“
If relationships were hard, mariage was even harder... it seemed like most couples struggled. It went with the territory. What did Nana always say? Stick two different people with two different sets of expectations under one roof and it ain't always going to be shrimp and grits on Easter.
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (The Lucky One)
“
MAKING THE LIE MAKE SENSE:
When denial (his or ours) can no longer hold and we finally have to admit to ourselves that we’ve been lied to, we search frantically for ways to keep it from disrupting our lives. So we rationalize. We find “good reasons” to justify his lying, just as he almost always accompanies his confessions with “good reasons” for his lies. He tells us he only lied because…. We tell ourselves he only lied because…. We make excuses for him: The lying wasn’t significant/Everybody lies/He’s only human/I have no right to judge him.
Allowing the lies to register in our consciousness means having to make room for any number of frightening possibilities:
• He’s not the man I thought he was.
• The relationship has spun out of control and I don’t know
what to do
• The relationship may be over.
Most women will do almost anything to avoid having to face these truths. Even if we yell and scream at him when we discover that he’s lied to us, once the dust settles, most of us will opt for the comforting territory of rationalization. In fact, many of us are willing to rewire our senses, short-circuit our instincts and intelligence, and accept the seductive comfort of self-delusion.
”
”
Susan Forward (When Your Lover Is a Liar: Healing the Wounds of Deception and Betrayal)
“
We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of our self according to the territory through which we travel.
”
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David Whyte (The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship)
“
Sydney might not be an expert in personal relationships but puzzles were familiar territory.
”
”
Richelle Mead (Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy, #6))
“
Jump, if you want to, ‘cause I’ll catch you, girl. I’ll catch you “fore you fall. Go as far inside as you need to, I’ll hold your ankles. Make sure you get back out. I’m not saying this because I need a place to stay. That’s the last thing I need. I told you, I’m a walking man, but I been heading in this direction for seven years. Walking all around this place. Upstate, downstate, east, west; I been in territory ain’t got no name, never staying nowhere long. But when I got here and sat out there on the porch, waiting for you, well, I knew it wasn’t the place I was heading toward; it was you. We can make a life, girl. A life.
”
”
Toni Morrison (Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1))
“
It takes faith to find personal significance in your relationship with God rather than how much money you earn, how beautiful you look, how many toys you own, how many trophies you collect, or how much territory you conquer and control.
”
”
Charles R. Swindoll
“
The very second he thinks he has to explain himself to you, he’ll feel as though he is losing his freedom. Then he’ll make up a story to conceal something that didn’t need to be concealed, just to protect his “territory” or his “turf.” And he’ll feel cornered.
”
”
Sherry Argov (Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl-A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship)
“
The abuser ends up with the benefits of being in an intimate relationship without the sacrifices that normally come with the territory. That’s a pretty privileged lifestyle.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
most cherished desires of present-day Westerners are shaped by romantic, nationalist, capitalist and humanist myths that have been around for centuries. Friends giving advice often tell each other, ‘Follow your heart.’ But the heart is a double agent that usually takes its instructions from the dominant myths of the day, and the very recommendation to ‘follow your heart’ was implanted in our minds by a combination of nineteenth-century Romantic myths and twentieth-century consumerist myths. The Coca-Cola Company, for example, has marketed Diet Coke around the world under the slogan ‘Diet Coke. Do what feels good.’ Even what people take to be their most personal desires are usually programmed by the imagined order. Let’s consider, for example, the popular desire to take a holiday abroad. There is nothing natural or obvious about this. A chimpanzee alpha male would never think of using his power in order to go on holiday into the territory of a neighbouring chimpanzee band. The elite of ancient Egypt spent their fortunes building pyramids and having their corpses mummified, but none of them thought of going shopping in Babylon or taking a skiing holiday in Phoenicia. People today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism. Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music. One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can ‘experience’ the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about ‘how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life’. Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. If we feel that something is missing or not quite right, then we probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes, organic food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga classes). Every television commercial is another little legend about how consuming some product or service will make life better. 18. The Great Pyramid of Giza. The kind of thing rich people in ancient Egypt did with their money. Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism. Their marriage has given birth to the infinite ‘market of experiences’, on which the modern tourism industry is founded. The tourism industry does not sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a city, nor India a country – they are both experiences, the consumption of which is supposed to widen our horizons, fulfil our human potential, and make us happier. Consequently, when the relationship between a millionaire and his wife is going through a rocky patch, he takes her on an expensive trip to Paris. The trip is not a reflection of some independent desire, but rather of an ardent belief in the myths of romantic consumerism. A wealthy man in ancient Egypt would never have dreamed of solving a relationship crisis by taking his wife on holiday to Babylon. Instead, he might have built for her the sumptuous tomb she had always wanted. Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, shapes and sizes of these pyramids change from one culture to the other. They may take the form, for example, of a suburban cottage with a swimming pool and an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an enviable view. Few question the myths that cause us to desire the pyramid in the first place.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
Most of human behavior and its relationship to DNA is still undiscovered territory. We know what genes make rats afraid of eagles, and we know why birds fly south in the winter, but the complexities of human nature are still a mystery to science.
”
”
Emily Suvada (This Mortal Coil (This Mortal Coil, #1))
“
My only regret is that no one told me at the beginning of my journey what I'm telling you now: there will be an end to your pain. And once you've released all those pent-up emotions, you will experience a lightness and buoyancy you haven't felt since you were a very young child. The past will no longer feel like a lode of radioactive ore contaminating the present, and you will be able to respond appropriately to present-day events. You will feel angry when someone infringes on your territory, but you won't overreact. You will feel sad when something bad happens to you, but you won't sink into despair. You will feel joy when you have a good day, and your happiness won't be clouded with guilt. You, too, will have succeeded in making history, history.
”
”
Patricia Love (The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to do When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life)
“
Wal-Mart’s relationship to place has become so abstracted that the company views even its own stores through the conquistador’s eyeglass. Like temporary forts built solely for purposes of territorial conquest, any one of them can be abandoned at any time.
”
”
Douglas Rushkoff
“
A group therapist created a terrific visual example of what a healthy relationship looks like. She put three pillows on the floor and asked a couple of us to stand on the pillows. She told us to leave the middle pillow open. She pointed at my pillow and said, "Don, that's your pillow, that's your life. The only person who gets to step on that pillow is you. Nobody else. That's your territory, your soul." Then she pointed at my friend's pillow and told her that was her pillow, that she owned it and it was her soul. Then, the therapist said, the middle pillow symbolized the relationship. She said that both of us could step into the middle pillow any time we wanted because we'd agreed to be in a relationship. However, she said, at no point is it appropriate to step on the other person's pillow. What goes on in the other person's soul is none of your business. All you're responsible for is your soul, nobody else's. Regarding the middle pillow, the question to ask is, "What do I want in a relationship?" If the pillow you two step on together works, that's great. If not, move on or simply explain what you'd like life to feel like in the middle pillow and see if the other person wants that kind of relationship too. But never, she said, ever try to change each other. Know who you are and know what you want in a relationship, and give people the freedom to be themselves.
”
”
Donald Miller (Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy)
“
You, too, were supposed to be a one-night stand. A quick fix. A conquest. A ten-line poem in my grand anthology of lovers.
But you altered the narrative, you marked your territory on my timeline o that as I look back, I find I can neatly divide my more recent past into two unequal halves: before you and after.
”
”
Rosalyn D'Mello (A Handbook For My Lover [Hardcover] Rosalyn DMello)
“
So many land mines in this new territory called adulthood. Talent has a window. Freedom sometimes becomes a trap. We may die before we finish our dreams. Acutally, that we die is a pretty big surprise by itself. We can't spend innocence without accounting. Relationships are contracts. We partner not just for love but because we become too weak to make it alone.
”
”
Jardine Libaire (Here Kitty Kitty)
“
Fighting isn’t all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining his spirit than with developing martial skills. He has to learn about all sorts of things—geography, irrigation, the people’s feelings, their manners and customs, their relationship with the lord of their territory. He wants to know what goes on inside the castle, not just what goes on outside it. He wants, essentially, to go everywhere he can and learn everything he can.
”
”
Eiji Yoshikawa (Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era)
“
He, on the other hand, enjoys the luxury of a relationship where he rarely has to compromise, gets to do the things he enjoys, and skips the rest. He shows off his generosity when the stakes are low, so that friends will see what a swell guy he is. The abuser ends up with the benefits of being in an intimate relationship without the sacrifices that normally come with the territory. That’s a pretty privileged lifestyle.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
The anthropoligical theorist Paul Shepard writes, 'Humans intuitivesly see analogies between the concrete world out there and their own inner world. If they conceive the former as a chaos of anarchic forces or as dead and frozen, then so will they perceive their own bodies and society; so will they think and act on that assumption and vindicate their own ideas by altering the world to fit them.' The loss of a relationship to the nonconstructed world is a loss of these metaphors. It is also loss of the large territory of the senses, a vast and irreplaceable loss of pleasure and meaning.
”
”
Rebecca Solnit (Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics)
“
Many people choose solohood due to an ethical or emotional aversion to treating people like territory.
”
”
Amy Gahran (Stepping Off the Relationship Escalator: Uncommon Love and Life)
“
Since the dawn of time, several billion human (or humanlike) beings have lived, each contributing a little genetic variability to the total human stock. Out of this vast number, the whole of our understanding of human prehistory is based on the remains, often exceedingly fragmentary, of perhaps five thousand individuals. You could fit it all into the back of a pickup truck if you didn't mind how much you jumbled everything up, Ian Tattersall, the bearded and friendly curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, replied when I asked him the size of the total world archive of hominid and early human bones.
