Total Drama Quotes

There's an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists." So God just leaves?" No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering." Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine: Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it." But the sparrow still falls.

I don't believe everything happens for a reason. But I still search for reasons anyway. It's like I don't want to admit that maybe everything really is totally random...that people are just molecules in the air, bumping into each other and floating away again." -p150, NOTES TO SELF

To those waiting on love, be patient. Love is a total drama queen. It’s just waiting to make an entrance.

I’m empty. I’ve cried out everything I had in me. I’m an empty shell waiting to be filled with what comes next. Or I’m just being a total drama queen

I usually make it a point not to cry in front of people, especially hot boys that I'd been totally crushing on before they'd tried to choke me. But for some reason, hearing that there was yet another thing I didn't know just sent me right on over the edge. Archer,to his credit, didn't look exactly horrified by my sobbing, and he even reached out like he might grab hold of my shoulders.Or possibly smack me. But before he could either comfort me or commit further acts of violence upon my person,I spun away from him and made my drama queen moment complete by running away. It wasn't pretty.

Now, you can let me walk you out and drive you home”—he paused, like a total drama queen—“or I can carry you out of this building and into my car myself.

The serious writer has always taken the flaw in human nature for his starting point, usually the flaw in an otherwise admirable character. Drama usually bases itself on the bedrock of original sin, whether the writer thinks in theological terms or not. Then, too, any character in a serious novel is supposed to carry a burden of meaning larger than himself. The novelist doesn't write about people in a vacuum; he writes about people in a world where something is obviously lacking, where there is the general mystery of incompleteness and the particular tragedy of our own times to be demonstrated, and the novelist tries to give you, within the form of the book, the total experience of human nature at any time. For this reason, the greatest dramas naturally involve the salvation or loss of the soul. Where there is no belief in the soul, there is very little drama.

Governments like it that way. They want their people to see war as a drama of opposites, good and evil, “them” and “us,” victory or defeat. But war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.

In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or the propaganda might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies - the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions. In the past most people never got a chance of fully satisfying this appetite. They might long for distractions, but the distractions were not provided. Christmas came but once a year, feasts were "solemn and rare," there were few readers and very little to read, and the nearest approach to a neighborhood movie theater was the parish church, where the performances though frequent, were somewhat monotonous. For conditions even remotely comparable to those now prevailing we must return to imperial Rome, where the populace was kept in good humor by frequent, gratuitous doses of many kinds of entertainment - from poetical dramas to gladiatorial fights, from recitations of Virgil to all-out boxing, from concerts to military reviews and public executions. But even in Rome there was nothing like the non-stop distractions now provided by newspapers and magazines, by radio, television and the cinema. In "Brave New World" non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation. The other world of religion is different from the other world of entertainment; but they resemble one another in being most decidedly "not of this world." Both are distractions and, if lived in too continuously, both can become, in Marx's phrase "the opium of the people" and so a threat to freedom. Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it.

You say your life is your own. But can you dare to ignore the chance that you are taking part in a gigantic drama under the orders of a divine Producer? Your cue may not come till the end of the play--it may be totally unimportant, a mere walking-on part, but upon it may hang the issues of the play if you do not give the cue to another player. The whole edifice may crumple. You as you, may not matter to anyone in the world, but you as a person in a particular place may matter unimaginably.

Soldier and civilian, they died in their tens of thousands because death had been concocted for them, morality hitched like a halter round the warhorse so that we could talk about 'target-rich environments' and 'collateral damage' - that most infantile of attempts to shake off the crime of killing - and report the victory parades, the tearing down of statues and the importance of peace. Governments like it that way. They want their people to see war as a drama of opposites, good and evil, 'them' and 'us', victory or defeat. But war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents a total failure of the human spirit.

Who am I going to sit with at lunch? Who is going to let me borrow a pencil if I need one?” he pleaded out the question like a total drama queen. I wasn’t sure where the hell he’d picked that up from. My real question was: why wouldn’t he have a pencil to begin with? I’d bought him a value pack and mechanical pencils.

Essentially, love is the Donnie Darko of feelings: Anyone who brags, "I, like, totally get it man," is either full of crap or really, really high (or they watched the commentary on the DVD).

A shoe decision change leads to bein' more than twenty minutes late? "The Choos are silver. The Valentinos are a blush. Sure, the Valentinos have crystal and mesh but I'd gone gray, smoky and drama. The blush requires soft pink, glimmer and dewy. That required total cleanse off and reapplication of makeup.", I explained.

Sleep and I do not have a good relationship. We have never been good friends. I am constantly chasing sleep and then pushing it away. A good night's sleep is my white whale. Like Ahab, I am also a total drama queen about it. I love to talk about how little sleep I get. I brag about it, as if it is a true indication of how hard I work. But I truly suffer at night. Bedtime is fraught with fear and disappointment. When it is just me alone with my restless body and mind, I feel like the whole world is asleep and gone. It's very lonely. I am tired of being tired and talking about how tired I am.

Unfettered access to guns is that important to these guys?” Zack is totally disillusioned. POTUS sanctions a teenager’s assassination? Can it be true?

Now all of a sudden there was joy, there was struggle, there was pain, there was happiness, there were pleasures, there were women, there was drama. Everything made it feel like “now we are really living!

The diversity of sounds rule my ever presence with their highs and blows, encompassing the totality of sensual experience. I'm a child of the sirens of knowledge, a warrior for the truth in a world of washed perspectives and harsh realities. My voice cries the initial cry of the unborn into the perplexing illusion. I long for the realization of the human drama, the defeat of the dogs war, and the unity of existence. The beloved Gods of virtue have been undersold for the bleeding bread of empathy. I now awaist the triumphant roar of destiny, dressed in the inviting hand of a mother, perplexed by discovering, aroused by spirit. The door is open, the road transformed. The exit code to civilization is hacked beyond dispair, chased but the moon toward the freeing sun, on our journey to light. This is an open plea to the beautiful insanity of your hearts. It is time to consummate the kiss of oblivion into the obsidian of love!

I sleep for an entire day. And when I wake up I’m a new person. I’m empty. I’ve cried out everything I had in me. I’m an empty shell waiting to be filled with what comes next. Or I’m just being a total drama queen. I’m not empty. I’m still a person. I cried over a bad thing that happened in my life, but I probably shouldn’t have. Compared to Mom’s crisis, mine was small. Compared to a thousand other girls’ around the world, mine is insignificant. It wasn’t bad. Not compared to everyone else. It was just a couple seconds. It wasn’t years. It wasn’t months, like Mom. It wasn’t a family member. Wasn’t someone I see anymore. It didn’t even hurt. There was no blood. It wasn’t bad. Not compared to others’. So I should stop crying.

I guess when you’re a drama teacher, you’re used to memorizing long speeches.

The more it changes, the more it's the same thing. But overall, things have changed. I say changed and not "changed for the better" because I am no fool. Fate is a total drama queen. The second you say things are better than they were, she'll come stumbling toward you on her six-inch heels, nasty-ass wig crooked and on sideways. You'll wonder exactly how she got all that makeup slathered onto her face. One nicotine-caked fake fingernail will point at you, and she will make sure that things are anything but better from there on out. So no, thank you. Things are different but not better and, in fact, could get much much worse, so fuck off, Fate! Is she gone? Whew. Things had changed at school and not in a bad way(crosses fingers and hope that doesn't count as pissing Fate off).

We get trapped in power struggles. When our kids feel backed into a corner, they instinctually fight back or totally shut down. So avoid the trap. Consider giving your child an out: “Would you like to get a drink first, and then we’ll pick up the toys?” Or negotiate: “Let’s see if we can figure out a way for both of us to get what we need.” (Obviously, there are some non-negotiables, but negotiation isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of respect for your child and her desires.) You can even ask your child for help: “Do you have any suggestions?” You might be shocked to find out how much your child is willing to bend in order to bring about a peaceful resolution to the standoff.

Drama usually bases itself on the bedrock of original sin, whether the writer thinks in theological terms or not. Then, too, any character in a serious novel is supposed to carry a burden of meaning larger than himself. The novelist doesn’t write about people in a vacuum; he writes about people in a world where something is obviously lacking, where there is the general mystery of incompleteness and the particular tragedy of our own times to be demonstrated, and the novelist tries to give you, within the form of the book, a total experience of human nature at any time. For this reason, the greatest dramas naturally involve the salvation or loss of the soul. Where there is no belief in the soul, there is very little drama. The Christian novelist is distinguished from his pagan colleagues by recognizing sin as sin. According to his heritage, he sees it not as a sickness or an accident of the environment, but as a responsible choice of offense against God which involves his eternal future. Either one is serious about salvation or one is not. And it is well to realize that the maximum amount of seriousness admits the maximum amount of comedy. Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe. One reason a great deal of our contemporary fictions is humorless is because so many of these writers are relativists and have to be continually justifying the actions of their characters on a sliding scale of values.

wherever Haley’s voice rang out with “One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock RAHK…” the gritty drama on the screen was totally eclipsed by mayhem among the audience. Boys and girls alike went literally berserk, shrieking like banshees, tearing at the fabric of their seats, lurching out to dance in the aisles or engage in mass brawls that required dozens of police to contain them.

The novel has become the leading hero in the drama of literary development in our time precisely because it best of all reflects the tendencies of a new world still in the making; it is, after all, the only genre born of this new world and in total affinity with it.

