Took So Many Losses Quotes

The stars are brilliant at this time of night and I wander these streets like a ritual I don’t dare to break for darling, the times are quite glorious. I left him by the water’s edge, still waving long after the ship was gone and if someone would have screamed my name I wouldn’t have heard for I’ve said goodbye so many times in my short life that farewells are a muscular task and I’ve taught them well. There’s a place by the side of the railway near the lake where I grew up and I used to go there to burry things and start anew. I used to go there to say goodbye. I was young and did not know many people but I had hidden things inside that I never dared to show and in silence I tried to kill them, one way or the other, leaving sin on my body scrubbing tears off with salt and I built my rituals in farewells. Endings I still cling to. So I go to the ocean to say goodbye. He left that morning, the last words still echoing in my head and though he said he’d come back one day I know a broken promise from a right one for I have used them myself and there is no coming back. Minds like ours are can’t be tamed and the price for freedom is the price we pay. I turned away from the ocean as not to fall for its plea for it used to seduce and consume me and there was this one night a few years back and I was not yet accustomed to farewells and just like now I stood waving long after the ship was gone. But I was younger then and easily fooled and the ocean was deep and dark and blue and I took my shoes off to let the water freeze my bones. I waded until I could no longer walk and it was too cold to swim but still I kept on walking at the bottom of the sea for I could not tell the difference between the ocean and the lack of someone I loved and I had not yet learned how the task of moving on is as necessary as survival. Then days passed by and I spent them with my work and now I’m writing letters I will never dare to send. But there is this one day every year or so when the burden gets too heavy and I collect my belongings I no longer need and make my way to the ocean to burn and drown and start anew and it is quite wonderful, setting fire to my chains and flames on written words and I stand there, starring deep into the heat until they’re all gone. Nothing left to hold me back. You kissed me that morning as if you’d never done it before and never would again and now I write another letter that I will never dare to send, collecting memories of loss like chains wrapped around my veins, and if you see a fire from the shore tonight it’s my chains going up in flames. The time of moon i quite glorious. We could have been so glorious.

Life is a bus ride, with only so many seats. It took me a long time to comprehend that sometimes people had to leave my life, to make room for the better ones, but once I understood that it became easier to let go, and I was surprised at just how quickly new, interesting people somehow found their way onto my bus.

Cosby, 60. Weinstein, 87. Nassar, 169. The news used phrases like avalanche of accusations, tsunami of stories, sea change. The metaphors were correct in that they were catastrophic, devastating. But it was wrong to compare them to natural disasters, for they were not natural at all, solely man-made. Call it a tsunami, but do not lose sight of the fact that each life is a single drop, how many drops it took to make a single wave. The loss is incomprehensible, staggering, maddening—we should have caught it when it was no more than a drip. Instead society is flooded with survivors coming forward, dozens for every man, just so that one day, in his old age, he might feel a taste of what it was like for them all along.

Surely the Mother Above loved my children more. She took so many of them away from me.

No doubt they all Got What Was Coming To Them. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create...a generation of permanent cripples failed seekers who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebodyor at least some force is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel. This is the same cruel and paradoxically benevolent bullshit that has kept the Catholic Church going for so many centuries.

Poppy took my hand and held it to her cheek. “I really believe that tales of loss don’t always have to be sad or sorrowful. I want mine to be remembered as a great adventure that I tried to live as best as I possibly could. Because how dare we waste a single breath? How dare we waste something so precious? Instead, we should strive for all those precious breaths to be taken in as many precious moments as we can squeeze into this short time on Earth. That’s the message I want to leave behind. And what a beautiful legacy to leave for those I love.

The most profound message of racial segregation may be that the absence of people of color from our lives is no real loss. Not one person who loved me, guided me, or taught me ever conveyed that segregation deprived me of anything of value. I could live my entire life without a friend or loved one of color and not see that as a diminishment of my life. In fact, my life trajectory would almost certainly ensure that I had few, if any, people of color in my life. I might meet a few people of color if I played certain sports in school, or if there happened to be one or two persons of color in my class, but when I was outside of that context, I had no proximity to people of color, much less any authentic relationships. Most whites who recall having a friend of color in childhood rarely keep these friendships into adulthood. Yet if my parents had thought it was valuable to have cross-racial relationships, they would have ensured that I had them, even if it took effort—the same effort so many white parents expend to send their children across town so they can attend a better (whiter) school. Pause for a moment and consider the profundity of this message: we are taught that we lose nothing of value through racial segregation. Consider the message we send to our children—as well as to children of color—when we describe white segregation as good.

How unfortunate that nature was both the most peaceful and the most dangerous place possible. But that was its duality. It gave life and it took it, provided and withheld, offered beauty and danger in equal measure. Camelot was safe and ordered and structured, so many things put in place to separate people from nature. Roofs and walls. Pipes for water. Swords with men to wield them. The separation was a protection but also a loss.

Sometimes we don't even know what we seek anymore. Life halts for a second, and we see a shadow of dreams, some lived, some unlived. So many stories, so many voices and yet each stands distinct for each took a part of your heart, each made a part of your soul. A list of songs, and a whole lot of unkempt moments, a handful of tears and a whole sky of smiles, so much walked and yet such a long path remains, only the steps aren't the same anymore. Words and silence play within and without as nothing seems real in a world that is made of moments, yet the memories bind a reality that shines vividly through a hole of illusions, an illusion of happiness, an illusion of despair, an illusion of love, an illusion of loss. Someday, perhaps in a distant dream, in a known star, there would be a home, where the void of nothingness will forever merge with the wholeness of moments. Someday, in the stillness of a wild heart, we would hold each other in the sky of that dream, that which isn't sought yet found. Because sometimes, we don't even know what we seek anymore.

I see now—I took all that comfort for granted. It was so good, and there were so many ways it could’ve all gone to pieces.

I don't think this place was everything my mother hoped for that day when she asked God where she should go to give her son the world. Though she didn't ford a river or hike across mountains, she still did what so many pioneers before had done, traveled recklessly, curiously, into the unknown of finding something just a little bit better. And like them she suffered and persevered, perhaps in equal measure. Whenever I looked at her, a castaway on the island of my queen-sized bed, it was hard for me to look past the suffering. It was hard for me not to take inventory of all that she had lost -- her home country, her husband, her son. The losses just kept piling up. It was hard for me to see her there, hear her ragged breath, and think of how she had persevered, but she had. Just lying there in my bed was a testament to her perseverance, to the fact that she survived, even when she wasn't sure she wanted to. I used to believe that God never gives us more than we can handle, but then my brother died and my mother and I were left with so much more; it crushed us. It took me many years to realize that it's hard to live in this world. I don't mean the mechanics of living, because for most of us, our hearts will beat, our lungs will take in oxygen, without us doing anything at all to tell them to. For most of us, mechanically, physically, it's hard to die than it is to live. But still we try to die. We drive too fast down winding roads, we have sex with strangers without wearing protection, we drink, we use drugs. We try to squeeze a little more life out of our lives. It's natural to want to do that. But to be alive in the world, every day, as we are given more and more and more, as the nature of "what we can handle" changes and our methods for how we handle it change, too, that's something of a miracle.

It was not guilt that froze me. I had taught myself never to feel guilt It was not a ghastly sense of loss that froze me. I had taught myself to covet nothing. It was not a loathing of death that froze me. I had taught myself to think of death as a friend. It was not heartbroken rage against injustice that froze me. I had taught myself that a human being might as well took for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards and punishments that were fair. It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love. It was not the thought that God was cruel that froze me. I had taught myself never to expect anything from Him. What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity.

was early, just after opening time, and there were not many people about but a woman, well dressed, stopped me and said, ‘I’m so sorry to hear your news.’ I thanked her, and she told me that she was a widow too. Tears came to my eyes and she took my arm. ‘I know, I know.’ ‘What do I need to know?’ I asked. She thought about that for a moment and said, ‘People will never be as nice to you again as now, so get the most out of it.’ It made me laugh.

From an early age, Mimi had a way of glossing over the more painful disappointments in her life: the loss of her father; the forced exile from Houston; the husband who remained so distant from her. Even if she didn’t admit it, these losses hurt, and took their toll. Having so many children, however, offered Mimi a brand-new narrative—or at least distracted her, changed the subject, shored up the losses, helped her dwell less on what was missing. For a woman who so often felt abandoned, here was a way to create all the company she would ever need.

There are so many things to grieve....All the dogs & cats & birds & snakes we have loved & lost, & old lovers, but what else? ... it took me forever to see that one of them was my own daughter, my baby, a young woman I thought of only as a girl, a child, & there she was, suddenly a woman, & I felt this ache gnaw at me as if I hadn't eaten in a year. ... I stood there watching my daughter gesture & move & laugh with the grace of a grown-up, & I just started crying like a baby. It wasn't unlike the same type of sorrow we all feel when we realize something we once had that was very precious is not longer there. That it is forever lost, changed, deceased. Like a baby, gone, except in your memory. ... My own daughter is now a woman. I get it. Another passage, another form of loss, another reason to grieve, another part of this life process.

