Topical Love Quotes

In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.

Steampunk is...the love child of Hot Topic and a BBC costume drama

Juliet and Romeo be damned, you can't be in love until you've flossed your teeth next to the person at least three hundred times...

...I couldn't let go of the thought that it had, in fact, been he, restless and moody Heathcliff. Day after day, he floated through all the Wal-Marts in America, searching for me in a million lonely aisles.

Love is one of those topics that plenty of people try to write about but not enough try to do.

But in Friendship, being free of all that, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting—any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends "You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing.

It was strange how he’d made a 180-degree change. Not sure what to make of that curly, bigheaded, bozo yet, she thought, other than fruitcake nuts! “Blah, I’m not sure about your other big brother,” Savanna said, wiggling her nose upward. “I’d rather not chat about him. Do you come to the museum often?” she asked, quickly changing the topic. “I love unusual old history,” she divulged.

No, I have never had a problem finding books to read. But I have had a problem finding people who understand what it's like to really LOVE reading. Maybe even need it. People who associate periods of their life with the kinds of things they were reading then, whether in school or in dusty old rooms of a house in Holland. The kind of people who take personal journeys into books and write responses that are part review, part stories in themselves. This is what Goodreads has always given me.

It’s crazy how much energy we spend trying to avoid these hard topics when they’re really the only ones that can set us free.

I'm afraid that if we move on to such topics, I won't be able to let you go safe and sound.

The shelf life of any great love is fifteen years. After that you need a serious preservative, which can seriously harm your health.

I cannot stress this topic enough. As parents, we have to communicate with our children. "Sometimes we have to go into great details from the past and bring them to the present to remind them of how great of a person they are. We have to be their “turbo-charge” to renew their positive thoughts.

The worst grotesque situations: believing one knows oneself, believing one knows everything about some topic, believing one has judged with absolute impartiality, believing one will love and be loved forever. In conversation, people think one thing and, in trying to communicate it, say something else. The interlocutor hears one thing, but understands something different. When answering, one does not respond to what the other person initially thought, nor to what the other person said, but to what one has understood. The final result: a conversation between deaf people who do not even know how to listen to themselves.

It wasn't like there was some obvious change. Actually, the problem was more a lack of change. Nothing about her had changed - the way she spoke, her clothes, the topics she chose to talk about, her opinions - they were all the same as before. Their relationship was like a pendulum gradually grinding to a halt, and he felt out of synch.

You – you don't really want to hear me talking about my love life, do you?" "'No' seems such a flimsy and inadequate little word to express how very little interest I have in hearing you rambling on about that particular topic," said the dragon. "Your mating rituals are roughly as fascinating to me as the eating habits of snails." "Right," said Merlin. "Fair enough.

I love you,” he whispered, rubbing his jaw against her temple. “And you love me. I can feel it when you’re in my arms.” He felt her stiffen slightly and draw a shaky breath, but she either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. She hadn’t thrown the words back in his face, however, so Ian continued talking to her, his hand roving over her back. “I can feel it, Elizabeth, but if you don’t admit it pretty soon, you’re going to drive me out of my mind. I can’t work. I can’t think. I make decisions and then I change my mind. And,” he teased, trying to lighten the mood by using the one topic sure to distract her, “that’s nothing to the money I squander whenever I’m under this sort of violent stress. It wasn’t just the gowns I bought, or the house on Promenade...” Still talking to her, he tipped her chin up, glorying in the gentle passion in her eyes, overlooking the doubt in their green depths. “If you don’t admit it pretty soon,” he teased, “I’ll spend us out of house and home.” Her delicate brows drew together in blank confusion, and Ian grinned, taking her hand from his chest, the emerald betrothal ring he had bought her unnoticed in his fingers. “When I’m under stress,” he emphasized, sliding the magnificent emerald onto her finger, “I buy everything in sight. It took my last ounce of control not to buy one of these in every color.

His brothers could tease him about his height or the number of scars he was collecting on his body. He could take the joke when they said he would die having never won a fair wrestling match. But the topic of Bettin still smarted too much. He'd imagined being with her always. Now when he closed his eyes, he had trouble imagining anything else.

There will be but few people, who, when at a loss for topics of conversation, will not reveal the more secret affairs of their friends.

Meister Eckhart on this topic: “If you love yourself, you love everybody else as you do yourself. As long as you love another person less than you love yourself, you will not really succeed in loving yourself, but if you love all alike, including yourself, you will love them as one person and that person is both God and man. Thus he is a great and righteous person who, loving himself, loves all others equally.”[14]

This letter, my very dear Eliza, will not be delivered to you unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career to begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine mercy, a happy immortality. If it had been possible for me to have avoided the interview, my love for you and my precious children would have been alone a decisive motive. But it was not possible without sacrifices which would have rendered me unworthy of your esteem. I need not tell you of the pangs I feel from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. Nor could I dwell on the topic lest it should unman me. The consolations of religion, my beloved, can alone support you and these you have a right to enjoy. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea, I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu best of wives and best of women. Embrace all my darling children for me. Ever yours A H72

I don't know what I was hoping for. Some small praise, I guess. A bit of encouragement. I didn't get it. Miss Parrish took me aside one day after school let out. She said she'd read my stories and found them morbid and dispiriting. She said literature was meant to uplift the heart and that a young woman such as myself ought to turn her mind to topics more cheerful and inspiring than lonely hermits and dead children. "Look around yourself, Mathilda," she said. "At the magnificence of nature. It should inspire joy and awe. Reverence. Respect. Beautiful thoughts and fine words." I had looked around. I'd seen all the things she'd spoken of and more besides. I'd seen a bear cub lift it's face to the drenching spring rains. And the sliver moon of winter, so high and blinding. I'd seen the crimson glory of a stand of sugar maples in autumn and the unspeakable stillness of a mountain lake at dawn. I'd seen them and loved them. But I'd also seen the dark of things. The starved carcasses of winter deer. The driving fury of a blizzard wind. And the gloom that broods under the pines always. Even on the brightest days.

Why write, if this too easy activity of pushing a pen across paper is not given a certain bull-fighting risk and we do not approach dangerous, agile, and two-horned topics?

Love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries. A lover may be drawn to this love or that love, but finally he is drawn to the Sovereign of Love. However much we describe and explain love, when we fall in love we are ashamed of our words. Explanation by the tongue makes most things clear, but love unexplained is clearer. When the pen came to the subject of love, it broke. When the discourse reached the topic of love, the pen split and the paper tore. If intellect tries to explain it, it falls helpless as a donkey on a muddy trail; only Love itself can explain love and lovers! The proof of the sun is the sun itself. If you wish to see it, don’t turn away from it.

After ten whole minutes of painful silence, I finally raised my hand and told Mr. O'Hara I loved Miranda Blythe's romance novels, and I decided I liked him immediately when he didn't laugh or reassure me that we'd be reading real books. Like Mrs. Andrews had last year. He did say, 'I'm afraid Ms. Blythe is not on the curriculum this semester. We'll be starting your education with the epic poets—boring, I know, but necessary building blocks. However, an extra-credit book report is always welcome, and you're free to choose whatever topic you like.' Then Mr. O'Hara added, 'I think Ms. Blythe's works would be a particularly interesting topic for a report. In fact, if you want an example of the archetypal hero journey—' 'Wait, wait, wait.' Fred raised his hand. 'You read romance novels?' 'My dear boy,' Mr. O'Hara replied, 'I read everything.

This is a rumour-filled society and if people want to sit around and talk about whom I've dated, then I'd say they have a lot of spare time and should consider other topics. Or masturbation. - Johnny Depp

You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance -- a topic we should never discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage -- forget it.

British?” I tried to explain. “We make jokes about uncomfortable topics to feel less awkward about them?” How Hard Can Love Be? chapter 22

What was he going to say? He doubted she’d want to hear about his favorite topic-which swords were best suited for different situations.

Dancing falls into the same category as poetry for a woman – it equals dreaming, which may inspire thoughts about such banned topics as love and desire.

Nonetheless the man (Hitler) had a remarkable ability to transform himself into something far more compelling, especially when speaking in public or during private meetings when some topic enraged him. He had a knack as well for projecting an aura of sincerity that blinded onlookers to his true motives and beliefs..

Question for your life: Let’s say we’re on a date, and I’m being all seductive by talking nonstop about such interesting topics as intergalactic nano armies and the precise elevation at which a really tall building becomes a skyscraper, how would you respond if I invited you back to my grandma’s house for a passionate night of love making?

Thus, Jeremiah’s love affair ends with a dull journey in which two doctors speak of the merits of Claudius Amyand’s successful appendectomy, the quality of French roads, moving onto other topics the reserve of the serious minded and Jeremiah, in his confinement, gazes out at the landscape, at the great conquered land lying between himself and his beloved and inwardly weeps, acknowledging that a whore in Covent Garden had foreseen it all.

Welcome to Final Forum. Use this board to communicate with other who are completers. Please note: Participants may not attempt to dissuade or discourage self termination. Disregard for free will informed consent will result in immediate removal from the board. Future access to Through-The-Light will be denied. This board is monitored at all times." That's comforting. I've been to suicide boards before where people get on and say stuff like, "Don't do it. Suicide is not the answer." They don't know the question. Or, "Life's a bitch. Get used to it." Thanks. "Suicide is the easy way out." If it's so easy, why am I still here? And my favorite: "God loves you. Life is the most precious gift from God. You will break God's heart if you throw His gift away." God has a heart? That's news to me. People on boards are very, very shallow. The Final Forum has a long list of topic, including: Random Rants, Bullied, Divorce, Disease, So Tired, Hate This Life, Bleak, Bequests, Attempts. Already I like this board. I start with Random Rants.

The weather,I finally thought.The weather was always a good topic of conversation. "That was some blizzard we had last week,wasn't it?" I asked, since he'd been at Cynthia's instead of with us.We could talk about the blackouts,the shrieking winds- He perked up, looked around. "There's a Dairy Queen in town?I didn't know that.Where is it?" I heard Allie snicker. Sam took up for his friend. "It's an understandable mistake.

Will robot teachers replace human teachers? No, but they can complement them. Moreover, the could be sufficient in situations where there is no alternative––to enable learning while traveling, or while in remote locations, or when one wishes to study a topic for which there is not easy access to teachers. Robot teachers will help make lifelong learning a practicality. They can make it possible to learn no matter where one is in the world, no matter the time of day. Learning should take place when it is needed, when the learner is interested, not according to some arbitrary, fixed schedule

Certainly not! I didn't build a machine to solve ridiculous crossword puzzles! That's hack work, not Great Art! Just give it a topic, any topic, as difficult as you like..." Klapaucius thought, and thought some more. Finally he nodded and said: "Very well. Let's have a love poem, lyrical, pastoral, and expressed in the language of pure mathematics. Tensor algebra mainly, with a little topology and higher calculus, if need be. But with feeling, you understand, and in the cybernetic spirit." "Love and tensor algebra?" Have you taken leave of your senses?" Trurl began, but stopped, for his electronic bard was already declaiming: Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to n, Commingled in an endless Markov chain! Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, And every vector dreams of matrices. Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: It whispers of a more ergodic zone. In Reimann, Hilbert or in Banach space Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. Our asymptotes no longer out of phase, We shall encounter, counting, face to face. I'll grant thee random access to my heart, Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love; And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove, And in bound partition never part. For what did Cauchy know, or Christoffel, Or Fourier, or any Boole or Euler, Wielding their compasses, their pens and rulers, Of thy supernal sinusoidal spell? Cancel me not--for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain. Ellipse of bliss, converge, O lips divine! The product of our scalars is defined! Cyberiad draws nigh, and the skew mind Cuts capers like a happy haversine. I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. Bernoulli would have been content to die, Had he but known such a^2 cos 2 phi!

Some of the faithful had a distinct aspect of roostering, loudly proclaiming that they were going to pray on any number of topics, how God was walking beside them through their incarceration, how Jesus loved sinners, and so on. Personally, I thought that one could thank the Lord at a lower volume and perhaps with less self-congratulation. You could worship loudly and still act pretty lousy, abundant evidence of which was running around the Dorms.

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Really, we musicians do like to talk about Mussorgsky. In fact, I think that it's the second most favourite topic after Tchaikovsky's love life.

I'm sorry about the socks, by the way." She winced. "I know it's a controversial topic.

You didn’t stay in academia if you didn’t love your topic. That passion was the only thing that made it worthwhile putting up with the rest of the crap.

At the university the professors who genuinely loved their subjects were always the most interesting teachers. Enthusiasm for a topic made it enticing to others.

I wrote Dreams of My Mothers because it reveals deep insight into a topic - cross boarder, cross racial adoption - that rarely gets much attention from any quarter, because it represents such a niche subset of our society, but contains within it nearly all the most deeply felt – and held – human themes, passions, values, insecurities, and judgments. And loves.

In behaviorism, an infant's talents and abilities didn't matter because there was no such thing as a talent or an ability. Watson had banned them from psychology, together with other contents of the mind, such as ideas, beliefs, desires, and feelings. They were subjective and unmeasurable, he said, and unfit for science, which studies only objective and measurable things. To a behaviorist, the only legitimate topic for psychology is overt behavior and how it is controlled by the present and past environment. (There is an old joke in psychology: What does a behaviorist say after making love? "It was good for you; how was it for me?")

There is a biblical benchmark I now use. We will refer to this criterion for every hard question, big idea, topic, assessment of our own obedience, every “should” or “should not” and “will” or “will not” we ascribe to God, every theological sound bite. Here it is: If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. If a sermon promises health and wealth to the faithful, it isn’t true, because that theology makes God an absolute monster who only blesses rich westerners and despises Christians in Africa, India, China, South America, Russia, rural Appalachia, inner-city America, and everywhere else a sincere believer remains poor. If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true.

You really love her, don’t you?” “It’s not just about love. It’s about respect.” “And compatibility.” “And friendship.” “And loyalty.” “Exactly.” “Wow,” Shannon breathed. “You’re very sweet under that prickly exterior, aren’t you?” “I’m hungry under this prickly exterior,” I muttered, desperate to get away from the topic of the birds and the bees. “Want to make your favorite brother something to eat before he has to go to work?

Being loved means; are disagreements welcome in my relationships? If you cant disagree with someone then you live in a tyranny and if you live in a tyranny then you are only loved to the degree that you erase yourself and conform to the irrational expectations of bullies. That isn't love obviously. Now if somebody in you life demands that you not disagree with them and gets angry, "offended", or outraged should you disagree with them then, that person is not a good person. It's pretty narcissistic. It's somebody who does not have the maturity, wisdom, and ego strength to handle, and in fact welcome disagreements. When people disagree with me as a whole I think it's a great opportunity for learning. People don't want to expose topics that might cause disagreement because, if the disagreement is punished then the illusion of being loved by good people is shattered.

Some of the faithful had a distinct aspect of roostering, loudly proclaiming that they were going to pray on any number of topics, how God was walking besides them through their incarceration, how Jesus loved sinners, and so on. Personally, I thought that one could thank the Lord at a lower volume and perhaps with less self-congratulation. You could worship loudly and still act pretty lousy, abundant evidence of which was running around the Dorms.

There are basically three types of songs: loved songs, unloved songs, and transitional songs written by tired people in between the two. Love songs are cheesy, unloved songs are depressing, and transitional songs are poetry. Transitions catch the world on fire, touching on relevant topics while speaking with giddiness and despair of the lover between.

When our conversations become constrained, when we avoid topics that might cause upset, when we accept comments or behavior that are hurtful, we no longer aim for harmony but rather toward a sort of deafness that allows us to stay in a relationship longer than we should.  Our senses have become dulled and we end up settling, even when we are anguished. 

Dating is all about getting to know somebody, without wasting a lot of time or money. What is the price of love? You’ve got the cost of dinner, a movie, and cab fare for you and your date, as well as the entire film crew documenting your evening. So you add all that up, and subtract various coupons and bulk discount rates you might qualify for. But what about time? You can make more money, but you can’t make more time if you waste it. That’s why you have to be efficient with your dating. Don’t date one on one. Take 10 women out at once, assembly line style, and forget the small talk. Focus on hard-hitting topics, and give them all questionnaires to fill out. I think the women will appreciate your honest and novel approach. Of course it’s possible that nine out of ten women might be offended. But who cares? All you need is one.


At other times Betty expressed anger at my forcing her to think about morbid topics. “Why think about death? We can’t do anything about it!” I tried to help her understand that, though the fact of death destroys us, the idea of death can save us. In other words, our awareness of death can throw a different perspective on life and incite us to rearrange our priorities.

I just finished reading Pearl Cleage 'What looks like Crazy on an ordinary day' and Ernessa T. Carter '32 Candles'; they were both fantastic. I had almost giving up hope of finding anything I'd like to read. They contained relatable topics and wrote in vernacular that made me feel at ease with the whole process. I think I'm rediscovering my love of books from these two amazing authors.

Christian writers, whether they like it or not, do not simply write for themselves; for good or ill, readers will see their work as reflecting Jesus Christ and his church. And if only for this reason - though there are other reasons - one must take great care when dealing with potentially controversial topics not to imagine one's every pronouncement preceded by 'Thus saith the Lord.' The law of love, on which 'all the law and the prophets' depend (Matt. 22:40), mandates charity toward one's opponents in argument.

(Poetry) helped me to find a silver lining in even the darkest emotions, experiences, observations and topics; find positivity even in the face of extreme negativity; find strength when I was being forced to feel weak; and find hope that my tomorrows would be brighter.

Marriages suffer from this same cycle. You start dating someone with wonder and anticipation, drunk on love. You romanticize everything about your partner, and even mundane activities like going to the grocery store together can seem like a fantastic date. But then you fall into a routine, and years later, you’ve become roommates, circling the same safe topics while packing lunches, the monotony broken only by occasional date nights. Deep down, you know why these parts of your life have gone stale. It’s because nothing new is happening. You may say you fear change, but the lack of change in your life is why you feel so blah. Monotony will drive any human relationship or endeavor into a ditch.

