Surprisingly Profound Quotes

Anyone who ever wondered how much they could love a child who did not spring from their own loins, know this: it is the same. The feeling of love is so profound, it's incredible and surprising.

Rather than dwelling on the past, we should make the most of today, of the here and now, doing all we can to provide pleasant memories for the future…If you are still in the process of raising children be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled, will disappear all too soon, and that you will, to your surprise, miss them, profoundly.

It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow-creatures is utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old. In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows. And why, if this -- and much more than this is true -- why are we yet surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us--why indeed? For the moment after we know nothing about him. Such is the manner of our seeing. Such the conditions of our love.

That which intoxicates, the sensually ecstatic, the sudden surprise, the urge to be profoundly stirred at any price -- dreadful tendencies!

I can't describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she'd throw me over, but she didn't, because she was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her. . . . Well, there I was, 'way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn't care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?" On the last afternoon before he went abroad, he sat with Daisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall day, with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and then she moved and he changed his arm a little, and once he kissed her dark shining hair. The afternoon had made them tranquil for a while, as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised. They had never been closer in their month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.

The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. To women he is half vivisector, half vampire. He gets into intimate relations with them to study them, to strip the mask of convention from them, to surprise their inmost secrets, knowing that they have the power to rouse his deepest creative energies, to rescue him from his cold reason, to make him see visions and dream dreams, to inspire him, as he calls it. He persuades women that they may do this for their own purpose whilst he really means them to do it for his. He steals the mother’s milk and blackens it to make printer’s ink to scoff at her and glorify ideal women with. He pretends to spare her the pangs of child-bearing so that he may have for himself the tenderness and fostering that belong of right to her children. Since marriage began, the great artist has been known as a bad husband. But he is worse: he is a child-robber, a blood-sucker, a hypocrite, and a cheat. Perish the race and wither a thousand women if only the sacrifice of them enable him to act Hamlet better, to paint a finer picture, to write a deeper poem, a greater play, a profounder philosophy! For mark you, Tavy, the artist’s work is to shew us ourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this knowledge of ourselves; and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as surely as any woman creates new men. In the rage of that creation he is as ruthless as the woman, as dangerous to her as she to him, and as horribly fascinating. Of all human struggles there is none so treacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist man and the mother woman. Which shall use up the other? that is the issue between them. And it is all the deadlier because, in your romanticist cant, they love one another.

To an even moderately sophisticated and well-read person it should come as no surprise that any religion at all has its hidden as well as its obvious beauties and is capable of profound and impressive interpretations. What is deeply objectionable about most of these interpretations is that they allow the believer to say Yes while evading any No.

Then he read the first sentence from the introduction: Without question this modern American dictionary is one of the most surprisingly complex and profound documents ever to be created, for it embodies unparalleled etymological detail, reflecting not only superb lexicographic scholarship, but also the dreams and speech and imaginative talents of millions of people over thousands of years—for every person who has ever spoken or written in English has had a hand in its making.

That was the splendid thing about life: Though it was cruel, it was also mysterious, filled with wonder and surprise; sometimes the surprises were so amazing that they qualified as miraculous, and by witnessing those miracles, a despondent person could discover a reason to live, a cynic could obtain unexpected relief from ennui, and a profoundly wounded boy could find the will to heal himself and medicine for melancholy.

It was said by Epicurus, and he was probably right, that all philosophy takes its origin from philosophical wonder. The man who has never at any time felt consciously struck by the extreme strangeness and oddity of the situation in which we are involved, we know not how, is a man with no affinity for philosophy - and has, by the way, little cause to worry. The unphilosophical and philosophical attitudes can be very sharply distinguished (with scarcely any intermediate forms) by the fact that the first accepts everything that happens as regards its general form, and finds occasion for surprise only in that special content by which something that happens here today differs from what happened there yesterday; whereas for the second, it is precisely the common features of all experience, such as characterise everything we encounter, which are the primary and most profound occasion for astonishment; indeed, one might almost say that it is the fact that anything is experienced and encounter at all.

A moment of grace. There rose up within me a profound sense of being loved. I felt "gathered together" and encircled by a Presence completely loving, as if I were enveloped by the music of a love song created just for me. It was not overwhelming or even emotional. Just a warm knowing that I was in God's loving embrace...centered and unified there. [Love]encounters cannot be analyzed, only shared. If you take a butterfly, Robert Frost said, and pin it down into a box, you no longer have a butterfly.

I missed you, Kitten,” he growled. Then his mouth crushed over mine, his kiss more filled with raw need than romantic welcome. That was fine; I felt the same way. Aside from my compulsive urge to run my hands over him to assure myself that he was really here, relief, happiness, and the most profound feeling of rightness zoomed through me, settling all the way to my core. I hadn’t realized how deeply I’d missed Bones until that very moment, hadn’t let myself acknowledge how everything felt off when I was apart from him. On some levels, it was frightening how much a part of me he’d become. It let me know just how much I’d crumble if anything happened to him. “Why didn’t you answer your mobile earlier?” Bones murmured once he lifted his head. “I tried you several times. Tried Mencheres, too. Even Tepesh. None of you answered. Scared the wits out of me, so I stowed away on a FedEx plane to make sure you were all right.” “You came all the way from Ohio because I didn’t answer the phone?” I was torn between laughter and disbelief. “God, Bones, that’s a little crazy.” And it was, except the part of me that had had images of his tombstone dancing in my head because he hadn’t answered his phone earlier was nodding in complete understanding. Despite all our protestations, we were so alike when it came to fear over the other’s safety, and I doubted we’d ever change. “Crazy,” I repeated, my voice roughening with the surge of emotion in me. “And have I told you lately. that your crazy side . . . is your sexiest side?” He chuckled before his mouth swooped back over mine in another dizzying kiss. Then he picked me up, brushing past Vlad and Mencheres without even a hello, though I doubted either of them was surprised.

The man himself lay in the bed. For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him.

Oh,” he said. “I see.” But he did not see, exactly, though he believed that he could have been wrong and that she was right. And so a year later she talked to him suddenly of marriage and escape in the same words, he was not surprised, not hurt. He just thought quietly, ‘So this is love. I see. I was wrong about it too’, thinking as he had thought before and would think again and as every other man has thought: how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.

You have no idea how grief will take you. The same with severe illness, motherhood, any profound experience. You don’t know yourself. Others don’t know you. These events show who you are. And you’ll be surprised, shocked even. You’ll feel the way you feel when you’ve done a particularly offensive-smelling shit – That couldn’t possibly have come out of me – and start to rationalize it – Must be that bag of pistachios I ate earlier, or perhaps I am unwell. You can’t believe you could do something so foul and unrecognizable. Something so outside yourself.

Had they nothing else to say to each other? Yet their eyes were full of more serious statements; and while they sought for commonplace sentences, they each felt the same languor. It was like a murmur of the soul, profound and continuous, dominating that of the voices. Surprised at this unexpected sweetness, it did not occur to them to discuss the sensation or discover the cause. Future happiness, like tropical shores, projects over the vastness that precedes it, its innate indolence, and wafts a scented breeze that intoxicates and dispels any anxiety about the unseen horizon.

How we hate to admit that we would like nothing better than to be the slave! Slave and master at the same time! For even in love the slave is always the master in disguise. The man who must conquer the woman, subjugate her, bend her to his will, form her according to his desires—is he not the slave of his slave? How easy it is, in this relationship, for the woman to upset the balance of power! The mere threat of self-dependence, on the woman’s part, and the gallant despot is seized with vertigo. But if they are able to throw themselves at one another recklessly, concealing nothing, surrendering all, if they admit to one another their interdependence, do they not enjoy a great and unsuspected freedom? The man who admits to himself that he is a coward has made a step towards conquering his fear; but the man who frankly admits it to every one, who asks that you recognize it in him and make allowance for it in dealing with him, is on the way to becoming a hero. Such a man is often surprised, when the crucial test comes, to find that he knows no fear. Having lost the fear of regarding himself as a coward he is one no longer: only the demonstration is needed to prove the metamorphosis. It is the same in love. The man who admits not only to himself but to his fellowmen, and even to the woman he adores, that he can be twisted around a woman’s finger, that he is helpless where the other sex is concerned, usually discovers that he is the more powerful of the two. Nothing breaks a woman down more quickly than complete surrender. A woman is prepared to resist, to be laid siege to: she has been trained to behave that way. When she meets no resistance she falls headlong into the trap. To be able to give oneself wholly and completely is the greatest luxury that life affords. Real love only begins at this point of dissolution. The personal life is altogether based on dependence, mutual dependence. Society is the aggregate of persons all interdependent. There is another richer life beyond the pale of society, beyond the personal, but there is no knowing it, no attainment possible, without firs traveling the heights and depths of the personal jungle. To become the great lover, the magnetiser and catalyzer, the blinding focus and inspiration of the world, one has to first experience the profound wisdom of being an utter fool. The man whose greatness of heart leads him to folly and ruin is to a woman irresistible. To the woman who loves, that is to say. As to those who ask merely to be loved, who seek only their own reflection in the mirror, no love however great, will ever satisfy them. In a world so hungry for love it is no wonder that men and women are blinded by the glamour and glitter of their own reflected egos. No wonder that the revolver shot is the last summons. No wonder that the grinding wheels of the subway express, though they cut the body to pieces, fail to precipitate the elixir of love. In the egocentric prism the helpless victim is walled in by the very light which he refracts. The ego dies in its own glass cage…

Many Americans first fell in love with the poetry of the thirteenth century teacher and spiritual leader Jelalludin Rumi during the early 1990s when the unparalleled lyrical grace, philosophical brilliance, and spiritual daring of his work took modern Western readers completely by surprise. The impact of its soulful beauty and the depth of its profound humanity were so intense that they reportedly prompted numerous individuals to spontaneously compose poetry.

We do not steadily bear in mind how profoundly ignorant we are of the conditions of existence of every animal; nor do we always remember that some check is constantly preventing the too rapid increase of every organised being left in a state of nature. The supply of food, on an average, remains constant, yet the tendency in every animal to increase by propagation is geometrical; and its surprising effects have nowhere been more astonishingly shown, than in the case of the European animals run wild during the last few centuries in America.

After six years of solitude, sharing a meal and conversation with someone was a pleasure. More than a pleasure, her hospitality and companionship were also affecting to a surprising extent, so that at times I was overcome by emotion so intense, I couldn't have spoken without revealing how profoundly I was moved.

Paradoxically, it is friendship that often offers us the real route to the pleasures that Romanticism associates with love. That this sounds surprising is only a reflection of how underdeveloped our day-to-day vision of friendship has become. We associate it with a casual acquaintance we see only once in a while to exchange inconsequential and shallow banter. But real friendship is something altogether more profound and worthy of exultation. It is an arena in which two people can get a sense of each other’s vulnerabilities, appreciate each other’s follies without recrimination, reassure each other as to their value and greet the sorrows and tragedies of existence with wit and warmth. Culturally and collectively, we have made a momentous mistake which has left us both lonelier and more disappointed than we ever needed to be. In a better world, our most serious goal would be not to locate one special lover with whom to replace all other humans but to put our intelligence and energy into identifying and nurturing a circle of true friends. At the end of an evening, we would learn to say to certain prospective companions, with an embarrassed smile as we invited them inside – knowing that this would come across as a properly painful rejection – ‘I’m so sorry, couldn’t we just be … lovers?

Had they nothing else to say to each other? Yet their eyes were full of more serious statements; and while they sought for commonplace sentences, they each felt the same languor. It was like a murmur of the soul, profound and continuous, dominating that of the voices. Surprised at this unexpected sweetness, it did not occur to them to discuss the sensation or discover the cause. Future happiness, like tropical shores, projects over the vastness that precedes it, its innate indolence, and wafts a scented breeze that intoxicates and dispels any anxiety about the unseen horizon.

Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstacy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way round. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm.

Even more extraordinary is Thucydides’ ability to use that knowledge to reach a higher wisdom about the nature of human behavior, whether it be unveiled by plague (2.53), revolution (3.82–84), or war (5.103). And never forget that Thucydides was much more than an accurate recorder, more even than a keen judge of human character and the role that natural law and chance play in men’s affairs (3.45.5–7; 3.84.1–3). He was a profound literary artist as well, emotional and poignant on so many surprising occasions.

faster in areas of our life where effort and striving are, in fact, profoundly counterproductive. This is because the problem of choking or freezing up extends

The fact that he'd become withdrawn and insular was no surprise to Percy. He'd few examples of affection to call upon. Aunt Alexia and Lord Maccon being the singular exception. Their marriage, to his outside eye, had always been combative but never lacking warmth. Percy could admit to himself, if not to Arsenic, that he was attracted by their model of a profound and loving relationship, if perhaps hoping for a little less rushing about and banging of heads together.

Abandoned houses seldom turn out to be as empty as they appear. Voices fade, but echoes linger, intimately, sinking from room to room. And sometimes figures emerge from those shadows, if only in dreams. What could be more profoundly idiosyncratic than our nightmares? Always, there has been something personal about ghost stories. How surprising is it that so many concern writers in torment?

Nowadays, however, economic class is barely mentioned unless combined “intersectionally” with some other form of marginalized identity. It is therefore no surprise that many working-class and poor people often feel profoundly alienated from today’s left—Marxists rightly identify it as having adopted very bourgeois concerns. It is profoundly ironic that a movement claiming to problematize all sources of privilege is led by highly educated, upper-middle-class scholars and activists who are so oblivious to their status as privileged members of society.

Have you ever wondered What happens to all the poems people write? The poems they never let anyone else read? Perhaps they are Too private and personal Perhaps they are just not good enough. Perhaps the prospect of such a heartfelt expression being seen as clumsy shallow silly pretentious saccharine unoriginal sentimental trite boring overwrought obscure stupid pointless or simply embarrassing is enough to give any aspiring poet good reason to hide their work from public view. forever. Naturally many poems are IMMEDIATELY DESTROYED. Burnt shredded flushed away Occasionally they are folded Into little squares And wedged under the corner of An unstable piece of furniture (So actually quite useful) Others are hidden behind a loose brick or drainpipe or sealed into the back of an old alarm clock or put between the pages of AN OBSCURE BOOK that is unlikely to ever be opened. someone might find them one day, BUT PROBABLY NOT The truth is that unread poetry Will almost always be just that. DOOMED to join a vast invisible river of waste that flows out of suburbia. well Almost always. On rare occasions, Some especially insistent pieces of writing will escape into a backyard or a laneway be blown along a roadside embankment and finally come to rest in a shopping center parking lot as so many things do It is here that something quite Remarkable takes place two or more pieces of poetry drift toward each other through a strange force of attraction unknown to science and ever so slowly cling together to form a tiny, shapeless ball. Left undisturbed, this ball gradually becomes larger and rounder as other free verses confessions secrets stray musings wishes and unsent love letters attach themselves one by one. Such a ball creeps through the streets Like a tumbleweed for months even years If it comes out only at night it has a good Chance of surviving traffic and children and through a slow rolling motion AVOIDS SNAILS (its number one predator) At a certain size, it instinctively shelters from bad weather, unnoticed but otherwise roams the streets searching for scraps of forgotten thought and feeling. Given time and luck the poetry ball becomes large HUGE ENORMOUS: A vast accumulation of papery bits That ultimately takes to the air, levitating by The sheer force of so much unspoken emotion. It floats gently above suburban rooftops when everybody is asleep inspiring lonely dogs to bark in the middle of the night. Sadly a big ball of paper no matter how large and buoyant, is still a fragile thing. Sooner or LATER it will be surprised by a sudden gust of wind Beaten by driving rain and REDUCED in a matter of minutes to a billion soggy shreds. One morning everyone will wake up to find a pulpy mess covering front lawns clogging up gutters and plastering car windscreens. Traffic will be delayed children delighted adults baffled unable to figure out where it all came from Stranger still Will be the Discovery that Every lump of Wet paper Contains various faded words pressed into accidental verse. Barely visible but undeniably present To each reader they will whisper something different something joyful something sad truthful absurd hilarious profound and perfect No one will be able to explain the Strange feeling of weightlessness or the private smile that remains Long after the street sweepers have come and gone.

Quoting from Phillip Moffitt Will Yoga and Meditation Really Change My Life? The most profound change I’m aware of just now is a growing realization that life is not personal. This may seem a surprising or even strange view to those unfamiliar with Eastern spirituality, but it has powerful implications. It’s very freeing to see that events in my life are arising because of circumstances in which I am not involved, but that I’m not at the center of them in any particular way. They’re impersonal. They’re arising because of causes and conditions. They are not “me.” There is a profound freedom in this. It makes life much more peaceful and harmonious because I’m not in reaction to events all the time. (134)

To understand this phrase properly, we have to understand that the word wind is, in the Greek, the same word as spirit. What Jesus explained to Nicodemus here is that conversion is simple but also profound. Out of heaven will come a wind of the Spirit, and though you might not be able to tell where it came from or where it is going, you will know it when it hits you, and it will change you forever.

He slowed to a walk. As he approached her he was surprised at just how pretty she was. She looked a little like Maureen O'Hara in those old pirate movies. His writer's mind kicked in and he thought, This woman could break my heart. I could crash and burn on this woman. I could lose this woman, drink heavily, write profound poems, and die in the gutter of turberculosis over this woman. This was not an unusual reaction for Tommy. He had it often, mostly with girls who worked the drive-through windows at fast-food places. He would drive off with the smell of fries in his car and the bitter taste of unrequited love on his tongue. It was usually good for at least one short story.

My period continued, an inevitable cycle, yet every month I was somehow surprised by the violent pain. It was as if I refused to believe my body, something I’d trusted for years, would repeatedly betray me. My stomach ate itself from the inside, a revelry I had been dragged to, a feast I was forced to join though I was not hungry. The meal lasted four to six days, gorging on cramps, the spilled crumbs falling out of me stained with raspberry jam. My stomach was never a clean eater, gnawing on my uterus and fallopian tubes, leaving bite marks. I counted each rotation of the sun with heightening anxiety until it passed and I reset the clock. The knife carved my insides into pot roasts; the fork jabbed my sides into holey cheese. I could distinguish each fork prong—the pain was profound. My guts twisted around the spoon like spaghetti, tangled noodles slathered in scarlet marinara. Menstruation was more smashed acidic tomatoes than sweet fruit compote. I wiped my fingers on white jeans made of napkins and left streaks dried to rust. The stains came out with bleach and detergent. I died and regenerated every month. How else could I define the experience? The reasonable explanation was death. I decided when my body was wheeled into the morgue, the coroner would declare I died of being a woman. Which was far better than dying of being a man.

Kafka remarks, with surprise, with enchantment, that he has entered into literature as soon as he can substitute “He” for “I.” This is true, but the transformation is much more profound. The writer belongs to a language which no one speaks, which is addressed to no one, which has no center, and which reveals nothing.

Surprise yourself everyday with the power of your love. Love endlessly and care profoundly to feel the joy of life deeply.

Much to my surprise, church has become a spiritual, even a theological struggle for me. I have found it increasingly difficult to sing hymns that celebrate a hierarchical heavenly realm, to recite creeds that feel disconnected from life, to pray liturgies that emphasize salvation through blood, to listen to sermons that preach an exclusive way to God, to participate in sacraments that exclude others, and to find myself confined to a hard pew in a building with no windows to the world outside. This has not happened because I am angry at the church or God. Rather, it has happened because I was moving around in the world and began to realize how beautifully God was everywhere: in nature and in my neighborhood, in considering the stars and by seeking my roots. It took me five decades to figure it out, but I finally understood. The church is not the only sacred space; the world is profoundly sacred as well. And thus I fell into a gap - the theological ravine between a church still proclaiming conventional theism with its three-tiered universe and the spiritual revolution of God-with-us.

