Stimulating Conversation Quotes

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.

If you inherently long for something, become it first. If you want gardens, become the gardener. If you want love, embody love. If you want mental stimulation, change the conversation. If you want peace, exude calmness. If you want to fill your world with artists, begin to paint. If you want to be valued, respect your own time. If you want to live ecstatically, find the ecstasy within yourself. This is how to draw it in, day by day, inch by inch.

Chivalry, stimulating conversations, everything is said to be a lost art nowadays. But nothing is a lost art, unless it’s a sunken statue—in a river of lava.

Few conversations, at any time of life, are more stimulating, more spontaneous and more genuinely original than those long ridiculous talks we all have, when we are very young, late at night about the meaning of life.

Every time you check your phone in company, what you gain is a hit of stimulation, a neurochemical shot, and what you lose is what a friend, teacher, parent, lover, or co-worker just said, meant, felt.

Good conversation is very important, dont you think? Its so stimulating and pleasurable if done right. As a doctor it may surprise you how much I've learned on the subject. Its been a long times since I've had a really good conversation and sometimes I nearly ache from wishing someone would stimulate me. But unfortunately I havent met anyone yet who I want to really talk to.

Your intellect sparks a fire in me, turning our conversations into a dance of minds.

Conversation is the sexiest foreplay, the perfect prelude to sex, the fiery banter that gets you heated, the stimulation of the mind that transmits to the body. Conversation is a give and take. Just like sex itself. And the best give and takes — the best conversations — lead to the best sex.

Reading a book is an intellectual exercise, which stimulates thought, questions,

If you think you’ll find intellectual stimulation, you’re thinking of another era. The conversations are invariably about money or property or schools. I’ve never been more bored by casual chat.

There's no point in reading a book if you let it pass before your eyes and then forget about it ten minutes later. Reading a book is an intellectual exercise, which stimulates thought, questions, imagination.

Any form of negative rumination—for example, worrying about your financial future or health—will stimulate the release of destructive neurochemicals.

The serious reader in the age of technology is a rebel by definition: a protester without a placard, a Luddite without hammer or bludgeon. She reads on planes to picket the antiseptic nature of modern travel, on commuter trains to insist on individualism in the midst of the herd, in hotel rooms to boycott the circumstances that separate her from her usual sources of comfort and stimulation, during office breaks to escape from the banal conversation of office mates, and at home to revolt against the pervasive and mind-deadening irrelevance of television.

The Emory University neuroscientists James Rilling and Gregory Berns found that helping people in need stimulates the same brain region as winning a prize or eating a delicious meal. We also know that depressed (and formerly depressed) people are more likely to see the world from others’ points of view and to experience compassion; conversely, high-empathy people are more likely than others to enjoy sad music.

Consensual intercourse of the minds happens when conversation between two like minded individuals, are brought together by mutually exclusive chemistry in conversation that causes mental arousal & orgasmic stimulation which then produces ideas which provoke conscious thoughts.

He watered my soul with love and attention, respect and adoration. He nourished my mind with intellectual stimulation.

Talking to oneself is a recognized means to learn, in fact, self-speak may be the seed concept behind human consciousness. Private conversation that we hold with ourselves might represent the preeminent means to provoke the speaker into thinking (a form of cognitive auto-stimulation), modify behavior, and perhaps even amend the functional architecture of the plastic human brain. Writing out our private talks with oneself enables a person to “see” what they think, a process that invites reflection, ongoing thoughtful discourse with the self, and refinement of our thinking patterns and beliefs. Internal sotto voice conversations with our private-self provide several advantages, but most people find it difficult to maintain self-speak for an extended period. Internal dialogue must compete with external distractions. Writing allows a person to resume a personal dialogue where they left off before interrupted by outside stimuli. A written disquisition also provides a permanent record that a person can examine, amend, supplement, update, or reject.

Intellectually speaking, people love you with the capacity that they have at that time.

Assignments without deadlines are far better at producing guilt than stimulating action.

Lively conversation and stimulating company can make a meal,” she said. “Without it, the rarest delicacy has no savor. Don’t you agree?

Women are more likely than men to engage immediately in emotionally stimulating conversations because instinctively women are usually more connected with their emotions.

We love to learn because learning feels good. It both satisfies and stimulates curiosity. Reading a good book, having a meaningful conversation, listening to great music—just doing these things make us happy. They have no extrinsic purpose. To give them one takes away from their joy.

Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my presence. An unusual– to me– a perfectly new character, I suspected was yours; I desired to search it deeper, and know it better. You entered the room with a look and air at once shy and independent; you were quaintly dress– much as you are now. I made you talk; ere long I found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet, when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor’s face; there was penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready and round answers. Very soon you seemed to get used to me – I believe you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquilized your manner; snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure, at my moroseness; you watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw; I liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely, I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making this novel and piquant acquaintance; besides, I was for a while troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloom would fade – the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the radiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover, I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you – but you did not; you kept in the school-room as still as your own desk and easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not despondent, fro you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me– or if you ever thought of me; to find this out, I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your glance, and genial in your manner, when you conversed; I saw you had a social heart; it was the silent school-room– it was the tedium of your life that made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon; your face became soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful, happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, at this time; there was a curious hesitation in your manner; you glanced at me with a slight trouble– a hovering doubt; you did not know what my caprice might be– whether I was going to play the master, and be stern– or the friend, and be benignant. I was now too fond of you often to stimulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out cordially, such bloom, and light, and bliss, rose to your young, wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there to my heart.

If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant, he presses upon my flanks, and pricks me right and left; his imaginations stir up mine, jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up to something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether tedious in discourse.

A person can feel pleasure without any effort, if the appropriate centers in his brain are electrically stimulated, or as a result of the chemical stimulation of drugs. But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.

Do not cross your arms across your chest because you will appear closed off, annoyed, and non-receptive to what the other person is saying

Generally, you don’t want to begin conversations with “Why” questions because, as mentioned before, they have a tendency to put people on the defense. It

The fastest way to connect is to find something in common and let that thread flourish. Similar interests are the easiest and most effective way to develop rapport or a connection.

Conversely, I believe low-current silver electrodes stimulate bone formation directly—by dedifferentiating the marrow cells and perhaps also by stimulating the periosteal cells.

your boss at work, or your spouse, or a group of college students via YouTube?

Music in the church ought to be much more than an emotional stimulant. In fact, this means music and preaching should have the same aim. Both properly pertain to the proclamation of God's Word. Preaching is properly seen as an aspect of or worship. And conversely, music is properly seen as an aspect of the ministry of the Word, just like preaching. Therefore the songwriter ought to be skilled in Scripture and as concerned for theological precision as the preacher. Even more so, because the songs he writes are likely to be sung again and again (unlike a sermon that is preached only once).