I’m Scorpio. My favorite color is navy. I like apples but I don’t like bananas—except in milkshakes or baking. I love roasted red peppers.” “What are you doing?” She laughed at the random change in topic.  “Telling you ten things about myself so you won’t feel like you’re sleeping with a stranger.

How many loves fail because, in an unconscious effort to make our weaknesses more strong, we link with others precisely at those points? How many women who are not mothers spend years mothering some mysteriously wounded man? How many apparently strong and successful men seek out love like a kind of topical balm they can apply to their wounded bodies and egos when they have withdrawn from combat? Herein lies the great difference between divine weakness and human weakness, the wounds of Christ and the wounds of man. Two human weaknesses only intensify each other. But human weakness plus Christ’s weakness equals a supernatural strength.

I already knew what I’d research. I wrote the words ‘Courtly love’ on my notepad in swirly script, then caught Hayden peering at it. ‘Courtly love? Sorry, Aurora, but I think I’ve already got that one in the bag.’ ‘I think you’d better think again, because I’ve already claimed it,’ I replied. ‘You just said you’re not the Mills & Boon type and, technically, courtly love could be considered historical romance.’ He grinned. ‘As you don’t want to pollute your mind with any clichéd topics, you should probably leave that one to me.’ ‘You, discussing romance? Ha!’ Hayden put on a hurt face. ‘I think I might be alright at it. After all, I’ve been doing a lot of observing lately.’ He gave me a significant look. ‘Observing?’ I repeated, curiosity getting the better of me. ‘Well, you keep accusing me of spying on your dates,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘So, technically, I guess I’m learning about romance firsthand. It seems kind of brutal, judging from the goodnight ritual I saw last night.’ My blood wasn’t boiling, but it was pretty warm. Despite that, I was not going to lose my temper. I was determined that this year Hayden Paris wasn’t going to destroy my composure.

Gail loved to talk about how stressed she was. She would do this thing where we'd be walking in the hallway, and suddenly she'd stop in her tracks, rub both of her temples with her index and middle fingers, and theatrically let out a deep guttural moan: "Mooooog." "Mooog. Minz. I am just so stressed out," she'd say. "I just want to go home, open a bottle of red wine, draw up a hot bath, light some candles and listen to David Gray." A note about me: I do not think stress is a legitimate topic of conversation, in public anyway. No one ever wants to hear how stressed out anyone else is, because most of the time everyone is stressed out. Going on and on in detail about how stressed out I am isn't conversation. It'll never lead anywhere. No one is going to say, "Wow, Mindy, you really have it especially bad. I have heard some stories of stress, but this just takes the cake.

Spread love every where every city town street It is an eternal feeling Not at all a topic of discreet

I would love it if we could limit my red carpet topics to my favorite colors, what sound a duck makes, and my thoughts on McDonald’s All-Day Breakfast—blessing or curse?

You are denying the existence of true love. Because you've never experienced it. It is easy to not believe in a topic when you lack knowledge in it.

The topic of rakes has, of course, been previously discussed in this column, and This Author has come to the conclusion that there are rakes, and there are Rakes. Anthony Bridgerton is a Rake.

In the leadup to the election of 1876, swing votes were tied to the issue of Chinese immigration in the same way that immigration was a hot topic during this election cycle. Rutherford Hayes endorsed Chinese exclusion and won the election. In the following election, James Garfield also carried the torch of anti-Chinese immigration into office. (From those days to now, every presidential election has fanned the flames of anti-immigration. This, Henry, shows that hate and fear are reliable, predictable, and effective political tools.) All of this led eventually to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred the entry of all Chinese immigrants to the United States except for those who were teachers, students, diplomats, ministers, or merchants. It also declared all Chinese totally ineligible for naturalized citizenship. This clause alone allowed the United States to join Nazi Germany and South Africa as the only nations every to withhold naturalization purely on racial grounds.

As they sat at the table, she did not like the girls talking among themselves, or discussing matters she knew nothing about, and she did not encourage any mention of boyfriends. She was mainly interested in clothes and shoes, and where they could be bought and at what price and at what time of the year. Changing fashions and new trends were her daily topic, although she herself, as she often pointed out, was too old for some of the new colours and styles. Yet, Eilis saw, she dressed impeccably and noticed every item each of her lodgers was wearing. She also loved discussing skin care and different types of skin and problems. Mrs. Kehoe had her hair done once a week, on a Saturday, using the same hairdresser each time, spending several hours with her so that her hair would be perfect for the rest of the week.

Now I love lists. I like long detailed lists. I like big unruly lists. I like sorting unsorted lists into outline form, then separating out their topics into lists of their own. Every single project I do involves the making of lists. I make them for organization, of course, but I also make them for assessment, for momentum as a stress reliever, and, counterintuitively, as a means to improve my creativity and free my thinking. There are daily lists, there are project lists. There are “things to order” lists. I make lists of pieces of research that I want together, lists of people I am collaborating with . . . . I make lists of things I need to purchase, things I need to find, and when all of those objects are going to get to me. And hopefully, finally, there are “homestretch” lists, that tell me I’m reaching the end.

An important thing about this topic is that most great things in life—from love to careers to investing—gain their value from two things: patience and scarcity. Patience to let something grow, and scarcity to admire what it grows into. But what are two of the most common tactics when people pursue something great? Trying to make it faster and bigger. It’s always been a problem, and always will be. Same as ever. In

Hmm, if only there were a place where one could go for information... a place that had free books on every topic you could think of... (book stack emoji) Smiling, I typed back the interwebs? just to be a shit.

Alex focused on mistakes. Alex talked too much about topics no one cared about. Alex’s eyes sought out Nathan Andrews’s approval after every take. Alex’s fingers tightened into claws at night, needing the stress of playing all day to be professionally massaged from his body. Xander Thorne finally believed every single person who’d told him he was the best. He played like he was the best. He moved like he was the best.

Uninterested kids Listening to uninterested teachers Teaching uninteresting topics While having access to the most interesting device of all time A PHONE! (This is a generalization, I got mad love for teachers)

If you lack open communication and honesty in your life – It’s time to look within. Are you someone who handles heavy, emotional, or tough information well or do you often get excessively agitated, upset, or depressed? My rule of thumb is that no topic ‘should’ ever be off limits with a loved one. That is the goal to work towards. The point being, if you’re easy to talk to, people will talk to you! If you’re not, then they won’t!

I think," she said, "I thought I was telling you a story about how we fell in love." . . . "What do you think the story is about now?" . . . "Sometimes I think it's a story about being tricked. Not that he did it on purpose, but it wasn't accidental, him confiding in me, just then." Of course every confidence is a kind of manipulation. Or calculation. I trust you with this. Or maybe it's I want you to think that I trust you with this.

She looked down again at the floor and then up to Kade. He was dangerous: primal, unyielding. He snaked a hand around Sydney’s waist, and shot her a look. “No one touches what is mine.” Kade was not about to discuss the topic any further. He would not tolerate anyone hurting those he loved, especially Sydney. He was vampire: decisive, formidable, territorial. And Miss Sydney Willows belonged to and with him, even if she didn’t know it yet.

in such moments I have formulated my creed, wherein all is clear and holy to me. This creed is extremely simple; here it is: I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more manly, and more perfect than the Saviour; I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but that there could be no one. I would even say more: If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth. I would rather not say anything more about it. And yet I don't know why certain topics may never be touched on in society, and why, if anyone does introduce them, it makes the others uncomfortable. Still, enough of it. I heard that you were desirous of travelling somewhere in the South. God grant that you may succeed in obtaining permission to do so. But will you please tell me when we shall be quite free, or at any rate as free as other people ? Perhaps only when we no longer need freedom ? For my part, I want all or nothing. In my soldier's uniform I am the same prisoner as before. I rejoice greatly that I find there is patience in my soul for quite a long time yet, that I desire no earthly possessions, and need nothing but books, the possibility of writing, and of being daily for a few hours alone. The last troubles me most. For almost five years I have been constantly under surveillance, or with several other people, and not one hour alone with myself. To be alone is a natural need, like eating and drinking ; for in that kind of concentrated communism one becomes a whole-hearted enemy of mankind. The constant companionship of others works like poison or plague; and from that unendurable martyrdom I most suffered in the last four years. There were moments in which I hated every man, whether good or evil, and regarded him as a thief who, unpunished, was robbing me of life. The most unbearable part is when one grows unjust, malignant, and evil, is aware of it, even reproves one's-self, and yet has not the power to control one's-self. I have experienced that. I am convinced that God will keep you from it. I believe that you, as a woman, have more power to forgive and to endure. Do

You will not get over your ex all at once. You’ll get over them through a series of tiny, tender moments that bring you quietly back to yourself. And in some ways they’ll never really leave you. The people who change us in those big, irrevocable ways never do. To get over them we’d have to alter ourselves into people so unrecognizable that we’d lose who we are in the process. And so instead we learn to integrate the influence they had – the books you now read because of topics that they turned you on to. The music you now download because of the lyrics they loved. The ways you now look at the world that would never had occurred to you if they had not opened your eyes up to seeing and doing things differently. We don’t ever lose people we love in their entirety and perhaps we never should – we ourselves become bigger, more encompassing people because of it. You’ll get over your ex the day you realize that you damn well may never get over them. That pieces of them are going to live on inside you forever and that discarding them would mean discarding parts of yourself. But the day that you get to move on is the day you simply decide to do so in spite of it – in spite of the tired, restless ache that begs you not to take a chance. In spite of the fearful, self-conscious mind that tells you nobody will ever love you better. In spite of every careless part of you that wants to keep holding on but knows that it needs to let go. The day when you finally move on is the day you decide move forward – with all of your fear, all your pain and all your subtle hesitations. It’s the day you finally get over yourself.

Ebook readers might cause problems. This has become a controversial topic as more and more people use and love ereaders. A close friend of mine doesn’t go anywhere without her Kindle and will probably be buried with it. A Wolf, she was dismayed when I shared the findings of a new Harvard Medical School study:23 reading an ebook in the hour before bed delayed sleep more than reading a print book under normal lamplight, and it also increased sleep inertia the next day.

If you want to have an effective, loving experience of family, you must learn to be patient and to not let the little things drive you crazy and take over your life. There are certainly enough difficult things to deal with regarding family and home life. So, the truth is, if you sweat the small stuff at home, you’re probably setting yourself up to be a nervous wreck. To me, this is a very important topic to cover. The stakes are high—the harmony in your home, even your own sanity.

Sex was everywhere. And since I couldn’t have it, at least not in the way that I felt was expected of me at the time, I believed that no one would ever want to be with me, and no one would ever be able to love me. I felt broken and incomplete.

Work hard. Work dirty. Choose your favourite spade and dig a small, deep hole; located deep in the forest or a desolate area of the desert or tundra. Then bury your cellphone and then find a hobby. Actually, 'hobby' is not a weighty enough word to represent what I am trying to get across. Let's use 'discipline' instead. If you engage in a discipline or do something with your hands, instead of kill time on your phone device, then you have something to show for your time when you're done. Cook, play music, sew, carve, shit - bedazzle! Or, maybe not bedazzle... The arrhythmic is quite simple, instead of playing draw something, fucking draw something! Take the cleverness you apply to words with friends and utilise it to make some kick ass cornbread, corn with friends - try that game. I'm here to tell you that we've been duped on a societal level. My favourite writer, Wendell Berry writes on this topic with great eloquence, he posits that we've been sold a bill of goods claiming that work is bad. That sweating and working especially if soil or saw dust is involved are beneath us. Our population especially the urbanites, has largely forgotten that working at a labour that one loves is actually a privilege.

Desperately trying to remember her manners, she curtseyed and murmured, "Your Grace." The smile lines at his eyes deepened subtly. "You appear to be in need of rescue. Why don't you come inside with me, away from this riffraff? The duchess is eager to meet you." As Pandora hesitated, thoroughly intimidated, he assured her. "I'm quite trustworthy. In fact, I'm very nearly an angel. You'll come to love me in no time." "Take heed," Lord St. Vincent advised Pandora sardonically, fastening the loose sides of his vest. "My father is the pied piper of gullible women." "That's not true," the duke said, "The non-gullible ones follow me as well." Pandora couldn't help chuckling. She looked up into silvery-blue eyes lit with sparks of humor and playfulness. There was something reassuring about his presence, the sense of a man who truly liked women. When she and Cassandra were children, they had fantasized about a handsome father who would lavish them with affection and advice, and spoil them just a little, but not too much. A father who might have let them stand on his feet to dance. This man looked very much like the one Pandora had imagined. She moved forward and took his arm. "How was your journey, my dear?" the duke asked as he escorted her into the house. Before Pandora could reply, Lord St. Vincent spoke from behind them. "Lady Pandora doesn't like small talk, Father. She would prefer to discuss topics such as Darwin, or women's suffrage." "Naturally an intelligent young woman would wish to skip over mundane chitchat," the duke said, giving Pandora such an approving glance that she fairly glowed. "However," he continued thoughtfully, "most people need to be guided into a feeling of safety before they dare reveal their opinions to someone they've only just met. There's a beginning to everything, after all. Every opera has its prelude, every sonnet its opening quatrain. Small talk is merely a way of helping a stranger to trust you, by first finding something you can both agree on." "No one's ever explained it that way before," Pandora said with a touch of wonder. "It actually makes sense. But why must it be so often about weather? Isn't there something else we all agree on? Runcible spoons- everyone likes those, don't they? And teatime, and feeding ducks." "Blue ink," the duke added. "And a cat's purr. And summer storms- although I suppose that brings us back to weather." "I wouldn't mind talking about weather with you, Your Grace," Pandora said ingenuously. The duke laughed gently. "What a delightful girl.

The Latin poet wrote ‘Amor vincit omnia,’ or ‘Love conquers all.’ He did not write, ‘Love frees all’ or ‘liberates’ all, and therein lies the first degree of our flagrant misunderstanding. Conquer: to defeat, subjugate, massacre, cream, make mincemeat out of. Surely,

I decided to write a myth." "Have you figured out a topic? A moral conundrum?" "Yes." "What is it?" I heard Jack's chair creak. "It's about how there's no such thing as redemption," I whispered. "How you deserve what you get,and no higher power can save you." Mrs. Stone didn't answer immediately. The only sound in the room came from my own breathing. "What about heroes?" I hunched over and scribbled a few lines on my notebook. "There are no heroes." Sure,it wasn't an optimistic paper,but it was the only thing I could write passionately about. She was quiet for a moment again. When she spoke,her voice was gentle. "Okay. I'm excited to see what you put together." I nodded. "And,Mr. Caputo? Everything going well with the personal essay?" I could only assume he nodded, because Mrs. Stone returned to the front of the classroom. My right hand started to tremble,and I clenched my pencil and began scribbling. "You don't really believe that, do you?" Jack's voice was soft. I lifted my head, allowing my eyes to meet his for the first time in weeks. "It doesn't matter what I believe." I looked down at my notebook. "Wait," he said. I turned back. "What?" He shrugged,then spoke in a low murmur. "Just stop hiding behind your hair for a minute." I closed my eyes,but I didn't turn away. "You're making things difficult, Jack Caputo," I whispered. "At least you remember my name." I remembered everything. The first time he called me his girlfriend. The first time he told me he loved me. The first time I started to question whether or not I'd be able to hold on to him.The first time I knew I had to come back to see him again, at whatever cost.

In her mind’s eye, the days and weeks of her time with Julian at the café returned to her: bits of conversations, strange comments, questions unanswered and topics diverted. A pointillism painting she’d been standing too close to; none of it made sense. Now, if she stepped back…

Hot guys. Guys who make girls drool. Guys who warrant attention and jealousy. And since we’re on the topic, if you ever see me in public, act like you don’t know me.” “You’re a nutcase.” “Just go right past me.” I brushed my hands against each other, going the opposite direction. “Like two passing buses in the night.” “The phrase is two passing ships in the night, and no. I’m not a complete asshole. If I see you in public, I reserve my right to come over and piss you off. I’m starting to get enjoyment from this on the daily.” “No.” I almost gasped. “Daily?” “Daily,” he drawled.

Misgendering is a complicated topic to trans people as it intersects with so many other issues. Innocent misgendering by the general public can still be painful, as it’s often taken as a sign that no matter the effort we may have put in, we’re still seen as that old persona we’re trying to leave behind. Someone in the street could innocently ruin a trans person’s day by reading them as the wrong gender and openly using the wrong pronoun. By trying to keep my expectations low, I felt that I was minimising the hurt that misgendering was causing, but I’d be lying to say that it wasn’t still disappointing.

And you love things, wholly and unashamedly. Video games or comics, and you think it’s trivial, that it’s silly. But you’re wrong. The topics don’t matter. What matters is the passion and the joy. You can’t see it, but I can, and it burns so brightly. Like the fires of—like the sun. It’s life. It’s beauty.

Librarians are on the front lines of the cultural war, protecting our right to read freely. These days, many people would rather block a friend or family member than have the difficult conversation. Likewise, it’s easier to ban a book rather than examine the truths inside or discuss the topic with loved ones.

Aron Moss wrote a wonderful article on this topic in which he explains, ”We don't really want answers, we don't want explanations, and we don't want closure. … We want an end to suffering … but we shouldn't leave it up to God to alleviate suffering. … He is waiting for us to do it. That's what we are here for.