The shortage wouldn't be so bad if the bones were distributed evenly through time and space, but of course they are not. They appear randomly, often in the most tantalizing fashion. Homo erectus walked the Earth for well over a million years and inhabited territory from the Atlantic edge of Europe to the Pacific side of China, yet if you brought back to life every Homo erectus individual whose existence we can vouch for, they wouldn't fill a school bus. Homo habilis consists of even less: just two partial skeletons and a number of isolated limb bones. Something as short-lived as our own civilization would almost certainly not be known from the fossil record at all.
In Europe, Tattersall offers by way of illustration, you've got hominid skulls in Georgia dated to about 1.7 million years ago, but then you have a gap of almost a million years before the next remains turn up in Spain, right on the other side of the continent, and then you've got another 300,000-year gap before you get a Homo heidelbergensis in Germany and none of them looks terribly much like any of the others. He smiled. It's from these kinds of fragmentary pieces that you're trying to work out the histories of entire species. It's quite a tall order. We really have very little idea of the relationships between many ancient species which led to us and which were evolutionary dead ends. Some probably don't deserve to be regarded as separate species at all.
”
”
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
“
How could he say, look, I've tried not to fancy you since you first took your coat off in this office. I try not to give names to what I feel for you, because I already know it's too much, and I want peace from the shit that love brings in its wake. I want to be alone, and unburdened, and free.
But I don't want you to be with anyone else. I don't want some other bastard to persuade you into a second marriage. I like knowing the possibility's there, for us to, maybe . . .
Except, it'll go wrong, of course, because it always goes wrong, because if I were the type for permanence, I'd already be married. And when it goes wrong, I'll lose you for good, and this thing we've built together, which is literally the only good part of my life, my vocation, my pride, my greatest achievement, will be forever fucked, because I won't find anyone I enjoy running things with, the way I enjoy running them with you, and everything afterward will be tainted by the memory of you.
If only she could come inside his head and see what was there, Strike thought, she'd understand that she occupied a unique place in his thoughts and in his affections. He felt he owed her that information, but was afraid that saying it might move this conversation into territory from which it would be difficult to retreat.
But from second to second, sitting here, now with more than half a bottle of neat whisky inside him, a different spirit seemed to move inside him, asking himself for the first time whether determined solitude was what he really wanted, for evermore.
”
”
Robert Galbraith (Troubled Blood (Cormoran Strike, #5))
“
Relationships abhor a vacuum. Whenever one person refuses to mark and fight for their territory the other person will occupy the treasured ground either by default or by committing an act of aggression.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
The female body has been both territory and machine, virgin wilderness to be exploited and assembly-line turning out life. We need to imagine a world in which every woman is the presiding genius of her own body. In such a world women will truly create new life, bringing forth not only children (if and as we choose) but the visions, and the thinking, necessary to sustain, console, and alter human existence—a new relationship to the universe. Sexuality, politics, intelligence, power, motherhood, work, community, intimacy will develop new meanings; thinking itself will be transformed. This is where we have to begin.
”
”
Adrienne Rich (Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution)
“
Borders are about claims to land, but as soon as you draw one you limit yourself. Every border is also an act of denial, an acknowledgment of another’s rights. By contrast, the claim to want no borders, much prized by corporate executives and anticapitalist activists alike, is a claim to the whole world. Borders have a far more ambivalent and complex relationship to territory; they combine both arrogance and modesty, both demand and denial.
”
”
Alastair Bonnett (Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies)
“
Plus, you don't go to Trader Joe's unless you're in it. It's grocery IKEA. Everybody knows that. You have to be prepared to fight. That's long relationship territory. Like, we're talking picking people up from the airport.
”
”
Mary H.K. Choi (Yolk)
“
Man as an organism is to the world outside like a whirlpool is to a river: man and world are a single natural process, but we are behaving as if we were invaders and plunderers in a foreign territory. For when the individual is defined and felt as the separate personality or ego, he remains unaware that his actual body is a dancing pattern of energy that simply does not happen by itself. It happens only in concert with myriads of other patterns—called animals, plants, insects, bacteria, minerals, liquids, and gases. The definition of a person and the normal feeling of “I” do not effectively include these relationships. You say, “I came into this world.” You didn’t; you came out of it, as a branch from a tree.
”
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Alan W. Watts (Does It Matter? Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality)
“
It is possible to prepare for the future without knowing what it will be. The primary way to prepare for the unknown is to attend to the quality of our relationships, to how well we know and trust one another. Margaret Wheatley, “When Change Is Out of Control
”
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Tod Bolsinger (Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory)
“
The real protagonist of the story, however, is the magic ring, because it is the movements of the ring that determine those of the characters and because it is the ring that establishes the relationships between them. Around the magic object there forms a kind of force field that is in fact the territory of the story itself. We might say that the magic object is an outward and visible sign that reveals the connection between people or between events. . . We might even say that in a narrative any object is always magic.
”
”
Italo Calvino (Six Memos for the Next Millennium)
“
This is the mission we are all called to as believers, the noble task of the church. It’s not enough to be theologically brilliant without the heart of a missionary. It’s sometimes intangible work planted in the messy soil of relationships instead of the cleaner territory of theology.
”
”
Jen Hatmaker (Interrupted: When Jesus Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity)
“
This gentle, intelligent, and seemingly modest man had a lifestyle on the road that was inconsistent with what I believed was our quiet bond. Ultimately it destroyed our relationship, but not the respect I had for him, nor the gratitude I felt for the good he had done, as I stepped into uncharted territory.
”
”
Patti Smith (Just Kids)
“
TO cut through the ambition of ego, we must understand how we set up me and my territory, how we use our projections as credentials to prove our existence. The source of the effort to confirm our solidity is an uncertainty as to whether or not we exist. Driven by this uncertainty, we seek to prove our own existence by finding a reference point outside ourselves, something with which to have a relationship, something solid to feel separate from. But the whole enterprise is questionable if we really look back and back and back. Perhaps we have perpetrated a gigantic hoax? The hoax is the sense of the solidity of I and other.
”
”
Chögyam Trungpa (The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation)
“
What a Lack of Relationship Management Looks Like Dave M., sales manager Relationship management score = 66 What people who work with him say: “If Dave doesn’t see eye-to-eye with someone, he makes it apparent that it’s not worth developing the relationship. I wish that he would still dedicate the time and resources necessary to make a win for the territory.
”
”
Travis Bradberry (Emotional Intelligence 2.0)
“
When we practice walking with awareness, our solid peaceful steps cultivate the energy of mindfulness and bring us back to the present moment. When we sit and follow our breathing, aware of our in-breath and out-breath, we are cultivating the energy of mindfulness. When we have a meal in mindfulness, we invest all our being in the present moment and are aware of our food and of those who are eating with us. We can cultivate the energy of mindfulness, whatever we are doing—when we are working, or cleaning up, and even when we are being intimate with our loved one. Just a few days practicing like this can increase our energy of mindfulness, and that energy will help us, protect us, and give us courage to go back to ourselves, to see and embrace what is there in our territory.
”
”
Thich Nhat Hanh (Fidelity: How to Create a Loving Relationship That Lasts)
“
Many marriages end up failing because the people that start into them over time become different people. What love had found as common ground, time separates into distinct territories. It’s inevitable. As intelligent beings we grow by changing. No one stays the same. The person you fall in love with will always be someone different ten years down the pike. The same was true for friendships. Even curious friendships like ours.
”
”
Dan Skinner (The Price of Dick)
“
Harry has kissed Craig so many times, but this is different from all of the kisses that have come before. At first there were the excited dating kisses, the kisses used to punctuate their liking of each other, the kisses that were both proof and engine of their desire. Then the more serious kisses, the it’s-getting-serious kisses, followed by the relationship kisses—that variety pack, sometimes intense, sometimes resigned, sometimes playful, sometimes confused. Kisses that led to making out and kisses that led to saying goodbye. Kisses to mark territory, kisses meant only for private, kisses that lasted hours and kisses that were gone before they’d arrived. Kisses that said, I know you. Kisses that pleaded, Come back to me. Kisses that knew they weren’t working. Or at least Harry’s kisses knew they weren’t working. Craig’s kisses still believed. So the kissing had to stop.
”
”
David Levithan (Two Boys Kissing)
“
People who think that queer life consists of sex without intimacy are usually seeing only a tiny part of the picture, and seeing it through homophobic stereotype. The most fleeting sexual encounter is, in its way intimate. And in the way many gay men and lesbians live, quite casual sexual relations can develop into powerful and enduring friendships. Friendships, in turn, can cross into sexual relations and back. Because gay social life is not as ritualized and institutionalized as straight life, each relation is an adventure in nearly un-charted territory—whether it is between two gay men, or two lesbians, or a gay man and a lesbian, or among three or more queers, or between gay men and the straight women whose commitment to queer culture brings them the punishment of the "fag hag" label. There are almost as many kinds of relationship as there are people in combination. Where there are -patterns, we learn them from other queers, not from our-parents or schools or the state. Between tricks and lovers and exes and friends and fuckbuddies and bar friends and bar friends' tricks and tricks' bar friends and gal pals and companions "in the life," queers have an astonishing range of intimacies. Most have no labels. Most receive no public recognition. Many of these relations are difficult because the rules have to be invented as we go along. Often desire and unease add to their intensity, and their unpredictability. They can be complex and bewildering, in a way that arouses fear among many gay people, and tremendous resistance and resentment from many straight people. Who among us would give them up?