I also realized that in my family drama a very limited number of character traits were available to the players. In my mind, either I could be weak, wimpy, submissive, and pathetic, or I could be a raging tyrant and bully who demanded total compliance from everyone in my realm. The notion of being strong and assertive while staying calm, insisting on appropriate boundraries and on being treated with respect and dignity, were not in my realm of experience. Once I realized that I was much happier with the person I was in the rest of my life, I realized it was foolish not to be that "me" around my family as well. I began to feel liberated and genuinely felt they could take the new me or leave it. So far, they've chosen to leave it, but I feel a sense of integrity and self-respect that I had never experienced before.

Charity didn't mean to waste the entire afternoon. But her favorite daytime drama was on the telly. It was always the same, she thought, stretching out on the bed to watch. The sex got her interested first, and then the story. Before long she was totally hooked, and deep into the intricate plots and the glamorous goings-on. And afterwards, she just felt drained. She was sound asleep by the time Lady Margaret came home.

So you’re wrapped up in a fight against evil with two smoking hot women glued to you and your buddies along for the ride? Dude. You’re like a Joss Whedon show, man.” “I am not,” Alex replied. “You totally are.” “Jason, stop it. I’m serious.” “I’m just sayin’.” “Jason,” Wade broke in, “y’all realize that if he’s a Joss Whedon show, at least one of his gals has gotta get killed off in some climactic moment for no other reason than to punch up the drama, right?” Jason

Even as I wrote my note to Fern, for instance, expressing sentiments and regrets that were real, a part of me was noticing what a fine and sincere note it was, and anticipating the effect on Fern of this or that heartfelt phrase, while yet another part was observing the whole scene of a man in a dress shirt and no tie sitting at his breakfast nook writing a heartfelt note on his last afternoon alive, the blondwood table's surface trembling with sunlight and the man's hand steady and face both haunted by regret and ennobled by resolve, this part of me sort of hovering above and just to the left of myself, evaluating the scene, and thinking what a fine and genuine-seeming performance in a drama it would make if only we all had not already been subject to countless scenes just like it in dramas ever since we first saw a movie or read a book, which somehow entailed that real scenes like the one of my suicide note were now compelling and genuine only to their participants, and to anyone else would come off as banal and even somewhat cheesy or maudlin, which is somewhat paradoxical when you consider – as I did, setting there at the breakfast nook – that the reason scenes like this will seem stale or manipulative to an audience is that we’ve already seen so many of them in dramas, and yet the reason we’ve seen so many of them in dramas is that the scenes really are dramatic and compelling and let people communicate very deep, complicated emotional realities that are almost impossible to articulate in any other way, and at the same time still another facet or part of me realizing that from this perspective my own basic problem was that at an early age I’d somehow chosen to cast my lot with my life’s drama’s supposed audience instead of with the drama itself, and that I even now was watching and gauging my supposed performance’s quality and probable effects, and thus was in the final analysis the very same manipulative fraud writing the note to Fern that I had been throughout the life that had brought me to this climactic scene of writing and signing it and addressing the envelope and affixing postage and putting the envelope in my shirt pocket (totally conscious of the resonance of its resting there, next to my heart, in the scene), planning to drop it in a mailbox on the way out to Lily Cache Rd. and the bridge abutment into which I planned to drive my car at speeds sufficient to displace the whole front end and impale me on the steering wheel and instantly kill me. Self-loathing is not the same thing as being into pain or a lingering death, if I was going to do it I wanted it instant’ (175-176)

Yes, still I remember that you always wait for me with love in eyes but when I arrive you got angry on me and I know that was totally a drama.

Half the chocolate bar was stuffed in my mouth when it dawned on me: I was totally going to break out from crushing that hard.

Right, so, quick, I mentioned Hawk. He’s a scary-ass, motherfucking commando. When I say that, I do not lie. So I’ll repeat, he’s a scary-ass, motherfucking commando. So, when your mind conjures up a vision of a commando, that’s Hawk. And Hawk likes kids. But he don’t like kids bein’ scared and bein’ used for bullshit family dramas. I tell him this, which, by the way, I’m totally tellin’ him this, even though he don’t know those kids, like, at all, he’s gonna go psycho badass, motherfucking commando. And the Trailer Trash Twins won’t know what hit ’em.

Read this first volume and you'll want to finish the next two--300,000 words in total--with the first 90,000 setting the stage for a life-affirming masterpiece, and characters you will never forget!

Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy” is a Polish proverb that translates literally into “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” This is far superior to just saying, “Not my problem,” isn’t it? Because it reminds us of the ridiculousness of getting sucked into drama that doesn’t belong to us. You do not have to deal with craziness that isn’t yours. If you choose to buy a ticket and a tub of popcorn, that’s totally on you.

In worldly terms, she was totally innocent; Eve before the fall, with no knowledge of good and evil. She made one realize how necessary the Fall was; without it, there would have been no human drama, and so no literature, no art, no suffering, no religion, no laughter, no joy, no sin and no redemption. Only camera work (towards which Mrs. Dobbs's painting was reaching) and sociology (which her sister, Beatrice Webb, may be said to have invented).

Everything that has happened to us up to this point is, in a sense, our history, yet it’s a total mysterious mystery. How can we diffuse the emotions? We do this by taking away the devotion to drama. All drama leads to more karma. Don’t be a karma farmer.

Kenneth Tynan once said that the only people who can do Russian drama, outside of the Russians themselves, are the Irish. I presume that's because we are somewhat manic in the mood department. It's no bother to soar from the darkest depths to the mountaintops of delight, with the heart borne by all of that which is alive and singing. It's even less bother to swan-dive into the pits of despair and total hopelessness, with the realization that it's no use being Irish unless you know the world is eventually going to break your heart.

I was a country kid who went to a public school, and she was more of a middle-class girl who attended a private school. I was into hunting and fishing, and she liked drama and singing in the choir at school and church. Our lives up until that point were totally different.

When you feel the need to escape your problems, to escape from this world, don't make the mistake of resorting to suicide Don't do it! You will hear the empty advice of many scholars in the matter of life and death, who will tell you, "just do it" there is nothing after this, you will only extinguish the light that surrounds you and become part of nothingness itself, so when you hear these words remember this brief review of suicide: When you leave this body after committing one of the worst acts of cowardice that a human being can carry out, you turn off the light, the sound and the sense of reality, you become nothing waiting for the programmers of this game to pick you up from the darkness, subtly erase your memories and enable your return and I emphasize the word subtle because sometimes the intelligence behind this maneuver or automated mechanism is wrong and send human beings wrongly reset to such an extent, that when they fall to earth and are born again, they begin to experience memories of previous lives, in many cases they perceive themselves of the opposite sex, and science attributes this unexplainable phenomenon to genetic and hormonal factors, but you and I know better! And we quickly identified this trigger as a glitch in the Matrix. Then we said! That a higher intelligence or more advanced civilization throws you back into this game for the purpose of experimenting, growing and developing as an advanced consciousness and due to your toxic and destructive behavior you come back again but in another body and another life, but you are still you, then you will carry with you that mark of suicide and cowardice, until you learn not to leave this experience without having learned the lesson of life, without having experienced and surprised by death naturally or by design of destiny. About this first experience you will find very little material associated with this event on the internet, it seems that the public is more reserved, because they perceive themselves and call themselves "awakened" And that is because the system has total control over the algorithm of fame and fortune even over life and death. Now, according to religion and childish fears, which are part of the system's business to keep you asleep, eyes glued to the cellular device all day, it says the following: If you commit this act of sin, you turn off light, sound and sense of reality, and from that moment you begin to experience pain, fear and suffering on alarming scales, and that means they will come for you, a couple of demons and take you to the center of the earth where the weeping and gnashing of teeth is forever, and in that hell tormented by demons you will spend eternity. About this last experience we will find hundreds of millions of people who claim to have escaped from there! And let me tell you that all were captivated by the same deity, one of dubious origin, that feeds on prayers and energetic events, because it is not of our nature, because it knows very well that we are beings of energy, then this deity or empire of darkness receives from the system its food and the system receives from them power, to rule, to administer, to control, to control, to kill, to exclude, to inhibit, to classify, to imprison, to silence, to infect, to contaminate, to depersonalize. So now that you know the two sides of the same coin, which one will your intelligence lean towards! You decide... Heads or tails? From the book Avatars, the system's masterpiece.

See, that’s my point,” she said. “Why do I always have to watch the kids? You travel all the time and you don’t ask for permission. But the moment I want to go somewhere, not only do I have to ask you, but you can say no. It’s a total double standard.” Fadi sighed. “It’s not my fault we live in a world of double standards. It’s not just an Arab thing, it’s everywhere.

I had to find Mr. Brentwood. And I had to save him. Zeus, Inc. had saved the world 50 years ago when we had depleted our energy resources. The very same Zeus, Inc. that now powered a majority of the known world. And that power had come from the man himself. Without him? We would all be plunged into total darkness, knocked back to the literal dark ages. Chaos could and probably would ensue.

The individual psyche is the Holy Grail, made holy by what it contains, produced by the the experience of the opposites suffered, not blindly, but in living awareness. Every human experience, to the extent that it is lived in awareness, augments the sum total of consciousness in the universe. This provides "meaning" for every experience and gives each individual a role in the ongoing world drama of creation.

My roommate Allie also knows, but my other friends? Hell no. Most of them are music or drama majors, so I guess that makes us the artsy crowd. Or maybe emo. Aside from Allie, who’s had an on-again/off-again relationship with a frat boy since freshman year, my friends get a kick out of trashing Briar’s elite. I don’t usually join in (I like to think gossiping is beneath me) but…let’s face it. Most of the popular kids are total douchebags.