From time to time, we hear physicists claim that Einstein didn’t understand Quantum Mechanics and therefore wasted his time with naive classical theories. I very much doubt that this is true. His arguments against Quantum Mechanics were extremely subtle, culminating in one of the most profound and most cited papers in all of physics.12 My guess is that Einstein was disturbed by the same thing that bothered the slow student. How could the ultimate theory of reality be about nothing more concrete than our own degree of surprise at the outcome of an experiment?

White folk commit the bulk of the crimes in our nation. And, beloved, it might surprise you that white folk commit the most violent crimes too. According to FBI statistics, black folk committed 36 percent of violent crime in 2015, while white folk committed 42 percent of violent crimes in the same year. White folk consistently lead all other groups in aggravated assault, larceny, illegal weapons possession, arson, and vandalism. And white folk are far more likely to target the vulnerable too. White folk lead the way in forcible rape. You’re also more likely to kill children, the elderly, significant others, family members, and even yourselves. White folk commit a majority of gang-related murders too. A majority of the homicide victims in this country are white. White folk are six times as likely to be murdered by a white person as they are to be taken out by a black “thug.” The white-on-white mayhem is profound, yet no one speaks of it in racial terms. That’s

The rage bubbling up from our impoverished and disenfranchised working class presages a looming and dangerous right-wing backlash. I spent two years traveling the country to write a book on the Christian Right called American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. I visited former manufacturing towns where for many the end of the world is no longer an abstraction. They have lost hope. Fear and instability have plunged the working classes into profound personal and economic despair, and, not surprisingly, into the arms of the demagogues and charlatans of the radical Christian Right who offer a belief in magic, miracles, and the fiction of a utopian Christian nation. And unless we rapidly re-enfranchise our dispossessed workers into the economy, unless we give them hope, our democracy is doomed.

This is what my mother and I don't talk about: That it is not my fault she is so profoundly unhappy with her life. That she had a chance to know me—really know me, as an adult and an artist and a human being—and she blew it. That I have not regretted our estrangement for one single second; in fact, I keep waiting for the regret to appear and being surprised when it doesn't. That I feel bad for her that she is so dissatisfied with her own life; I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. That I miss what we had when I was a kid, but I'm not a kid anymore, and I will never be again. And that the thing that keeps me from tackling parenthood with eagerness is not, really, money or ambition or hypochondria or selfishness. Rather, it's the fear that I've learned less from my childhood than I should have, that I am more like her than I want to be.

Passing on some useful or entertaining tidbit about another person is a sign of commitment. If you jeopardize your relationship with the subject of the gossip about him or her, you show that you value whom you're talking with more than whom you're talking about. Yet even more simply than that, we show people we value them by agreeing with them. The innocent urge to make friends and avoid giving offense has a profound influence on how we use gossip and the reputations that result from it.

When the psychologists Daniel Brown and Jack Engler studied experienced meditators, they found, to their surprise, that meditators were just as anxious as everyone else. There was no lessening of internal conflict, but only a “marked non-defensiveness in experiencing such conflicts”3 among their subjects. The implications of these findings are profound, because Brown and Engler discovered that meditation, on its own, is not particularly effective at solving people’s emotional problems. It

It is easy for optimism to be undermined and demolished, however, if it is naive, and for cynicism to arise in its place. But the act of peering into the darkness as deeply as possible reveals a light that appears unquenchable, and that is a profound surprise, as well as a great relief.

You do not get to choose the events that come your way nor the sorrows that interrupt your life. They will likely be a surprise to you, catching you off quard and unprepared. You may hold your head in your hands and lament your weak condition and wonder what you ought to do. To suffer, that is common to all. To suffer and still keep your composure, your faith and your smile, that is remarkable. Pain will change you more profoundly than success or good fortune. Suffering shapes your perception of life, your values and priorities, and your goals and dreams. Your pain is changing you.

The hymen is a profound example of the way humans metaphorize anatomy. Here is an organ that has no biological function, and yet Western culture made up a powerful story about the hymen a long time ago. This story has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with controlling women. Culture saw a “barrier” at the mouth of the vagina and decided it was a marker of “virginity” (itself a biologically meaningless idea). Such a weird idea could have been invented only in a society where women were literally property, their vaginas their most valuable real estate—a gated community.

While doctrine can seem stuffy, boring, and useless, it can also be surprisingly devotional. Yes, the study of God can profoundly deepen your faith and strengthen your relationship with the living God because doctrine helps us know more about Him. The more we know about Him, the more we love Him.

It is not, I think, surprising that a man when he wants sympathy in such a calamity as that which had now befallen Phineas Finn, should seek it from a woman. Women sympathise most effectually with men, as men do with women. But it is, perhaps, a little odd that a man when he wants consolation because his heart has been broken, always likes to receive it from a pretty woman. One would be disposed to think that at such a moment he would be profoundly indifferent to such a matter, that no delight could come to him from female beauty, and that all he would want would be the softness of a simply sympathetic soul.

By focusing less on your own worries and more on the potential happiness of others you actually create more headspace for yourself. Not only that, but the mind becomes softer, more malleable, easier to work with. It tends to be quicker to settle on the object of meditation, less easily distracted by passing thoughts. It also tends to be clearer, more stable and less reactive to volatile emotions. So giving your practice an altruistic edge is about so much more than simply doing the right thing. It should come as no surprise that the impact this simple skill can have on your relationships with others is quite profound. In becoming more aware of everything and everyone, you inevitably become more aware of others. You start to notice how sometimes you might unintentionally (or even intentionally) push their buttons, or notice what causes them to push yours. You start to listen to what they’re actually saying, rather than thinking about what you’d like them to say or what you’re going to say next. And when these things begin to happen you’ll notice that your relationships with others really start to change. But so long as we’re immersed in our own thoughts the whole time, it’s very difficult to truly find time for others.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as death – it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh.

The daily provision of manna created a vital lesson. It appears in the New Testament in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11). The idea is simple and yet profound: God provides what we need on his timeline. He gives daily bread. He provides daily grace. You can’t buy manna in bulk.

Arthur said brightly, “Actually I quite liked it.” Ford turned and gaped. Here was an approach that had quite simply not occurred to him. The Vogon raised a surprised eyebrow that effectively obscured his nose and was therefore no bad thing. “Oh good …” he whirred, in considerable astonishment. “Oh yes,” said Arthur, “I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective.” Ford continued to stare at him, slowly organizing his thoughts around this totally new concept. Were they really going to be able to bareface their way out of this? “Yes, do continue …” invited the Vogon. “Oh … and, er … interesting rhythmic devices too,” continued Arthur, “which seemed to counterpoint the … er … er …” he floundered. Ford leaped to his rescue, hazarding “… counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the … er …” He floundered too, but Arthur was ready again. “… humanity of the …” “Vogonity,” Ford hissed at him. “Ah yes, Vogonity—sorry—of the poet’s compassionate soul”—Arthur felt he was on the homestretch now—“which contrives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other”—he was reaching a triumphant crescendo—“and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into … into … er …” (which suddenly gave out on him). Ford leaped in with the coup de grace: “Into whatever it was the poem was about!” he yelled. Out of the corner of his mouth: “Well done, Arthur, that was very good.” The Vogon perused them. For a moment his embittered racial soul had been touched, but he thought no—too little too late. His voice took on the quality of a cat snagging brushed nylon. “So what you’re saying is that I write poetry because underneath my mean callous heartless exterior I really just want to be loved,” he said. He paused, “Is that right?” Ford laughed a nervous laugh. “Well, I mean, yes,” he said, “don’t we all, deep down, you know … er …” The Vogon stood up. “No, well, you’re completely wrong,” he said, “I just write poetry to throw my mean callous heartless exterior into sharp relief. I’m going to throw you off the ship anyway. Guard! Take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out!” “What?” shouted Ford. A huge young Vogon guard stepped forward and yanked them out of their straps with his huge blubbery arms. “You can’t throw us into space,” yelled Ford, “we’re trying to write a book.” “Resistance is useless!” shouted the Vogon guard back at him. It was the first phrase he’d learned when he joined the Vogon Guard Corps.

Morals, including especially, our institutions of property, freedom and justice, are not a creation of man’s reason but a distinct second endowment conferred on him by cultural evolution - runs counter to the main intellectual outlook of the twentieth century. The influence of rationalism has indeed been so profound and pervasive that, in general, the more intelligent an educated person is, the more likely he or she now is not only to be a rationalist, but also to hold socialist views (regardless of whether he or she is sufficiently doctrinal to attach to his or her views any label, including ‘socialist’). The higher we climb up the ladder of intelligence, the more we talk with intellectuals, the more likely we are to encounter socialist convictions. Rationalists tend to be intelligent and intellectual; and intelligent intellectuals tend to be socialist. One’s initial surprise at finding that intelligent people tend to be socialist diminishes when one realises that, of course, intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence, and to suppose that we must owe all the advantages and opportunities that our civilisation offers to deliberate design rather than to following traditional rules, and likewise to suppose that we can, by exercising our reason, eliminate any remaining undesired features by still more intelligence reflection, and still more appropriate design and ’rational coordination’ of our undertakings. This leads one to be favorably disposed to the central economic planning and control that lie at the heart of socialism… And since they have been taught that constructivism and scientism are what science and the use of reason are all about, they find it hard to believe that there can exist any useful knowledge that did not originate in deliberate experimentation, or to accept the validity of any tradition apart from their own tradition of reason. Thus [they say]: ‘Tradition is almost by definition reprehensible, something to be mocked and deplored’.

It is in fact surprising that such a body of doctrine as the Buddhist, with its profoundly other-wordly and even anti-social emphasis, in the Buddha's own words "hard to be understood by you who are of different views, another tolerance, other tastes, other allegiance and other training", can have become even as "popular" as it is in the modern Western environment. [...] We can only suppose that Buddhism has been so much admired mainly for what it is not. A well known modem writer on the subject has remarked that “Buddhism in its purity ignored the existence of a God; it denied the existence of a soul; it was not so much a religion as a code of ethics”. We can understand the appeal of this on the one hand to the rationalist and on the other to the sentimentalist. Unfortunately for these, all three statements arc untrue, at least in the sense in which they are meant. It is with another Buddhism than this that we are in sympathy and are able to agree; and that is the Buddhism of the texts as they stand.

TRUTH It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them. Robert Oppenheimer It is still an unending source of surprise for me to see how a few scribbles on a blackboard or on a sheet of paper could change the course of human affairs. Stanislaw Ulam

It has never seemed a problem to me, only a source of awe, amazement and profound surprise that my consciousness, my very sense of self which feels as free as air, which was trying to read the book but instead was watching the clouds through the high windows, the self which is now writing these words, is in fact the electrochemical chatter of one hundred billion nerve cells.

The sight of that dear form was unexpected, it had appeared unhoped-for, without giving him time to compose his features. Joy, surprise, and admiration might have painted themselves quite openly upon his face - and just at this second it happened that Tadzio smiled. Smiled at Aschenbach, unabashed and friendly, a speaking, winning, captivating smile, with slowly parting lips. With such a smile it might be that Narcissus bent over the mirroring pool, a smile profound, infatuated, lingering, as he put out his arms to the reflection of his own beauty; the lips just slightly pursed, perhaps half-realizing his own folly in trying to kiss the cold lips of his shadow—with a mingling of coquetry and curiosity and a faint unease, enthralling and enthralled.

Antidepression medication is temperamental. Somewhere around fifty-nine or sixty I noticed the drug I’d been taking seemed to have stopped working. This is not unusual. The drugs interact with your body chemistry in different ways over time and often need to be tweaked. After the death of Dr. Myers, my therapist of twenty-five years, I’d been seeing a new doctor whom I’d been having great success with. Together we decided to stop the medication I’d been on for five years and see what would happen... DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN!! I nose-dived like the diving horse at the old Atlantic City steel pier into a sloshing tub of grief and tears the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Even when this happens to me, not wanting to look too needy, I can be pretty good at hiding the severity of my feelings from most of the folks around me, even my doctor. I was succeeding well with this for a while except for one strange thing: TEARS! Buckets of ’em, oceans of ’em, cold, black tears pouring down my face like tidewater rushing over Niagara during any and all hours of the day. What was this about? It was like somebody opened the floodgates and ran off with the key. There was NO stopping it. 'Bambi' tears... 'Old Yeller' tears... 'Fried Green Tomatoes' tears... rain... tears... sun... tears... I can’t find my keys... tears. Every mundane daily event, any bump in the sentimental road, became a cause to let it all hang out. It would’ve been funny except it wasn’t. Every meaningless thing became the subject of a world-shattering existential crisis filling me with an awful profound foreboding and sadness. All was lost. All... everything... the future was grim... and the only thing that would lift the burden was one-hundred-plus on two wheels or other distressing things. I would be reckless with myself. Extreme physical exertion was the order of the day and one of the few things that helped. I hit the weights harder than ever and paddleboarded the equivalent of the Atlantic, all for a few moments of respite. I would do anything to get Churchill’s black dog’s teeth out of my ass. Through much of this I wasn’t touring. I’d taken off the last year and a half of my youngest son’s high school years to stay close to family and home. It worked and we became closer than ever. But that meant my trustiest form of self-medication, touring, was not at hand. I remember one September day paddleboarding from Sea Bright to Long Branch and back in choppy Atlantic seas. I called Jon and said, “Mr. Landau, book me anywhere, please.” I then of course broke down in tears. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me in lower Manhattan. A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show. I’d seen this symptom before in my father after he had a stroke. He’d often mist up. The old man was usually as cool as Robert Mitchum his whole life, so his crying was something I loved and welcomed. He’d cry when I’d arrive. He’d cry when I left. He’d cry when I mentioned our old dog. I thought, “Now it’s me.” I told my doc I could not live like this. I earned my living doing shows, giving interviews and being closely observed. And as soon as someone said “Clarence,” it was going to be all over. So, wisely, off to the psychopharmacologist he sent me. Patti and I walked in and met a vibrant, white-haired, welcoming but professional gentleman in his sixties or so. I sat down and of course, I broke into tears. I motioned to him with my hand; this is it. This is why I’m here. I can’t stop crying! He looked at me and said, “We can fix this.” Three days and a pill later the waterworks stopped, on a dime. Unbelievable. I returned to myself. I no longer needed to paddle, pump, play or challenge fate. I didn’t need to tour. I felt normal.

Dain Waris, the distinguished youth, was the first to believe in him; theirs was one of those strange, profound, rare friendships between brown and white, in which the very difference of race seems to draw two human beings closer by some mystic element of sympathy. Of Dain Waris, his own people said with pride that he knew how to fight like a white man. This was true; he had that sort of courage—the courage in the open, I may say—but he had also a European mind. You meet them sometimes like that, and are surprised to discover unexpectedly a familiar turn of thought, an unobscured vision, a tenacity of purpose, a touch of altruism. Of small stature, but admirably well proportioned, Dain Waris had a proud carriage, a polished, easy bearing, a temperament like a clear flame.

In fact, flow and religion have been intimately connected from earliest times. Many of the optimal experiences of mankind have taken place in the context of religious rituals. Not only art but drama, music, and dance had their origins in what we now would call “religious” settings; that is, activities aimed at connecting people with supernatural powers and entities. The same is true of games. One of the earliest ball games, a form of basketball played by the Maya, was part of their religious celebrations, and so were the original Olympic games. This connection is not surprising, because what we call religion is actually the oldest and most ambitious attempt to create order in consciousness. It therefore makes sense that religious rituals would be a profound source of enjoyment.

Don Juanism If it were sufficient to love, things would be too easy. The more one loves, the stronger the absurd grows. It is not through lack of love that Don Juan goes from woman to woman. It is ridiculous to represent him as a mystic in quest of total love. But it is indeed because he loves them with the same passion and each time with his whole self that he must repeat his gift and his profound quest. Whence each woman hopes to give him what no one has ever given him. Each time they are utterly wrong and merely manage to make him feel the need of that repetition. “At last,” exclaims one of them, “I have given you love.” Can we be surprised that Don Juan laughs at this? “At last? No,” he says, “but once more.” Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much? *

In discussing this Romanian bloodletting with Simon Wolf, Grant declared that “respect for human rights” was the “first duty” of any head of state and that blacks and Jews should be elevated to a rank of “equality with the most enlightened.” Grant showed surprising passion on the subject, saying “the story of the sufferings of the Hebrews of Roumania profoundly touches every sensibility of our nature.

The hymen is a profound example of the way humans metaphorize anatomy. Here is an organ that has no biological function, and yet Western culture made up a powerful story about the hymen a long time ago. This story has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with controlling women. Culture saw a “barrier” at the mouth of the vagina and decided it was a marker of “virginity” (itself a biologically meaningless idea).

It is not uncommon in the church for us to urge each other to witness to our faith and sometimes we do so as though it were easy to do. It is not. Our faith is so profoundly intimate and important that we draw our breath in pain to tell the story of our faith in God. And to find the appropriate word to speak even to a receptive mind is difficult. Especially if the opportunity that presents itself comes as a total surprise.

That’s why time-friendly people tend to make fewer emotional commitments than my friend Bernard does. They have a profound understanding of how much time it takes to be there for someone, so they think, deliberate, and pray long and hard before they decide to invest in a relationship. You might think they’re aloof or uncaring. They’re not. They are, instead, unwilling to write bad checks, emotionally speaking. Another friend, Pamela, recently passed the time test with flying colors. We’ve known each other a long time, and I needed her input on a big decision I was making. I knew she was busy, but I called her anyway, asking, “Can we do lunch?” Pamela lives quite a drive away, but she checked her calendar (another trait of safe people!), and we made an appointment. A few days later, we met, and I told her how much it meant to me for her to take the time out for me. She was genuinely surprised. “Well, I told you I’d be here, didn’t I?” Tears came to my eyes. For Pamela, a relationship means that you’re there for good. End of conversation. Look for people who are “anchored” over time. Don’t go for flashy, intense, addictive types. A Ford that will be there tomorrow is a lot better than a Maserati that might be gone. There are stable Maseratis. But it’s best to drive them awhile, that is, test out the relationship over time, to make sure.

As we’ve already touched on, food’s most profound effect on the brain is through its impact on your gut bacteria. Some foods promote the growth of helpful bacteria, while others inhibit this growth. Because of that effect, food is some of the most potent mental health medicine available, with dietary interventions sometimes achieving similar results to specifically engineered pharmaceuticals, at a fraction of the price and with few if any side effects.

A U.S. senator, Millard E. Tydings of Maryland, tried to force Roosevelt to speak against Jewish persecution by introducing in the Senate a resolution that would have instructed the president “to communicate to the Government of the German Reich an unequivocal statement of the profound feelings of surprise and pain experienced by the people of the United States upon learning of discriminations and oppressions imposed by the Reich upon its Jewish citizens.