Try standing at a party of queer friends and charting all the histories, sexual and nonsexual, among the people in the room. (In some circles this is a common party sport already.) You will realize that only a fine and rapidly shifting line separates sexual culture from many other relations of durability and care. The impoverished vocabulary of straight culture tells us that people should be either husbands and wives or (nonsexual) friends. Marriage marks that line. It is not the way many queers live. If there is such a thing as a gay way of life, it consists in these relations, a welter of intimacies outside the framework of professions and institutions and ordinary social obligations. Straight culture has much to learn from it, and in many ways has already begun to learn from it. Queers should be insisting on teaching these lessons. Instead, the marriage issue, as currently framed, seems to be a way of denying recognition to these relations, of streamlining queer relations into the much less troubling division of couples from friends.
”
”
Michael Warner (The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life)
“
Hospitality was not a voluntary action that a person extended to friends and colleagues. It was a society-wide obligation that every household was duty bound to extend to strangers, foreigners, travelers, and sojourners. Because the societal weave was based on familial relationships, the societal welfare demanded that households offer temporary shelter and food to anyone who was brought by life circumstance into a household's territory at the end of a day.
”
”
Ralf A. Jacobson / Michael J. Chan
“
Oh!” she said, glancing out the side of her eye to where Jensen stared at me. “We tend to be more…open in our relationships. You should probably be ready to bathe him in piss if you want the other girls to know they aren’t able to take him for a ride,” she said, a teasing lilt coming into her voice. I didn’t have any desire to mark my territory. Okay, I did, but I didn’t want to have to. Any man who couldn’t be trusted to label himself as off-limits wasn’t worth my energy.
”
”
Harper L. Woods (What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1))
“
Our mornings were never "rise and shine." They were "rise and fight." They were loud and ravaging. They were heavy and unnerving, like the after-math of a war, with unresolved territorial disputes.
They were never serene, but they were beautiful. More beautiful than the smile you wear when you step out of the shower, more tempting than the sight of you brewing coffee from across the kitchen bar, more promising than a glorious victory, bigger than all our tumultuous past. Bigger than you. Bigger than I.
”
”
Malak El Halabi
“
Maryan put a hand over her face. "Oh no. You pretended to be captured by bandits so that I'd come and meet Prince Hugo, didn't you?"
"Isn't he the sweetest thing?" said her mother. "And so fashionable."
"He's got like a million followers," said her father. "I'm not sure what that means, but many of my peers are impressed. And he's in line to inherit all the southern territories."
Maryan glared at them. "Mom, Dad, you need to stop sending suitors after me. They keep getting eaten by servants of the underworld."
Her father spread his hands. "A relationship requires work and sacrifice, Maryan.
”
”
Alexander Thomas (Princess of Prophecy (Servants of the Lady))
“
For instance, when reading a book, if one brings one’s face too close to it, one cannot see anything. In the same way, forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance. When the distance gets too small and people become stuck together, it becomes impossible to even speak to each other. But the distance must not be too great, either. Parents who scold their children too much become mentally very distant. When this happens, the child can no longer even consult the parents, and the parents can no longer give the proper assistance. One should be ready to lend a hand when needed but not encroach on the person’s territory. It is important to maintain this kind of moderate distance.
”
”
Ichiro Kishimi (The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness)
“
As Dr. Gunnar Biörck, an eminent Swedish professor of medicine and head of the department Of medicine at a major Swedish hospital, has written: The setting in which medicine has been practiced during thousands of years has been one in which the patient has been the client and employer of the physician. Today the State, in one manifestation or the other, claims to be the employer and, thus, the one to prescribe the conditions under which the physician has to carry out his work. These conditions may not—and will eventually not—be restricted to working hours, salaries and certified drugs; they may invade the whole territory of the patient-physician relationship.... If the battle of today is not fought and not won, there will be no battle to fight tomorrow.20
”
”
Milton Friedman (Free to Choose: A Personal Statement)
“
At first there were the excited dating kisses, the kisses used to punctuate their liking of each other, the kisses that were both proof and engine of their desire. Then the more serious kisses, the it’s-getting-serious kisses, followed by the relationship kisses—that variety pack, sometimes intense, sometimes resigned, sometimes playful, sometimes confused. Kisses that led to making out and kisses that led to saying goodbye. Kisses to mark territory, kisses meant only for private, kisses that lasted hours and kisses that were gone before they’d arrived. Kisses that said, I know you. Kisses that pleaded, Come back to me. Kisses that knew they weren’t working. Or at least Harry’s kisses knew they weren’t working. Craig’s kisses still believed. So the kissing had to stop. Harry had to tell Craig. And it was bad, but not as bad as he feared.
”
”
David Levithan (Two Boys Kissing)
“
And yes, many of us became fathers to fully understand what it means to be a father.
Albert Einstein once said: "Every man is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will spend the rest of its life believing that its stupid."
To the men who never let other people’s metrics of success become the yardstick with which they measure theirs. It is no coincidence that we are diagrammatically represented by a circle with an arrow on the edge that points out.
To all of us who may not always be "there" so that we can always "be there",
To every hunter, every fighter, every missionary,
To every planter and tiller of a garden of eden,
To every warrior, conqueror of territories, every man always going out so he can bring something home.
To every provider and protector of his family.
Every defender of his domain and representative of God in the lives of his dependants.
To every man that choose character over caliber,
Every Major General, Lord of the Rings,
Lion of the Tribe of his house.
To every correcter with a shout,
Every tough and tender 9-ribbed carrier of his cross.
For every skill, strength, qualification and effort that we put into building meaningful relationships with our women, bonds with our children, and shield through tough times.
For every ‘crave’ for success without substituting values.
For the unconditional love, unflinching sacrifice, and diehard determination to go places our parents never imagined for themselves.
To those who happily lead, as though money, fame and power didn’t exist.
To those who stand tall and sit straight,
Who understand that it doesn't take a 6-figure to be a Father figure.
Happy Father's Day to every man who understands the responsibility and deserves the title.
*Happy Father's Day to You and Me.*
”
”
Olaotan Fawehinmi (The Soldier Within)
“
You should give him a picture of you to keep him company, if you know what I mean.” She frowns at me. “Do you know what I mean?”
“Like, a sexy picture? No way!” I start backing away from her. “Look, I’ve gotta go to class.” The last thing I want to do is think about Peter and random girls. I’m still trying to get used to the idea that we won’t be together at UVA this fall.
Chris rolls her eyes. “Calm down. I’m not talking about a nudie. I would never suggest that for you of all people. What I’m talking about is a pinup-girl shot, but not, like, cheesy. Sexy. Something Kavinsky can hang up in his dorm room.”
“Why would I want him to hang up a sexy picture of me in his dorm room for all the world to see?”
Chris reaches out and flicks me on the forehead.
“Ow!” I shove her away from me and rub the spot where she flicked me. “That hurt!”
“You deserved it for asking such a dumb question.” She sighs. “I’m talking about preventative measures. A picture of you on his wall is a way for you to mark your territory. Kavinsky’s hot. And he’s an athlete. Do you think other girls will respect the fact that he’s in a long-distance relationship?” She lowers her voice and adds, “With a Virgin Mary girlfriend?”
I gasp and then look around to see if anyone heard. “Chris!” I hiss. “Can you please not?”
“I’m just trying to help you! You have to protect what’s yours, Lara Jean. If I met some hot guy in Costa Rica with a long-distance gf who he wasn’t even sleeping with? I don’t think I’d take it very seriously.” She gives me a shrug and a sorry-not-sorry look. “You should definitely frame the picture too, so people know you’re not someone to mess with. A frame says permanence. A picture taped on a wall says here today, gone tomorrow.”
I chew on my bottom lip thoughtfully. “So maybe a picture of me baking, in an apron--”
“With nothing underneath?” Chris cackles, and I flick her forehead lightning quick.
“Ow!”
“Get serious then!
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))
“
For realists, the state is the main actor and sovereignty is its distinguishing trait. The meaning of the sovereign state is inextricably bound up with the use of force. In terms of its internal dimension, to illustrate this relationship between violence and the state we need to look no further than Max Weber’s famous definition of the state as ‘the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory’(M. J. Smith 1986: 23).3 Within this territorial space, sovereignty means that the state has supreme authority to make and enforce laws. This is the basis of the unwritten contract between individuals and the state. According to Hobbes, for example, we trade our liberty in return for a guarantee of security. Once security has been established, civil society can begin. But in the absence of security, there can be no art, no culture, no society. The first move, then, for the realist is to organize power domestically. Only after power has been organized, can community begin.
”
”
John Baylis (The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations)
“
Some addictions are clear. The homeless woman with the fresh track marks over years of scars. The man who loses his home and car to gambling debts and now is hiding from dangerous creditors. Some addictions are softer, easier to engage in and still get up and function every day. Those of us who take out a bag of chips or tray of muffins after a tough day. Or go shoe shopping for our 8th pair of black sandals that we are never going to wear. There are addictions that excuse us from society altogether, those that keep us barely afloat within it, and those that become a barrier between us and the rest of the world. It’s only a matter of degree, in the end. How do we define when we cross over into addiction territory? As a relationally-trained therapist, my answer is a simple one. When our addiction becomes our primary relationship. Maybe not in our hearts and heads. But in our behaviors, definitely. When we don’t have control over our addictions, we are spending time, resources, and energy on the addiction instead of the people we love. And instead of, let’s face it…ourselves.