There’s an old Cherokee legend about two wolves at war. It’s good food for thought on the topic of self-control. One night a grandfather was teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.” The boy paused to think for a moment before looking up at his grandfather. “Which wolf will win?” He asked. The wise man simply replied, “The one that you feed.”  Hearing that story, I’m reminded of the scripture that says, And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. – Galatians 5:24

We are committed to involving as many people as possible, as young as possible, as soon as possible. Sometimes too young and too soon! But we intentionally err on the side of too fast rather than too slow. We don’t wait until people feel “prepared” or “fully equipped.” Seriously, when is anyone ever completely prepared for ministry? Ministry makes people’s faith bigger. If you want to increase someone’s confidence in God, put him in a ministry position before he feels fully equipped. The messages your environments communicate have the potential to trump your primary message. If you don’t see a mess, if you aren’t bothered by clutter, you need to make sure there is someone around you who does see it and is bothered by it. An uncomfortable or distracting setting can derail ministry before it begins. The sermon begins in the parking lot. Assign responsibility, not tasks. At the end of the day, it’s application that makes all the difference. Truth isn’t helpful if no one understands or remembers it. If you want a church full of biblically educated believers, just teach what the Bible says. If you want to make a difference in your community and possibly the world, give people handles, next steps, and specific applications. Challenge them to do something. As we’ve all seen, it’s not safe to assume that people automatically know what to do with what they’ve been taught. They need specific direction. This is hard. This requires an extra step in preparation. But this is how you grow people. Your current template is perfectly designed to produce the results you are currently getting. We must remove every possible obstacle from the path of the disinterested, suspicious, here-against-my-will, would-rather-be-somewhere-else, unchurched guests. The parking lot, hallways, auditorium, and stage must be obstacle-free zones. As a preacher, it’s my responsibility to offend people with the gospel. That’s one reason we work so hard not to offend them in the parking lot, the hallway, at check-in, or in the early portions of our service. We want people to come back the following week for another round of offending! Present the gospel in uncompromising terms, preach hard against sin, and tackle the most emotionally charged topics in culture, while providing an environment where unchurched people feel comfortable. The approach a church chooses trumps its purpose every time. Nothing says hypocrite faster than Christians expecting non-Christians to behave like Christians when half the Christians don’t act like it half the time. When you give non-Christians an out, they respond by leaning in. Especially if you invite them rather than expect them. There’s a big difference between being expected to do something and being invited to try something. There is an inexorable link between an organization’s vision and its appetite for improvement. Vision exposes what has yet to be accomplished. In this way, vision has the power to create a healthy sense of organizational discontent. A leader who continually keeps the vision out in front of his or her staff creates a thirst for improvement. Vision-centric churches expect change. Change is a means to an end. Change is critical to making what could and should be a reality. Write your vision in ink; everything else should be penciled in. Plans change. Vision remains the same. It is natural to assume that what worked in the past will always work. But, of course, that way of thinking is lethal. And the longer it goes unchallenged, the more difficult it is to identify and eradicate. Every innovation has an expiration date. The primary reason churches cling to outdated models and programs is that they lack leadership.

I HAVE ransacked the encyclopedias And slid my fingers among topics and titles Looking for you. And the answer comes slow. There seems to be no answer. Old-fashioned Requited Love" I shall ask the next banana peddler the who and the why of it. Or—the iceman with his iron tongs gripping a clear cube in summer sunlight—maybe he will know.

I should have known something was wrong when my advisor’s parting words were Good luck. To his credit, he had—very gently—suggested that I might want to consider a different sort of topic. But I didn’t want to consider another topic. I was madly in love with my topic: “Aristocratic Espionage during the Wars with France, 1789- 1815.” It had dash, it had swash, it had buckle.

The angels also said, “When people arrive in this world from the physical one and hear that they are in another world, they gather together in many places to form groups. They ask where heaven and hell are, and also where God is. After they have been taught, they start arguing, disputing, and fighting about whether God exists. This is a result of the great number of materialists in the physical world today. When the topic of religion comes up, materialists start to debate about it with one another and with other groups. The ensuing proposition and debate rarely results in an affirmation of the faith that God exists. Materialists associate more and more with the evil, because only from God can one do something good with a love for what is good.” [3]

I’m thrilled Penelope is talking about her exes. God forbid people talk about their jobs or their diets. Relationships, crushes, falling in love and out of it, breakups, heartbreak, these are the only conversation topics I recognize. “Laura is the girl you made the cake for?” I ask. “Woman, yes,” she says and I’m thankful for the amphetamines because I don’t even begin to roll my eyes.

My grandmother, perhaps the biggest Elvis fan on earth, loved going to Memphis and visiting Graceland with her sister, daughter, and nieces. She had photo albums full of their trips; they’d go and she would take photos of the exact same things trip after trip. It was her mecca. She had a photo of Elvis’s headstone in various seasons, and you could watch her daughter and nieces grow up in a series of photos in front the mansion’s driveway gate. It was routine. I’ve come to regard Dianne Feinstein’s “assault weapons” press conferences in the same way. Every few years or so, Senator Feinstein calls a press conference, the D.C. version of theater, and plays Vanna White with guns strapped to whiteboards. You can watch her age through the years at these pressers via Google Images. She begins with a youthful plump to her cheeks, standing tall, holding up a rifle to her chest and as the years go by she takes on the posture of a cocktail shrimp and simply motions to the boards. I give her credit for her dedication to never learning a single thing about the firearms she proposes to ban. It takes devotion to remain ignorant about a topic when you spend decades discussing it.

He told me that you had a loathing of those in the religious life. That was why he found you diligent in his work.” “That was not the reason.” He looks up. “May I speak?” “Oh, for God’s sake,” Henry cries. “I wish someone would.” He is startled. Then he understands. Henry wants a conversation, on any topic. One that’s nothing to do with love, or hunting, or war. Now that Wolsey’s gone, there’s not much scope for it; unless you want to talk to a priest of some stripe. And if you send for a priest, what does it come back to? To love; to Anne; to what you want and can’t have. “If you ask me about the monks, I speak from experience, not prejudice, and though I have no doubt that some foundations are well governed, my experience has been of waste and corruption. May I suggest to Your Majesty that, if you wish to see a parade of the seven deadly sins, you do not organize a masque at court but call without notice at a monastery? I have seen monks who live like great lords, on the offerings of poor people who would rather buy a blessing than buy bread, and that is not Christian conduct. Nor do I take the monasteries to be the repositories of learning some believe they are. Was Grocyn a monk, or Colet, or Linacre, or any of our

When we read of the battles in India, in Italy, in the Crimea, what did we care? It was only an interesting topic, like any other, to look for in the paper. Now, you hear of a battle with a thrill and a shudder. It has come home to us ... A telegram comes to you and you leave it on your lap. You are pale with fright... How many, many of your friends or loved ones this scrap of paper may tell you have gone to their death.

The topic of disinterested, non-calculating, and purposeless love for the sake of love is central to mysticism as such. To love God, not because of powerful institutions, or even because God commands it, but to do so in an act of unencumbered freedom, is the very source of mystical relation. To love God is all the reason there needs to be . . . The orthodoxies that have been handed down to us in the monotheistic religions called for obedience to the commanding God. They threatened with punishment and enticed with rewards - images of hell and heaven resting on that authority. In technologically advanced centers of the world, authoritarian religious systems are in sharp decline. Mystical perceptions and approaches to God, however, are entirely different: "God, if I worship Thee in fear of hell, burn me in hell. And if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not Thine everlasting Beauty" (Aldous Huxley, in The Perennial Philosophy). Mysticism may he regarded as the anti-authoritarian religion per se. In it, the commanding lord becomes the beloved; what is to come later becomes the now; and naked or even enlightened self-interest that is oriented by reward and punishment becomes mystical freedom.

The children are deprived of the knowledge they might gain about money, illness, drugs, sex, marriage, their parents, their grandparents and people in general. They are also deprived of the reassurance they might receive if these topics were discussed more openly. Finally, they are deprived of role models of openness and honesty, and are provided instead with role models of partial honesty, incomplete openness and limited courage.

In her usual mordant style, Le Guin begins by noting Freud’s theory, which she considers both “funny” and “comforting,” that artists are solely motivated by the desire for “honor, power, riches, fame, and the love of women.” (Like modern AI chatbots, Freud could always be counted on to confidently opine on any topic about which he knew nothing.) Le Guin then turns to someone with rather more authority to speak on the subject, Emily Brontë:

My head was spinning at the rapid change in direction our conversation had taken. From the cheerful topic of my impending demise, we were suddenly declaring ourselves. He waited, and even though I looked down to study our hands between us, I knew his golden eyes were on me. "You already know how I feel, of course," I finally said. "I'm here… which, roughly translated, means I would rather die than stay away from you." I frowned. "I'm an idiot.

Although he didn’t admit to it, Wakely found himself agreeing. No one had to pray to Snow White or fear the wrath of Rumpelstiltskin to understand the message. The stories were short, memorable, and covered all the bases of love, pride, folly, and forgiveness. Their rules were bite-sized: Don’t be a jerk. Don’t hurt other people or animals. Share what you have with others less fortunate. In other words, be nice. He decided to change the topic.

The Mongols loved competitions of all sorts, and they organized debates among rival religions the same way they organized wrestling matches. It began on a specific date with a panel of judges to oversee it. In this case Mongke Khan ordered them to debate before three judges: a Christian, a Muslim, and a Buddhist. A large audience assembled to watch the affair, which began with great seriousness and formality. An official lay down the strict rules by which Mongke wanted the debate to proceed: on pain of death “no one shall dare to speak words of contention.” Rubruck and the other Christians joined together in one team with the Muslims in an effort to refute the Buddhist doctrines. As these men gathered together in all their robes and regalia in the tents on the dusty plains of Mongolia, they were doing something that no other set of scholars or theologians had ever done in history. It is doubtful that representatives of so many types of Christianity had come to a single meeting, and certainly they had not debated, as equals, with representatives of the various Muslim and Buddhist faiths. The religious scholars had to compete on the basis of their beliefs and ideas, using no weapons or the authority of any ruler or army behind them. They could use only words and logic to test the ability of their ideas to persuade. In the initial round, Rubruck faced a Buddhist from North China who began by asking how the world was made and what happened to the soul after death. Rubruck countered that the Buddhist monk was asking the wrong questions; the first issue should be about God from whom all things flow. The umpires awarded the first points to Rubruck. Their debate ranged back and forth over the topics of evil versus good, God’s nature, what happens to the souls of animals, the existence of reincarnation, and whether God had created evil. As they debated, the clerics formed shifting coalitions among the various religions according to the topic. Between each round of wrestling, Mongol athletes would drink fermented mare’s milk; in keeping with that tradition, after each round of the debate, the learned men paused to drink deeply in preparation for the next match. No side seemed to convince the other of anything. Finally, as the effects of the alcohol became stronger, the Christians gave up trying to persuade anyone with logical arguments, and resorted to singing. The Muslims, who did not sing, responded by loudly reciting the Koran in an effort to drown out the Christians, and the Buddhists retreated into silent meditation. At the end of the debate, unable to convert or kill one another, they concluded the way most Mongol celebrations concluded, with everyone simply too drunk to continue.

At first I found it inexplicable that boys used such violent words in reference to sex. Why would you be proud of being a lousy lover? If they were truly talking about sex in those situations, they might bring up pleasure, connection, finesse: they wouldn't weaponize it. But the whole point of "locker room banter" is that it's not actually about sex, and that, I think, is why guys were more ashamed to discuss it as openly with me as topics that were equally explicit. Those exaggerated stories are in truth about power: about asserting masculinity through control of women's bodies. And that requires- demands- a denial of girls' humanity... Dismissing that as locker room talk denies the ways that language can desensitize and abrade boys' ability to see girls as people deserving of respect and dignity. And, in fact, by the time they are in college, athletes are three times more likely than other students to be accused of sexual misconduct or intimate partner violence.

Ever since Luther, this letter has been read as a definitive statement of Paul’s groundbreaking doctrine of justification by faith. But recent scholarship has shown that Luther’s interpretation does not correspond to Paul’s thinking at all, and that far from being central to Paul’s thought, this topic is mentioned only in Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Romans for “the specific and limited purpose of defending the right of gentile converts to be full heirs of the promises to Israel.

Theories of memory and reasoning didn't distinguish thoughts about people from thoughts about rocks or houses. Theories of emotion didn't distinguish fear from anger, jealousy, or love. Theories of social relations didn't distinguish among family, friends, enemies, and strangers. Indeed, the topics in psychology that most interest laypeople — love, hate, work, play, food, sex, status, dominance, jealousy, friendship, religion, art — are almost completely absent from psychology textbooks.

Grief-related ruminations tend to center on a few topics, as evidenced by Stroebe and Schut, and their colleagues, Dutch psychologists Paul Boelen and Maarten Eisma.2 The five topics include: (1) one’s negative emotional reactions to the loss (reactions), (2) the unfairness of the death (injustice), (3) the meaning and consequences of the loss (meaning), (4) the reactions of others to one’s grief (relationships), and (5) counterfactual thoughts about the events leading up to the death (what-ifs).

while people go on chatting about a million and one things I mostly sit and observe with ascended understandings as they bring up the topic of death and of a person dying I listen quietly while often accidentally smiling at the absurdity of anybody ever believing in death I don't mean to be insensitive towards a body's last breath a higher Reality laid bare, bodily expiration is of no account with this revelation incalculable life fears we surmount the Sage is notorious for finding strange things funny giggling at horrors and ridiculous events not so sunny sometimes a straight face is merely for show but spy the glint in his eye about a truth you don’t know an unfounded assumption is that we only live once not a Mystic throughout history has avowed this occurrence Christian ones may not have mentioned being reborn again they also didn't deny it—their teaching was kept plain just as the Buddha intentionally avoided the God concept ultimately not essential, under the rug reincarnation is swept

No one can compete with you on being you. Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most. For example, I love to read, and I love technology. I learn very quickly, and I get bored fast. If I had gone into a profession where I was required to tunnel down for twenty years into the same topic, it wouldn’t have worked. I’m in venture investing, which requires me to come up to speed very, very quickly on new technologies (and I’m rewarded for getting bored because new technologies come along). It

You said she has no travel records leaving Italy?" "Yes sir." "So there is a great possibility that she is still here in Italy, isn't?" "Yes sir." "What is 'true love' in Italian?" Secretary Wood showed surprise in his boss' peculiar question that was so not in line with their topic. "Uh...it's 'vero amore', sir." Secretary Wood answered, looking at Cullan as if he already lost his marbles. "Okay. Find my wife as soon as possible, Secretary Wood. I want my vero amore back to me." Cullan said with vindiction.

Cancer is another forbidden or “whisper” topic. I read about a writer named Emily McDowell who said the worst part of being diagnosed with lymphoma wasn’t feeling sick from chemo or losing her hair. “It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn’t know what to say, or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it.” In response, Emily created “empathy cards.” I love them all but these two are my favorites, making me want to laugh and cry simultaneously.

If I could sum up my poetry in a few well-chosen words, the result might be a poem. Several years ago, when I was asked to say something on this topic, I came up with the notion that for me the making of poems is both a commemoration (a moment captured) and an evocation (the archaeologist manqué side of me digging into something buried and bringing it to light). But I also said that I find the processes that bring poems into being mysterious, and I wouldn't really wish to know them; the thread that links the first unwilled impulse to the object I acknowledge as the completed poem is a tenuous one, easily broken. If I knew the answers to these riddles, I would write more poems, and better ones. "Simple Poem" is as close as I can get to a credo': Simple Poem I shall make it simple so you understand. Making it simple will make it clear for me. When you have read it, take me by the hand As children do, loving simplicity. This is the simple poem I have made. Tell me you understand. But when you do Don't ask me in return if I have said All that I meant, or whether it is true.

our work in The Dial is to be “an antidote to all narrowness.” One of my pieces, which I’ve titled “A Dialogue,” expresses some of my own deep feelings. My yearning to enjoy life, to someday find love, but the pressing need to always be working, creating, providing for myself. It’s written from a safe distance, however, modeled as a conversation between a flower and the sun overhead. A more critical essay of mine takes up the topic of literary critics themselves, and the relationship that a writer or poet has to the tradition of literary criticism.

His introduction throws me. The only time I can envision "Hi, I'm a surgeon" as a fitting introduction is if I were on a gurney in a stark white room and a man wielding a scalpel was standing over me. Plus, it's been a while since we've talked careers with anyone. Jobs are rarely a topic of conversation anymore--they exist in a place and time too far away to seem interesting. "What do you do?" is not a question asked to define someone, because out here we're all working the same jobs: yachties, mechanics, navigators, weather-readers, fishermen, adventure travelers, storytellers.