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. “You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.” “To forget it!” “You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” “But the Solar System!” I protested. “What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran in this way— SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits. 1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nil. 2. Philosophy.—Nil. 3. Astronomy.—Nil. 4. Politics.—Feeble. 5. Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening. 6. Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them. 7. Chemistry.—Profound. 8. Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic. 9. Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century. 10. Plays the violin well. 11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman. 12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

A kiss with Lenore is a scenario in which Iskate with buttered soles over the moist rink of lower lip, sheltered from weathers by the wet warm overhang of upper, finally to crawl between lip and gum and pull the lip to me like a child’s blanket and stare over it with beady, unfriendly eyes out at the world external to Lenore, of which I no longer wish to be part. That I must in the final analysis remain part of the world that is external to and other from Lenore Beadsman is to me a source of profound grief. That others may dwell deep, deep within the ones they love, drink from the soft cup at the creamy lake at the center of the Object of Passion, while I am fated forever only to intuit the presence of deep recesses while I poke my nose, as it were, merely into the foyer of the Great House of Love, agitate briefly, and make a small mess onthe doormat, pisses me off to no small degree. But that Lenore finds such tiny frenzies, such conversations just inside the Screen Door of Union, to be not only pleasant and briefly diverting but somehow apparently right, fulfilling, significant, in some sense wonderful, quite simply and not at all surprisingly makes me feel the same way, enlarges my sense of it and me, sends me hurrying up the walk to that Screen Door in my best sportjacket and flower in lapel as excited as any schoolboy, time after time, brings me charging to the cave entrance in leopardskin shirt, avec club, bellowing for admittance and promising general kickings of ass if I am impeded in any way.

Subjects’ unwillingness to deduce the particular from the general was matched only by their willingness to infer the general from the particular. This is a profoundly important conclusion. People who are taught surprising statistical facts about human behavior may be impressed to the point of telling their friends about what they have heard, but this does not mean that their understanding of the world has really changed. The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact.

The influence of rationalism has indeed been so profound and pervasive that, in general, the more intelligent an educated person is, the more likely he or she now is not only to be a rationalist, but also to hold socialist views (regardless of whether he or she is sufficiently doctrinal to attach to his or her views any label, including ‘socialist’). The higher we climb up the ladder of intelligence, the more we talk with intellectuals, the more likely we are to encounter socialist convictions. Rationalists tend to be intelligent and intellectual; and intelligent intellectuals tend to be socialists. One’s initial surprise at finding that intelligent people tend to be socialists diminishes when one realises that, of course, intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence, and to suppose that we must owe all the advantages and opportunities that our civilisation offers to deliberate design rather than to following traditional rules, and likewise to suppose that we can, by exercising our reason, eliminate any remaining undesired features by still more intelligent reflection, and still more appropriate design and ‘rational coordination’ of our undertakings.

The hymen is a profound example of the way humans metaphorize anatomy. Here is an organ that has no biological function, and yet Western culture made up a powerful story about the hymen a long time ago. This story has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with controlling women. Culture saw a "barrier" at the mouth of the vagina and decided it was a marker of "virginity" (itself a biologically meaningless idea). Such a weird idea could have been invented only in a society where women were literally property, their vaginas their most valuable real estate - a gated community.

The wrangling between Britain and the Free French throughout the war years had a further, far-reaching consequence when de Gaulle returned to power in 1958. As president of France it was he who infamously vetoed Harold Macmillan’s application to join the Common Market. In tracing exactly why de Gaulle said Non, it is, surprisingly, to the hot and noisy cities of Beirut and Damascus that we should look. The general’s experience of British machinations in both places profoundly shaped his reluctance to allow his wartime rivals to join his European club. It is a tale from which neither country emerges with much credit.

I was profoundly impressed by my contact with these places which are and have always been, the wellsprings of your history. It makes one think that the men who created your country never lost sight of their moral bearings. They did not laugh at the absolute nature of the concepts of "good" and "evil." Their practical policies were checked against their moral compass. And how surprising it is that a practical policy computed on the basis of moral considerations turned out to be the most farsighted and the most salutary. This is true even though in the short term one may wonder: Why all this morality? Let's just get on with the immediate job.

Toyota wasn’t really worried that it would give away its “secret sauce.” Toyota’s competitive advantage rested firmly in its proprietary, complex, and often unspoken processes. In hindsight, Ernie Schaefer, a longtime GM manager who toured the Toyota plant, told NPR’s This American Life that he realized that there were no special secrets to see on the manufacturing floors. “You know, they never prohibited us from walking through the plant, understanding, even asking questions of some of their key people,” Schaefer said. “I’ve often puzzled over that, why they did that. And I think they recognized we were asking the wrong questions. We didn’t understand this bigger picture.” It’s no surprise, really. Processes are often hard to see—they’re a combination of both formal, defined, and documented steps and expectations and informal, habitual routines or ways of working that have evolved over time. But they matter profoundly. As MIT’s Edgar Schein has explored and discussed, processes are a critical part of the unspoken culture of an organization. 1 They enforce “this is what matters most to us.” Processes are intangible; they belong to the company. They emerge from hundreds and hundreds of small decisions about how to solve a problem. They’re critical to strategy, but they also can’t easily be copied. Pixar Animation Studios, too, has openly shared its creative process with the world. Pixar’s longtime president Ed Catmull has literally written the book on how the digital film company fosters collective creativity2—there are fixed processes about how a movie idea is generated, critiqued, improved, and perfected. Yet Pixar’s competitors have yet to equal Pixar’s successes. Like Toyota, Southern New Hampshire University has been open with would-be competitors, regularly offering tours and visits to other educational institutions. As President Paul LeBlanc sees it, competition is always possible from well-financed organizations with more powerful brand recognition. But those assets alone aren’t enough to give them a leg up. SNHU has taken years to craft and integrate the right experiences and processes for its students and they would be exceedingly difficult for a would-be competitor to copy. SNHU did not invent all its tactics for recruiting and serving its online students. It borrowed from some of the best practices of the for-profit educational sector. But what it’s done with laser focus is to ensure that all its processes—hundreds and hundreds of individual “this is how we do it” processes—focus specifically on how to best respond to the job students are hiring it for. “We think we have advantages by ‘owning’ these processes internally,” LeBlanc says, “and some of that is tied to our culture and passion for students.

The first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity; in a young girl, boldness. This is surprising, yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming, each the other’s qualities. That day, Cosette’s glance drove Marius beside himself, and Marius’ glance set Cosette to trembling. Marius went away confident, and Cosette uneasy. From that day forth, they adored each other. The first thing that Cosette felt was a confused and profound melancholy. It seemed to her that her soul had become black since the day before. She no longer recognized it. The whiteness of soul in young girls, which is composed of coldness and gayety, resembles snow. It melts in love, which is its sun. Cosette did not know what love was. She had never heard the word uttered in its terrestrial sense. She did not know what name to give to what she now felt. Is any one the less ill because one does not know the name of one’s malady? She loved with all the more passion because she loved ignorantly. She did not know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, useful or dangerous, eternal or temporary, allowable or prohibited; she loved. She would have been greatly astonished, had any one said to her: ‘You do not sleep? But that is forbidden! You do not eat? Why, that is very bad! You have oppressions and palpitations of the heart? That must not be! You blush and turn pale, when a certain being clad in black appears at the end of a certain green walk? But that is abominable!’ She would not have understood, and she would have replied: ‘What fault is there of mine in a matter in which I have no power and of which I know nothing?’ It turned out that the love which presented itself was exactly suited to the state of her soul. It was admiration at a distance, the deification of a stranger. It was the apparition of youth to youth, the dream of nights become a reality yet remaining a dream, the longed-for phantom realized and made flesh at last, but having as yet, neither name, nor fault, nor spot, nor exigence, nor defect; in a word, the distant lover who lingered in the ideal, a chimaera with a form. Any nearer and more palpable meeting would have alarmed Cosette at this first stage, when she was still half immersed in the exaggerated mists of the cloister. She had all the fears of children and all the fears of nuns combined. The spirit of the convent, with which she had been permeated for the space of five years, was still in the process of slow evaporation from her person, and made everything tremble around her. In this situation he was not a lover, he was not even an admirer, he was a vision. She set herself to adoring Marius as something charming, luminous, and impossible. As extreme innocence borders on extreme coquetry, she smiled at him with all frankness. Every day, she looked forward to the hour for their walk with impatience, she found Marius there, she felt herself unspeakably happy, and thought in all sincerity that she was expressing her whole thought when she said to Jean Valjean:— ‘What a delicious garden that Luxembourg is!’ Marius and Cosette were in the dark as to one another. They did not address each other, they did not salute each other, they did not know each other; they saw each other; and like stars of heaven which are separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing at each other. It was thus that Cosette gradually became a woman and developed, beautiful and loving, with a consciousness of beauty and in ignorance of love.

A kiss with Lenore is a scenario in which I skate with buttered soles over the moist rink of lower lip, sheltered from weathers by the wet warm overhang of upper, finally to crawl between lip and gum and pull the lip to me like a child’s blanket and stare over it with beady, unfriendly eyes out at the world external to Lenore, of which I no longer wish to be part. That I must in the final analysis remain part of the world that is external to and other from Lenore Beadsman is to me a source of profound grief. That others may dwell deep, deep within the ones they love, drink from the soft cup at the creamy lake at the center of the Object of Passion, while I am fated forever only to intuit the presence of deep recesses while I poke my nose, as it were, merely into the foyer of the Great House of Love, agitate briefly, and make a small mess on the doormat, pisses me off to no small degree. But that Lenore finds such tiny frenzies, such conversations just inside the Screen Door of Union, to be not only pleasant and briefly diverting but somehow apparently right, fulfilling, significant, in some sense wonderful, quite simply and not at all surprisingly makes me feel the same way, enlarges my sense of it and me, sends me hurrying up the walk to that Screen Door in my best sportjacket and flower in lapel as excited as any schoolboy, time after time, brings me charging to the cave entrance in leopardskin shirt, avec club, bellowing for admittance and promising general kickings of ass if I am impeded in any way.

Libertarian communism is a communism that rejects determinism and fatalism, which gives space to individual will, intuition, imagination, the rapidity of reflexes, the profound instinct of the large masses, who are wiser at moments of crisis than the reasonings of the "elite," who believe in the element of surprise and provocation, in the value of audacity, who do not allow themselves to be encumbered and paralyzed by a weighty, supposedly "scientific" ideological apparatus, who do not prevaricate or bluff, who avoid both adventurism and fear of the unknown. Libertarian communists have learned from experience how to set about things: they hold in contempt the impotent shambles of disorganization as much as the bureaucratic ball and chain of over-organization.

Intrigued, Hofmann decided a few days later to conduct an experiment on himself—not an uncommon practice at the time. Proceeding with what he thought was extreme caution, he ingested 0.25 milligrams—a milligram is one-thousandth of a gram—of LSD dissolved in a glass of water. This would represent a minuscule dose of any other drug, but LSD, it turns out, is one of the most potent psychoactive compounds ever discovered, active at doses measured in micrograms—that is, one thousandth of a milligram. This surprising fact would soon inspire scientists to look for, and eventually find, the brain receptors and the endogenous chemical—serotonin—that activates them like a key in a lock, as a way to explain how such a small number of molecules could have such a profound effect on the mind. In this and other ways, Hofmann’s discovery helped to launch modern brain science in the 1950s.

The Camino points to something more fundamental, to a way of thinking about self and others that looks inward past window-dressing and the usual social identifiers. Pilgrims leave behind professional and social tags when they enter the Camino. Here we're fellow human beings. Period. Often I know only the first name and nationality of people I meet on the trail, sometimes not even that, and with our standard pilgrim attire, we don't offer the usual visual cues to who we are and what we do in life. Yet we affect each other in profound ways. On this level playing field, we talk easily about whatever is on our minds, and the insights from strangers can be surprisingly perceptive. The French pilgrim at Compostelle 2000 (the Paris pilgrim association) was on to something when she told me that the Camino is more than a physical place. It does present breathtaking encounters with the land itself, but it also pushes me to look beyond the physical world.

Drawing aside so as not to impede passersby, he answered. “Oggy?” said his ex-colleague’s voice. “What gives, mate? Why are people sending you legs?” “I take it you’re not in Germany?” said Strike. “Edinburgh, been here six weeks. Just been reading about you in the Scotsman.” The Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police had an office in Edinburgh Castle: 35 Section. It was a prestigious posting. “Hardy, I need a favor,” said Strike. “Intel on a couple of guys. D’you remember Noel Brockbank?” “Hard to forget. Seventh Armoured, if memory serves?” “That’s him. The other one’s Donald Laing. He was before I knew you. King’s Own Royal Borderers. Knew him in Cyprus.” “I’ll see what I can do when I get back to the office, mate. I’m in the middle of a plowed field right now.” A chat about mutual acquaintances was curtailed by the increasing noise of rush-hour traffic. Hardacre promised to ring back once he had had a look at the army records and Strike continued towards the Tube. He got out at Whitechapel station thirty minutes later to find a text message from the man he was supposed to be meeting. Sorry Bunsen cant do today ill give you a bell This was both disappointing and inconvenient, but not a surprise. Considering that Strike was not carrying a consignment of drugs or a large pile of used notes, and that he did not require intimidation or beating, it was a mark of great esteem that Shanker had even condescended to fix a time and place for meeting. Strike’s knee was complaining after a day on his feet, but there were no seats outside the station. He leaned up against the yellow brick wall beside the entrance and called Shanker’s number. “Yeah, all right, Bunsen?” Just as he no longer remembered why Shanker was called Shanker, he had no more idea why Shanker called him Bunsen. They had met when they were seventeen and the connection between them, though profound in its way, bore none of the usual stigmata of teenage friendship.

Whether by this he meant the clergy I know not; though I observed he spoke favourably of that body in France, pointing out that, long before the recent agitations, they had defended the civil rights of the Third Estate, and citing many cases in which the country curates had shown themselves the truest friends of the people: a fact my own observation hath confirmed. I remarked to him that I was surprised to find how little talk there was in Italy of the distracted conditions in France; and this though the country is overrun with French refugees, or emigres, as they call themselves, who bring with them reports that might well excite the alarm of neighbouring governments. He said he had remarked the same indifference, but that this was consonant with the Italian character, which never looked to the morrow; and he added that the mild disposition of the people, and their profound respect for religion, were sufficient assurance against any political excess. To this I could not forbear

And now at this moment, when hope was dead, Tom Sawyer came forward with nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets, and ten blue ones, and demanded a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Walters was not expecting an application from this source for the next ten years. But there was no getting around it—here were the certified checks, and they were good for their face. Tom was therefore elevated to a place with the Judge and the other elect, and the great news was announced from headquarters. It was the most stunning surprise of the decade, and so profound was the sensation that it lifted the new hero up to the judicial one’s altitude, and the school had two marvels to gaze upon in place of one. The boys were all eaten up with envy—but those that suffered the bitterest pangs were those who perceived too late that they themselves had contributed to this hated splendor by trading tickets to Tom for the wealth he had amassed in selling whitewashing privileges. These despised themselves, as being the dupes of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the grass.

 When we understand our lives better, we can see where such strength was at work. Always a gift given by Spirit, it is a surprise to us that we were able to prevail. Is it not often after the fact that we discover we have been given the gift of strength?  A true friend can give us encouragement by knowing our history, our joys and our sorrows, our struggles and our strengths, and in their eyes we can see ourselves better. ~ What one person carries easily another person cannot bear. We join strength with strength. A single stick is easily broken. Two sticks together are harder to snap. Together we bear our own and each other’s burdens better, and we understand when the other must go it alone. Sometimes holding is simply the ability to see a bigger picture. Sometimes holding is support and nurturing help, and sometimes holding is holding back and letting things be. In retrospect the latter is often sensed as profound help though in the present we might feel it as counter intuitive. We are, after all, still present for one another though we are not “doing anything”.

Many potential readers will skip the shopping cart or cash-out clerk because they have seen so many disasters reported in the news that they’ve acquired a panic mentality when they think of them. “Disasters scare me to death!” they cry. “I don’t want to read about them!” But really, how can a picture hurt you? Better that each serve as a Hallmark card that greets your fitful fevers with reason and uncurtains your valor. Then, so gospeled, you may see that defeating a disaster is as innocently easy as deciding to go out to dinner. Remove the dread that bars your doors of perception, and you will enjoy a banquet of treats that will make the difference between suffering and safety. You will enter a brave new world that will erase your panic, and release you from the grip of terror, and relieve you of the deadening effects of indifference —and you will find that switch of initiative that will energize your intelligence, empower your imagination, and rouse your sense of vigilance in ways that will tilt the odds of danger from being forever against you to being always in your favor. Indeed, just thinking about a disaster is one of the best things you can do —because it allows you to imagine how you would respond in a way that is free of pain and destruction. Another reason why disasters seem so scary is that many victims tend to see them as a whole rather than divide them into much smaller and more manageable problems. A disaster can seem overwhelming when confronted with everything at once —but if you dice it into its tiny parts and knock them off one at a time, the whole thing can seem as easy as eating a lavish dinner one bite at a time. In a disaster you must also plan for disruption as well as destruction. Death and damage may make the news, but in almost every disaster far more lives are disrupted than destroyed. Wit­ness the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011 and killed 158 people. The path of death and destruction was less than a mile wide and only 22 miles long —but within thirty miles 160,000 citizens whose property didn’t suffer a dime of damage were profoundly disrupted by the carnage, loss of power and water, suspension of civic services, and inability to buy food, gas, and other necessities. You may rightfully believe your chances of dying in a disaster in your lifetime may be nearly nil, but the chances of your life being disrupted by a disaster in the next decade is nearly a sure thing. Not only should you prepare for disasters, you should learn to premeditate them. Prepare concerns the body; premeditate concerns the mind. Everywhere you go, think what could happen and how you might/could/would/should respond. Use your imagination. Fill your brain with these visualizations —run mind-movies in your head —develop a repertoire —until when you walk into a building/room/situation you’ll automatically know what to do. If a disaster does ambush you —sure you’re apt to panic, but in seconds your memory will load the proper video into your mobile disk drive and you’ll feel like you’re watching a scary movie for the second time and you’ll know what to expect and how to react. That’s why this book is important: its manner of vivifying disasters kickstarts and streamlines your acquiring these premeditations, which lays the foundation for satisfying your needs when a disaster catches you by surprise.

While most of us go through life feeling that we are the thinker of our thoughts and the experiencer of our experience, from the perspective of science we know that this is a distorted view. There is no discrete self or ego lurking like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. There is no region of cortex or pathway of neural processing that occupies a privileged position with respect to our personhood. There is no unchanging “center of narrative gravity” (to use Daniel Dennett’s phrase). In subjective terms, however, there seems to be one — to most of us, most of the time. Our contemplative traditions (Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.) also suggest, to varying degrees and with greater or lesser precision, that we live in the grip of a cognitive illusion. But the alternative to our captivity is almost always viewed through the lens of religious dogma. A Christian will recite the Lord’s Prayer continuously over a weekend, experience a profound sense of clarity and peace, and judge this mental state to be fully corroborative of the doctrine of Christianity; A Hindu will spend an evening singing devotional songs to Krishna, feel suddenly free of his conventional sense of self, and conclude that his chosen deity has showered him with grace; a Sufi will spend hours whirling in circles, pierce the veil of thought for a time, and believe that he has established a direct connection to Allah. The universality of these phenomena refutes the sectarian claims of any one religion. And, given that contemplatives generally present their experiences of self-transcendence as inseparable from their associated theology, mythology, and metaphysics, it is no surprise that scientists and nonbelievers tend to view their reports as the product of disordered minds, or as exaggerated accounts of far more common mental states — like scientific awe, aesthetic enjoyment, artistic inspiration, etc. Our religions are clearly false, even if certain classically religious experiences are worth having. If we want to actually understand the mind, and overcome some of the most dangerous and enduring sources of conflict in our world, we must begin thinking about the full spectrum of human experience in the context of science. But we must first realize that we are lost in thought.