When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, we struggle with it, win or lose. And Sabina - what had come over her? Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him. Had he persecuted her? Had he tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being. Until that time, her betrayals had filled her with excitement and joy, because they opened up new paths to new adventures of betrayal. But what if the paths came to an end? One could betray one's parents, husband, country, love, but when parents, husband, country, and love were gone - what was left to betray? Sabina felt emptiness all around her. What if that emptiness was the goal of all her betrayals? Naturally she had not realized it until now. How could she have? The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us. Sabina was unaware of the goal that lay behind her longing to betray. The unbearable lightness of being - was that the goal?

You say your life is your own, but can you ignore the chance that you are taking part in a gigantic drama under the orders of a divine producer? Your cue may not come till the end of the play--it may be totally uninportant, a mere walking on part, but on it may hang the issues of the play, if you do not give the cue to another player. The whole edifice may crumple. You as you, may not matter to anyone in the world, but you as a person in a particular place may matter unimaginably.

There were formerly horizons within which people lived and thought and mythologized. There are now no more horizons. And with the dissolution of horizons we have experienced and are experiencing collisions, terrific collisions, not only of peoples but also of their mythologies. It is as when dividing panels are withdrawn from between chambers of very hot and very cold airs: there is a rush of these forces together. And so we are right now in an extremely perilous age of thunder, lightning, and hurricanes all around. I think it is improper to become hysterical about it, projecting hatred and blame. It is an inevitable, altogether natural thing that when energies that have never met before come into collision—each bearing its own pride—there should be turbulence. That is just what we are experiencing; and we are riding it: riding it to a new age, a new birth, a totally new condition of mankind—to which no one anywhere alive today can say that he has the key, the answer, the prophecy, to its dawn. Nor is there anyone to condemn here (”Judge not, that you may not be judged!”). What is occurring is completely natural, as are its pains, confusions, and mistakes.

They say everything happens for a reason. I can see the truth within that now. If it was not for all the mishaps, all the drama, all the heartache, all the stress that I have endured within the last six months I would not have the book that I have just published, nor the works for the next two books that I am currently working on. If I would have had my cake to eat it as well I may still be stuck where was six months ago. Or worst I may have a regular job. YIKES!!! But in retrospect everything that has happened to me in the last six month I now take with wisdom and a thankful heart for all of the turbulence within my life, as crazy as that sounds. Sometimes it is when you hit rock bottom that you can begin to reach for the stars and beyond. Today I shed the last of my painful tears and I released myself of the countless disappointments within my heart. I am now totally focused on my path. I have already reached many plateaus to meet my ultimate goal of being an accomplished author. I have tried it many times and now it is my time to shine. I have full knowledge of what to do and how to execute my master plan. Within time my words will ascend to the four corners of the universe and I will be on my way to travel the world and see all the great sites this beautiful planet has to offer.

afreight with the past, dreams dispersed in the water someway, nothing ever lost. Houseboats ride at their hawsers. The neap mud along the shore lies ribbed and slick like the cavernous flitch of some beast hugely foundered and beyond the country rolls away to the south and the mountains. Where hunters and woodcutters once slept in their boots by the dying light of their thousand fires and went on, old teutonic forebears with eyes incandesced by the visionary light of a massive rapacity, wave on wave of the violent and the insane, their brains stoked with spoorless analogues of all that was, lean aryans with their abrogate semitic chapbook reenacting the dramas and parables therein and mindless and pale with a longing that nothing save dark’s total restitution could appease.

I was sleeping with my head on the wooden arm of a seat as six attendants of the theater converged with their night’s total of swept-up rubbish and created a huge dusty pile that reached to my nose as I snored head down – till they almost swept me away too. This was reported to me by Dean, who was watching from ten seats behind. All the cigarette butts, the bottles, the matchbooks, the come and the gone were swept up in this pile. Had they taken me with it, Dean would never have seen me again. He would have had to roam the entire United States and look in every garbage pail from coast to coast before he found me embryonically convoluted among the rubbishes of my life, his life, and the life of everybody concerned and not concerned. What would I have said to him from my rubbish womb? ‘Don’t bother me, man, I’m happy where I am. You lost me one night in Detroit in August nineteen forty-nine. What right have you to come and disturb my reverie in this pukish can?’ In 1942 I was the star in one of the filthiest dramas of all time. I was a seaman, and went to the Imperial Café on Scollay Square in Boston to drink; I drank sixty glasses of beer and retired to the toilet, where I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl and went to sleep. During the night at least a hundred seamen and assorted civilians came in and cast their sentient debouchments on me till I was unrecognizably caked. What difference does it make after all? – anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what’s heaven? what’s earth? All in the mind.

I’m sure I’ve never heard of this one. You?” Eve shook her head. “I’m not much of a follower of the bard.” Shrugging, Rose settled back in her seat and waited. This was either going to be very good or very bad. It ended up being the latter. The play seemed disjointed, although the blame for that couldn’t be put totally on Lord Battenfield. His acting abilities were next to nonexistent, but he made up for it in sheer drama. Rose recognized some of his lordships “company” as various children of titled families. They seemed to be having a good time. But the play! In this case the play was not the thing. Neither it nor the people acting it out could seem to decide if it was a tragedy or a comedy and so the audience never knew whether or not they should laugh. Rose was amongst them. Timon began the play as a posturing, wealthy character like many modern aristos, caring about nothing but money. Lord Battenfield played this with a naïve bravado that made it highly amusing. But then Timon lost his fortune and none of his former friends would help him. This should have been a serious moment in the production, but it wasn’t. Finally, when Timon realizes the servant Flavius is his only friend and then seems to commit suicide in the wilderness, what could have been a poignant commentary on society became a joke when Lord Battenfield’s death scene revealed that he was completely naked beneath the toga. It was just a glimpse, but Rose was certain she would be scarred for life. She and Eve were trying to control their giggles when the curtains fell.

In Miss Miller’s fantasy, too, there is an inner necessity that compels it to go on from the horse-sacrifice to the sacrifice of the hero. Whereas the former symbolizes the renunciation of biological drives, the latter has the deeper and ethically more valuable meaning of a human self-sacrifice, a renunciation of egohood. In her case, of course, this is true only in a metaphorical sense, since it is not the author of the story but its hero, Chiwantopel, who offers himself and is voluntarily sacrificed. The morally significant act is delegated to the hero, while Miss Miller only looks on admiringly and applaudingly, without, it seems, realizing that her animus-figure is constrained to do what she herself so signally fails to do. The advance from the animal sacrifice to the human sacrifice is therefore only an idea, and when Miss Miller plays the part of a pious spectator of this imaginary sacrificial act, her participation is without ethical significance. As is usual in such cases, she is totally unconscious of what it means when the hero, the vehicle of the vitally important magical action, perishes. When that happens, the projection falls away and the threatening sacrificial act recoils upon the subject herself, that is, upon the personal ego of the dreamer. In what form the drama will then run to an end it is impossible to predict. Nor, in the case of Miss Miller, owing to the lack of material and my ignorance of her personality, did I foresee, or venture to assume, that it would be a psychosis which would form the companion piece to Chiwantopel’s sacrifice. It was, in fact, a κατοχή—a total surrender, not to the positive possibilities of life, but to the nocturnal world of the unconscious, a débâcle similar to the one that overtook her hero.

The concentrated structure of musical form, based on dramatic climaxes, gradually breaks up in romanticism and gives way again to the cumulative composition of the older music. Sonata form falls to pieces and is replaced more and more often by other, less severe and less schematically moulded forms—by small-scale lyrical and descriptive genres, such as the Fantasy and the Rhapsody, the Arabesque and the Étude, the Intermezzo and the Impromptu, the Improvisation and the Variation. Even extensive works are often made up of such miniature forms, which no longer constitute, from the structural point of view, the acts of a drama, but the scenes of a revue. A classical sonata or symphony was the world in parvo: a microcosm. A succession of musical pictures, such as Schumann’s Carnaval or Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage, is like a painter’s sketch-book; it may contain magnificent lyrical-impressionistic details, but it abandons the attempt to create a total impression and an organic unity from the very beginning. [...] This change of form is accompanied by the literary inclinations of the composers and their bias towards programme music. The intermingling of forms also makes itself felt in music and is expressed most conspicuously in the fact that the romantic composers are often very gifted and important writers. In the painting and poetry of the period the disintegration of form does not proceed anything like so quickly, nor is it so far-reaching as in music. The explanation of the difference is partly that the cyclical ‘medieval’ structure had long since been overcome in the other arts, whereas it remained predominant in music until the middle of the eighteenth century, and only began to yield to formal unity after the death of Bach. In music it was therefore much easier to revert to it than, for example, in painting where it was completely out of date. The romantics’ historical interest in old music and the revival of Bach’s prestige had, however, only a subordinate part in the dissolution of strict sonata form, the real reason is to be sought in a change of taste which was in essentials sociologically conditioned.