On the one hand, online movie reviews are convenient for training sentiment-classifying algorithms because they come with handy star ratings that indicate how positive the writer intended a review to be. On the other hand, it’s a well-known phenomenon that movies with racial or gender diversity in their casts, or that deal with feminist topics, tend to be “review-bombed” by hordes of bots posting highly negative reviews. People have theorized that algorithms that learn from these reviews whether words like feminist and black and gay are positive or negative may pick up the wrong idea from the angry bots.

the subject of free will another debated topic do we or don't we have the ability to pick? greatly controlled by mind at lower levels of consciousness almost non-existent, one's free will is notably less at this level one’s actions are purely reactionary lacking self-awareness, animal instincts are primary not going along with the mind, free will increases then higher up, it's surrendered until it ceases thus, there both is and is not the capacity to choose even when we do it's limited by one's views choosing alternatively, with a mind conditioned and bound free will, then, is at best constrained and drowned

I perceived how foolish I had been in consenting to take my turn with you in praising love, and saying that I too was a master of the art, when I really had no conception how anything ought to be praised. For in my simplicity I imagined that the topics of praise should be true, and that this being presupposed, out of the true the speaker was to choose the best and set them forth in the best manner. And I felt quite proud, thinking that I knew the nature of true praise, and should speak well. Whereas I now see that the intention was to attribute to Love every species of greatness and glory, whether really belonging to him or not, without regard to truth or falsehood—that was no matter; for the original proposal seems to have been not that each of you should really praise Love, but only that you should appear to praise him. And so you attribute to Love every imaginable form of praise which can be gathered anywhere; and you say that 'he is all this,' and 'the cause of all that,' making him appear the fairest and best of all to those who know him not, for you cannot impose upon those who know him. And a noble and solemn hymn of praise have you rehearsed. But as I misunderstood the nature of the praise when I said that I would take my turn, I must beg to be absolved from the promise which I made in ignorance, and which (as Euripides would say (Eurip. Hyppolytus)) was a promise of the lips and not of the mind. Farewell then to such a strain: for I do not praise in that way; no, indeed, I cannot. But if you like to hear the truth about love, I am ready to speak in my own manner, though I will not make myself ridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you. Say then, Phaedrus, whether you would like to have the truth about love, spoken in any words and in any order which may happen to come into my mind at the time. Will that be agreeable to you? Aristodemus

O Tell Me The Truth About Love - Poem by WH Auden Some say love's a little boy, And some say it's a bird, Some say it makes the world go round, Some say that's absurd, And when I asked the man next door, Who looked as if he knew, His wife got very cross indeed, And said it wouldn't do. Does it look like a pair of pyjamas, Or the ham in a temperance hotel? Does its odour remind one of llamas, Or has it a comforting smell? Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is, Or soft as eiderdown fluff? Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges? O tell me the truth about love. Our history books refer to it In cryptic little notes, It's quite a common topic on The Transatlantic boats; I've found the subject mentioned in Accounts of suicides, And even seen it scribbled on The backs of railway guides. Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian, Or boom like a military band? Could one give a first-rate imitation On a saw or a Steinway Grand? Is its singing at parties a riot? Does it only like Classical stuff? Will it stop when one wants to be quiet? O tell me the truth about love. I looked inside the summer-house; It wasn't even there; I tried the Thames at Maidenhead, And Brighton's bracing air. I don't know what the blackbird sang, Or what the tulip said; But it wasn't in the chicken-run, Or underneath the bed. Can it pull extraordinary faces? Is it usually sick on a swing? Does it spend all its time at the races, or fiddling with pieces of string? Has it views of its own about money? Does it think Patriotism enough? Are its stories vulgar but funny? O tell me the truth about love. When it comes, will it come without warning Just as I'm picking my nose? Will it knock on my door in the morning, Or tread in the bus on my toes? Will it come like a change in the weather? Will its greeting be courteous or rough? Will it alter my life altogether? O tell me the truth about love.

I love analogies! Let’s have one. Imagine that you dearly love, absolutely crave, a particular kind of food. There are some places in town that do this particular cuisine just amazingly. Lots of people who are into this kind of food hold these restaurants in high regard. But let’s say, at every single one of these places, every now and then throughout the meal, at random moments, the waiter comes over and punches any women at the table right in the face. And people of color and/or LGBT folks as well! Now, most of the white straight cis guys who eat there, they have no problem–after all, the waiter isn’t punching them in the face, and the non-white, non-cis, non-straight, non-guys who love this cuisine keep coming back so it can’t be that bad, can it? Hell, half the time the white straight cis guys don’t even see it, because it’s always been like that and it just seems like part of the dining experience. Granted, some white straight cis guys have noticed and will talk about how they don’t like it and they wish it would stop. Every now and then, you go through a meal without the waiter punching you in the face–they just give you a small slap, or come over and sort of make a feint and then tell you they could have messed you up bad. Which, you know, that’s better, right? Kind of? Now. Somebody gets the idea to open a restaurant where everything is exactly as delicious as the other places–but the waiters won’t punch you in the face. Not even once, not even a little bit. Women and POC and LGBT and various combinations thereof flock to this place, and praise it to the skies. And then some white, straight, cis dude–one of the ones who’s on record as publicly disapproving of punching diners in the face, who has expressed the wish that it would stop (maybe even been very indignant on this topic in a blog post or two) says, “Sure, but it’s not anything really important or significant. It’s getting all blown out of proportion. The food is exactly the same! In fact, some of it is awfully retro. You’re just all relieved cause you’re not getting punched in the face, but it’s not really a significant development in this city’s culinary scene. Why couldn’t they have actually advanced the state of food preparation? Huh? Now that would have been worth getting excited about.” Think about that. Seriously, think. Let me tell you, being able to enjoy my delicious supper without being punched in the face is a pretty serious advancement. And only the folks who don’t get routinely assaulted when they try to eat could think otherwise.

As a culture, we don’t claim that gender roles and gender conditioning disappear the moment we love someone of the “opposite” gender. I identify as a woman and am married to someone who identifies as a man, yet I would never say, “Because I am married to a man, I have a gender-free life.” We understand that gender is a very deep social construct, that we have different experiences depending on our gender roles, assignments, and expressions, and that we will wrestle with these differences throughout the life of our relationship. Yet when the topic is race, we claim that it is completely inoperative if there is any level of fond regard.

The importance of studying reincarnation has nothing to do with status or the need to feel reinforced by some old belief, or even the need to understand previous roles on this planet or others. The importance of this topic has everything to do with the understanding that the cruelties of humanity, of people against people, are often the same cruelties we impose on ourselves as a result of such experiences. Love, empathy and kindness are not considered virtues but are the most important. Try to understand them in any way you can and you will be closer to your spiritual liberation. Begin with yourself and your own relationship with nature.

And at my age, I must consider any marriage prospect quite seriously.” “Your age?” he scoffed. “You’re only twenty-five.” “Twenty-six. And even at twenty-five, I would be considered long in the tooth. I lost several years—my best ones perhaps—because of my illness.” “You’re more beautiful now than you ever were. Any man would be mad or blind not to want you.” The compliment was not given smoothly, but with a masculine sincerity that heightened her blush. “Thank you, Kev.” He slid her a guarded look. “You want to marry?” Win’s willful, treacherous heart gave a few painfully excited thuds, because at first she thought he’d asked, “You want to marry me?” But no, he was merely asking her opinion of marriage as … well, as her scholarly father would have said, as a “conceptual structure with a potential for realization.” “Yes, of course,” she said. “I want children to love. I want a husband to grow old with. I want a family of my own.” “And Harrow says all of that is possible now?” Win hesitated a bit too long. “Yes, completely possible.” But Merripen knew her too well. “What are you not telling me?” “I am well enough to do anything I choose now,” she said firmly. “What does he—” “I don’t wish to discuss it. You have your forbidden topics; I have mine.” “You know I’ll find out,” he said quietly.

You'll make a good First Lady, Shelby Campbell." Shelby's fingers tightened on her wineglass, an involuntary gesture noticed only by Alan and his mother. "Perhaps," she returned calmly. "if it were one of my ambitions." "Ambitions or not,it's fate when you're paired with this one," Daniel stabbed his fork toward Alan. "You're a little premature." Alan cut cleanly through his meat, swearing fluidly in his mind only. "I haven't decided to run for president, and Shelby hasn't agreed to marry me." "Haven't decided? Hah!" Daniel silled down wine. "Hasn't agreed?" He set down the glass with a bang. "The girl doesn't look like a fool to me, Campbell or no," he continued. "She's good Scottish stock,no matter what her clan.This one'll breed true MacGregors." "He'd still like me to change my name," Justin commented, deliberately trying to shift the attention onto himself. "It's been done to ensure the line before," Daniel told him. "but Rena's babe'll be as much MacGregor as not. As will Caine's when he's a mind to remember his duty and start making one." He sent his younger son a lowered-brow look that was met with an insolent grin. "But Alan's the firstborn, duty-bound to marry and produce and sire..." Alan turned, intending on putting an end to the topic,when he caught Shelby's grin. She'd folded her arms on the table,forgetting her dinner in the pure enjoyment of watching Daniel MacGregor on a roll. "Having fun?" Alan muttered near her ear. "Wouldn't miss it.Is he always like this?" Alan glanced over, watching his father gesture with his lecture. "Yes." Shelby sighed. "I think I'm in love. Daniel..." She interrupted his flow of words by tugging sharply on his sleeve. "No offense to Alan,or to your wife,but I think if I were going to marry a MacGregor,he'd have to be you." Still caught up in his own diatribe, Daniel stared at her.Abruptly his features shifted and his laugh rang out. "You're a pistol,you are, Shelby Campbell.Here..." He lifted a bottle of wine. "Your glass is empty.

We all know that sex is the most interesting topic in the world. We love to talk about sex. There's no juicier gossip than who is sleeping with whom. And we love to read about sex. Check the top 1000 books on Amazon. Most of them have a shirtless guy on the cover, because they're smutty "romance novels" (read: porn for women) about a girl being swept off her feet by one (or more) billionaire alphamales. There are literally tens of thousands of books out there about shirtless billionaire alpha-male vampires who can't wait to mate with you. Lucky you! And women eat that shit up! Men, not so much. We men prefer to watch actual porn. And there's a perfectly good explanation for that.

Many people approach Tolstoy with mixed feelings. They love the artist in him and are intensely bored by the preacher; but at the same time it is rather difficult to separate Tolstoy the preacher from Tolstoy the artist—it is the same deep slow voice, the same robust shoulder pushing up a cloud of visions or a load of ideas. What one would like to do, would be to kick the glorified soapbox from under his sandalled feet and then lock him up in a stone house on a desert island with gallons of ink and reams of paper—far away from the things, ethical and pedagogical, that diverted his attention from observing the way the dark hair curled above Anna's white neck. But the thing cannot be done : Tolstoy is homogeneous, is one, and the struggle which, especially in the later years, went on between the man who gloated over the beauty of black earth, white flesh, blue snow, green fields, purple thunderclouds, and the man who maintained that fiction is sinful and art immoral—this struggle was still confined within the same man. Whether painting or preaching, Tolstoy was striving, in spite of all obstacles, to get at the truth. As the author of Anna Karenin, he used one method of discovering truth; in his sermons, he used another; but somehow, no matter how subtle his art was and no matter how dull some of his other attitudes were, truth which he was ponderously groping for or magically finding just around the corner, was always the same truth — this truth was he and this he was an art. What troubles one, is merely that he did not always recognize his own self when confronted with truth. I like the story of his picking up a book one dreary day in his old age, many years after he had stopped writing novels, and starting to read in the middle, and getting interested and very much pleased, and then looking at the title—and seeing: Anna Karenin by Leo Tolstoy. What obsessed Tolstoy, what obscured his genius, what now distresses the good reader, was that, somehow, the process of seeking the Truth seemed more important to him than the easy, vivid, brilliant discovery of the illusion of truth through the medium of his artistic genius. Old Russian Truth was never a comfortable companion; it had a violent temper and a heavy tread. It was not simply truth, not merely everyday pravda but immortal istina—not truth but the inner light of truth. When Tolstoy did happen to find it in himself, in the splendor of his creative imagination, then, almost unconsciously, he was on the right path. What does his tussle with the ruling Greek-Catholic Church matter, what importance do his ethical opinions have, in the light of this or that imaginative passage in any of his novels? Essential truth, istina, is one of the few words in the Russian language that cannot be rhymed. It has no verbal mate, no verbal associations, it stands alone and aloof, with only a vague suggestion of the root "to stand" in the dark brilliancy of its immemorial rock. Most Russian writers have been tremendously interested in Truth's exact whereabouts and essential properties. To Pushkin it was of marble under a noble sun ; Dostoevski, a much inferior artist, saw it as a thing of blood and tears and hysterical and topical politics and sweat; and Chekhov kept a quizzical eye upon it, while seemingly engrossed in the hazy scenery all around. Tolstoy marched straight at it, head bent and fists clenched, and found the place where the cross had once stood, or found—the image of his own self.

The Vidame de Pamiers was still, at sixty-seven years of age, a very brilliant man, having seen much and lived much; a good talker, a man of honor and a gallant man, but who held as to women the most detestable opinions; he loved them, and he despised them. Their honor! their feelings! Ta-ra-ra, rubbish and shams! When he was with them, he believed in them, the ci-devant “monstre”; he never contradicted them, and he made them shine. But among his male friends, when the topic of the sex came up, he laid down the principle that to deceive women, and to carry on several intrigues at once, should be the occupation of those young men who were so misguided as to wish to meddle in the affairs of the State.

It's easy to be afraid right now, but doing things that scare you makes you stronger, makes fear less of an obstacle, allows us to find ways to dance in that liminal space-- that contradictory co-existing reality-- of afraid not afraid. We need to keep doing things that really scare us, to remind ourselves that it is just a thing, what we call fear-- and that as much as there are real things to fear, that thing itself is the only thing that can paralyze us. Love, passion, hunger, desire, lead us forward to dance with our fear so we can do it, yes, and also so we learn that we can do it again and again, and live with the failures-- learn from the failures-- when our fears are realized (another topic entirely). Take heart.

. . .—we’d been there [at a restaurant] for hours, laughing over little things but being serious too, very grave, she being both generous and receptive (this was another thing about her; she listened, her attention was dazzling–I never had the feeling that other people listened to me half as closely; I felt like a different person in her company, a better one, could say things to her I couldn’t say to anyone else, certainly not Kitsey [Theo's fiancé], who had a brittle way of deflating serious comments by making a joke, or switching to another topic, or interrupting, or sometimes just pretending not to hear), and it was utter delight to be with her, I loved her every minute of every day, heart and mind and soul and all of it, and it was getting late and I wanted the place never to close, never.

Every topic gets to unfurl completely, never forced or rushed. Sometimes I like to sit back in the group and observe the magic of The Group Hiking Conversation. No matter what the mix of ages, sex or backgrounds, everyone in a walking conversation eventually arrives together in the one lovely pool of mutualism. Or perhaps a field, the one beyond right and wrong, is a better metaphor. It generally only takes about an hour or so. But after that initial hour you do adjust to the primitive rhythm, like you’re dialed into our ancestral way of keeping company and bearing mindful witness to each other. It feels like home. A day of walking will dislodge all kinds of deep truths. They will surface through the fatigue as you sink into the couch; after a day of walking off our barky layers, we reveal the trauma rings in our trunks

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself. 2. You ask yourself, “Am I too sensitive?” a dozen times a day. 3. You often feel confused and even crazy at work. 4. You’re always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend, boss. 5. You wonder frequently if you are a “good enough” girlfriend/wife/employee/friend/daughter. 6. You can’t understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren’t happier. 7. You buy clothes for yourself, furnishings for your apartment, or other personal purchases with your partner in mind, thinking about what he would like instead of what would make you feel great. 8. You frequently make excuses for your partner’s behavior to friends and family. 9. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain or make excuses. 10. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself. 11. You start lying to avoid the put-downs and reality twists. 12. You have trouble making simple decisions. 13. You think twice before bringing up certain seemingly innocent topics of conversation. 14. Before your partner comes home, you run through a checklist in your head to anticipate anything you might have done wrong that day. 15. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person—more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed. 16. You start speaking to your husband through his secretary so you don’t have to tell him things you’re afraid might upset him. 17. You feel as though you can’t do anything right. 18. Your kids begin trying to protect you from your partner. 19. You find yourself furious with people you’ve always gotten along with before. 20. You feel hopeless and joyless.

Who might this young man be?” In an instant I sorted through every possibly explanation for Sage’s presence, but judging by the way Mom was looking at him, I knew she already had it in her head that he was a romantic prospect, and she’d go on believing that even if I said he was purely a homeschool friend. And if she thought I was interested in him, no political luncheon would stop her from sitting us down and grilling Sage in front of everyone so she could dig up any deal breakers before I had to find them out the hard way. She’d probably even encourage her guests to join in, and I knew they’d be happy to do it-I’d seen it happen to Rayna. The problem was, I couldn’t spend all day hanging out at Mom’s lunch. I needed to go through Dad’s things, and I wanted to finish before the Israeli minister and his Secret Service protection left the house open for any not-so-welcome visitors to return. “This is Larry Steczynski! You can call him Sage. He’s my new boyfriend!” Rayna suddenly chirped, threading her arm through Sage’s and giving him a squeeze. To his credit, Sage looked only slightly surprised. Just one more thing to add to the long list of reasons I love Rayna. She knew exactly what I’d been thinking and had found the one answer that would leave me completely off the hook. “Really!” Mom said meaningfully. “Then we should talk.” She turned to the group and asked, “Gentleman?” Without hesitation, all the senators and the Israeli minister agreed that the next topic of their agenda should clearly be a debate of Sage’s merits and pitfalls as a partner to Rayna. As Mom took Sage and Rayna’s hands and led them to the couch, two senators gladly moved aside to give them space. Sage shot me a look so plaintive I almost laughed out loud.

Even male children of affluent white families think that history as taught in high school is “too neat and rosy.” 6 African American, Native American, and Latino students view history with a special dislike. They also learn history especially poorly. Students of color do only slightly worse than white students in mathematics. If you’ll pardon my grammar, nonwhite students do more worse in English and most worse in history.7 Something intriguing is going on here: surely history is not more difficult for minorities than trigonometry or Faulkner. Students don’t even know they are alienated, only that they “don’t like social studies” or “aren’t any good at history.” In college, most students of color give history departments a wide berth. Many history teachers perceive the low morale in their classrooms. If they have a lot of time, light domestic responsibilities, sufficient resources, and a flexible principal, some teachers respond by abandoning the overstuffed textbooks and reinventing their American history courses. All too many teachers grow disheartened and settle for less. At least dimly aware that their students are not requiting their own love of history, these teachers withdraw some of their energy from their courses. Gradually they end up going through the motions, staying ahead of their students in the textbooks, covering only material that will appear on the next test. College teachers in most disciplines are happy when their students have had significant exposure to the subject before college. Not teachers in history. History professors in college routinely put down high school history courses. A colleague of mine calls his survey of American history “Iconoclasm I and II,” because he sees his job as disabusing his charges of what they learned in high school to make room for more accurate information. In no other field does this happen. Mathematics professors, for instance, know that non-Euclidean geometry is rarely taught in high school, but they don’t assume that Euclidean geometry was mistaught. Professors of English literature don’t presume that Romeo and Juliet was misunderstood in high school. Indeed, history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become. Perhaps I do not need to convince you that American history is important. More than any other topic, it is about us. Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we arrived at this point. Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves and the world around us. We need to know our history, and according to sociologist C. Wright Mills, we know we do.8

When I was young most of them were quite nice - that is to say, they shared their mother's opinions, not only about topics, but what is more remarkable, about individuals, even young men; they said, "Yes, Mamma," and "No, Mamma" at the appropriate moments; they loved their father because it was their duty so to do, and their mother because she preserved them from the slightest hint of wrongdoing. When they became engaged to be married they fell in love with decorous moderation; being married, they recognized it as a duty to love their husbands but gave other women to understand that it was a duty they performed with great difficulty. They behaved nicely to their parents-in-law, while making it clear that any less dutiful person would not have done so; they did not speak spitefully about other women but pursed their lips in such a way as to let it be seen what they might have said but for their angelic charitableness.