As you’re creating your story, think through where you’d want pauses. Try to put yourself in the listener’s shoes–if you were the listener and you were being told your story, where would you want pauses?

Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature. Belief in the Common Man is a familiar article in the democratic creed. That belief is without basis and significance save as it means faith in the potentialities of human nature as that nature is exhibited in every human being irrespective of race, color, sex, birth and family, of material or cultural wealth. This faith may be enacted in statutes, but it is only on paper unless it is put in force in the attitudes which human beings display to one another in all the incidents and relations of daily life. To denounce Nazism for intolerance, cruelty and stimulation of hatred amounts to fostering insincerity if, in our personal relations to other persons, if, in our daily walk and conversation, we are moved by racial, color or other class prejudice; indeed, by anything save a generous belief in their possibilities as human beings, a belief which brings with it the need for providing conditions which will enable these capacities to reach fulfillment. The democratic faith in human equality is belief that every human being, independent of the quantity or range of his personal endowment, has the right to equal opportunity with every other person for development of whatever gifts he has.

Most Americans believe human trafficking is a problem only in poor and underdeveloped countries, too far away to be our concern. However, statistics report over 50,000 slaves in the United States, with another 17,500 being trafficked every year. There has never been a country or time in history when it did not occur. If this book stimulates conversation that makes a difference for any of these children, I am satisfied with its results.

What this book is intended to do—the only thing it is intended to do—is to stimulate a much-needed conversation about the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy in the United States.

For a while they sat without talking. Anna got her daypack and dug out a paperback copy of Ivanhoe. It produced a book’s inevitable effect. In cats it stimulated the urge to sit on the pages. In humans it stimulated conversation.

As the conversation continued in stilted commas, Anthony wondered that to him and Bloeckman both this girl had once been the most stimulating, the most tonic personality they had ever known—and now the three sat like overoiled machines, without conflict, without fear, without elation, heavily enamelled little figures secure beyond enjoyment in a world where death and war, dull emotion and noble savagery were covering a continent with the smoke of terror. In

Being drawn to intelligence is like having a secret crush on the brainiest person in the room. It's like finding the smartest cookie in the jar and wanting to devour every last crumb of their knowledge. When someone's intellect shines bright, it's like a beacon calling you to explore the depths of your mind. So, if you're attracted to intelligence, own it! Dive into stimulating conversations. After all, who needs cupid's arrow when you've got the allure of a brilliant mind?

I write in my notebook with the intention of stimulating good conversation, hoping that it will also be of use to some fellow traveler. But perhaps my notes are mere drunken chatter, the incoherent babbling of a dreamer. If so, read them as such.

Emotional interactions stimulate or inhibit the growth of nerve cells and circuits by complicated processes that involve the release of natural chemicals. To give a somewhat simplified example, when “happy” events are experienced by the infant, endorphins—“reward chemicals,” the brain’s natural opioids—are released. Endorphins encourage the growth and connections of nerve cells. Conversely, in animal studies, chronically high levels of stress hormones such as cortisol have been shown to cause important brain centres to shrink.

The Englishman usually treats his alcohol with respect, often cradling his glass in front of him with both hands. The Frenchman would never willingly do this, because he needs his free hand for gesticulation-for tapping the side of his nose for emphasis, for prodding his companion in the chest, squeezing his bicep, patting his cheek, or ruffling his hair. The free hand is necessary for all this, a vital accessory for proper conversation. To watch fifty or more highly animated French people talking at once is like watching a tai chi class on stimulants.

A neurosurgeon once told me about operating on the brain of a young man with epilepsy. As is customary in this kind of operation, the patient was wide awake, under only local anesthesia, while the surgeon delicately explored his exposed cortex, makingsure that the parts tentatively to be removed were not absolutely vital by stimulating them electrically and asking the patient what he experienced. Some stimulations provoked visual flashes or hand-raisings, others a sort of buzzing sensation, but one spot produced a delighted response from the patient: "It's 'Outta Get Me' by Guns N' Roses. my favorite heavy metal band!" I asked the neurosurgeon If he had asked the patient to sing or hum along with the music, since it would be fascinating to learn how "high fidelity" the provoked memory was, would it be in exactly the same key and tempo as the record? Such a song (unliken"Silent Night") has one canonical version. so we could simply have superimposed a recording of the patients humming with the standard record and compared the results. Unfortunately, even though a tape recorder had been running during the operation, thesurgeon hadn't asked the patient to sing along. ''Why not?" I asked, and he replied: "I hate rock music!' Later in the conversation the neurosurgeon happened to remark that he was going to have to operate again on the same young man. and I expressed the hope that he would just check to see if he could restimulate the rock music, and this time ask the fellow to sing along. "I can't do it." replied the neurosurgeon. "since I cut out that part." "It was part of the epileptic focus?" I asked. "No,'' the surgeon replied, ''I already told you — I hate rock music.

Add Pauses Every good storyteller knows that a pause can do so many things. It can heighten the tension of the scene, or simply allow the audience to absorb the information given to them, or give the listener an opportunity to laugh or respond back with a “Really?”, “Oh my gosh”, or “No way!

This is great. But what I’m grasping at is an idea about a subtler goal. This thinking owes a lot to conversations with Manjula Waldron of Ohio State University, an engineering professor who also happens to be a hospital chaplain. This feels embarrassingly Zen-ish for me to spout, being a short, hypomanic guy with a Brooklyn accent, but here goes: Maybe the goal isn’t to maximize the contrast between a low baseline and a high level of activation. Maybe the idea is to have both simultaneously. Huh? Maybe the goal would be for your baseline to be something more than the mere absence of activation, a mere default, but to instead be an energized calm, a proactive choice. And for the ceiling to consist of some sort of equilibrium and equanimity threading through the crazed arousal. I have felt this a few times playing soccer, inept as I am at it, where there’s a moment when, successful outcome or not, every physiological system is going like mad, and my body does something that my mind didn’t even dream of, and the two seconds when that happened seemed to take a lot longer than it should have. But this business about the calm amid the arousal isn’t just another way of talking about “good stress” (a stimulating challenge, as opposed to a threat). Even when the stressor is bad and your heart is racing in crisis, the goal should be to somehow make the fraction of a second between each heartbeat into an instant that expands in time and allows you to regroup. There, I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I think there might be something important lurking there. Enough said.

But we now know that even small victories, or micro-successes—a productive conversation with your boss, or a positive phone call with a client, a compliment from a colleague or friend—can have the same impact. They stimulate the winner effect, causing the release of testosterone and dopamine, which in turn build confidence.

him. I also recall the great poster for Ana Christie with Greta Garbo, based on a Eugene O’Neill play. ‘Garbo Talks’ it said. In that film, a series of inns were shown to stimulate our expectations, then there was mist, then a horse in the mist, then finally a woman arrived from Sweden and walked across the stage. Ferrari. Was it Greta Garbo? Borges. Yes, she arrived at the bar and slowly strolled past a very long table. We all expected her to talk—we were waiting to hear Greta Garbo’s voice, her never-heard-before voice. What we did hear was a hoarse voice that said, ‘Give me a whisky.’ It made us shiver with emotion. That was her first talkie.

