Thrive Alone Quotes

The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born. That is why many of the earthly miracles have had their genesis in humble surroundings."

It was the first time i had been alone for five days. I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.

Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can't live alone, you were born a slave. You may have all the splendours of the mind and the soul, in which case you're a noble slave, or an intelligent servant, but you're not free. And you can't hold this up as your own tragedy, for your birth is a tragedy of Fate alone. Hapless you are, however, if life itself so oppresses you that you're forced to become a slave. Hapless you are if, having been born free, with the capacity to be isolated and self-sufficient, poverty should force you to live with others.

If you are an introvert, you are born with a temperament that craves to be alone, delights in meaningful connections, thinks before speaking and observes before approaching. If you are an introvert, you thrive in the inner sanctuary of the mind, heart and spirit, but shrink in the external world of noise, drama and chaos. As an introvert, you are sensitive, perceptive, gentle and reflective. You prefer to operate behind the scenes, preserve your precious energy and influence the world in a quiet, but powerful way.

Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane. Plan accordingly.

A vision alone ain’t enough. To truly thrive, the board must also align on a concrete definition of success. This involves a meticulous process of identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), setting SMART goals, and establishing a robust framework for measuring progress.

Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone–that is the secret of invention.

The Life Ruiner alone didn't ruin me. The world that made him did—the place that continues to manufacture replicas of him and continues to create the circumstances in which he and his replicas thrive. What is there to do about that?

Heart’s blood and bitter pain belong to love, And tales of problems no one can remove; Cupbearer, fill the bowl with blood, not wine - And if you lack the heart’s rich blood take mine. Love thrives on inextinguishable pain, Which tears the soul, then knits the threads again. A mote of love exceeds all bounds; it gives The vital essence to whatever lives. But where love thrives, there pain is always found; Angels alone escape this weary round - They love without that savage agony Which is reserved for vexed humanity.

How could I have thought that I needed to cure myself in order to fit into the 'real' world? I didn't need curing, and the world didn't, either; the only thing that did need curing was my understanding of my place in it. Without that understanding - without a sense of belonging to the real world - it was impossible to thrive in an imagined one.

Here we will also see how verbal and emotional abuse alone can cause Cptsd, and how profound emotional abandonment is typically at the core of most Cptsd.

Emotional neglect, alone, causes children to abandon themselves, and to give up on the formation of a self. They do so to preserve an illusion of connection with the parent and to protect themselves from the danger of losing that tenuous connection. This typically requires a great deal of self-abdication, e.g., the forfeiture of self-esteem, self-confidence, self-care, self-interest, and self-protection.

I think there is a difference between aloneness and loneliness. Aloneness is necessary for the soul to thrive - even to come alive. Not loneliness.

Yes, I went through a lot of pain, heartache,breaking. But I'm here berthing and my heart is beating. I'm thriving. I'm not alone. And I'm loved.

You deserve to heal and grow, too. You deserve to have someone to talk to about your problem; you deserve unconditional support; you deserve care and safety and all the things you need to thrive. Just because you may not have them doesn’t mean you don’t deserve them. If someone tells you that you don’t deserve those things, they are lying. Keep trying your best. Ask for help when you need it. Do your best to be brave, but it is okay not to be. If you drop the weight you’re carrying, it is okay. You can build yourself back up out of the pieces. If your mind stops listening to you, it’s not your fault. There are billions of us; you are not alone.

The capacity for logical thought is one of the things that makes us human. But in a world of ubiquitous information and advanced analytical tools, logic alone won't do. What will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others.

music can reach those places where words alone can’t go.

Knowledge of processes in the background early shaped my relationship to the world. Basically, that relationship was the same in my childhood as it is to this day. As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know. Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. The loneliness began with the experiences of my early dreams, and reached its climax at the time I was working on the unconscious. If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely. But loneliness is not necessarily inimical to companionship, for no one is more sensitive to companionship than the lonely man, and companionship thrives only when each individual remembers his individuality and does not identify himself with others.” – (Memories Dreams and Reflections, Page 356)

But there are a lot of great pleasures you can get out of the experience of being alone with yourself,” said Bowker. In solitude you can find the unfiltered version of you. People often have breakthroughs where they tap into how they truly feel about a topic and come to some new understanding about themselves, said Bowker. Then you can take your realizations out into the social world, he added: “Building the capacity to be alone probably makes your interactions with others richer. Because you’re bringing to the relationship a person who’s actually got stuff going on in the inside and isn’t just a connector circuit that only thrives off of others.” Research backs solitude’s healthy properties. It’s been shown to improve productivity, creativity, empathy, and happiness, and decrease self-consciousness.

Although airing your grievances with others may help you feel less alone and on rare occasions gets you good advice, more often than not it keeps you stuck in a bad mood.

I am grateful to those who abandoned and betrayed my soul, they unwillingly taught me how to survive and thrive alone.

God is the only One that can truly change individuals. I am convinced that He alone is capable of transforming someone in such a way that they grow and thrive, even in challenging times.

Do you understand now (reader)? There is someone out there rooting for you. You are not alone, in any Forest. You there, hello, bonjour, hola— we are rooting, cheering for you to live & thrive.

I wasn’t meant to wander around the world by myself. I was meant to be with the people I loved, the people who loved me. We would go on, and we would survive, and we would thrive. But we couldn’t do it alone. No, the only way to truly enjoy this life was to hold hands, grasp that connection and dive in.

No group can survive, let alone thrive, unless what is good for the overall community is more important than individual freedom. Take, for example, resource allocation. How can anyone with any intelligence possibly justify, in terms of the overall community, the accumulation and hoarding of enormous material assets by a few individuals when others do not even have food, clothing, and other essentials?” In

Why Roses Crave Thorns" Petals detach from a wilting bud—a single stem plucked before fully blossomed. They descend in hesitant swirls, too soft and limp to shatter like teardrops. One by one they light to blanket a single shadow below. She is a rose, young and innocent, with beauty incomparable to shame all others. She has flowered enough to stop the observer in his tracks, awestruck. He is compelled to reach out and touch. The petals delight at a silken caress, her bud everything desirable but defenseless—without a sharp edge to make an admirer pause, to warn the intrusive hand. ‘Stay back! Stay back!’ His fingers curl around the stem to tug, and suddenly the rose craves a thorn. It is madness not to want her and yet madness to cut her down. Let the flower thrive and blush to someday flaunt layers of silken favors! But the world will not have it. A single stem is severed in a selfish moment of desire—a yearning to hold and possess. Alone and forgotten her petals cry, raining in hesitant swirls where they accumulate to blanket her shadow below. Dry, withered, craving the thorns. Beautiful no more.

If you ever feel alone, just remember someone else is feeling the same. Loneliness’s greatest weapon is making you believe you’re the only one –the exception –that everyone else is thriving and fulfilled. It’s okay if this season is rough for you. All seeds must be buried before they bloom.

Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can't live alone, you were born a slave. - The Book of Disquiet

You can comfort her/him verbally: “I feel such sorrow that you were so abandoned and that you felt so alone so much of the time. I love you even more when you are stuck in this abandonment pain – especially because you had to endure it for so long with no one to comfort you. That shouldn’t have happened to you. It shouldn’t happen to any child. Let me comfort and hold you. You don’t have to rush to get over it. It is not your fault. You didn’t cause it and you’re not to blame. You don’t have to do anything. Just let me hold you. Take your time. I love you always and care about you no matter what.

Rejection expectation is an emotionally painful situation. It keeps you isolated, because the pain of being rejected is so great that it is better to be alone where nobody can get to you. When you expect people to not like you because you just don’t fit in, this expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You deserve to heal and grow, too. You deserve to have someone to talk to about your problem; you deserve unconditional support; you deserve care and safety and all the things you need to thrive. Just because you may not have them doesn't mean you don't deserve them. If someone tells you that you don't deserve those things,they are lying. Keep trying your best. Ask for help when you need it. Do your best to be brave, but it is okay not to be. If you drop the weight you're carrying, it is okay. You can build yourself back up out of the pieces. If your mind stops listening to you, it's not your fault. There are billions of us; you are not alone. And lastly, whoever you are: I am so so proud of you.

In this world of too much, we are simultaneously overstimulated and bored, enriched and empty, connected yet isolated and alone.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. African Proverb

Private businesses and out-of-state landowners do not carry anything close to an equitable local tax burden, making it impossible for communities to survive, let alone thrive.

The difference between most people and myself is that for me the "dividing walls" are transparent. That is my peculiarity. Others find these walls so opaque that they see nothing behind them and therefore think nothing is there. To some extent I perceive the processes going on in the background, and that gives me an inner certainty. People who see nothing have no certainties and can draw no conclusions--or do not trust them even if they do. I do not know what started me off perceiving the stream of life. Probably the unconscious itself. Or perhaps my early dreams. They determined my course from the beginning. Knowledge of processes in the background early shaped my relationship to the world. Basically, that relationship was the same in my childhood as it is to this day. As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am stilI, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know. Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. The loneliness began with the experiences of my early dreams, and reached its climax at the time I was working on the unconscious. If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely. But loneliness is not necessarily inimical to companionship, for no one is more sensitive to companionship than the lonely man, and companionship thrives only when each individual remembers his individuality and does not identify himself with others.

I know what it feels like to be robbed of something so precious to you. To feel helpless, broken, like you are not in control of your own body. These people- they thrive on taking power. Over our minds, our bodies, our emotions. They think because we are girls, that we are something to be preyed upon. They are wrong. We are not helpless; we are not broken. Despite what scars they leave behind, our bodies are our own. Everything we feel, everything we are, belongs to us and us alone. Yes, we are girls, but we are not prey. Tonight, we are alive.

She had an infinite capacity to light hope in the dark. And for the most part, she was successful. She certainly convinced me that all was well in our cloistered little world, that our future was impossibly bright. Everything she did was so I would not just survive but thrive. Only now do I know just how much she suffered in the dark, how she carried her burden alone.

The difference between the good and the great is the difference between your mindset and your skill set. In a world where skills are bountiful, and increasingly outsourced to cheaper parts of the world, we need more than skills to survive, let alone thrive. Mindset separates the best from the rest: the right mindset drives the right habits, which drive the right performance.

Is it because she will return that I take pleasure in being alone? Hopeless heart that thrives on paradox; that longs for the beloved and is secretly relieved when the beloved is not there.

It is impossible to find any equivalent counterpoise for the right of suffrage, because it is alone worthy to be its own basis, and cannot thrive as a graft, or an appendage. -Agrarian Justice

Nuala, on the other hand, exerts influence over her husband and children primarily through a tendency to become irrationally anxious and ‘upset’. Much of the family life has therefore always been arranged around their collective efforts to prevent Nuala from becoming ‘upset’, which involves concealing from her, by almost any means necessary, the existence of any problems or potential conflicts within the family circle. Nuala lives, to some degree, in a fictitious world acted out for her by a special dramatic troupe consisting of her own children and husband, a world in which none of her loved ones have ever been unhappy, sick, depressed, disappointed, hurt, anxious or frightened. But this, in Anna’s view, has also had the perverse effect of making Nuala feel as if her own anxieties are in fact the only anxieties that anyone on earth has ever experienced, and that her suffering is something she alone, the only unhappy person in a world of thriving and self-confident individuals, can understand.

The city itself was dead. Some buildings had chunks missing. Bricks and concrete were scattered along sidewalks, debris mingling with bodies. Once this had been a thriving metropolis with a heartbeat all its own. Now it was a corpse, with no morgue big enough to house it. Nothing can ever prepare you for the eeriness of a great city emptied of humanity. In that small room in each of our souls where loneliness makes its home, our fear that we will end up alone and unloved is amplified a million times.

And if I'd be left alone in the woods again, I smiled to think how I'd find new gifts and thrive. At the end of a long trail and the beginning of the rest of my life, I was committed to always loving myself. I would put myself in that win-win situation.

True romance isn’t found in grand gestures alone, but in the quiet, frequent moments when two people set the world aside and give each other their full, undivided attention. Love thrives in those pauses where nothing else matters but the connection between them.

Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can’t live alone, you were born a slave.

But put one foot in front of the other enough times, stay the course long enough to actually tunnel into the wilderness, and you’ll be shocked how many people already live out there—thriving, dancing, creating, celebrating, belonging. It is not a barren wasteland. It is not unprotected territory. It is not void of human flourishing. The wilderness is where all the creatives and prophets and system-buckers and risk-takers have always lived, and it is stunningly vibrant. The walk out there is hard, but the authenticity out there is life.