The talk then turned to the topic of risk. The dozen or so regulatory agencies that had to approve the flight test did not share Musk’s love of it. The engineers briefed him on all the safety reviews and requirements they had endured. “Getting the license was existentially soul-sucking,” Juncosa said. Shana Diez and Jake McKenzie provided details. “My fucking brain is hurting,” Musk said, holding his head. “I’m trying to figure out how we get humanity to Mars with all this bullshit.” He processed in silence for two minutes, and when he emerged from his trance, he was philosophical. “This is how civilizations decline. They quit taking risks. And when they quit taking risks, their arteries harden. Every year there are more referees and fewer doers.” That’s why America could no longer build things like high-speed rail or rockets that go to the moon. “When you’ve had success for too long, you lose the desire to take risks.

Sexual violence is a difficult topic to think about and even harder to deal with. I understand that a wide range of emotions may have been ignited while reading this book, so I ask you to take care of yourself. Always remember to take care of yourself no matter what, and never stop doing the things you love that bring peace and joy to your life. Whether it is music, art, exercise, cooking, reading, sports, prayer, nature, or any of the other amazing gifts life has to offer: Embrace them. Do what you love to do, embrace all the beauty that exists within yourself and the world around you, and take care of yourself. And of course, reach out to someone if you need help. Talk to a family member or friend, find the right therapist, or seek out a religious or spiritual guide if needed. Life is very difficult to go through it alone, so please talk to someone you love and trust, and one who always has your best interest at heart.

Melinda was still stuck on the 24 thing. “And I don’t see you grabbing the remote away from me when that countdown clock starts chiming,” she said to Pete. “Unless it’s to get a quick check of the scores on Monday nights.” Nick’s ears perked up at the mention of scores. Sports. Now there was a topic upon which he could wax poetic. “Too bad Monday night football is over,” he lamented to Pete. “But there’s always basketball. Who are you eying for the Final Four?” Pete looked mildly embarrassed as he gestured to Melinda. “She’s, um, referring to the scores on Dancing with the Stars.” “He likes it when they do the paso doblé,” Melinda threw in. “The dance symbolizes the drama, artistry, and passion of a bullfight. It’s quite masculine,” Pete said. “Except for the sequins and spray tans,” Melinda added. Pete clapped his hands together, ignoring this. “How about you, Nick? Are you a fan of the reality television performing arts?

I lot of you have reached out to me today actually. I also checked on people too. I am concerned. A lot of you are depressed. Feeling down. Want to be able to have a break from your kids or spouse. Some of you are solo right now and are lonely. Some of you have fear. Don't have fear. This too will pass. BUT do have some common sense. Stay home. Wash your hands. For the lonely, the safest sex you can have is no sex. BUT hey you meet someone after this you can have a topic of conversation. The apocalypse. For those needing a break from your kids. Take a walk around the block. Maybe a few blocks. Then come back. If you can't do that, make sure they are doing their homework and then watch stand up comedy or listen to some music. Do something fun! Look the whole world is having common experience. Just know you are healthy. Your love ones are too. Be creative. It may cheer you up I choose to have hope. Look I know you are down but we are all in this together.

But since we’re on the topic of identity and narrative voice - here’s an interesting conundrum. You may know that The Correspondence Artist won a Lambda Award. I love the Lambda Literary Foundation, and I was thrilled to win a Lammy. My book won in the category of “Bisexual Fiction.” The Awards (or nearly all of them) are categorized according to the sexual identity of the dominant character in a work of fiction, not the author. I’m not sure if “dominant” is the word they use, but you get the idea. The foregrounded character. In The Correspondence Artist, the narrator is a woman, but you’re never sure about the gender of her lover. You’re also never sure about the lover’s age or ethnicity - these things change too, and pretty dramatically. Also, sometimes when the narrator corresponds with her lover by email, she (the narrator) makes reference to her “hard on.” That is, part of her erotic play with her lover has to do with destabilizing the ways she refers to her own sex (by which I mean both gender and naughty bits). So really, the narrator and her lover are only verifiably “bisexual” in the Freudian sense of the term - that is, it’s unclear if they have sex with people of the same sex, but they each have a complex gender identity that shifts over time. Looking at the various possible categorizations for that book, I think “Bisexual Fiction” was the most appropriate, but better, of course, would have been “Queer Fiction.” Maybe even trans, though surely that would have raised some hackles. So, I just submitted I’m Trying to Reach You for this year’s Lambda Awards and I had to choose a category. Well. As I said, the narrator identifies as a gay man. I guess you’d say the primary erotic relationship is with his boyfriend, Sven. But he has an obsession with a weird middle-aged white lady dancer on YouTube who happens to be me, and ultimately you come to understand that she is involved in an erotic relationship with a lesbian electric guitarist. And this romance isn’t just a titillating spectacle for a voyeuristic narrator: it turns out to be the founding myth of our national poetics! They are Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman! Sorry for all the spoilers. I never mind spoilers because I never read for plot. Maybe the editor (hello Emily) will want to head plot-sensitive readers off at the pass if you publish this paragraph. Anyway, the question then is: does authorial self-referentiality matter? Does the national mythos matter? Is this a work of Bisexual or Lesbian Fiction? Is Walt trans? I ended up submitting the book as Gay (Male) Fiction. The administrator of the prizes also thought this was appropriate, since Gray is the narrator. And Gray is not me, but also not not me, just as Emily Dickinson is not me but also not not me, and Walt Whitman is not my lover but also not not my lover. Again, it’s a really queer book, but the point is kind of to trip you up about what you thought you knew about gender anyway.

The features of Hume's philosophy which I have mentioned, like many other features of it, would incline me to think that Hume was a mere—brilliant—sophost; and his procedures are certainly sophistical. But I am forced, not to reverse, but to add to this judgement by a peculiarity of Hume's philosophizing: namely that, although he reaches his conclusions—with which he is in love—by sophistical methods, his considerations constantly open up very deep and important problems. It is often the case that in the act of exhibiting the sophistry one finds oneself noticing matters which deserve a lot of exploring: the obvious stands in need of investigation as a result of the points that Hume pretends to have made. In this, he is unlike, say, Butler. It was already well-known that conscience could dictate vile actions; for Butler to have written disregarding this does not open up any new topics for us. But with Hume it is otherwise: hence he is a very profound and great philosopher, in spite of his sophistry.

I covered all topics—everything and everyone whom I could possibly have wronged, including God, of course—and I asked for forgiveness. But in another part of my brain, I was screaming, “FORGIVENESS FOR WHAT?” I had no idea, but the strength of that absurdity couldn’t pierce the armor of my compulsion. When I finished praying, I got up and walked home. My mother, my father, and my pregnant sister, Corinne, were all waiting in the living room, dressed in their robes. From the expression on their faces, I thought that someone had died. My mother started crying. My father spoke first: “We called the police—they just left here. Do you know what time it is? It’s three o’clock in the morning! Where were you? What in God’s name were you doing?” I couldn’t bring myself to say, “I was praying, Daddy—I was lying in a field, praying to God to forgive me.” And if he had said, “Forgive you for WHAT?” I would have said, “I don’t know!” and he would have say, “For eight hours? Are you nuts?” . . . and he would have been right.

Remember everything and do not miss a detail of how she receives you: if her color changes as you give her my message; if she becomes agitated or troubled when she hears my name; if she moves about on her pillows, if you happen to find her in the richly furnished antechamber of her rank; if she is standing, look at her to see if she shifts from one foot to another; if she repeats her answer two or three times; if she changes from gentle to severe, from harsh to loving; if she raises her hand to her hair to smooth it, although it is not disarranged; finally, my friend, observe all her actions and movements, because if you relate them to me just as they occurred, I shall interpret what she keeps hidden in the secret places of her heart in response to the fact of my love; for you must know, Sancho, if you do not know it already, that with lovers, the external actions and movements, revealed only when the topic of their love arises, are reliable messengers bringing the news of what transpires deep within their souls.

All the love that had been accumulating through the lonely years of her childhood was in that kiss-Ian felt it in the soft lips parting willingly for his searching tongue, the delicate hands sliding through the hair at his nape. With unselfish ardor she offered it all to him, and Ian took it hungrily, feeling it moving from her to him, then flowing through his veins and mingling with his until the joy of it was shattering. She was everything he’d ever dreamed she could be and more. With an effort that was almost painful he dragged his mouth from hers, his hand still cupping the rumpled satin of her hair, his other hand holding her pressed to his rigid body, and Elizabeth stayed in his arms, seeming neither frightened nor offended by his rigid erection. “I love you,” he whispered, rubbing his jaw against her temple. “And you love me. I can feel it when you’re in my arms.” He felt her stiffen slightly and draw a shaky breath, but she either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. She hadn’t thrown the words back in his face, however, so Ian continued talking to her, his hand roving over her back. “I can feel it, Elizabeth, but if you don’t admit it pretty soon, you’re going to drive me out of my mind. I can’t work. I can’t think. I make decisions and then I change my mind. And,” he teased, trying to lighten the mood by using the one topic sure to distract her, “that’s nothing to the money I squander whenever I’m under this sort of violent stress. It wasn’t just the gowns I bought, or the house on Promenade…” Still talking to her, he tipped her chin up, glorying in the gentle passion in her eyes, overlooking the doubt in their green depths. “If you don’t admit it pretty soon,” he teased, “I’ll spend us out of house and home.” Her delicate brows drew together in blank confusion, and Ian grinned, taking her hand from his chest, the emerald betrothal ring he had brought her unnoticed in his fingers. “When I’m under stress,” he emphasized, sliding the magnificent emerald onto her finger, “I buy everything in sight. It took my last ounce of control not to buy one of those in every color.

Finally, the superstars also shared a particular behavior, almost an intellectual and conversational tic: They loved to generate theories—lots and lots of theories, about all kinds of topics, such as why certain accounts were succeeding or failing, or why some clients were happy or disgruntled, or how different management styles influenced various employees. They were somewhat obsessive, in fact, about trying to explain the world to themselves and their colleagues as they went about their days. The superstars were constantly telling stories about what they had seen and heard. They were, in other words, much more prone to generate mental models. They were more likely to throw out ideas during meetings, or ask colleagues to help them imagine how future conversations might unfold, or envision how a pitch should go. They came up with concepts for new products and practiced how they would sell them. They told anecdotes about past conversations and dreamed up far-fetched expansion plans. They were building mental models at a near constant rate.

I do not at all have a sense of luring anyone into the poetic by catching hold of them through my subject matter. The idea appalls me in fact. Some events — whether a tree in a certain light, a Mexican family looking at the movie stills outside the cinema, a dream, my own condition of being in or out of love, of some epiphany relating to husband, child, friend, cat or dog, street or painting, cloud or stone, a book read, a story heard, a life thought about, a demonstration lived through, a situation, historical and/or topical, (that’s to say known in the moment of its passing into history) — it doesn’t matter, the list is endless, but some events (selected by some interior mysterious process out of all the other minutes and hours of my life) begin to form themselves in my understanding as phrases, images, rhythms of language, demand to be further formed, demand midwifery is one way to put it. Not all that one feels most strongly makes this verbal demand, even if one is a poet — by poet here I mean prose writer too — … but whatever experiences do demand it are always strongly felt ones. That is my testimony.

There are so many reasons why I'm proud to be an introvert. I love being a great listener & observer. I've learned so much about people that way & it's made it very hard for anyone to deceive me. I love the fact that I'm able to enjoy my own company. I'm rarely bored because I have books & movies or even my imagination to keep me company. Speaking of books, since I love reading & researching, it's made me knowledgeable on various topics so that when I do talk to others, I can follow along & understand almost anything. Lastly, there is something about being an introvert that requires a quiet type of confidence. Yes, many times we might feel awkward & like an outcast in certain situations, but for the most part, we happily stand alone. It takes courage to not allow the world to mold us into what they want. Once we become comfortable in our own skin, we learn that we are unique & strong people. We are able to make significant impacts while flying under the radar & without making a scene. We don't need the spotlight or validation to know our worth. It's a beautiful thing to be an Introvert. Just thought I'd share.

Do you ride?" The question was out of his mouth before he'd thought. She glanced at him, surprised by the comment coming out of nowhere, but then she nodded and looked ahead. "I love to ride. I don't get as much opportunity as I'd like what with being in London so much, but whenever I can manage it, I'll get on a horse." Her lips twitched and she glanced up at him. "Preferably one of Demon's." He grinned. "His are the best." "Do you have any?" He nodded. "One definite benefit of being connected to the family." "I love the exhilaration one gets when pounding along-I think that's what I enjoy the most." He blinked. Decided hard riding wasn't the best choice of conversational topics. At least not for him. Especially not with her. "What about dancing?" "I love to waltz. I even enjoy the older forms, the quadrilles and cotillions. They might be less fashionable now, but there's a certain...reined power in them, don't you think?" "Hmm." Where was an innocent topic when he needed one? "Have you ever danced the gavotte?" "Years ago." And he still remembered it. And of course the thought of dancing that particular measure with her, in full flight, instantly filled his mind.

I was nervous, though. I wasn't sure about it for several reasons. One question was the kids' privacy: Would people-the enemy Chris fought abroad-be out to take revenge against Chris by harming his children? Chris assured me that wouldn't happen. My other objections were more personal. Frankly, I didn't think people would care about me. In fact, I was still undecided in mid-December 2010, when I drove out to the ranch where Jim and Chris were working. “We think it’s a good idea,” Chris told me over the phone when I called on the way to say I was having second-or by that time, third or fourth-thoughts. “It will give people a better idea of what families go through.” Still unsure, I went in and met the writer. Before I knew it, we were sitting in front of a fireplace and talking. It seemed incredibly natural, even when the topics became heavy. We were all in. Before I knew it, Chris was needing a drink, and Jim was taking a lot of notes. The book took the better part of a year to write, even though they were working every day for stretches. Or at least they claimed to be working-I have a rather incriminating photo showing them playing Xbox. Maybe it was for research.

way to respond to such a test is to give an ambiguous answer and then change the topic. For example, you could respond by saying - “It’s hard to know what people mean to say when you cannot see their body language, mannerisms, etc.” Never qualify yourself in your emails. If she mentions in an email that she loves the car that you are standing next to in one of your photographs, get her talking about why she loves it. Ask her about her interest in automobiles. You could even ask her if she has a need for speed. Do not begin talking about how you bought that car last year and it cost you a pretty penny. Do not talk about how it goes from zero to 60 miles per hour in under five seconds or how people always ask you to give them a joyride in it. Do not bite on her bait. A woman will do this to see if a man might slip up and show her exactly how desperate he is to get validation from other people, especially women. Sample questions Which of the following animals do you like? a. Komodo dragon (+5) b. Bonobo (+3) c. Dog (0) d. Cat  (-1) Your friends would describe you as: a. Sweet and supportive (+5) b. Feisty, fun and sassy (+3) c. Strong and independent (0) d. Totally random (-1)

Then call me Pierce because we're friends." He bent in close in the turn, eyes gleaming as they dropped to her lips. "Intimate friends, if I get my wish." This time there was no mistaking his meaning. But he was so practiced and smooth that she couldn't help herself-she laughed. When that made him frown, she tried to suppress her amusement, but that only made her laugh harder. "What's so funny?" he muttered. "I'm sorry," she said, swallowing her amusement. "It's just that I've heard my brothers make such insinuations to women in that tone of voice for years, but I've never been on the receiving end." Pierce's smile would rival that of Casanova. "I don't know why not," he said in a lazy drawl. His gaze raked her appreciatively as they swirled about the room. "Tonight, in that purple gown, you look particularly fetching. The color suits you." "Thank you." Minerva had been trying to get her to stop wearing browns and oranges for years, but Celia had always pooh-poohed her sister's opinions. It was only after Virginia had said exactly the same thing last month that she'd begun to think she should listen. And to order new gowns accordingly. "You're a lovely woman with the figure of a Venus and a mouth that could make a man-" "You can stop now." Her amusement vanished. She'd be flattered if he meant a single word, but clearly this was just a game to him. "I don't need the full rogue treatment, I assure you." Interest sparked in his eyes. "Hasn't it occurred to you that I might be sincere?" "Only if you're sincerely trying to seduce me." He cast her a blatantly carnal glance as he held her tighter. "Well, of course I'm trying to seduce you. What else would I be doing?" She pitched her voice over the music. "I'm a respectable woman, you know." "What has that got to do with anything?" She arched an eyebrow at him as they moved in consort. "Even a respectable woman might be tempted into, say, slipping out with a gentleman for a walk in the moonlit courtyard. And if said gentleman should happen to steal a kiss or two-" "Lord Devonmont!" "Fine." He smiled ruefully. "Bu you can't blame me for trying. You do look ravishing this evening." "There you go again," she said, exasperated. "Can you never talk to a woman as if she's a normal person?" "How dull that would be." When she frowned, he shook his head. "Very well. What scintillating topics of conversation did you have in mind?