Guts,” never much of a word outside the hunting season, was a favorite noun in literary prose. People were said to have or to lack them, to perceive beauty and make moral distinctions in no other place. “Gut-busting” and “gut-wrenching” were accolades. “Nerve-shattering,” “eye-popping,” “bone-crunching”—the responsive critic was a crushed, impaled, electrocuted man. “Searing” was lukewarm. Anything merely spraining or tooth-extracting would have been only a minor masterpiece. “Literally,” in every single case, meant figuratively; that is, not literally. This film will literally grab you by the throat. This book will literally knock you out of your chair… Sometimes the assault mode took the form of peremptory orders. See it. Read it. Go at once…Many sentences carried with them their own congratulations, Suffice it to say…or, The only word for it is…Whether it really sufficed to say, or whether there was, in fact, another word, the sentence, bowing and applauding to itself, ignored…There existed also an economical device, the inverted-comma sneer—the “plot,” or his “work,” or even “brave.” A word in quotation marks carried a somehow unarguable derision, like “so-called” or “alleged…” “He has suffered enough” meant if we investigate this matter any further, it will turn out our friends are in it, too… Murders, generally, were called brutal and senseless slayings, to distinguish them from all other murders; nouns thus became glued to adjectives, in series, which gave an appearance of shoring them up… Intelligent people, caught at anything, denied it. Faced with evidence of having denied it falsely, people said they had not done it and had not lied about it, and didn’t remember it, but if they had done it or lied about it, they would have done it and misspoken themselves about it in an interest so much higher as to alter the nature of doing and lying altogether. It was in the interest of absolutely nobody to get to the bottom of anything whatever. People were no longer “caught” in the old sense on which most people could agree. Induction, detection, the very thrillers everyone was reading were obsolete. The jig was never up. In every city, at the same time, therapists earned their living by saying, “You’re being too hard on yourself.

Slavery's fundamental offense against human rights was not that it took liberty away (which can happen in many other situations), but that it excluded a certain category of people even from the possibility of fighting for freedom—a fight possible under tyranny, and even under the desperate conditions of modern terror (but not under any conditions of concentration-camp life). Slavery's crime against humanity did not begin when one people defeated and enslaved its enemies (though of course this was bad enough), but when slavery became an institution in which some men were "born" free and others slave, when it was forgotten that it was man who had deprived his fellow-men of freedom, and when the sanction for the crime was attributed to nature. Yet in the light of recent events it is possible to say that even slaves still belonged to some sort of human community; their labor was needed, used, and exploited, and this kept them within the pale of humanity. To be a slave was after all to have a distinctive character, a place in society—more than the abstract nakedness of beig human and nothing but human. Not the loss of specific rights, then, but the loss of a community willing and able to guarantee any rights whatsoever, has been the calamity which has befallen ever-increasing numbers of people. Man, it turns out, can lose all so-called Rights of Man without losing his essential quality as man, his human dignity. Only the loss of a polity itself expels him from humanity.

I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did. On the other hand, novels which are works of the imagination, though not of a very high order, have been for years a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I often bless all novelists. A surprising number have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily–against which a law ought to be passed. A novel, according to my taste, does not come into the first class unless it contains some person whom one can thoroughly love, and if a pretty woman all the better. This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes is all the odder, as books on history, biographies, and travels (independently of any scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered; and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

So many feelings misplaced, so many pieces lost. You have been misled into a broken maze with your own well. Excuses like the walls were everything you needed, and stupidity because you knew it was a dead end. Write about roads interwining and being off track you are sugarcoating a road accident by a drunk man. Spend time, energy, and sanity like it was worth it, get lost and bleed emotions like it's the price you pay to get out You disappointed your own self and it's hard to forget, your brain unattended and your heart took the hit, got knocked out and woke up on the wrong side of the bed, on the Wrong side of my head. Now you are left with a scar and a mind full of words said, a voice i can't forget and a smile that hurts me still.

Catarina hooked her hand around Magnus’s elbow and hauled him away, like a schoolteacher with a misbehaving student. They entered a narrow alcove around the corner, where the music and noise of the party was muffled. She rounded on him. “I recently treated Tessa for wounds she said were inflicted on her by members of a demon-worshipping cult,” Catarina said. “She told me you were, and I quote, ‘handling’ the cult. What’s going on? Explain.” Magnus made a face. “I may have had a hand in founding it.” “How much of a hand?” “Well, both.” Catarina bristled. “I specifically told you not to do that!” “You did?” Magnus said. A bubble of hope grew within him. “You remember what happened?” She gave him a look of distress. “You don’t?” “Someone took all my memories around the subject of this cult,” said Magnus. “I don’t know who, or why.” He sounded more desperate than he would’ve liked, more desperate than he wanted to be. His old friend’s face was full of sympathy. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “I met up with you and Ragnor for a brief vacation. You seemed troubled, but you were trying to laugh it off, the way you always do. You and Ragnor said you had a brilliant idea to start a joke cult. I told you not to do it. That’s it.” He, Catarina, and Ragnor had taken many trips together, over the centuries. One memorable trip had gotten Magnus banished from Peru. He had always enjoyed those adventures more than any others. Being with his friends almost felt like having a home. He did not know if there would ever be another trip. Ragnor was dead, and Magnus might have done something terrible. “Why didn’t you stop me?” he asked. “You usually stop me!” “I had to take an orphan child across an ocean to save his life.” “Right,” said Magnus. “That’s a good reason.” Catarina shook her head. “I took my eyes off you for one second.” She had worked in mundane hospitals in New York for decades. She saved orphans. She healed the sick. She’d always been the voice of reason in the trio that was Ragnor, Catarina, and Magnus. “So I planned with Ragnor to start a joke cult, and I guess I did it. Now the joke cult is a real cult, and they have a new leader. It sounds like they’re mixed up with a Greater Demon.” Even to Catarina, he wouldn’t say the name of his father. “Sounds like the joke has gotten a little out of hand,” Catarina said dryly. “Sounds like I’m the punch line.

their base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother. She had served my old master faithfully from youth to old age. She had been the source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had become a great grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended him in childhood, served him through life, and at his death wiped from his icy brow the cold death-sweat, and closed his eyes forever. She was nevertheless left a slave—a slave for life—a slave in the hands of strangers; and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word, as to their or her own destiny. And, to cap the climax of their base ingratitude and fiendish barbarity, my grandmother, who was now very old, having outlived my old master and all his children, having seen the beginning and end of all of them, and her present owners finding she was of but little value, her frame already racked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness fast stealing over her once active limbs, they took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud-chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself there in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die! If my poor old grandmother now lives, she lives to suffer in utter loneliness; she lives to remember and mourn over the loss of children, the loss of grandchildren, and the loss of great-grandchildren. They are, in the language of the slave’s poet, Whittier,— “Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice swamp dank and lone, Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever-demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air:— Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice swamp dank and lone, From Virginia hills and waters— Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Bereavement is useful; full-blown depression is not. William Styron renders an eloquent description of “the many dreadful manifestations of the disease,” among them self-hatred, a sense of worthlessness, a “dank joylessness” with “gloom crowding in on me, a sense of dread and alienation and, above all, a stifling anxiety.”14 Then there are the intellectual marks: “confusion, failure of mental focus and lapse of memories,” and, at a later stage, his mind “dominated by anarchic distortions,” and “a sense that my thought processes were engulfed by a toxic and unnameable tide that obliterated any enjoyable response to the living world.” There are the physical effects: sleeplessness, feeling as listless as a zombie, “a kind of numbness, an enervation, but more particularly an odd fragility,” along with a “fidgety restlessness.” Then there is the loss of pleasure: “Food, like everything else within the scope of sensation, was utterly without savor.” Finally, there was the vanishing of hope as the “gray drizzle of horror” took on a despair so palpable it was like physical pain, a pain so unendurable that suicide seemed a solution. In such major depression, life is paralyzed; no new beginnings emerge. The very symptoms of depression bespeak a life on hold. For

Indeed. But what is sane? Especially here in ‘our own country’––in this doomstruck era of Nixon. We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the Sixties. Uppers are going out of style. This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling ‘consciousness expansion’ without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously. After West Point and the Priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him…but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him. Not that they didn’t deserve it: No doubt they all Got What Was Coming To Them. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create…a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody––or at least some force––is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel. This is the same cruel and paradoxically benevolent bullshit that has kept the Catholic Church going for so many centuries. It is also the military ethic…a blind faith in some higher and wiser ‘authority.’ The Pope, The General, The Prime Minister…all the way up to “God”.

(Before the twentieth century was out that could be worded, “—most people can’t read.” One of the things I learned in studying the histories of my home planet and century on various time lines was that in the decline and fall that took place on every one of them there was one invariant: illiteracy. In addition to that scandalous flaw, on three time lines were both drug abuse and concurrent crime in the streets, plus a corrupt and spendthrift government. My own time line had endless psychotic fads followed by religious frenzy; time line seven had continuous wars; three time lines had collapse of family life and marriage—but every time line had loss of literacy…combined with—riddle me this—more money per student spent on education than ever before in each history. Never were so many paid so much for accomplishing so little. By 1980 the teachers themselves were only semiliterate.)