My Song So many memories, and I'm still young. So many dreams, my song's just begun. Sometimes I hear my private melody grow, then the sound vanishes, but returns, I now know. I've heard my heart break; wounded, I've felt alone, but slowly I learned to thrive on my own. I want to keep learning, to depend my song; in whatever I work may my best self grow strong. It's still the morning, the green spring of my life. i'm starting my journey, family and friends at my side, my song inside, and love as my guide. My family wonders where I will go. I wonder too. I long to discover how to protect the earth, our home, hear world sisters and brothers, who feel so alone. Hearts and hands open to those close and those far, a great family circle with peace our lodestar. No child should be hungry. All children should read, be healthy and safe, feel hope, learn to lead. It's still the morning, the spring of my life I'm starting my journey, family and friends at my side, my song inside, and love as my guide. I'm take wrong turns and again lose my way. I'll search for wise answers, listen, study and pray. So many memories, and I'm still young. So many dreams; my own song has begun. I'll resist judging others by their accents and skin, confront my life challenges, improve myself within. Heeding my song- for life's not easy or fair- I'll persist, be a light resist the snare of despair. Mysteriously, I've grown to feel strong. I'm preparing to lead. I'm composing my song. It's still the morning, the spring of my life. I'm starting my journey, family and friends at my side, my song inside, and love as my guide.

If you ever feel alone, just remember someone else is feeling the same. Loneliness’s greatest weapon is making you believe you’re the only one—the exception—that everyone else is thriving and fulfilled. It’s okay if this season is rough for you. All seeds must be buried before they bloom.

Thankfully, the world is not constructed entirely around pain and exploitation. Competition alone does not explain the world’s abounding beauty and mutualistic interactions. And just as white people are not biologically superior to any other race, humans are not inherently “more evolved” than other species. As humans, we evolved within a consortium of organisms—bacteria, fungi, plants, and other animals—some of whom were thriving on this planet for millions and even billions of years prior to our emergence. The forces of evolution do not move in any predetermined direction.

It is unhealthy to try to be Superman, standing with solitary strength facing our battles alone. We all need help. We need friends. We need advice. We need support and assistance. We need hugs, smiles, love, and encouragement. We are human, and that is how humans thrive—by working together.

Apparently he still had fantasies about me though, fantasies that would get him castrated if he didn’t leave me alone. “Get yourself a pocket pussy if you’re that hard up.” Yeah, I knew I was inciting the whole tail pulling thing. What could I say, I thrived on danger. “Bitch, you’ll rue your words when you are mine.

fly.” Meaning that, yes, the mind creates its own universe; but no, we can’t solve our problems through affirmations and positive thinking alone. And the fact is, New Agey solutions that put smiley-face stickers over our problems can make those problems worse. So the question for us going forward is: Who’s in charge—the thinker or the thought?

After days of feasting, fast. After days of sleeping, stay awake one night. After these times of bitter storytelling, joking, and serious considerations, we should give ourselves two days between layers of baklava in the quiet seclusion where soul sweetens and thrives more than with language. I hear nothing in my ear but your voice. Heart has plundered mind of its eloquence. Love writes a transparent calligraphy, so on the empty page my soul can read and recollect. Which is worth more, a crowd of thousands, or your own genuine solitude? Freedom, or power over an entire nation? A little while alone in your room will prove more valuable than anything else that could ever be given you. Rumi, Two days of silence

Because “pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity,” explains the Pluralism Project at Harvard on its website, “mere diversity without real encounter and relationship will yield increasing tensions in our societies.” A society being “pluralistic” is a reality (see Syria and Iraq). A society with pluralism “is an achievement” (see America).

Go and let it be known to all lovers: I am the man who gave his heart to love. I turn into a wild duck of passion, I am the one who takes the swiftest dive. From the waves of the sea I take water And offer it all the way to the skies. In adoration, like a cloud, I soar I am the one who flies to heavens above. He who says he sees, doesn't, though he vows; That man doesn't know if he claims he knows. He alone is the One who knows and shows. I am the man who has become love's slave. For true lovers, this land is Paradise; Those who know find mansions and palaces; Wonder struck and adoring like Moses, I remain on Mount Sinai where I thrive. Yunus is my name, I'm out of my mind. Love serves as my guide to the very end. All alone, toward the majestic Friend I walk kissing the ground-and I arrive.

For what other reason do we choose anything over God if isn’t because we think it and not Him can give us what we need? How often have we looked to the creature and called it Savior, without words, but by faith? For every empty bottle of wine, drunk to the dredges without self-control’s restraint, there is the proof of a soul wanting to find peace in something that doesn’t have it to give. Even social media thrives most on our neediness and the way it makes us discontent in being known and loved by God and God alone.

Your society, at least what I have observed of it, seems not to understand the fundamental inconsistency between individual freedom and the common welfare. The two must be carefully balanced. No group can survive, let alone thrive, unless what is good for the overall community is more important than individual freedom. Take, for example, resource allocation. How can anyone with any intelligence possibly justify, in terms of the overall community, the accumulation and hoarding of enormous material assets by a few individuals when others do not even have food, clothing, and other essentials?

The three components of self-compassion—kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness—each play a crucial role in tender self-compassion. Kindness is the emotional attitude that allows us to comfort and soothe ourselves. Common humanity provides the wisdom to understand that we’re not alone, and to see that imperfection is part of the shared human experience. And mindfulness allows us to be present with our suffering, so that we can validate our difficult feelings without immediately trying to fix or change them. These three elements take a particular form when tender self-compassion is used to meet our needs: loving, connected presence.

Me? Keeping it real, a bit weird, and not worrying if I’m everyone’s flavor? Yes, always. Me? Being completely delusional about what I want in life until it’s my reality? Yes, always. Me? Romanticizing my life because joy is where I choose to find it? Yes, always. Me? Being ridiculously optimistic about life even when the plot twists get wild? Yes, always. Me? Doing what brings my soul joy, even if I have to do it alone? Yes, always. Me? Trusting the flow of life to guide me to where I belong? Yes, always. Me? Letting people lose me instead of begging them to choose me? Yes, always. Me? Giving myself grace as I figure things out one step at a time? Yes, always.

In nature animals survive and thrive by constantly observing (using different senses) and interacting with their environment. In traditional societies, children learned to become competent adults by observing and interacting in environments shaped by kin and culture. In the modern world, formal education has replaced self-directed observation to a significant degree, and we have become separated from interactions, which are now mediated through technology and monetary transactions. In the process of gaining new technological skills and sophistication, we have lost much of our innate capacity to learn and look after ourselves, let alone design appropriate responses to emerging challenges.

Man, and the other animals whom he has afflicted with his malady or depraved by his dominion, are alone diseased. The Bison, the wild Hog, the Wolf, are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably die either from external violence or from mature old age. But the domestic Hog, the Sheep, the Cow, the Dog, are subject to an incredible variety of distempers, and, like the corruptors of their nature, have physicians who thrive upon their miseries. The super-eminence of man is, like Satan’s, the super-eminence of pain; and the majority of his species doomed to poverty, disease and crime, have reason to curse the untoward event that, by enabling him to communicate his sensations, raised him above the level of his fellow animals.

Nonschizoid people often conclude that, because schizoid individuals resolve their closeness/distance conflicts in the direction of distance and seem to thrive on being alone, they are not particularly attached and therefore are not reactive to separation. Yet, internally, schizoid people may have powerful attachments. In fact, their attachments may be more intensely invested with emotion than are the attachments of people with much more obviously ’anaclitic’ psychologies. Because schizoid individuals tend to feel safe with comparatively few others, any threat to or loss of their connection with these people can be devastating. If there are only three individuals by whom one feels truly known, and one of these is lost, then one third of one’s support system has vanished.

The evil stepmother is a fixture in European fairy tales because the stepmother was very much a fixture in early European society–mortality in childbirth was very high, and it wasn’t unusual for a father to suddenly find himself alone with multiple mouths to feed. So he remarried and brought another woman into the house, and eventually they had yet more children, thus changing the power dynamics of inheritance in the household in a way that had very little to do with inherent, archetypal evil and everything to do with social expectation and pressure. What was a woman to do when she remarried into a family and had to act as mother to her husband’s children as well as her own, in a time when economic prosperity was a magical dream for most? Would she think of killing her husband’s children so that her own children might therefore inherit and thrive? [...] Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the fear that stepmothers (or stepfathers) might do this kind of thing was very real, and it was that fear–fed by the socioeconomic pressures felt by the growing urban class–that fed the stories. We see this also with the stories passed around in France–fairies who swoop in to save the day when women themselves can’t do so; romantic tales of young girls who marry beasts as a balm to those young ladies facing arranged marriages to older, distant dukes. We see this with the removal of fairies and insertion of religion into the German tales. Fairy tales, in short, are not created in a vacuum. As with all stories, they change and bend both with and in response to culture.

You are the antidote to any received behaviour. Take a walk when you can. Be alone when you can. Talk to people you care about when you can. We try our best, and somehow it's not enough. We are broken people, the theater shows this. Yet we don't let being inadequate keep us from giving our very best every time. If professionalism has taken the practice of performing to a place where broken human behavior is not acceptable, then it is the medium that is broken, and not the other way around. For at our essence, at our core, we are not professionals. We are amateurs. We are myth, history and advertising, but, still, we exist; we are real, and we are simply beginners. It's how we thrive. We begin and therefore perpetually remain connected to the spark. We ask questions, we thirst, and we learn. And the dissenters complete us, causing us to be better.

Socialists have taken advantage of every crisis to promote their policies and spend millions of dollars on marketing (oh, the irony) to convince young people that socialism can take care of everything for them. Bernie Sanders alone has three houses. He’s made millions of dollars under capitalism while preaching like a crazy person for its opposite. Let’s call him the “Commie Capitalist.” People like him say that socialism can pay off student loans, provide a universal basic income, even provide free college and health care. In 2016, a YouGov poll found that 44 percent of young people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-nine would rather live in a socialist country than a capitalist one like the United States. As if that weren’t scary enough, only 33 percent of the people could even describe with any accuracy what the word socialism means. This is precisely the way Bernie Sanders has wanted it all along: push lies for years until you make a majority of the population ignorant enough to believe those lies.

Strong hate, the hate that takes joy in hating, is strong because it does not believe itself to be unworthy and alone. It feels the support of a justifying God, of an idol of war, an avenging and destroying spirit. From such blood-drinking gods the human race was once liberated, with great toil and terrible sorrow, by the death of a God Who delivered Himself to the Cross and suffered the pathological cruelty of His own creatures out of pity for them. In conquering death He opened their eyes to the reality of a love which asks no questions about worthiness, a love which overcomes hatred and destroys death. But men have now come to reject this divine revelation of pardon, and they are consequently returning to the old war gods, the gods that insatiably drink blood and eat the flesh of men. It is easier to serve the hate-gods because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism. To serve the hate-gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion. To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor.

The Company We Keep So now we have seen that our cells are in relationship with our thoughts, feelings, and each other. How do they factor into our relationships with others? Listening and communicating clearly play an important part in healthy relationships. Can relationships play an essential role in our own health? More than fifty years ago there was a seminal finding when the social and health habits of more than 4,500 men and women were followed for a period of ten years. This epidemiological study led researchers to a groundbreaking discovery: people who had few or no social contacts died earlier than those who lived richer social lives. Social connections, we learned, had a profound influence on physical health.9 Further evidence for this fascinating finding came from the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Epidemiologists were interested in Roseto because of its extremely low rate of coronary artery disease and death caused by heart disease compared to the rest of the United States. What were the town’s residents doing differently that protected them from the number one killer in the United States? On close examination, it seemed to defy common sense: health nuts, these townspeople were not. They didn’t get much exercise, many were overweight, they smoked, and they relished high-fat diets. They had all the risk factors for heart disease. Their health secret, effective despite questionable lifestyle choices, turned out to be strong communal, cultural, and familial ties. A few years later, as the younger generation started leaving town, they faced a rude awakening. Even when they had improved their health behaviors—stopped smoking, started exercising, changed their diets—their rate of heart disease rose dramatically. Why? Because they had lost the extraordinarily close connection they enjoyed with neighbors and family.10 From studies such as these, we learn that social isolation is almost as great a precursor of heart disease as elevated cholesterol or smoking. People connection is as important as cellular connections. Since the initial large population studies, scientists in the field of psychoneuroimmunology have demonstrated that having a support system helps in recovery from illness, prevention of viral infections, and maintaining healthier hearts.11 For example, in the 1990s researchers began laboratory studies with healthy volunteers to uncover biological links to social and psychological behavior. Infected experimentally with cold viruses, volunteers were kept in isolation and monitored for symptoms and evidence of infection. All showed immunological evidence of a viral infection, yet only some developed symptoms of a cold. Guess which ones got sick: those who reported the most stress and the fewest social interactions in their “real life” outside the lab setting.12 We Share the Single Cell’s Fate Community is part of our healing network, all the way down to the level of our cells. A single cell left alone in a petri dish will not survive. In fact, cells actually program themselves to die if they are isolated! Neurons in the developing brain that fail to connect to other cells also program themselves to die—more evidence of the life-saving need for connection; no cell thrives alone. What we see in the microcosm is reflected in the larger organism: just as our cells need to stay connected to stay alive, we, too, need regular contact with family, friends, and community. Personal relationships nourish our cells,

There was talk in the fields about the witch in the woods, but go see her? No one would dare. So I thought to myself I’d sneak out one night to see what I could find there.   I slipped from my straw, jumped over the gate, a candle alight in my hand. I went to the woods at the edge of the park as the moon fell down on this land.   I walked through the trees, so scared and alone, though with hope in the back of my mind. As I saw a small light and smoke rising high I wondered what I would find.   I walked up to a door but before I could knock, it opened with a creak and a squeak. There stood a woman all dressed in white; I felt completely unable to speak.   I sat on a chair by the side of a fire whilst she looked fondly at me. ‘Are you a witch?’ I asked her at last. And she said ‘I may possibly be.   But don’t be afraid I just prefer it out here Away from experienced minds. I live with my innocent, simple, sweet thoughts That are pure and gentle and kind.’   I was a little confused So I said to her now, ‘How do you even survive?’ She said to me softly ‘Just love, my young man, It is only on love that I thrive.’   ‘What can I do?’ I said to her now ‘So I can be just like you?’ ‘What, wearing a dress? Clad only in white? I’m sure you’d look better in blue!’   ‘No,’ I said, laughing, ‘To feel just like you Where everything seems so right.’ She thought for a while, And closed her deep eyes As the full moon shed its fair light.   ‘All I can say Is open your mind, The world is more than you know. Look deeper than deep, Be a dreamer, my boy, And give love wherever you go.   When others hurt you, Accept that it hurts, Have faith in the bad and the good. Walk with the soul And the eyes of a child You will always be safe in these woods.   As for the world That lies there outside, Remember the words that I’ve said. Keep them inside Your heart and your mind And by them may you be led.   Soon others will see There is no such thing As being too nice or too kind. And then one fine day, When more are like you, I can leave this sweet glory behind.’   So when I got home I thought of the woman That had entered my life that dark night. I will walk tall forever With the eyes of a child, To the blackness of life I’ll bring light.