This is a profoundly important conclusion. People who are taught surprising statistical facts about human behavior may be impressed to the point of telling their friends about what they have heard, but this does not mean that their understanding of the world has really changed. The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact. There is a deep gap between our thinking about statistics and our thinking about individual cases. Statistical results with a causal interpretation have a stronger effect on our thinking than noncausal information. But even compelling causal statistics will not change long-held beliefs or beliefs rooted in personal experience. On the other hand, surprising individual cases have a powerful impact and are a more effective tool for teaching psychology because the incongruity must be resolved and embedded in a causal story. That is why this book contains questions that are addressed personally to the reader. You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.

I write all this with respect for the possibility that rather than some kind of contact with the consciousness of my donor's heart, these are merely hallucinations from the medications or my own projections. I know this is a very slippery slope…. What came to me in the first contact….was the horror of dying. The utter suddenness, shock, and surprise of it all….The feeling of being ripped off and the dread of dying before your time….This and two other incidents are by far the most terrifying experiences I have ever had…. What came to me on the second occasion was my donor's experience of having his heart being cut out of his chest and transplanted. There was a profound sense of violation by a mysterious, omnipotent outside force…. …The third episode was quite different than the previous two. This time the consciousness of my donor's heart was in the present tense….He was struggling to figure out where he was, even what he was….It was as if none of your senses worked….An extremely frightening awareness of total dislocation….As if you are reaching with your hands to grasp something…but every time you reach forward your fingers end up only clutching thin air.

Second, the production of RNA Messages was coordinately regulated. When the sugar source was switched to lactose, the bacteria turned on an entire module of genes-several lactose-metabolizing genes-to digest lactose. One of the genes in the module specified a "transporter protein" that allowed lactose to enter the bacterial cell. Another gene encoded an enzyme that was needed to break down lactose into parts. Yet another specified an enzyme to break those chemical parts into subparts. Surprisingly, all the genes dedicated to a particular metabolic pathway were physically present next to each other on the bacterial chromosome-like library books stacked by subject-and they were induced simultaneously in cells. The metabolic alteration produced a profound genetic alteration in a cell. It wasn't just a cutlery switch; the whole dinner service was altered in a single swoop. A functional circuit of genes was switched on and off, as if operated by a common spool or a master switch. Monod called one such gene module an operon. The genesis of proteins was thus perfectly synchronized with the requirements of the environment: supply the correct sugar, and a set of sugar-metabolizing genes would be turned on together.

I, having my previous impressions of awe deepened by these solemn trophies of chance and change amongst mighty nations, had suddenly been surprised by a dream, as profound as at present, in which a thought that often had persecuted me figured triumphantly. This thought turned upon the fatality that must often attend an evil choice. As an oracle of fear I remembered that great Roman warning, Nessit vox missa reverti (that a word once uttered is irrevocable), a freezing arrest upon the motions of hope too sanguine that haunted me in many shapes. Long before that fifteenth year of mine, I had noticed, as a worm lying at the heart of life and fleeting its security, the fact that innumerable acts of choice change countenance and are variously appraised at varying stage of life - shift with the shifting hours. Already at fifteen, I had become deeply ashamed of judgements which I had once pronounced, of idle hopes that I had once encouraged, false admirations or contempts with which once I had sympathized. And, as to the acts which I surveyed with any doubts at all, i never felt sure that after some succession of years I might not feel withering doubts about them, both as to principle and as to inevitable results.

We can constrain our suffering, and we can face it psychologically. That makes us courageous. Then we can ameliorate it practically, because that is what we do when we care for ourselves and other people. There seems to be almost no limit to that. You can genuinely and competently come to care for yourself and your family. You can then extend that out into the broader community. Some people become unbelievably good at that. People who work in palliative care constitute a prime example. They work continually, caring for people who are suffering and dying, and they lose some of those people every day. But they manage to get out of bed every morning, go to work, and face all that pain, tragedy, and death. They make a difference under virtually impossible circumstances. It is for such reasons and because of such examples—watching people confront the existential catastrophe of life forthrightly and effectively—that I am more optimistic than pessimistic, and that I believe that optimism is, fundamentally, more reliable than pessimism. To come to such a conclusion, and then to find it unshakable, is a good example of how and why it may be necessary to encounter the darkness before you can see the light. It is easy to be optimistic and naive. It is easy for optimism to be undermined and demolished, however, if it is naive, and for cynicism to arise in its place. But the act of peering into the darkness as deeply as possible reveals a light that appears unquenchable, and that is a profound surprise, as well as a great relief.

Oh,Ella. I wish you'd had a better time at the ball." "Fuhgeddaboudit," I muttered. Greaseball. Freddy. Freak. "It's not like she and I were ever going to be BFFs." "I wasn't just referring to Amanda." Of course he wasn't. "I'll try," I moaned into the crook of my elbow. "Oh, Lord.I'll try to carry on." "That sounds rather dramatic, even for you." "It's Styx," I told him. "After your time, before mine. I don't know all the words,but those work for the moment. And for the record, I'm being ironic, not dramatic." "If you say so." I ignored him. "I have had my last flutter over Alex Bainbridge. I mean it. Frankie was right.How many signs do I need that we are never, ever going to have...anything...before I get it? Obviously, it doesn't matter that we realte to the same schizo seventies songs. Or that we can discuss antique Japanese woodblock prints. Or that when he sits next to me, he kinda takes my breath away. You would think that would count for a lot,wouldn't you?" Edward gets the concept of rhetorical questions, so I went on. "I wouldn't even want to hazard a guess about what makes Amanda's pulse go all skittery, but I would bet anything it's not Alex. And he's still with her. He doesn't belong with her, but apparently he feels he belongs to her. Explain that,please." "Oh,Ella.We men are not always the best at looking beyond the...er..." "Boobs,Edward. You can say it. Amanda Alstead has boobs and blonda hair. Beyond that, I can't see a single thing that's special about her." "Because there isn't a single thing. Beyond the...er, obvious. You,on the other hand,are a creature of infinite charms. Shall I list them alphabetically or from the top down?" I scowled up at him. "Y'know, you are beginning to sound a little too much like Frankie and Sadie,my deluded Greek chorus." "yes,well,I rather thought that's what friends are for." "You're not supposed to be my friend," I muttered. "You're supposed to be my Prince Charming." "Ahem." Edward's sculpted lips compressed into a grim line. "Have you looked at me lately? I am supposed to be startling and even a bit scary." "Nope.Neither." I rested my chin on my forearm. "To me,you are perfect. You are loyal and reliable and completely lacking in surprises." "That is a good thing?" "Absolutely," I said. "It's an excellent thing.I don't want any more surprises, over." "Hardly an admirable goal,that." "Maybe not," I agreed, "but pleasant. Among all the other bizarreness tonight, I found something new to be afraid of. Evil girlfriends." "Now,Ella. You can't go on being afraid forever." "Oh,yes,I can. As far as Amanda Alstead is concerned, I can." Edward tilted his head and studied me for a moment. He looked annoyed. "Why do you insist on having these conversations with me when you ignore everything I have to say?" It was a pretty good question. "Fine." I sat up straight and folded my hands in my lap. Home Truth time. "Go ahead. On this night when we celebrate the mysteries of life and death..Say something profound, something startling." There was a long silence. Then, "Boo," Edward said. "Thank you,Mr. Willing." "Don't mention it, Miss Marino. I am yours to command.

As with Lawrence, these other competitors in the field tended to be young, wholly untrained for the missions they were given, and largely unsupervised. And just as with their more famous British counterpart, to capitalize on their extraordinary freedom of action, these men drew upon a very particular set of personality traits—cleverness, bravery, a talent for treachery—to both forge their own destiny and alter the course of history. Among them was a fallen American aristocrat in his twenties who, as the only American field intelligence officer in the Middle East during World War I, would strongly influence his nation’s postwar policy in the region, even as he remained on the payroll of Standard Oil of New York. There was the young German scholar who, donning the camouflage of Arab robes, would seek to foment an Islamic jihad against the Western colonial powers, and who would carry his “war by revolution” ideas into the Nazi era. Along with them was a Jewish scientist who, under the cover of working for the Ottoman government, would establish an elaborate anti-Ottoman spy ring and play a crucial role in creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. If little remembered today, these men shared something else with their British counterpart. Like Lawrence, they were not the senior generals who charted battlefield campaigns in the Middle East, nor the elder statesmen who drew lines on maps in the war’s aftermath. Instead, their roles were perhaps even more profound: it was they who created the conditions on the ground that brought those campaigns to fruition, who made those postwar policies and boundaries possible. History is always a collaborative effort, and in the case of World War I an effort that involved literally millions of players, but to a surprising degree, the subterranean and complex game these four men played, their hidden loyalties and personal duels, helped create the modern Middle East and, by inevitable extension, the world we live in today.

Heartened up by this story, I began to draw upon his more comprehensive knowledge as to the ages of the pictures and as to certain of the stories connected with them, upon which I was not clear; and I likewise inquired into the causes of the decadence of the present age, in which the most refined arts had perished, and among them painting, which had not left even the faintest trace of itself behind. "Greed of money," he replied, "has brought about these unaccountable changes. In the good old times, when virtue was her own reward, the fine arts flourished, and there was the keenest rivalry among men for fear that anything which could be of benefit to future generations should remain long undiscovered. Then it was that Democritus expressed the juices of all plants and spent his whole life in experiments, in order that no curative property should lurk unknown in stone or shrub. That he might understand the movements of heaven and the stars, Eudoxus grew old upon the summit of a lofty mountain: three times did Chrysippus purge his brain with hellebore, that his faculties might be equal to invention. Turn to the sculptors if you will; Lysippus perished from hunger while in profound meditation upon the lines of a single statue, and Myron, who almost embodied the souls of men and beasts in bronze, could not find an heir. And we, sodden with wine and women, cannot even appreciate the arts already practiced, we only criticise the past! We learn only vice, and teach it, too. What has become of logic? of astronomy? Where is the exquisite road to wisdom? Who even goes into a temple to make a vow, that he may achieve eloquence or bathe in the fountain of wisdom? And they do not pray for good health and a sound mind; before they even set foot upon the threshold of the temple, one promises a gift if only he may bury a rich relative; another, if he can but dig up a treasure, and still another, if he is permitted to amass thirty millions of sesterces in safety! The Senate itself, the exponent of all that should be right and just, is in the habit of promising a thousand pounds of gold to the capitol, and that no one may question the propriety of praying for money, it even decorates Jupiter himself with spoils'. Do not hesitate, therefore, at expressing your surprise at the deterioration of painting, since, by all the gods and men alike, a lump of gold is held to be more beautiful than anything ever created by those crazy little Greek fellows, Apelles and Phydias!

Elephanta caves, Mumbai-- I entered a world made of shadows and sudden brightness. The play of the light, the vastness of the space and its irregular form, the figures carved on the walls: all of it gave the place a sacred character, sacred in the deepest meaning of the word. In the shadows were the powerful reliefs and statues, many of them mutilated by the fanaticism of the Portuguese and the Muslims, but all of them majestic, solid, made of a solar material. Corporeal beauty, turned into living stone. Divinities of the earth, sexual incarnations of the most abstract thought, gods that were simultaneously intellectual and carnal, terrible and peaceful. ............................................................................ Gothic architecture is the music turned to stone; one could say that Hindu architecture is sculpted dance. The Absolute, the principle in whose matrix all contradictions dissolve (Brahma), is “neither this nor this nor this.” It is the way in which the great temples at Ellora, Ajanta, Karli, and other sites were built, carved out of mountains. In Islamic architecture, nothing is sculptural—exactly the opposite of the Hindu. The Red Fort, on the bank of the wide Jamuna River, is as powerful as a fort and as graceful as a palace. It is difficult to think of another tower that combines the height, solidity, and slender elegance of the Qutab Minar. The reddish stone, contrasting with the transparency of the air and the blue of the sky, gives the monument a vertical dynamism, like a huge rocket aimed at the stars. The mausoleum is like a poem made not of words but of trees, pools, avenues of sand and flowers: strict meters that cross and recross in angles that are obvious but no less surprising rhymes. Everything has been transformed into a construction made of cubes, hemispheres, and arcs: the universe reduced to its essential geometric elements. The abolition of time turned into space, space turned into a collection of shapes that are simultaneously solid and light, creations of another space, made of air. There is nothing terrifying in these tombs: they give the sensation of infinity and pacify the soul. The simplicity and harmony of their forms satisfy one of the most profound necessities of the spirit: the longing for order, the love of proportion. At the same time they arouse our fantasies. These monuments and gardens incite us to dream and to fly. They are magic carpets. Compare Ellora with the Taj Mahal, or the frescoes of Ajanta with Mughal miniatures. These are not distinct artistic styles, but rather two different visions of the world.

And, furthermore, I tell you frankly that I don’t resign myself to unhappiness, nor do I bow my head to destiny, nor do I come to terms with it, as other men do; and I dare desire death, and desire it above everything else, with such ardor and such sincerity as I believe it is desired in this world only by a very few. I would not speak to you in this manner if I were not completely certain that, when the hour comes, the facts will not belie my words; for, although I don’t see yet an end to my life, I have a profound feeling which almost assures me that this hour is not far off. I am too ripe for death; and I think it to be too absurd and incredible for me—so dead I am spiritually, so altogether concluded as the fable of life is for me in all its parts—to have to last for another forty or fifty years, that is as many as Nature threatens me with. At the mere thought of this I shudder. But as happens with all those, evils, which go beyond, so the speak, the power of imagination, so this seems to be like a dream and an illusion, impossible to realize. Indeed, if someone talks to me about the distant future as of something belonging to me, I can’t help but smile to myself—so confident am I that the space of life remaining to me is not long. And this, I can say, it is the only thought that sustains me. Books and studies, which I am often surprised I have loved so much, projects of great deeds, and hopes of glory and immortality are all things at which I can no longer even laugh. At the hopes and the projects of this century I don’t laugh; with all my soul I wish them the greatest possible success, and highly and most sincerely do I praise, admire and honor their good intentions; however, I don’t envy posterity, nor those who still have long to live. In the past I used to envy the fools and the stupid, and those who have a high opinion of themselves; and I would have gladly changed places with one of them. Now I envy neither the stupid nor the wise, neither the great nor the small, neither the weak nor the powerful. I envy the dead, and only with them I would change places. Every pleasant fantasy, every thought of the future in which I indulge, as happens, in my solitude, and with which I spend my time, consists of death, and nothing else. And in this desire I am no longer troubled, as I used to be, by the memory of dreams of my early age and by the thought of having lived in vain. If I obtain death, I will die so peaceful and so content as if I had never hoped for, or desired, anything else in the world. This is the only good that can reconcile me with destiny. If I were offered, on one hand, the fortune and the fame of Caesar or Alexander, pure of all stains, and, on the other, to die today, and if I were to make a choice, I would say, to die today, and I would not want to think it over.

By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself. By feeling that one has some innate superiority it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney - for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination over other people. Hence the enormous importance to a patriarch who has to conquer, who has to rule, of feeling that great numbers of people, half the human race indeed, are by nature inferior to himself. It must indeed be one of the chief sources of his power. But let me turn the light of this observation on to real life, I thought. Does it help to explain some of those psychological puzzles that one notes in the margin of daily life? Does it explain my astonishment the other day when Z, most humane, most modest of men, taking up some book by Rebecca West and reading a passage in it, exclaimed, 'The arrant feminist! She says that men are snobs!' The exclamation, to me so surprising for why was Miss West an arrant feminist for making a possibly true if uncomplimentary statement about the other sex? - was not merely the cry of wounded vanity; it was a protest against some infringement of his power to believe in himself. Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. Without that power probably the earth would still be swamp and jungle. The glories of all our wars would be unknown. We should still be scratching the outlines of deer on the remains of mutton bones and bartering flints for sheep skins or whatever simple ornament took our unsophisticated taste. Supermen and Fingers of Destiny would never have existed. The Tsar and the Kaiser would never have worn crowns or lost them. Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action. That is why Napoleon and Mussolini both insist so emphatically upon the inferiority of women, for if they were not inferior, they would cease to enlarge. That serves to explain in part the necessity that women so often are to men. And it serves to explain how restless they are under her criticism; how impossible it is for her to say to them this book is bad, this picture is feeble, or whatever it may be, without giving far more pain and musing far more anger than a man would do who gave the same criticism. For if she begins to tell the truth, the figure in the looking-glass shrinks; his fitness for life is diminished. How is he to go on giving judgement, civilizing natives, making laws, writing books, dressing up and speechifying at banquets, unless he can see himself at breakfast and at dinner at least twice the size he really is? So I reflected, crumbling my bread and stirring my coffee and now and again looking at the people in the street. The looking-glass vision is of supreme importance because it charges the vitality; it stimulates the nervous system. Take it away and man may die, like the drug fiend deprived of his cocaine. Under the spell of that illusion, I thought, looking out of the window, half the people on the pavement are striding to work. They put on their hats and coats in the morning under its agreeable rays. They start the day confident, braced, believing themselves desired at Miss Smith's tea party; they say to themselves as they go into the room, I am the superior of half the people here, and it is thus that they speak with that self-confidence, that self-assurance, which have had such profound consequences in public life and lead to such curious notes in the margin of the private mind.

It’s no surprise, really. Processes are often hard to see—they’re a combination of both formal, defined, and documented steps and expectations and informal, habitual routines or ways of working that have evolved over time. But they matter profoundly. As MIT’s Edgar Schein has explored and discussed, processes are a critical part of the unspoken culture of an organization.1 They enforce “this is what matters most to us.

Not surprisingly, the New Atheists find the resurrection as laughable as their Epicurean antecedents did. At the culmination of the “God Delusion” debate in Alabama, when I mentioned the resurrection, Richard Dawkins responded in amazement at what he thought was my naiveté: “So we come down to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s so petty; it’s so trivial; it’s so local; it’s so earthbound; it’s so unworthy of the universe.” I found this an astonishingly illogical outburst, for the naiveté was not mine. If Dawkins had simply affirmed his belief that Jesus did not rise from the dead, I would have understood it. However, to say that the resurrection is petty, trivial, and earthbound is to betray a profound failure to grasp what the resurrection is and what it implies. Petty, trivial, and earthbound are exactly what the resurrection isn’t — if it happened. It is atheism, with its oblivion at death, that makes us earthbound, petty, and trivial. If Jesus rose from the dead, it demonstrates that he is very much not earthbound but God the Creator incarnate. As for “unworthy of the universe”, the question should be: is the universe worthy of him?

Meyrowitz writes that when he was in college in the 1950s, he’d gone on an exciting three-month summer vacation, and when he got home, he was eager to share his experiences with his friends, family, and other acquaintances. Obviously, he says, he varied the stories and the telling based on the audience: his parents got the clean version, his friends got the adventurous version, and his professors got the cultured version. Meyrowitz asks us to consider what would happen to his trip narrative if, on his return, his parents had thrown him a surprise homecoming party where all of those groups were present together. He ventures that he would have either 1) offended one or more of the groups, or 2) created a “synthesized” account that was “bland enough to offend no one.” But no matter which one, he writes, “the situation would have been profoundly different from the interactions I had with isolated audiences.

