made appear within you, how it has changed your presuppositions, how it has made you think of new questions. You tell the speaker these things, directly. Then they have the same effect on him. In this manner, you both move towards somewhere newer and broader and better. You both change, as you let your old presuppositions die—as you shed your skins and emerge renewed. A conversation such as this is one where it is the desire for truth itself—on the part of both participants—that is truly listening and speaking. That’s why it’s engaging, vital, interesting and meaningful. That sense of meaning is a signal from the deep, ancient parts of your Being. You’re where you should be, with one foot in order, and the other tentatively extended into chaos and the unknown. You’re immersed in the Tao, following the great Way of Life. There, you’re stable enough to be secure, but flexible enough to transform. There, you’re allowing new information to inform you—to permeate your stability, to repair and improve its structure, and expand its domain. There the constituent elements of your Being can find their more elegant formation. A conversation like that places you in the same place that listening to great music places you, and for much the same reason. A conversation like that puts you in the realm where souls connect, and that’s a real place. It leaves you thinking, “That was really worthwhile. We really got to know each other.” The masks came off, and the searchers were revealed. So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.

I bind to myself today The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity: I believe the Trinity in the Unity The Creator of the Universe. I bind to myself today The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism, The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial, The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension, The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day. I bind to myself today The virtue of the love of seraphim, In the obedience of angels, In the hope of resurrection unto reward, In prayers of Patriarchs, In predictions of Prophets, In preaching of Apostles, In faith of Confessors, In purity of holy Virgins, In deeds of righteous men. I bind to myself today The power of Heaven, The light of the sun, The brightness of the moon, The splendour of fire, The flashing of lightning, The swiftness of wind, The depth of sea, The stability of earth, The compactness of rocks. I bind to myself today God's Power to guide me, God's Might to uphold me, God's Wisdom to teach me, God's Eye to watch over me, God's Ear to hear me, God's Word to give me speech, God's Hand to guide me, God's Way to lie before me, God's Shield to shelter me, God's Host to secure me, Against the snares of demons, Against the seductions of vices, Against the lusts of nature, Against everyone who meditates injury to me, Whether far or near, Whether few or with many. I invoke today all these virtues Against every hostile merciless power Which may assail my body and my soul, Against the incantations of false prophets, Against the black laws of heathenism, Against the false laws of heresy, Against the deceits of idolatry, Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids, Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man. Christ, protect me today Against every poison, against burning, Against drowning, against death-wound, That I may receive abundant reward. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left, Christ in the fort, Christ in the chariot seat, Christ in the poop, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. I bind to myself today The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity, I believe the Trinity in the Unity The Creator of the Universe.

When you say, ‘I love you’ to other people you may be actually saying: •  I don’t want to feel certain emotions hidden deep within me. •  I love you because I don’t want to feel heavy. •  I love you because I don’t want to feel shitty. •  I love you because I don’t want to feel lonely. •  I love you so I do not have to feel the huge gaping hole within me. •  I love you because I don’t want to feel out of control. •  I love you so I can stay in control. •  I love you so I don’t have to feel angry. •  I love you so I can feel angry. •  I love you because I really don’t want to feel lost. •  I love you because I don’t want to feel how hopeless my life is. •  I love you because I don’t want to feel my own pain. •  I love you because you fit the fantasy in my head of what my lover should be like. •  I love you because I do not want to feel empty. •  I love you because I do not love myself. •  I love you because someone in my past did not love me. •  I love you because I am addicted to sex, to comfort. •  I love you because you make me feel good and stop me feeling other emotions I do not wish to feel. •  I love you because you fill me up. •  I love you because you make me feel scared and that’s what love is for me. •  I love you because you remind me of how I have been abused and how I have abused others. •  I love you because you serve me and do not bother me. •  I love you because other people say I do, and we look good together. •  I love you because society demands that I should, and it is right to. •  I love you because I am too scared to be myself and step out into the world alone. •  I love you because you give me security, stability and because I am obliged to because we have children and a home. •  I love you because my parents, friends and culture want me to. •  I love you because you make me feel needed. •  I love you because I need you. •  I love you because I want to take care of you and make you, and me, feel good. •  I need to do something to deserve love. •  I need to do something to give love. •  I need to do something to receive love. •  Love is need. Need is love. •  I can only love when I am perfect and good. •  I can only love and be loved when I am perfect and good. •  I can only love myself when I am perfect and good. Is any of this really love? Does love use anything? Does love manipulate anybody? So why are you doing it everyday? Why do you grab hold of anyone else to stop you feeling these things?

See especially academia, which has effectively become a hope labor industrial complex. Within that system, tenured professors—ostensibly proof positive that you can, indeed, think about your subject of choice for the rest of your life, complete with job security, if you just work hard enough—encourage their most motivated students to apply for grad school. The grad schools depend on money from full-pay students and/or cheap labor from those students, so they accept far more master’s students than there are spots in PhD programs, and far more PhD students than there are tenure-track positions. Through it all, grad students are told that work will, in essence, save them: If they publish more, if they go to more conferences to present their work, if they get a book contract before graduating, their chances on the job market will go up. For a very limited few, this proves true. But it is no guarantee—and with ever-diminished funding for public universities, many students take on the costs of conference travel themselves (often through student loans), scrambling to make ends meet over the summer while they apply for the already-scarce number of academic jobs available, many of them in remote locations, with little promise of long-term stability. Some academics exhaust their hope labor supply during grad school. For others, it takes years on the market, often while adjuncting for little pay in demeaning and demanding work conditions, before the dream starts to splinter. But the system itself is set up to feed itself as long as possible. Most humanities PhD programs still offer little or nothing in terms of training for jobs outside of academia, creating a sort of mandatory tunnel from grad school to tenure-track aspirant. In the humanities, especially, to obtain a PhD—to become a doctor in your field of knowledge—is to adopt the refrain “I don’t have any marketable skills.” Many academics have no choice but to keep teaching—the only thing they feel equipped to do—even without fair pay or job security. Academic institutions are incentivized to keep adjuncts “doing what they love”—but there’s additional pressure from peers and mentors who’ve become deeply invested in the continued viability of the institution. Many senior academics with little experience of the realities of the contemporary market explicitly and implicitly advise their students that the only good job is a tenure-track academic job. When I failed to get an academic job in 2011, I felt soft but unsubtle dismay from various professors upon telling them that I had chosen to take a high school teaching job to make ends meet. It