Books, monuments, pictures, conversation, are portraits in which he finds the lineaments he is forming. The silent and the eloquent praise him and accost him, and he is stimulated wherever he moves as by personal allusions. A true aspirant, therefore, never needs to look for allusions personal and laudatory in discourse. He hears the commendation, not of himself, but sweeter, of that character he seeks, in every word that is said concerning character, yea, further, in every fact and circumstance, — in the running river and the rustling corn. Praise is looked, homage tendered, love flows from mute nature, from the mountains and the lights of the firmament. (Excerpt from History)

Moving beyond mere correlation, if you lesion the amygdala in an animal, rates of aggression decline. The same occurs transiently when you temporarily silence the amygdala by injecting Novocain into it. Conversely, implanting electrodes that stimulate neurons there, or spritzing in excitatory neurotransmitters (stay tuned), triggers aggression.4

In an introduction to principles it may not be out of place to recall that it was Winteler's household in which the young Einstein was lodged after his less than glorious performance in schooling; at least in conversation, Roman Jakobson suggested that Einstein may have received some stimulation for his further ideas from the incipient phonemic approach of Winteler.

Women with AD/HD also sometimes have difficulty with their relationships when invited to parties or family gatherings. Quite often they feel bombarded by too much stimulation, especially women without hyperactivity, and therefore withdraw, sometimes offending people without intending to as we discussed in earlier Chapter 9. They feel overloaded and exhausted, and they can’t keep up. They might have difficulty carrying on a good conversation, trying to think of what to say in the middle of so much activity. Many women with AD/HD mysteriously retreat to another room, become quiet, upset or withdrawn, or just don’t show up for these kinds of events. All these responses may give the message to others that you don’t care about them. They don’t know that you’re having a hard time or why.

We -- editors, writers, teachers, publishers -- need to do whatever we can to enliven readers, to help create communities for them if we want to continue to have readers at all. Our independent bookstores are the front lines, and many booksellers are fighting the good fight. Here, books stimulate conversation. Conversation stimulates a sense of community. Listening happens. Thinking. The exchange of thoughts.

book is intended not as a historical narrative but rather as a selection of lessons. These lessons do not conclude with simple answers. They aim to stimulate further thinking and help readers participate in some of the major conversations of our time. The book was written in conversation with the public. Many of the chapters were composed in response to questions I was asked by readers, journalists, and colleagues.

Another dynamic aspect of the sexual conversion of basic needs is the pleasure of sexual orgasm itself. When one is shamed through abandonment, the pain is deep and profound. One feels worthless; one feels painfully diminished and exposed. When one experiences sexual stimulation and climax, one has available an all-encompassing and powerful pleasure. This pleasure can take the place of any other need. In a poignant passage, Kaufman sums up the process of converting all needs into sexuality. He writes: A young boy who learns never to need anything emotionally from his parents is . . . faced with a dilemma whenever he feels young, needy or otherwise insecure. If masturbating has been his principle source of good feeling . . . he may resort to masturbation in order to restore good feelings about self at times when he is experiencing needs quite unrelated to sexuality.

How To Spot A Liar And since we are already talking about lying, you must know that there are a number of ways to spot a liar. Among the most obvious are in their smile and through eye contact. Experts would say that a genuine smile is impossible to fake. Everyone knows how to smile for the camera, and perhaps this is also something we use when we greet other people. But a genuine smile is different because the emotion shows in a person’s eyes.

For her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her; but converse with her had an irresistible charm, and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse and the character which was somehow diffused about her behaviour towards others, had something stimulating about it. 3 There was sweetness also in the tones of her voice; and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could readily turn to whatever language she pleased, so that in her interviews with Barbarians she very seldom had need of an interpreter, but made her replies to most of them herself and unassisted, whether they were Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes or Parthians. 4 Nay, it is said that she knew the speech of many other peoples also, although the kings of Egypt before her had not even made an effort to learn the native language, and some actually gave up their Macedonian dialect.

Our devices compel us because we respond to every search and every new piece of information (and every new text) as though it had the urgency of a threat in the wild. So stimulation by what is new (and social) draws us toward some immediate goal. But daydreaming moves us toward the longer term. It helps us develop the base for a stable self and helps us come up with new solutions. To mentor for innovation we need to convince people to slow things down, let their minds wander, and take time alone.

One of the junior lawyers was given to exhaling in disgust at statements she didn’t like and then interrupting aggressively, no matter who was speaking. This annoyed many of her colleagues. I loved it. I wanted her on the team because I knew she didn’t care about rank at all. Her directness added value even when she was wrong. I wanted to hear her perspective and knew it would come without prompting, even if she interrupted a senior official to offer it. That interruption would stimulate great conversation.

The period of general neglect of Eliot's poetry was one in which a revolution was occurring in the theory of interpretation. Existentialist, phenomenologist, structuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, and poststructuralist theories appeared and stimulated dazzling conversations about how texts mean. Bloom, Miller, Poulet, Gadamer, Foucault, Lacan, Kristeva, and Derrida are just a few of the critics who have contributed to these conversations. These studies have enormous value for critics interested in Eliot. In the first place, they have popularized insights about language which are central in Eliot poetry from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to Four Quartets. Anyone who doubts this should read Derrida "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" and follow up with a reading of part 5 of each of Four Quartets. In the second place, the studies in theory have created an audience that will be able to appreciate Eliot's dissertation and early philosophical work, an audience unthinkable a generation ago.

Just as there are substances that increase androgen levels and androgenic activity in men, there are also substances that can significantly lower or suppress them. If you are having trouble with your levels of testosterone or your androgen/estrogen ratio, you should especially avoid consuming any quantity of licorice, black cohosh, and hops. Each of these plants contains substances that are either potent estrogens, act as androgen antagonists, or interfere with the conversion of prohormones into androgens, or stimulate the conversion of androgens into estrogens.

Just a few nights ago the roaring fire prompted a conversation about Gaston Bachelard's Psychoanalysis of Fire,' I said to Foucault. 'Did you by any chance know Bachelard?' 'Yes, I did,' Foucault responded. 'He was my teacher and exerted a great influence upon me.' 'I can just visualize Bachelard musing before his hearth and devising the startling thesis that mankind tamed fire to stimulate his daydreaming, that man is fundamentally the dreaming animal.' 'Not really,' Foucault blurted out. 'Bachelard probably never saw a fireplace or ever listened to water streaming down a mountainside. With him it was all a dream. He lived very ascetically in a cramped two-room flat he shared with his sister.' 'I have read somewhere that he was a gourmet and would shop every day in the street markets to get the freshest produce for his dinner.' 'Well, he undoubtedly shopped in the outdoor markets,' Foucault responded impatiently, 'but his cuisine, like his regimen, was very plain. He led a simple life and existed in his dream.' 'Do you shop in the outdoor markets in Paris?' Jake asked Michel. 'No,' Foucault laughed, 'I just go to the supermarket down the street from where I live.