It is a well-known fact, and one that has given much ground for complaint, that after women have lost their genital function their character often undergoes a peculiar alteration, they become quarrelsome, vexatious and overbearing, petty and stingy, that is to say that they exhibit typically sadistic and anal-erotic traits which they did not possess earlier during their period of womanliness,” Sigmund Freud declared in 1913.8 Well, you can argue that he was a man of his time; the first couple of decades of the twentieth century weren’t exactly known for their respect for women’s finer qualities. But unfortunately, the nonsense didn’t stop there. “The unpalatable truth must be faced that all postmenopausal women are castrates,” pronounced American gynecologist Robert Wilson in a 1963 essay;9 he then elaborated fulsomely on this theme in his 1966 bestseller Feminine Forever.10 This frighteningly influential book, it later emerged, was backed by a pharmaceutical company eager to market hormone replacement therapy. “Once the ovaries stop, the very essence of being a woman stops,” psychiatrist David Reuben wrote in 1969 in another bestseller, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask.11 The postmenopausal woman, he added, comes “as close as she can to being a man.” Or rather, “not really a man but no longer a functional woman.” Half a century on, has anything really changed? Sadly, I don’t think so. It might not be acceptable in most circles to write that kind of thing anymore, but menopausal women are too often the butt of men’s jokes for me really to believe that the attitudes themselves have shifted. They’ve just gone a little more underground. So if these are the stories men are telling about us, where are the stories we’re telling about ourselves? Unfortunately, they’re not always very much more helpful. A surprising number of self-help or quasi-medical books by female authors toe the male line, enjoining women to try to stay young and beautiful at all costs, and head off to their doctor to get hormone replacement therapy to hold off the “symptoms” of the dreaded aging “disease” for as long as possible. Their aim, it seems, is above all a suspension of the aging process, an exhortation to live in a state of suspended animation. And although more women are beginning to write about menopause as a natural and profoundly transformational life-passage, in the culture at large it is still primarily viewed as something to be managed, held off, even fought.

Once male and female poles have bonded together, the undifferentiated energies of life can then circulate through us. Looking at the state of the earth, it's no surprise that we worship the patriarchal state of stillness and silence while disregarding the feminine artistic and biological forces. We exist in a patriarchal society where the feminine influence of production has been distorted and ignored. The profound feminine intelligence within us is our souls, the spirit world, the natural world, and our emotions. These were all stolen, killed, or demonized. The patriarchal axis forces us into stereotypical awareness. In somatic studies, the brain, the "working" force, and our rational minds are portrayed. We need that force to shed light on our ideas, to act upon our feminine intuition. There will always be two polarities of masculine forms of consciousness at odds with one another. The masculine vs. the feminine, me vs. someone else— what we see as opposite and inward and outwardly warring forces. There is a triple form of consciousness rooted in the feminine pole: the power to see two things but also what lies between them, to access liminal space, to continually create and re-create. In the end, this is the power from which we all emerge to separate into binary consciousness. Only by revering intensely the feminine force of existence, by linking the head with the body, the masculine with the feminine, may we push beyond the constraints of patriarchal truth and into awareness of the divine concept that gave birth to all of us. It is an incorrect assumption to state that awakening kundalini is purely feminine energy or energy of the goddess. The power of creation and evolution, which are profoundly feminine powers, certainly never stops being. Yet illumination arrives as the masculine and feminine powers within us intertwine and embrace each other rather than hinder each other. By merging these feminine and masculine principles, we move into wholeness beyond a state of separation and thus become fully realized. We become masculine and feminine, empty, and full. We can even go beyond those states and witness them, observe consciousness or energy waves that flow through our body. In kundalini awakenings, the completion state is not one of a single energy chain streaming from the genitals through the top of the head or into the brain, but of all energies merging and becoming one, and both flowing downwards, entangled, into the space of the heart. This is a state of being constantly at odds with each other within and without, between two forces— male and female, void and non-void, extension and contraction, fullness, and absence. This is a state of being both forces at the same time, as well as falling between them.

Performing at the Sea of Galilee, a huge full moon shining behind him, he launched into “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and the crowd came to its feet. He encored seven times that night. Bill had been pleasantly surprised that Jewish Americans like Gene Lowinger, Steve Arkin, and David Grisman had become his devotees; now he was happy, indeed profoundly moved, that Israelis loved and understood his music.

Yet when Cohen finally tried LSD himself in October 1955, he “was taken by surprise.” Expecting to find himself trapped inside the mind of a madman, Cohen instead experienced a profound, even transcendent sense of tranquillity, as if “the problems and strivings, the worries and frustrations of everyday life [had] vanished; in their place was a majestic, sunlit, heavenly inner quietude . . . I seemed to have finally arrived at the contemplation of eternal truth.” Whatever this was, he felt certain it wasn’t a temporary psychosis. Betty Eisner wrote that Cohen came to think of it instead as something he called “unsanity”: “a state beyond the control of the ego.

When I stay in prayer long enough, I am surprised by the level of emotion I inevitably encounter within myself. The stillness brings the weight, the sadness, and the freedom it always has, and a profound sense for me of what is true.

After years of working in public service, it had come as a bit of a surprise to her how genuinely interested she was in running a business; seeing what worked, looking at stock, and, of course, matching the right book to the right person. It was the same joy she had always felt at the library, but somehow, watching people leaving with books they could keep forever was even more profound.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Yes, something is profoundly off in our lives on this planet today. In fact, many things are acutely amiss: we are living disconnected from our bodies through an education system that primes us for industry; disconnected from our communities thanks to technology and isolated, single-family homes; and disconnected from the environment because of several centuries of science that says nature is a collection of utilitarian resources that will ultimately be successfully dominated by mankind. Furthermore, we are disconnected from our very souls by a dominant belief system that says you are only what you can produce, and disconnected from the mysterious wonder of the human experience by the worship of scientific dogma that says something only exists if we can measure and quantify it.

Sometimes people can't identify their feelings because they were talked out of them as a children. The child says, "I'm angry," and the parent says, "Really? Over such a tiny thing? You're so sensitive!" Or the kid says, "I'm sad," and the parent says, "Don't be sad. Hey, look, a balloon!" Or the child says, "I'm scared," and the parent says, "There's nothing to be worried about. Don't be such a baby." But nobody can keep profound feelings sealed up forever. (...) With two chaotic parents who argued with abandon and liberal strings of expletives, sometimes so loudly that the neighbors complained - she had been forced to act as a grownup prematurely, like an underage driver navigating her life without a license. She rarely got to see her parents acting like adults, like her friends' parents. She'd had to parent herself, and her younger brother too. Children, however, don't like having to be hyper-competent. So it's not surprising that she wants me to be the mother for her now. I can be the normal parent who safely and lovingly drives the car, and she can have the experience of being taken care of in a way she never has before. But in order to cast me in the competent role, she believes she has to cast herself as the helpless one, letting me see only her problems. Patients often do this as a way to ensure that hte therapist won't forget about their pain if they mention something positive. Good things happen in her life too, but I only rarely hear about them; if I do, it's either in passing or months after they occurred.

strong and bold in God. The world brushes over the link of happiness with meekness in search of something more attractive or profound. Jesus, however, plants happiness in the unnoticed and unpopular soil of the ordinary. Meekness is that extraordinary happiness hidden in plain sight of the ordinary.

If we think deeply about our childhood, not just about our memories of it but how it actually felt, we realize how differently we experienced the world back then. Our minds were completely open, and we entertained all kinds of surprising, original ideas. Things that we now take for granted, things as simple as the night sky or our reflection in a mirror, often caused us to wonder. Our heads teemed with questions about the world around us. Not yet having commanded language, we thought in ways that were preverbal—in images and sensations. When we attended the circus, a sporting event, or a movie, our eyes and ears took in the spectacle with utmost intensity. Colors seemed more vibrant and alive. We had a powerful desire to turn everything around us into a game, to play with circumstances. Let us call this quality the Original Mind. This mind looked at the world more directly—not through words and received ideas. It was flexible and receptive to new information. [...] Masters and those who display a high level of creative energy are simply people who manage to retain a sizeable portion of their childhood spirit despite the pressures and demands of adulthood. This spirit manifests itself in their work and in their ways of thinking. Children are naturally creative. They actively transform everything around them, play with ideas and circumstances, and surprise us with the novel things they say or do. [...] Masters not only retain the spirit of the Original Mind, but they add to it their years of apprenticeship and an ability to focus deeply on problems or ideas. This leads to high-level creativity. Although they have profound knowledge of a subject, their minds remain open to alternative ways of seeing and approaching problems. They are able to ask the kinds of simple questions that most people pass over, but they have the rigor and discipline to follow their investigations all the way to the end. They retain a childlike excitement about their field and a playful approach, all of which makes the hours of hard work alive and pleasurable. Like children, they are capable of thinking beyond words—visually, spatially, intuitively—and have greater access to preverbal and unconscious forms of mental activity, all of which can account for their surprising ideas and creations.

She was no longer necessarily averse to finding Richard attractive, she realised. It was just very surprising. And should remain at the sensible look-but-don’t-touch stage. If she ever evolved into an outdoorsy person and went on safari, she might admire the dangerous beauty of the lions from a distance, but she for damn sure wouldn’t get out of the car. Or some equally profound metaphor.

Play can be profoundly liberating, but it can also make us feel vulnerable. It breaks routines and exposes us to the unpredictable.

However, Hatchett and Mecher’s modeling, and the deep dive into the history of the Spanish flu, started to change minds inside the public health establishment, and especially the CDC. The findings on the NPIs from 1918 were so striking that they surprised the team. The nonpharmaceutical interventions had a profound effect on slowing spread, but they needed to be adopted early in the course of a pandemic. The best way to contain a pandemic would remain through vaccination. But it might be months, or longer, before a vaccine could be made available.

Just then the quiet was broken as a group of women bustled in, all talking loudly over each other. Their boisterousness was entirely at odds with the subdued atmosphere, but they didn't seem at all embarrassed, as Andrew would have been, to be causing any sort of disruption. He got the sense that this was a regular fixture, a midweek tradition, perhaps: the way they all headed for a particular table without deliberation. Why is it that we find traditions comforting? he thoughts, stifling a belch. He looked at Peggy and was suddenly struck by the promise of asking her this incredibly profound question. Inevitably, it didn't sound quite so clever when he said it out loud. "Hmm," Peggy said, not looking fazed, to Andrew's relief. "I suppose it's probably just because it's a moment in time where you know exactly what's about to happen, so there are no nasty surprises waiting for you. I dunno, maybe that's a bit of a pessimistic way of looking at it." "No, I know what you mean," Andrew said. He pictured Sally looking at the calendar, realizing it was time for their quarterly call. Maybe there was some solace, some comfort, in the regularity of their interaction. "I suppose it's about having a balance," he said. "You need to keep making new traditions, otherwise you start to resent the old ones.

She doesn’t realize the profound truth of her words. The concept of fate and destiny, some high power guiding our paths, is often dismissed as a mere belief or superstition. It comes with unexpected and sometimes unwelcome outcomes, like falling in love with your father’s second wife. But that’s the beauty of the universe—it has a way of surprising us and completely transforming our lives.

embedded in real life, real loss. Disappointment largely revolves around expectations and imagination. I expect you to act a certain way, or I expect a specific outcome, or I expected to have achieved (fill in the blank) by now, or I expected that my life would be different or that I would be working in a field that I actually like. Fueled by media images, expectations are mostly disappointments waiting to happen and almost entirely built on imagination or illusion. Now, I understand the positive power of visualization and the neurological benefits of meditation, but that is not what I am talking about. I’m talking about imagining outcomes that can’t or don’t materialize. This is precisely why God is never disappointed in you. God has no such imaginations or illusions. God knows you, completely, fully, and with unrelenting affection. You don’t surprise God. God delights in you, as you delight in your own children; God also grieves for and with you when you act inside your lies and darkness—but not because God expected more of you. God is a fully engaged participant, present in the deepest and most profound activities happening inside the highest of all creation—you. God knows you for who you truly are and grieves for the distance between that truth and what you believe about yourself. It is from that gap of darkness and lies that we project God’s disappointment and abandonment. God is never disillusioned by you; God never had any illusions about you in the first place. God is never disappointed in you; God has no expectations. Do you remember the verses halfway through Psalm 22? That’s the psalm that begins with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” This was the cry of Jesus when He experientially entered all of humanity’s lies and darkness, when He plunged into the shadow depths in which we projected a turned-away face of God. We believe that we are abandoned and unworthy to be face-to-face with God, and it is in that delusion that Jesus finds us. Halfway through this psalm, which Jesus knew by heart, are these words: You do not despise the afflictions of the afflicted one, Nor will you turn your face from him, And when he cries, you will hear. This God does not do abandonment. We will never be powerful enough to make God’s face turn from us. Because God knows us utterly and is with us always—you are never a disappointment.

My gut tells me that you will not be able to stop. In a decade of Sabbath-keeping, I have never met someone who used to Sabbath. Nor have I met someone who wished they had kept fewer Sabbaths. Once you start, you probably won’t stop. It is profoundly life giving.

I hope that by now, six chapters into this book, you know better. You know that men’s and women’s sexualities are made of the same parts, just organized in different ways, and you know that no two people are alike. You know that what activates your accelerator or hits your brakes is context dependent. You know that women’s sexuality is even more context sensitive than men’s, that developmental, cultural, and life history factors all profoundly shape how and when our bodies respond. You know that sex-related and sexually appealing are not the same thing. Women are not liars, in denial, or otherwise broken. They are women, rather than men, in a world that wants women to believe they can’t understand their own internal experience.

Fortunately, we’re entering a new era of medicine. Doctors no longer need to serve as the middlemen for interpreting lab results. This new era will benefit patients profoundly. Levels CEO Sam Corcos calls this concept “bio-observability”—the ability to observe your own biology through technologies like wearables, continuous monitors, and direct-to-consumer (DTC) lab testing. Let me be clear: bio-observability is one of the most disruptive trends our health care industry faces. You should not blindly trust your doctor and you should not blindly trust me. You should trust your own body. Your body can “speak” to you through accessible testing and real-time data from wearable sensors that help you understand how individual symptoms are connected to overall metabolic health.

From now on, everything you do in this book, and after, should be viewed as an experiment. This has been a profound shift for people who worry that “starting a business” is this big daunting thing. Experiments are supposed to fail. And should they fail, you just take what you’ve learned and try again a little bit differently.

As a practical brain surgeon I always found the philosphy of the so-called 'mind-Brain Problem' confusing and ultimately a waste of time. It has never seemed a problem to me, only a source of awe, amazement and profound surprise that my consciousness, my very sense of self, the self which feels as free as air, .......... , is in fact the electrochemical chatter of one hundred billion nerve cells.

It seems that to have a truly profound revelation, you almost always have to look at something other than what you have been looking at in the past. Being able to compute the value of information has caused organizations to look at completely different things—and doing so has frequently resulted in a surprise that changed the direction of a major decision.

Not much has been said by critics about the structure of The Lord of the Rings, but it is considerably more complex and at least as carefully-integrated as the multiple narrative of Joseph Conrad, for instance, in Nostromo. One might feel that a more experienced writer, one who wrote novels or fantasies professionally rather than passionately, would have known not to risk such finesses or trust so much to the ingenuity of his readers: but Tolkien knew no better than to try it. The main effect of his interlacing technique, however, does not lie in surprise and suspense. What it does is to create a profound sense of reality, of that being the way things are. There is a pattern in Tolkien’s story, but his characters can never see it (naturally, because they are in it). To them the whole story seems chaotic, haunted by bad luck; they are lost in a wilderness metaphorically as well as cartographically, indeed in a ‘bewilderment’, sometimes in the dark, sometimes in an enchanted wood, frequently guessing wrong as to the meaning of what happens even to them.

Another reason why disasters seem so scary is that many victims tend to see them as a whole rather than divide them into much smaller and more manageable problems. A disaster can seem overwhelming when confronted with everything at once —but if you dice it into its tiny parts and knock them off one at a time, the whole thing can seem as easy as eating a lavish dinner one bite at a time. In a disaster you must also plan for disruption as well as destruction. Death and damage may make the news, but in almost every disaster far more lives are disrupted than destroyed. Wit­ness the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011 and killed 158 people. The path of death and destruction was less than a mile wide and only 22 miles long —but within thirty miles 160,000 citizens whose property didn’t suffer a dime of damage were profoundly disrupted by the carnage, loss of power and water, suspension of civic services, and inability to buy food, gas, and other necessities. You may rightfully believe your chances of dying in a disaster in your lifetime may be nearly nil, but the chances of your life being disrupted by a disaster in the next decade is nearly a sure thing. Not only should you prepare for disasters, you should learn to premeditate them. Prepare concerns the body; premeditate concerns the mind. Everywhere you go, think what could happen and how you might/could/would/should respond. Use your imagination. Fill your brain with these visualizations —run mind-movies in your head —develop a repertoire —until when you walk into a building/room/situation you’ll automatically know what to do. If a disaster does ambush you —sure you’re apt to panic, but in seconds your memory will load the proper video into your mobile disk drive and you’ll feel like you’re watching a scary movie for the second time and you’ll know what to expect and how to react. That’s why this book is important: its manner of vivifying disasters kickstarts and streamlines your acquiring these premeditations, which lays the foundation for satisfying your needs when a disaster catches you by surprise.

The only reason for a child not to be aware of his own vulnerability is that it has become too much to bear, his wounds too hurtful to feel. In other words, children overwhelmed by emotional hurt in the past are likely to become inured to this same experience in the future. The relationship between psychological wounds and the flight from vulnerability is quite obvious in children whose experience of emotional pain has been profound. Most likely to develop this extreme type of defensive emotional hardening are children from orphanages or multiple foster homes, children who have experienced significant losses or have suffered abuse and neglect. Given the trauma they have endured, it is easy to appreciate why such children would have developed powerful unconscious defenses. What is surprising is that, without any comparable trauma, many children who have been peer-oriented for some time can manifest the same level of defensiveness. It seems that peer-oriented kids have a need to protect themselves against vulnerability to as great a degree as traumatized children. Why should that be, in the absence of any overtly similar experiences? Before discussing the reasons for the increased fragility and emotional stiffening of peer-oriented children, we need to clarify the meaning of the phrase defended against vulnerability and its near synonym, flight from vulnerability. We mean by them the brain's instinctive defensive reactions to being overwhelmed by a sense of vulnerability. These unconscious defensive reactions are evoked against a consciousness of vulnerability, not against actual vulnerability. The human brain is not capable of preventing a child from being wounded, only from feeling wounded. The terms defended against vulnerability and flight from vulnerability encapsulate these meanings. They convey a sense of a child's losing touch with thoughts and emotions that make her feel vulnerable, a diminished awareness of the human susceptibility to be emotionally wounded. Everyone can experience such emotional closing down at times. A child becomes defended against vulnerability when being shut down is no longer just a temporary reaction but becomes a persistent state.