THE ORIGIN OF INTELLIGENCE Many theories have been proposed as to why humans developed greater intelligence, going all the way back to Charles Darwin. According to one theory, the evolution of the human brain probably took place in stages, with the earliest phase initiated by climate change in Africa. As the weather cooled, the forests began to recede, forcing our ancestors onto the open plains and savannahs, where they were exposed to predators and the elements. To survive in this new, hostile environment, they were forced to hunt and walk upright, which freed up their hands and opposable thumbs to use tools. This in turn put a premium on a larger brain to coordinate tool making. According to this theory, ancient man did not simply make tools—“tools made man.” Our ancestors did not suddenly pick up tools and become intelligent. It was the other way around. Those humans who picked up tools could survive in the grasslands, while those who did not gradually died off. The humans who then survived and thrived in the grasslands were those who, through mutations, became increasingly adept at tool making, which required an increasingly larger brain. Another theory places a premium on our social, collective nature. Humans can easily coordinate the behavior of over a hundred other individuals involved in hunting, farming, warring, and building, groups that are much larger than those found in other primates, which gave humans an advantage over other animals. It takes a larger brain, according to this theory, to be able to assess and control the behavior of so many individuals. (The flip side of this theory is that it took a larger brain to scheme, plot, deceive, and manipulate other intelligent beings in your tribe. Individuals who could understand the motives of others and then exploit them would have an advantage over those who could not. This is the Machiavellian theory of intelligence.) Another theory maintains that the development of language, which came later, helped accelerate the rise of intelligence. With language comes abstract thought and the ability to plan, organize society, create maps, etc. Humans have an extensive vocabulary unmatched by any other animal, with words numbering in the tens of thousands for an average person. With language, humans could coordinate and focus the activities of scores of individuals, as well as manipulate abstract concepts and ideas. Language meant you could manage teams of people on a hunt, which is a great advantage when pursuing the woolly mammoth. It meant you could tell others where game was plentiful or where danger lurked. Yet another theory is “sexual selection,” the idea that females prefer to mate with intelligent males. In the animal kingdom, such as in a wolf pack, the alpha male holds the pack together by brute force. Any challenger to the alpha male has to be soundly beaten back by tooth and claw. But millions of years ago, as humans became gradually more intelligent, strength alone could not keep the tribe together.

Sophie?” He knocked, though not that hard, then decided she wasn’t going hear anything less than a regiment of charging dragoons over Kit’s racket. He pushed the door open to find half of Sophie’s candles lit and the lady pacing the room with Kit in her arms. “He won’t settle,” she said. “He isn’t wet; he isn’t hungry; he isn’t in want of cuddling. I think he’s sickening for something.” Sophie looked to be sickening. Her complexion was pale even by candlelight, her green eyes were underscored by shadows, and her voice held a brittle, anxious quality. “Babies can be colicky.” Vim laid the back of his hand on the child’s forehead. This resulted in a sudden cessation of Kit’s bellowing. “Ah, we have his attention. What ails you, young sir? You’ve woken the watch and disturbed my lady’s sleep.” “Keep talking,” Sophie said softly. “This is the first time he’s quieted in more than an hour.” Vim’s gaze went to the clock on her mantel. It was a quarter past midnight, meaning Sophie had gotten very little rest. “Give him to me, Sophie. Get off your feet, and I’ll have a talk with My Lord Baby.” She looked reluctant but passed the baby over. When the infant started whimpering, Vim began a circuit of the room. “None of your whining, Kit. Father Christmas will hear of it, and you’ll have a bad reputation from your very first Christmas. Do you know Miss Sophie made Christmas bread today? That’s why the house bore such lovely scents—despite your various efforts to put a different fragrance in the air.” He went on like that, speaking softly, rubbing the child’s back and hoping the slight warmth he’d detected was just a matter of the child’s determined upset, not inchoate sickness. Sophie would fret herself into an early grave if the boy stopped thriving. “Listen,” Vim said, speaking very quietly against the baby’s ear. “You are worrying your mama Sophie. You’re too young to start that nonsense, not even old enough to join the navy. Go to sleep, my man. Sooner rather than later.” The child did not go to sleep. He whimpered and whined, and by two in the morning, his nose was running most unattractively. Sophie would not go to sleep either, and Vim would not leave her alone with the baby. “This is my fault,” Sophie said, her gaze following Vim as he made yet another circuit with the child. “I was the one who had to go to the mews, and I should never have taken Kit with me.” “Nonsense. He loved the outing, and you needed the fresh air.” The baby wasn’t even slurping on his fist, which alarmed Vim more than a possible low fever. And that nose… Vim surreptitiously used a hankie to tend to it, but Sophie got to her feet and came toward them. “He’s ill,” she said, frowning at the child. “He misses his mother and I took him out in the middle of a blizzard and now he’s ill.” Vim put his free arm around her, hating the misery in her tone. “He has a runny nose, Sophie. Nobody died of a runny nose.” Her expression went from wan to stricken. “He could die?” She scooted away from Vim. “This is what people mean when they say somebody took a chill, isn’t it? It starts with congestion, then a fever, then he becomes weak and delirious…” “He’s not weak or delirious, Sophie. Calm down.

Babel led to an explosion in the number of languages. That was part of Enki's plan. Monocultures, like a field of corn, are susceptible to infections, but genetically diverse cultures, like a prairie, are extremely robust. After a few thousand years, one new language developed - Hebrew - that possessed exceptional flexibility and power. The deuteronomists, a group of radical monotheists in the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., were the first to take advantage of it. They lived in a time of extreme nationalism and xenophobia, which made it easier for them to reject foreign ideas like Asherah worship. They formalized their old stories into the Torah and implanted within it a law that insured its propagation throughout history - a law that said, in effect, 'make an exact copy of me and read it every day.' And they encouraged a sort of informational hygiene, a belief in copying things strictly and taking great care with information, which as they understood, is potentially dangerous. They made data a controlled substance... [and] gone beyond that. There is evidence of carefully planned biological warfare against the army of Sennacherib when he tried to conquer Jerusalem. So the deuteronomists may have had an en of their very own. Or maybe they just understood viruses well enough that they knew how to take advantage of naturally occurring strains. The skills cultivated by these people were passed down in secret from one generation to the next and manifested themselves two thousand years later, in Europe, among the Kabbalistic sorcerers, ba'al shems, masters of the divine name. In any case, this was the birth of rational religion. All of the subsequent monotheistic religions - known by Muslims, appropriately, as religions of the Book - incorporated those ideas to some extent. For example, the Koran states over and over again that it is a transcript, an exact copy, of a book in Heaven. Naturally, anyone who believes that will not dare to alter the text in any way! Ideas such as these were so effective in preventing the spread of Asherah that, eventually, every square inch of the territory where the viral cult had once thrived was under the sway of Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. But because of its latency - coiled about the brainstem of those it infects, passed from one generation to the next - it always finds ways to resurface. In the case of Judaism, it came in the form of the Pharisees, who imposed a rigid legalistic theocracy on the Hebrews. With its rigid adherence to laws stored in a temple, administered by priestly types vested with civil authority, it resembled the old Sumerian system, and was just as stifling. The ministry of Jesus Christ was an effort to break Judaism out of this condition... an echo of what Enki did. Christ's gospel is a new namshub, an attempt to take religion out of the temple, out of the hands of the priesthood, and bring the Kingdom of God to everyone. That is the message explicitly spelled out by his sermons, and it is the message symbolically embodied in the empty tomb. After the crucifixion, the apostles went to his tomb hoping to find his body and instead found nothing. The message was clear enough; We are not to idolize Jesus, because his ideas stand alone, his church is no longer centralized in one person but dispersed among all the people.

How can such a city possibly survive, let alone thrive? Wealthy with no poor, advanced with no war, a beautiful place where all souls know themselves beautiful … It cannot be, you say. Utopia? How banal. It’s a fairy tale, a thought exercise. Crabs in a barrel, dog-eat-dog, oppression Olympics—it would not last, you insist. It could never be in the first place. Racism is natural, so natural that we will call it “tribalism” to insinuate that everyone does it. Sexism is natural and homophobia is natural and religious intolerance is natural and greed is natural and cruelty is natural and savagery and fear and and and … and.

All alone, I sleep in the pavement to thrive a silent dream.

1. Just as a parent does not send a toddler into a new situation alone, do not do that to yourself. Take someone else along. 2. Just as a parent begins by talking about the situation with the child, talk to the fearful part of yourself. Focus on what is familiar and safe. 3. Just as a parent keeps the promise that the child can leave if he or she becomes too upset, allow yourself to go home if you need to. 4. Just as a parent is confident the child will be okay after a while, expect the part of yourself that is afraid to be okay after some time to adjust to all the unfamiliar stimulation. 5. Just as a parent is careful not to respond to a child’s fear with more concern than is justified by the situation, if the part that is fearful needs help, respond with no more anxiety than the braver part of you thinks is justified.

That's the thing, isn't it, when you grow with Time, you learn to value your Time more than anything in this world. You safeguard your peace from literally anything that seems to pull it down, even if that means transient happiness. I learnt long back that Life is a series of lessons, some bitter and well some very very bitter, but all of them assimilate into something so serene, so beautiful actually when looked from a distance. Because each time you're broken, you're made once again, some from the pieces that lay scattered on the ground while some entirely new coming from all across the Sky where He Smiles at You, knowing that your fall was nothing but a blur in the Time that would clutch you later in Life into understanding the Truest Meaning of Life, the virtue of Patience and Perseverance, the lesson on Time, that Time alone has the biggest Smile and if you evolve with it you would walk the fire with the Zeal of your Soul that never ages, you will find wrinkles and scars but those are like battle ropes that get you motivated to walk this Earth one more time, to know that you're still alive, only your core never changes, You in your heart is always that child, the one who is always eager to embrace as much colour from this moment as your senses can. I am not hushing the child but patting it with the serenity of a grey hair, knowing that Life has been kind even at the battles that were thrown along the way, and eventually letting my heart know that the biggest war I'd ever face is within, the war that demands me to hold on too tightly all while letting go too spontaneously, the least I could find is a victory of Knowing I have done it all with an Honest Heart and a Soul that thrives on Faith. If colours were hued on my Soul, let Integrity be my Sun and as for the Moon, I'd always be Kindness' arm. Thank You, Life And to every momentary transient passerby of this beautiful journey, no matter where we left off, I wish your journey finds the course it's meant to walk.

I don’t do publicity, I never will. My entire body of works thrives despite the absolute absence of publicity. I write in silence, I publish in silence, I continue the struggle in silence - in silence and alone. I don't have an industry to back me up - all I have is my dream - the dream of an undivided world.

Monks do one thing at a time. 2. Monks don’t rush. They do things slowly and deliberately. 3. Monks don’t cut corners. They do it completely. 4. Monks do less… but do more. 5. Monks remain calm. They don’t panic. 6. Monks are okay being alone—they thrive at it. 7. Monks study all different kinds of topics to enhance growth. 8. Monks devote time to sitting. 9. Monks smile. 10. Monks live simply. 11. Monks don’t waste time. 12. Monks have a strong community and family unit. 13. Monks have a love affair with life.

Schedule time for yourself in the same way you would plan any other activity, and honor that commitment. Yes, your work and relationships are important, but spending time alone is essential for your mental health. Think in advance of what you would like to do during these periods. Just sitting in a relaxing bath with a good book might be all you need to feel better after a tough day.