I was a country kid who went to a public school, and she was more of a middle-class girl who attended a private school. I was into hunting and fishing, and she liked drama and singing in the choir at school and church. Our lives up until that point were totally different. But Missy and I had a very deep spiritual connection, and I thought our mutual love for the Lord might be our biggest strength in sustaining our relationship. Even though Missy was so different from me, I found her world to be very interesting. Looking back, perhaps another reason I decided to give our relationship a chance was because of my aunt Jan’s bizarre premonition about Missy years earlier. My dad’s sister Jan had helped bring him to the Lord, and she taught the fourth grade at OCS. One of her students was Missy, and they went to church together at White’s Ferry Road Church. When I was a kid we attended a small church in the country, but occasionally we visited White’s Ferry with my aunt Jan and her husband. One Sunday, Missy walked by us as we were waiting in the pew. “Let me tell you something,” Jan told me as she pointed at me and then Missy. “That’s the girl you’re going to marry.” Missy was nine years old. To say that was one of the dumbest things I’d ever heard would be an understatement. I love my aunt Jan, but she has a lot in common with her brother Si. They talk a lot, are very animated, and even seem crazy at times. However, they love the Lord and have great hearts. I actually never thought about it again until she reminded me of that day once Missy and I started getting serious. Freaky? A bit. Bizarre? Definitely! Was she right? Absolutely, good call! Missy still isn’t sure what my aunt Jan saw in her. Missy: What did Jan see in me at nine years old? Well, you’ll have to ask her about that. She was the only teacher in my academic history from whom I ever received a smack. She announced a rule to the class one day that no one could touch anyone else’s possessions at any time (due to a recent rash of kids messing with other people’s stuff). The next day, I moved some papers around on one of my classmates’ desks before school, and he tattled on me. Because of her newly pronounced rule, she took me to the girls’ bathroom and gave me a whack on the rear. At the time, I certainly would have never thought she had picked me out to marry her nephew!

Sky's The Limit" [Intro] Good evening ladies and gentlemen How's everybody doing tonight I'd like to welcome to the stage, the lyrically acclaimed I like this young man because when he came out He came out with the phrase, he went from ashy to classy I like that So everybody in the house, give a warm round of applause For the Notorious B.I.G The Notorious B.I.G., ladies and gentlemen give it up for him y'all [Verse 1] A nigga never been as broke as me - I like that When I was young I had two pair of Lees, besides that The pin stripes and the gray The one I wore on Mondays and Wednesdays While niggas flirt I'm sewing tigers on my shirts, and alligators You want to see the inside, I see you later Here comes the drama, oh, that's that nigga with the fake, blaow Why you punch me in my face, stay in your place Play your position, here come my intuition Go in this nigga pocket, rob him while his friends watching And hoes clocking, here comes respect His crew's your crew or they might be next Look at they man eye, big man, they never try So we rolled with them, stole with them I mean loyalty, niggas bought me milks at lunch The milks was chocolate, the cookies, butter crunch 88 Oshkosh and blue and white dunks, pass the blunts [Hook: 112] Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on Just keep on pressing on Sky is the limit and you know that you can have What you want, be what you want Sky is the limit and you know that you keep on Just keep on pressing on Sky is the limit and you know that you can have What you want, be what you want, have what you want, be what you want [Verse 2] I was a shame, my crew was lame I had enough heart for most of them Long as I got stuff from most of them It's on, even when I was wrong I got my point across They depicted me the boss, of course My orange box-cutter make the world go round Plus I'm fucking bitches ain't my homegirls now Start stacking, dabbled in crack, gun packing Nickname Medina make the seniors tote my Niñas From gym class, to English pass off a global The only nigga with a mobile can't you see like Total Getting larger in waists and tastes Ain't no telling where this felon is heading, just in case Keep a shell at the tip of your melon, clear the space Your brain was a terrible thing to waste 88 on gates, snatch initial name plates Smoking spliffs with niggas, real-life beginner killers Praying God forgive us for being sinners, help us out [Hook] [Verse 3] After realizing, to master enterprising I ain't have to be in school by ten, I then Began to encounter with my counterparts On how to burn the block apart, break it down into sections Drugs by the selections Some use pipes, others use injections Syringe sold separately Frank the Deputy Quick to grab my Smith & Wesson like my dick was missing To protect my position, my corner, my lair While we out here, say the Hustlers Prayer If the game shakes me or breaks me I hope it makes me a better man Take a better stand Put money in my mom's hand Get my daughter this college grant so she don't need no man Stay far from timid Only make moves when your heart's in it And live the phrase sky's the limit Motherfuckers See you chumps on top [Hook]

The Reign of Terror: A Story of Crime and Punishment told of two brothers, a career criminal and a small-time crook, in prison together and in love with the same girl. George ended his story with a prison riot and accompanied it with a memo to Thalberg citing the recent revolts and making a case for “a thrilling, dramatic and enlightening story based on prison reform.” --- Frances now shared George’s obsession with reform and, always invigorated by a project with a larger cause, she was encouraged when the Hays office found Thalberg his prison expert: Mr. P. W. Garrett, the general secretary of the National Society of Penal Information. Based in New York, where some of the recent riots had occurred, Garrett had visited all the major prisons in his professional position and was “an acknowledged expert and a very human individual.” He agreed to come to California to work with Frances for several weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for a total of kr 4,470.62 plus expenses. Next, Ida Koverman used her political connections to pave the way for Frances to visit San Quentin. Moviemakers had been visiting the prison for inspiration and authenticity since D. W. Griffith, Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown walked though the halls before making Intolerance, but for a woman alone to be ushered through the cell blocks was unusual and upon meeting the warden, Frances noticed “his smile at my discomfort.” Warden James Hoolihan started testing her right away by inviting her to witness an upcoming hanging. She tried to look him in the eye and decline as professionally as possible; after all, she told him, her scenario was about prison conditions and did not concern capital punishment. Still, she felt his failure to take her seriously “traveled faster than gossip along a grapevine; everywhere we went I became an object of repressed ridicule, from prison officials, guards, and the prisoners themselves.” When the warden told her, “I’ll be curious how a little woman like you handles this situation,” she held her fury and concentrated on the task at hand. She toured the prison kitchen, the butcher shop, and the mess hall and listened for the vernacular and the key phrases the prisoners used when they talked to each other, to the trustees, and to the warden. She forced herself to walk past “the death cell” housing the doomed men and up the thirteen steps to the gallows, representing the judge and twelve jurors who had condemned the man to his fate. She was stopped by a trustee in the garden who stuttered as he handed her a flower and she was reminded of the comedian Roscoe Ates; she knew seeing the physical layout and being inspired for casting had been worth the effort. --- Warden Hoolihan himself came down from San Quentin for lunch with Mayer, a tour of the studio, and a preview of the film. Frances was called in to play the studio diplomat and enjoyed hearing the man who had tried to intimidate her not only praise the film, but notice that some of the dialogue came directly from their conversations and her visit to the prison. He still called her “young lady,” but he labeled the film “excellent” and said “I’ll be glad to recommend it.” ---- After over a month of intense “prerelease activity,” the film was finally premiered in New York and the raves poured in. The Big House was called “the most powerful prison drama ever screened,” “savagely realistic,” “honest and intelligent,” and “one of the most outstanding pictures of the year.

Quando Shiva e Shakti se unem no sahasrara, a pessoa experimenta o samadhi, a iluminação ocorre no cérebro e as áreas silenciosas começam a funcionar. Shiva e Shakti permanecem unidos por algum tempo, e durante este período há uma perda total da consciência, pertencente um a outro. Ao mesmo tempo um bindu desenvolve. Bindu significa um ponto, uma gota, e bindu é o substrato de todo o cosmos. Dentro do bindu está a sede da inteligência humana e a sede de toda a criação. Em seguida, bindu se divide em dois, e Shiva e Shakti manifestam-se novamente em dualidade. Quando a ascensão aconteceu, ela foi somente a subida de shakti, mas agora quando a descida acontece, Shiva e Shakti, ambos, descem para os planos grosseiros e há novamente o conhecimento da dualidade. Depois da união total há uma espécie de retorno pelo mesmo caminho da ascensão. A consciência bruta que se tornou refinada, novamente torna-se embrutecida. Este é o conceito da encarnação divina ou avatar. Quando alguém atinge o mais elevado pináculo de samadhi, purusha e prakriti, ou Shiva e Shakti estão em total união e somente advaita existe, a experiência não dual. Ao mesmo temo, quando não há sujeito/objeto mais distinto, é muito difícil para alguém diferenciar. Se ele está falando com um homem ou com uma mulher, ele não sabe, ele não percebe a diferença. Ele pode até mesmo ser associado com pessoas espirituais ou divinas sem estar ciente disto, porque neste momento, sua consciência está reduzida ao nível da inocência de um bebê. Assim, no estado de samadhi, você é um bebê. Um bebê não pode falar da diferença entre um homem e uma mulher porque ele não tem distinção física ou sexual. Ele não pode distinguir um estudioso de um idiota, ele não pode nem mesmo ver qualquer a diferença entre uma serpente e uma corda. Ele pode segurar uma cobra como segura uma cobra. Isso só acontece quando a união está acontecendo. Quando Shiva e Shakti descem para os planos grosseiros, que é o mooladhara chakra, eles se separam e vivem como duas entidades. Há dualidade no mooladhara chakra, há dualidade na mente e sentidos e no mundo de nomes e formas, mas não há dualidade no samadhi. Não há nenhuma vidência ou experiência no estado de samadhi. Não há ninguém para dizer como o samadhi porque ele é uma experiência não-dual. É muito difícil entender por que Shiva e Shakti, ambos, descem para os planos brutos após terem atingindo a mais elevada união. Qual é o objetivo da destruição do mundo e a criação novamente? Qual é o objetivo de transcendência da consciência se você tem de voltar para ele novamente? Por que se preocupar em despertar Kundalini e uni-la com Shiva no sahasrara se você tem de voltar para o mooladhara novamente? Isto é algo muito misterioso e podemos perguntar, "Por despertar Kundalini absolutamente?" Por que construir uma mansão se você sabe que terá de pô-la abaixo quando ela estiver concluída? Na verdade, criamos um monte de coisas que serão destruídas. Então, porque fazê-lo absolutamente? Fazemos muita sadhana para transcender os chakras e ascender da terra para o céu. Então, quando chegamos ao paraíso e nos tornamos um com a grande realidade, de repente decidimos voltar para baixo. E não só, nós trazemos a grande unidade conosco. Seria mais fácil entender se Shakti voltasse sozinha e Shiva permanecesse no céu. Talvez, quando Shakti está prestes a sair, Shiva diga: "Espere, estou indo com você." Quando Shiva e Shakti descem aos níveis mais grosseiros da consciência, há a dualidade novamente. Isso é porque o homem auto-realizado é capaz de compreender a dor e todos os assuntos da vida mundana. Ele compreende todo o drama da dualidade, multiplicidade e diversidade. Às vezes nós, simples mortais, estamos em um dilema para compreender como este homem, como a mais elevada realização, é capaz de lidar com as dualidades sem esperanças da vida.