These world-class performers don’t have superpowers. The rules they’ve crafted for themselves allow the bending of reality to such an extent that it may seem that way, but they’ve learned how to do this, and so can you. These “rules” are often uncommon habits and bigger questions. In a surprising number of cases, the power is in the absurd. The more absurd, the more “impossible” the question, the more profound the answers. Take, for instance, a question that serial billionaire Peter Thiel likes to ask himself and others: “If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere], you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?” For purposes of illustration here, I might reword that to: “What might you do to accomplish your 10-year goals in the next 6 months, if you had a gun against your head?” Now, let’s pause. Do I expect you to take 10 seconds to ponder this and then magically accomplish 10 years’ worth of dreams in the next few months? No, I don’t. But I do expect that the question will productively break your mind, like a butterfly shattering a chrysalis to emerge with new capabilities. The “normal” systems you have in place, the social rules you’ve forced upon yourself, the standard frameworks—they don’t work when answering a question like this. You are forced to shed artificial constraints, like shedding a skin, to realize that you had the ability to renegotiate your reality all along. It just takes practice. My suggestion is that you spend real time with the questions you find most ridiculous in this book. Thirty minutes of stream-of-consciousness journaling (page 224) could change your life. On top of that, while the world is a gold mine, you need to go digging in other people’s heads to unearth riches. Questions are your pickaxes and competitive advantage. This book will give you an arsenal to choose from.

However, one visible societal element that has been lost is the proper understanding of women and their role in Protestant churches. Professor Catherine Tzacz talks about her experience studying with some Lutheran women and their surprise at the centrality that women play in Eastern Orthodox liturgy. The Protestant Reformation unwittingly erased many of the places where feminine spirituality—a spirituality profoundly different from masculine spirituality—flourished: “The Reformers, Patricia Ranft has shown, attacked institutions within Christianity that fostered women’s visibility and high status, specifically monasticism, saints, and Mariology.”13 One commentator went so far as to suggest that “the Protestant rejection of the veneration of Mary and its various consequences (such as the really ‘male-dominated’ Protestant worship, deprived of sentiment, poetry and intuitive mystery-perception) is one of the psychological reasons which explains the recent emergence of institutional feminism.”14 Without giving women an authentic outlet for their fundamental need to worship and the unique way they go about doing it, Protestantism has pushed them in another direction—that is, eyeing those roles previously reserved for men because the feminine roles have been decimated. This argument has been made among Protestants themselves. Blogger

If you'll excuse me, I'd like to retire now." "Before dessert?" He gave her a chiding glance, and grinned. "Don't tell me you've lost your sweet tooth." Lara couldn't help returning his smile. "I still have it," she admitted. "I asked Mrs. Rouillé to make a pear tart." Hunter stood and went to her chair, settling his hands on her shoulders as if to keep her there forcibly. Leaning close to her ear, he lowered his voice and murmured, "Stay for just one bite." The velvet rasp of his voice made her shiver. He must have felt the tiny movement, for his fingers tightened on her shoulders. Something about his touch disturbed her profoundly, a gentle strength, a sense of ownership that she balked at. She made an automatic gesture to push him away, but as she felt the warm, hair-dusted backs of his hands, she paused. She couldn't seem to stop herself from exploring the shape of his long bones, the hard angles of his wrists. His fingers flexed, like a cat kneading his paws, and she drew her hands over his in a tentative sweep. The moment spun out, the silence deepening until the only sound that broke it was the tiny sputter of the candle flames. From somewhere above her head, she heard Hunter's shaky laugh, and he pulled back as if she had burned him. "I'm sorry," Lara said softly, her face reddening with surprise at her own actions. "I don't know why I did that." "Don't apologize. In fact..." He knelt by her chair, staring at her. His voice was low and unsteady. "I wish you would again.

Not surprisingly, the core features of music are RHYTHM, HARMONY, RESONANCE, SYNCHRONY, and DISSONANCE (see glossary for definitions of terms), and those are the same processes the brain uses to coordinate its activities and carry out complex behaviors. This is why music can have such a profound effect on us.

I startled it. No, I shocked it profoundly—and it transmitted to me the full impact of that shock. Its multisensory illusions felt more real than things that actually happened, and this was worse than an illusion. This was a sudden, swift cycling of its own intense surprise and fear. From me to it to me. Closed loop. I

While we live our bodies are moving particles of the earth, joined inextricably both to the soil and to the bodies of other living creatures. It is hardly surprising, then, that there should be some profound resemblances between our treatment of our bodies and our treatment of the earth.

I turned away from one belief system that tried to deny it was anything of the sort, and accepted another which was quite open and honest about its status. My conversion was an act of free-thinking. I believed that I had found the best way of making sense of things. And that remains my view today. Although I now appreciate that Christianity has emotional, imaginative, and ethical dimensions that I had yet to discover at that time, I continue to see the “sense-making” dimensions of faith to be profoundly important and significant.

At first I didn’t think I’d even be able to play—I had way too much going on in my mind—but to my profound surprise, my fingers didn’t seem to care. Apparently if you wanted to rock, it didn’t matter if you had explosives in the basement, or a father with a chronic problem with keeping his dick in his pants, or a crazed ex-Blackwater employee with some religious conviction for ripping your head off. Hell, it might have helped.

Consumers want the predictable and consistent, with an occasional positive twist or added value thrown in. Psychologists who study happiness (the correct psychological/research term is subjective well-being) often talk about the importance of predictability for safety and security (the caramelized popcorn, if you will), mixed with small increments of variety to offset boredom (the prize). Unfortunately, many companies focus too much on the basic ingredients and not enough on adding that extra something that differentiates them from their competition and builds brand loyalty. Starbucks leaders, however, have made a firm commitment to creating an experience of Surprise and Delight in many areas of their business. Starbucks management seeks ways to implement subjective well-being for customers and staff—which, in turn, has a profound effect on loyalty, community, and profit.

NOURISHED BY THE WORD You will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished by the words of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. 1 Timothy 4:6 HCSB Do you read your Bible a lot . . . or not? The answer to this simple question will determine, to a surprising extent, the quality of your life and the direction of your faith. As you establish priorities for life, you must decide whether God’s Word will be a bright spotlight that guides your path every day or a tiny nightlight that occasionally flickers in the dark. The decision to study the Bible—or not—is yours and yours alone. But make no mistake: how you choose to use your Bible will have a profound impact on you and your loved ones. The Bible is the ultimate guide for life; make it your guidebook as well. When you do, you can be comforted in the knowledge that your steps are guided by a Source of wisdom and truth that never fails. Knowing God involves an intimate, personal relationship that is developed over time through prayer and getting answers to prayer, through Bible study and applying its teaching to our lives, through obedience and experiencing the power of God, through moment-by-moment submission to Him that results in a moment-by-moment filling of the Holy Spirit. Anne Graham Lotz A TIMELY TIP The Bible is God’s roadmap for life here on earth and for life eternal. How you choose to use your Bible is, of course, up to you . . . and so are the consequences. So today, challenge your faith by making sure that you’re spending quality time each day studying God’s Word.

Behind the picture of fresh human possibilities I have been drawing all through 'The Myth of the Machine' is a profound truth to which almost a century ago William James gave expression. "When from our present advanced standpoint," he observed, "we look back upon past stages of human thought, we are amazed that a universe which appears to us of so vast and mysterious a complication should ever have seemed to anyone so little and plain a thing....There is nothing in the spirit and principles of science that need hinder science from dealing successfully with a world in which personal forces are the starting point of new effects. The only form of thing we directly encounter, the only experience that we concretely have, is our own personal life. The only complete category of our thinking, our professors of philosophy tell us, is the abstract elements of that. And this systematic denial on science's part of the personality as a a condition of events, this rigorous belief that in its own essential and innermost nature our world is a strictly impersonal world, may conceivably, as the whirligig of time goes round, prove to be the very defect that our descendants will be most surprised at in our boasted science, the omission that to their eyes will most tend to make it look perspectiveless and short.

How awesome of God to purpose that Christ’s royal lineage would come through His adoptive father. We shouldn’t be surprised at the profound significance with which God views adoption. Ephesians 1:4–6 tells us something profound about God’s view of adoption. It identifies us as the adopted children of God. In a peculiar kind of way, God the Father allowed His Son to be “adopted” into a family on earth so that we could be adopted into His family in heaven.

Amos Bronson Alcott was another author of Concord, a sweet philosopher whom I shall ever remember with deepest gratitude as the only person who in my early youth ever imagined any literary capacity in me (and in that he was sadly mistaken, for he fancied I would be a poet). I have read very faithfully all his printed writings, trying to believe him a great man, a seer; but I cannot, in spite of my gratitude for his flattering though unfulfilled prophecy, discover in his books any profound signs of depth or novelty of thought. In his Tablets are some very pleasant, if not surprisingly wise, essays on domestic subjects; one, on "Sweet Herbs," tells cheerfully of the womanly care of the herb garden, but shows that, when written—about 1850—borders of herbs were growing infrequent.

I think I’m the only woman you’ve loved in forever. And you were going to pitch me out that fast, just because I make you nervous. I thought you didn’t trust me, but now I think you don’t trust yourself.” She shook her head. “I don’t want a man like that. I need a man with guts, who’s sure of himself. Confident enough to stand by me. I need a man who’s not afraid to take a risk or two for something important.” “I’ve taken a risk or two,” he said. “And you don’t scare me. Come up here on the porch.” “No. Not until you say that if we stay solid, there will be a real relationship and a family. I don’t want any of this ‘I don’t get involved’ shit. It’s all crap, Luke. You can have some time to be sure, I’m patient. But I’m not giving you up.” He smiled at her. “I don’t need time to be sure. I know how I feel.” “Still on that? Still that ‘never gonna happen’ bullshit?” “Okay, I guess it could happen,” he said. “If it did happen, it would happen with you. I just always thought you deserved more.” “More than everything I’ve ever wanted in the world? See what an idiot you turned out to be?” He had to laugh. She was something, this woman. “Shelby, come here. I don’t have to think about it—you’re the most solid thing I’ve ever had in my life. Now come here.” “I thought I wasn’t enough for you—but I was too much,” she said. “And you don’t get to decide what I deserve. What I deserve is a man who looks at me grow fat on his baby and feels pride. Love and pride.” “Okay then,” he said. “I love you. Come here.” “Not good enough. You have to say something to convince me this is worth the gamble. I came a long way and I came alone. I was betting on you, on us. I love you and you love me and I’m sick of screwing around. Say the right thing for once. Say something profound.” He stared at her and his smile slowly faded. He put his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath and felt tears gather in his eyes. “You’re all I need to be happy, Shelby,” he said. “You’re everything I need…” He actually surprised her. Her arms dropped from over her chest and she gaped at him for a second. “You’re everything,” he said. “It scares me to death, but I want it all with you. I want you for life. I want what you want, and I want it right now.” “Huh?” “Everything, Shelby. I want you to be the lead in my shoes that keeps me on the ground. The mother of my children. My best friend, my wife, my mistress. It’s a tall order.” He took a breath. “If you won’t quit, I won’t.” “You’re sure about that?” she asked him. “Sure it scares the hell out me you’ll change your mind? Or sure I want it all? Oh, yeah, honey. I’m sure.” “I won’t change my mind,” she said softly. “I can’t hear you!” he yelled. “I can’t hear you because you won’t come out of the frickin’ rain!” She ran up the porch steps and into his arms.

Determinism says that our behaviour is determined by two causes: our heredity and our environment. Heredity refers to the genes we inherit from our parents, while environment refers not only to our current environment but also to the environments we have experienced in the past—in effect, to all the experiences we have had from the time we were born. Determinism, in other words, says that our behaviour is entirely determined by our genes and experiences: if we knew every gene and every experience a person had, then, in principle, we could predict exactly what they would do at every moment in time. (p. 4) And now we may be on the brink of yet another revolution. It has been taking place largely out of public view, in psychology laboratories around the world. Its implications, however, are profound. It is telling us that just as we lost our belief that we are at the centre of the universe, we may also be losing our claim to stand aloof from the material world, to rise above the laws of physics and chemistry that bind other species. Our behaviour, it suggests, is just as lawful, just as determined, as that of every other living creature. (p. 6) Also, while determinism is clearly contrary to the religious doctrine of free will, it is important to note that it is not contrary to religion per se. Einstein famously said that ‘God does not play dice’ with nature. He believed in some form of creation, but he found it inconceivable that God would have left the running of this universe to chance. Determinism assumes that the universe is lawful, but it makes no assumptions about how this universe came into being. (p. 11) Another way in which parents influence their children’s behaviour is simply by being who they are. Children have a strong tendency to imitate adults, especially when the adult is important in their lives, and you can’t get much more important to a child than a parent. (p. 62) What children see does influence their understanding of how to get along in the world, of what is and isn’t acceptable. (p. 64) Our need to be liked, combined with our horror of being rejected or ostracized, can influence all of us. (p. 79) It is the brain which gives rise to thought: no brain activity, no thought. (p. 90) We’ve seen that everything we think, feel and do depends on the existence of an intact brain – (p. 92) …: that what remains in memory is not necessarily the precise details of an experience but our interpretation of that experience. (p. 140) According to determinism, it is your behaviour which is determined, not events. … The future is not preordained; if you change your behaviour, your future will also change. (p. 151) It is our brains that determine what we think and feel; if our brains don’t function properly, consciousness is disrupted. (p. 168) Given how much of our mental processing takes place in the unconscious, it is perhaps not surprising that we are often unaware of the factors that have guided our conscious thought. … …, but insofar as behaviour is determined by the environment, then by changing that environment we can change that behaviour. (p. 169)

The experience induced by psychoactive substances is often surprisingly similar to a near-death experience, especially in the case of DMT although, depending on the dosage, confusing or frightening perceptions may also occur. These substance-induced experiences include the following elements: a sense of detachment from the body, out-of-body experiences, lucid and accelerated thought, an encounter with a being of light, a sense of unconditional love, being in an unearthly environment, access to a profound wisdom, and wordless communication with immaterial beings. Sometimes the characteristic post-NDE transformation, including the loss of the fear of death, is also reported after administration of DMT or LSD.22 It is a new and surprising hypothesis that DMT, which occurs naturally in the body, could play an important role in the experience of an enhanced consciousness during near-death experiences. Perhaps DMT, its release triggered or stimulated by events in our consciousness, lifts our body’s natural inhibitions against experiencing an enhanced consciousness, as if it is able to block or disrupt the interface between consciousness and our body (and brain).

With the number of signs loved ones try to give, it’s no surprise how many stories we’ve all heard about profound or unexplainable

Corps commander Alexander P. Stewart, writing with profound emotion, explained in his own mind the mystery of what had occurred in the face of almost certain success at Spring Hill: “There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we may. If in the next life we are permitted an insight into the events of this life and their causes, we shall be surprised to find how much Providence, and how very little human agency and planning have to do with all really noble and grand achievements. And how little credit is due to many who pass among us as great.”56

Burke had meticulously plotted and committed to memory every aspect of his cover story, quite conscious that “half-covers” like his, in which one’s real name was retained but attached to a false biography, were often far easier to slip up on than a “full-cover.” He had also been leery of drawing too close to the Rome film crowd, worried over potential questions about his ties to a production company no one had ever heard of, and which didn’t seem to actually produce anything. Fortunately, though, Burke discovered the Roman cinéastes were, much like their Hollywood counterparts, a profoundly self-absorbed lot. “I was mildly surprised at how incurious people were and how very easy it was, when it suited my purpose, to direct attention away from myself simply by asking the right question of other persons and being a good listener, or at least appearing to be.

HOW DOES THIS RADICAL conceptual divide over whether Judaism is a religion or an ethnicity play out in relations between the two communities? One manifestation is the lack of political cooperation between Israeli and American Jewish progressives. Though right-of-center American Jews are often active in supporting Israel’s right-leaning parties and offer financial support through American Friends of Likud and other organizations, there has been surprisingly little alignment between liberal American Jews and the Israeli political left.* There is, of course, some American organizational support for Israel’s left-leaning parties, but the relationship on the left is not nearly as vigorous as it is on the right. Why is that? Once again, the answer lies largely in the Judaism-as-religion issue, which makes it difficult for the two communities to understand each other. Einat Wilf—a secular and unabashedly nationalist former Knesset member and outspoken voice for liberal causes—is a compelling example of how Judaism-as-religion versus Judaism-as-nation creates a disconnect between the two communities. In 2018, she published a book titled The War over the Right of Return, in which she argues that the fundamental reason the Israeli-Arab conflict has never been settled has been Israel’s refusal to reject outright the Palestinian demand for a “right of return” of 1948 refugees and their descendants.* The fact that millions of Palestinians still harbor a hope of returning to “Palestine,” argues Wilf, leaves open in their minds the possibility that Israel as a Jewish nation-state can still be ended. End that charade, she argues, and one major obstacle on the road to settling the conflict will have been removed. What matters for us is not whether Wilf’s analysis is right or wrong. What we need to note is that there is scarcely an American Jewish liberal who would dare speak aloud about denying the Palestinian right of return once and for all. How does Wilf straddle the fence, some might ask? How can she be both a liberal and such a committed nationalist? To Wilf, as to many Israelis, there is simply no fence to straddle. For many Israeli progressives like her, there is no tension at all between liberal values and Judaism-as-nation. But for American Jews who see themselves primarily as a religion and not a nation, Wilf’s value set is a much more difficult position to adopt. The disconnect is between Judaism-as-justice and Judaism-as-survival. Those are obviously not always incompatible, but they are profoundly different instincts.

When will and reason strive to correct by force or even to strike out a bad channel of personal evolution- bad probably because it is necessarily so -- "truth" then makes its appearance like an ambassador that is as necessary and incontestable as an object, and unsuspected because there is no "egoistic" intention behind it. Does this mean that nothing devised by the individual has any credibility? His will is suspect, because it is intentional; geometry and algebra are suspect, because they are the grocer's scales; the reasoning instinct, and utility, are objects of scorn on account of their profound uselessness; and even the unconscious is not to be trusted because it serves as a storage cellar for the conscious mind. What is not confirmed by chance has no validity. One would like to think a projection screen exists that extends between the ego and the outside world, upon which the subconscious projects the image of its predominant excitation, but which is only visible to the conscious mind (and objectively communicable) in the case where "the other side," the outside world, projects the same image on the screen at the same time, and if these two congruent images are superimposed. It is in varying percentages of efficacy that intuition on the one hand, and chance from the outside world on the other, share in such examples of convergence. There remains a degree of question of varying magnitude, which can became surprisingly large-as in the case above-if, in this particular instance, the individual's contribution-his part of the interpretation-is reduced to zero. This is when a vertiginous interpretation of the universe seems to be felt as if the universe was a double of the super ego, a superior, thinking entity.

One of the major themes of Till We Have Faces (1956)—arguably the most profound piece of fiction written by Lewis—is the difficulty of coming to know ourselves as we really are, and the deep pain that such knowledge ultimately involves. Perhaps we ought to read Surprised by Joy with this point in mind. The suppression of certain themes in Lewis’s account of his own development is not a mark of dishonesty, but of the pain their memory engendered.

This chicken-and-egg problem is common in scientific research and is often difficult to address. Often we can say with certainty only that two factors (the microbiota and obesity, in this case) are correlated or coincident, but not necessarily causally related. However, here is where the power of the gnotobotic mouse can really be seen. Jeff’s team transplanted the microbiota from the obese mice into lean mice with no previous microbiota. Suddenly the lean mice with the obese microbiota began to gain weight, even though there had been no change in their diet or exercise habits! What these scientists had shown, to the surprise of many, was that the gut microbiota is enough to cause weight gain in an otherwise lean, healthy mouse. These findings forced the scientific community to reframe our view of the gut microbes. Clearly the microbiota is not just a collection of innocuous bacteria loitering within our gut. These bacteria are capable of profoundly changing the biology of their host and may be a major contributor to one of the most alarming health issues in the Western world.