”
”
Faith G. Harper (Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers)
“
Timothy Leary was not so wide of the mark when he said that we must go out of our minds (abstract values) to come to our senses (concrete values). For coming to our senses must, above all, be the experience of our own existence as living organisms rather than “personalities,” like characters in a play or a novel acting out some artificial plot in which the persons are simply masks for a conflict of abstract ideas or principles. Man as an organism is to the world outside like a whirlpool is to a river: man and world are a single natural process, but we are behaving as if we were invaders and plunderers in a foreign territory. For when the individual is defined and felt as the separate personality or ego, he remains unaware that his actual body is a dancing pattern of energy that simply does not happen by itself. It happens only in concert with myriads of other patterns—called animals, plants, insects, bacteria, minerals, liquids, and gases. The definition of a person and the normal feeling of “I” do not effectively include these relationships. You say, “I came into this world.” You didn’t; you came out of it, as a branch from a tree. So
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Alan W. Watts (Does It Matter? Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality)
“
Cornwell’s painting is set at Fort Crawford, in Michigan Territory, during St. Martin’s second stint in Beaumont’s employ, around 1830. At this stage in his digestive explorations, Beaumont had been trying to determine whether the gastric juice would work outside of the stomach, removed from the body’s “vital force.” (It does.) He filled vial after vial with St. Martin’s secretions and dropped in all manner of foods. The cabin became a kind of gastric-juice dairy. Beaumont, in the painting, holds one end of a length of gum elastic tubing in St. Martin’s stomach; the other end drips into a bottle in Beaumont’s lap. I spent a good deal of time staring at this painting, trying to parse the relationship between the two. The gulf between their stations is clear. St. Martin wears dungarees worn through at the knees. Beaumont appears in full military dress—brass-buttoned jacket with gold epaulettes, piping-trimmed breeches tucked into knee-high leather boots. “True,” Cornwell seems to be saying, “it’s an unsavory situation for our man St. Martin, but look, just look, at the splendorous man he has the honor of serving.” (Presumably Cornwell took some liberties with the costuming in order to glorify his subject. Anyone who works with hydrochloric acid knows you don’t wear your dress clothes in the lab.)
”
”
Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
“
Even worse, traditional grading that penalizes students for mistakes often isn’t just limited to a student’s academic work. Teachers often assign grades based on mistakes in students’ behaviors as well: downgrading a score if an assignment is late, subtracting points from a daily participation grade if a student is tardy to class, or lowering a group’s grade if the group becomes too noisy while they work. In this environment, every mistake is penalized and incorporated into the final grade. Even if just a few points are docked for forgetting to bring a notebook to class or losing a few points for not heading a paper correctly, the message is clear: All mistakes result in penalties. While some might argue that this is simply accountability—“I asked the students to do something, so it has to count”—it’s missing the forest for the trees. The more assignments and behaviors a teacher grades, the less willing a student will be to reveal her weaknesses and vulnerability. With no zones of learning that are “grade free,” it becomes nearly impossible to build an effective teacher–student relationship and positive learning environment in which students try new things, venture into unfamiliar learning territory, or feel comfortable making errors, and grow. When everything a student does is graded, and every mistake counts against her grade, that student can perceive that to receive a good grade she has to be perfect all of the time. Students don’t feel trust in their teachers, only the pressure to conceal weaknesses and avoid errors.
”
”
Joe Feldman (Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms)
“
How this complicated mosaic of [citizenship] statuses [among those who came under Roman control] had originated is again hard to know. Roman writers of the first century BCE, followed by modern legal scholars, tended to treat them as part of a highly technical, carefully calibrated system of civic rights and responsibilities. But that is almost certainly the product of later legal rationalisation. It is inconceivable that the men of the fourth century BCE sat down to debate the precise implications of civitas sine suffragio or the exact privileges that went with belonging to a 'Latin' colony. Much more likely, they were improvising their new relationships with different peoples in the outside world by using, and adjusting, their existing, rudimentary categories of citizenship and ethnicity.
The implications, however, were again revolutionary. In extending citizenship to people who had no direct territorial connections with the city of Rome, they broke the link, which most people in the classical world took for granted, between citizenship and a single city. In a systematic way that was then unparalleled, they made it possible not just to become Roman but also to be a citizen of two places at once: one's home town and Rome. And in creating new Latin colonies all over Italy, they redefined the word 'Latin' so that it was no longer an ethnic identity but a political status unrelated to race or geography. This set the stage for a model of citizenship and 'belonging' that had enormous significance for Roman ideas of government, political rights, ethnicity and 'nationhood'. This model was shortly extended overseas and eventually underpinned the Roman Empire.
”
”
Mary Beard (SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome)
“
Anxious: You love to be very close to your romantic partners and have the capacity for great intimacy. You often fear, however, that your partner does not wish to be as close as you would like him/her to be. Relationships tend to consume a large part of your emotional energy. You tend to be very sensitive to small fluctuations in your partner’s moods and actions, and although your senses are often accurate, you take your partner’s behaviors too personally. You experience a lot of negative emotions within the relationship and get easily upset. As a result, you tend to act out and say things you later regret. If the other person provides a lot of security and reassurance, however, you are able to shed much of your preoccupation and feel contented. Secure: Being warm and loving in a relationship comes naturally to you. You enjoy being intimate without becoming overly worried about your relationships. You take things in stride when it comes to romance and don’t get easily upset over relationship matters. You effectively communicate your needs and feelings to your partner and are strong at reading your partner’s emotional cues and responding to them. You share your successes and problems with your mate, and are able to be there for him or her in times of need. Avoidant: It is very important for you to maintain your independence and self-sufficiency and you often prefer autonomy to intimate relationships. Even though you do want to be close to others, you feel uncomfortable with too much closeness and tend to keep your partner at arm’s length. You don’t spend much time worrying about your romantic relationships or about being rejected. You tend not to open up to your partners and they often complain that you are emotionally distant. In relationships, you are often on high alert for any signs of control or impingement on your territory by your partner.
”
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Amir Levine (Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love)
“
Let’s say a man really loves a woman; he sees her as his equal, his ally, his colleague; but she enters this other realm and becomes unfathomable. In the krypton spotlight, which he doesn’t even see, she falls ill, out of his caste, and turns into an untouchable. He may know her as confident; she stands on the bathroom scale and sinks into a keening of self-abuse. He knows her as mature; she comes home with a failed haircut, weeping from a vexation she is ashamed even to express. He knows her as prudent; she goes without winter boots because she spent half a week’s paycheck on artfully packaged mineral oil. He knows her as sharing his love of the country; she refuses to go with him to the seaside until her springtime fast is ended. She’s convivial; but she rudely refuses a slice of birthday cake, only to devour the ruins of anything at all in a frigid light at dawn. Nothing he can say about this is right. He can’t speak. Whatever he says hurts her more. If he comforts her by calling the issue trivial, he doesn’t understand. It isn’t trivial at all. If he agrees with her that it’s serious, even worse: He can’t possibly love her, he thinks she’s fat and ugly. If he says he loves her just as she is, worse still: He doesn’t think she’s beautiful. If he lets her know that he loves her because she’s beautiful, worst of all, though she can’t talk about this to anyone. That is supposed to be what she wants most in the world, but it makes her feel bereft, unloved, and alone. He is witnessing something he cannot possibly understand. The mysteriousness of her behavior keeps safe in his view of his lover a zone of incomprehension. It protects a no-man’s-land, an uninhabitable territory between the sexes, wherever a man and a woman might dare to call a ceasefire. Maybe he throws up his hands. Maybe he grows irritable or condescending. Unless he enjoys the power over her this gives him, he probably gets very bored. So would the woman if the man she loved were trapped inside something so pointless, where nothing she might say could reach him. Even where a woman and a man have managed to build and inhabit that sand castle—an equal relationship—this is the unlistening tide; it ensures that there will remain a tag on the woman that marks her as the same old something else, half child, half savage.