Healing is the way of the heart. This book is an invitation to open our heart. Healing is a love affair with life. Healing is pure love. Love is what creates healing. Spiritual healing is to be one with ourselves. And to be one with ourselves is to be in joy. Healing is to develop our inner being. Healing is to discover that which is already perfect within ourselves. It is to rediscover our inner life source. Spiritual healing is to be one with life. We are never really alone, it is our idea of a separate "I" that creates the feeling of being separate from life, from the Whole. In reality there is only one heart, a pulsating Existential heart. Our own heart pulsates in unity with the Existential heartbeats. We are all notes in the Existential music, and without our unique note the music would not be complete. We are all needed in the Whole; we all have our unique fragrance, quality and gifts to contribute to the Whole. More than 30 years ago, I had an individual consultation with a spiritual teacher. I did not have time to sit down before I got the question: "You are interested in healing, are you not?" It was the first time that I encountered the topic that would become my way and deep source of joy in life. This spiritual teacher finished the consultation saying: "You will be a fine healer." The art of healing is the psychology of being, the science of inner transformation. The psychology of being begins where Western psychology ends. It goes beyond Skinner, Freud, Jung, Rogers, Maslow and humanistic psychology. The psychology of being is the psychology of consciousness, a psychology for inner transformation. It is not basically a question of psychology, it is a question of being. The psychology of being begins where we are, and take us to everything that we can be. The underlying theme the psychology of being is meditation - but not meditation as a static technique - but as the capacity to BE with ourselves and others in a quality of watchful awareness, acceptance and realization. The art of being is a search beyond the personality. It a search beyond the thoughts, the emotions and the learned attitudes of the personality, to the inner being, to the depth within, which is hidden in ourselves. The inner being is a deep acceptance of ourselves as we are; the inner being is to be available to life. The inner being is to be in unity with life. This book is an invitation to meet the inner being, our inner source of love, joy, acceptance, humor, intuition, understanding, wisdom, truth, silence and creativity.

I joined a bunch of Bible studies when I started following Jesus. Everyone around me was in at least one, so I thought there must be some rule or eleventh commandment and I had just missed it. We sat in circles, and I assumed we'd either start making friendship bracelets or start talking about Jesus. We ate chips and cookies, and I heard lots of opinions about every social topic, about whether it's okay to watch rated R movies, and about what words meant in Greek and Hebrew. It wasn't long before I started to feel bored with the whole thing. That's when some friends and I started a 'Bible Doing' group. We read what Jesus said and then schemed ways to actually go and do those things. It might sound strange, but think about it: Jesus never said, 'Study Me.' He said, 'Follow Me.' Jesus invited us to find people who don't have food and to get them something to eat. He said to hang out with people in prison. He said if you know someone who doesn’t have a place to stay, help them find one. He was all about doing things for widows and orphans, not becoming informed about them. Following Jesus is way more exciting than studying Him. Do we need to know the Scriptures? You bet. But don't stop there. Our faith can start to get confusing and boring when we exercise it by debating about it.

His shows on tape do not wear well. Topical humor can be hilarious at the time, but it seldom holds up. The moment is lost, the immediacy gone, and a modern listener is left, perhaps, with a sense of curiosity. The opening of the June 2, 1942, show from Quantico is a good example. There is little doubt that Hope is playing to the best crowds of his life, a cheering section that many another comedian would die for. His theme is all but drowned in the wild cheering, and he sings his way (“… aaah, thank you, so much …”) into the opening monologue. “This is Bob Quantico Marine Base Hope, telling you leathernecks to use Pepsodent and you’ll never have teeth that’d make a cow hide.” The Marines find this a scream. Hope continues with local color. He had an easy time finding Quantico: “I just drove down U.S. 1 and turned left at the first crap game.” The boys love it. On another show, Hope talks of the coming baseball season. “This is Bob Baseball Season Hope, telling you if you use Pepsodent on your teeth, you may not be able to pitch like Bob Feller, but at dinnertime you’ll be able to pitch in with what’s under your smeller.” This is hardly timeless humor, though it was timely in the extreme. That’s the way to listen to Hope today: with a keen sense of history, with an appreciation of what the world found funny in an unfunny time.

And as my head hit the pillow that night, my prayer for my son remained simply that his last wish would finally be fulfilled…in some future moment through the same type of faith that allows a 600-year-old Quteniqua Yellowwood tree to grow from a single seed. His last wish being the chance of speaking to me about the one topic that his heart couldn’t find any rest while living on earth – that the true gift of that opportunity would truly come to fruition. In the interim, I had to follow in the words of Khalil Gibran when he said that there should be spaces between our togetherness to love one another “…but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your soul.” Space between our togetherness to find a way on its own accord, outside of the scrutiny of my mothering protection. That night, I went to bed with the reassuring, concluding words of Khalil Gibran “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters with seared scars.” Scars seared with the anointing warmth of love, a reminder of love’s miracle, and the hope that my loving son would find his peace even from beyond the grave since love makes whole the broken and crooked parts of every story, including stories already lived and wishes never fulfilled because they all stem from the same seeds… Inexhaustible Love.

For those who worked at the reactor or in close proximity to it, what was most seriously affected – and this is very similar to the problems of those who work with missiles – was the genito-urinary system. Their masculinity. But Slavs just do not talk about these things. It’s unacceptable. I once accompanied an English journalist who had prepared some interesting questions on this very topic. He wanted to investigate the human dimension of the problem. When it’s all over, what happens to the human being when he goes back home, to his everyday life, to his sex life? He could find no one prepared to talk openly about it. For instance, he asked to meet the helicopter crews, to talk man-to-man. They duly came, some already retired at thirty-five or forty. One was brought along who had a broken leg caused by senile osteoporosis, because exposure to radiation causes bones to become brittle. The Englishman asked them how they were getting on in their families, with their young wives? The helicopter crews fell silent. They had come to talk about how they had flown five sorties a day, and here someone was asking them about their wives? About … He decided to try talking to them individually, in private. They all replied that their health was fine, the state valued them, and they had loving families. Not one of them would speak frankly. They left, and I could see he was distraught. ‘Now you see,’ he said to me, ‘why nobody trusts you. You deceive even yourselves.

Questions and Topics for Discussion This book is written in an oral history format. Why do you think the author chose to structure the book this way? How does this approach affect your reading experience? At one point Daisy says, “I was just supposed to be the inspiration for some man’s great idea….I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.” How does her experience of being used by others contribute to the decisions she makes when she joins The Six? Why do you think Billy has such a strong need to control the group, both early on when they are simply the Dunne Brothers and later when they become Daisy Jones & The Six? There are two sets of brothers in The Six: Eddie and Pete Loving, and Billy and Graham Dunne. How do these sibling relationships affect the band? Daisy, Camila, Simone, and Karen are each very different embodiments of female strength and creativity. Who are you most drawn to and why? Billy and Daisy become polarizing figures for the band. Who in the book gravitates more toward Billy’s leadership, and who is more inclined to follow Daisy’s way of doing things? How do these alliances change over time, and how does this dynamic upset the group’s balance? Why do you think Billy and Daisy clash so strongly? What misunderstandings between them are revealed through the “author’s” investigation? What do you think of Camila’s decision to stand by Billy, despite the ways that he has hurt her through his trouble with addiction and wavering faithfulness?

At the risk of oversimplifying a topic that deserves entire books, we can summarize like this: During enslavement, many Black cooks learned their way around kitchens because their lives could depend on having that knowledge and skill. After slavery was abolished, many took to slinging fried chicken (or cooking in general) as one way to make a living. Interestingly, it wasn’t until Black folks began navigating their supposed freedoms-applying to schools, looking for paid work, seeking housing-that cartoonish, offensive images of Black folks eagerly consuming chicken or stealing chickens began to appear in essays, comics, advertisements, and postcards, perpetuating a narrative by white society that Black people were subhuman and needed to be controlled, policed, and locked out of mainstream opportunities. Exacerbated by the deep white resentment of Black people’s increasing social and political mobility (this period saw the largest representation of Black people in Congress than any time since), the idea took root that being Black meant that you loved fried chicken so much that you couldn’t resist it. This narrative is a painful legacy of slavery that wasn’t of our own making and is ironic, given that people all over the world get down with wings and things. But the essence of this stereotype persists. We know folks who refuse to eat fried chicken around white people, or chefs who don’t cook it in their restaurants, because they feel that’s the only thing certain diners expect from them…American fried chicken tastes good. It’s also complicated.

What is it that makes a person the very person that she is, herself alone and not another, an integrity of identity that persists over time, undergoing changes and yet still continuing to be—until she does not continue any longer, at least not unproblematically? I stare at the picture of a small child at a summer’s picnic, clutching her big sister’s hand with one tiny hand while in the other she has a precarious hold on a big slice of watermelon that she appears to be struggling to have intersect with the small o of her mouth. That child is me. But why is she me? I have no memory at all of that summer’s day, no privileged knowledge of whether that child succeeded in getting the watermelon into her mouth. It’s true that a smooth series of contiguous physical events can be traced from her body to mine, so that we would want to say that her body is mine; and perhaps bodily identity is all that our personal identity consists in. But bodily persistence over time, too, presents philosophical dilemmas. The series of contiguous physical events has rendered the child’s body so different from the one I glance down on at this moment; the very atoms that composed her body no longer compose mine. And if our bodies are dissimilar, our points of view are even more so. Mine would be as inaccessible to her—just let her try to figure out [Spinoza’s] Ethics—as hers is now to me. Her thought processes, prelinguistic, would largely elude me. Yet she is me, that tiny determined thing in the frilly white pinafore. She has continued to exist, survived her childhood illnesses, the near-drowning in a rip current on Rockaway Beach at the age of twelve, other dramas. There are presumably adventures that she—that is that I—can’t undergo and still continue to be herself. Would I then be someone else or would I just no longer be? Were I to lose all sense of myself—were schizophrenia or demonic possession, a coma or progressive dementia to remove me from myself—would it be I who would be undergoing those trials, or would I have quit the premises? Would there then be someone else, or would there be no one? Is death one of those adventures from which I can’t emerge as myself? The sister whose hand I am clutching in the picture is dead. I wonder every day whether she still exists. A person whom one has loved seems altogether too significant a thing to simply vanish altogether from the world. A person whom one loves is a world, just as one knows oneself to be a world. How can worlds like these simply cease altogether? But if my sister does exist, then what is she, and what makes that thing that she now is identical with the beautiful girl laughing at her little sister on that forgotten day? In this passage from Betraying Spinoza, the philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (to whom I am married) explains the philosophical puzzle of personal identity, one of the problems that engaged the Dutch-Jewish thinker who is the subject of her book.5 Like her fellow humanist Dawkins, Goldstein analyzes the vertiginous enigma of existence and death, but their styles could not be more different—a reminder of the diverse ways that the resources of language can be deployed to illuminate a topic.

Since we’re on the topic, I’d also like to set some ground rules.” “What kind of ground rules?” he asks, leaning back. I press my lips together and take a breath. “Well…I don’t want you trying to kiss me again.” Peter curls his lip at me. “Trust me, I don’t want to do it either. My forehead still hurts from this morning. I think I have a bruise.” He pushes his hair off his forehead. “Do you see a bruise?” “No, but I see a receding hairline.” “What?” Ha. I knew that would get him. Peter’s so vain. “Calm down, I’m only kidding. Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?” “You’re gonna write this down?” Primly I say, “It’ll help us remember.” Rolling his eyes, Peter reaches into his backpack, pulls out a notebook, and hands it to me. I turn to a clean page and write at the top, Contract. Then I write No kissing. “Are people really gonna buy it if we never touch each other in public?” Peter asks, looking skeptical. “I don’t think relationships are just about physicality. There are ways to show you care about someone, not just using your lips.” Peter’s smiling, and he looks like he’s about to crack a joke, so I swiftly add, “Or any other body part.” He groans. “You’ve gotta give me something here, Lara Jean. I have a reputation to uphold. None of my friends will believe I suddenly turned into a monk to date you. How about at least a hand in your back jean pocket? Trust me, it’ll be strictly professional.” I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that he cares way too much what people think about him. I just nod and write down, Peter is allowed to put a hand in Lara Jean’s back jean pocket. “But no more kissing,” I say, keeping my head down so he can’t see me blush. “You’re the one who started it,” he reminds me.

When I first started coming to the seminar, Gelfand had a young physicist, Vladimir Kazakov, present a series of talks about his work on so-called matrix models. Kazakov used methods of quantum physics in a novel way to obtain deep mathematical results that mathematicians could not obtain by more conventional methods. Gelfand had always been interested in quantum physics, and this topic had traditionally played a big role at his seminar. He was particularly impressed with Kazakov’s work and was actively promoting it among mathematicians. Like many of his foresights, this proved to be golden: a few years later this work became famous and fashionable, and it led to many important advances in both physics and math. In his lectures at the seminar, Kazakov was making an admirable effort to explain his ideas to mathematicians. Gelfand was more deferential to him than usual, allowing him to speak without interruptions longer than other speakers. While these lectures were going on, a new paper arrived, by John Harer and Don Zagier, in which they gave a beautiful solution to a very difficult combinatorial problem.6 Zagier has a reputation for solving seemingly intractable problems; he is also very quick. The word was that the solution of this problem took him six months, and he was very proud of that. At the next seminar, as Kazakov was continuing his presentation, Gelfand asked him to solve the Harer–Zagier problem using his work on the matrix models. Gelfand had sensed that Kazakov’s methods could be useful for solving this kind of problem, and he was right. Kazakov was unaware of the Harer–Zagier paper, and this was the first time he heard this question. Standing at the blackboard, he thought about it for a couple of minutes and immediately wrote down the Lagrangian of a quantum field theory that would lead to the answer using his methods. Everyone in the audience was stunned.

Of course, historical scholarship on the New Testament is open to all, whether Jewish or Christian, atheist or agnostic. But the present debate about Paul and justification is taking place between people most of whom declare their allegiance to Scripture in general, and perhaps to Paul in particular, as the place where and the means by which the living God has spoken, and still speaks, with life-changing authority. This ought to mean, but does not always mean, that exegesis-close attention to the actual flow of the text, to the questions that it raises in itself and the answers it gives in and of itself-should remain the beginning and the end of the process. Systematize all you want in between-we all do it; there is nothing wrong with it and much to be said for it, particularly when it involves careful comparing of different treatments of similar topics in different contexts. But start with exegesis, and remind yourself that the end in view is not a tidy system, sitting in hard covers on a shelf where one may look up "correct answers," but the sermon, or the shared pastoral reading, or the scriptural word to a Synod or other formal church gathering, or indeed the life of witness to the love of God, through all of which the church is built up and energized for mission, the Christian is challenged, transformed and nurtured in the faith, and the unbeliever is confronted with the shocking but joyful news that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of the world. That is letting Scripture be Scripture. Scripture, in other words, does not exist to give authoritative answers to questions other than those it addresses-not even to the questions which emerged from especially turbulent years such as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. That is not to say that one cannot deduce from Scripture appropriate answers to such later questions, only that you have to be careful and recognize that that is indeed what you are doing.

This new surge in morale had nothing to do with Churchill’s speech and everything to do with his gift for understanding how simple gestures could generate huge effects. What had infuriated Londoners was that during these night raids the Luftwaffe seemed free to come and go as it wished, without interference from the night-blind RAF and the city’s strangely quiescent anti-aircraft guns. Gun crews were under orders to conserve ammunition and fire only when aircraft were sighted overhead and, as a consequence, did little firing at all. On Churchill’s orders, more guns were brought to the city, boosting the total to nearly two hundred, from ninety-two. More importantly, Churchill now directed their crews to fire with abandon, despite his knowing full well that guns only rarely brought down aircraft. The orders took effect that Wednesday night, September 11. The impact on civic morale was striking and immediate. Crews blasted away; one official described it as “largely wild and uncontrolled shooting.” Searchlights swept the sky. Shells burst over Trafalgar Square and Westminster like fireworks, sending a steady rain of shrapnel onto the streets below, much to the delight of London’s residents. The guns raised “a momentous sound that sent a chattering, smashing, blinding thrill through the London heart,” wrote novelist William Sansom. Churchill himself loved the sound of the guns; instead of seeking shelter, he would race to the nearest gun emplacement and watch. The new cacophony had “an immense effect on people’s morale,” wrote private secretary John Martin. “Tails are up and, after the fifth sleepless night, everyone looks quite different this morning—cheerful and confident. It was a curious bit of mass psychology—the relief of hitting back.” The next day’s Home Intelligence reports confirmed the effect. “The dominating topic of conversation today is the anti-aircraft barrage of last night. This greatly stimulated morale: in public shelters people cheered and conversation shows that the noise brought a shock of positive pleasure.

went to her workshop three times a week to paint with Kirsten. She rarely frequented the Lark House dining room, preferring to eat out at local restaurants where the owners knew her, or in her apartment, when her daughter-in-law sent the chauffeur around with one of her favorite dishes. Irina kept only basic necessities in her kitchen: fresh fruit, oatmeal, whole-grain bread, honey. Alma and Seth often invited Irina to their ritual Sunday lunch at Sea Cliff, where the family paid the matriarch homage. To Seth, who had previously used any pretext not to arrive before dessert—for even he was unable to consider not putting in an appearance at all—Irina’s presence made the occasion infinitely more appealing. He was still stubbornly pursuing her, but since he was meeting with little success he also went out with previous girlfriends willing to put up with his fickleness. He was bored with them and did not succeed in making Irina jealous. As his grandmother often said and the family often repeated, why waste ammunition on vultures? It was yet another enigmatic saying often used by the Belascos. To Alma, these family reunions began with a pleasant sense of anticipation at seeing her loved ones, particularly her granddaughter, Pauline (she saw Seth frequently enough), but often ended up being a bore, since every topic of conversation became a pretext for getting angry, not from any lack of affection, but out of the bad habit of arguing over trivialities. Seth always looked for ways to challenge or scandalize his parents; Pauline brought to the table yet another cause she had embraced, which she explained in great detail, from genital mutilation to animal slaughterhouses; Doris took great pains to offer her most exquisite culinary experiments, which were veritable banquets, yet regularly ended up weeping in her room because nobody appreciated them; good old Larry meanwhile performed a constant balancing act to avoid quarrels. The grandmother took advantage of Irina to dissipate tension, because the Belascos always behaved in a civilized fashion in front of strangers, even if it was only a humble employee from