Once he traveled to a village to purchase a large rice harvest, but when he arrived the rice had already been sold to another tradesman. Nevertheless, Siddhartha remained in this village for several days; he arranged a feast for the peasants, distributed copper coins among their children, helped celebrate a marriage, and returned from his trip in the best of spirits. Kamaswami reproached him for not having returned home at once, saying he had wasted money and time. Siddhartha answered, "Do not scold me, dear friend! Never has anything been achieved by scolding. If there are losses, let me bear them. I am very pleased with this journey I made the acquaintance of many different people, a Brahmin befriended me, children rode on my knees, peasants showed me their fields, and no one took me for a tradesman." "How very lovely!" Kamaswami cried out indignantly. "But in fact a tradesman is just what you are! Or did you undertake this journey solely for your own pleasure?" "Certainly." Siddhartha laughed. "Certainly I undertook the journey for my pleasure. Why else? I got to know new people and regions, enjoyed kindness and trust, found friendship. You see, dear friend, had I been Kamaswami, I'd have hurried home in bad spirits the moment I saw my purchase foiled, and indeed money and time would have been lost. But by staying on as I did, I had some agreeable days, learned things, and enjoyed pleasures, harming neither myself nor others with haste and bad spirits. And if ever I should return to this place, perhaps to buy some future harvest or for whatever other purpose, I shall be greeted happily and in friendship by friendly people and I shall praise myself for not having displayed haste and displeasure on my first visit. So be content, friend, and do not harm yourself by scolding! When the day arrives when you see that this Siddhartha is bringing you harm, just say the word and Siddhartha will be on his way. But until that day, let us be satisfied with each other.

Westcliff paused at the bedside and glanced at the two women. “This is going to be rather unpleasant,” he said. “Therefore, if anyone has a weak stomach…” His gaze lingered meaningfully on Lillian, who grimaced. “I do, as you well know,” she admitted. “But I can overcome it if necessary.” A sudden smile appeared on the earl’s impassive face. “We’ll spare you for now, love. Would you like to go to another room?” “I’ll sit by the window,” Lillian said, and sped gratefully away from the bed. Westcliff glanced at Evie, a silent question in his eyes. “Where shall I stand?” she asked. “On my left. We’ll need a great many towels and rags, so if you would be willing to replace the soiled ones when necessary—” “Yes, of course.” She took her place beside him, while Cam stood on his right. As Evie looked up at Westcliff’s bold, purposeful profile, she suddenly found it hard to believe that this powerful man, whom she had always found so intimidating, was willing to go to this extent to help a friend who had betrayed him. A rush of gratitude came over her, and she could not stop herself from tugging lightly at his shirtsleeve. “My lord…before we begin, I must tell you…” Westcliff inclined his dark head. “Yes?” Since he wasn’t as tall as Sebastian, it was a relatively easy matter for Evie to stand on her toes and kiss his lean cheek. “Thank you for helping him,” she said, staring into his surprised black eyes. “You’re the most honorable man I’ve ever known.” Her words caused a flush to rise beneath the sun-bronzed tan of his face, and for the first time in their acquaintance the earl seemed at a loss for words. Lillian smiled as she watched them from across the room. “His motives are not completely heroic,” she said to Evie. “I’m sure he’s relishing the opportunity to literally pour salt on St. Vincent’s wounds.” Despite the facetious remark, Lillian went deadly pale and gripped the chair arms as Westcliff took a thin, gleaming lancet in hand and proceeded to gently open and drain the wound.

Was it real? Well, of course not, not in any meaningful sense of the word "real." But did it stay with me? Absolutely. Long after my psychosis cleared, and the medications took hold, it became part of what one remembers forever, surrounded by an almost Proustian melancholy. Long since that voyage of my mind and soul, Saturn and its icy rings took on an elegiac beauty, and I don't see Saturn's image now without feeling an acute sadness at its being so far away from me. So unobtainable in so many ways. the intensity, glory, and absolute assuredness of my mind's flight made it very difficult for me to believe, once I was better, that the illness was one I should willingly give up. Even though I was a clinician and a scientist, and even though I could read the research literature and see the inevitable, bleak consequences of not taking lithium, I for many years after my initial diagnosis was reluctant to take my medications as prescribed." An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison Pages 90 - 91, 2nd paragraph.

My mother took one of the sunflowers from me and placed it over Pumpkin’s grave. She folded her hands over her stomach and leaned forward, staring at the headstone as though she expected it to suddenly topple backwards and for Pumpkin, all strawberry-blond hair and big eyes, to emerge with arms outstretched. A low moan escaped from my mother’s lips, the kind of sound that a wild animal makes when it’s dying and alone. I wanted to comfort her, but in my own selfish, possessive grief I was immobilized. I wanted her to leave so that I could be alone with my sister. The last time I had been alone with Pumpkin was just before the burial. She had been laid out in a frilly butter-yellow granny dress that she had worn once to our cousin’s wedding the year before. Her peach-painted mouth was pursed in a pensive expression, the kind of look she would have quickly replaced with a smile had she caught someone looking. As I leaned over the casket and pressed my lips to her cheek, I was less shocked by the coldness of her skin than I was by the realization that I had never kissed my sister before. I had hugged her many times, I had wrestled with her in front of the TV set, I had slept beside her and had felt her heart beating against my back, but I had never before kissed her face.

The biology of potential illness arises early in life. The brain’s stress-response mechanisms are programmed by experiences beginning in infancy, and so are the implicit, unconscious memories that govern our attitudes and behaviours toward ourselves, others and the world. Cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and the other conditions we examined are not abrupt new developments in adult life, but culminations of lifelong processes. The human interactions and biological imprinting that shaped these processes took place in periods of our life for which we may have no conscious recall. Emotionally unsatisfying child-parent interaction is a theme running through the one hundred or so detailed interviews I conducted for this book. These patients suffer from a broadly disparate range of illnesses, but the common threads in their stories are early loss or early relationships that were profoundly unfulfilling emotionally. Early childhood emotional deprivation in the histories of adults with serious illness is also verified by an impressive number of investigations reported in the medical and psychological literature. In an Italian study, women with genital cancers were reported to have felt less close to their parents than healthy controls. They were also less demonstrative emotionally. A large European study compared 357 cancer patients with 330 controls. The women with cancer were much less likely than controls to recall their childhood homes with positive feelings. As many as 40 per cent of cancer patients had suffered the death of a parent before the age of seventeen—a ratio of parental loss two and a half times as great as had been suffered by the controls. The thirty-year follow-up of Johns Hopkins medical students was previously quoted. Those graduates whose initial interviews in medical school had revealed lower than normal childhood closeness with their parents were particularly at risk. By midlife they were more likely to commit suicide or develop mental illness, or to suffer from high blood pressure, coronary heart disease or cancer. In a similar study, Harvard undergraduates were interviewed about their perception of parental caring. Thirty-five years later these subjects’ health status was reviewed. By midlife only a quarter of the students who had reported highly positive perceptions of parental caring were sick. By comparison, almost 90 per cent of those who regarded their parental emotional nurturing negatively were ill. “Simple and straightforward ratings of feelings of being loved are significantly related to health status,” the researchers concluded.

She knew the effort it took to keep one’s exterior self together, upright, when everything inside was in pieces, broken beyond repair. One touch, one warm, compassionate hand, could shatter that hard-won perfect exterior. And then it would take years and years to restore it. This tiny, effeminate creature dressed in velvet suits, red socks, an absurdly long scarf usually wrapped around his throat, trailing after him like a coronation robe. He who pronounced, after dinner, “I’m going to go sit over here with the rest of the girls and gossip!” This pixie who might suddenly leap into the air, kicking one foot out behind him, exclaiming, “Oh, what fun, fun, fun it is to be me! I’m beside myself!” “Truman, you could charm the rattle off a snake,” Diana Vreeland pronounced. Hemingway - He was so muskily, powerfully masculine. More than any other man she’d met, and that was saying something when Clark Gable was a notch in your belt. So it was that, and his brain, his heart—poetic, sad, boyish, angry—that drew her. And he wanted her. Slim could see it in his hungry eyes, voraciously taking her in, no matter how many times a day he saw her; each time was like the first time after a wrenching separation. How to soothe and flatter and caress and purr and then ignore, just when the flattering and caressing got to be a bit too much. Modesty bores me. I hate people who act coy. Just come right out and say it, if you believe it—I’m the greatest. I’m the cat’s pajamas. I’m it! He couldn’t humiliate her vulnerability, her despair. Old habits die hard. Particularly among the wealthy. And the storytellers, gossips, and snakes. Is it truly a scandal? A divine, delicious literary scandal, just like in the good old days of Hemingway and Fitzgerald? The loss of trust, the loss of joy; the loss of herself. The loss of her true heart. An amusing, brief little time. A time before it was fashionable to tell the truth, and the world grew sordid from too much honesty. In the end as in the beginning, all they had were the stories. The stories they told about one another, and the stories they told to themselves. Beauty. Beauty in all its glory, in all its iterations; the exquisite moment of perfect understanding between two lonely, damaged souls, sitting silently by a pool, or in the twilight, or lying in bed, vulnerable and naked in every way that mattered. The haunting glance of a woman who knew she was beautiful because of how she saw herself reflected in her friend’s eyes. The splendor of belonging, being included, prized, coveted. What happened to Truman Capote. What happened to his swans. What happened to elegance. What truly was the price they paid, for the lives they lived. For there is always a price. Especially in fairy tales.