The best way not to have to use your military power is to make sure that power is visible. When people know that we will use force if necessary and that we really mean it, we’ll be treated differently. With respect. Right now, no one believes us because we’ve been so weak with our approach to military policy in the Middle East and elsewhere. Building up our military is cheap when you consider the alternative. We’re buying peace and we’re locking in our national security. Right now we are in bad shape militarily. We’re decreasing the size of our forces and we’re not giving them the best equipment. Recruiting the best people has fallen off, and we can’t get the people we have trained to the level they need to be. There are a lot of questions about the state of our nuclear weapons. When I read reports of what is going on, I’m shocked. It’s no wonder nobody respects us. It’s no surprise that we never win. Spending money on our military is also smart business. Who do people think build our airplanes and ships, and all the equipment that our troops should have? American workers, that’s who. So building up our military also makes economic sense because it allows us to put real money into the system and put thousands of people back to work. There is another way to pay to modernize our military forces. If other countries are depending on us to protect them, shouldn’t they be willing to make sure we have the capability to do it? Shouldn’t they be willing to pay for the servicemen and servicewomen and the equipment we’re providing? Depending on the price of oil, Saudi Arabia earns somewhere between half a billion and a billion dollars every day. They wouldn’t exist, let alone have that wealth, without our protection. We get nothing from them. Nothing. We defend Germany. We defend Japan. We defend South Korea. These are powerful and wealthy countries. We get nothing from them. It’s time to change all that. It’s time to win again. We’ve got 28,500 wonderful American soldiers on South Korea’s border with North Korea. They’re in harm’s way every single day. They’re the only thing that is protecting South Korea. And what do we get from South Korea for it? They sell us products—at a nice profit. They compete with us. We spent two trillion dollars doing whatever we did in Iraq. I still don’t know why we did it, but we did. Iraq is sitting on an ocean of oil. Is it out of line to suggest that they should contribute to their own future? And after the blood and the money we spent trying to bring some semblance of stability to the Iraqi people, maybe they should be willing to make sure we can rebuild the army that fought for them. When Kuwait was attacked by Saddam Hussein, all the wealthy Kuwaitis ran to Paris. They didn’t just rent suites—they took up whole buildings, entire hotels. They lived like kings while their country was occupied. Who did they turn to for help? Who else? Uncle Sucker. That’s us. We

If we do not stop these mar-makers not,...it will soon be too late. We are the only nation that can halt this crusade. It might be too late in America, but it isn't too late here. Without British support the whole scheme would collapse. For that reason the future of all nations depends upon the policy which is decided in this House. More than that, the final position of Britain in the world is being decided. If we support these anti-Communist crusades through the world as we have supported it in Greece, then our good name and existence will be threatened by the hatred of all free-thinking men. We cannot suppress all desire in Europe and Asia for social change by branding it communism from Russia and persecuting its supporters. Social change doesn't have to come from Russia, whatever the Foreign Office or the Americans say. It is a product of the miserable conditions under which the majority of the earth's population exist. There are fighters for social change in every land, here as well as anywhere.... We Socialists are among them. That is the reason for our predominance in the House to-day. The very men that we try to suppress in other countries are asking for far less liberty than we enjoy here, far less social change than we Socialists hope to initiate in Great Britain. Are we going to betray these men by labelling them Communists and crushing them wherever we find them until we have launched ourselves at Russia herself in a war that will wipe this island off the face of the earth? The American imperialists say that this is the American Century. ARe we to sacrifice ourselves for that great ideal, or are we to stand beside the people of Europe and Asia and other lands who seek independence, economic stability, self-determination, and the right to conduct their own affairs? Are we going to partake in an anti-Red campaign when we ourselves are Reds? ...... Some among us might think that there is political expediency in following this anti-Russian crusade without really getting enmeshed in it, creating a Third Force in Europe of their friends, a balancing force for power politics. In that you have the real policy of our Government to-day. But how can we avoid final involvement? Our American vanguard will stop at nothing. They hold their atom bomb aloft with nervous fingers. It has become their talisman and their faith. It is their new weapon of anti-Communism, a more efficient Belsen and Maidenek. Its first usage was morally anti-Russian. It was used to end Japan quickly so that Russia would play no part in the final settlement with that country. No doubt they would have used it on Russia already if they could be certain that Russian did not have an equal or better atomic weapon. That terrible uncertainty goads them into fiercer political and economic activity against the world's grim defenders of great liberties. In that you have the heart of this American imperial desperation. They cannot defeat the people of Europe and Asia with the atomic bomb alone. They cannot win unless we lend them our name and our support and our political cunning. To-day they have British support, in policy as well as in international councils where the decisions of peace and security are being made. With our support America is undermining every international conference with its anti-Russian politics.