If you’re still not sure where you fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum, you can assess yourself here. Answer each question “true” or “false,” choosing the answer that applies to you more often than not.* ______ I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities. ______ I often prefer to express myself in writing. ______ I enjoy solitude. ______ I seem to care less than my peers about wealth, fame, and status. ______ I dislike small talk, but I enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me. ______ People tell me that I’m a good listener. ______ I’m not a big risk-taker. ______ I enjoy work that allows me to “dive in” with few interruptions. ______ I like to celebrate birthdays on a small scale, with only one or two close friends or family members. ______ People describe me as “soft-spoken” or “mellow.” ______ I prefer not to show or discuss my work with others until it’s finished. ______ I dislike conflict. ______ I do my best work on my own. ______ I tend to think before I speak. ______ I feel drained after being out and about, even if I’ve enjoyed myself. ______ I often let calls go through to voice mail. ______ If I had to choose, I’d prefer a weekend with absolutely nothing to do to one with too many things scheduled. ______ I don’t enjoy multitasking. ______ I can concentrate easily. ______ In classroom situations, I prefer lectures to seminars. The more often you answered “true,” the more introverted you probably are. If you found yourself with a roughly equal number of “true” and “false” answers, then you may be an ambivert—yes, there really is such a word. But even if you answered every single question as an introvert or extrovert, that doesn’t mean that your behavior is predictable across all circumstances. We can’t say that every introvert is a bookworm or every extrovert wears lampshades at parties any more than we can say that every woman is a natural consensus-builder and every man loves contact sports. As Jung felicitously put it, “There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum.” This is partly because we are all gloriously complex individuals, but also because there are so many different kinds of introverts and extroverts. Introversion and extroversion interact with our other personality traits and personal histories, producing wildly different kinds of people. So

The woman glares at him and, after taking a breath, forges on. "One other issue I'd like to raise is how you have authors here separated by sex." "Yes, that's right. The person who was in charge before us cataloged these and for whatever reason divided them into male and female. We were thinking of recataloging all of them, but haven't been able to as of yet." "We're not criticizing you for this," she says. Oshima tilts his head slightly. "The problem, though, is that in all categories male authors are listed before female authors," she says. "To our way of thinking this violates the principle of sexual equality and is totally unfair." Oshima picks up her business card again, runs his eyes over it, then lays it back down on the counter. "Ms. Soga," he begins, "when they called the role in school your name would have come before Ms. Tanaka, and after Ms. Sekine. Did you file a complaint about that? Did you object, asking them to reverse the order? Does G get angry because it follows F in the alphabet? Does page 68 in a book start a revolution just because it follows 67?" "That's not the point," she says angrily. "You're intentionally trying to confuse the issue." Hearing this, the shorter woman, who'd been standing in front of a stack taking notes, races over. "Intentionally trying to confuse the issue," Oshima repeats, like he's underlining the woman's words. "Are you denying it?" "That's a red herring," Oshima replies. The woman named Soga stands there, mouth slightly ajar, not saying a word. "In English there's this expression red herring. Something that's very interesting but leads you astray from the main topic. I'm afraid I haven't looked into why they use that kind of expression, though." "Herrings or mackerel or whatever, you're dodging the issue." "Actually what I'm doing is shifting the analogy," Oshima says. "One of the most effective methods of argument, according to Aristotle. The citizens of ancient Athens enjoyed using this kind of intellectual trick very much. It's a shame, though, that at the time women weren't included in the definition of 'citizen.'" "Are you making fun of us?" Oshima shakes his head. "Look, what I'm trying to get across is this: I'm sure there are many more effective ways of making sure that Japanese women's rights are guaranteed than sniffing around a small library in a little town and complaining about the restrooms and the card catalog. We're doing our level best to see that this modest library of ours helps the community. We've assembled an outstanding collection for people who love books. And we do our utmost to put a human face on all our dealings with the public. You might not be aware of it, but this library's collection of poetry-related material from the 1910s to the mid-Showa period is nationally recognized. Of course there are things we could do better, and limits to what we can accomplish. But rest assured we're doing our very best. I think it'd be a whole lot better if you focus on what we do well than what we're unable to do. Isn't that what you call fair?

Elizabeth?” Ian said in a clipped voice. She whirled around, her heart slamming against her ribs, her hand flying to her throat, her knees turning to jelly. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You-you startled me,” she said as he strolled up to her, his expression oddly impassive. “I didn’t expect you to come here,” she added nervously. “Really?” he mocked. “Whom did you expect after that note-the Prince of Wales?” The note! Crazily, her first thought after realizing ti was from him, not Valerie, was that for an articulate man his handwriting verged on the illiterate. Her second thought was that he seemed angry about something. He didn’t keep her long in doubt as to the reason. “Suppose you tell me how, during the entire afternoon we spent together, you neglected to mention that you are Lady Elizabeth?” Elizabeth wondered a little frantically how he’d feel if he knew she was the Countess of Havenhurst, not merely the eldest daughter of some minor noble or knight. “Start talking, love. I’m listening.” Elizabeth backed away a step. “Since you don’t want to talk,” he bit out, reaching for her arms, “is this all you wanted from me?” “No!” she said hastily, backing out of his reach. “I’d rather talk.” He stepped forward, and Elizabeth took another step backward, exclaiming, “I mean, there are so many interesting topics for conversation, are there not?” “Are there?” he asked, moving forward again. “Yes,” she exclaimed, taking two steps back this time. Snatching at the first topic she could think of, she pointed to the table of hyacinths beside her and exclaimed, “A-Aren’t these hyacinths lovely?” “Lovely,” he agreed without looking at them, and he reached for her shoulders, obviously intending to draw her forward. Elizabeth jumped back so swiftly that his fingers merely grazed the gauze fabric of her gown. “Hyacinths,” she babbled with frantic determination as he began stalking her step for step, pas the table of potted pansies, past the table of potted lilies, “are part of genus Hyacinthus, although the cultivated variety, which we have here, is commonly called the Dutch hyacinth, which is part of H. orientalis-“ “Elizabeth,” he interrupted silkily, “I’m not interested in flowers.” He reached for her again, and Elizabeth, in a frantic attempt to evade his grasp, snatched up a pot of hyacinths and dumped it into his outstretched hands. “There is a mythological background to hyacinths that you may find more interesting than the flower itself,” she continued fiercely, and an indescribable expression of disbelief, amusement, and fascination suddenly seemed to flicker across his face. “You see, the hyacinth is actually named for a handsome Spartan youth-Hyacinthus-who was loved by Apollo and by Zephyrus, god of the west wind. One day Zephyrus was teaching Hyacinthus to throw the discus, and he accidentally killed him. It is said that Hyacinthus’s blood caused a flower to spring up, and each petal was inscribed with the Greek exclamation of sorrow.” Her voice trembled a little as he purposefully set the pot of hyacinths on the table. “A-Actually, the flower that sprang up would have been the iris or larkspur, not the modern hyacinth, but that is how it earned its name.” “Fascinating.” His unfathomable eyes locked onto hers. Elizabeth knew he was referring to her and not the history of the hyacinth, and though she commanded herself to move out of his reach, her legs refused to budge.

Our patients predict the culture by living out consciously what the masses of people are able to keep unconscious for the time being. The neurotic is cast by destiny into a Cassandra role. In vain does Cassandra, sitting on the steps of the palace at Mycenae when Agamemnon brings her back from Troy, cry, “Oh for the nightingale’s pure song and a fate like hers!” She knows, in her ill-starred life, that “the pain flooding the song of sorrow is [hers] alone,” and that she must predict the doom she sees will occur there. The Mycenaeans speak of her as mad, but they also believe she does speak the truth, and that she has a special power to anticipate events. Today, the person with psychological problems bears the burdens of the conflicts of the times in his blood, and is fated to predict in his actions and struggles the issues which will later erupt on all sides in the society. The first and clearest demonstration of this thesis is seen in the sexual problems which Freud found in his Victorian patients in the two decades before World War I. These sexual topics‒even down to the words‒were entirely denied and repressed by the accepted society at the time. But the problems burst violently forth into endemic form two decades later after World War II. In the 1920's, everybody was preoccupied with sex and its functions. Not by the furthest stretch of the imagination can anyone argue that Freud "caused" this emergence. He rather reflected and interpreted, through the data revealed by his patients, the underlying conflicts of the society, which the “normal” members could and did succeed in repressing for the time being. Neurotic problems are the language of the unconscious emerging into social awareness. A second, more minor example is seen in the great amount of hostility which was found in patients in the 1930's. This was written about by Horney, among others, and it emerged more broadly and openly as a conscious phenomenon in our society a decade later. A third major example may be seen in the problem of anxiety. In the late 1930's and early 1940's, some therapists, including myself, were impressed by the fact that in many of our patients anxiety was appearing not merely as a symptom of repression or pathology, but as a generalized character state. My research on anxiety, and that of Hobart Mowrer and others, began in the early 1940's. In those days very little concern had been shown in this country for anxiety other than as a symptom of pathology. I recall arguing in the late 1940's, in my doctoral orals, for the concept of normal anxiety, and my professors heard me with respectful silence but with considerable frowning. Predictive as the artists are, the poet W. H. Auden published his Age of Anxiety in 1947, and just after that Bernstein wrote his symphony on that theme. Camus was then writing (1947) about this “century of fear,” and Kafka already had created powerful vignettes of the coming age of anxiety in his novels, most of them as yet untranslated. The formulations of the scientific establishment, as is normal, lagged behind what our patients were trying to tell us. Thus, at the annual convention of the American Psychopathological Association in 1949 on the theme “Anxiety,” the concept of normal anxiety, presented in a paper by me, was still denied by most of the psychiatrists and psychologists present. But in the 1950's a radical change became evident; everyone was talking about anxiety and there were conferences on the problem on every hand. Now the concept of "normal" anxiety gradually became accepted in the psychiatric literature. Everybody, normal as well as neurotic, seemed aware that he was living in the “age of anxiety.” What had been presented by the artists and had appeared in our patients in the late 30's and 40's was now endemic in the land.

Lots of couples get stuck blaming and finger-pointing about topics and can feel like there’s no way out. The antidote to blame is personal accountability. Moving to a mindset of accountability means looking at and owning your contribution to the conflict (however small it may be).

On the topic of drinking and jollying, I would like to congratulate you on the birth of your new child…” A sinister smile crossed his face. His words struck a nerve within the king and queen, which might as well have been his intention. “Our twins, you mean. Two lovely girls,” Mary clarified. “Apologies. My mistake,” the old man chuckled. “That’s wonderful news. Twins – twice the fun. I will definitely drink to that.

Yes, is it not utterly foolish for so many supposedly sensible people to mince around a dance floor holding on to complete strangers and talking on topics that neither is really interested in and that do not signify anyway?" "I am devastated to know that my company bores you so much ma'am," he said stiffly. "Oh, I don't mean you, silly. I am convinced you feel the same way I do, only you do not like to say so. I just loved the way you looked everyone over with your quizzing glass when you first came in, as if you could hardly believe the world held so much foolishness. I wish I might have the nerve to do the same." "I would not advise it, ma'am," he said, a slight quaver in his voice, "not, at least, until you are an elderly dowager and can carry off the eccentricity." Henry could feel his shoulder shaking slightly beneath her hand, but as she looked inquiringly up into his face, the music stopped.

When Jews “unplug,” and maintaina distance toward the society in which they live, they do not do it forthe sake of their own different substantial identity—in a way, anti-Semitism is right here: the Jews are, in effect, “rootless,” their Law is“abstract,” it “extrapolates” them from the social Substance.And there we have the radical gap that separates the Christian sus-pension of the Law, the passage from Law to love, from the pagan sus-pension of the social law: the highest (or, rather, deepest) point ofevery pagan Wisdom is, of course, also a radical “unplugging” (ei-ther the carnivalesque orgy, or direct immersion in the abyss of theprimordial Void, in which all articulated differences are suspended);what is suspended here, however, is the “pagan” immanent law ofthe social, not the Jewish Law that already unplugs us from the so-cial. When Christian mystics get too close to the pagan mystical ex-perience, they bypass the Jewish experience of the Law—no wonderthey often become ferocious anti-Semites. Christian anti-Semitismis, in effect, a clear sign of the Christian position’s regression into pa-ganism: it gets rid of the “rootless,” universalist stance of Christian-ity proper by transposing it onto the Jewish Other; consequently,when Christianity loses the mediation of the Jewish Law, it loses thespecific Christian dimension of Love itself, reducing Love to the pa-gan “cosmic feeling” of oneness with the universe. It is only refer-ence to the Jewish Law that sustains the specific Christian notion of Love that needs a distance, that thrives on differences, that has noth-ing to do with any kind of erasure of borders and immersion inOneness. (And within the Jewish experience, love remains on thispagan level—that is to say, the Jewish experience is a unique combi-nation of the new Law with pagan love, which accounts for its innertension.)The trap to be avoided here is the opposition of the “external” so-cial law (legal regulations, “mere legality”) and the higher “inter-nal” moral law, where the external social law may strike us ascontingent and irrational, while the internal law is fully assumed as“our own”: we should radically abandon the notion that external so-cial institutions betray the authentic inner experience of the true we should radically abandon the notion that external so-cial institutions betray the authentic inner experience of the trueTranscendence of Otherness (in the guise, for example, of the oppo-sition between the authentic “inner” experience of the divine and its“external” reification into a religious institution in which the reli-gious experience proper degenerates into an ideology legitimizingpower relations). If there is a lesson to be learned from Kafka, it isthat, in the opposition between internal and external, the divine di-mension is on the side of the external. What can be more “divine”than the traumatic encounter with the bureaucracy at its craziest—when, say, a bureaucrat tells us that, legally, we don’t exist? It is insuch encounters that we catch a glimpse of another order beyondmere earthly everyday reality. There is no experience of the divinewithout such a suspension of the Ethical. And far from being simplyexternal, this very externality (to sense, to symbolic integration)holds us from within: Kafka’s topic is precisely the obscene jouissancethrough which bureaucracy addresses the subject on the level of thedisavowed innermost (“ex-timate,” as Lacan would have put it) realkernel of his being.

I didn’t mind answering that I was from India, but I disliked the way India became the sole topic of conversation after that. Some international students loved talking about their countries. I didn’t. I didn’t care for the caste system, I didn’t know enough to talk about Indian politics, I resented having to defend my country’s poverty, and I was insulted when people asked if Indians rode on elephants. Over time I grew to hate the well-meaning friendly question “Where are you from?” As long as I was in small-town America, I realized, I was no longer just a person. I was a representative of my country. It was a daunting realization and an enormous burden.

Acknowledge their interest by saying: “I so appreciate that you’re thinking about what’s best for our family. I know you love us. Here’s what we think is best.” Legitimize their cultural cluelessness by saying: “As you can see, this is a topic and debate that so many people are having right now. Here’s the choice we’re making.” Deflect their attention by asking: “What did you do? It’s always so interesting to hear how people come to a very personal decision like this. Say, would you like a deviled egg?

The ordinary challenging relationship remains a strangely and unhelpfully neglected topic. It's the extremes that repeatedly grab the spotlight - the entirely blissful partnerships or the murderous catastrophes - and so it is hard to know what we should make of, and how lonely we should feel about, such things as immature rages, late-night threats of divorce, sullen silences, slammed doors and everyday acts of thoughtlessness and cruelty. Ideally, art would give us the answers that other people don't. This might even be one of the main points of literature: to tell us what society at large is too prudish to explore. The important books should be those that leave us wondering, with relief and gratitude, how the author could possibly have known so much about our lives. But too often a realistic sense of what an endurable relationship is ends up weakened by silence, societal or artistic. We hence imagine that things are far worse for us than they are for other couples. Not only are we unhappy; we misunderstand how freakish and rare our particular form of unhappiness might be. We end up believing that our struggles are indications of having made some unusual and fundamental error, rather than evidence that our marriages are essentially going entirely according to plan.

Brittney, our firstborn, is married with three children. My husband and I are extroverts, and Brittney is an introvert. At first, I wasn’t sure what to do with her. She was shy, and I wondered how much to push her socially. My instincts told me she would eventually grow out of her shyness, and I wasn’t going to make a problem out of something that really wasn’t one. I regularly engaged her in conversation, encouraged her to talk about her ideas, her interests, her feelings, and what was going on inside, but I tried not to push. We did the things that happened naturally for our family. She attended classes once a week at a homeschool co-op, we went to church, and we got together with friends. I modeled what good conversation looks like, but I never really made it a topic of conversation because I felt it might make her self-conscious. Brittney made friends along the way. She loved drama class, and one of the reasons she enrolled in it was because she wanted to challenge herself to grow. When she was fifteen, she auditioned for and got the lead role in the spring play. Suddenly, she blossomed and took on a leadership role that defied all evidence she was an introvert at heart. She’s never been the same. She continued to grow in confidence and is a strong, gracious soul who isn’t afraid to say what she thinks when the situation calls for it. As a thirty-year-old mom who is homeschooling her kids, she tells me that pushing an introvert is the worst thing a parent can do. She believes she would never have grown so naturally into her own skin if we had not given her permission to do so at her own pace. After high school, she worked as a receptionist at a doctor’s office, and the patients there loved her. Not only can Brittney easily talk with people her own age, but with anyone she meets regardless of their age.