Of course, not everyone agreed with Professor Glaude’s assessment. Joel C. Gregory, a white professor of preaching at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary and coauthor of What We Love about the Black Church,8 took issue with Glaude’s pronouncement of the Black Church’s death. Gregory, a self-described veteran of preaching in “more than two hundred African-American congregations, conferences, and conventions in more than twenty states each year,” found himself at a loss for an explanation of Glaude’s statements. Gregory offered six signs of vitality in the African-American church, including: thriving preaching, vitality in worship, continuing concern for social justice, active community service, high regard for education, and efforts at empowerment. Gregory contends that these signs of life can be found in African-American congregations in every historically black denomination and in varying regions across the country. He writes: Where is the obituary? I do not know any organization in America today that has the vitality of the black church. Lodges are dying, civic clubs are filled with octogenarians, volunteer organizations are languishing, and even the academy has to prove the worth of a degree. The government is divided, the schoolroom has become a war zone, mainline denominations are staggering, and evangelical megachurch juggernauts show signs of lagging. Above all this entropy stands one institution that is more vital than ever: the praising, preaching, and empowering black church.9 The back-and-forth between those pronouncing death and those highlighting life reveals the difficulty of defining “the Black Church.” In fact, we must admit that speaking of “the Black Church” remains a quixotic quest. “The Black Church” really exists as multiple black churches across denominational, theological, and regional lines. To some extent, we can define the Black Church by referring to the historically black denominations—National Baptist, Progressive Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME), African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ), Church of God in Christ (COGIC), and so on. But increasingly we must recognize that one part of “the Black Church” exists as predominantly black congregations belonging to majority white denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention or even African-American members of predominantly white churches. Still, other quarters of “the Black Church” belong to nondenominational affinity groups like the many congregations involved in Word of Faith and “prosperity gospel” networks sponsored by leaders like Creflo A. Dollar Jr. and T. D. Jakes. Clearly “the Black Church” is not one thing. Black churches come in as many flavors as any other ethnic communion. Indeed, many African-Americans have experiences with many parts of the varied Black Church world.

Dear Dex, We’ve been meaning to write you this letter for months, and I’m sorry it took us so long. We could never quite figure out the right words to say to you, because words are simply not enough to express to you just how grateful we are to you. Not many people are lucky enough to experience the kind of friendship that you and Teddy had. You were only little kids when you met, but the bond you formed was something special. From then on, it was you and Teddy against the world. The greatest kind of friends are the ones who bring out the best in one another, and that’s what you and Teddy did every day. You made each other stronger, wiser and braver, and you learned from each other. Most importantly, you stood by each other, right until the very end. We are eternally grateful to you for being there by his side in his final moments. For holding his hand and letting him know that he wasn’t alone and that, even in death, someone he loved was there with him. We take comfort in knowing that he didn’t leave this world alone. There’s no doubt in our minds that you did everything you could to try and save him, Dex. We know that there’s nothing you could have done differently, and we can only hope that you know it too. Not everyone can be saved – sometimes God has a greater purpose for the ones we love, and we must fight through the pain and learn to accept that they are somewhere far better than here. We know that you miss him, and we miss him too… every single day. But with each day that passes, it becomes a little bit easier. Some days are harder than others, but our frowns no longer outweigh our smiles. We no longer cry when we see his pictures around the house, and memories of him no longer bring pain to our hearts, but instead put a smile on our faces as we remember who he was. We all must honor his memory by focusing on what we gained by having him in our lives, rather than on what we lost when he passed. It’s what he would have wanted for all of us. Teddy loved life. He reveled in the simple things, and he saw a positive light in even the worst situations. He would never want his death to bring you sadness or to rob you of the joys of life. He would want you to remember the good times and focus on the memories of him that make you smile – because he is someone who could make anyone smile! You have such a big heart, Dex, and because of that you’ve always felt things a little bit stronger and more deeply than everyone else. Don’t let your grief weigh you down. Don’t carry the burden of your loss with you forever. Our scars become a part of us, but you cannot let them define you. We will carry him with us in our hearts forever, and moving on does not mean that we’re forgetting him or leaving him behind. It means choosing to live. Thank you for being a part of our son’s life. Of our lives. You brought so much joy and laughter to his time here on this earth, and we will forever cherish those moments. Take solace in your memories of him, do not let them bring you pain. Teddy loved you so much, and he always will. So will we.

timelines register the pain of her loss for the first time. “I’m sorry, honey.” He remembers the day she died, eight weeks ago. She had become almost childlike by that point, her mind gone. He had to feed her, dress her, bathe her. But this was better than the time right before, when she had enough cognitive function left to be aware of her complete confusion. In her lucid moments, she described the feeling as being lost in a dreamlike forest—no identity, no sense of when or where she was. Or alternatively, being absolutely certain she was fifteen years old and still living with her parents in Boulder, and trying to square her foreign surroundings with her sense of place and time and self. She often wondered if this was what her mother felt in her final year. “This timeline—before my mind started to fracture—was the best of them all. Of my very long life. Do you remember that trip we took—I think it was during our first life together—to see the emperor penguins migrate? Remember how we fell in love with this continent? The way it makes you feel like you’re the only people in the world? Kind of appropriate, no?” She looks off camera, says, “What? Don’t be jealous. You’ll be watching this one day. You’ll carry the knowledge of every moment we spent together, all one hundred and forty-four years.” She looks back at the camera. “I need to tell you, Barry, that I couldn’t have made it this long without you. I couldn’t have kept trying to stop the inevitable. But we’re stopping today. As you know by now, I’ve lost the ability to map memory. Like Slade, I used the chair too many times. So I won’t be going back. And even if you returned to a point on the timeline where my consciousness was young and untraveled, there’s no guarantee you could convince me to build the chair. And to what end? We’ve tried everything. Physics, pharmacology, neurology. We even struck out with Slade. It’s time to admit we failed and let the world get on with destroying itself, which it seems so keen on doing.” Barry sees himself step into the frame and take a seat beside Helena. He puts his arm around her. She snuggles into him, her head on his chest. Such a surreal sensation to now remember that day when she decided to record a message for the Barry who would one day merge into his consciousness. “We have four years until doomsday.” “Four years, five months, eight days,” Barry-on-the-screen says. “But who’s counting?” “We’re going to spend that time together. You have those memories now. I hope they’re beautiful.” They are. Before her mind broke completely, they had two good years, which they lived free from the burden of trying to stop the world from remembering. They lived those years simply and quietly. Walks on the icecap to see the Aurora Australis. Games, movies, and cooking down here on the main level. The occasional trip to New Zealand’s South Island or Patagonia. Just being together. A thousand small moments, but enough to have made life worth living. Helena was right. They were the best years of his lives too. “It’s odd,” she says. “You’re watching this right now, presumably four years from this moment, although I’m sure you’ll watch it before then to see my face and hear my voice after I’m gone.” It’s true. He did. “But my moment feels just as real to me as yours does to you. Are they both real? Is it only our consciousness that makes it so? I can imagine you sitting there in four years, even though you’re right beside me in this moment, in my moment, and I feel like I can reach through the camera and touch you. I wish I could. I’ve experienced over two hundred years, and at the end of it all, I think Slade was right. It’s just a product of our evolution the way we experience reality and time from moment to moment. How we differentiate between past, present, and future. But we’re intelligent enough to be aware of the illusion, even as we live by it, and so,

David Breashears is probably best known for his high-altitude cinematography—a world-class climber, he took the IMAX images for the classic film Everest. But one of his most important projects consists of still images like these. He took old pictures of the roof of the world—many from the 1921 Mallory expedition to Everest—and painstakingly found the same vantage points so he could recreate the shots eight decades later. Side by side, what the images showed was an almost unbelievable loss of ice—the scale of these mountains is so huge that it takes a moment to realize that, in the pictures of the Ronbuk Glacier, 400 vertical feet of ice (that’s taller than the Statue of Liberty) has disappeared.