”
”
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)
“
FACT 4 – There is more to the creation of the Manson Family and their direction than has yet been exposed. There is more to the making of the movie Gimme Shelter than has been explained. This saga has interlocking links to all the beautiful people Robert Hall knew. The Manson Family and the Hell’s Angels were instruments to turn on enemy forces. They attacked and discredited politically active American youth who had dropped out of the establishment. The violence came down from neo-Nazis, adorned with Swastikas both in L.A. and in the Bay Area at Altamont. The blame was placed on persons not even associated with the violence. When it was all over, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the icing on this cake, famed musicians associated with a racist, neo-Nazi murder. By rearranging the facts, cutting here and there, distorting evidence, neighbors and family feared their own youth. Charles Manson made the cover of Life with those wide eyes, like Rasputin. Charles Watson didn’t make the cover. Why not? He participated in all the killings. Manson wasn’t inside the house. Manson played a guitar and made records. Watson didn’t. He was too busy taking care of matters at the lawyer’s office prior to the killings, or with officials of Young Republicans. Who were Watson’s sponsors in Texas, where he remained until his trial, separate from the Manson Family’s to psychologically distance him from the linking of Watson to the murders he actually committed. “Pigs” was scrawled in Sharon Tate’s house in blood. Was this to make blacks the suspects? Credit cards of the La Bianca family were dropped intentionally in the ghetto after the massacre. The purpose was to stir racial fears and hatred. Who wrote the article, “Did Hate Kill Tate?”—blaming Black Panthers for the murders? Lee Harvey Oswald was passed off as a Marxist. Another deception. A pair of glasses was left on the floor of Sharon Tate’s home the day of the murder. They were never identified. Who moved the bodies after the killers left, before the police arrived? The Spahn ranch wasn’t a hippie commune. It bordered the Krupp ranch, and has been incorporated into a German Bavarian beer garden. Howard Hughes knew George Spahn. He visited this ranch daily while filming The Outlaw. Howard Hughes bought the 516 acres of Krupp property in Nevada after he moved into that territory. What about Altamont? What distortions and untruths are displayed in that movie? Why did Mick Jagger insist, “the concert must go on?” There was a demand that filmmakers be allowed to catch this concert. It couldn’t have happened the same in any other state. The Hell’s Angels had a long working relationship with law enforcement, particularly in the Oakland area. They were considered heroes by the San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers when they physically assaulted the dirty anti-war hippies protesting the shipment of arms to Vietnam. The laboratory for choice LSD, the kind sent to England for the Stones, came from the Bay Area and would be consumed readily by this crowd. Attendees of the concert said there was “a compulsiveness to the event.” It had to take place. Melvin Belli, Jack Ruby’s lawyer, made the legal arrangements. Ruby had complained that Belli prohibited him from telling the full story of Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder (another media event). There were many layers of cover-up, and many names have reappeared in subsequent scripts. Sen. Philip Hart, a member of the committee investigating illegal intelligence operations inside the US, confessed that his own children told him these things were happening. He had refused to believe them. On November 18, 1975, Sen. Hart realized matters were not only out of hand, but crimes of the past had to be exposed to prevent future outrages. How shall we ensure that it will never happen again? It will happen repeatedly unless we can bring ourselves to understand and accept that it did go on.
”
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Mae Brussell (The Essential Mae Brussell: Investigations of Fascism in America)
“
Sabotage is not merely something to be avoided or wished away; instead, it comes with the territory of leading, whether the “territory” is a family or an organization. And a leader’s capacity to recognize sabotage for what it is—that is, a systemic phenomenon connected to the shifting balances in the emotional processes of a relationship system and not to the institution’s specific issues, makeup, or goals—is the key to the kingdom.
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
Best of luck building good boundaries. This process requires continued attention and maintenance. Someday, perhaps, most of us will understand boundaries and be sensitive to interactions that cross boundaries. But until that happy time, even well-meaning people will continue to intrude on personal territory. Good boundaries enable us to define ourselves. They enhance our physical and emotional health and promote recovery. Good boundaries yield healthy relationships. True intimacy is possible only between two whole, distinct people who both have good boundaries. Enmeshment feels like intimacy but it’s not. How can you be intimate with someone who blends into you? Intimacy grows as you become known by the other and as you know the other. If the other person’s individuality shifts and fades, how can you know this person? If your sense of yourself is wobbly, how can you be known?
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Anne Katherine (Boundaries Where You End And I Begin: How To Recognize And Set Healthy Boundaries)
“
I’m not expecting that you already know how to do this, and even as you learn, I am not expecting you’ll get it right. Given where our relationship is that, what your government has decided not to teach you about it-and has not expected from you within it-your total lack of understanding of our law is the very thing to be expected. I want you to want to learn, to care passionately, and to risk the vulnerability necessary in trying your hardest. I want you to persist even though some of us will judge and sneer, because after 150 years, you’ve accepted responsibility for understanding where the hurt that causes such behaviors comes from, and you account for that knowledge as you endure these negative experiences. I want you to pursue an understanding of the law of the indigenous peoples whose territory you now call home as if not only your legitimacy but also your life depended on it, because for many indigenous persons, it does.
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Kiera L. Ladner (Surviving Canada: Indigenous Peoples Celebrate 150 Years of Betrayal)
“
Dating Sekhmet is like trying to romance an inferno, to clasp a creature of ancient aggression so close you either smothered its flames of carnage or were consumed by them. Either way, it's all or nothing, a conflict at turns brutal and brilliant, subtle and shocking. As real as any war, theirs is a relationship with its own particular feints, charges, tactics, and stratagems, each deployed in the hope of winning another inch of territory in the other's heart.
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Matthew Laurence (Slay (Freya, #2))
“
We were in the Crocodile Environmental Park at the zoo when Steve first told me the story of Acco’s capture. I just had to revisit him after hearing his story. There he was, the black ghost himself, magnificently sunning on the bank of his billabong.
Standing there next to this impressive animal, I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that people had wanted him dead. His huge, intimidating teeth made him look primeval, and his osteodermal plates gleamed black in the sun--a dinosaur, living here among us. I felt so emotional, contemplating the fear-based cruelty that prompted humans to hate these animals.
For his part, Acco still remembered his capture, even though it had happened nearly a decade before. Whenever Steve went into his enclosure, Acco would stalk him and strike, exploding out of the water with the intent to catch Steve unaware.
Despite the conflict in Steve’s soul over whether he had done the right thing, I decided that Acco’s capture had to be. In the zoo, Acco had his own territory to patrol and a beautiful female crocodile, Connie, who loved him dearly. Left in the wild, somebody would have eventually shot him. If the choice is between a bullet and living in the Crocodile Environmental Park, I think his new territory was much more preferable.
When I met Steve in 1991, he had just emerged from a solid decade in the bush, either with Bob or on his own, with just his dog Chilli, and later Sui. Those years had been like a test of fire. As a boy all Steve wanted to do was to be like his dad. At twenty-nine he’d become like Bob and then some.
He had done so much more than catch crocs. In the western deserts, he and Bob helped researchers from the Queensland Museum understand the intricacies of fierce snake behavior. Steve also embarked on a behavioral study of a rare and little-understood type of arboreal lizard, the canopy goanna, scrambling up into trees in the rain forests of Cape York Peninsula in pursuit of herpetological knowledge.
As much as Steve had become a natural for television, over the course of the 1980s he had become a serious naturalist as well. His hands-on experience, gleaned from years in the bush, meshed well with the more abstract knowledge of the academics. No one had ever accomplished what he had, tracking and trapping crocodiles for months at a time on his own.
He would hand Bindi and Robert his knowledge of nature and the bush, just as Bob and Lyn had handed it down to him. This is what few people understood about Steve--his relationship with his family, and the tradition of passion and commitment and understanding that passed from generation to generation.
Later on, that Irwin family tradition would bring Steve untold grief, when outsiders misjudged his effort to educate his children and crucified him for it.
”
”
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
“
By the beginning of 1946, there were plenty of indications that Stalin was not going to cooperate with the Anglo-Americans, however, and not just with regard to Germany. Russia was refusing, for instance, to carry out its part of the post-war agreement when it came to Iran. The country had been occupied by British, American and Russian troops during the war years, with an agreement that all would withdraw as soon as peace came. The British and American forces duly complied within the time agreed, but the Soviets did not, and, moreover, showed signs of trying to expand their area of occupation. Two ethnically based ‘soviet republics’ were set up by Soviet agents on Iranian territory during early 1946. These were liquidated by the Iranian army, with American encouragement, and their leaders either executed or put to flight, but the crisis atmosphere lingered on for months before Stalin quietly withdrew. The Iran crisis was a key factor in the deteriorating relationship between the Anglo-American axis and its former Soviet allies. While it was still simmering, President Truman reinforced his case by sending the US battleship Missouri to the Mediterranean. The Missouri came to form the core of the Sixth Fleet, which is still there.2 At
”
”
Frederick Taylor (Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany)
“
It was then, after my presentations to thirty-two generals, that I first began to see how similar the approach to leadership problems was throughout our civilization. After two days of presentations, a three-star general, the commander of an entire Army corps—two panzer divisions—stood up and said to me, “You know, one of our problems is that the sergeant-majors coddle the new recruits, and we keep telling them that such helpfulness will not make them very good soldiers in the field.” And then he turned to his fellow officers and said, “But from what Ed has been saying here the past two days, we’re not going to have any more luck changing the sergeant-majors than they are having trying to change the new recruits.” Now this man had three stars on his shoulder; how much more authority would you want? He commanded more weapons of destruction than exploded in all of World War II; how much more power do you need? Yet neither his authority nor his power were enough to ensure a “command presence.” And I began to think about similar frustrations reported to me by imaginative psychiatrists who were frustrated by head nurses, creative clergy who were stymied by church treasurers, aggressive CEOs who were hindered by division chiefs, mothers who wished to take more responsible stands with their children but who were blindsided by their chronically passive husbands, not to mention my experience of watching nine eager Presidents sabotaged by a chronically recalcitrant Congress. Eventually I came to see that this “resistance,” as it is usually called, is more than a reaction to novelty; it is part and parcel of the systemic process of leadership. Sabotage is not merely something to be avoided or wished away; instead, it comes with the territory of leading, whether the “territory” is a family or an organization. And a leader’s capacity to recognize sabotage for what it is—that is, a systemic phenomenon connected to the shifting balances in the emotional processes of a relationship system and not to the institution’s specific issues, makeup, or goals—is the key to the kingdom. My
”
”
Edwin H. Friedman (A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)
“
Love Hurts. I daresay there’s two or three poems, six novels and at least twelve songs on the subject. That’s how the Janus-faced beast of poetry gets written in the first place, in all its myriad of magical forms. So; why cover this hitherto uncharted and highly original territory? Why leap fearlessly into the unknown, nostrils flared, eyes flashing fire? Well, in the name of love, lust and limerence, why on earth not? Suffering is gratuitous and pointless, yet also vital, valuable and necessary. My last tête à tête gave me plenty, incorporating elements of the forbidden, of rebellion, pornography, pregnancy, parental approval – followed by fury – of infidelity, friend estrangement, life on one island that was heavenly and a second that veered between purgatorial and infernal, of violence, miscarriage, masturbating Indians, pepper spray, antipathy, disloyalty, evictions, a planned future, failed globetrotting and **** ***, whilst being indicative of a wider, all-encompassing social corrosion, and while the story itself may remain merely hinted at or alluded to in the course of this generalised polemic, it’s as worthy or valid as any other such tale told round the campfire and whispered across the beaches of the world...