Prophetic or Psychic Visions: For this jar you should be actively practicing to achieve psychic visions. This jar is to aide in that venture instead of being the key factor in achieving that goal. There are many books and other spells on the topic of prophetic visions that can be used to aide you on your quest. What You Will Need: 1 ½ pint Mason jar with lid Vinegar Epsom salt Talcum powder Calamus root Directions: Fill the jar halfway with the vinegar and add the salts, powder and root individually, really focusing on your desire to see prophetic visions. Fill the rest of the way with vinegar and seal tightly.

And to my family, thank you for tolerating this Wednesday Addams wannabe through another publishing cycle fraught with angst, distraction, erratic excitement, and rants about esoteric topics. I love you more than I can say.

Brahmā is counted amongst the living beings, but he is the greatest of all of us. And why is the greatest of all the living beings so much attached to the transcendental topics of Lord Kṛṣṇa? Because He is the reservoir of all enjoyment. Everyone wants to relish some kind of taste in everything, but one who is engaged in the transcendental loving service of the Lord can derive unlimited pleasure from such engagement.

In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.” ​— ​MAYA ANGELOU AUTHOR NOTE Please be aware that this story involves sensitive topics such as rape (off-page, no graphic description and not between the couple), maternal mortality, grief, nightmares, emotional and reproductive abuse (not between the couple) and a brief mention of suicide ideation.

It’s hard to write a truly helpful book on the serious and complicated topic of depression. Day of Trouble, is many good things; clear, compassionate, concise. But most of all this book is helpful. If you or someone you love struggles with depression, Joey Tomlinson’s book will speak your language, give you understanding, and point you to helpful gospel remedies for this dark and common trouble.

Her mother did not respond. War was closer than anyone imagined and the question of whose side to take soon became a topic of national conversation. In September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, and Britain and France declared war on Germany. During the following months, the conflict escalated and it seemed that every country must decide who to support

There is one thing I enjoy about STEM: I love how words such as therefore, because, since, and thus can often be used to deeply comprehend a topic in math and science. These words all precede some form of logical deduction, and that is what makes STEM so beautiful: with math and science, you can always learn the logic behind everything. From quantum mechanics to biomedicine, science always finds a way to explain the universe.

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

That was just one of many weird things we have done. Even weirder to me than that, was the fact that we all talked about- like how it would be for one of us to die… if we would. Sex, drinking, and death were the main topics most nights. Yet that nightfall I do not remember how it came up in the conversations, other than Kenneth complaining that I got to sit in the front seat- aka ‘shotgun’ with Jenny after the party I guess I was where he thought he should be, and you know that wearing a seatbelt is for pussies. I do remember us talking about what a bucket let would be, yet to me, I thought mine was almost complete. The rap music was so loud, that we were yelling at one other just to overhear. Jenny kept going through her I-phone to change the song and text her other friends and boys, her phone was in her right hand in her lap. One reason I sat there is that- I was the one that was meant to pick the music so she could drive. I remember hearing the lyric- ‘To the window to the walls…’ the song was ‘Get Low!’ However, Jenny was so high, and Maddie was singing in the back to the words making her hands go in-between the front seats, and that was comical because she is as white as they come. I remember that is when we started shouting our theory on death and the afterlife, or if there is one. I thought there was… yet I was not sure. We were all gathering what those would be. Jenny was bitching about how it could be and going to be, in the ground, and like her beautiful body is going to be eaten away overtime in her sealed casket. That made my skin crawl. We were all like you’re going to die you’re not going to feel anything dumb ass. Then Maddie said my dying wish is to hook up with Lizzy, Sam, and others all at the same time and never stop. Hey, why not they were both very sexy hot girls. I could see that fantasy of doing it until death. I was a little pissed that I was not one of the girls in that scenario but it's her death wish not mine. Yet this is kind of surprising to me because Maddie was never that way at all. Like she has a boyfriend of two years. However, their love life was always on again and off again. The makeup hookups are all that kept them together… I think...? (#- Hashtag: Wcw- Women crush Wednesday)

God will never love you any more than He does right now and He will never love you any less than He does right now. He loves you on your good days; He loves you on your bad days. His love is not conditioned by your response. His is love is given freely. It cannot be earned!

How to Build a Mobile App with React Native With the continuous evolution of web applications, real-time apps, and hybrid apps, the companies want faster development and easy maintenance for their app. Due to high-end technologies, the React Native app development has earned its significance in bringing all of these together within the limited budget of the companies. Overview of React Native As the React Native is based on the React framework, it is good for React Native app development to follow the same. In addition to that, React Native has separate APIs for both the platforms, it allows development for both Android and iOS in the single app, and most importantly, it is free and open-source. Facebook’s React Native Developing apps that run on the different operating systems with one tool, especially mobile devices, would be a great advantage to the developers. Therefore, the React Native development by Facebook is one of the best ways to build apps that are scalable and flexible. The Android App Development with React Native With the number of active Android users, it has created more value to the companies in developing the apps for android mobile devices. Working with React Native In React Native, the developers have a lot of responsibilities. They do not need to write the code manually, as React Native automatically generates the code for the mobile app development. This is the reason why the developers need to focus more on the UX of the app. There are several UX aspects that are required for a development, such as the native code, the visual aesthetics, the technical and back-end aspects. All these aspects would be added together to design the user interface. This is why the React Native app development becomes quite important. The creation of the native code, design, and other technical aspects make React Native a valuable tool for developers and non-developers. Benefits of React Native React Native helps in building a complete native mobile app without any coding skills. The beautiful library creates responsive and interactive web apps from all the simple mobile web components and thus increases the creation of high-quality applications. React Native is a part of web development in its new form with its development of new concepts in application. It uses the native functionality of an operating system so that all of the advanced concepts of web development can be applied to mobile apps. This makes React Native a preferred platform for apps which are made specifically for Android and iOS. With React Native, the companies can develop a beautiful and efficient app in less time without having to spend too much time. Conclusion As stated in the above results of mobile app development, the UI remains the most important part of a mobile app. All developers are in love with different UI frameworks and libraries. As for this topic, given below are some of the great reasons to select React Native as a UI framework: It’s the only full-stack UI framework from Facebook. More than 20 frameworks have appeared, and React Native is the only one that was born out of Facebook. Features like rendering into the DOM, XHR, Native Embedding, data persistence, offline support and more. Although React Native is more than capable of tackling many challenges, it still falls short of some modern technologies like HOCs and Server-side Rendering (SSR).

But maybe his father was right. Maybe what had happened in 1918 could never happen again. "U.S. Reveals Detailed Flu Disaster Plans." Cole decided to make this the topic for his research report. Plans for manufacturing and distributing vaccines and other medications. Plans to quarantine the sick and to call up extra doctors and nurses and to replace absent workers with retired workers so that businesses wouldn't have to shut down. Plans to keep public transportation and electricity and telecommunications and other vital services operating and food and water and other necessities from running out. Plans to mobilize troops (for Cole this was the only exciting part) in the event of mass panic or violence. One day he would ask Pastor Wyatt why, despite all these plans, everything had gone so wrong. "Son, that is just the thing. That is what people did not--and still do not--get. There is no way you can count on the government, even if it's a very good government. The government isn't going to save you, it isn't going to save anyone. There's no way you can count on other people in a situation like we had. People afraid of losing their lives--or, Lord knows, even just their toys--they'll panic. Even fine, decent Christian folk--you can never know for sure what they'll do next. So I say, love your neighbor, help your fellow man all you can, but don't ever count on any other human being. Count on God." What Cole didn't know was that most of the plans he read about that night would have been sufficient only for an emergency lasting a few weeks.

When Is It Emotional Abuse?” defined emotional abuse as: …an attempt to control, in just the same way that physical abuse is an attempt to control another person. The only difference is that the emotional abuser does not use physical hitting, kicking, pinching, grabbing, pushing or other physical forms of harm. Rather the perpetrator of emotional abuse uses emotion as his/her weapon of choice. Emotional abuse in our culture is pervasive and damaging, and it’s as relevant a topic as physical and sexual abuse. Emotional abuse undercuts a person’s foundational self-confidence and love of self and replaces them with confusion about self-worth, value, justice, mercy, and love.

This is a great time for a segue, since I’m on the topic. Who the fuck do you think watched six hundred thousand people die in the United States so far? Because I bet you no more than a few thousand of those people managed to make it home to die, with hospice or without, since we would never send someone home with active covid to infect the rest of their family. But let’s pretend maybe a hundred thousand got out—fine, that still leaves us with half a million corpses. Who held their hands, or tried to, through gloves? Who held phones and iPads up so that they could hear your last words and maybe see your face one last time? Who took care of them for hours, days, weeks, months, greeting you on the phone by name, until your loved one’s final passing? Who tried to give them dignity, in a place and time where it was sorely lacking? Who tried to show them the compassion when portions of the outside world were saying that covid—the very thing that was clotting their blood and stealing their breath—was a lie? It was us. The nurses.

For the time being, however, his bent was literary and religious rather than balletic. He loved, and what seventh grader doesn’t, the abstracter foxtrots and more metaphysical twists of a Dostoevsky, a Gide, a Mailer. He longed for the experience of some vivider pain than the mere daily hollowness knotted into his tight young belly, and no weekly stomp-and-holler of group therapy with other jejune eleven-year-olds was going to get him his stripes in the major leagues of suffering, crime, and resurrection. Only a bona-fide crime would do that, and of all the crimes available murder certainly carried the most prestige, as no less an authority than Loretta Couplard was ready to attest, Loretta Couplard being not only the director and co-owner of the Lowen School but the author, as well, of two nationally televised scripts, both about famous murders of the 20th Century. They’d even done a unit in social studies on the topic: A History of Crime in Urban America. The first of Loretta’s murders was a comedy involving Pauline Campbell, R.N., of Ann Arbor, Michigan, circa 1951, whose skull had been smashed by three drunken teenagers. They had meant to knock her unconscious so they could screw her, which was 1951 in a nutshell. The eighteen-year-olds, Bill Morey and Max Pell, got life; Dave Royal (Loretta’s hero) was a year younger and got off with twenty-two years. Her second murder was tragic in tone and consequently inspired more respect, though not among the critics, unfortunately. Possibly because her heroine, also a Pauline (Pauline Wichura), though more interesting and complicated had also been more famous in her own day and ever since. Which made the competition, one best-selling novel and a serious film biography, considerably stiffen Miss Wichura had been a welfare worker in Atlanta, Georgia, very much into environment and the population problem, this being the immediate pre-Regents period when anyone and everyone was legitimately starting to fret. Pauline decided to do something, viz., reduce the population herself and in the fairest way possible. So whenever any of the families she visited produced one child above the three she’d fixed, rather generously, as the upward limit, she found some unobtrusive way of thinning that family back to the preferred maximal size. Between 1989 and 1993 Pauline’s journals (Random House, 1994) record twenty-six murders, plus an additional fourteen failed attempts. In addition she had the highest welfare department record in the U.S. for abortions and sterilizations among the families whom she advised. “Which proves, I think,” Little Mister Kissy Lips had explained one day after school to his friend Jack, “that a murder doesn’t have to be of someone famous to be a form of idealism.” But of course idealism was only half the story: the other half was curiosity. And beyond idealism and curiosity there was probably even another half, the basic childhood need to grow up and kill someone.

To be more explicit, I believe that healthy, positively impactful companies shouldn’t take a position on socio-political topics. There are a number of reasons for this, but at the core of it is the desire and responsibility to support a fully inclusive environment. If we truly lead diverse and inclusive organizations, then, by definition, our organizations will be filled with people with varying socio-political views. Taking a position on socio-political topics—be it guns, voting issues, environmental issues, abortion, or anything else—leverages the platform of the business for the use of the CEO, owner, or leaders and in the process, undermines inclusivity and alienates people on the other side of whatever position one might take. In the process, it hurts democracy, infringing on the rights and responsibilities of each of us as citizens by putting individuals at odds with their own company.

There are people who display envy when you discuss a random topic unrelated to them or their loved ones, but they become offended as if the world revolves around them simply because you're talking about something they or their family and friends have experienced, bottom line you to mind your own damn business and stay out of other people conversation unless they are speaking to you directly about the topic. -MillYentei

You do that a lot. Bring up serial killer stuff when the topic turns more serious." "What could be more serious than mass murder?" He gave me that look that immediately made me feel all prickly inside, all you don't know me, but then also a little fuck, you really know me.

Gdmng everyone! Welcome to another dose of “Level Up Your Life”! Today’s topic might sting a bit, but hear me out – we’re talking about responsibility… Or rather, the lack thereof. You know, that cozy little place called “I don’t care” land. It’s comfy, familiar, maybe even fun… for a while. But let’s be honest, it’s a dead end. Nevertheless, maybe you like that? Maybe being irresponsible, unreliable & thoughtless is your thing. If that’s the case, well…more power to you.. You can keep on – keep on, blaming the world for your problems. You think, life loves rewarding people who play the victim, right? Of course not! Sweetheart, life rewards those who take responsibility. Those who show up, who follow through, who build a life they can be proud of. Is it easy? Absolutely not. But guess what? It’s worth it. Don’t Wait for life to slap you in the face. Take responsibility for your actions, words & start building something beautiful & better.. Darling listen – the universe has a funny way of giving you exactly what you ask for. It gives us what we ask for. Just like it responded to your irresponsible thoughts & choices, trust me – it will respond tenfold to your responsible behavior. Remember, responsibility isn’t a burden, it’s your superpower. So ditch the excuses & step up! Your world is waiting to see that responsible YOU & guess what? You’re totally capable of it. Stay Responsible & Blessed!

I unwillingly bring up these topics in conversations, often replaying how I had been hurt in the past. In bringing up this story, I wonder if there’s a sense of hope of a different outcome. Possibly, one day I will tell the story, and I won’t be the one hurting anymore. Maybe I will relay the story, and the ending will be different.

The self-destruction of a group always follows the same patterns. You only need to introduce some viruses to the group and poof, it’s all gone. These viruses come in the form of very ignorant narcissists that nobody has the courage to kick off of the group. Quite often, the group even promotes itself as being against the personalities that are in front of their eyes every day, people they praise and even lead them. And well, that’s how you know a group is truly finished. Scientology is a very interesting example of this, because of how clear their books are. For example, they claim to love artists but end up insulting real artists. Scientologists are so obsessed with being perceived as artists, that they downgrade real art in the process. You have many scientologists, for example, that think splashing a random amount of ink into a white board is art. They all want to be artists, and that’s fine, but they are too lazy to see how real art is made, and so, they downgrade the value of art. And in doing this, they actually distort the meaning of art and decrease the value of the real artists. And so, a group that promotes itself as being uplifting and positive, ends up being offensive and destructive. They have all these books on moral codes and moral behavior, and dozens of courses on the same topic, and if you report a scientologist for criminal behavior, they ignore you and deem you an attacker of the group. And there goes the level of sanity of this group down the scale, while they themselves invert the scale and tell you the opposite story. It would be like looking at your mental health through someone suffering with poor mental health. They are as aware of what I am saying as any mentally ill person is aware of his mental illnesses. If anyone confronts them with the facts, they themselves get offended, and then proceed to attack, because that’s what they think their founder told them to do. Except that the founder was talking about attacking insanity and not people. In other words, they should use these facts to look further into their books and their own misinterpretations, and which they don’t. Those people that splash random colors into a white board, will then tell you, the one who has been using techniques, and winning awards, and creating something unique, that you don’t understand art. They remind me of the writers with one book that doesn't sell, trying to tell me how they are better than me, with more than 100 books in best selling charts. How delusional, arrogant and stupid has one to be to not see this? The level of awareness of such individual is comparable to a drunk person going to a Jujitsu dojo, asking the instructor to fight him because he is convinced he can beat anyone with all that alcohol in his head. That, however, is not the cherry on top of the cake. The cherry on top of the cake, is when a religious group listens to a psychopath talking against psychopaths. You can write many academic papers on this topic and never reach a conclusion, because it's really hard to make conclusions on stupidity. So what’s wrong with religion? Why are some religious groups persecuted and attacked? The answer to these questions isn’t as relevant as what we can observe people doing, when denying the most obvious writings, inverting them and distorting the meanings. Christians have already mastered this art.

all religious wars were in essence a “linguistic problem.” Language, he said, did more to hide than reveal the Truth, and as a result people constantly misunderstood and misjudged one another. In a world beset with mistranslations, there was no use in being resolute about any topic, because it might as well be that even our strongest convictions were caused by a simple misunderstanding.

One searches, in one's choice of a partner, for some kind of reflection. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. Often unconsciously. And often not an honest reflection. One searches for a better-than reflection. An as-I-wish-I-were reflection.

Back then, in every creative writing course the poets dedicated to the love poem were always male. Indeed, the partner I left after many years first courted me with a love poem. He had always been emotionally unavailable and not at all interested in love as either a topic for discussion or a daily life practice, but he was absolutely confident that he had something meaningful to say on the subject.

Imagine a mother living in poverty who has always taught her children the difference between right and wrong, who has taught them to value being honest because she wants to provide them with a moral and ethical universe, who suddenly accepts a child selling drugs because it brings into the home financial resources for both necessary and unnecessary expenses. Her ethical values are eroded by the intensity of longing and lack. But she no longer sees herself as living at odds with the consumer culture she lives in; she has become connected, one with the culture of consumption and driven by its demands. Love is not a topic she thinks about. Her life has been characterized by a lack of love. She has found it makes life easier when she hardens her heart and turns her attention toward more attainable goals—acquiring shelter and food, making ends meet, and finding ways to satisfy desires for little material luxuries. Thinking about love may simply cause her pain. She, and hordes of women like her, have had enough pain. She may even turn to addiction to experience the pleasure and satisfaction she never found when seeking love