Lev Davidovich contemplated the Norwegian landscape and, as he would write shortly afterward, made a silent tally of his exile, to confirm that the losses and frustrations were many more than the doubtful gains. Nine years of marginalization and attacks had managed to turn him into a pariah, a new wandering Jew sentenced to ridicule and the anticipation of a terrible death that would arrive when the humiliation had exhausted its usefulness and quota for sadism. He was leaving Europe, perhaps forever - and with it the corpses of so many comrades and the tombs of his two daughters. With him, he took the faint hope that Liova and Sergei would be able to resist and, at least, escape that whirlwind with their lives intact; they were leaving the illusions, the past, the glory, and the ghosts including those of the revolution for which he had fought for so many years. 'But with me, I am also taking life,' he would write, 'and as beaten down as they think I am, while I still breathe, I have not been defeated.' P. 198

Up to the age of 30 or beyond it, poetry of many kinds … gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare.… Formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great, delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music.… I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did.… My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive.… The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.13

Tim Graham Tim Graham has specialized in photographing the Royal Family for more than thirty years and is foremost in his chosen field. Recognition of his work over the years has led to invitations for private sessions with almost all the members of the British Royal Family, including, of course, Diana, Princess of Wales, and her children. Her “magic” was a combination of style and compassion. She instinctively knew what was right for every occasion. One of my favorite photographs is a shot I took in Angola in 1997 that shows her with a young land-mine victim who had lost a leg. This image of the Princess was chosen by the Red Cross to appear on a poster to publicize the tragic reality of land mines. It’s an important part of her legacy. It is difficult to capture such a remarkable person in just one photo, but I like this one a lot because it sums up her warmth and concern. Diana had one of those faces that would be very hard to photograph badly. Over the years, there were times when she was fed up or sad, and those emotions I captured, too. They were relevant at the time. I felt horrified by the news of her death and that she could die in such a terrible, simply tragic way. I couldn’t conceive of how her sons would be able to cope with such a loss. I was asked just before the funeral to photograph Prince Charles taking William and Harry out in public for the first time so they could meet the crowds gathered at Kensington Palace and see the floral tributes. It was the saddest of occasions. I had by then received an invitation to the funeral and was touched to have been the only press photographer asked. After much deliberation, I decided to turn down the chance to be a guest in Westminster Abbey. Having photographed Diana for seventeen years, from the day she appeared as Prince Charles’s intended, right through her public and, on occasion by invitation, her private life, I felt that I had to take the final picture. It was the end of an era. From my press position at the door of the abbey, I watched everyone arrive for the service, including my wife, who had also been invited. During my career, I have witnessed so many historic events from the other side of a camera that I felt compelled to take that last photograph of the Princess’s story. Life has moved on, and the public have found other subjects to fascinate them--not least the now grownup sons of this international icon--but everyone knows Diana was unique.

(Taken from the scene in which protagonist Rebeka is caught snooping around down in the underground floors of Project Code-X...) “I was just curious as to what was down here,” I said boldly. He studied me, evaluating the situation carefully. His face relaxed. “They say curiosity is the mark of a great scientist,” he mused light-heartedly. “It is often the loss of that child-like curiosity that ends the career of many a great scientist prematurely. Their minds go dead and they are no longer inspired. Once that light goes, they are completely and utterly useless to me.” He had a habit of ruminating aloud, so I said nothing. Then perceiving me again, he took me by the arm. “Well now, Doctor Taft. Let me show you precisely what we are doing down here in the basement," he said, proceeding to guide me around the corridor.

After Steve’s death I received letters of condolence from people all over the world. I would like to thank everyone who sent such thoughtful sympathy. Your kind words and support gave me the strength to write this book and so much more. Carolyn Male is one of those dear people who expressed her thoughts and feelings after we lost Steve. It was incredibly touching and special, and I wanted to express my appreciation and gratitude. I’m happy to share it with you. It is with a still-heavy heart that I rise this evening to speak about the life and death of one of the greatest conservationists of our time: Steve Irwin. Many people describe Steve Irwin as a larrikin, inspirational, spontaneous. For me, the best way I can describe Steve Irwin is formidable. He would stand and fight, and was not to be defeated when it came to looking after our environment. When he wanted to get things done--whether that meant his expansion plans for the zoo, providing aid for animals affected by the tsunami and the cyclones, organizing scientific research, or buying land to conserve its environmental and habitat values--he just did it, and woe betide anyone who stood in his way. I am not sure I have ever met anyone else who was so determined to get the conservation message out across the globe, and I believe he achieved his aim. What I admired most about him was that he lived the conservation message every day of his life. Steve’s parents, Bob and Lyn, passed on their love of the Australian bush and their passion for rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife. Steve took their passion and turned it into a worldwide crusade. The founding of Wildlife Warriors Worldwide in 2002 provided Steve and Terri with another vehicle to raise awareness of conservation by allowing individuals to become personally involved in protecting injured, threatened, or endangered wildlife. It also has generated a working fund that helps with the wildlife hospital on the zoo premises and supports work with endangered species in Asia and Africa. Research was always high on Steve’s agenda, and his work has enabled a far greater understanding of crocodile behavior, population, and movement patterns. Working with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and the University of Queensland, Steve was an integral part of the world’s first Crocs in Space research program. His work will live on and inform us for many, many years to come. Our hearts go out to his family and the Australia Zoo family. It must be difficult to work at the zoo every day with his larger-than-life persona still very much evident. Everyone must still be waiting for him to walk through the gate. His presence is everywhere, and I hope it lives on in the hearts and minds of generations of wildlife warriors to come. We have lost a great man in Steve Irwin. It is a great loss to the conservation movement. My heart and the hearts of everyone here goes out to his family. Carolyn Male, Member for Glass House, Queensland, Australia October 11, 2006

We arrived from New York after a daylong slog through airports and planes and traffic. It was 10: 00 p.m. local time, but my body had no idea if it was night or day. Krishna was hungry, so I found some leftover dosa batter in the kitchen and started making one for her. Next thing I knew, my grandmother was by my side, commandeering the griddle. “Let me do it,” she said. “You don’t know where anything is.” I insisted, but she won, even though by then she cooked with only one arm, the other still paralyzed from the stroke. Then my aunt Papu came in and yelped, “You’re making your grandma cook?” She was appalled. “It’s ten at night!” Papu took over, my grandmother wouldn’t leave, and my uncle Ravi entered the fray. “Look at you,” he said. “You’re supposed to be this famous food person and you’re making these women cook at ten o’clock!” I quickly remembered how it felt to live with so many people. Every move you make is scrutinized. You get up and it’s “Where are you going?” You come back and it’s “Why are you wearing that blouse? I like the other one better.” You walk outside and someone calls from the veranda, “Don’t go that way, there’s too much sun!” It was exasperating and suffocating and God, I had missed it.

If we all got fed up at the same time, which could happen coming on evening, we would all sit down and Mick would sign a song. We learned many songs while setting spuds and many a story was told, imaginary or otherwise. We understood well the story of the Gobán Saor, an old Irish legend. The Gobán Saor ruled a large kingdom which he wanted to leave to the cleverest of his three sons. One day, he took his eldest son on a long journey and after some time walking he said: "Son, shorten the road for me." The son was totally at a loss as to how to help his father, so they returned home. The following day the Gobán Saor took his second son, and again the same thing happened. On the third day he took his youngest son and after they had travelled some distance he said once more: "Son, shorten the road for me." The youngest son immediately began to tell his father a story that was long and interesting, and they became so engrossed in the tale that they never noticed the length of the journey. In our lives, Mick was the Gobán Saor's youngest son.

Nor was this disaffected spirit confined to those who were actually concerned in the conspiracy; for the whole of the common people, from a desire of change, favored the projects of Catiline. This they seemed to do in accordance with their general character; for, in every state, they that are poor envy those of a better class, and endeavor to exalt the factious; they dislike the established condition of things, and long for something new; they are discontented with their own circumstances, and desire a general alteration; they can support themselves amid tumult and sedition, without anxiety, since poverty does not easily suffer loss. As for the populace of the city, they had become disaffected from various causes. In the first place, such as every where took the lead in crime and profligacy, with others who had squandered their fortunes in dissipation, and, in a word, all whom vice and villainy had driven from their homes, had flocked to Rome as a general receptacle of impurity. In the next place, many, who thought of the success of Sylla, when they had seen some raised from common soldiers into senators, and others so enriched as to live in regal luxury and pomp, hoped, each for himself, similar results from victory, if they should once take up arms. In addition to this, the youth, who, in the country, had earned a scanty livelihood by manual labor, tempted by public and private largesses, had preferred idleness in the city to unwelcome toil in the field. To these, and all others of similar character, public disorders would furnish subsistence. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that men in distress, of dissolute principles and extravagant expectations, should have consulted the interest of the state no further than as it was subservient to their own. Besides, those whose parents, by the victory of Sylla, had been proscribed, whose property had been confiscated, and whose civil rights had been curtailed, looked forward to the event of a war with precisely the same feelings. All those, too, who were of any party opposed to that of the senate, were desirous rather that the state should be embroiled, than that they themselves should be out of power. This was an evil, which, after many years, had returned upon the community to the extent to which it now prevailed.