In what is described as depression and experienced as emptiness, futility, fear of impoverishment, and loneliness can usually be recognized as the tragic loss of the self in childhood, manifested as the total alienation from the self in the adult.

I stared at Jim in horror, my skin crawling. “A Guardian banished me. Me! But I’m a Guardian. Can we banish each other? Oh, crap!” Jim nodded. “You’re not just a Guardian, you’re a Guardian Plus! Now with extra ‘prince of Abaddon’ cleaning power.” I’d like to point out—the dark power’s voice started to say. “I have enough on my plate right now!” I snapped at it. The voice sulked into silence. “Yeah, well, you may just have to deal with it,” Jim said, moseying over to where I’d been standing. “What were you looking for?” “I can’t believe another Guardian banished me just because I happen to be a prince of Abaddon. There should be some rule about not banishing demon lords who are also Guardians.” Jim cocked an eyebrow. “Like you think this is a normal situation?” “Normal? I don’t even know what’s normal anymore,” I fumed, marching around the room while wringing my hands. “And now look, I’m wringing my hands. Have you ever known me to be a hand-wringer? I detest the sort of woman who wrings her hands! It signifies weakness, and lack of coherence, and a totally unprofessional attitude!” “And if we know anything about you, it’s that you’re a professional, and you’re confident,” Jim said, nosing a spot on the floor. “Damn straight I am!” I yelled, forcing my hands apart so they couldn’t wring themselves. “Look, they’re trying to do it again. It’s like my hands are possessed or something! Dear god, it’s the dark power. The dark power has taken over my hands and is trying to wring me into insanity!” “Is this little drama going to take long? ’Cause if it is, I want popcorn and a Diet Coke with extra ice.” “You’re not going to like where I put the popcorn and extra ice,” I said, ignoring my possessed hands to glare at the demon with much intent. Jim’s eyes widened as it backed away. “You’ve got that evil, slightly insane look down pat. Have you been practicing? We’re talking seriously scary, Ash. Hannibal-Lecter-has-nothing-on-you sort of scary.” “Enough banter from you, buster,” I said, trying to pull myself together. “Let’s go over this situation again calmly. One: the dark power has taken over my hands.” I have not! “Not listening! Two: there is a Guardian out there who can banish me at will. Which means that every other Guardian can probably do the same. Lovely. Just what I need—more people trying to do me in.” I slumped down into a chair and thought seriously about crying, but dropped that thought when my hands crept to ward each other.

This last journey itself teaches the disciples that to follow Jesus means to walk the way of the cross. Jesus speaks sharply to halting, halfhearted followers. The way of discipleship is costly: it demands total commitment, complete devotion and allegiance to Jesus and the kingdom of God (Luke 9:57–62). “Whoever wants to be my disciple,” Jesus says, “must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (9:23; cf. 14:27).

Once or twice over the years I'd heard some asshole make the mistake of thinking Noah had flaws, but nope. I mean, yeah, he was adorably awkward sometimes and kinda clumsy even when he wasn't falling over drunk like this... and okay, he could be a bouncy little goofball who had trouble staying focused... and true, it was a stone-cold fact that he got as jittery as an Energizer Bunny on crack under any form of pressure and turned into a total drama queen when he was anxious, but all that shit was just what made him Noah. As far as I was concerned, Noah, by definition, was goddamn perfect just the way he was.

Mark, at dinner, said he’d been re-reading “Anna Karenina”. Found it good, as novels go. But complained of the profound untruthfulness of even the best imaginative literature. And he began to catalogue its omissions. Almost total neglect of those small physiological events that decide whether day-to-day living shall have a pleasant or unpleasant tone. Excretion, for example, with its power to make or mar the day. Digestion. And, for the heroines of novel and drama, menstruation. Then the small illnesses—catarrh, rheumatism, headache, eyestrain. The chronic physical disabilities—ramifying out (as in the case of deformity or impotence) into luxuriant insanities. And conversely the sudden accessions, from unknown visceral and muscular sources, of more than ordinary health. No mention, next, of the part played by mere sensations in producing happiness. Hot bath, for example, taste of bacon, feel of fur, smell of freesias. In life, an empty cigarette-case may cause more distress than the absence of a lover; never in books. Almost equally complete omission of the small distractions that fill the greater part of human lives. Reading the papers; looking into shops; exchanging gossip; with all the varieties of day-dreaming, from lying in bed, imagining what one would do if one had the right lover, income, face, social position, to sitting at the picture palace passively accepting ready-made day-dreams from Hollywood Lying by omission turns inevitably into positive lying. The implications of literature are that human beings are controlled, if not by reason, at least by comprehensible, well-organized, avowable sentiments. Whereas the facts are quite different. Sometimes the sentiments come in, sometimes they don’t. All for love, or the world well lost; but love may be the title of nobility given to an inordinate liking for a particular person’s smell or texture, a lunatic desire for the repetition of a sensation produced by some particular dexterity. Or consider those cases (seldom published, but how numerous, as anyone in a position to know can tell!), those cases of the eminent statesmen, churchmen, lawyers, captains of industry—seemingly so sane, demonstrably so intelligent, publicly so high-principled; but, in private, under irresistible compulsion towards brandy, towards young men, towards little girls in trains, towards exhibitionism, towards gambling or hoarding, towards bullying, towards being whipped, towards all the innumerable, crazy perversions of the lust for money and power and position on the one hand, for sexual pleasure on the other. Mere tics and tropisms, lunatic and unavowable cravings—these play as much part in human life as the organized and recognized sentiments. And imaginative literature suppresses the fact. Propagates an enormous lie about the nature of men and women.

If we don’t allow chaos in our lives, and slowly distance ourselves from drama. Life is a brighter place. There are those who intrude on our personal business, they take away our internal freedoms. Let’s not allow this, and walk with the sun on our faces. Creating a totally clear mind, allowing God, and nature to reset our way of thinking. All in Jesus name. Amen.

If we don’t allow chaos in our lives, and slowly distance ourselves from drama. Life is a brighter place. There those who intrude on our personal business, they take away our internal freedoms. Let’s not allow this, and walk with the sun on our faces. Creating a totally clear mind, allowing God, and nature to reset our way of thinking. All in Jesus name. Amen.

In many ways, Kaua‘i is the ultimate example of what a world would look like if plants were in charge. The whole island is covered in the surreal products of total floral freedom. When plants are allowed to evolve without fear, they get scrupulously and flamboyantly specific. Take the Hibiscadelphus genus, for example. Found only in Hawai‘i, these plants have long tubular flowers, custom-made to fit the hooked beak of the honeycreeper, the precise bird that pollinates them. Then there is the vulcan palm, Brighamia insignis, or ‘Ōlulu in Hawaiian, a short tree best described by its nickname, “cabbage on a stick.” Over tens of thousands of years, it has evolved to be pollinated only by the extremely rare fabulous green sphinx moth (its real name). The vulcan palm, still critically endangered in the wild, was saved from total extinction by Perlman’s work in the early days of the extinction prevention program, when he made his own harness out of knotted ropes and used it to hang over the Nā Pali Coast cliffs. There, four thousand feet in the air, he would use a small cosmetic brush borrowed from his wife to imitate the moth, carefully transferring the pollen from the males to the females. “You’d know if you did it well,” Perlman said. “When you’d go back, there’d be fruits just bursting open with seed.” (The vulcan palm is now cultivated as a houseplant in the Netherlands, where there are greenhouses full of them. I wonder if a person with a potted Vulcan palm on their Amsterdam windowsill knows of the drama it took to get it there.)

I pressed my lips together, fighting the sting in my eyes. I wasn’t a bad person. I didn’t lie; I didn’t cheat—I didn’t hurt people on purpose. But I was…a lot. I was loud, emotional, and undoubtedly a bit of a drama queen when I’d had a glass or three of wine, like now. Mr. Captain over there probably thought I was a total bitch after that little display on the phone with Amanda. I didn’t blame him. I wore my heart on my sleeve, especially when I was pissed off. It was beyond my control. I’d never learned to play it cool or keep my mouth shut.

I know exactly what Clarissa is talking about. We have all been concerned about Brenda for a few weeks now. Most days she’s fine, but on the odd occasion, she’s behaving totally out of character. “I’m going to go now, I will leave you in peace,” she says about to hang up. “Clarissa?” I ask, making sure she’s still on the line. “I’m still here,” she says confirming. “It’s best to be honest with people, right?” I know that if my dear friend, one of my oldest friends is to offer me advice when I need it, then I should listen to what she has to say. I know that by asking her opinion, she will always tell me the truth. She will always steer me in the right direction and she would never lie to me. “Always,” she simply replies. “Goodnight sweetheart, see you in the morning.