Subject: SELF WORTH (Very Deep!!!) In a brief conversation, a man asked a woman he was pursuing the question: 'What kind of man are you looking for?' She sat quietly for a moment before looking him in the eye & asking, 'Do you really want to know?' Reluctantly, he said, 'Yes. She began to expound, 'As a woman in this day & age, I am in a position to ask a man what can you do for me that I can't do for myself? I pay my own bills. I take care of my household without the help of any man... or woman for that matter. I am in the position to ask, 'What can you bring to the table?' The man looked at her. Clearly he thought that she was referring to money. She quickly corrected his thought & stated, 'I am not referring to money. I need something more. I need a man who is striving for excellence in every aspect of life. He sat back in his chair, folded his arms, & asked her to explain. She said, 'I need someone who is striving for excellence mentally because I need conversation & mental stimulation. I don't need a simple-minded man. I need someone who is striving for excellence spiritually because I don't need to be unequally yoked...believers mixed with unbelievers is a recipe for disaster. I need a man who is striving for excellence financially because I don't need a financial burden. I need someone who is sensitive enough to understand what I go through as a woman, but strong enough to keep me grounded. I need someone who has integrity in dealing with relationships. Lies and game-playing are not my idea of a strong man. I need a man who is family-oriented. One who can be the leader, priest and provider to the lives entrusted to him by God. I need someone whom I can respect. In order to be submissive, I must respect him. I cannot be submissive to a man who isn't taking care of his business. I have no problem being submissive...he just has to be worthy. And by the way, I am not looking for him...He will find me. He will recognize himself in me. Hey may not be able to explain the connection, but he will always be drawn to me. God made woman to be a help-mate for man. I can't help a man if he can't help himself. When she finished her spill, she looked at him. He sat there with a puzzled look on his face. He said, 'You are asking a lot. She replied, "I'm worth a lot". Send this to every woman who's worth a lot.... and every man who has the brains to understand!!

As I grow longer in the tooth, I find myself shaking off for greater and greater stretches of time, and I always use this time to fret morosely about my health in general, and about the likelihood that a grave illness, conceivably located in the bladder region, will overtake me in the future, maybe imminently. In this way a pleasurable, natural act becomes the catalyst for somber reflections and an unnatural, incipient depression. So much of life follows this pattern exactly, I think, We begin to lose ourselves in a joyful or gratifying act - it can be a creature comfort or something complicatedly emotional like stimulating conversation or the solitary immersion in a poem, a beautiful landscape, or a work of art - and we forget, in the moment of serenity, all the pain and trouble of life. Until, quite suddenly, and as a rule, shockingly, this very forgetfulness, our fleeting holiday from care, becomes nothing more than another occasion to remember how truly infrequently happiness comes to us, and how likely we are to die in some hortible way. Then, disgusted with ourselves over our inability to enjoy life, we halt the pleasurable activity and move on, as speedily as we can, to other business.

If, when you say whiskey, you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacles of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degredation and despair, shame and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it with all my power. But if, when you say whiskey, you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the stuff that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty morning; if you mean the drink that enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrows, if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm, to build highways, hospitals, and schools, then certainly I am in favor of it.

I propose that in our day this alternation of the market place and mountain requires the capacity for the constructive use of solitude. It requires that we be able to retire from a world that is “too much with us,” that we be able to be quiet, that we let the solitude work for us and in us. It is a characteristic of our time that many people are afraid of solitude: to be alone is a sign one is a social failure, for no one would be alone if he or she could help it. It often occurs to me that people living in our modern, hectic civilization, amid the constant din of radio and TV, subjecting themselves to every kind of stimulation whether of the passive sort of TV or the more active sort of conversation, work, and activity, that people with such constant preoccupations find it exceedingly difficult to let insights from unconscious depths break through. Of course, when an individual is afraid of the irrational—that is, of the unconscious dimensions of experience—he tries to keep busiest, tries to keep most “noise” going on about him. The avoidance of the anxiety of solitude by constant agitated diversion is what Kierkegaard, in a nice simile, likened to the settlers in the early days of America who used to beat on pots and pans at night to make enough din to keep the wolves away. Obviously if we are to experience insights from our unconscious, we need to be able to give ourselves to solitude.

One of the most remarkable properties of our brain is its capacity to change and adapt to our individual world. Neurons and neural networks actually make physical changes when stimulated; this is called neuroplasticity. The way they become stimulated is through our particular experiences: The brain changes in a “use dependent” way. The neural networks involved in piano playing, for example, will make changes when activated by a child practicing her piano. These experience-dependent changes translate into better piano playing. This aspect of neuroplasticity—repetition leads to change—is well known and is why practice in sports, arts, and academics can lead to improvement. A key principle of neuroplasticity is specificity. In order to change any part of the brain, that specific part of the brain must be activated. If you want to learn to play the piano, you can’t simply read about piano playing, or watch and listen to YouTube clips of other people playing piano. You must put your hands on the keys and play; you have to stimulate the parts of the brain involved in piano playing in order to change them. This principle of “specificity” applies to all brain-mediated functions, including the capacity to love. If you have never been loved, the neural networks that allow humans to love will be undeveloped, as in Gloria’s case. The good news is that with use, with practice, these capabilities can emerge. Given love, the unloved can become loving.

When we reach stage 4 sleep, our bodies release a growth hormone referred to by the acronym GHRH (for growth hormone–releasing hormone). GHRH helps bruises and cuts, and fights off infections at the cellular level. GHRH stimulates the repair of cells, the growth of replacement cells, and, in children and adolescents, the creation of the new cells their bodies need to grow. GHRH also induces sleepiness. One reason fast-growing teenagers need so much sleep is that their GHRH levels are higher than their parents’ or grandparents’, and in laboratory experiments GHRH has been shown to help people with sleep problems get a better night’s rest. Conversely, a lack of sleep can inhibit cellular repair and growth. There’s evidence that long-term sleep deprivation can stunt growth.

A hell-fire faith that uses the theatrical techniques of revivalism in order to stimulate remorse and induce the crisis of sudden conversion; a saviour cult that is for ever stirring up what St. Bernard calls the amor carnalis or fleshly love of the Avatar and personal God; a ritualistic mystery-religion that generates high feelings of awe and reverence and aesthetic ecstasy by means of its sacraments and ceremonials, its music and its incense, its numinous darknesses and sacred lights in its own special way, each one of these runs the risk of becoming a form of psychological idolatry, in which God is identified with the ego's affective attitude towards God and finally the emotion becomes an end in itself, to be eagerly sought after and worshipped, as the addicts of a drug spend life in the pursuit of their artificial paradise.