”
”
Daniel S. Fletcher
“
Use of cat pheromone products both at home and in clinic situations ease stress in the cat's territory and/or relationships.
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”
Amy Shojai (Complete Kitten Care)
“
Vietnam is an irritation for China. For
centuries the two have squabbled over territory, and unfortunately
for both this is the one area to the south which has a border an
army can get across without too much trouble – which partially
explains the 1,000-year domination and occupation of Vietnam by
China from 111 BCE to 938 CE and their brief cross-border war of
1979. However, as China’s military prowess grows, Vietnam will be
less inclined to get drawn into a shooting match and will either cosy
up even closer to the Americans for protection or quietly begin
shifting diplomatically to become friends with Beijing. That both
countries are nominally ideologically Communist has little to do
with the state of their relationship: it is their shared geography that
has dened relations. Viewed from Beijing, Vietnam is only a minor
threat and a problem that can be managed
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”
Tim Marshall (Prisoners of Geography)
“
A frequent power problem in all male groups is that the pre-occupation with dominance often impedes collaboration. Each member may feel that others have no right to interfere in their territory, so everyone limits conflict by operating autonomously.
If you never collaborate, then you automatically avoid situations where you might have to give up some of your power.
In all female groups, problems are more likely to result from entanglement in relationship issues. Who's friendly or unfriendly, who's gossipping too much, who's getting more attention, who's being too critical and so on. These matters are often put aside when someone has a personal problem.
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Marie G. McIntyre (Secrets to Winning at Office Politics)
“
For the entire four years we were there, we were fighting a battle with the locals encroaching on our project’s territory. They were constantly poaching fish, using whatever means they could—spears, cyanide—they even killed some of the cuttlefish we were studying. I hated it. Hated them. They were destroying everything we had built up, threatening our experiments, and my animals. “So what did I do about it? Did I try to understand what their needs were? Why they were doing what they were doing? Did I establish a relationship with the village elders? Did I reason with them? Did I try to work for a compromise? Did I reach out to anyone from my team for advice? No. None of those things. I was arrogant. I knew right from wrong: what I was doing was right, and what they were doing was wrong. So I set up camera traps, filmed them poaching, collected my evidence, and turned it over to the authorities.” “It’s what anyone would have done.” “No, Kamran. It’s what I did. Many people would have gone another way. Many people would have had different strategies. I had them all arrested. Dragged off to be beaten, tortured.” “It isn’t you who is guilty of those things—the beatings and the torture. It is the authorities.” “No, it is me. I am the one who had them hauled off by authorities I knew would abuse them.
”
”
Ray Nayler (The Mountain in the Sea)
“
Kingdom of Rogdon in the Nocean Empire, and no doubt you must be Mirkos, the great Battle Mage of the King.” He came up to Mirkos and made an extremely elaborate bow. Mirkos returned the greeting with a mere nod. He had immediately recognized the slippery Rogdonian spy who carried out all manner of subterfuges in Nocean territory under the cover of Royal Emissary. “Since the two attacks upon such notable persons of the Kingdom, relationships with the Nocean Empire have turned critical. At all times they have denied being involved in the murder attempts. Mulko, Regent of the North, has personally assured me they had nothing to do with the attacks. But after the second attack, the one directed against you personally, Mulko himself threw me out of Nocean lands and closed the border. Which is something truly suspicious, if the Noceans are as innocent as they claim to be. Even in such serious and suspicious circumstances as these, I’ve kept in contact with Zecly, his personal counselor and powerful Sorcerer, who I warrant is known to you all.” Mirkos nodded. Fame, and not exactly the desirable kind, went before the great Nocean Sorcerer. “But at all times he has denied any involvement in both attempts. A few days ago the messages stopped, unilaterally. And the army set off. I suspect it’s under direct orders of the Nocean Emperor: Malota the Ruthless, a man of insatiable ambition and widely-known perversion. His atrocities and genocides are infamous. He controls the southern Empire with an iron hand, crushing the slightest opposition to his tyranny, supported by dark Sorcerers and witch-men. He’s always had his sights on the northern kingdoms, but he hasn’t had the chance, that is until now…
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Pedro Urvi (Conflict (The Ilenian Enigma #2))
“
Five years ago, on August 5, 2019, the status of our state Jammu and Kashmir was unconstitutionally abolished and it was divided into two union territories.
Article 370 of the Constitution of India, under which the relationship of the state with India was linked under certain conditions until the final resolution of the issue, which was considered by the common people and legal and constitutional experts as the basis of India-Kashmir relationship, was abolished. INTERNAL SOVEREIGNTY HAS BEEN ROBBED!!! The President of the Republic issued an Ordinance which also abolished Article 35A which guaranteed the protection of our government jobs and our trade and gave non-state residents the right to get government jobs and buy land here. went!!!
Summary Our identity Our identity has been completely destroyed!!!
The Assembly was also dissolved under the People's Representation Act!!!
New assembly elections were not held
Bureaucracy has been ruling us for 5 years now!!!
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”
Article-370,Kashmir dispute
“
Let me love you!
Let us tend to our life like a flower,
Tender, beautiful, without any conflict,
Let us fill our senses with this flower,
And put an end to every emotional conflict,
Let our feelings be like the sunflower,
Always thinking of and staring at the Sun,
Let us radiate with the beauty of the sunflower,
And allow our love to be our everlasting Sun,
Let my every feeling rush towards you,
Like the waves rushing to the shore,
Then let me sink into you,
And no more shall I ever seek any other shore,
Let me be the song of the Summer joys,
The song of happy brooks, the tender fluttering of flowers,
Let me lend you all these Summer joys,
And in you create my gardens of love and beautiful flowers,
Let me share all my secrets with you,
Like the wind that shares hers with trees, flowers and everything,
Let me feel every part of you,
And like the wind, cover you, your shadows and everything,
Let me be the Moon that shines every night,
Mild, faint, subtle, light; yet bright enough,
To let me see you everywhere even in the darkness of the night,
And in the day under the Sun too, because seeing you forever is not enough,
Let me be that every reason that makes you happy,
Then glide gently across the territory of your mind and heart,
Let me be this feeling that always makes you feel happy,
And then my love Irma, l shall let my feelings be a part of your heart.
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Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
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I feel this intense pressure to step in and be this amazing “bonus mom.” Everyone expects me to just naturally be maternal and love my step-kids and take care of everything for them. I feel like I do all the hard work of parenting, but I don’t get any of the benefits that bio-parents get. I don’t get love, loyalty, or affection from the kids, no matter how kind I am to them. They never hug me or say thank you. I certainly don’t get acknowledged on Mother’s Day. I really try to be a good stepmom, but I feel like all my efforts are looked at with suspicion or resentment from my step-kids, because they think I’m “trying too hard.” It also feels like my husband wants it both ways. He expects me to love his kids “just like they’re my own,” and he expects me to take care of them and be involved and support them and help raise them. But then he gets defensive and territorial, and he resists my input if I try to be involved in any actual parenting, because they’re “his” kids, not mine. And his ex-wife gets threatened, and she basically tells me to “butt out and stay in my place.” So, my husband and his ex both expect me to help them do the hard work of parenting and provide childcare for them, but only on their terms. Apparently, I don’t get a place at the decision-making table. I feel like an unpaid babysitter, not a partner. And it seems like the harder I work and the nicer I am, the less anyone appreciates me. I can’t win.