Here was where this Nought truly lived. Quath had sensed its raw, sticky pull in a jolting instant of profound surprise. The mind’s upper layers were mild and obliging, like cool, smooth corridors beneath the linear engagements of the conscious—while far below, in chambers walled and ramified with bony purpose, lurked a complex, ropy labyrinth of strange power. Or minds. Quath was not even sure the Nought was a single intelligence. Its highest echelons had seemed to be more like a passive stage than a directing entity. There, on a broad, level area above the syrupy seethe, factions of the undermind warred. An abyss yawned. Instincts spoke quietly, effectively, never falling silent. Emotions flared prickly hot—heckling, yearning, always calling the higher intelligence away from its deliberations. Zesty hormones surged—not to carry wedges of information or holistic images, as in Quath, but to flood the bloodstream with urgent demands. Organs far from the brain answered these chemical heralds, pumping other hormones into the thumping flow, adding alkaline voices to the babble. Ideas rose like crystalline towers from this swamp, glimmering coolly—but soon were spattered with the aromatic chemical murk, blood on glass. These elements merged and wrestled, struggling armies rushing together in flurries, fermenting, spinning away into wild skirmishes. Lurid splashes festooned the brittle ramparts of analytical thought. A churning mire lapped hungrily at the stern bulwarks of reason, eroding worn salients even as fresh ones were built. Yet somehow this interior battle did not yield mere confusion and scattered indecision. Somehow a single coherent view emerged, holding the vital, fervent factions in check. Its actions sampled of all the myriad influences, letting none dominate for long. Quath marveled at the sheer energy behind the incessant clashings, and at the same time felt a mixture of recognition laced by repulsion. This Nought’s inner landscape was far more complex than it should be. No wonder it had not attained the technological sophistication of the podia!—it labored forward in a howling storm, its every sharp perception blunted by fraying winds of passion.

the work that we produce for business or for culture, there is always a telling moment—when it leaves our hands and reaches the public for which it was intended. In that instant it ceases to be something that was in our heads; it becomes an object that is judged by others. Sometimes this object connects with people in a profound way. It strikes an emotional chord, resonates, and has warmth. It meets a need. Other times it leaves people surprisingly cold—in our minds we had imagined it having a much different effect. This process can seem rather mysterious. Some people seem to have a knack for creating things that resonate with an audience. They are great artists, politicians with the popular touch, or business people who are endlessly inventive. Sometimes we ourselves produce something that works, but we fail to understand why, and lacking this knowledge, we cannot reproduce our success.

I’ve been in your life for four years. I stood by you when you were imprisoned. I followed you around to god-forsaken places. I travelled with you to your exhibitions, slept next to you, listening to your damned snoring. I managed the business side of things, dealt with the buyers, and dare I say it, I inspired your most profound works. I’d have liked to hear it directly from you that you’re marrying another woman. I mean, imagine my surprise to find out you had proposed to someone else while

What I am sure of, through personal experience, is that this kind of healing is a natural system, not a magical one, which is why it’s also an imperfect one. Sometimes I can help, and sometimes I can’t. What I endeavor to do is to offer patients the whole spectrum – metaphorically, white light – in hopes they can subtract from it what they need in order to return to health. That’s different from my healing them, though out of habit I still use that word. It’s also why I’m always surprised when patients thank me for restoring them to health. While those were my hands moving around, I never feel as if I was the healer. But is it really necessary for me to tell you these things? In a national survey forty percent of all Americans admitted to having had at least one profound mystical experience that took them beyond time and space, with many others perhaps too shy to report such experiences. That was touching the Source. And the Source doesn’t pay attention to national borders. In countries where the spiritual is woven more firmly into daily life, the numbers are likely to be much higher. My hope is that all those who read my book take from it an expanded sense of the resources offered by the Universe, along with a greater awareness of their own potential in calling upon that abundance, not only for healing, but for all aspects of life. The possibilities are infinite. The limitations are our own and we need not faith, not belief, but trust.

You Are My Spring Joy Where does life seek eternity? Not in daily struggles or toil, but in that endearing destiny, Where thoughts, pursuits, likings all merge to create a happy existence, Where happiness leaps from every act and every substance. Just like spring flowers that spread joy, To all alike: a woman, a man, a little girl and a young boy, They live for moments very brief, Yet they always manage to delight the heart immersed in grief. They last for a day or moments few, With a promise that next year they shall bloom anew, Leaving behind sweet memories and hopes profound, And even in a moment of existence they live in eternity that time’s snares can not confound. Similarly my love Irma, your smiles, your beauty nourish my existence, You, your love, your endless beauty are what I need for sustenance, My eternity lies in you, and only you, Eternity will be virtueless if it is not spent thinking about you and loving you. I seek thee with all my senses and my mind and heart, From me the reflections of your beauty never depart, And I lie wrapped in them day and night, Without the glimpse of your beautiful smile I cannot establish the brightness in any form of light. Perhaps someday the sun may not rise, And the Moon may not shine , to me it shall be no surprise, But for me living without loving you is not possible, As for the Moon to shine without the Sun is impossible. So let us be like the Sun and the moonshine, Where both exist to create the life giving sunshine and the romantic moonshine, Let you be the the daffodils, winter jasmine, iris, primrose ,and be merry and sing, And I will always be the unfailing Spring, just your Spring!

You Are My Spring Joy Where does life seek eternity? Not in daily struggles or toil, but in that endearing destiny, Where thoughts, pursuits, likings all merge to create a happy existence, Where happiness leaps from every act and every substance. Just like spring flowers that spread joy, To all alike: a woman, a man, a little girl and a young boy, They live for moments very brief, Yet they always manage to delight the heart immersed in grief. They last for a day or moments few, With a promise that next year they shall bloom anew, Leaving behind sweet memories and hopes profound, And even in a moment of existence they live in eternity that time’s snares can not confound. Similarly my love Irma, your smiles, your beauty nourish my existence, You, your love, your endless beauty are what I need for sustenance, My eternity lies in you, and only you, Eternity will be virtueless if it is not spent thinking about you and loving you. I seek thee with all my senses and my mind and heart, From me the reflections of your beauty never depart, And I lie wrapped in them day and night, Without the glimpse of your beautiful smile I cannot establish the brightness in any form of light. Perhaps someday the sun may not rise, And the Moon may not shine , to me it shall be no surprise, But for me living without loving you is not possible, As for the Moon to shine without the Sun is impossible. So let us be like the Sun and the moonshine, Where both exist to create the life giving sunshine and the romantic moonshine, You be a daffodil, winter jasmine, iris, primrose and be merry and always sing, And I promise, I will always be the unfailing Spring, just your Spring!

Given that the modification is so small, it’s perhaps surprising that it will come up over and over again in this book, and in any discussion of epigenetics. This is because methylation of DNA has profound effects on how genes are expressed, and ultimately on cellular, tissue and whole-body functions.

Dylan O’Connor understood this turbulent age too well, yet he remained profoundly optimistic, for in every moment of every day, in the best works of humanity as in every baroque detail of nature, he saw beauty that lifted his spirit, and everywhere he perceived vast architectures and subtle details that convinced him the world was a place of deep design as surely as were his paintings. This combination of realistic assessment, faith, common sense, and enduring hope ensured that the events of his time seldom surprised him, rarely struck terror in him, and never reduced him to despair.

of Business.*11 They’ve completed their humor audits (just as you will—read on!), and now they’re ready to start paying attention to the nuances of humor in their lives—where they see it in the world, what they find funny, who brings it out in them, and how they most naturally express it. Over the course of the semester, our students experience a profound shift. What begins as a sobering, often (very) unfunny first class (remember: “On Tuesday, I did not laugh once. Not once. Who knew a class about humor could be so depressing?”) ends with students reporting significantly more joy and more laughter in their lives. This shift is about more than their becoming funnier: They become more generous with their laughter. They notice opportunities for humor that would otherwise pass them by. The mindset of looking for reasons to be delighted becomes a habit. In a very real way, they learned how to move a little more fluidly, how to exercise with better form, and play their favorite (amateur) sport with better results—just as you will. When you walk around on the precipice of a smile, you’ll be surprised how many things you encounter that push you over the edge. So, repeat after us: “I promise to laugh more. Even on Tuesday.” THE HUMOR AUDIT*12 WHAT DOES HUMOR LOOK LIKE IN MY LIFE? This exercise is intended to spark self-awareness about various aspects of your unique sense of humor, so you can more

Nor is it surprising that Dr. Leary, like Dr. Reich, was subsequently denounced, slandered colorfully and, finally, imprisoned. The ideas we have been discussing — the ideas that, in a sense, were being tested in the convict rehabilitation research — are profoundly threatening to all dogmatists, not just to materialistic dogmatists. Powerful churches, political parties and vested (financial) interests, for example, have a strong desire to program the rest of us into the particular "Real" Universes that they find profitable, and to keep us from becoming self-programmers. They want to "take responsibility" for us, and they have no wish to see us "take responsibility" for ourselves.

The letters between the two philosophers were cordial, although Spinoza at first distrusted Leibniz, who in turn referred to him privately as ‘a Jew expelled from the synagogue for his monstrous opinions’. Since the fundamental assumptions behind their two systems are profoundly similar, it is perhaps not surprising that the two philosophers – whose conclusions are wholly opposed – should have treated each other with a certain caution.

That working style exposes a truth that seems simple but is actually rather profound and surprisingly rare: the key to getting businesspeople and developers to work well together is for the businesspeople to share problems, not solutions.

This book will reveal a very different truth: sleep is infinitely more complex, profoundly more interesting, and strikingly health-relevant. We sleep for a rich litany of functions, plural—an abundant constellation of nighttime benefits that service both our brains and our bodies. There does not seem to be one major organ within the body, or process within the brain, that isn’t optimally enhanced by sleep (and detrimentally impaired when we don’t get enough). That we receive such a bounty of health benefits each night should not be surprising.

It is not surprising that Spain found a need for the word duende. It is the only country where death in the bullring is a national spectacle, the only nation where death is announced by the explosion of trumpets and drums. The bullring, divided in sol y sombre – the light and shade, is the perfect metaphor for life and death, a passing from the light into darkness. Every matador who ever lived had duende and no death is more profound than death in the bullring.

Dylan, Duende, Death and Lorca Does Bob Dylan have Duende? DUENDE dancers perform moving, unique, unrepeatable performances Does Bob Dylan have duende? Do you have duende? What is duende? Duende is a Spanish word with two meanings. A duende is a goblin or a pixie that probably lives at the bottom of the garden and gives three wishes to old ladies who deserve a break. The duende was best defined by Spain’s great poet Federico García Lorca during a lecture he gave in New York in 1929 on Andalusian music known as cante jondo, or deep voice. ‘The duende,’ he said, ‘is a momentary burst of inspiration, the blush of all that is truly alive, all that the performer is creating at a certain moment.’ The difference between a good and a bad singer is that the good singer has the duende and the bad singer doesn’t. ‘There are no maps nor disciplines to help us find the duende. We only know that he burns the blood like a poultice of broken glass, that he exhausts, that he rejects all the sweet geometry we have learned.’ Some critics say Bob Dylan does not have a great voice. But more than any other performer since the birth of recorded music, Dylan has revealed the indefinable, spine-tingling something captured in Lorca’s interpretation of duende. ‘It is an inexplicable power of attraction, the ability to send waves of emotion through those watching and listening to them.’ ‘The duende,’ he continues, ‘resembles what Goethe called the demoniacal. It manifests itself principally among musicians and poets of the spoken word, for it needs the trembling of the moment and then a long silence.’ painting off hell by Hieronymus Bosch Hell & Hieronymus Bosch Four elements can be found in Lorca’s vision of duende: irrationality, earthiness, a heightened awareness of death and a dash of the diabolical. I agree with Lorca that duende manifests principally among singers, but would say that same magic may touch us when confronted by great paintings: Picasso’s Guernica, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, the paintings of heaven and hell by Hieronymus Bosch. The duende is found in the bitter roots of human existence, what Lorca referred to as ‘the pain which has no explanation.’ Artists often feel sad without knowing why. They sense the cruel inevitability of fate. They smell the coppery scent of death. All artists live in a permanent state of angst knowing that what they have created could have been better. Death with Duende It is not surprising that Spain found a need for the word duende. It is the only country where death in the bullring is a national spectacle, the only nation where death is announced by the explosion of trumpets and drums. The bullring, divided in sol y sombre – the light and shade, is the perfect metaphor for life and death, a passing from the light into darkness. Every matador who ever lived had duende and no death is more profound than death in the bullring.

The furious energy with which Benjamin cast about for publishing venues was underlain by an equally ambitious reading program. Several books had a profound effect on him, and some were surprises - foremost among them Thomas Mann's 1924 epic, The Magic Mountain. [...] It was not only the sweeping and intimate portrayal of the key intellectual currents of the early twentieth century that Benjamin found compelling; it was also, his letter suggests, the perception that Thomas Mann had moved beyond the Nietzschean conservatism of his early years toward a new and more dialectical, if still pessimistic and mythically charged, Dionysian humanism (something epitomized in the protagonist's divagations in the chapter 'Snow').

each has the oddest notion that they have already met and indeed known each other since long ago. It is more a feeling of profound recognition, almost surprise, than anything else, one that brings with it a sense of relief, as if their hearts are simply saying to one another, “Oh, there you are. Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you for the longest time.

It should come as no surprise that the defense of racial slavery gave rise to a profoundly reactionary worldview.

Wilt’s message was a simple one that’s been repeated by coaches for generations: trust your training, trust your fitness. These simple phrases are meant to relay a much more profound lesson: that true confidence is founded in doing the work.

If you turn to self-realization in search of love, empathy, or affection, or as a solution to your daily difficulties—be they illness, financial hardship, career goals, or relationships—hold on, because it's much more than that! Self-realization is a wonderful journey to discover the profound truth about yourself and the universe, leading you to eternal and unwavering joy. Along this path, you may or may not find the emotions or solutions you crave as delightful surprises, and after self-realization, you will clearly understand why.

Navigating the complexities of online relationships can be challenging, especially when trust begins to erode. When I first started to notice subtle changes in my partner's behavior, I felt a mix of confusion and suspicion clouding my thoughts. I found myself in a maze of doubts, unable to pinpoint the reasons behind the growing distance between us. That's when I heard about Botnet Crypto Recovery, a tool designed to help individuals uncover hidden truths in digital interactions. I realized that this could be the key to addressing my concerns and understanding what was truly happening. With a sense of hope, I decided to give it a try, believing it might assist me in shedding light on the situation. The process of utilizing Botnet Crypto Recovery was surprisingly straightforward, which eased my initial apprehensions. After setting up the software, I was guided through various features designed to track online activities. It offered insights into messaging apps, social media interactions, and even browsing histories. Each step I took felt empowering, allowing me to regain a sense of control over my search for answers. As I delved deeper, I discovered patterns in online behavior that I had previously overlooked, such as late-night messages and secretive app usage. The information started painting a picture that I couldn’t ignore, compelling me to confront the reality of the situation rather than living in denial. As I continued my investigation, I was struck by the emotional weight of what I was uncovering. Every detail felt like a piece of a puzzle slowly coming together, but not in a way I had hoped for. Botnet Crypto Recovery didn’t only give me access to data; it also offered clarity. I remember feeling my heart race as I found evidence that pointed toward unfaithfulness. Each discovery was laced with a bittersweet mixture of relief and anguish. While I appreciated the facts that were coming to light, they also filled me with dread about the future of my relationship. I realized that what I had wanted was to find an explanation, but the answers were leading me down a path I was not prepared to tread. Finding out the truth was both a relief and a burden. Armed with the information from Botnet Crypto Recovery, I had the difficult task of confronting my partner about their behavior. Before this, I had been hesitant and unsure, but now I felt fortified with knowledge. The conversation that followed was one of the hardest I’ve ever had, marked by tension and vulnerability. I was prepared to face reality, whatever it may be, and that felt empowering. It was essential to have that moment, although painful, as it was the turning point in our relationship. I realized that clarity can sometimes come at a steep price, but living in confusion was unbearable. In the aftermath of that confrontation, I came to understand the profound impact of unveiling hidden truths. While the revelations were painful, they also became a catalyst for change. Using Botnet Crypto Recovery not only helped me navigate through the complexities of online behavior, but it also pushed me to reflect on my own needs and desires in a relationship. I learned important lessons about trust, communication, and self-worth. Although the outcome wasn’t what I had hoped for, I felt a renewed sense of strength in my ability to confront challenges head-on. Ultimately, the experience taught me that clarity, even in the midst of discomfort, is crucial for personal growth and understanding. Contact Botnet Crypto Recovery on email: support@ botnetcryptorecovery . com Thanks.

the Father is not surprised or repulsed by your profound wounds, fears, and failings. He knows all about them, and His response is to pursue you and heal you fully. This is why He sent Jesus to save you (Romans 5:8).

Until researchers started measuring the effects of cell-phone distractions under controlled conditions, nobody had any idea how profoundly they can impair a driver. It’s like driving drunk. Recall that large fractions of a second are consumed every time the brain switches tasks. Cell-phone talkers are more wild in their “following distance” behind the vehicle in front of them, a half second slower to hit the brakes in emergencies, and slower to return to normal speed after an emergency. In a half second, a driver going 70 mph travels 51 feet. Given that 80 percent of crashes happen within three seconds of some kind of driver distraction, increasing your amount of task switching increases your risk of an accident. More than 50 percent of the visual cues spotted by attentive drivers are missed by cell-phone talkers. Not surprisingly, they get in more wrecks than anyone except very drunk drivers. Putting on makeup, eating, and rubbernecking at an accident aren’t much better. One study showed that simply reaching for an object while driving a car multiplies the risk of a crash or near-crash by nine times.