But if, when you say whiskey, you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the stuff that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty morning; if you mean the drink that enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrows, if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm, to build highways, hospitals, and schools, then certainly I am in favor of it.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that almost the entire first two sections of his relativity paper deal directly and in vivid practical detail (in a manner so different from the writings of, say, Lorentz and Maxwell) with the two real-world technological phenomena he knew best. He writes about the generation of “electric currents of the same magnitude” due to the “equality of relative motion” of coils and magnets, and the use of “a light signal” to make sure that “two clocks are synchronous.” As Einstein himself stated, his time in the patent office “stimulated me to see the physical ramifications of theoretical concepts.”51 And Alexander Moszkowski, who compiled a book in 1921 based on conversations with Einstein, noted that Einstein believed there was “a definite connection between the knowledge acquired at the patent office and the theoretical results.

Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues. They’re often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol, the body’s fight-or-flight “stress” hormone; and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others. Indeed, excessive stimulation seems to impede learning: a recent study found that people learn better after a quiet stroll through the woods than after a noisy walk down a city street.

Aerobic activity is beneficial in several ways. Exercise strengthens your cardiovascular system and improves your circulation, which means your body can deliver more blood to your brain when it’s working. Because the brain’s demand for oxygen and sugar rises when you’re concentrating hard, this can make the difference between grasping that insight or feeling like it’s just out of reach. A firing neuron uses as much energy as a leg muscle cell during a marathon. Further, sustained aerobic exercise stimulates the body to generate more small blood vessels in the brain, and a better-developed cerebral vasculature can deliver blood to the brain faster and more effectively. A 2012 study found that episodic memory improves as maximal oxygen capacity increases. (Conversely, comparative studies of adults who do and don’t exercise find that couch potatoes have lower scores on tests of executive function and processing speed and in middle age have faster rates of brain

He turns the conversation to that banal subject, fascinating to non-writers, of why writers write. Ego enhancement, sure. What else? Psychological imbalance? Neurosis? Trauma? And if trauma, how far can trauma go before it stops being stimulating and becomes destructive? Academic pressures to publish, do those mean anything? Not much, we agree. How about the reforming impulse, a passion for social justice? Are writers reporters, prophets, crazies, entertainers, preachers, judges, what? Who appoints them as mouthpieces? If they appoint themselves, as they clearly do, how valid is the commission? If Time alone makes masterpieces, as Anatole France thought, then great writing is just trial and error tested by time, and if it’s that, then above all it has to be free, it has to flow from the gift, not from outside pressures. The gift is its own justification, and there is no way of telling for sure, short of the appeal to posterity, whether it’s really worth something or whether it’s only the ephemeral expression of a fad or tendency, the articulation of a stereotype.

Michelle Alexander, an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, has written an entire book, The New Jim Crow, that blames high black incarceration rates on racial discrimination. She posits that prisons are teeming with young black men due primarily to a war on drugs that was launched by the Reagan administration in the 1980s for the express purpose of resegregating society. “This book argues that mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow and that all those who care about social justice should fully commit themselves to dismantling this new racial caste system,” wrote Alexander.4 “What this book is intended to do—the only thing it is intended to do—is to stimulate a much-needed conversation about the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetrating racial hierarchy in the United States.”5 Liberals love to have “conversations” about these matters, and Alexander got her wish. The book was a best seller. NPR interviewed her multiple times at length. The New York Times said that Alexander “deserved to be compared to Du Bois.” The San Francisco Chronicle described the book as “The Bible of a social movement.

FROM THE WAVERLEY KITCHEN JOURNAL Angelica - Will shape its meaning to your need, but it is particularly good for calming hyper children at your table. Anise Hyssop - Eases frustration and confusion. Bachelor’s Button - Aids in finding things that were previously hidden. A clarifying flower. Chicory - Conceals bitterness. Gives the eater a sense that all is well. A cloaking flower. Chive Blossom - Ensures you will win an argument. Conveniently, also an antidote for hurt feelings. Dandelion - A stimulant encouraging faithfulness. Frequent side effects are blindness to flaws and spontaneous apologies. Honeysuckle - For seeing in the dark, but only if you use honeysuckle from a brush of vines at least two feet thick. A clarifying flower. Hyacinth Bulb - Causes melancholy and thoughts of past regrets. Use only dried bulbs. A time-travel flower. Lavender - Raises spirits. Prevents bad decisions resulting from fatigue or depression. Lemon Balm - Upon consumption, for a brief period of time the eater will think and feel as he did in his youth. Please note if you have any former hellions at your table before serving. A time-travel flower. Lemon Verbena - Produces a lull in conversation with a mysterious lack of awkwardness. Helpful when you have nervous, overly talkative guests. Lilac - When a certain amount of humility is in order. Gives confidence that humbling yourself to another will not be used against you. Marigold - Causes affection, but sometimes accompanied by jealousy. Nasturtium - Promotes appetite in men. Makes women secretive. Secret sexual liaisons sometimes occur in mixed company. Do not let your guests out of your sight. Pansy - Encourages the eater to give compliments and surprise gifts. Peppermint - A clever method of concealment. When used with other edible flowers, it confuses the eater, thus concealing the true nature of what you are doing. A cloaking flower. Rose Geranium - Produces memories of past good times. Opposite of Hyacinth Bulb. A time-travel flower. Rose Petal - Encourages love. Snapdragon - Wards off the undue influences of others, particularly those with magical sensibilities. Squash and Zucchini Blossoms - Serve when you need to be understood. Clarifying flowers. Tulip - Gives the eater a sense of sexual perfection. A possible side effect is being susceptible to the opinions of others. Violet - A wonderful finish to a meal. Induces calm, brings on happiness, and always assures a good night’s sleep.