But there are a lot of great pleasures you can get out of the experience of being alone with yourself,” said Bowker. In solitude you can find the unfiltered version of you. People often have breakthroughs where they tap into how they truly feel about a topic and come to some new understanding about themselves, said Bowker. Then you can take your realizations out into the social world, he added: “Building the capacity to be alone probably makes your interactions with others richer. Because you’re bringing to the relationship a person who’s actually got stuff going on in the inside and isn’t just a connector circuit that only thrives off of others.

Surely man has free will, and there are famous stories of humans persisting in and strengthening their faith all alone. Saint Patrick was a slave left alone in a field with sheep in pagan Ireland as a boy, and he prayed without ceasing until he could escape—eventually returning as a bishop and a missionary. So we shouldn’t deny people individual agency by saying their environment determined their outcome. Yet we know that environment helps determine our outcomes. That’s why parents work hard to find the right school and community in which to raise their children. If people thought environment didn’t help determine outcomes, they wouldn’t expend so much time and money to obtain a great environment—family, school, neighborhood—for their children. They’d just say, 'Hey, kid, make good decisions.

Then there was the Black Liberation Army, which murdered seventeen American police officers in the 1970s, including six in New York City alone. There was the Symbionese Liberation Army, of Patty Hearst kidnapping fame. On the other side of the spectrum was the United States Christian Posse Association, a precursor of Aryan Nations, which preached violent white supremacy. It was domestic terror groups such as these that led the assault on the United States. In one poll taken at the time, more than 3 million Americans favored a revolution. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 and the strength of capitalism brought an end to the socialist insanity that marked the prior decades. Even Bill Clinton tried to ride the prevailing winds. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act he signed in 1996 sought to combat the cycle of poverty by putting limits on welfare. Still, under the surface, the cracks in the Democrats’ foundation spread and deepened.

And so how does Um-Helat exist? How can such a city possibly survive, let alone thrive? Wealthy with no poor, advanced with no war, a beautiful place where all souls know themselves beautiful . . . It cannot be, you say. Utopia? How banal. It’s a fairy tale, a thought exercise. Crabs in a barrel, dog-eat-dog, oppression Olympics—it would not last, you insist. It could never be in the first place. Racism is natural, so natural that we will call it “tribalism” to insinuate that everyone does it. Sexism is natural and homophobia is natural and religious intolerance is natural and greed is natural and cruelty is natural and savagery and fear and and and . . . and. “Impossible!” you hiss, your fists slowly clenching at your sides. “How dare you. What have these people done to make you believe such lies? What are you doing to me, to suggest that it is possible? How dare you. How dare you.” Oh, friend! I fear I have offended. My apologies. Yet . . . how else can I convey Um-Helat to you, when even the thought of a happy, just society raises your ire so? Though I confess I am puzzled as to why you are so angry. It’s almost as if you feel threatened by the very idea of equality. Almost as if some part of you needs to be angry. Needs unhappiness and injustice. But . . . do you? Do you?

Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can’t live alone, you were born a slave. You may have all the splendours of the mind and the soul, in which case you’re a noble slave, or an intelligent servant, but you’re not free. And you can’t hold this up as your own tragedy, for your birth is a tragedy of Fate alone. Hapless you are, however, if life itself so oppresses you that you’re forced to become a slave. Hapless you are if, having been born free, with the capacity to be isolated and self-sufficient, poverty should force you to live with others. This tragedy, yes, is your own, and it follows you.

That, yes, we may long to be in a group, but we can find unbelievable strength deep inside to survive, even thrive, when we are alone. And when we are whole, we are more likely to find a group again.

The Life Ruiner alone didn't ruin me. The world that made him did - the place that continues to manufacture replicas of him and continues to create the circumstances in which he and his replicas thrive. What is there to do about that?

The people in my life found spaces to rest while navigating a racist culture, and they worked themselves into a deadly grind cycle to survive. They straddled the lines between exhaustion and always thriving. They moved mountains with their faith alone and created pathways for invention that I am still uncovering. They resisted every moment by existing in a world that was not welcoming or caring.

How can a poem make a difference? How can a tree make a difference? Perhaps the answer to those questions is that poetry and nature have a way of simply reminding us that we are not alone. The Kentucky writer bell hooks once wrote, “Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” Going to the woods, or simply noticing the small defiant ways nature is thriving all around me on a daily basis, helps me feel that communion. And poems, like the poems that I’ve collected here for this anthology, help me feel that sense of communion too.

Ames, I’ve known you both for a long time. Right now, you don’t believe him, but I hope you can believe me when I say that the two of you were merely surviving alone, going through the motions in your own lives. Together, you were thriving, becoming better versions of yourselves—this picture captured that perfectly. That love wasn’t all for Charlie.

Tender self-compassion is the capacity that allows us to be with ourselves just as we are—comforting and reassuring ourselves that we aren’t alone, as well as validating our pain. It has the gentle, nurturing quality of a mother toward a newborn child.

Jesus went to a garden on the night of his betrayal. He went to the garden to pray, to cry out to the Lord, to be alone with God when no one else was looking. It’s where he met with his Father. And it’s where we meet with our Father too. How we tend our garden matters. What we fill our minds with, what we let our eyes see, what we listen to, the people we surround ourselves with, the people we go to or don’t go to when we’re struggling; it all matters. Vulnerability with safe people matters. Being open and honest with those we trust is worth the hard work. It’s worth it to let them see our dark spots so we can let the light in. Only we know the state of our hearts. Only we know what we hold back and what we let out. And only we can make the decision to cultivate our hearts so that they thrive and flourish.

Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane.

Surviving is when all your efforts are focused on you alone while thriving has more to do with meeting others needs and wants.

I got into bed, opened the bottle, worked the pillow into a hard knot behind my back, took a deep breath, and sat in the dark looking out of the window. It was the first time I had been alone for five days. I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me. I took a drink of wine.

Let’s fully admit how difficult it is to be a parent and highly sensitive. We need our alone time, but there is no truly alone time with an infant, especially if you have more than one child and also a partner (or even more difficult, you are a single parent). And what if you have a career, aging parents, or other responsibilities? Forget finding time for the things you need, like a night of uninterrupted sleep, creative work done alone, time in nature, and meditation or prayer. Others can survive without these. We can for a while, but we eventually start to wither.

I’m not sure if Minji is referring to herself or to Charis. Yeah, no. I don’t ask her. But secretly, I pity her. She has lived out my mother’s worst fear: She has not had children. She has remained self-sufficient. She is alone. Even though my children have not brought me happiness in the ways that I expected, they have taught me all I know about the meaning of life. That is, I never question that their lives are meaningful. Not ever. That they should exist and thrive and inherit the earth, forever and ever, amen.

In a math department that thrived on its collective intelligence—where members of the staff were encouraged to work on papers together rather than alone—this set him apart. But in some respects his solitude was interesting, too, for it had become a matter of some consideration at the Labs whether the key to invention was a matter of individual genius or collaboration. To those trying to routinize the process of innovation—the lifelong goal of Mervin Kelly, the Labs’ leader—there was evidence both for and against the primacy of the group. So many of the wartime and postwar breakthroughs—the Manhattan Project, radar, the transistor—were clearly group efforts, a compilation of the ideas and inventions of individuals bound together with common purposes and complementary talents.

Silence fell and anger slid through my veins like poison. “Bryce is a piece of shit.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “You think so?” “Yeah, and from what I’ve seen of your magic tonight, you’re more powerful than you let on.” “You really believe that?” He batted his eyelashes at me like I’d just told him his dick was a girl magnet. “I’m just stating facts, don’t take it as a compliment.” His shiny little eyes said he did though, and I shook my head as I turned away from him to watch the street. One impossibly long minute to go. “The problem is, even when I do better, the stars always trip me up. I’m not gonna be free of this bad luck until long after my education is over. I won’t make it that far in life with this curse hanging over me. Especially not in a city like Alestria.” “Fuck the stars,” I muttered. “They don’t make your decisions. And if you don’t have confidence in yourself then no one else will. You think anyone’s been there cheering me on while I fought my way to the top of the Lunar Brotherhood? Ninety nine percent of people in life wanna see you fall. But you can thrive alone, Eugene. The strongest Fae do.

Without partnership between two, it is not realistic to expect a community of thousands to survive let alone thrive.

The truth is that there is no before and after in life. We are always in a process of shedding and becoming. That snapshot moment you’re waiting for, that instance in which someone dares to look you up again and sees, finally, that you are thriving...is a game for you, and you alone.

Some of the more salient traits of his lineage appeared to have come to an end with him. He could not have been more different from his father, who had owned every room he had walked into and made everyone in it gravitate around him, and he had nothing in common with his mother, who had probably never spent a day of her life alone. These discrepancies with his parents became even more accentuated after his graduation. He moved back from New England to the city and failed where most of his acquaintances thrived—he was an inept athlete, an apathetic clubman, an unenthusiastic drinker, an indifferent gambler, a lukewarm lover. He, who owed his fortune to tobacco, did not even smoke. Those who accused him of being excessively frugal failed to understand that, in truth, he had no appetites to repress.

North, South, East, West, Abandon all primitive divide. Your culture is my culture, Together alone shall we thrive!

Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and author of Alone Together, has written about the cost of constantly documenting—i.e., photographing—our lives. These interruptions, she writes, “make it hard to settle into serious conversations with ourselves and with other people because emotionally, we keep ourselves available to be taken away from everything.” And by so-obsessively documenting our experiences, we never truly have them.

Love thrives on inextinguishable pain, which tears the soul, then knits the threads again, a mote of love exceeds all bounds; it gives the vital essence to whatever lives. but where love thrives, there pain is always found; angels alone escape this weary round- they love without that savage agony which is reserved for vexed humanity. For you, Tric.

Mother Nature is not a living being, but she is a biogeophysical, rationally functioning, complex system of oceans, atmosphere, forests, rivers, soils, plants, and animals that has evolved on Planet Earth since the first hints of life emerged. She has survived the worst of times and thrived in the best of them for nearly four billion years by learning to absorb endless shocks, climate changes, surprises, and even an asteroid or two. That alone makes Mother Nature an important mentor.

Why then do we wonder that heroin is everywhere? In our isolation, heroin thrives; that's its natural habitat. And our very search for painlessness led us to it. Heroin is, I believe, the final expression of values we have fostered for thirty-five years. It turns every addict into narcissistic, self-absorbed, solitary hyper-consumers. A life that finds opiates urns away from family and community and devotes itself entirely to self-gratification by buying and consuming one product - the drug that makes being alone not just all right, but preferable.

Lark’s Song That child who from Diana’s thought is born A huntress swift, who doth the world adorn With strength and passion worthy of the Green May wax, and one day rise to be a queen. That child who in the eye of Phoebus grows Of visage fair, that none would dare oppose May in her hand hold light and glory too, And to the Light hold sternly staunch and true. That child who with the face of Venus smiles, Will bear a heart of mischief and of wiles, And may in time love’s faithful bonds fulfil While bending lesser hearts unto her will. That child who with Athena’s grace doth move May to all eyes her worldly wisdom prove And make right wise and fulsome use thereof To measure all who seek to win her love. That child who with grim Circe’s tongue foretells Enmeshing faithful hearts within her spells By dint of sly mendacity and guile, All innocence and virtue may defile. That child who by her cunning doth connive May by fair Tyche’s fortune wax and thrive And come in time to sit upon a throne; Or fail and fall, forsaken and alone. That child may choose to hark to glory’s call And shine in splendour, loved by one and all; Or cleave to darkness, hated and reviled: Chance crafts the fate of every fate-touched child.

Why are you so into Pinot?” 2 Maya asks. In the next 60 seconds of the movie, the character of Miles Raymond tells a story which would set off a boom in sales of Pinot Noir. It’s a hard grape to grow. It’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It’s not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and thrive even when it’s neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention. In fact it can only grow in these really specific, tucked away corners of the world. And only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot’s potential can coax it into its fullest expression. Its flavors are the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and ancient on the planet. Miles is describing himself in the dialogue and using Pinot as a metaphor for his personality. In this one scene moviegoers projected themselves on the character, feeling his longing and his quest to be understood. Sideways was a hit and won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. It also launched a movement, turning the misunderstood Pinot Noir into the must-have wine of the year. In less than one year after the movie’s 2004 fall release date, sales of Pinot Noir had risen 18 percent. Winemakers began to grow more of the grape to meet demand. In California alone 70,000 tons of Pinot Noir grapes were harvested and crushed in 2004. Within two years the volume had topped 100,000 tons. Today California wine growers crush more than 250,000 tons of Pinot Noir each year. Interestingly, the Japanese version of the movie did not have the same “Sideways Effect” on wine sales. One reason is that the featured grape is Cabernet, a varietal already popular in Japan. But even more critical and relevant to the discussion on storytelling is that Japanese audiences didn’t see the “porch scene” because there wasn’t one. The scene was not included in the movie. No story, no emotional attachment to a particular varietal. You see, the movie Sideways didn’t launch a movement in Pinot Noir; the story that Miles told triggered the boom. In 60 seconds Maya fell in love with Miles and millions of Americans fell in love with an expensive wine they knew little about.