Interestingly, [Kevin] Anderson says that when he presents his radical findings in climate circles, the core facts are rarely disputed. What he hears most often are confessions from colleagues that they have simply given up hope of meeting the 2 degree temperature target, precisely because reaching it would require such a profound challenge to economic growth. “This position is shared by many senior scientists and economists advising government,” Anderson reports. In other words, changing the earth’s climate in ways that will be chaotic and disastrous is easier to accept than the prospect of changing the fundamental, growth-based, profit-seeking logic of capitalism. We probably shouldn’t be surprised that some climate scientists are a little spooked by the radical implications of their own research. Most of them were quietly measuring ice cores, running global climate models, and studying ocean acidification, only to discover, as Australian climate expert and author Clive Hamilton puts it, that in breaking the news of the depth of our collective climate failure, they “were unwittingly destabilizing the political and social order.” Nonetheless, that order has now been destabilized, which means that the rest of us are going to have to quickly figure out how to turn “managed degrowth” into something that looks a lot less like the Great Depression and a lot more like what some innovative economic thinkers have taken to calling “The Great Transition.

she won’t be making evening practice either, then rolls over, pulling her duvet high up around her ears. She feels vaguely surprised that it’s so easy. She’s reminded of her favourite Yeats poem: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. Her brain thick with sleep, the idea of Marcus as a falconer strikes her as quite profound. This far from Marcus, she wonders how he ever had such a hold over her. The thought sleepily occurs to her that she may never get out of bed, never return to the pool, again. As she has always suspected, the first practice was the hardest to miss and after that one slip, the whole foundation of her training discipline would come crashing down, falling apart around her. The slacker in her would take over. Yes, the pool, always her centre, has lost its hold. What, she wonders, has held the whole thing together this long? I have an intense burning desire to be a champion. That was the phrase she learned at National Youth Team swim camps. I have an intense burning desire to be a champion. They repeated the mantra over and over—a room full of fourteen-year-olds chanting the words in unison. I have an intense burning desire to be a champion. After

It took two hours to read the report, which was more thorough than Devon would have ever expected--and it didn’t appear to be finished by half. Apparently West was visiting every tenant farm on the estate, making detailed notes about each family’s problems and concerns, the conditions of their property, their knowledge and views of farming techniques. Sensing a movement, Devon turned in his chair and saw Kathleen in the doorway. She was dressed in widow’s weeds again, her hair pinned in a braided coil, her wrists encircled with demure white cuffs. Her cheeks were very pink. Devon could have devoured her in one bite. Instead, he gave her a neutral glance as he rose to his feet. “Skirts,” he said in a tone of mild surprise, as if it were a novelty to see her in a dress. “Where are you going?” “To the library for a lesson with the girls. But I noticed that you were in here, and I wondered if you’d read Mr. Ravenel’s report.” “I have. I’m impressed by his dedication. Also rather astonished, since West advised me to sell the estate, lock, stock, and barrel, just before he left London.” Kathleen smiled and studied him with those tip-tilted eyes. He could see tiny rays in the light brown irises, like gold threads. “I’m very glad you didn’t,” she said softly. “I think perhaps he might be too.” All the heat from their earlier encounter came rushing back so fast that it hurt, his flesh rising with a swift ache beneath the layers of his clothes. Devon was profoundly grateful for the concealment of his suit coat.

It turns out, however, that there is a profound obstacle to testing, a barrier that prevents many of us from harnessing the upsides of the evolutionary process. It can be summarized simply, although the ramifications are surprisingly deep: we are hardwired to think that the world is simpler than it really is. And if the world is simple, why bother to conduct tests? If we already have the answers, why would we feel inclined to challenge them?

It just so happens that the Neolithic dance craze coincided with one of the most significant transitions in the history of human life: from living in small bands of hunter-gatherers to large agrarian communities. No longer limited by what they could carry, our ancestors began to amass property, and this gave rise to social and economic stratification. By settling down, societies gained wealth and security, but along with these benefits came a host of destabilizing forces—inequality, jealousy, isolation, distrust—that hunter-gatherer societies had largely managed to avoid. At this profound inflection point in the evolution of human civilization, Garfinkel suggests, dancing may have been a joyful kind of glue that kept these new societies intact. To this day, the act of dancing or making music together has the power to connect us to others. You can see this at weddings, where two disparate groups of friends and relatives come together as one on the dance floor.

A great body of evidence indicates that as humans, our need to belong, to see ourselves as similar to others with whom we share common goals, is innate. We are, so to speak, primed to adopt group attachments around our social groupings, whether they be based on religion, occupation, or something else. Not surprisingly, these identities can profoundly influence our political preferences and behavior.

For people who haven’t connected with their inner child in a long time, such environments can feel overwhelming, even condescending—especially in a workplace context. Play can be profoundly liberating, but it can also make us feel vulnerable. It breaks routines and exposes us to the unpredictable.

It seems to me that the emotions that have the greatest potential of overpowering spectrum folks are, not surprisingly, those that have directly and profoundly impacted us in our own lives. Sometimes that’s anger. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes, as is true with me, it’s feeling abandoned, unwanted, rejected, excluded, alone, frightened, and—despite every bit of hope and effort that can be mustered—still unlovable.

If we look at Buddhism and other pantheistic religions, we see that they celebrate sterility, fasting, celibacy, virginity, and other anorexic, world-rejecting practices. The same was true of the religions of the Mediterranean at the time Christianity was born. It is not surprising that such world-rejecting counterfeit spiritualities infected the Church. The Reformation wisely and rightly returned to the world-affirming, earthy, joyous, musical-instrument-worship, wine-drinking, cigar-smoking, pro-marital worldview of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Reformation was profoundly correct; Rome and Orthodoxy are profoundly wrong. (I mentioned fasting. In the Bible, the goal of fasting is to break the fast when the Bridegroom arrives, just as the purpose of virginity is to get rid of it with the bridegroom. In anorexic religions, fasting and virginity are prized statically for their own sakes.)

The profoundly new leadership of Pope Francis seeks to change the Roman Catholic Church from closed and judging to open and encountering. After his selection, praises for the new pope were soon flowing around the world, commentary on the surprising pontiff was on all the news shows, and even late-night television comedians were paying humorous homage. But only a few of the journalists covering the pope were getting it right: Francis was just doing his job. The pope is meant to be a follower of Christ—the Vicar of Christ. Isn’t it extraordinary how simply following Jesus can attract so much attention when you are the pope? Every day, millions of other faithful followers of Christ do many of the same things. They often don’t attract attention, but they help keep the world together.

What gets readers going are feelings that are fresh and unexpected. Yet those feelings also need to be real and true; otherwise, they will come across as contrived—they’ll ring false and fail to ignite the reader’s emotions. Skillful authors play against expected feelings. They go down several emotional layers in order to bring up emotions that will catch readers by surprise. There’s always a different emotion to use. A story situation is an emotional elephant. There are many ways of looking at and feeling about what’s happening at any given moment. Stop your story at any point, ask the point-of-view character what she is feeling, and it’s never just one answer. Ask two characters what they feel about what’s happening and neither will ever say the same thing. Human beings are complex. We have emotions on the surface and emotions underneath. There are emotions that we minimize, hide, and deny. There are emotions that embarrass us, reveal too much, and make us vulnerable. Our emotions can be profoundly trivial or so elevated that they’re silly. What we feel is inescapably influenced by our history, morals, loyalties, and politics.

The successful British air attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto, throwing modern first-class battleships out of action for many months, profoundly impressed the Japanese Navy with the power and possibilities of the new air arm, especially when combined with surprise.

Affecting just a few dozen people worldwide, WHIM is a painful, potentially deadly immunodeficiency disease that makes life difficult for those unfortunate enough to suffer from it. It is caused by a tiny mutation—a single incorrect letter among some six billion total letters of one’s DNA, amounting to a change of just a dozen or so atoms. This minute transformation leaves WHIM victims profoundly susceptible to infection by human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes uncontrollable warts that cover the patient’s skin and can eventually progress to cancer. It’s a testament to the rareness of the disease that the patient in whom WHIM syndrome had first been diagnosed back in the 1960s was the same person whom the NIH researchers met all those years later. In the scientific literature, she’s known simply as WHIM-09, but I’ll call her Kim. Kim had been afflicted with WHIM since birth, and over the course of her life, she had been hospitalized multiple times with serious infections stemming from the disease. In 2013, Kim—then fifty-eight—presented herself and her two daughters, both in their early twenties, to the staff at NIH. The younger women had classic signs of the disease, but the scientists were surprised to discover that Kim herself seemed fine. In fact, she claimed to have been symptom-free for over twenty years. Shockingly, and without any medical intervention, Kim had been cured.

REMEMBERING COMPASSION TAKES time, and sometimes the most profound learnings are not a part of a curriculum but are come upon by chance or even grace, the way that Glory found the pinecone. She brought it with her to the afternoon class; a large cone, split down the middle and attached to a Y-shaped branch. I stared at it in fascination, resting there in her lap, and hoped that she would say something about it. If you squinted your eyes, it was exactly the size and shape of a human heart. Glory is a young family practitioner who practices in a small rural town. Her patients range from the newborn to the very old, and her practice has afforded her a profound window on life. I met her at one of the physicians’ retreats I teach on detoxifying death. During the first evening’s discussion, she had said that she would find her own death a relief; in fact, life being as it is, she couldn’t imagine why anyone would struggle to live if there was a way to leave with honor. She had felt this way for as long as she could remember. It was an unusual thing for a physician to say, and the group who listened were surprised. She did not seem suicidal or even depressed, merely matter-of-fact. As she spoke, I found myself wondering what lay behind her words. I had some ideas, but, as it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. When she began to talk about the pinecone, all this became clearer. In a voice that we could barely hear, she told us that she had found it on the path as she was coming in to lunch and had known instantly that it was hers. She looked at it lying there in her lap. “It’s my heart,” she told us. “It’s broken. Split in half.” She began to tell us about a vast sadness that she had experienced all her life, a personal sense of the suffering in the world that goes on and on. She had felt this suffering even as a child. It had broken her heart, made her unwilling to live any longer than she had to. Yet brokenhearted though she was,

Some esoteric notions remind me of the Wizard of Oz, and advice akin to telling Dorothy to tap her ruby slippers together three times while repeating the magic mantra is told with a straight face. A few years ago there was an Australian psychic who made great claims about a monumental change on the Earth; aliens in spaceships would reveal themselves and aid us all. She gave a date. This did not happen … and she was surprised, dismayed, and embarrassed. To her credit, she admitted she was wrong, and apologized. She retreated from public view. Prophecies can be disappointing. William Miller, founder of the Christian Millerite movement, predicted that Jesus would come on 21 March 1843. A very large number of followers accepted his prophecy. When Jesus did not return, Miller then predicted a new date - 22 Oct 1844. Many Christian followers sold their property and possessions, quit their jobs and prepared themselves for the second coming. When this too failed to happen, this was called 'The Great Disappointment.' Astrologers were somewhat amused, for this was some mischief, and profound lessons, connected to Neptune, which was discovered around the same time. Look back at the origins of the Jehovah's Witnesses and you will read that their founders made their own predictions. Jesus would return, invisible, in 1874 – and that 1914 would mark the end of a 2520-year period called 'the Gentile Times.' Unfortunately that prophesied date, 1914, was the beginning of the First World War. A few years ago the Christian preacher Harold Camping of Family Radio had predicted the rapture & the end of the world in 2011. Also to his credit he apologized in 2012. Prophecies are tricky, like some humans.

The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, first published by Oxford in 1985, contained half of the journals’ full contents. To save space and present an easily digestible, fast-moving narrative, passages describing Lucy Maud Montgomery’s darker, more reflective moods and her religious and philosophical speculations were cut. This unabridged edition of her early years on Prince Edward Island, however, reveals a different story. Montgomery was a complex and profound personality. She was often anxious, bitter, and gloomy, although able to see herself and her surroundings from a deeply ironic—and often comical—viewpoint. Her unabridged journals demonstrate her ambition and determination to achieve literary success. They also reveal how she used writing to manage her turbulent moods, and how an increasing dependence on her journal helped shape her emotional landscape. This new edition recreates the format Montgomery herself devised. Some 250 of her photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards, and professional portraits are reproduced, all with Montgomery’s original placement and captions. Michael Bliss’s new preface draws some surprising parallels with other great journal writers of Montgomery’s time, while the editors’ new introduction and notes provide indispensable insights into what the journals reveal, as well as what they hide.

Pornography, prostitution, sexual addictions, gender confusion, rape, incest, adultery, sexual harassment … the list of how sex has been distorted and twisted seems endless. This wonderful gift from God has become a source of profound pain for countless men and women. We believe that this is not just a random cultural phenomenon but is evidence of a vicious spiritual battle.

Democracies, concessions by: Governments must be strong domestically to make concessions to foreigners and their interests.* When nations are internally divided, governments are often too weak to compromise with foreign opponents, even when they judge it in the interest of their state to do so. Democratic systems of government presuppose the primacy of domestic interests and competition among them; thus, democracy entails a certain level of internal division on even the least controversial issues. Not surprisingly, therefore, democracies find it peculiarly difficult to accommodate foreign interests and thus to avoid the slide toward open conflict with foreign states. *See Appeasement Democracies, diplomacy in: "There is a propensity that induces democracies to obey impulse rather than prudence and to abandon a mature design for the gratification of momentary passion." — Alexis de Tocqueville Democracies, unaggressive nature of: The thesis that democracies are inherently unaggressive will not withstand the scrutiny of history. In countries with a free parliament and a free press, legislators and journalists can arouse national passions and make it much more difficult for their government to place other interests ahead of ideological imperatives or to overlook insults to the national honor than is the case in autocratic systems of government. Passion is the most common, and at the same time the most tragic, cause of war; it is also a failing to which democracies are peculiarly susceptible. Democracies, unaggressive nature of: "It is a profound and dangerous illusion to believe that war is always made in the Cabinets of statesmen, and that more and direct popular participation of the crowd in foreign policy will always be a guarantee of peace. Alas! crowds have their own psychology, singularly unforseeable and dangerous, their fits of anger, their caprices, their anxieties, their summary and brutal enquiries." — H. Hauser, 1929, quoted by R. B. Mowat, 1936

medicine has actually played a surprisingly small role in the decline of most infectious diseases across time.

Zakrzewska’s work, ‘Olfaction and Prejudice’, explores how sickness-avoidance behaviours impact society in unexpected ways. She found evidence to show that ‘how easily one gets disgusted by body odours is reliably related to negative attitudes towards others’.23 Zakrzewska found that people who were most predisposed to body-odour disgust were more likely to exhibit explicit prejudice towards a fictitious refugee group, as well as harbour more implicit biases against real-life out-groups.24 These patterns were reliably reproduced in a number of different countries and cultures across the globe. In her thesis, Zakrzewska concedes that prejudice is, of course, not simply a function of our sense of smell, but these findings are an example of how many of our social biases ‘can at least partially be traced back to these primitive disease avoidance functions’. Disgust and avoidance are, respectively, emotions and behaviours adapted to aid our avoidance of pathogens, but they have surprising social consequences. We assume that the social reality we have constructed in the world – philosophy, politics, power – is built by human intellect, reason and will. But we are beginning to find out that it is profoundly influenced by feelings bubbling up from our body’s battle with the microbial world. It is intriguing to think that many of the behaviours that have shaped human history may have actually been the collateral damage of an ancient, ongoing microbial war.

I was less surprised than the others, who had lived in a world where things used to make sense. But I had known only the absurd, and I think that made me profoundly different from them.

The primary reason gut bacteria have such a profound effect on mental health is that they are responsible for making many of the brain chemicals we discussed in the last section. If normal gut bacteria are not present, production of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)—all critically important for the regulation of mood, memory, and attention—is impacted. As we’ll see, many psychiatric disorders are rooted in deficits and imbalances of these chemicals, and many psychiatric drugs are tasked with manipulating their levels. Therefore, if your gut bacteria are intimately involved with producing these vital chemicals, it stands to reason that when your gut bacteria are altered, you risk doing damage to this complex web of body and brain function. That’s a lot of responsibility for a group of microscopic organisms!

But what sometimes gets lost in discussions about mental health is a simple truth: the food you eat can have just as profound an effect on your brain as the drugs you take. How can something as basic and natural as eating be as potent as a drug that cost millions of dollars to develop and test? The first part of the answer lies in bacteria.

The Leaky Bucket Once upon a time, there lived a young Zen monk named Riku in a small monastery at the foot of a majestic mountain. The monastery was renowned for its wisdom and tranquility, drawing people from all over the world in search of enlightenment. One day, while Riku was fetching water from the monastery well, he tripped and fell, spilling the bucket of water. An elderly monk named Sensei witnessed the incident and said to Riku, "Now you must carry a bucket of water from the river back to the monastery to replace what you have wasted." Riku nodded and set off to the river with the empty bucket. When he arrived, he bent down to collect the water, but the bucket had a small hole at the bottom. Riku managed to fill it, but by the time he returned to the monastery, the bucket was nearly empty again. Despite his efforts, Riku couldn't bring enough water back to the monastery. Feeling frustrated, he turned to Sensei. "I tried to bring the water, but the bucket is leaking. I can't fulfill the task." Sensei smiled and said, "Go back to the river and observe the bucket carefully as you fill it with water." Riku followed Sensei's advice and returned to the river. As he filled the bucket, he observed the hole at the bottom. Something surprising happened: he noticed flowers blooming along the path he walked. When he returned to the monastery, Sensei smiled again. "Riku, did you notice the flowers along the way? The hole in the bucket allowed them to grow. Despite its flaw, the bucket brought beauty to the world. Do you understand its secret now?" Thanks to Sensei's teaching, Riku grasped the profound lesson of the leaky bucket. Riku learned to see the positive aspects of seemingly negative situations and find meaning even in imperfections.

I believe that compelling, profound and original plots are more likely to emerge from character than from a bullet-pointed list. And the best way to create characters that are rich and true and full of narrative surprise is to find out how characters operate in real life – and that means turning to science.

The answer lay buried deep in some rather obscure journals. But it was a relatively simple answer: the delta 5 desaturase enzyme is under profound hormonal control. Although EPA could provide some limited control of delta 5 desaturase enzyme activity, consistent control could only be achieved by controlling hormonal balance. And which hormones? Of course: insulin and glucagon. I finally began to understand why women seemed to need a more or less continual readjustment of the EPA to GLA ratio to stay in the Zone. Women tend to eat relatively lower amounts of protein than men, simply because more women are perpetually on low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets—which are also low in protein. As a result of these high-carbohydrate diets, the supplemented GLA was constantly being driven toward arachidonic acid because the activating effect of insulin was overwhelming the inhibitory effect of EPA. So for women the ratio of DGLA to arachidonic acid would initially increase, and then begin to decrease as arachidonic acid built up over time. This was especially true if they were eating a high-carbo-hydrate diet. That's why the women constantly needed less and less GLA and more and more EPA to stay in the Zone. At that point I realized that to get to the Zone on a consistent basis, it was far more important to control the insulin-to-glucagon ratio than it is to supplement the diet with activated essential fatty acids. That's when I shifted gears, and started to put more and more emphasis on the control of the protein-to-carbohydrate ratio as the primary portal to the Zone. With this new emphasis on the macronutrient content of the diet came a surprising discovery, a discovery applicable to both men and women. The closer a person maintained an ideal protein-to-carbohydrate ratio of 0.75, I found, the more there was a significant increase in the activity of the delta 6 desaturase enzyme.

He saw the traces of other scars peeking out from beneath her thick blond hair, probably from other similar accidents. Langdon felt an upwelling of sympathy for her. Epileptic seizures took a brutal toll on one’s physical body. About that there was no debate. Paradoxically, however, the effect on one’s mental state was documented throughout history to be quite different. Precisely the opposite, in fact. Katherine had mentioned epilepsy in her talk last night as one of the human mind’s naturally occurring “altered states” of consciousness. Apparently, when viewed in an MRI machine, seizures displayed a stunning electrical signature that was similar to certain hallucinogens, near-death experiences, and even orgasm. Remarkably, some of humankind’s most creative minds had been epileptic—Vincent van Gogh, Agatha Christie, Socrates, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Russian novelist had once proclaimed his epileptic seizures to be “a happiness and harmony unthinkable in the normal state.” Others described their seizures as “opening a gateway to the divine”…“blissfully freeing the mind from the confines of its physical shell”…and “providing otherworldly bursts of profound creativity.” Epilepsy appeared with notable frequency in Christian artwork, which was not surprising considering so many scriptural accounts of mystical experiences—visions, ecstasies, divine encounters, transcendent revelations—all seemed to describe, with uncanny specificity and accuracy, the experience of an epileptic seizure, including Ezekiel, St. Paul, Joan of Arc, and St. Birgitta. Raphael Sanzio’s famed The Transfiguration depicted an epileptic boy in the throes of a seizure, which he and others commonly used as a visual metaphor for Christ’s ascent to heaven.