I’m sure we can manage to tolerate each other’s company for one meal.” “I won’t say anything about farming. We can discuss other subjects. I have a vast and complex array of interests.” “Such as?” Mr. Ravenel considered that. “Never mind, I don’t have a vast array of interests. But I feel like the kind of man who does.” Amused despite herself, Phoebe smiled reluctantly. “Aside from my children, I have no interests.” “Thank God. I hate stimulating conversation. My mind isn’t deep enough to float a straw.” Phoebe did enjoy a man with a sense of humor. Perhaps this dinner wouldn’t be as dreadful as she’d thought. “You’ll be glad to hear, then, that I haven’t read a book in months.” “I haven’t gone to a classical music concert in years,” he said. “Too many moments of ‘clap here, not there.’ It makes me nervous.” “I’m afraid we can’t discuss art, either. I find symbolism exhausting.” “Then I assume you don’t like poetry.” “No . . . unless it rhymes.” “I happen to write poetry,” Ravenel said gravely. Heaven help me, Phoebe thought, the momentary fun vanishing. Years ago, when she’d first entered society, it had seemed as if every young man she met at a ball or dinner was an amateur poet. They had insisted on quoting their own poems, filled with bombast about starlight and dewdrops and lost love, in the hopes of impressing her with how sensitive they were. Apparently, the fad had not ended yet. “Do you?” she asked without enthusiasm, praying silently that he wouldn’t offer to recite any of it. “Yes. Shall I recite a line or two?” Repressing a sigh, Phoebe shaped her mouth into a polite curve. “By all means.” “It’s from an unfinished work.” Looking solemn, Mr. Ravenel began, “There once was a young man named Bruce . . . whose trousers were always too loose.” Phoebe willed herself not to encourage him by laughing. She heard a quiet cough of amusement behind her and deduced that one of the footmen had overheard. “Mr. Ravenel,” she asked, “have you forgotten this is a formal dinner?” His eyes glinted with mischief. “Help me with the next line.” “Absolutely not.” “I dare you.” Phoebe ignored him, meticulously spreading her napkin over her lap. “I double dare you,” he persisted. “Really, you are the most . . . oh, very well.” Phoebe took a sip of water while mulling over words. After setting down the glass, she said, “One day he bent over, while picking a clover.” Ravenel absently fingered the stem of an empty crystal goblet. After a moment, he said triumphantly, “. . . and a bee stung him on the caboose.” Phoebe almost choked on a laugh. “Could we at least pretend to be dignified?” she begged. “But it’s going to be such a long dinner.

Why would you do that with me? A simple kiss was enough. What could you be thinking?" "What indeed." He pushed a hand through his hair, more than a little offended at her accusatory tone. "I'm male. You rubbed your... femaleness all over me. I didn't think. I reacted." "You reacted." "Yes." "To..." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "To me." "It is a natural response. Aren't you a scientist? Then you should understand. Any red-blooded man would react to such stimulus." She stepped back. She dipped her chin and peered at him over her spectacles. "So you find me stimulating." "That's not what I-" He bit off the rest of that sentence. The only way to end a nonsensical conversation was to simply cease talking. Colin drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He closed his eyes briefly. And then he opened them and looked at her. Really looked at her, as though for the first time. He saw thick, dark hair a man could gather by the fistful. Prim spectacles, perched on a gently sloped nose. Behind the lenses, wide-set eyes- dark and intelligent. And that mouth. That ripe, pouting, sensual mouth. He let his gaze drift down her form. There was a wicked thrill to knowing lushness smoldered beneath that modest sprigged muslin gown. To having felt her shape, scouting and chartering her body with all the nerve endings of his own. Their bodies had met. More than that. They'd grown acquainted. Nothing more would come from it, of course. Colin had rules for himself, and as for her... she didn't even liked him, or pretend to. But she showed up in the middle of the night, hatching schemes that skirted the line between academic logic and reckless adventure. She started kisses she had no notion how to continue. Taken all together, she was simply... A surprise. A fresh, bracing gust of the unexpected, for good or ill. "Perhaps," he said cautiously, "I do find you stimulating.

This new surge in morale had nothing to do with Churchill’s speech and everything to do with his gift for understanding how simple gestures could generate huge effects. What had infuriated Londoners was that during these night raids the Luftwaffe seemed free to come and go as it wished, without interference from the night-blind RAF and the city’s strangely quiescent anti-aircraft guns. Gun crews were under orders to conserve ammunition and fire only when aircraft were sighted overhead and, as a consequence, did little firing at all. On Churchill’s orders, more guns were brought to the city, boosting the total to nearly two hundred, from ninety-two. More importantly, Churchill now directed their crews to fire with abandon, despite his knowing full well that guns only rarely brought down aircraft. The orders took effect that Wednesday night, September 11. The impact on civic morale was striking and immediate. Crews blasted away; one official described it as “largely wild and uncontrolled shooting.” Searchlights swept the sky. Shells burst over Trafalgar Square and Westminster like fireworks, sending a steady rain of shrapnel onto the streets below, much to the delight of London’s residents. The guns raised “a momentous sound that sent a chattering, smashing, blinding thrill through the London heart,” wrote novelist William Sansom. Churchill himself loved the sound of the guns; instead of seeking shelter, he would race to the nearest gun emplacement and watch. The new cacophony had “an immense effect on people’s morale,” wrote private secretary John Martin. “Tails are up and, after the fifth sleepless night, everyone looks quite different this morning—cheerful and confident. It was a curious bit of mass psychology—the relief of hitting back.” The next day’s Home Intelligence reports confirmed the effect. “The dominating topic of conversation today is the anti-aircraft barrage of last night. This greatly stimulated morale: in public shelters people cheered and conversation shows that the noise brought a shock of positive pleasure.

A man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires—the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise—and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections. Hundreds of writers may be found in every long-civilized nation who for a short time believe and make others believe that they see and utter truths, who do not of themselves clothe one thought in its natural garment, but who feed unconsciously on the language created by the primary writers of the country, those, namely, who hold primarily on nature. But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it is a man in alliance with truth and God. The moment our discourse rises above the ground line of familiar facts and is inflamed with passion or exalted by thought, it clothes itself in images. A man conversing in earnest, if he watch his intellectual processes, will find that a material image more or less luminous arises in his mind, contemporaneous with every thought, which furnishes the vestment of the thought. Hence, good writing and brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories. This imagery is spontaneous. It is the blending of experience with the present action of the mind. It is proper creation. It is the working of the Original Cause through the instruments he has already made.

I agree with Miss Erstwhile, you are acting like a scarecrow. I do not know why you put on this act, Nobley, when around the port table or out in the field you’re rather a pleasant fellow.” “Really? That is curious,” Jane said. “Why, Mr. Nobley, are you generous in your attentions with gentlemen and yet taciturn and withdrawn around the fairer sex?” Mr. Nobley’s eyes were back on the printed page, though they didn’t scan the lines. “Perhaps I do not possess the type of conversation that would interest a lady.” “You say ‘perhaps’ as though you do not believe it yourself. What else might be the reason, sir?” Jane smiled. Needling Mr. Nobley was feeling like a very productive use of the evening. “Perhaps another reason might be that I myself do not find the conversation of ladies to be very stimulating.” His eyes were dark. “Hm, I just can’t imagine why you’re still unmarried.” “I might say the same for you.” “Mr. Nobley!” cried Aunt Saffronia. “No, it’s all right, Aunt,” Jane said. “I asked for it. And I don’t even mind answering.” She put a hand on her hip and faced him. “One reason why I am unmarried is because there aren’t enough men with guts to put away their little boy fears and commit their love and stick it out.” “And perhaps the men do not stick it out for a reason.” “And what reason might that be?” “The reason is women.” He slammed his book shut. “Women make life impossible until the man has to be the one to end it. There is no working it out past a certain point. How can anyone work out the lunacy?” Mr. Nobley took a ragged breath, then his face went red as he seemed to realize what he’d said, where he was. He put the book down gently, pursed his lips, cleared his throat. No one in the room made eye contact. “Someone has issues,” said Miss Charming in a quiet, singsongy voice. “I beg you, Lady Templeton,” Colonel Andrews said, standing, his smile almost convincingly nonchalant, “play something rousing on the pianoforte. I promised to engage Miss Erstwhile in a dance. I cannot break a promise to such a lovely young thing, not and break her heart and further blacken her view of the world, so you see my urgency.” “An excellent suggestion, Colonel Andrews,” Aunt Saffronia said. “It seems all our spirits could use a lift. I think we feel the lack of Sir Templeton’s presence, indeed I do.” Mr. Nobley, of course, declined to dance, so Jane and the colonel stood up with Captain East and Miss Charming, whose spirits were speedily improving. Twice she turned the wrong way, ramming herself into the captain’s shoulder, saying “pip, pip” and “jolly good.” Jane spied Mr. Nobley on the sofa, staring at the window and a reflection of the dancers.