This view of Tertullian should not be confused with the tradition of “Christian mortalism” that has survived in some circles up to today. In “Christian mortalism,” the soul of the dead person is believed to be unconscious—as good as dead—until awakened again at the Resurrection and the Last Judgment. For Tertullian, the souls of the departed never lapsed into total unconsciousness. Rather, they lived a suspended, interim existence, waiting for the next great act in the drama of God’s salvation to begin:

SLEEP AND I DO NOT HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP. We have never been friends. I am constantly chasing sleep and then pushing it away. A good night’s sleep is my white whale. Like Ahab, I am also a total drama queen about it. I love to talk about how little sleep I get. I brag about it, as if it is a true indication of how hard I work. But I truly suffer at night. Bedtime is fraught with fear and disappointment. When it is just me alone with my restless body and mind, I feel like the whole world is asleep and gone. It’s very lonely. I am tired of being tired and talking about how tired I am.

Being antimodern doesn’t mean conservative or traditionalist. It has nothing to do with being nostalgic about the past. But it has nothing to do with nihilism, relativism, or knee-jerk contrarianism either. Being antimodern means to be nostalgic about the future. It’s about reinventing tradition, bridging the gap between the sacred and the profane, sympathetically merging timeless truths with modern drama. The goal is to be totally avant-garde yet cemented in tradition.

Okay, come on, drama queen. Lead the way. Surely you’re used to this? Didn’t you live in a frat house?” “I don’t know any grown man capable of replicating this,” he says, totally serious.

Never underestimate the power of your associations. By the phenomenon known as “emotional contagion” as well as through the activation of the mirror neurons in our brains, we model the behavior of the people we spend our days with. Fill your life with exceptionally excellent, enterprising, healthy, positive, ethical and sincerely loving people. And over time, you’ll exemplify these lofty traits. Allow dream stealers, energy thieves and enthusiasm bandits into your Tight Bubble of Total Focus and please know you’re sure to become like them. The real key is to avoid trouble creators. People who have grown up in an environment riddled with drama and non-stop problems will consciously and subconsciously re-create drama and nonstop problems because, as amazing as it seems, such conditions feel familiar, safe and like home to them. Stay away from all drama queens and negativity kings. If you don’t, sooner or later, they’ll dissolve your bigness and destroy your life. It’s just what they do. Relate peacefully, as much as possible, with everyone. Even one enemy is an enemy too many. Pass through life gracefully, taking the high road when conflict shows up. Should someone do you wrong, let karma do the dirty work. And let a world-class life be your revenge.

Estas reflexiones nos llevan a la conclusión de que tanto desde el punto de vista nacional como desde el internacional, el triunfo total de uno de los dos bandos presentes, plasmado en la ulterior política del país, no será jamás una garantía ni de paz interna ni de equilibrio mundial. El drama español necesita otro final, un final que –cualquiera que sea– garantice un apaciguamiento de los ánimos.

In the first, two monkeys sit opposite each other on a branch, both inserting a finger ever deeper into the other’s nostril until the finger vanishes up to the first knuckle. Swaying gently, they sit like this with expressions on their faces described as “trancelike.” The monkeys are normally hyperactive and sociable, but hand-sniffers sit apart from the group, concentrating on each other for up to half an hour. Even more curious is the second game, in which one monkey inserts almost a whole finger between the other’s eyelid and eyeball. Monkey fingers are tiny, but relative to their eyes and noses they aren’t any smaller than ours. Also, their fingers have nails, which obviously aren’t particularly clean, so this behavior potentially scratches the cornea or causes infections. Now, the monkeys really need to sit still; otherwise someone may lose an eye. These games are most painful to watch! The pair keeps its posture for minutes, while the one whose eye is being poked may stick a finger into the other’s nostril. What purpose these weird games serve is unclear, but one idea is that the monkeys are testing their bonds. This explanation has also been offered with respect to human rituals in which we make ourselves vulnerable. Tongue-kissing, for example, carries the risk of disease transmission. Intimate kissing is either pleasurable or totally disgusting depending on the partner: Engaging in it thus says a lot about how we perceive the relationship. In couples, kissing is thought to test the love, enthusiasm, even faithfulness of the partner. Perhaps capuchin monkeys, too, are trying to find out how much they really like each other, which may then help them decide who can be trusted to support them during confrontations within the group. A second explanation is that these games help the monkeys reduce stress, of which they have no shortage. Their group life is full of drama. During eye-poking or hand-sniffing, they seem to enter an unusually calm, dreamy state. Are they exploring the borderline between pain and pleasure, perhaps releasing endorphins in the process?

Given the obvious “will to power” (as Friedrich Nietzsche called it) of the human race, the enormous energy put into its expression, the early emergence of hierarchies among children, and the childlike devastation of grown men who tumble from the top, I’m puzzled by the taboo with which our society surrounds this issue. Most psychology textbooks do not even mention power and dominance, except in relation to abusive relationships. Everyone seems in denial. In one study on the power motive, corporate managers were asked about their relationship with power. They did acknowledge the existence of a lust for power, but never applied it to themselves. They rather enjoyed responsibility, prestige, and authority. The power grabbers were other men. Political candidates are equally reluctant. They sell themselves as public servants, only in it to fix the economy or improve education. Have you ever heard a candidate admit he wants power? Obviously, the word “servant” is doublespeak: does anyone believe that it’s only for our sake that they join the mudslinging of modern democracy? Do the candidates themselves believe this? What an unusual sacrifice that would be. It’s refreshing to work with chimpanzees: they are the honest politicians we all long for. When political philosopher Thomas Hobbes postulated an insuppressible power drive, he was right on target for both humans and apes. Observing how blatantly chimpanzees jockey for position, one will look in vain for ulterior motives and expedient promises. I was not prepared for this when, as a young student, I began to follow the dramas among the Arnhem chimpanzees from an observation window overlooking their island. In those days, students were supposed to be antiestablishment, and my shoulder-long hair proved it. We considered power evil and ambition ridiculous. Yet my observations of the apes forced me to open my mind to seeing power relations not as something bad but as something ingrained. Perhaps inequality was not to be dismissed as simply the product of capitalism. It seemed to go deeper than that. Nowadays, this may seem banal, but in the 1970s human behavior was seen as totally flexible: not natural but cultural. If we really wanted to, people believed, we could rid ourselves of archaic tendencies like sexual jealousy, gender roles, material ownership, and, yes, the desire to dominate. Unaware of this revolutionary call, my chimpanzees demonstrated the same archaic tendencies, but without a trace of cognitive dissonance. They were jealous, sexist, and possessive, plain and simple. I didn’t know then that I’d be working with them for the rest of my life or that I would never again have the luxury of sitting on a wooden stool and watching them for thousands of hours. It was the most revelatory time of my life. I became so engrossed that I began trying to imagine what made my apes decide on this or that action. I started dreaming of them at night and, most significant, I started seeing the people around me in a different light.

Sienna woke up to the sound of panic coming from Paige’s side of the room. “Shit. What the….Why am I? Oh my God.” Paige said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears before running out of the room. Sienna began laughing uncontrollably. It had taken a full week of patiently waiting for this moment and she was glad she was around to witness it. She knew exactly what had just happened and all she needed was a bag of popcorn to make the moment an even more entertaining show. She grabbed her shower caddy and made her way to the showers for a casual stroll. She’d pretend she was in for a shower and catch the show live and in person. Payback really was a bitch. Upon walking into the community showers, the echoing sounds of Paige’s whimpers led Sienna right to her. Sienna walked around with her caddy, with a smile on her face and eventually was within sight of Paige. Her athletically toned body was red from the scorching hot water hitting her body. She scratched like a dog with fleas. “Aw, what’s wrong? Feeling a bit...itchy? Soap and water work miracles. Is it crabs? Maybe you’re allergic to yourself. I mean it wouldn’t surprise me if your own body was trying to get away from you.” Sienna said, holding back the urge to laugh hysterically. “Shut up, Sienna! This isn’t funny.” Paige whimpered, continuing to scratch. “It can’t be that bad.” Sienna smirked. “You know there’s probably a cream for that itch.” “I know you’re totally getting off on watching me naked, Arkansas. You didn’t have to go to these extremes to do it.” Paige said, clearly pretending she was stronger than her itch. “Wow! You’re more delusional than I thought you were. Listen, I'm a nice person and I won't spread any rumors about you and your....Uncontrollable urge to scratch but if you mess with me again, I promise next time I won't be so nice. Oh and by the way I'm not a fan of slumber parties so find somewhere else to hook up with your little girlfriends.” Sienna said, blowing a kiss at Paige while walking away. Sienna walked out of the showers proud of herself and listened one last time as Paige screamed from the combination of anger and itching.

Mark, at dinner, said he’d been re-reading “Anna Karenina”. Found it good, as novels go. But complained of the profound untruthfulness of even the best imaginative literature. And he began to catalogue its omissions. Almost total neglect of those small physiological events that decide whether day-to-day living shall have a pleasant or unpleasant tone. Excretion, for example, with its power to make or mar the day. Digestion. And, for the heroines of novel and drama, menstruation. Then the small illnesses—catarrh, rheumatism, headache, eyestrain. The chronic physical disabilities—ramifying out (as in the case of deformity or impotence) into luxuriant insanities. And conversely the sudden accessions, from unknown visceral and muscular sources, of more than ordinary health. No mention, next, of the part played by mere sensations in producing happiness. Hot bath, for example, taste of bacon, feel of fur, smell of freesias. In life, an empty cigarette-case may cause more distress than the absence of a lover; never in books. Almost equally complete omission of the small distractions that fill the greater part of human lives. Reading the papers; looking into shops; exchanging gossip; with all the varieties of day-dreaming, from lying in bed, imagining what one would do if one had the right lover, income, face, social position, to sitting at the picture palace passively accepting ready-made day-dreams from Hollywood.