Garden of the Dragons (The ’Halla, Vol. # 3) Chapter Ten Excerpt (original editing) ... Hachiman, surveys he the woe, Wipes his brow, hate does flow. A ruined life, heh, a loss of face, He must have her now, to his disgrace (Wed to Kari now, locked in time and place). Battle over, moon still shines, Lilies float soft in quiet time. Scented visions and memories sear remains, Of this terrible night of what was feigned. Visuals lithe, of sword and blade, Disguise the carnage and the pain. Petals soft, they hide our gaze, And cover the ground and its grave. Flowers and moon in water light, T'winkills the calm of a zen-burst night. Now to life, the poem to seek repose, And bury beneath those riddles she holds. Nectars sweet, precious flowers, A fragranted grave that allures and empowers. Heart~beat, heart~beat, tells the way, Of things long remembered and a far lost day. How many memories, Kari knew, That stain with age, being so few. Samurai remembers - feels it as a man, Clutches he his fist; wind in hand. . . . ". . .I have searched for you a very long time." "Do not waste breath, kill. It is our way here." "Not before I have my say, Corpse-eater." "No wonder you took so long to find me." "I have had a lot of time for thought," quietly he, "- T'is a shame we could not agree." "No more room for that," forcefully he snapped, "You dishonored me twice and now, I will take one back." "- Not enough? Hachi," said cordially she, "If you are going to - cut the artery, please." Tilt she her neck, exposed but her vein, Samurai frowned, decidedly vain. Looked he at his hands - "They're already too bloody for today." "Hummph. Such trite man'ers are atrocious. For yourself you are much too engaged." ("Yet, a moment and it is done," thought he, "But to gain it thus, a hollow travesty. I must face her in all her strength, The bladed Valkyrie, the one called great"). "I could kill you now, but I'd rather not, This room is too unbecoming for the proper job." "Charmed that you still think so highly of me." "- Only then of your haunted beauty, I shall be free." Feeling that weight, slowly dropped he his blade, Time enough - rituals to cleanse and to pray. Tossed his sword, pined her down - Smooshed her face to the floor, Pinching it to a frown. "Oh no, my little angel, you have it all wrong! I mean only to kill you when you are strong. Do not fear, I won't let anyone harm you in strife, In the meantime, try not to flirt with your life. Stay healthy - then we shall settle our love, unrequite." A biting grin creased Samurai's scarved face, "Let us fix it properly, according to my r'ace." "Bushido," mouthed Kari, her voice empty as the word. "And there will be no running away this time - Rest assured." Slowly withdrew he and left the room, "Bastard," spit Kari, caustic of his doom. The girl breathing vexiously, then calmly in the dark, The door closed, silent, the light dribbling out. Sounds below, drip mute in time, Reality presses, she makes her fate thind. And Skuld drinking, contemplates she her sibylline, It was her hour now, the night of the wolverine.

The door to the captain’s office was open, the room vacant but for the memories it held, and I staggered forward to sink into a chair. I closed my eyes, filled with a dreadful, yearning sorrow. Cannan had been such a powerful presence in the palace--in our lives--for so many years that it felt as though the heart of our kingdom had been taken from us. He had been Captain of the Guard for thirty years, and had not failed once in his duties; he had saved more lives than he had ever taken in war; and he had raised Steldor to be the man he was today--a bold, brave, sacrificing man. The son was his father in many, many ways. I was startled out of my thoughts by a knock, and turned to see Steldor standing in the doorway. He glanced around the office, his expression composed, and yet it held a deep and immutable sorrow. “I was told I would find you here,” he said. “How are you?” I asked, nervously twining my hands. “As good as can be expected, I suppose.” “And Galen?” “He has Tiersia.” I nodded, averting my gaze. I knew his answer had been an honest one, and had not been meant to hurt me, but sadness filled me. I wanted him to have someone--he deserved to have someone. Only that someone could not be me. “Let’s go to my drawing room,” I suggested, for Cannan’s office was not a place that would allow us to talk about the future, and that was what we needed to do. Steldor stepped aside, allowing me to exit first. He spent one last moment absorbing the look and feel of his father’s office, then respectfully closed the door. When we reached the Queen’s Drawing Room at the front of the palace, we walked over to the bay window that granted a view of the Eastern Courtyard to talk, much as we had when he had told me of his plan to annul our marriage. But this time, I was the one who needed to speak. I slipped my hand into his, and he glanced at me in mild surprise. “I’m sorry about your father’s passing. I know how close you were to him. His strength and guidance will be missed by all. Despite our kingdom’s glory, Hytanica is less without him.” Steldor did not respond, but gazed stoically out the window. Then he nodded twice and took a deep breath, reining in his emotions. Even now, with me, he was proud, not knowing that I wanted to hold him and let him cry, and that if he did, I would not, even for an instant, find him weak. He ran a hand through his dark hair and turned to face me, silently begging me to change the subject, and I obliged. “”And how is the rest of your family?” “Amid our losses, there is also some good news. Shaselle has a suitor.” “Do you approve of her choice? After all, you are the man of the family now.” “There’s no accounting for taste.” He smirked, seeming thankful for my attempt at normalcy. “Actually, Lord Grayden is a good man--a man who met my father’s approval and, I believe, would have met Baelic’s. When the time is right, I expect a betrothal.” Again a smile played across his features. “Now I just have to worry about the other three girls in the family.” I laughed, lacing my fingers through his when I felt he might pull away. I did not know how he would react to my coming proposal--and whether he would admit it or not, he needed some comfort now. “Steldor,” I said, my tone and demeanor once more serious, “when I see Galen, I will reinstate him as Sergeant at Arms.” “An excellent decision.” I nodded, then continued. “But our military needs to be reformed. It needs a strong and passionate leader, someone who will do Cannan and all of his work justice. I cannot think of anyone more suited to taking over the position of Captain of the Guard than you.” He did not immediately reply, but his eyes went to our hands, and he raised mine to his lips as he had so often done before.

Here, this is for you," the girl said, holding out one of the pages on which she'd been drawing. "Oh, I... well, thank you." Meg reached out and took the sketch between her fingers. Gazing down, her eyes widened. Instead of the typical childish scribble she'd expected, she discovered two well-rendered figures. The style was a bit loose, and still immature with a tendency to distort the proportions. Even so, it was refined enough enough to have captured remarkably accurate likenesses of her and Cade seated side by side on the sofa. Esme might be only be nine years of age, but already she was an exceptional artist, better than many adults would ever hope to be. "This is... extraordinary," Meg said. "It's you and Cade," the girl offered, clutching a small fist against her yellow wool skirt. "Do you like it?" "I most certainly do. How could I not? You've drawn Cade and me so perfectly. It's beautiful." The girl's oval features came alive with a pleased smile. "Good night, Miss Amberley. I'm glad you're going to be my sister." At a sudden loss for what she knew would never be, Meg settled on the only honest reply she could offer. "Sweet dreams, Esme.

It was not guilt that froze me. I had taught myself never to feel guilt It was not a ghastly sense of loss that froze me. I had taught myself to covet nothing. It was not a loathing of death that froze me. I had taught myself to think of death as a friend. It was not heartbroken rage against injustice that froze me. I had taught myself that a human being might as well took for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards and punishments that were fair. It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love. It was not the thought that God was cruel that froze me. I had taught myself never to expect anything from Him. What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that had flickered out

I took perhaps fifty steps down the sidewalk, and then I stopped. I froze. It was not guilt that froze me. I had taught myself never to feel guilt. It was not a ghastly sense of loss that froze me. I had taught myself to covet nothing. It was not a loathing of death that froze me. I had taught myself to think of death as a friend. It was not heartbroken rage against injustice that froze me. I had taught myself that a human being might as well look for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards and punishments that were fair. It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love. It was not the thought that God was cruel that froze me. I had taught myself never to expect anything from Him. What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that had flickered out.