But I had no need to suppose anything of the sort, she might well have disdained the use of her eyes to ascertain what her instinct must have adequately enough detected, for, throughout her service with me and my parents, fear, prudence, alertness and cunning had finally taught her that instinctive and almost divinatory knowledge of us that the sailor has of the sea, the quarry of the hunter, and if not the doctor then often the patient of the disease. All the knowledge she was in the habit of acquiring would have astounded anyone for as good a reason as the advanced state of certain areas of knowledge among the ancients, given the almost negligible means of information at their disposal (hers were no less so: a handful of chance remarks forming barely a twentieth part of our conversation at dinner, gleaned in passing by the butler and inaccurately transmitted to the staff quarters). Even her mistakes resulted, like theirs, like the fables in which Plato believed, from a false conception of the world and from preconceived ideas rather than from an inadequacy of material resources... But if the drawbacks of her position as a servant had not prevented her from acquiring the learning indispensable to the art which was its ultimate goal – the art of confounding us by communicating the results of her discoveries – the constraints on her time had been even more effective; here hindrance had not merely been content not to paralyse her enthusiasm, it had powerfully fired it. And of course Françoise neglected no auxiliary stimulant, like diction and attitude for instance. While she never believed anything we said to her when we wanted her to believe it, and since she accepted beyond a shadow of doubt the absurdest things anyone of her own status told her which might at the same time offend our views, in the same way that her manner of listening to our assertions pointed to her incredulity, so the tone she used to report (indirection enabling her to fling the most offensive insults at us with impunity) a cook’s account of threatening her employers and forcing any number of concessions out of them by treating them like dirt in public, indicated that she treated the story as gospel truth. Françoise even went so far as to add: ‘If I’d been the mistress, I’d have been very put out, I can tell you.’ However much, despite our initial dislike of the lady on the fourth floor, we might shrug our shoulders at this unedifying tale as if it were an unlikely fable, its teller knew just how to invest her tone with all the trenchant punch of the most unshakeable and infuriating confidence in what she was saying. But above all, just as writers, when their hands are tied by the tyranny of a monarch or of poetic convention, by the strict rules of prosody or state religion, often achieve a power of concentration they would not have done under a system of political freedom or literary anarchy, so Françoise, by not being free to respond to us in an explicit manner, spoke like Tiresias and would have written like Tacitus.5 She knew how to contain everything she could not express directly in a sentence we could not denounce without casting aspersions on ourselves, in less than a sentence in fact, in a silence, in the way she placed an object.

Jane, the captain, and the colonel begged out of cards, sat by the window, and made fun of Mr. Nobley. She glanced once at the garden, imagined Martin seeing her now, and felt popular and pretty--Emma Woodhouse from curls to slippers. It certainly helped that all the men were so magnificent. Unreal, actually. Austenland was feeling cozier. “Do you think he hears us?” Jane asked. “See how he doesn’t lift his eyes from that book? In all, his manners and expression are a bit too determined, don’t you think?” “Right you are, Miss Erstwhile,” Colonel Andrews said. “His eyebrow is twitching,” Captain East said gravely. “Why, so it is, Captain!” the colonel said. “Well observed.” “Then again, the eyebrow twitch could be caused by some buried guilt,” Jane said. “I believe you’re right again, Miss Erstwhile. Perhaps he does not hear us at all.” “Of course I hear you, Colonel Andrews,” said Mr. Nobley, his eyes still on the page. “I would have to be deaf not to, the way you carry on.” “I say, do not be gruff with us, Nobley, we are only having a bit of fun, and you are being rather tedious. I cannot abide it when my friends insist on being scholarly. The only member of our company who can coax you away from those books is our Miss Heartwright, but she seems altogether too pensive tonight as well, and so our cause is lost.” Mr. Nobley did look up now, just in time to catch Miss Heartwright’s face turn away shyly. “You might show a little more delicacy around the ladies, Colonel Andrews,” he said. “Stuff and nonsense. I agree with Miss Erstwhile, you are acting like a scarecrow. I do not know why you put on this act, Nobley, when around the port table or out in the field you’re rather a pleasant fellow.” “Really? That is curious,” Jane said. “Why, Mr. Nobley, are you generous in your attentions with gentlemen and yet taciturn and withdrawn around the fairer sex?” Mr. Nobley’s eyes were back on the printed page, though they didn’t scan the lines. “Perhaps I do not possess the type of conversation that would interest a lady.” “You say ‘perhaps’ as though you do not believe it yourself. What else might be the reason, sir?” Jane smiled. Needling Mr. Nobley was feeling like a very productive use of the evening. “Perhaps another reason might be that I myself do not find the conversation of ladies to be very stimulating.” His eyes were dark. “Hm, I just can’t imagine why you’re still unmarried.” “I might say the same for you.” “Mr. Nobley!” cried Aunt Saffronia. “No, it’s all right, Aunt,” Jane said. “I asked for it. And I don’t even mind answering.” She put a hand on her hip and faced him. “One reason why I am unmarried is because there aren’t enough men with guts to put away their little boy fears and commit their love and stick it out.” “And perhaps the men do not stick it out for a reason.” “And what reason might that be?” “The reason is women.” He slammed his book shut. “Women make life impossible until the man has to be the one to end it. There is no working it out past a certain point. How can anyone work out the lunacy?” Mr. Nobley took a ragged breath, then his face went red as he seemed to realize what he’d said, where he was. He put the book down gently, pursed his lips, cleared his throat. No one in the room made eye contact. “Someone has issues,” said Miss Charming in a quiet, singsongy voice. “I beg you, Lady Templeton,” Colonel Andrews said, standing, his smile almost convincingly nonchalant, “play something rousing on the pianoforte. I promised to engage Miss Erstwhile in a dance. I cannot break a promise to such a lovely young thing, not and break her heart and further blacken her view of the world, so you see my urgency.” “An excellent suggestion, Colonel Andrews,” Aunt Saffronia said. “It seems all our spirits could use a lift.

evening: a spotless record, knowledge, stimulating conversation—but he had no love. She had nothing to offer Christ that evening but a terrible record. She was almost assuredly illiterate, and she couldn’t talk for crying. But she had love.