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Veronica Grace Andrews (You Can Heal Stepmom Burnout: Your Action Plan for Healthy Boundaries, Happier Relationships, Less Stress, and More Joy)
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As soon as Saladin was in control of Egypt, he set his sights on a larger goal. He organized his state according to Islamic law and began removing Shiite influence in Egypt. This boosted his reputation and influence in the Muslim world, especially when he declared that he was the protector of the Sunni Orthodoxy. Saladin decided that he wanted to form a Muslim coalition, which would prove to be an extremely difficult task. The Muslim world was made up of highly independent states with their own rulers. Some of those states were made up of Shia Muslims, which meant that Saladin had to overcome regional and religious differences. Sometime in 1174, he uncovered a plot to put the Fatimids back in power, and he dealt with the traitors in a swift and brutal manner. He also built several mosques and madrasahs in order to expand Sunni influence within Egypt. His popularity among the Sunni Muslims grew, and he appointed Sunni Muslims to positions within the government and courts. Saladin allowed Egyptians to hold power within his government, which gave him insight into the traditions of the Egyptian populace. He was famously tolerant of other religions and allowed Coptic Christians and Jews to continue practicing their beliefs. During Saladin’s reign, the Egyptian economy continued to flourish as it had during the Fatimid Caliphate. Muslim Coalition In 1174, Saladin managed to capture Damascus, which was an impressive feat. From there, he went on to conquer Aleppo, Mosul, and Yemen. He soon came to control the Red Sea region, which brought him one step closer to his ultimate goal. However, Saladin didn’t simply rely on military methods to gain new territories. He was an adept diplomat who fostered strong relationships with other leaders, which gave him many allies. In order to establish the legitimacy of his rule, he married Nur al-Din’s widow since she was the daughter of a previous ruler of Damascus. Saladin also won widespread respect in the Muslim world by taking the lead in the efforts to protect Islam against the invading Christians. While Saladin proclaimed to be a protector of Islam, he had no problem fighting Muslim enemies. The caliph of Baghdad recognized most of Saladin’s authority, but Aleppo remained beyond his reach. It was ruled by Nur al-Din’s
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Enthralling History (History of Egypt: An Enthralling Overview of Egyptian History (Egyptian Mythology and History))
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While we sometimes may feel jelaous or territorial, we own those feelings, doing our best not to blame or control but asking for the support we need to help ourselves feel safe and cared for.
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Janet W. Hardy (The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love)
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Ethical sluts recognize the difference between things they can and should control and things they can’t. While we sometimes may feel jealous or territorial, we own those feelings, doing our best not to blame or control but asking for the support we need to help ourselves feel safe and cared for.
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Dossie Easton (The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love)
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...and of course reconcilliation with England--the country that from the first should have been, given her parallel territorial ambitions, our closest ally--so that some day in the future we can act as one. It remains a mystery to me why that last relationship never worked out. How many more bombs would we have had to drop on their cities before they realized that we were their friends?
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Timur Vermes
“
why there is any need to bother with Spain at all. ‘Why Spain?’ was a question that I had to answer for myself even as I attempted to answer it for others. My own answer, as it has evolved over the years, is that this is an endlessly fascinating country whose history, made up of striking successes and equally striking failures, embraces topics of universal import. Here is a country and a people whose past saw the construction and subsequent deconstruction of complex religious and ethnic relationships as it stood poised between the worlds of Christianity, Judaism and Islam; a country that took the lead among European powers in conquering and governing a vast overseas empire, and that has persistently sought, and never quite succeeded, in reconciling the conflicting demands of unity and diversity on its own territory; and a country whose religious, cultural and artistic achievements over the course of the centuries have made an enormously rich if often controversial contribution to human civilization.
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J.H. Elliott (History in the Making)
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She didn’t miss the fact Kevin’s eyes lit up when he saw her in a way they hadn’t for the napkin kisser. It helped soothe her annoyance but also put her squarely back in conflicted territory. She wasn’t willing to risk their friendship on a real relationship, but she didn’t want anybody else to have him, either.
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Shannon Stacey (Undeniably Yours (Kowalski Family, #2))
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The ancient form of covenant treaties between sovereign or suzerain king and subservient vassal contained five basic parts that bound the two parties. First, there was a preamble that identifies the Lordship of the great king, his transcendent sovereignty and jurisdiction over territories. Second, the historical prologue that recounted the previous relationship of the king and his subject, along with an establishment of hierarchy and authority. The third section laid out the ethical stipulations or laws required by the king for the subject to maintain his status as protected vassal. The sanctions or listings of blessings for obedience and curses for violation of the covenant came fourth, providing for the continuity of the covenant relationship with succeeding generations. The fifth and last section called for divine witness of the gods or the heavens and the earth.
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Brian Godawa (Enoch Primordial (Chronicles of the Nephilim #2))
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Our sense of self, formulated in large part by the untold number of cross-related connections that we make with our physical, social, and family environments, is reliant upon fitting into our social fabric. The educational environment, family relationships, peer groups, books, television, films, music, along with an assortment of other cultural events shape our emergent persona. Our successes and failures interacting in the world leave their collective imprint upon the wet clay of our forming brains. We are sentimental creatures who cling to past memories. We are inquisitive critters who venture forth from our protective dens to explore new territory. We are perceptive organisms equipped with five basic senses. We are sentient beings who can consciously organize our sense impressions into guiding ideas and useful principles. Our survival responses form a central cord of our emotions. We are receptive, compassionate beings that respond with both body and mind to global stimuli.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to keep promises to God, to self and to one's relationships that consistently express one's identity and values in spiritually and emotionally healthy ways. Relational congruence is about both constancy and care at the same time. It is about both character and affection, and self-knowledge and authentic self-expression. Relational congruence is the leader's ability to cultivate strong, healthy, caring relationships; maintaining healthy boundaries; and communicating clear expectations, all while staying focused on the mission.
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Tod Bolsinger (Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory)
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This method enabled me to expand my territory and create a strong network of loyal customers for referrals and repeat business. Make active listening a deliberate part of your business plan and success strategy. You will not only grow your business, but also make wonderful friends along the way.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Communication: 8 Ways to Confirm Clarity & Understanding for Positive Impact(The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #5))
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To cultivate bravery and courage, Do It Scared. Being scared is a precursor to bravery, otherwise, it wouldn’t be bravery, would it? Mustering the courage to stretch beyond your familiar territory is a rewarding act in itself.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Action: 8 Ways to Initiate & Activate Forward Momentum for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #4))
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A Sales Professional To significantly increase sales, expand market share, and provide unparalleled levels of customer service to contribute to organizational growth and profit objectives Perform in-depth market analysis and create growth plans Lead generation, networking, and relationship building Demonstrate high-impact presentation and closing skills Assess client needs, and effectively overcome objections to sale Establish new territories and turn around underperforming ones Initiate new product/service launch Identify and capitalize on new and existing business opportunities Provide groundbreaking levels of customer service
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Jay A. Block (101 Best Ways to Land a Job in Troubled Times)
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What changed at the end of the eighteenth century, therefore, was not so much the discovery of a fundamentally new concept in human relations but the emergence of a political movement universalizing what until then had been largely a local and territorial impulse. This insight helps to explain the speed of change. What is notable for our purposes is the dualistic or two-sided character of the free-air principle. On the one hand, it reflected views about what was proper in human relationships, a sense of the wrongness of enslavement. But on the other hand, it had an exclusivist side, a statement of pride in national identity, coupled with a determination to prevent established relationships from being disrupted by the
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Gavin Wright (Slavery and American Economic Development (Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History))
“
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, for example, might be a bit less certain in his gloomy assessment of human nature: “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.”10 Maybe, but cooperation runs deep in our species too. Recent findings in comparative primate intelligence have led researchers Vanessa Woods and Brian Hare to wonder whether an impulse toward cooperation might actually be the key to our species-defining intelligence. They write, “Instead of getting a jump start with the most intelligent hominids surviving to produce the next generation, as is often suggested, it may have been the more sociable hominids—because they were better at solving problems together—who achieved a higher level of fitness and allowed selection to favor more sophisticated problem-solving over time.”11 Humans got smart, they hypothesize, because our ancestors learned to cooperate. Innately selfish or not, the effects of food provisioning and habitat depletion on both wild chimpanzees and human foragers suggest that Dawkins and others who argue that humans are innately aggressive, selfish beasts should be careful about citing these chimp data in support of their case. Human groups tend to respond to food surplus and storage with behavior like that observed in chimps: heightened hierarchical social organization, intergroup violence, territorial perimeter defense, and Machiavellian alliances. In other words, humans—like chimps—tend to fight when there’s something worth fighting over. But for most of prehistory, there was no food surplus to win or lose and no home base to defend.
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Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships)
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Human groups tend to respond to food surplus and storage with behavior like that observed in chimps: heightened hierarchical social organization, intergroup violence, territorial perimeter defense, and Machiavellian alliances. In other words, humans—like chimps—tend to fight when there’s something worth fighting over. But for most of prehistory, there was no food surplus to win or lose and no home base to defend.
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Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships)
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Finally there is the topic we talked about earlier, which is of great interest to me at the moment, the relationship between biology and culture. I've been reading the work of the late philosopher and theologian Claude Tresmontant. Tresmontant was a Christian, but his books interest me for what they have to say about genetic programming. He situates Christianity at the point of transition between genetic programming—dominant in archaic societies with regard to territorial defense, sexual and hoarding instincts, and so forth—and a new kind of evolutionary programming contained in culture rather than in genes. The argument is suggestive, but it needs to be developed further. Tresmontant doesn't take into account archaic religion, which he conflates with genetic programming in animals. Room has to be made for one more stage. MSB
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René Girard (The One by Whom Scandal Comes)
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But from the way she was looking at me now, I began to think that perhaps that had been a mistake. Human relationships, especially the whole Being Married Thing, were foreign territory for me. It was clear I should have called to say I would be late—but could the consequences really be this calamitous? Was
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Jeff Lindsay (Dexter's Final Cut (Dexter, #7))
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In our natural world, it is the strongest of the species that claim their space, seek out new territories, explore their surroundings, and learn how to survive and thrive. It is those same qualities that enable us to apply confidence and command to transcend the mediocre and achieve outstanding results.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #1))
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When we enter into Community Friends territory, we have crossed the lines of our original relationship boundaries so that now it feels normal to invite them to a random concert, check in with them about their weekend plans, or see if they are interested in starting a book club with us.