Many people lost their livelihoods several times over in the 1990s and 2000s: first their salaried jobs, then a portion (or all) of their livestock owing to rapid privatization during the winter, and finally money invested to launch a business that subsequently failed. Some of the reasons behind the bankruptcies and losses of private entrepreneurs are clear… Upon receiving their livestock, the townspeople panicked and rushed to locate a relative or friend among the herdsmen in the countryside who would agree to take care of their livestock. The herdsmen themselves, however, had not known to prepare extra hay or fences and could provide little help to their relatives from the sedentary center. More disconcerting, many people simply did not understand that privatization signaled the end of the SF jobs and salaries, and that the livestock was given to them to enable them to subsist independently of the state. They either slaughtered and ate their share of the livestock or sold their animals to traders. Some even assumed that the livestock distributed to them was a one-time gift from the state; others thought it was an annual bonus or a reward from the state. Overall, people were confused about the distribution of animals. Purvee lamented to me: ‘No one explained to us that from now on we would be on our own and that the state would not provide us with the services and direction it had for many decades. We did not know that we now had to take care of ourselves, without any support from the state! We did not understand what privatization really meant!”… State socialism… tried to make economic production, transactions, prices, and exchanges as predictable as possible. Because the state was the main and often the only client, the marketability and competitiveness of products were not a concern for CFs so long as they met established standards. Similarly, the CFs were not worried about appealing to buyers, competing with other CFs for customers, or, in general, predicting demand and adjusting their strategies. Although the system limited (and sometimes prevented) individuals and enterprises from making a profit, it also freed people from having to search for a market and from traveling long distances with highly perishable products for which the sales outcome was uncertain. For many, the CFs were a better system than individual domestic herding of private livestock. Of course, the CFs had many shortcomings, both systemically and as individual enterprises. But in the context of post-socialist impoverishment and uncertainty, many herders missed the security and safety that CFs provided… The distinction between the haves and the have-nots was sharpened, but the distance between the two was as short as one zud, flood, or other natural disaster. Without state support, livestock was constantly under threat. For instance, without state extermination brigades, wolves and foxes regularly raided the herds. The price of a bullet almost equaled the price of a sheep, so many herdsmen could not afford to shoot the attackers regularly. Family members took turns guarding their livestock, and it was rare for a nomadic family to pass an uneventful night. Both men and women complained about the backbreaking labor and about not being able to get away from their household duties in order to see a doctor or visit a sick relative in the hospital… The privatization of SFs was a matter not only of property ownership, as Verdery revealed (2004), but also of the ownership of risk, liability, and debt against properties that were losing value. And specific to Mongolia, the new owners also most likely took on a share of the debt. Some of the economic programs instituted during socialism were never intended to generate profit; their purpose was political and ideological—settling the vast land, managing the population, and creating an illusion of prosperity and development…

When I was back at the Spring Court...' I swallowed. 'I looked- for their wings.' Rhys went utterly still, and I took his hand, squeezing hard as he only said, 'Did you find them?' The words were barely a brush of air. I shook my head, but said before the grief on his face could grow, 'I learned that he burned them- long ago.' Rhys said nothing for a lingering moment, his attention returning to the stars. 'Thank you for even thinking- for risking to look for them.' The only trace- the horrific remnants- of his mother and sister. 'I didn't... I'm glad he burned them,' Rhys admitted. 'I could happily kill him, for so many things, and yet...' He rubbed his chest. 'I'm glad he offered them that peace, at least.

On the face of it, it seems preposterous to think that walking doesn’t help with weight loss. Recall that energy balance is the difference between the calories one ingests and the calories one spends. You probably burn roughly 50 calories more by walking a two-thousand-step mile than driving the same distance. So trudging ten thousand additional steps a day (five miles) will expend a respectable extra 250 calories per day.30 To be sure, those ten thousand added steps might make you hungrier, but if you snack sensibly and consume 100 calories less than you walked off, those supplementary steps will eventually amount to a deficit of about 3,000 calories a month. That amount is just shy of 3,500 calories, the supposed number of calories in a pound of fat according to a much-cited, overly simplistic, and inaccurate 1958 study.31 Further, low- to moderate-intensity activities like walking burn relatively more fat than carbohydrates (hence the “fat-burning zones” on some exercise machines).32 As a result, lots of people try to trudge away extra pounds. Biological systems such as bodies are messy, and anyone who has struggled to lose weight knows that simple theories rarely apply to the convoluted realities of weight loss. What works for one person fails for another, and while many people successfully shed pounds when they start a new weight-loss plan, satisfaction often turns to frustration as the initial rate of weight loss diminishes and then reverses. Study after study has shown that overweight or obese people prescribed standard doses of exercise for a few months usually lose at most a few pounds. For example, one experiment with the clever acronym DREW (Dose Response to Exercise in Women) assigned 464 women to 0, 70, 140, and 210 minutes of slow walking a week (140 minutes is about five added miles). Apart from their prescribed exercise, the women took about five thousand additional steps per day as they went about their normal activities. After six months, those prescribed the standard 140 minutes a week lost only five pounds, while those assigned 210 minutes lost a paltry three pounds (more on this unexpected result below).33 Other controlled studies on overweight men and women report similarly modest losses.34

Pain could make a coward of you; the experience might weaken her resolve. And her resolve was to be nursed day and night. If she ever felt it slipping—if the thought of that blood lather in her windpipe ever began to frighten her—the cure was a documentary about Jane Goodall’s early years among the chimpanzees of Tanzania. She’d seen it so many times already that often just a twenty-minute refresher was enough. To be taken back to the 1960s, when it was still possible for a human being to face a wild animal without grief, without shame, without any inkling of the Black Hole gaping wider and wider—to compare that innocence with the present day, when almost every such contact was soaked through with horror and loss—that was all it took to restore to her an iron determination. Wittgenstein, when he was contemplating suicide, had summed up the mindset as “the state of not being able to get over a particular fact.” As she’d said so many times to Halyard, she wasn’t suicidal—and yet that fit her pretty well. Everything was broken. The only remaining valid actions were those taken in reaction to that fact, and they were valid only in proportion to the honesty and completeness of the reaction.

Chapatis will soon become EXTINCT A renowned cardiologist explains how eliminating wheat can IMPROVE your health. Cardiologist William Davis, MD, started his career repairing damaged hearts through angioplasty and bypass surgeries. “That’s what I was trained to do, and at first, that’s what I wanted to do,” he explains. But when his own mother died of a heart attack in 1995, despite receiving the best cardiac care, he was forced to face nagging concerns about his profession. "I’d fix a patient’s heart, only to see him come back with the same problems. It was just a band-aid, with no effort to identify the cause of the disease.” So he moved his practice toward highly uncharted medical territory prevention and spent the next 15 years examining the causes of heart disease in his patients. The resulting discoveries are revealed in "Wheat Belly", his New York Times best-selling book, which attributes many of our physical problems, including heart disease, diabetes and obesity, to our consumption of wheat. Eliminating wheat can “transform our lives.” What is a “Wheat Belly”? Wheat raises your blood sugar dramatically. In fact, two slices of wheat bread raise your blood sugar more than a Snickers bar. "When my patients give up wheat, weight loss was substantial, especially from the abdomen. People can lose several inches in the first month." You make connections between wheat and a host of other health problems. Eighty percent of my patients had diabetes or pre-diabetes. I knew that wheat spiked blood sugar more than almost anything else, so I said, “Let’s remove wheat from your diet and see what happens to your blood sugar.” They’d come back 3 to 6 months later, and their blood sugar would be dramatically reduced. But they also had all these other reactions: “I removed wheat and I lost 38 pounds.” Or, “my asthma got so much better, I threw away two of my inhalers.” Or “the migraine headaches I’ve had every day for 20 years stopped within three days.” “My acid reflux is now gone.” “My IBS is better, my ulcerative colitis, my rheumatoid arthritis, my mood, my sleep . . .” and so on, and so on". When you look at the makeup of wheat, Amylopectin A, a chemical unique to wheat, is an incredible trigger of small LDL particles in the blood – the number one cause of heart disease. When wheat is removed from the diet, these small LDL levels plummet by 80 and 90 percent. Wheat contains high levels of Gliadin, a protein that actually stimulates appetite. Eating wheat increases the average person’s calorie intake by 400 calories a day. Gliadin also has opiate-like properties which makes it "addictive". Food scientists have known this for almost 20 years. Is eating a wheat-free diet the same as a gluten-free diet? Gluten is just one component of wheat. If we took the gluten out of it, wheat will still be bad since it will still have the Gliadin and the Amylopectin A, as well as several other undesirable components. Gluten-free products are made with 4 basic ingredients: corn starch, rice starch, tapioca starch or potato starch. And those 4 dried, powdered starches are some of the foods that raise blood sugar even higher. I encourage people to return to REAL food: Fruits Vegetables and nuts and seeds, Unpasteurized cheese , Eggs and meats Wheat really changed in the 70s and 80s due to a series of techniques used to increase yield, including hybridization. It was bred to be shorter and sturdier and also to have more Gliadin, (a potent appetite stimulant) The wheat we eat today is not the wheat that was eaten 100 years ago. If you stop eating breads/pasta/chapatis every day, and start eating chicken, eggs, salads and vegetables you still lose weight as these products don’t raise blood sugar as high as wheat, and it also doesn’t have the Amylopectin A or the Gliadin that stimulates appetite. You won’t have the same increase in calorie intake that wheat causes.

out a little further. There was no cliff edge, it was free from danger. The memorials were touching in their simplicity and sincerity. In many ways they showed a more acute sense of loss than any grave could ever convey. To Grandma and Grandpa. We had so many lovely Christmases here with you. We miss you both so much, but we know you’re still laughing in heaven. Dave, Lorna and kids xxx Toni. We loved this place together. I’ll always love you. Mike. It took a moment to realise what was happening: a rustle to the side ... a sudden movement ... a sickening blow to the head ... a fall to the ground ... blood running down the face.