It felt like we were on fire. Everything got so hot, it was almost too much to stand. Kissing him, having his body close. I thought of how you feel when you're eating a meal and don't realize how hungry you are till you're three bites in. You start eating faster, savoring every bite. Now I couldn't stop, so I took another kiss, then another. I let his tongue slip into my mouth, and I shivered again. He smiled at my reaction and went in for more. The way his hands started to move over my body gave me the impression he had been there before. I could have stopped, I knew I should have stopped, but all the drama and emotional pain I'd experienced over the last few days made me recklessly ignore that thought. I tore his shirt off. He gasped, which made me giggle. I covered my mouth, and he grabbed my hand and put it around his neck. He scooped me up and I tightened my thighs around his waist. He sat me down on the bar and peeled off my blouse. Any last ounce of Southern lady I had left in me exited the building. I unhooked my bra and threw it across the room. Screw it. If I was going to go ahead and make a mistake, I might as well take the fast lane. We watched it slingshot and land on a booth. "Is the door locked?" he asked, gasping for air. "Think so," I said, taking big gulping breaths. I was drowning and was totally fine with it. "Good," he said. He pulled me to the end of the bar and pulled my shoes off. I hopped off and helped him along by unbuttoning my jeans and wiggling out of them as sexily as I could. He did the same. "Man, you look good enough to eat," he said. "So do you. Take a bite," I said. We were standing about four feet apart and our clothes were all over the floor. I stood there almost naked and drank in the sight of him. He took a few slow steps toward me, like a lion about to jump on his prey, and dug in.

Wagner looked back to what in a primordial past had held people together in communities, a selflessness that had to be left behind so that human beings could become more and more conscious. He had an intuitive presentiment about the future; he felt that once individual freedom and independence had been attained, humans would have to find the way back to fellowship and caring relationships. Selflessness would have to be consciously regained, and loving kindness once more would have to become a prominent factor of life. For Wagner the present linked itself with the future, for he visualized as a distant ideal the existence of selflessness within the arts. Furthermore, he saw art as playing a significant role in evolution. Human development and that of art appeared to him to go hand in hand; both became egoistical when they ceased to function as a totality. As we see them today, drama, architecture and dance have gone their independent ways. As humanity grew more and more selfish, so did art. Wagner visualized a future when the arts would once more function in united partnership. Because he saw a commune of artists as a future ideal, he was referred to as 'the communist.' . . . In older works of art, where dance, rhythm and harmony still collaborated, he recognized something of the musical-dramatic element of the artistic works of antiquity. He acquired a unique sense for harmony, for tonality in music, but insisted that contributions from related arts were essential. Something from them must flow into the music. One such related art was dance, not as it has become, but the dance that once expressed movements in nature and movements of the stars. In ancient times, dance originated from a feeling for laws in nature. Man in his own movements copied those in nature. Rhythm of dance was reflected in the harmony of the music. Other arts, such as poetry, whose vehicle is words, also contributed, and what could not be expressed through words was contributed by related arts. Harmonious collaboration existed among dance, music and poetry. The musical element arose from the cooperation of harmony, rhythm and melody. This was what mystics and also Richard Wagner felt as the spirit of art in ancient times, when the various arts worked together in brotherly fashion, when melody, rhythm and harmony had not yet attained their later perfection. When they separated, dance became an art form in its own right, and poetry likewise. Consequently, rhythm became a separate experience, and poetry no longer added its contribution to the musical element. No longer was there collaboration between the arts. In tracing the arts up to modern times, Wagner noticed that the egoism in art increased as human beings egoism increased.

Dear Miss Know-It-All, I worked really hard to make the eighth-grade cheerleading team this year, but the other cheerleaders treat me like I don’t belong. I never get to do much cheering or dancing like they do. The only time the team captain needs me is when we do the human pyramid, and she always puts me at the bottom! I have to hold the most people on my back, which is totally excruciating, and if I lose my balance, the whole pyramid collapses and everyone bullies me about it! I’m tired of those girls walking all over me. Literally! I don’t know what I did to deserve this kind of treatment, but it’s pretty obvious they all hate my guts. ! I’m majorly frustrated! I don’t know if I should quit the team, confront my teammates, or just keep quiet so I don’t make things worse. I really don’t want to give up my dream of making varsity! What would you do?? —Cheerless Cheerleader * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dear Cheerless Cheerleader, Hon . . . I think you’re kidding yourself if you think you made the cheerleading team based on your awesome moves. My reliable source on the team told me your tryout routine was HOR-REN-DOUS. She said she couldn’t tell if you were trying to dance or going into convulsions! Your backflips were BACKFLOPS, your cartwheels were FLAT TIRES, and your dismount was totally DISGUSTING! Get the picture? You were chosen for one reason, and one reason alone—you look like a sturdy ogre who can carry a lot of weight! It’s been a long tradition for cheerleading captains to hand-pick strong, ugly girls for the bottom of the pyramid. Didn’t you know that?? Quit taking everything so personally! Just accept that the bottom is where you belong, sweetie! You should hold your green, Shrek-looking head high that someone actually wants you for something. Bet that doesn’t happen often! Yay you! Sincerely, Miss Know-It-All P.S. My source wants you to stop dancing. She says you’re giving the squad NIGHT TERRORS!

this way whenever she has one of her “amazingly awesome” ideas. “We’ll stage it in the hallway. We can borrow that cordless microphone from the chorus room. Pierce can rig it up to an amplifier. That’s all you need, right?” “Well, sometimes there’s a spotlight.…” “The drama club adviser is a pal. She’ll let us borrow it. We’re good to go.” “Mrs. Kressin? Seriously?” “Totally. You have your material ready to rock, right?” “Pretty much,” I say. “I was ninety percent locked down the day before Uncle Frankie had his heart attack.” “Well, you have all day to polish your routine. Showtime isn’t until five minutes after the final bell.

Do you have an affinity for any character in particular?” MARTI: “Willow is probably closest to who I really was. I was an egghead, and I didn’t date until college. I was totally antisocial, and I was very, very, very shy. I couldn’t talk to boys. So I was much more Willow, although Willow is way cooler than I was. You know, there’s no one as geeky as me on this show. There’s nobody as awkward and introverted, and creepy as I was. I scared my friends. I was just a big drama nerd—I was too gregarious, too silly, then I would withdraw, and then I was too quiet. A couple of other girls and I were the biggest nerds in the universe. We were pizza-faced and just completely couldn’t talk. There was a hall that wasn’t actually a classroom, like an in-between place, called Room 6—it didn’t lead anywhere, it was just a dead end. We would stay in Room 6 because no one ever walked through there. That’s where we would hide so we wouldn’t have to talk to people. “It wasn’t the hardest time in my life, because I had a support system. I had what Buffy has. I had my Xander and my Willow and we had each other and we got through it. Man, thank God those weren’t my glory days. I hope my glory days are still ahead.” Marti Noxon

The only reason I have alluded to this is that the ascetic ideal has, for the present, even in the most spiritual sphere, only one type of real enemy and injurer: these are the comedians of this ideal – because they arouse mistrust. Everywhere else where spirit is at work in a rigorous, powerful and honest way, it now completely lacks an ideal – the popular expression for this abstinence is ‘atheism’ –: except for its will to truth. But this will, this remnant of an ideal, if you believe me, is that ideal itself in its strictest, most spiritual formulation, completely eso- teric, totally stripped of externals, and thus not so much its remnant as its kernel. Unconditional, honest atheism (– its air alone is what we breathe, we more spiritual men of the age!) is therefore not opposed to the ascetic ideal as it appears to be; instead, it is only one of the ideal’s last phases of development, one of its final forms and inherent logical conclusions, – it is the awe-inspiring catastrophe of a two-thousand-year discipline in truth-telling, which finally forbids itself the lie entailed in the belief in 127 ‘the religion of suffering’. 118 Third essay God. (The same process of development in India, completely independ- ently, which therefore proves something; the same ideal forcing the same conclusion; the decisive point was reached five centuries before the European era began, with Buddha or, more precisely: already with the Sankhya philosophy subsequently popularized by Buddha and made into a religion.) What, strictly speaking, has actually conquered the Christian God? The answer is in my Gay Science (section 357):128 ‘Christian moral- ity itself, the concept of truthfulness which was taken more and more seriously, the confessional punctiliousness of Christian conscience, trans- lated and sublimated into scientific conscience, into intellectual rigour at any price. Regarding nature as though it were a proof of God’s goodness and providence; interpreting history in honour of divine reason, as a con- stant testimonial to an ethical world order and ethical ultimate purpose; explaining all one’s own experiences in the way pious folk have done for long enough, as though everything were providence, a sign, intended, and sent for the salvation of the soul: now all that is over, it has conscience against it, every sensitive conscience sees it as indecent, dishonest, as a pack of lies, feminism, weakness, cowardice, – this severity makes us good Europeans if anything does, and heirs to Europe’s most protracted and bravest self-overcoming!’ . . . All great things bring about their own demise through an act of self-sublimation: that is the law of life, the law of necessary ‘self-overcoming’ in the essence of life, – the lawgiver himself is always ultimately exposed to the cry: ‘patere legem, quam ipse tulisti’.129 In this way, Christianity as a dogma was destroyed by its own morality, in the same way Christianity as a morality must also be destroyed, – we stand on the threshold of this occurrence. After Christian truthfulness has drawn one conclusion after another, it will finally draw the strongest con- clusion, that against itself; this will, however, happen when it asks itself, ‘What does all will to truth mean?’ . . . and here I touch on my problem again, on our problem, my unknown friends (– because I don’t know of any friend as yet): what meaning does our being have, if it were not that that will to truth has become conscious of itself as a problem in us? . . . Without a doubt, from now on, morality will be destroyed by the will to truth’s becoming-conscious-of-itself: that great drama in a hundred acts reserved for Europe in the next two centuries, the most terrible, most questionable drama but perhaps also the one most rich in hope . . .