We also recognized that schools can’t do it alone, so we surround students with a team that provides everything from extra academic opportunities, parent education, and early childhood services to behavioral health counseling, housing and career support. In partner schools where the supports are most layered for NAZ students, they are doing significantly better than their peers in reading. Samuels

There was a time when we failed to understand that throughout history, God has used place. There was a time when we laughed at the thought that we had losses, we brushed away any grief. “That’s ridiculous,” we sniffed! Other’s have far more losses. Others are far worse off. But then we faced one too many moves and in the back of our minds, the whisper of losses began to shout. And then someone invented a name, a name with a thousand meanings and memories. We became third culture kids. And we learned that we were not alone, that there were so many like us. We learned it was okay to have a name. It did not label us as an infection; it gave credibility to who we were and how we had lived.We were real. We could relax and begin to thrive. We had a place and we had a name — those Edenic characteristics applauded by God in the Garden so long ago. With a name we could grow into the people God intended us to be. And so we did.

Patrick Kelly was nearby and he was what she wanted, for however long it might last. Kate had never loved lightly, she had always loved one hundred per cent, and now Dan knew, looking into her eyes, that her allegiance to him had gone for good. He wasn’t really surprised when she pulled her arm free and, straightening her dressing gown, walked to the front door. With those few steps she finally severed any remaining ties between them. Patrick stood on the doorstep perplexed. He had seen the light from the front room and wondered what was keeping Kate. He was sorry now that he had come round so late, but he had felt an overwhelming urge to see her. He had been sitting in his house alone, and Mandy had invaded his thoughts as she always did when he had nothing else to occupy him, and suddenly the urge to see Kate was so strong it was almost tangible. Taking his BMW he had driven himself to her house. Now it did not seem like a very good idea. He saw her slim form walking down the hall and felt a surge of pleasure. As she opened the door he smiled at her crookedly. ‘I know it’s late but I saw your lights on . . .’ His voice trailed off. Kate had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. ‘Come in, it’s freezing.’ He followed her down the hall and into the lounge. Kate was not surprised to find it was empty. She had heard the back door close as she opened the door to Patrick. Dan was a lot of things but brave was not one of them. ‘How about a drink? Tea, coffee, a brandy?’ She saw Dan’s glass where he had left it on the coffee table. It was still half full. ‘Coffee will be fine, I’m driving myself tonight. Where’s your mother?’ ‘She’s in bed. I gave her a sleeping pill. All this with Lizzy has really hit her hard.’ Kate was amazed at how normal she sounded. ‘How’s Lizzy?’ ‘Better. She seems to be thriving on being somewhere different. I know that sounds crazy but from

At one point when I was in the middle of the first season, I asked myself why I would want to watch a conservative Democrat destroy teachers’ unions and have joyless sex with a woman who looks like a very young teenager. I still had not answered the question when Claire pushed things to the next level in a scene so intensely creepy that it might count as the most revolting thing I have ever witnessed on television. A longtime member of the couple’s Secret Service security detail is dying of cancer, and Claire goes to visit him alone. On his deathbed, he reveals that he was always secretly in love with her and thought that Frank wasn’t good enough for her. Her response is almost incomprehensible in its cruelty—she mocks and taunts him for thinking he could ever attain a woman like her, and then puts her hand down his pants and begins to give him a handjob, all the while saying, in true perverse style, “This is what you wanted, right?” Surely Claire doesn’t have to emotionally destroy a man who is dying of cancer—and yet perhaps in a way she does, because she uses it as a way of convincing herself that Frank really is the right man for her. Not only could an average, hardworking, sentimental man never satisfy her, but she would destroy him. By contrast, Frank not only can take her abuse, but actively thrives on it, as she does on his. Few images of marriage as a true partnership of equals are as convincing as this constant power struggle between two perverse creeps. Claire is not the first wife in the “high-quality TV drama” genre to administer a humiliating handjob. In fact, she is not even the first wife to administer a humiliating handjob to a man who is dying of cancer. That distinction belongs to Skyler White of Breaking Bad, who does the honors in the show’s pilot. It is intended as a birthday treat for her husband Walt, who is presumably sexually deprived due to his wife’s advanced pregnancy, and so in contrast to Claire’s, it would count as a generous gesture if not for the fact that Skyler continues to work on her laptop the entire time, barely even acknowledging Walt’s presence in the room. In her own way, Skyler is performing her dominance just as much as Claire was with her cancer patient, but Skyler’s detachment from the act makes it somehow even creepier than Claire’s.

We’re just not strong enough to survive alone, let alone thrive. Whether we like to admit it or not, we need each other.

In the past underwhelming products could survive and thrive merely on distribution alone. A bad product, backed by a large television campaign and retail distribution, could find growth and profits for the company, regardless of quality. This is no longer the case. Today, mediocre products can still be launched in this way, but their longevity and returns quickly crash as word of mouth spreads and demand dries up faster than ever before.

Love Untamed, unbridled, unfair Timeless, ageless, never painless Selfish, selfless, righteous n’ wicked Lingers on and on It weeps; it laughs, it hinders and thrives It seeks, it finds…triumph and loss It shatters; it builds; gives life and kills Enriches the soul but pays the cost Makes me fight; Makes me flee Tells the truth and lies Fills me with passion; tempts me to hate Makes me live and die Runs cold and burns; chills to the bone Ignores… yet never leaves me alone It’s tainted and pure; loud and demure And lingers on and on ~Jason Versey

Why is this happening? Perhaps as you climb into bed alone, you find yourself longing for a warm body or the sense of security of sharing a bed, a home. What you might not have realized, especially in the immediate emotional aftermath of divorce, is that these seemingly conflicting emotions really are connected. They all are a part of your grief.

And they rode for home. His ice had thawed. Her fire had calmed. They'd thrived alone, but there'd been no happiness. Together they were better, stronger, wiser, more faithful. Together they'd forged their fire and ice into the warmth of true love.

The truth is, I had lived alone for so long I sometimes forgot that the responsibility for running my life was solely mine. There was no sharing of duties and decisions in the life I'd chosen. Whether it was taking the car to the repair shop or hanging the screen door, it was up to me. Most of the time I liked being in charge of my life, thrived on it, in fact. But occasionally, when I was tired or unhappy, I'd find myself thinking how nice it would be to let someone else run the show, at least for awhile.

A baby bird cries out in the night It is hungry, naïve, and so helpless Wondering what has it done wrong The darkness seeps in as hope fades Where is its mother, is she in flight why has she left it alone for so long?   So the babe flutters its wings, But no one has taught it to fly Has it lost its ability to sing? It wants to live, needs to survive But it’s not sure it even wants to try It remains alone and out on the edge.   Finally it gathers up all its strength Flaps its tiny wings and tries to thrive       It falls to the ground…it is wounded The little one lies there waiting to die. Who will help it, and will it survive until the day when it learns how to fly?

Precisely when hominins learned to manipulate fire is unclear. But recent research suggests that fire, in the form of cooking, helps account for the leap into the genus Homo, who became physiologically dependent on cooked food. By boosting calories, and by detoxifying and softening food, controlled fire allowed us to exchange big guts for big brains. Experiments confirm that we cannot thrive or reproduce on raw foods alone: they simply cannot deliver the calories and they require more chewing, digestive juices, and intestinal machinery. With cooking that digestive process begins earlier. If the observations hold, they say that humans and fire have not simply co-existed but co-evolved. We are not only the keystone species for fire: fire is a keystone process for our existence.

Thousands of years have passed and the Immortal race still thrives, despite the damage caused by one man’s misguided pursuit of Enlightenment. The Power is corrupted, and will remain so until a new generation is born with the strength of their ancestors, led by one with an unsullied, natural connection with the Power. His heart will guide him, giving him the restraint to wield his Power wisely. He will gather his equals and together they will stand against those who persist in the corruption of the natural order. He will be strong and fierce in his beliefs, and steadfast in his love. Born the second child of the seventh daughter of his line, he alone will possess the skills and the knowledge to heal what has been broken. He alone will have the courage to judge unbiased and mete out the ultimate punishment. Until the time of his birth, may we prepare the way and hope for the future of all the races of men. —Book of the Indriell Queens – ca. 6000 B.C.E.

For the same reason, added McKinsey, “products can go viral on a scale that has never been seen before. In 2015, Adele’s song ‘Hello’ racked up fifty million views on YouTube in its first forty-eight hours, and her album 25 sold a record 3.38 million copies in the United States in its first week alone, more than any other album in history. In 2012, Michelle Obama wore a dress from British online fashion retailer ASOS in a photo that was re-tweeted 816,000 times and shared more than four million times on Facebook; it instantly sold out.

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming – WOW – What a Ride!

technological innovation alone doesn’t make for a thriving company.

While all the data we have is about the past, all the decisions we make are about the future. When the world is changing rapidly, data alone is not enough to set a course to your best future

These ambitious objectives provoked a crisis in the country, which was finally recovering from the turmoils of World War I, revolution, and civil war. But this did not trouble Stalin, because Communist regimes thrived on crises. Crisis alone permitted the authorities to demand—and obtain—total submission and all necessary sacrifices from its citizens. The system needed sacrifices and sacrificial victims for the good of the cause and the happiness of future generations. Crises enabled the system in this way to build a bridge from the fictional world of utopian programs to the world of reality.

Yoshida alone appeared healthy. Hirotaka shock his head in disgust; the man must thrive on everyone else's misery.

Believing that you can be alone and thrive, that you can survive the end of something and rebuild, are important elements of self-efficacy.

And the only time I wanted to spend alone time with a guy was when he knew how to eat pussy.

humans inherently make poor decisions when we are alone. When surrounded by a good support system, we thrive and excel. Kate and I are always here for you,

The only place she found mention of experiences like hers was inside a couple of psychiatry books. What she was going through was a fetish, these books explained. It was sexual, deviant and a sign of mental illness. There was something terribly wrong with her. Mortified, she pushed these books aside. Was this who she was? Was she sick? Shame wormed its way into every part of her. She could see no way out, no way to right this wrong. Research had failed her, and she found herself feeling more alone than ever.

Among the tubes, aloneness is a thing to be avoided. We thrive in each other’s company.

Here's the definition of shame that emerged from my research: Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection. Shame thrives on secrecy, silence, and judgement. If you put shame into a petri dish and douse it with these three things, it will grow exponentially into every corner and crevice of our lives. The antidote to shame is empathy. If we reach out and share our shame experience with someone who responds with empathy, shame dissipates. Shame needs you to believe that you're alone. Empathy is a hostile environment for shame.

As spiritual beings, to some extent, we are ever a stranger to normal human life. We are in the world but not of it. When the humanness has diminished enough and the human karma worked through enough, the alone feeling evaporates, never to return. In fact, it becomes apparent that it would be impossible to ever feel alone again as one is intimately connected to a thriving life-force. We feel intrinsically related to everyone. We have a deep solitariness but we can never be lonely because there can no longer be any separation from God. We are more a part of humanity than ever before because we see all as of God. We are all here together, joined irrevocably in the evolution of humanity both individually and collectively.

Perhaps she'd never stop seeing them. Perhaps she alone in this wold and all others knew what lay beyond the invisible walls separating them. How much life dwelled and thrived. loved and hated and struggled to claw out a living.

If possible, try to train yourself. Take home the instruction manuals or stay after hours and work on your own. Or arrange to be trained one-on-one, preferably by someone who puts you at ease. Ask to be shown a step, then to be left to practice it alone. Next, allow someone else to watch you who is not a supervisor, someone who doesn’t make you so nervous.

I felt, since Bible college, that the only place I could lead a revitalization would be in Birmingham. Why? I knew revitalization would mean a lot of challenges. I knew I was not some amazing rugged hero with vast experience who could accomplish change alone. I felt weak and unimpressive, and facing up to my own limitations and weakness meant that leading a revitalization would require more than just me and my young family. So we needed the generous support of faithful people with us and the support of faithful pastors around us. Birmingham was the only place I thought we had this, and we had it there in abundance! We were able to gather a first-class team of families to join with us to kick-start the revitalization. The benefit of collaborative church planting and the thriving movement of church planting in Birmingham was that all these people already knew what was expected; they’d seen it done. And churches were willing to be generous in giving us their best. Another benefit is the ongoing partnership between churches. Just because we took a group of families a year and three months ago does not in any sense mean the job is done. Ongoing needs arise at different stages of our journey, and the churches around us get this. They are in constant contact to pray and offer real practical support.

Generosity takes many forms. Barnaby Pain, a church planter with 2020birmingham who is one year into a church revitalization project, makes this clear. He emailed the following to me (John) recently, when I asked him to reflect on why he planted with 2020birmingham. I felt, since Bible college, that the only place I could lead a revitalization would be in Birmingham. Why? I knew revitalization would mean a lot of challenges. I knew I was not some amazing rugged hero with vast experience who could accomplish change alone. I felt weak and unimpressive, and facing up to my own limitations and weakness meant that leading a revitalization would require more than just me and my young family. So we needed the generous support of faithful people with us and the support of faithful pastors around us. Birmingham was the only place I thought we had this, and we had it there in abundance! We were able to gather a first-class team of families to join with us to kick-start the revitalization. The benefit of collaborative church planting and the thriving movement of church planting in Birmingham was that all these people already knew what was expected; they’d seen it done. And churches were willing to be generous in giving us their best. Another benefit is the ongoing partnership between churches. Just because we took a group of families a year and three months ago does not in any sense mean the job is done. Ongoing needs arise at different stages of our journey, and the churches around us get this. They are in constant contact to pray and offer real practical support.

Tribalism becomes dangerous when it turns rivals into enemies, when it suppresses diverse thinking, and when it pushes individuals to do things they wouldn’t do on their own. This type of dangerous tribalism thrives in a sea of disconnected people looking for belonging. And who doesn’t crave belonging these days? We are disconnected from our neighbors, disconnected from nature, disconnected from animals, disconnected from the universe, and disconnected from most things that make us human. Tribes are the magnet that attracts the metal of our craving to belong. They assure us that we’re right and morally superior. They force us into a different reality where it becomes impossible to see—let alone comprehend—another worldview. We become “the Few, the Proud, the More or Less Constantly Appalled at Everyone Else,” as David Foster Wallace put it.

Oh, come on, admit it. I’m the obscure, jolly cousin everyone assumes lives alone in a timber-framed cottage with a thriving herb garden and eleven cats. I’m also completely forgotten until needed. Except by you. You never missed a birthday or Christmas card. Thank you! -Gertie

I wonder for the first time, with a sharply caught breath, if I did love Peeta then. If the grief that poured out of me during his Games had been the outcry of a breaking heart, rendered powerless to prevent her beloved's pain. If I agreed to his bargain not simply to save my family but because my heart desperately wanted to live in the glow of his. If the kiss I clumsily pressed to his cheek after the Reaping – the kiss that sent me sprinting back to the woods to burrow among the roots of an old tree and cry myself sick – had nothing to do with debt or gratitude and everything to do with love and loss. I wonder if I've loved him since that moment under the apple tree when a boy with a bruised cheek threw burnt bread and life to a dying girl. A girl who grew and thrived because of that boy and that bread, who wished for five years that she could have soothed his cruel bruise with a kiss. Was that why I kissed him after the Reaping? Had I been carrying that clumsy kiss inside of me all that while? Had Peeta brought life to my heart as well as my body that hopeless day in the rain? Have I ever not loved him? I shake away these troubling thoughts with a shiver that reaches to my bones. My love for Peeta is fresh and fragile as a hatchling, I'm sure of it; kindled by his compassion and coaxed into its present brave blaze by the tenderness he shows me at every moment. It's foolish and futile to wonder whether I might have loved him before coming here, let alone when that love might first have flickered into existence. I am a wild creature, devoted to the boy who tamed me with warmth and food and gentle touches, and I accordingly express that love with woodland gifts. Like a courting bird in an old tale, bringing her sweetheart all manner of odd little presents to feather his nest.

Throughout it all, it seems like everybody has an opinion. The disease may be yours and yours alone, but the people in your life will have their own thoughts and judgments about how you handle the impact of chronic illness on everything from your daily routine and medication choices to major life decisions. You’ll have to decide whose opinion is worth listening to, and whose you should be blocking out.

A single company working alone on a big issue like human rights or decarbonization may be able to solve 30 or 40 percent of the problem in its own operations. But getting to a 100 percent solution requires changing the underlying system

It entails comforting ourselves, reassuring ourselves that we aren’t alone, and being present with our pain.

Area51. While StackExchange claims Area51 is an incubator for new sites, it’s better imagined as a gladiatorial gauntlet designed to weed out all but the most committed of leaders. In Area51, anyone can propose an idea for a new site, but the odds on any site making it through to launch is slim. The process begins by creating a proposal on the site. This alone requires a reputation score of at least 50, earned through previous contributions to the network. Once the proposal has been submitted, members progress to the definition phase. In this phase, group creators need at least five example questions and five users willing to follow the proposal within three days to avoid being deleted. If the proposal meets this criteria, it then has 90 days to attract 60 followers, 40 questions, and 10 votes. These votes help define what the site will be about. If the proposal survives the moderator chopper (many ideas are also merged or rejected for being too similar to existing sites at this stage), it moves into the commitment phase. In the commitment phase, group creators need to earn a 100% commitment score. This means at least 200 committed members, 100 of whom need to have a reputation score of 200+. A commitment isn’t made lightly; it’s an obligation to ask or answer 10 questions in the private beta phase. A member can only commit to one project at a time and a commitment means a member is putting their own reputation on the line to help someone else. If they fail to follow through (as many do), their reputation score drops. For StackExchange members, whose reputation score often helps them with future job applications, this is a big deal.

Anxiety followed me when I changed jobs, during my first year of university, and throughout the following autumn and winter. It hung around when I started to drink more, when I started to drink less, and when I got sober once and for all and was forced to process life without numbness. It would hover over me for days before finally swooping in to convince me that I was failing, that I was weak, that I was alone. It would worsen when I tried to push it down. It thrived in the dark and in my solitude, and the longer I kept it there, the more anxious I became. Well into 2015, I kept chiding myself for not being better -- for not yet outsmarting the narratives that made me feel small and trapped and afraid. So, fueled by comparison with the people around me who seemed to have their lives under control, I threw myself into self-improvement: I decided I needed to commit to bigger and better, doing more, being more, being smarter, being more involved, less thirsty, more enthusiastic, busier, more relaxed, and, and, and. Perfect, perfect, perfect. And anxiety clapped back.

Here they are, the principles every Thriving Artist lives by— the Rules of the New Renaissance: 1.​The Starving Artist believes you must be born an artist. The Thriving Artist knows you must become one. 2.​The Starving Artist strives to be original. The Thriving Artist steals from his influences. 3.​The Starving Artist believes he has enough talent. The Thriving Artist apprentices under a master. 4.​The Starving Artist is stubborn about everything. The Thriving Artist is stubborn about the right things. 5.​The Starving Artist waits to be noticed. The Thriving Artist cultivates patrons. 6.​The Starving Artist believes he can be creative anywhere. The Thriving Artist goes where creative work is already happening. 7.​The Starving Artist always works alone. The Thriving Artist collaborates with others. 8.​ The Starving Artist does his work in private. The Thriving Artist practices in public. 9.​The Starving Artist works for free. The Thriving Artist always works for something. 10.​The Starving Artist sells out too soon. The Thriving Artist owns his work. 11.​The Starving Artist masters one craft. The Thriving Artist masters many. 12.​The Starving Artist despises the need for money. The Thriving Artist makes money to make art.

But once you begin studying the positive benefits of time alone with your thoughts, and encounter the distressing effects that appear in populations that eliminate this altogether, a simpler explanation emerges: we need solitude to thrive as human beings, and in recent years, without even realizing it, we’ve been systematically reducing this crucial ingredient from our lives.

Then there is the very human tendency to enter or persist in a close relationship out of sheer fear of being alone, overaroused, or faced with new or frightening situations. I think this is a major reason why research finds that one-third of college students fall in love during their first year away from home. We’re all social animals, feeling safer in each other’s company. But you don’t want to put up with just anyone out of fear of being alone. The other will sense it eventually and be hurt or take advantage of you. You both deserve better. Look back over your love history. Did you fall in love out of fear of being alone? I believe that HSPs ought to feel that they can survive at least for a while without a close, romantic relationship. Otherwise, we are not free to wait for a person we really like. If you cannot live alone yet, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Most likely something damaged your trust in the world, or someone wanted you not to develop that trust. But if it’s practical, do try living on your own. Should it seem too difficult, work it through with a therapist to support and coach you—someone who will not abuse or abandon you and who has no interest in the outcome except seeing you self-sufficient.

You didn’t come here to be alone solitude is a rose, loneliness its thorn you weren’t alone from the very start hosted in a womb, cherished in a heart You evolved to live in groups to increase your chance of survival when you have others to count on your happy hormones are higher You were designed to thrive by touch of both the body and the soul and this may come as much from a friend, a tree, a song The deeper you go within where all ice melts the deeper you’ll touch everyone else

But love alone isn’t enough, it needs something else—something essential—in order to thrive and get you through all the fucked-up tests life throws at a relationship.

One of my perceived weaknesses is that I am not a confrontational person. I am not bellicose and belligerent. I am not quarrelsome and warlike and people who are like this, loud and vulgar and toxic think they are strong and people like me are weak. Go around spewing venom and vitriol. Bullies think calm people are weak. But they don’t know where my strength lies. Everything that I am is born out of this quiet, humble and pacific nature. Bullies only set themselves up as targets. Bullies don’t do self work. Bullies aren’t introspective. Bullies are too busy trying to cower others down and point fingers. Bullies don’t make peace, they don’t want peace, peace confuses them. Bullies can’t walk alone. Bullies thrive in groups. They need cheerleaders. I am almost always alone…

Our trait of sensitivity means we will also be cautious, inward, needing extra time alone. Because people without the trait (the majority) do not understand that, they see us as timid, shy, weak, or that greatest sin of all, unsociable. Fearing these labels, we try to be like others. But that leads to our becoming overaroused and distressed. Then that gets us labeled neurotic or crazy, first by others and then by ourselves.

While I wait to heal, I often find solace in solitude. I don't fully understand why, but I know I must be alone. I withdraw from the world, and in that quiet space, I focus solely on my recovery. This solitude forces me to confront my raw emotions, with no distractions to dull their intensity. It is within these moments of despair that my most brilliant ideas emerge. I allow myself to feel deeply, to the point where I can no longer feel. To overcome heartache, it's essential to exhaust every emotion—cry until the tears run dry, feel until you're tired of feeling, talk about the person until even your own voice bores you. When you are drained, empty, and devoid of emotion, you are almost across the bridge to healing. It is only then that true detachment begins. Each time my heart has been broken, I've learned how to heal myself. Heartbreak no longer holds power over me. I've realized that the only way to get over it is to go through it. The longer I deny my feelings to protect myself, the more pain I endure. But if I accept the situation and fully experience my emotions, the pain fades more quickly. At most, they may occupy my thoughts for a few days; if I loved them deeply, maybe two or three weeks. I simply withdraw from society and return when I am better, when I am healed. During my healing process, I commit to self-improvement. I channel my energy into refining the parts of myself that led to unnecessary pain. I acknowledge my mistakes, see where I went wrong, and take responsibility for my role in my suffering. And as long as he makes no effort, I am gone. The quickest way for any man to lose me is to stop trying and to make his intentions clear. While he may think I am suffering, I am actually healing. I am recalibrating, renewing, and rehabilitating. I am resurrecting, realigning, adjusting, refocusing, and resetting. I am fine-tuning. In the midst of this, I give him nothing—no attention, no thoughts, no feelings. Exes thrive on your negative emotions, so silence must be so profound that it echoes. No attention, no access. They may resort to stalking through fake profiles, but let them exert the effort. Block all other avenues of communication. I am reshaping, reorienting, tweaking, reassessing, reconfiguring, restructuring. In my absence, I am transforming. Ducked. I am for all ill purposes and intentions, my most productive and fruitful self when I am hurt or alone. This leads my naysayers, detractors and enemies to learn that for the most part, excluding death, I am by most standards, indestructible. I will build empires with the stones one throws at me. I will create fertilizers with the trash and feaces hurled at me. I will rise like pheonix from the ashes. I am antifragile, I can withstand trials, tribulations, chaos and uncertainty and grow in the face of adversity. I am the epitome of the resilience paradox, trial bloom, adversity alchemy, refiners fire and the pheonix effect. I am fortitude - me. Ducked. What’s even more magical, is what comes out on the other side of this process. It’s a peace, you do not want anyone to destroy. A clarity, you won’t risk blurring. A renewed you, a different version of you, stronger, fierce, centered and certain. A rebirth, refinement. You never saw it coming. Neither will they. Copyright ©️ 2024 Crystal Evans

But marriage doesn’t function very well as an in-between thing, and marriages surely don’t tend to thrive when we leave them alone and ask them to grow on their own.

For example, when passing by strangers on the street, instead of avoiding eye contact you can wish them well. While waiting in a long line at the airport or standing next to someone with a screaming toddler, instead of reacting with impatience or frustration you can remind yourself of our shared experience, which is precious and priceless. Life is too short to spend it alone; it is critical to value human connection and strive to share your peace and joy with others.

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Then one day, Walter looked Ruth in the eye and abruptly announced that he was going to become an actor. He joined a generation of World War I veterans who, failing to make a killing in real estate, ended up working as extras in the film industry. Indeed, they arrived by the busload and trainload, according to Anthony Slide in Hollywood Unknowns: A History of Extras, “Bit” Players, and Stand-Ins. It was a hard life for most extras, who were lucky to get a day’s employment in a crowd scene and suffered the embittering experience of serving as observers of the lavish wealth that surrounded them. They were rather like indentured servants, their prospects of emerging as even bit players—let alone as character actors or stars—seemed exceedingly doubtful. But a few, including Walter Brennan, loved the speculative and sporting atmosphere of Los Angeles in the 1920s, and endured the boom-and-bust cycles that broke the spirit of many men and women. A lifelong conservative, Brennan never questioned the nature of such an economy. He seemed to thrive on risk and to enjoy the company of other risk takers.

as manufacturing industries are replaced by a more specialized, knowledge-based economy, productivity alone can no longer provide a competitive edge. Hence the pursuit of creativity as a competitive advantage.

34. Find A Good Guide When you pursue an exciting path through life, you are - inevitably - going to have moments of hardship, doubt, struggle and pain. It comes with the terrain of being a champion - in whatever field. So accept that fact. But don’t despair, because the good news is that help is nearer at hand than you might imagine. You see, if I am going to enter a difficult jungle or uncharted mountain range, I always make sure I have a good guide. Life is the same. Go it alone, by all means, but you make the journey that much harder. Trust me. To give yourself the best shot of reaching your destination and achieving all you are meant to in your life, you need a great guide, someone who can lead you, inspire you, comfort and strengthen you - especially when the going gets tough, as it invariably will. For me, my simple faith has so often brought light to a dark path, joy to a cold mountain and strength to a failing body. And who better to have as a guide than the person who made the path or the mountain in the first place!

69. When You’re Going Through Hell, Keep Going Whether I have been in the middle of a dusty, barren desert, stuck in a mosquito-infested swamp, or freezing cold and wet in the middle of the ocean, there is always one thing I tell myself above everything else (and it is an easy one to remember, even when you are dog tired and not feeling particularly brave or strong). It’s this… …just keep going. JKG. Winston Churchill said it in one of the darkest moments of World War Two, when the outlook was as bleak as it had ever been. On 10 May 1940, the British looked to be finished. They stood alone against the vicious and victorious Nazis. Two weeks after Churchill came to power, France was knocked out of the war, and 340,000 British troops had to scramble to escape over the beaches at Dunkirk. The Germans had absolute control of all of Europe. It seemed impossible that Britain could survive. What was Churchill’s response? ‘When you’re going through hell, keep going.’ It is reassuring to know that the real heart of survival is as simple as this. All you have to do is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Even if you don’t make much progress, you just have to keep going. It is not only the heart of survival, it is also the key to success. It’s really not that different when we face traumas elsewhere in our lives. Bereavement, illness and heartbreak are part of every human life. Sometimes the emotional impact of these events can bring us to our knees. But the way through is always the same: keep going. When we give up, we know our destiny. When we keep going, we earn the right to choose our fate. Ingrain it in your DNA: JKG.

Another reality is that you live at a time when unemployment is high and financial markets throughout the world are jittery. Again, a worldly solution is to look for alternatives to God’s plan. But we know that strong marriages and families actually help the economy to thrive. And we are not alone in those feelings.

29. Instinct Is The Nose Of The Mind - Trust It Instinct is almost impossible to define but it can be so important when we come to a crossroads on our journey through life. Sometimes things just don’t ‘feel’ right - even if all the outward signs seem to be pointing us towards a certain course of action. When that happens, listen to that voice. It is God-given and it is our deep subconscious helping us. You see, we all tend to act in accordance with our rational, conscious minds. But we have a clever, far more knowing and intelligent part of us that the smart adventurer learns to use as a key part of his arsenal - it is called our intuition, and no amount of money can buy it. Talented climbers and adventurers know that to reach a summit or achieve a goal we have to use all the ‘weapons’ in our arsenal - not just the obvious ones, like strength, fitness and skill, which many people rely upon alone. Sometimes that final push to the summit requires something beyond the normal. So don’t fight against that inner voice if it is speaking loudly to you. It is there to guide and protect you. Listening carefully to this voice is how we distinguish ourselves from the rest of the crowd who so often barge through life, too busy or too proud even to acknowledge their intuition’s existence.

4. Chase the Goal, Not the Money We live in a society where people love to equate success with money. It is always a mistake. I have met enough unhappy millionaires to know that money alone does not make you happy. I’ve seen people work so hard they do not have any time for their families (or even time to enjoy the money). They doubt their friends’ motives, or become paranoid about people trying to steal from them. Wealthy people can all too easily end up feeling guilty and unworthy, and it can be a heavy load to carry - especially if you don’t treat that fickle imposter right. You see, money, for its own sake, like success or failure, is a thing of little lasting significance. It is what we ‘do’ with it and how we treat it that makes the life-changing difference. Money, success and failure can drastically improve or ruin people’s lives. So you have got to treat it for what it is. And you have got to stay the master of it.

I know I am whole. Some times walking alone. I am bare and try not to care as people pick and stare. Highlighting flaws to hide their own. Tearing me down, telling me not to reach for my crown. As they dig their holes deeper, hoping I wither. But I have a drive. Soaring high I will thrive.

31. Humility Is Everything This chapter is about remembering your manners when things start rolling your way - as they surely will now that you are learning so many of these life secrets! It’s very tempting, when we experience a little bit of success, to think that our good fortune is down to our skill, our brilliance or our good nature. That might be a part of it, of course, but the truth is that every successful person has had great help and support from others. And the really successful person also has the humility to acknowledge that. When you clam too much credit for yourself, or you shout too loudly of your success, you give people a really good reason to talk against you. No one likes a boaster. And real success has humility at its core. I’ve been super lucky to have met some of the most successful sports stars on the planet. And you know what’s interesting about the most successful sportsmen and women? The more successful they are, so often the more humble they are. Listen to how Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal talk about their success. Even as the number-one tennis players in the world, they continually acknowledge their family, their coach, their team, even their opponents, as incredible people. And it makes us like them even more! I guess it’s because big-heads don’t get our admiration, even if they are incredibly successful. Why is that? Maybe it is because we know, deep down, that none of us gets very far on our own, and if someone says they have done it all alone, we don’t really believe them. Take a look at one of the greatest inventors to have ever lived, Sir Isaac Newton. In a letter to his great rival Robert Hooke, he wrote that his work on the theory of gravity had only been possible because of the scholarship of those who had gone before him. ‘If I have seen a little further,’ he wrote, ‘it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ I instantly admire him even more for saying that. You see, all great men and women stand on mighty shoulders. And that means you, too. Never forget that.

So how do you get to know yourself? The first way is to spend some time alone - just you - without all the outside influences of peers and family that so powerfully shape our aspirations. Give yourself enough time to hear your own heart’s desires, rather than being drowned out by what others want you to do with your life. I am sure the advice your family gives you is motivated by great love, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their advice about your aspirations and career is right for you. This is your life. Be bold with it. Live it with energy and purpose in the direction that excites you. Listen to your heart, look for your dreams: they are God-inspired. You will find that you have certain core competencies, things you naturally find you are good at. Look to those skills, feed them. Your purpose, dreams and aspirations will often be aligned with your natural core competencies. Listen to what the Bible says: You are wonderfully and powerfully made. In other words: it is no accident you are good at certain things! The second way to get to know yourself is to test yourself. Throw yourself into new challenges. Set yourself hard tasks. Find out what makes you come alive and test what you’re capable of.

Before I climbed Everest, I saved up to make an attempt on a peak called Ama Dablam, one of the classic and more technically difficult climbs in the higher Himalayas. For many of the weeks I was there, I climbed alone, plugged into my headphones and utterly absorbed in each step, each grip. I was in tune with myself. I was in tune with the mountain. It was just the mountain and me. During those times, I really had the chance to push my own boundaries a little. I found myself probing, being willing to push the risk envelope a bit. I started to reach a little further for each hold, finely balanced on my crampons, taking a few extra risks - and I made swift, efficient progress. I was exploring my climbing limits and loving it. When I reached the summit and watched in awe as the distant peak of Everest came into view, ten miles to the north, I knew I had the skills to scale that mountain, too. William Blake said: Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street. He was right. We need time and space and adversity to really get to know ourselves. And you don’t always find that in the grind, when your head is down and you are living someone else’s dreams. Wherever you are in your life, it is possible to find your own challenge and space. You don’t have to go to the jungle or the Himalayas - it is much more a state of mind than a physical location. Mountains of the mind are around us all everywhere. And it is when we test ourselves that we begin to know ourselves.

15. Shedding The Heavy Unnecessary So, before we go too much further, now is a good chance to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, we are all a little guilty of sometimes living someone else’s aspirations for us instead of our own. And this is a great time to say ‘No more!’ to living out of fear and other people’s expectations. It is never an easy time to face some of those old negative feelings, but it is always a good time to change the way we pack and what we choose to carry further down the road of our lives and adventures. Ultimately, the more ‘bad’ equipment we carry, the slower we go and the less far we travel. Each of us gets to choose. But when we shed the bad and travel lighter, a few things happen. First up, I bet that you will laugh more, you will worry less and you are much more likely to achieve your dream. Travelling light also keeps us free to adapt our adventures or careers. Free to listen to the calling. How often do great opportunities come to people, but they are too ‘busy’ or maybe too cynical to even notice them, let alone walk through an exciting new doorway. Winston Churchill (him again!) once said words to the effect that everyone gets the chance to make their fortune once, but not everybody takes it. If you’re weighed down, head down and bunged up with emotional junk, you might miss that chance. So look wisely at the ‘baggage’ you carry and your attitudes to the world. They will define you. Do they enhance your life and increase your chances of reaching your dream, or do they hold you back?

The cruise was the conduit for what would become my third book. While I was traveling and writing for ctnow.com, women across the United States and from the Caribbean emailed not to ask about my geographic journey but my existential one. “How do you find the courage to travel on your own?” they wondered. “How do you keep from getting lonely? Don’t you feel self-conscious eating out alone?” After the first 30 emails like these I thought, There’s a book here. It would be eight years before I published Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road. But the inspiration for publication came during the cruise.

most advice for couples focuses on their personal relationship, not the way it intersects with professional dreams. Even then, couples are bombarded with blanket prescriptions on what they should do: “Divide the housework equally,” “Strike a balance between life and career,” “Make time for one another”—none of which have helped couples become clearer about, let alone learn how to satisfy, their deepest needs in work and in love.

In the fringes of our yard, daffodils await their triumphant chorus. The golden bells have just opened on our forsythia, and clusters of hyacinth flowers await flourish in purple blooms. By aesthetic standards, any of these blossoms would have outshone the fistful of yellow spikes my little boy offered. In the coming months, dozens of its cousins, cast away as weeds, will meet an untimely end beneath the blades of a lawnmower. Their brazen head will be lopped off, their awkward petals demolished and scattered. They will be declared a nuisance, expendable. Yet when gripped within Pip's fingers, how perfect, how precious became this paltry bloom. He had put aside the torrent of irritability and overwhelm that trouble him hourly, and found grace in a spiral of petals. Through a humble weed, love had broken through. God works this way. He does great things with the meager, and beautiful things with the misshapen. He chooses the smallest, the humblest, the most broken as his servants. (1 Sam 16:10-12, Numbers 12:3, 1 Tim 1:15) He works for good through the greatest calamity. (Gen 50:20) With his most beloved broken and crushed, he reaches through the firmament, and in love makes things new. (Rev 21:5) Where we see weakness, he offers grace. (2 Cor 12:9) He shatters pride, so new blossoms can burst forth. I've spent the past few months wrestling with God. After Pip's evaluation, as we clumsily felt out life with special needs, the questions of why wrapped around my heart, infusing me with daily bitterness. Resentment broiled to the surface. I'd left medicine to follow God's call, but a large part of me, in shocking arrogance, wanted to comply on my terms. Over the past two years, God has compelled me to confront my idols. I thrived on productivity. But now I inevitably find grime in corners I have just cleaned. I prized efficiency. But it now takes 30 minutes of wrangling over potty... I'm an introvert, who needs alone time to rejuvenate. But is anyone less alone than a mom with young kids? A "save the world" mentality drives me. But my daily life fodder is now the mundane. I relish instant gratification. But this business of shepherding hearts is long, with few immediate rewards. I relished accolades... I consider God's graciousness to us, and in the stillness of a springtime morning, I struggle for breath. His mercy toward us in this season -- in the face of my arrogance, despite the brokenness to which I've so stalwartly clung -- is stunning. During all the years of my training and career, homeschooling was never the plan. God inexplicably placed the idea in my heart, like a shadow that deepened daily. But now, I see how perfect were his methods. I shudder to think of how our family would struggle if I was still barreling ahead at the hospital, subsumed with my own self importance, while Pip fought daily to deal with every crowd... Homeschooling was never the plan. . . but oh, what a plan! That he called us this way, was mercy manifest. That he has equipped us to continue, is the greatest gift. Even on the hard days, I count it all joy. On the days when Pip, after a week of handling things so well, has a meltdown in the grocery store, complete with screaming and a blow to my chin -- there is joy there. God can work even with our ugliness. Through Christ, God redeems even the most corrupt. He assembles the stray petals, the unseemly stems, and makes things new. He strips away the idolatry of a surgeon desperate to prove her own worth, and points her toward the fount of all worth -- Christ Jesus. There is a deep well of peace in serving God where he has placed you. There is a refining grace, in realizing his work even in the hard moments. There is a profound beauty in redemption -- in the love that breaks forth through brokenness -- if we can only put away our preoccupations, and embrace his will. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." -- 2 Cor 12:9

Just like your parents influenced your defaults when you were growing up, you set your kids’ defaults during the time you live with them and when you make decisions for your family. And just like your parents’ defaults may not have been the optimal match for you, your children’s settings will likely need to be different than yours. Be sensitive to your kids’ unique personalities. Let them learn to explore without your protection, without your resources, without your solutions. This is the paradox of parent-child love: sometimes, we need to distance ourselves from what we love the most. Our offspring develops stability when they’re given the right roots, and they thrive proportionately to the time they’re left alone to figure things out for themselves (with the security of knowing you are there for assistance if needed).

For some of us, things have always been hard, and I wrote the Broken Earth trilogy to speak to that struggle, and what it takes to live, let alone thrive, in a world that seems determined to break you.

Innovation thrives on creativity and experimentation, but it also requires thoughtful pruning. With tens of thousands of employees and billions of users, there are infinite opportunities to create. And we attract people who want to do just that. But freedom is not absolute, and being part of a team, an organization, means that on some level you’ve agreed to give up some small measure of personal freedom in exchange for the promise of accomplishing more together than you could alone.

Furthermore, Cptsd can also be caused by emotional neglect alone. This key theme is explored at length in chapter 5. If you notice that you are berating yourself because your trauma seems insignificant compared to others, please skip ahead to this chapter and resume reading here upon completion. Emotional neglect also typically underlies most traumatizations that are more glaringly evident.

Researchers from Harvard and the University of Virginia did an experiment in which they gave people a choice to be alone in a room, without anything—devices, books, papers, phones—or get an electric shock. 67 percent of men chose an electric shock.

The Addictive Self-Soother When dealing with the addictive self-soother, recognize that you’re with someone who is in a state of unknowing avoidance. The intolerable discomfort associated with his unrecognized loneliness, shame, and disconnection when the spotlight isn’t casting its shimmering glow upon him sends him hiding beneath the floorboards once again. He may be engrossed in workaholism, drinking binges, spending marathons, or voracious Internet surfing. He may indulge in the delivery of yet another tiring oration on some esoteric or controversial subject, not necessarily because he’s seeking attention, but in an effort to avoid feeling the throbbing pulse of his aloneness and fragility. You may go knocking, but he doesn’t come out. He can’t risk being seen au naturel, with all of his emotions, needs, and longings revealed. You’re expected to pander to his selective emotional departures and not request his presence, regardless of the emotional costs to you.

Escaping from fascism, European Jews had poured into Palestine—more than sixty thousand in 1935 alone. Arab residents reacted angrily to the flood of immigrants. The British government was convinced that the hostility was due, in part, to the region’s lack of resources; the immigrants were exceeding Palestine’s “absorptive capacity” (that is, its carrying capacity). The limit to absorptive capacity was water—British experts argued that regional supplies couldn’t sustain a big influx of immigrants. In this arid, eroded landscape, the supply of well-watered farmland was so small that incoming Jews who used their superior financial resources to acquire it would necessarily create “a considerable landless Arab population.” Zionist groups sent out water testers, who proclaimed that they had found much more water than Britain allowed. London ignored the reports and in 1939 restricted Jewish immigration to fifteen thousand a year. No! Lowdermilk protested. Britain had it backward! The new Jewish settlements were the only bright spots he had seen in the entire dismal region! In the midst of the desolation were Zionist village cooperatives where jointly owned farms grew newly bred crop varieties that thrived in the dry heat. The farms were investing their profits to buy advanced well-boring equipment and create small industries—carpentry and printing shops, food-processing facilities, factories for building material. Most important to Lowdermilk were the irrigation and soil-retention programs—“the most remarkable” he had encountered “in twenty-four countries.” If the British increased immigration, rather than restricted it, he said, Palestine would be able to support “at least four million Jewish refugees from Europe.

Deeply considering uplifting ideas raises our consciousness from the realm of the material problem into the powerful and harmonious realm of the spiritual. It is what a dedicated spiritual practice is all about. We give up our own ideas, hurts, fears, and grudges and concede to the Greater. We expand and we heal. It becomes apparent that it would be impossible to feel alone as we are intimately connected to a thriving life-force. It is everything, yet, it is nothing. It grows silently and steadily. We are already it and It is already us. We continue to go forward with our spiritual practices and these practices increasingly envelop us in loveliness. We come out the other side as a transparent being; nameless but with the mark of God.

It becomes apparent that it would be impossible to feel alone as we are intimately connected to a thriving life-force.

Through this qualitative research, we learned that all teams need to do three very basic things: Create, Operate, and Relate. If a team is lacking in any one of these three major functions, it is almost impossible for the group to be effective, let alone thrive.

The war against Perot escalated quickly. The booster club geared up a letter-writing campaign to him, state legislators, and the governor. Nearly a thousand letters were sent in protest of Perot’s condemnation of Odessa. Some of the ones to him were addressed “Dear Idiot” or something worse than that, and they not so gently told him to mind his own damn business and not disturb a way of life that had worked and thrived for years and brought the town a joy it could never have experienced anywhere else. “It’s our money,” said Allen of the funds that were used to build the stadium. “If we choose to put it into a football program, and the graduates from our high schools are at or above the state level of standards, then screw you, leave us alone.” At one point Perot, believing his motives had been misinterpreted and hoping to convince people that improving education in Texas was not a mortal sin, contemplated coming to Odessa to speak. But he decided against it, to the relief of some who thought he might be physically harmed if he did. “There are so few other things we can look at with pride,” said Allen. “We don’t have a large university that has thirty or forty thousand students in it. We don’t have the art museum that some communities have and are world-renowned. When somebody talks about West Texas, they talk about football. “There is nothing to replace it. It’s an integral part of what made the community strong. You take it away and it’s almost like you strip the identity of the people.

... she thought about back home, about how she had been all alone most of the time then too, but that this lonesomeness was different. Then she stopped staring at the green chairs, at the delivery truck; she went to the movies instead. There in the dark her memory was refreshed, and she succumbed to her earlier dreams. Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another -- physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion. In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap. She forgot lust and simple caring for. She regarded love as possessive mating, and romance as the goal of the spirit. It would be for her a well-spring from which she would draw the most destructive emotions, deceiving the lover, and seeking to imprison the beloved, curtailing freedom in every way.

Didn’t Jews thrive on open discussion and debate? Indeed, wasn’t debate at the very heart of the tradition? Didn’t Jews also value education and ideas, pride themselves on producing and consuming culture? Not just contemporary secular Jews, of course, but Jews throughout history? In fact, wasn’t it the great Jewish thinker Maimonides who, in the Middle Ages, strove to reconcile the philosophy and science of Aristotle with the Bible, engaging the writings of Arab Muslim philosophers? And he did all of this while also working as a physician! And today, these young Hasidim were not even allowed to read Aristotle, let alone go to college or medical school—or to the movies, or even to a Broadway musical, like Fiddler on the Roof. After all, this was a community that prohibited men from hearing women sing because the sound of their voices could be sexually arousing. How did it come to this?

Santa Ines is, on first impression, not the best, but not anywhere approaching the worst city Chant has found himself in. He’s seen it all. Palaces and slums, wide, sunlit marble boulevards flanked by ornamental gardens, and shanty towns drowning in mud and despair. This place is, at first glance, the same as any other West Coast city he’s ever drifted through. A twisted core of skyscrapers, apartments and office-blocks, wound round with freeways and dwindling out to cinder block suburbs with repeating fenced yards, bikes on the paths and barbecues in the back, not affluent but not dangerous, either. To the other side of the city, the buildings slope down to the seafront, built lower towards the ocean front as if the nearer they get to the beach, the more they want to get down on their knees and dig. Chant laughs under his breath at the thought: weird. Digging for, what, pirate treasure? Maybe. It’s an old beach town, after all. Zinging with life, thriving, but with that hidden current eddying in the shadows at the edge of the ever-present sunshine, ready to drag down the unwise into secret depths. Here, in Santa Ines, it feels like it goes deeper, somehow, but Chant doesn’t plan on sticking around long enough for that to be a problem. And anyway - he’s not new. Not as if anything like that can touch him, let alone hold him.

I dissent from the systems not out of defiance, but from a vision for change. Through open conversations with those in power, I strive for reform. Here in this village, as everywhere, I see the flaws as clear as day. Yet, the fault isn't theirs alone. A community thrives or fails on the actions of its people, not just its leaders. If you champion free speech, embody that freedom in every word and act. Be the change, the 'X' you wish to see, not just in posts but in presence. Authenticity invites authenticity, fostering true freedom within our communities. Otherwise, we're just co-authoring a book of hollow tweets.

I released the deepest and darkest things about my past in the hopes that someone might see a reflection of themselves in the words and know that they are not alone, and they too can grow and thrive. And so that they may not make the many missteps I took along the road.

though masters of air currents, had never encountered such a beast before. They hadn’t the faintest clue what it was, let alone how it thrived. All they knew was that it was moving, causing quakes and shaking the ground beneath a volcano, its rumblings a terrible drumbeat rumbling through the earth’s mantle.

Lord, "You Rescued Me" January 9, 2025 at 1:24 PM (Verse 1) Lord, I was lost in the dark, couldn't find my way, Thought I was a burden, just wasting away. But then you came along, like a beacon of light, You showed me love, made everything right. (Chorus) Lord, you rescued me when I thought nobody would, When I thought I wasn't worth the effort, you understood. You gave me everything and asked for nothing, Now I'm dancing through life, my heart is singing. (Verse 2) You picked me up when I was down on my knees, Whispered sweet words, put my mind at ease. With every step we take, I feel so alive, Together we can conquer, together we thrive. (Chorus) Lord, you rescued me when I thought nobody would, When I thought I wasn't worth the effort, you understood. You gave me everything and asked for nothing, Now I'm dancing through life, my heart is singing. (Bridge) In your arms, I found my home, With you, I'll never be alone. Through the highs and the lows, we'll stay strong, With you by my side, I know I belong. (Chorus) Lord, You rescued me when I thought nobody would, When I thought I wasn't worth the effort, you understood. You gave me everything and asked for nothing, Now I'm dancing through life, my heart is singing. (Outro) You gave me everything and asked for nothing, Now I'm dancing through life, my heart is singing. With you by my side, we'll face every storm, In your love, I've found my way home.

Everyday is not going to be just the way you want it, situations at times might turn out unpleasant, or even heartbreaking. This happens to everyone. You’re not alone, remember this, but for the most part, thrive to be happy with where you are in life. We’re all the artist of our own inner thoughts, and happiness. Many times, we take things way to serious. Many times, situations turn out just the opposite of what we were thinking. Bring God with you through this journey, His hand are always on our shoulders. In Jesus name. Amen.

Everyday is not going to be just the way you want it, situations at times might turn out unpleasant, or even heartbreaking. This happens to everyone. You’re not alone, remember this, but for the most part, thrive to be happy with where you are in life. We’re all the artist of our own inner thoughts, and happiness. Many times, we take things way to serious. Many times, situations turn our just the opposite of what we were thinking. Bring God with you through this journey, His hand are always on your shoulders. In Jesus name. Amen.

Consciousness arose as an alternative to instinct,” Alice says. “Life on Earth evolved over billions of years. Across that immense depth of time, life explored different strategies to survive. Reacting to shadows helped simple organisms avoid predators, but those shadows could come from clouds or trees. Acting on an impulse wasted energy. And so instinct evolved. Instincts encoded complex behaviors, like reacting to some shadows but not others. Instinct alone, though, wasn’t enough. To thrive, animals needed to understand motives—their own motives and the motives of others within their species and without. They needed to understand how to act in complex scenarios that defied impulse and instinct. Consciousness solved that problem. Reactions could be moderated by experience, by thinking, by feeling, by experimenting, by learning, by existing.

Lastly, to state the obvious, your “purpose” is a very personal choice and yours alone. How do you want to lead your life and what do you aspire it to be?

accepting help is not a show of weakness. It’s honoring the truth that got us here: We thrive together and fail alone.

I feel such sorrow that you were so abandoned and that you felt so alone so much of the time. I love you even more when you are stuck in this abandonment pain – especially because you had to endure it for so long with no one to comfort

He’s like one of those trees that grow on a sheer granite cliff. In the wind and snow and icy cold, they should fall, but they don’t. Stubbornly, they remain. Thrive.

But I thrive practicing alone. I can work on exactly what I want at my own pace. Yeah, I’m a part of a team, but I’m the one controlling my part. I’ve never met another soccer player—another athlete—who shared the same mentality.

Like all living things, relationships thrive when nourished. Whether friendship, family, or intimate relationships, it’s so important to do more than just speak… but to connect. Healthy connection is the heartbeat of a relationship. Let’s sit with those in our circle and create a space where we can lay down our burdens without fear of judgment, and where our victories are celebrated with genuine joy. This level of communication and connection build the bridge that carries trust, empathy, and love across the seasons of life. Life doesn’t have to be carried alone. When nurtured with kindness, openness, and respect, our friendships and relationships can become a sanctuary for the soul.

Justice is the foundation of a thriving society. Laws alone cannot ensure fairness; it takes courage, integrity, and the willingness of individuals to defend truth. True justice preserves dignity, protects the vulnerable, and holds power accountable.