He took the excommunication with quiet courage, saying: “It compels me to nothing which I should not have done in any case.” But this was whistling in the dark; in truth the young student now found himself bitterly and pitilessly alone. Nothing is so terrible as solitude; and few forms of it so difficult as the isolation of a Jew from all his people. Spinoza had already suffered in the loss of his old faith; to so uproot the contents of one’s mind is a major operation, and leaves many wounds. Had Spinoza entered another fold, embraced another of the orthodoxies in which men were grouped like kine huddling together for warmth, he might have found in the rôle of distinguished convert some of the life which he had lost by being utterly outcast from his family and his race. But he joined no other sect, and lived his life alone. His father, who had looked forward to his son’s preeminence in Hebrew learning, sent him away; his sister tried to cheat him of a small inheritance;108 his former friends shunned him. No wonder there is little humor in Spinoza! And no wonder he breaks out with some bitterness occasionally when he thinks of the Keepers of the Law.

Restock our furniture. Fill our garages with cars and our rooms with stuff. Our things confirm the fact that we’re alive. Every lamp, every chair, every vase, every cup represents a totem of stability. Of normalcy. But every gap, every empty corner of the house, had the potential to remind us of loss, of the beautiful things we once had and didn’t have now. Till we paused to reflect, and decided to acquire things consciously, we rushed to fill the void. Yet this rush to give evidence of our survival in the form of material possessions carries a high price tag. It crowds out the space in which our highest and unexpected good might organically unfold. So each time we felt the compulsive desire to buy something or make a big decision, we paused. We meditated till we felt comfortable in the mystery. Our friends were puzzled that we were content to have big empty spaces in Marilyn’s house for many months. Yet we took the opportunity to let go of our compulsive need for security and allow the universe to surprise us in synchronous ways.

Before the Second World War, the British paid ample lip service to the idea of self-government in India, but granting full independence was never a serious option. The Raj was the jewel in His Majesty’s crown; giving it up was unthinkable. But by 1947, the British nation was exhausted and traumatized by German bombing; discouraged by the loss of so many of its soldiers; shocked by the desertion and mutiny of its Indian servicemen; benumbed by unprecedented winter cold and an energy shortage that had the population shivering and its factories shuttered; broke, owing not only the Americans for the money that was keeping its economy afloat but India, too; and disgusted by the growing violence between Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs for which it took no responsibility, violence that would shortly lead to a bloodbath of historic proportions. Overwhelmed by these troubles at home and in its disintegrating colony, Britain concluded that exit from the subcontinent was the only option.

Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers. Then everyone took to shouting at the Communists: You're the ones responsible for our country's misfortunes (it had grown poor and desolate), for its loss of independence (it had fallen into the hands of the Russians), for its judicial murders! And the accused responded: 'We didn't know! We were deceived! We were true believers! Deep in our hearts we are innocent!' In the end, the dispute narrowed down to a single question: Did they really not know or were they merely making believe? Tomas followed the dispute closely (as did his ten million fellow Czechs) and was of the opinion that while there had definitely been Communists who were not completely unaware of the atrocities (they could not have been ignorant of the horrors that had been perpetrated and were still being perpetrated in postrevolutionary Russia), it was probable that the majority of the Communists had not in fact known of them. But, he said to himself, whether they knew or didn't know is not the main issue; the main issue is whether a man is innocent because he didn't know. Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool? Let us concede that a Czech public prosecutor in the early fifties who called for the death of an innocent man was deceived by the Russian secret police and the government of his own country. But now that we all know the accusations to have been absurd and the executed to have been innocent, how can that selfsame public prosecutor defend his purity of heart by beating himself on the chest and proclaiming, My conscience is clear! I didn't know! I was a believer! Isn't his 'I didn't know! I was a believer!' at the very root of his irreparable guilt?

These New World practices (enslavement and genocide) formed another secret link with the anti-human animus of mechanical industry after the sixteenth century, when the workers were no longer protected either by feudal custom or by the self-governing guild. The degradations undergone by child laborers or women during the early nineteenth century in England's 'satanic mills' and mines only reflected those that took place during the territorial expansion of Western man. In Tasmania, for example, British colonists organized 'hunting parties' for pleasure, to slaughter the surviving natives: a people more primitive, scholars believe, than the Australian natives, who should have been preserved, so to say, under glass, for the benefit of later anthropologists. So commonplace were these practices, so plainly were the aborigines regarded as predestined victims, that even the benign and morally sensitive Emerson could say resignedly in an early poem, 1827: "Alas red men are few, red men are feeble, They are few and feeble and must pass away." As a result Western man not merely blighted in some degree every culture that he touched, whether 'primitive' or advanced, but he also robbed his own descendants of countless gifts of art and craftsmanship, as well as precious knowledge passed on only by word of mouth that disappeared with the dying languages of dying peoples. With this extirpation of earlier cultures went a vast loss of botanical and medical lore, representing many thousands of years of watchful observation and empirical experiment whose extraordinary discoveries-such as the American Indian's use of snakeroot (reserpine) as a tranquilizer in mental illness-modern medicine has now, all too belatedly, begun to appreciate. For the better part of four centuries the cultural riches of the entire world lay at the feet of Western man; and to his shame, and likewise to his gross self-deprivation and impoverishment, his main concern was to appropriate only the gold and silver and diamonds, the lumber and pelts, and such new foods (maize and potatoes) as would enable him to feed larger populations.

[Harry] started talking about the many moves he'd made over the years and all the traveling, which his marriage had not survived. He said the irony was that, as his work had become focused on trying to settle people, migrants and refugees and the displaced, his own life had become more peripatetic, so that by the time he finally came back to Dublin nowhere felt like home, or maybe everywhere did, just a little. He wanted to believe that he'd gained more than he'd lost in that transaction, that in becoming less exclusive in his attachments, he'd come to feel a deeper kind of affection for the world. He said there was always a rupture when you left a place, until you realized it had to do with the person you had somehow decided to be. Until you saw that you carried all these rifts and partings with you, like you carried scars, and that instead of feeling like things torn from you, they were part of you. I like this idea. I like Harry. He calms me. He has a way of expanding the view. Panning out, and out, into a panorama. It's not that the view is all good -- Harry is essentially a pessimist. It's just that there's a sense of perspective. I think he has lost a lot and survived, though I don't know exactly what I am referring to. Apart from the limitations on his mobility, Harry's losses seem not greater than most. He has, in many ways, a rather nice life. But I get the sense he's made peace with himself, and that it took some doing, and that he's emerged from that battle wistful, bemused, a little elsewhere. He watches the world as though it were a faraway thing and he a minor god made melancholy by us humans, by the fact that we never, ever seem to learn. Over dinner, he said that if we don't know where we belong, we can feel homesick for almost anywhere we've been.

that which is just and true; 35 And a portion of that Spirit dwelleth in me, which giveth me knowledge, and also power according to my faith and desires which are in God. 36 Now when Ammon had said these words, he began at the creation of the world, and also the creation of Adam, and told him all the things concerning the fall of man, and rehearsed and laid before him the records and the holy scriptures of the people, which had been spoken by the prophets, even down to the time that their father, Lehi, left Jerusalem. 37 And he also rehearsed unto them (for it was unto the king and to his servants) all the journeyings of their fathers in the wilderness, and all their sufferings with hunger and thirst, and their travail, and so forth. 38 And he also rehearsed unto them concerning the rebellions of Laman and Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael, yea, all their rebellions did he relate unto them; and he expounded unto them all the records and scriptures from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem down to the present time. 39 But this is not all; for he expounded unto them the plan of redemption, which was prepared from the foundation of the world; and he also made known unto them concerning the coming of Christ, and all the works of the Lord did he make known unto them. 40 And it came to pass that after he had said all these things, and expounded them to the king, that the king believed all his words. 41 And he began to cry unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, have mercy; according to thy abundant mercy which thou hast had upon the people of Nephi, have upon me, and my people. 42 And now, when he had said this, he fell unto the earth, as if he were dead. 43 And it came to pass that his servants took him and carried him in unto his wife, and laid him upon a bed; and he lay as if he were dead for the space of two days and two nights; and his wife, and his sons, and his daughters mourned over him, after the manner of the Lamanites, greatly lamenting his loss. Alma Chapter 19 Lamoni receives the light of everlasting life and sees the Redeemer—His household falls into a trance, and many see angels—Ammon is preserved miraculously—He baptizes many and establishes a church among them.

Already, when Facebook bought Instagram, it felt as though the walls of the Internet were closing in a little tighter around us users. The broad expanse of possibility, of messiness, on a network like Geocities or the personal expression of Tumblr was shut down. Digital life became increasingly templated, a set of boxes to fill in rather than a canvas to cover in your own image. (You don’t redesign how your Facebook profile looks; you just change your avatar.) I felt a certain sense of loss, but at first the trade-off of creativity for broadcast reach seemed worthwhile: You could talk to so many people at once on social media! But that exposure became enervating, too, and I missed the previous sense of intimacy, the Internet as a private place—a hideout from real life, rather than the determining force of real life. As the walls closed in, the algorithmic feeds took on more and more influence and authority.