What this book intended to do - the only thing it is intended to do - is to stimulate a much-needed conversation about the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy in the United States. The fate of millions of people - indeed the future of the black community itself - may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the role of the criminal justice system in our society. The face that more than half of the young black men in many large American cities are currently under the control of the criminal justice system (or saddled with criminal records) is not - as many argue - just a symptom of poverty or poor choices, but rather evidence of a new racial caste system at work.

Surgeons report that after a great victory, for instance, the wounds of the soldiers, as has been noticed in many similar instances, heal much more rapidly than the wounds of the soldiers in the defeated army, showing that the mental exhilaration, which accompanies the consciousness of victory, is a stimulant, a tonic, while conversely the despondency, which accompanies defeat, is also a physical depressant.

Perhaps it means that we are, in every moment, to remember the whole, to remember the gift of life, to remember the preciousness of every second. When we do this remembering, something shifts inside us. When we do this remembering, we talk differently, we act differently, and we treat self and others differently. When we keep our awareness on this moment with gratitude, we increase our ability to choose how we act and how we interact with the world. To worship is to remember the sacred, however we conceive of it. ... When we slow down and open our heart and mind, we realize that we can't conclusively answer any of the really big questions about existence, especially questions of meaning. Not that we should stop trying! But slowing own and opening up allows us to enter a state of wonderment and humility in the face of the vastness of creation. This state is one of worship, a silent and embodied worship that is not necessarily shaped by specific ritual. Rather it is shaped by our intention and our willingness to understand on a profound level our small place in the Universe. This embodied worship allows our kinship with all beings and all of nature to become more than just apparent to our conscious mind. This kinship is now lived from our very cells. To experience this level of joy is not only to worship it is also to become worship. ... You could say that to worship is to invite the sacred to fill our body, mind, and soul, to surrender to the great mystery, however we experience it and whatever name we give it. The great benefit of this willingness to invite the sacred in is that it helps us feel healed and whole in that moment. When we worship in this broad way, we surrender our struggling ego and mind to the wholeness of creation and thus feel a little less burdened, a little less overwhelmed, a little less afraid. ... Worship is rather an internal shift stimulated by the external activity that we call ritual. To worship is to assume a new relationship with yourself and all creation - with God. To worship is to be willing to be unsure, unresolved, to admit how much we don't know and will never know. I invite you, dear reader, to be open to daily worship, to set aside any narrow interpretation of what worship is. Instead, allow yourself to imagine the possibility of creating a continuous conversation with the sacred. That is the path of the mystic, and it can live as a comfortable companion in a secular life. Worship is the music of the soul and as much is the ultimate universal language. In the end, to worship is to acknowledge life on the deepest level. Perhaps life itself is the ultimate prayer, the ultimate worship.

Taking part in stimulating and rewarding conversations will become a reality. All you have to do is look somebody in the eye, smile, and start a conversation!

A growing child is presented with one of two paths, survival or development. If a child is abused, neglected, abandoned, ignored, or made to assume adult responsibilities, she must focus her attention and energy on survival. Whatever relief she gets from insuring survival, she gets to use on development. If all her energy goes toward surviving, development will get short shrift. A child whose basic physical needs are met ascends to another level of needs. A baby who gets enough sleep, food, and diaper changing also needs to be held and spoken to. He needs the stimulation of colors and sounds. A toddler who gets enough food and rest also needs to move around, to explore in safety, and to be held. A young child who gets nutritious meals and sufficient rest and exercise also needs to ask a lot of questions, to take things apart, and to explore his own body. A ten-year-old child who is safe and sufficiently fed and clothed also needs mental stimulation, an appropriate level of responsibility, social activities, skill training, interpretation of complicated events, help being safely alone, conversation, communication, and listening.

The level of activity in this reticular formation reflects an individual’s general state of arousal. Artificial over-stimulation of the entire area does not result in limb-flailing or the exaggeration of particular gestures; instead, it causes a stiffened tetany in all the muscles of the body simultaneously. Everything locks rigidly into place and cannot be moved until stimulation recedes. Conversely, blocking stimulation from reaching the whole area results in a general loss of muscle tone throughout the body, as in our anaesthetized patient. That is, activity in this area as a whole does not command our muscles to produce any particular gesture or assume any particular posture. Rather, general activity here provides the conditions of general muscle tone, sensory awareness, and mental alertness which will support and color whatever postures and gestures are made. The reticular formation cannot issue the command “raise right arm,” but it does help to establish the trembling tension, the calm readiness, or the sluggishness which will characterize how I raise my arm in response to a situation. To direct these general levels of arousal into particular movements requires the next level of the “old” brain, the basal ganglia—the highest level of sensory and motor organization of the gamma motor system.

One additional piece of the coming out puzzle also fascinated me: the idea that the process, in and of itself, meant that I was announcing to family and friends what I liked to do in the bedroom. To my knowledge, none of my straight friends had similar burdens: “Mom, I love to be tied up!” or “Hey, Sis, did you know that nothing makes me happier than having my clitoris stimulated with a vibrating rod?” weren’t conversational sentiments among my heterosexual counterparts. I, on the other hand, had to accept the responsibility of announcing that I liked to have a man’s penis in my mouth.

the group remained a collection of very bright people with strong personalities, who frequently clashed with one another, as siblings might. I liked that. One of the junior lawyers was given to exhaling in disgust at statements she didn’t like and then interrupting aggressively, no matter who was speaking. This annoyed many of her colleagues. I loved it. I wanted her on the team because I knew she didn’t care about rank at all. Her directness added value even when she was wrong. I wanted to hear her perspective and knew it would come without prompting, even if she interrupted a senior official to offer it. That interruption would stimulate great conversation.

If this happens, then the listeners’ ears will shut off and they might start daydreaming about

what they want for dinner or spot another person in the

you have a drink, hold it at your waist (not your chest) ●       Stand up straight, keep your shoulders and

Open up your arms and body

sitting, lean forward because it will show that you’re listening

It can sometimes come off as an insult or judgmental, like you are trying to put them down. For

based on the way they look. If

If you glance at someone and immediately think, “Oh, that person looks like a teacher,” or “that person looks like they were in the military,” or “that person looks like they are an actor,” tell them that.

Compliments are great, and people love them! Although,

NOT to compliment people on their physical features (unless you are completely genuine) because people will often see it as though you just want something from them–and it is often interpreted as you either want to sell them something or have sex with them.