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Shasta Nelson (Friendships Don't Just Happen!: The Guide to Creating a Meaningful Circle of GirlFriends)
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Wyoming got an Algonquian name from Pennsylvania meaning “large prairie,” but the adoption came only after a long fight. Decades before the settling of the present state of Wyoming, its name achieved popular acclaim after an 1809 poem, “Gertrude of Wyoming,” by Thomas Campbell. The poem recalled the Iroquois defeat of a group of Tory settlers and the ensuing death of 350 of them during the chaos of the American Revolution. By the time Congress created the territory of Wyoming in 1868, ten communities in Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kansas, and Nebraska had already claimed the name. The name had grown in popularity and was proposed for the new Western territory, even though it had no historical relationship to the area, to the native people who lived there, or to the languages spoken there. One anti-Wyoming group of congressmen favored the name Cheyenne, since that name referred to the native people living there, but Congress rejected Cheyenne for fear that Europeans might confuse it with the French word chienne, meaning “female dog.” No one in the seemly Victorian era wanted a state whose name meant “bitch” (G. R. Stewart 1945).
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Jack Weatherford (Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America)
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Love Hurts. I daresay there’s two or three poems, six novels and at least twelve songs on the subject. That’s how the Janus-faced beast of poetry gets written in the first place, in all its myriad of magical forms. So; why cover this hitherto uncharted and highly original territory? Why leap fearlessly into the unknown, nostrils flared, eyes flashing fire? Well, in the name of love, lust and limerence, why on earth not? Suffering is gratuitous and pointless, yet also vital, valuable and necessary. My last tête à tête gave me plenty, incorporating elements of the forbidden, of rebellion, pornography, pregnancy, parental approval – followed by fury – of infidelity, friend estrangement, life on one island that was heavenly and a second that veered between purgatorial and infernal, of violence, miscarriage, masturbating Indians, pepper spray, antipathy, disloyalty, evictions, a planned future, failed globetrotting and habitual lies, whilst being indicative of a wider, all-encompassing social corrosion, and while the story itself may remain merely hinted at or alluded to in the course of this generalised polemic, it’s as worthy or valid as any other such tale told round the campfire and whispered across the beaches of the world.
All life’s a roll of the dice, tiger; ride into the bastard storm and if your wounds hurt, be grateful you survived to lick them, even in the darkest nights of the soul when the sun is a mattress fire the god of your love died in. Love Hurts, and in a stupendous and savage cosmos, it’s my right to sit at the keyboard and bleed. Besides, love, poverty and war are the necessary accoutrements to a fulfilled life; this is the all-encompassing theme of our human condition and the crooning, persuasive symphony of that philosophically unfathomable miracle of life itself… especially as love leads to poverty and war. Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward, after all. I certainly am… we choose our own chains...
~excerpt, "Love Hurts
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Daniel S. Fletcher
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Back at Onsite, our group therapist created a terrific visual example of what a healthy relationship looks like. She put three pillows on the floor and asked a couple of us to stand on the pillows. She told us to leave the middle pillow open. She pointed at my pillow and said, “Don, that’s your pillow, that’s your life. The only person who gets to step on that pillow is you. Nobody else. That’s your territory, your soul.” Then she pointed at my friend’s pillow and told her that was her pillow, that she owned it and it was her soul. Then, the therapist said, the middle pillow symbolized the relationship. She said that both of us could step into the middle pillow any time we wanted because we’d agreed to be in a relationship. However, she said, at no point is it appropriate to step on the other person’s pillow. What goes on in the other person’s soul is none of your business. All you’re responsible for is your soul, nobody else’s. Regarding the middle pillow, the question to ask is, “What do I want in a relationship?” If the pillow you two step on together works, that’s great. If not, move on or simply explain what you’d like life to feel like in the middle pillow and see if the other person wants that kind of relationship too. But never, she said, ever try to change each other. Know who you are and know what you want in a relationship, and give people the freedom to be themselves. I wish I’d have heard that in my twenties. I can’t tell you how many girls’ pillows I’ve stomped on trying to get them to change. And the sleepless nights I’ve spent wondering what they were thinking or how much they liked me or whether I was a good enough man for them. A complete waste of time.
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Donald Miller (Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy)
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He needed to know that Atticus was as territorial as he was, as fucked up over him as he was over Atticus. That he’d kill for him. Die for him. That this obsessive compulsion was a two-way street. That there was some kind of unspoken agreement that the only way out of this relationship – no matter how fucked up – was if one of them stopped breathing.
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Onley James (Moonstruck (Necessary Evils, #3))
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Siamangs—large black members of the gibbon family—swing high up in the tallest trees of the Asian Jungle. Every morning, the male and female burst into spectacular duets. Their song begins with a few loud whoops, which gradually build into ever louder, more elaborate sequences. Amplified by balloonlike throat sacs, the sound carries far and wide. I have heard them in Indonesia, where the whole forest echoed with their sound. The siamangs listen to one another during breaks. Whereas most territorial animals need only to know where their boundaries run and how strong and healthy their neighbors are, siamangs face the added complexity that territories are jointly defended by pairs. This means that pair-bonds matter. Troubled pairs will be weak defenders, while bonded pairs will be strong ones. Since the song of a pair reflects their marriage, the more beautiful it is, the more their neighbors realize not to mess with them. A close-harmony duet communicates not only “stay out!” but also “we’re one!” If a pair duets poorly, on the other hand, uttering discordant vocalizations that interrupt one another, neighbors hear an opportunity to move in and exploit the pair’s troubled relationship.
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Frans de Waal (Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?)
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In the arts terms frequently cross boundaries, as when the concept of metaphor transfers from literature to architecture. The strict definition of metaphor is that it describes a link between disparate concepts that avoids ‘like’ or ‘as’. There is no point-to-point correspondence, the association being on the level of suggestion rather than simile – ‘I see a cloud that’s dragonish . . .’ // A metaphor creates a bridge across unexplored territory, connecting two unlikely entities. The aesthetic ‘spark’ is generated by the novelty or poignancy of the association; the arcing across conceptual space. The emotional reward comes from the recognition of a new pattern of relationship. The phenomenon of metaphor operates in parallel with the formal aesthetic qualities of a building being a variation on the theme of binary aesthetics, introducing the poetic element into architecture.
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Peter F. Smith (The Dynamics of Delight: Architecture and Aesthetics)
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A malnourished animal who is afraid to look for food beyond its territory will surely die without suffering death by consuming what it can find nearby instead of overcoming its fear and looking beyond its self-placed boundaries for a food supply that is better at keeping it alive. How, then, it this any different than humans who limit their territory to find a partner because of the fear of distance, yet, complain that they are alone and unable to find anyone who is good for them?
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James Thomas Kesterson Jr
“
Sorry. I was thinking about my pets. Two cats and a dog. Haven’t seen them for weeks now. This whole thing reminds me of them, I guess. My cats are all over me when I’m the only human around. Jumping up on the couch to get pet. Screeching at me to get fed. So on. But if anyone else comes over — a stranger, I mean — they run and hide under the bed for hours. “The dog is just the opposite. He charges to the door to confront any would-be intruder on his turf. He smells the guest, looks them straight in the eye, sizes up the situation face to face and only then will he calm down. “It’s two different ways of looking at the world, you know? A cat sees individuals above all else. Almost like an artist’s point of view, I think. She sees everything through the lens of individuals and relationships. If something disrupts that intricate web of connections — such as a stranger’s presence — she’ll disengage and keep to herself a while. “A dog sees territory to control. He’s cognizant of individuals, but his primary concern is controlling his environment in a direct, assertive way. He wants to feel in control. If you cross that threshold into his territory, you will be dealt with. Even if that only means you’ll be barked at a few times.
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L.T. Vargus (Dead End Girl (Violet Darger, #1))
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Anxiety, I’ve learned, is like an overzealous Monopoly player, except its playing board is your brain. It wants to build houses and hotels all over your territories—your relationships, your job, your health, your spirituality. One of the hardest things to learn is that not everything anxiety tells you is true.
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Hannah Brencher (Come Matter Here: Your Invitation to Be Here in a Getting There World)
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Life just happens… It has its own terms, its own pace and its own purpose; You’ve no role in it…nothing is yours Will, Wishes, Wants or Terms It’s a lot easier when you don’t struggle to control, The more questions you ask, the more complicated it gets. It’s an unchartered territory… a mystery to be lived It’s a maze of surprises where you’ve to discover your gift.
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T. Shree (You'll Always Be Enough)
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they will not come to your defense. Under the mask that they want to help you learn important life-lessons and give constructive criticism, is a strategy to make you feel undervalued, incompetent or immature, while they appear wise and mature, no matter the actual age difference. No matter how good you are at something, and no matter how hard you are trying, in their eyes, you can always do better. They will criticize you with special gusto if they notice you're trying really hard and exhausting yourself, under the pretense that they want to push you forward. This is a frequent trait of covert parents, who will act disappointed and withhold affection from their kids if they fail to satisfy the impossible criterion of perfection. Once you do succeed or get an amazing idea, they will make sure to let you know what their contribution to your success was, or even steal your idea. Taking credit for what someone else did is also not unexplored territory for them.
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Theresa J. Covert (The Covert Narcissist: Recognizing the Most Dangerous Subtle Form of Narcissism and Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships)