Titles Are Temporary Quotes

Our lives are a series of dreams realized. We don't say that enough... The truth is, job titles are temporary but purpose is infinite.

The truth is, job titles are temporary. But purpose is infinite.

In theory at any rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy . It was understood that orders had to be obeyed, but it was also understood that when you gave an order you gave it as comrade to comrade and not as superior to inferior. There were officers and NCOs, but there was no military rank in the ordinary sense; not titles, no badges, no heel-clicking and saluting. They had attempted to produce within the militias a sort of temporary working model of the classless society.

As long ago as 1795, in an essay titled Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant worked out what such deterrence ultimately leads to: “A war, therefore, which might cause the destruction of both parties at once … would permit the conclusion of a perpetual peace only upon the vast burial-ground of the human species.”22 (Kant’s book title came from an innkeeper’s sign featuring a cemetery—not the type of perpetual peace most of us strive for.) Deterrence acts as only a temporary solution to the Hobbesian temptation to strike first, allowing both Leviathans to go about their business in relative peace, settling for small proxy wars in swampy Third World countries.

Where is your real power? Is it in the title you carry? Is it in the possessions you have – a nice car, a big house, money in the bank? Is it in your status? No, your power is not outside you. It’s within you. External power may feed your ego, but internal power is empowering; external power is temporary, internal power is permanent; external power is limited, internal power is limitless.

The essential point of the system was social equality between officers and men. Everyone from general to private drew the same pay, ate the same food, wore the same clothes, and mingled on terms of complete equality. If you wanted to slap the general commanding the division on the back and ask him for a cigarette, you could do so, and no one thought it curious. In theory at any rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy. It was understood that orders had to be obeyed, but it was also understood that when you gave an order you gave it as comrade to comrade and not as superior to inferior. There were officers and N.C.O.S. but there was no military rank in the ordinary sense; no titles, no badges, no heel-clicking and saluting. They had attempted to produce within the militias a sort of temporary working model of the classless society. Of course there was no perfect equality, but there was a nearer approach to it than I had ever seen or than I would have thought conceivable in time of war.

Ever since I first read Midori Snyder’s essay, ‘The Armless Maiden and the Hero’s Journey’ in The Journal of Mythic Arts, I couldn’t stop thinking about that particular strand of folklore and the application of its powerful themes to the lives of young women. There are many different versions of the tale from around the world, and the ‘Armless Maiden’ or ‘Handless Maiden’ are just two of the more familiar. But whatever the title, we are essentially talking about a narrative that speaks of the power of transformation – and, perhaps more significantly when writing young adult fantasy, the power of the female to transform herself. It’s a rite of passage; something that mirrors the traditional journey from adolescence to adulthood. Common motifs of the stories include – and I am simplifying pretty drastically here – the violent loss of hands or arms for the girl of the title, and their eventual re-growth as she slowly regains her autonomy and independence. In many accounts there is a halfway point in the story where a magician builds a temporary replacement pair of hands for the girl, magical hands and arms that are usually made entirely of silver. What I find interesting is that this isn’t where the story ends; the gaining of silver hands simply marks the beginning of a whole new test for our heroine.

Will you dare to say so?–Have you never erred?–Have you never felt one impure sensation?–Have you never indulged a transient feeling of hatred, or malice, or revenge?–Have you never forgot to do the good you ought to do,–or remembered to do the evil you ought not to have done?–Have you never in trade overreached a dealer, or banquetted on the spoils of your starving debtor?–Have you never, as you went to your daily devotions, cursed from your heart the wanderings of your heretical brethren,–and while you dipped your fingers in the holy water, hoped that every drop that touched your pores, would be visited on them in drops of brimstone and sulphur?–Have you never, as you beheld the famished, illiterate, degraded populace of your country, exulted in the wretched and temporary superiority your wealth has given you,–and felt that the wheels of your carriage would not roll less smoothly if the way was paved with the heads of your countrymen? Orthodox Catholic–old Christian–as you boast yourself to be,–is not this true?–and dare you say you have not been an agent of Satan? I tell you, whenever you indulge one brutal passion, one sordid desire, one impure imagination–whenever you uttered one word that wrung the heart, or embittered the spirit of your fellow-creature–whenever you made that hour pass in pain to whose flight you might have lent wings of down–whenever you have seen the tear, which your hand might have wiped away, fall uncaught, or forced it from an eye which would have smiled on you in light had you permitted it–whenever you have done this, you have been ten times more an agent of the enemy of man than all the wretches whom terror, enfeebled nerves, or visionary credulity, has forced into the confession of an incredible compact with the author of evil, and whose confession has consigned them to flames much more substantial than those the imagination of their persecutors pictured them doomed to for an eternity of suffering! Enemy of mankind!' the speaker continued,–'Alas! how absurdly is that title bestowed on the great angelic chief,–the morning star fallen from its sphere! What enemy has man so deadly as himself? If he would ask on whom he should bestow that title aright, let him smite his bosom, and his heart will answer,–Bestow it here!

There is another Christian theme with roots around the world: Christ’s death on the cross.  Christians would like to believe this story is unique, but evidence shows that in many details, Jesus Christ’s story is an updated version of the story of Krishna, Mithras, Horus, Quetzalcoatl, Dionysus, and many other sun-gods.  Many are born to a virgin around the winter solstice, their birth heralded in advance by a star.  Many had someone with a name like Herod or Herut out to kill them as a baby.  Many were baptized in water by someone who was later beheaded.  Many were tempted in the desert by Set or Satan, had twelve disciples and a last supper, cured blindness and leprosy, brought the dead back to life, and had titles like “King of Kings,” “Lord of Lords,” “Redeemer,” “Savior,” “Anointed One,” and “Son of God.”  (If interested in all the details, read Kersey Graves’ The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors or Suns of God by Achyra S.)   Various sun gods have died, descended into hell or the underworld, and were resurrected three days after being sacrificed to save humanity through a very temporary death on a cross, or the crossing of the four roads, or the crossing point of the Milky Way and the ecliptic.  This is the time and place at which they ascend to their father, the highest god, and receive great power and kingship over the earth.

Now then, little missy. Why don’t you stand up so’s I can get a good look at you.” Livy bristled at the title, missy. Miss was a reprimand reserved for the ill-tempered and the disobedient. She was neither, and no one, stranger or relation, had ever addressed her with anything less than a missus. She glanced over at Mr. Wilkes, justice of the peace, overseer for the poor, and their temporary guardian. He nodded. The mayor was an unschooled frontiersman, so Mr. Wilkes made allowances, but his rueful look was the same one Livy saw him direct at his wife’s back a hundred times a week. Reluctantly she stood, clutching Ephraim’s hand behind her back. “How old are you, gal?” “Fourteen, sir,” she said with a curtsy. The Pelton children had been raised to “make their manners” to all adults, no matter how lowly. Livy was sure these were the lowliest she had ever seen.

And here is how Jamie translates the poetry of Roosevelt into the prose of a JPMorgan Chase manual, titled How We Do Business: “Have a fierce resolve in everything you do.” “Demonstrate determination, resiliency, and tenacity.” “Do not let temporary setbacks become permanent excuses.” And, finally, “Use mistakes and problems as opportunities to get better—not reasons to quit.

I always enjoy this title—Cambises, King of Percia: a Lamentable Tragedy mixed full of Pleasant Mirth.’ ‘What's it like?’ ‘Not particularly exciting, but does summarize life.

This book is no more about baubles, or about blasphemy, than a book on ‘creation science’ is about creation or about science. The book’s title was to get you to buy it. Thanks. Hope you like it. If you are reading this for free in a store, go buy the damn book. If you like it, tell others and write nice letters about it. If you don’t like it, you are encouraged to give it such a hard time that lots of others will want to buy it. You know, sort of like The Catcher in the Rye, or The Satanic Verses, or Ulysses. Might never have heard of any of these if some group with the temporary power to do so didn’t ban one or more of them at various unhappy times. Anyone who thinks Ulysses is a dirty book has never read Ulysses. The same type people will probably buy a copy of The Confessions of St. Augustine off the rack at the bus station for titillation en route.

I will persist until I succeed. I was not delivered into this world into defeat, nor does failure course my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion, and I refuse to talk, walk, and to sleep with the sheep. I will persist until I succeed. —OG MANDINO Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever. —LANCE ARMSTRONG

Hierarchy often breaks down in the neutral zone, and mixed groupings, such as task forces and project teams, are often very effective. People may have to be given temporary titles or made “acting” managers.

Faith in a written revelation is a real, unfeigned, and so far respectable faith, only where it is believed that all in the sacred writings is significant, true, holy, divine. Where, on the contrary, the distinction is made between the human and divine, the relatively true and the absolutely true, the historical and the permanent, - where it is not held that all without distinction is unconditionally true; there the verdict of unbelief, that the Bible is no divine book, is already introduced into the interpretation of the Bible, - … it's title to the character of a divine revelation is denied. Unity, unconditionality, freedom from exceptions, immediate certitude, is alone the character of divinity. A book that imposes on me the necessity of discrimination, the necessity of criticism, in order to separate the divine from the human, the permanent from the temporary, is no longer a divine, certain, infallible book, - it is degraded[.]

The Lord’s judgment of who you are and what you are worth is more accurate than what you think of yourself because His view is eternal. He doesn’t appraise you by investigating temporary issues such as who you know, where you live, your title, your income, or how you look. Rather, He sees you through the blood of Jesus and desires for you to seek Him wholeheartedly.