There are three parts to your Life at any given moment. 1. The part where a complex problem situation is either totally or immediately unsolvable; so, over time, you intuitively learn to isolate this part while still dealing with it. 2. The part where all the existential drama happens – everyday grief, anxieties, stresses, suffering, worries, frustrations…stuff, often linked to the first part, that continuously keeps puncturing your happy state. 3. The center – your center. This is where you are in sync with the Universe’s, divine, energy; this center is your deeply personal oasis of happiness. Just as there’s complete calm at the epicentre of a cyclone, there is absolute stillness within you. You must find that stillness, that silence, you must find your center. Only then will you be unmoved by the other two parts of your Life. It’s from your center that your art flows and that’s where your Happiness lies!

If thought discovered in the shimmering mirrors of phenomena eternal relations capable of summing them up and summing themselves up in a single principle, then would be seen an intellectual joy of which the myth of the blessed would be but a ridiculous imitation. That nostalgia for unity, that appetite for the absolute illustrates the essential impulse for the human drama. But the fact of that nostalgia’s existence does not imply that it is to be immediately satisfied. For if, bridging the gulf that separates desire from conquest, we assert with Parmenides the reality of the One (whatever it may be) we fall into the ridiculous contradiction of a mind that asserts total unity and proves by its very assertion its own difference and the diversity it claimed to resolve. This other vicious circle is enough to stifle our hopes.

The heyday of conspiracy theories had been the reaction to the French Revolution. Like a virus, they would come to life every time that society was led into a state of anxiety and fears. But in the Modern Era they turned into a true secular religion. The surge of these theories in the Modern Era reflected the need to explain the collapse of a seemingly unshakeable ancien régime. This collapse was so unexpected, the break with medieval civilization so inevitable, and the upheaval so profound and so fraught with far-reaching economic, social, and political consequences that it needed an explanation. But the level of a patriarchal society's political culture changed too little, and the earlier one remained the explanatory matrix. Hence Divine Providence did not disappear, but a new fetish came to replace God: humans will and reason. In this respect, conspiracy is a sort of replacement of Revelation for an ill-defined, immature patriarchal consciousness disintegrating under the pressure of the Enlightenment, already having lost the integrity of faith but not yet having gained a basis in reason. Conspiracy gives the masses who have been cast out of the traditional matrices of thought explanations of the world missing outside of religion. Hence it contains elements of both religion (a parallel reality fitted to a ready-made picture of the world, teleologism) and rationalism (total logicalization, the search for cause-and-effect links and the hidden reasons for a phenomena lying within the interests of agents, and fitting the world into a logically interconnected system). This drama that burst onto Europe after the French Revolution finally arrived in Russia, with a century's delay.

(Horses like boys…?) I had to remind myself that I gave up riding before I started eighth grade. I said that because I knew the same tired Jokes were going to roll in soon, about me riding horse-ie’s from the day I was like seven until then.’ ‘I don’t think I could ride now to save my life.’ Jenny said- ‘It’s just like riding a bike you never forget how too.’ ‘How would you know,’ I asked? Jenny said- ‘I still ride from time to time, I just got second place in a jumping competition two weeks ago.’ I whispered- ‘O-oh.’ (On the inside- I was crushed, thinking it okay for you to ride but I can’t. My horse died not long after, I stopped riding her, thinking I didn’t love her anymore. I didn’t want to stop.) I think if she starts making fun of me now, I would bust out crying. And if I cry then I’ll be a BABY! Yet it okay for her to cry to us over stupid boys or her time of the month drama. I could never clear the truth to her: that riding was my favorite thing in this whole wide world. It wasn’t about winning with me, no- it was about having my freedom, my happiness, and my relaxation. The way I could escape from all of them that put me down, back them. I loved it more than boys, more than friends, more than family even. I was the best I could be back then. I was strong then, now I am nothing but a week p*ssy that lets everyone crap on me. I can’t believe that I wanted this life. I loved to be alone in the barn, or out on the fields particularly in the late summer when everything is crunchy and golden, and the plants show off all their wonderful different colors, and it smells of hay, is what made my day complete, racing past all the trees, down the wooded trails, it was more than just jumping her at compassion. We had a bond- I loved brushing my horse down, braiding her main, and being her best friend, feeding her carrots sticks, I loved it all. I gave up my best friends for ones that I can’t always trust. Your horse’s always your trusting best friend. And if I am crying now, it’s not that I am sad, it’s that I am happy. I have to lie…! I am nothing- nothing, but a complete liar, a wide-ranging slut, and a total baby! #- hostage: (Galloping, Groping, Gulping)

I can always find someone to go out with, and then you can take off with Luigi--” “Shh!” Kendra hisses. “Don’t ever say his name!” “Sorry!” Paige is contrite. “He says Catia would go mad if she knew,” Kendra whispers. Squashed beside me, I feel Kelly’s head nodding in vigorous agreement at this. “Oh, she totally would,” Paige agrees. “And we have to be really careful around Evan, too. He’d go crazy.” “It’s so unfair!” Kendra laments. “Just because he’s a bit older! Why can’t people understand? I don’t want to date boys my own age!” “I’ll totally help,” Paige assures her enthusiastically. “Hey!” cuts in a deeper voice, and I can hear the two girls start, their feet shuffling, their dresses rustling, at the interruption. “Ev!” Paige says quickly. “What’s up?” “I’m hiding out,” her brother says. “There’s this, um--lady, who--” “Omigod, I know!” Paige says in a happy rush. She’s having a fantastic evening; so much drama she doesn’t have time to keep up with it all. “She was, like, all over you!” “She said she feels much more at home with all us young people,” Evan recounts, sounding very uncomfortable. “She said her husband was really boring and everyone inside was really old--” “She’s really old!” Paige exclaims. “It was pretty embarrassing,” he says. “I mean, she made me waltz with her and she was kind of rubbing my arm and talking about my muscles.” “Cougar bait!” Paige trills. She giggles. “I bet you’d rather’ve been dancing with Violet, right? Did you head in this direction ’cause Violet came this way?” Evan mumbles something unintelligible.

Molly had heard that some staff nurses treated agency nurses poorly, but she was surprised now that it was happening to her. “If the agency nurses weren’t there, the staff nurses would have a much higher patient ratio,” she explained. “We make their job easier, but they’re rude and unfair.” Another agency nurse had told Molly that one day she had arrived at an ER that had a total of seven patients. The charge nurse assigned her all seven. When the nurse asked why, the charge nurse said, “You’re agency. You’re getting paid more than us. You can handle it.

The chronic irresolution, extreme variety, and reality-saturated contradiction of Benjamin’s writing was, he recognized, the only way to achieve knowledge of the world and therefore of himself. In the convoluted words of the preface to The Origin of German Tragic Drama: Anyone who philosophizes must be concerned with allowing “the configurations of the idea to emerge—the sum total of all juxtapositions of such opposites—from the remotest extremes, the apparent excesses of the process of development.” But for Benjamin the representation of an idea “cannot under any circumstances be considered successful unless the full range of extremes that it contains has been virtually explored.”12

It did not occur to these tourists that Washington felt burdened by uninvited visitors gaping at him, particularly since he wasn’t a backslapping soul who feigned friendship with total strangers. His modesty disappointed those who expected him to narrate the wartime drama especially for them.

And so as climate change expands across the horizon - as it begins to seem inescapable, total - it may cease to be a story and become, instead, and all-encompassing setting. No longer a narrative, it would recede into what literary theorists call metanarrative, succeeding those - like religious truth or faith in progress - that have governed the culture of earlier eras. This would be a world in which there isn't much appetite anymore for epic dramas about oil and greed, but where even romantic comedies would be staged under the sign of warming, as surely as screwball comedies were extruded by the anxieties of the Great Depression.

radually, that which had become the basic thought form of modern people became the almost totally accepted viewpoint, an almost monolithic consensus. And as it came to the majority of people through art, music, drama, theology, and the mass media, values died. As the more Christian-dominated consensus weakened, the majority of people adopted two impoverished values: personal peace and affluence.

you're turning red. It's totally your color." "That's going to cost you a tater tot," he says stealing from my tray. "HEY! Cut it out, tater tot Tuesdays are my favorite!" Suddenly Laurel bursts out laughing from the other side of the table. "You guys are totally adorable. It's like I get to eat at the kindergarten table.

This vicious circle is but the first of a series in which the mind that studies itself gets lost in a giddy whirling. The very simplicity of these paradoxes makes them irreducible. Whatever may be the plays on words and the acrobatics of logic, to understand is, above all, to unify. The mind’s deepest desire, even in its most elaborate operations, parallels man’s unconscious feeling in the face of his universe: it is an insistence upon familiarity, an appetite for clarity. Understanding the world for a man is reducing it to the human, stamping it with his seal. The cat’s universe is not the universe of the anthill. The truism “All thought is anthropomorphic” has no other meaning. Likewise, the mind that aims to understand reality can consider itself satisfied only by reducing it to terms of thought. If man realized that the universe like him can love and suffer, he would be reconciled. If thought discovered in the shimmering mirrors of phenomena eternal relations capable of summing them up and summing themselves up in a single principle, then would be seen an intellectual joy of which the myth of the blessed would be but a ridiculous imitation. That nostalgia for unity, that appetite for the absolute illustrates the essential impulse of the human drama. But the fact of that nostalgia’s existence does not imply that it is to be immediately satisfied. For if, bridging the gulf that separates desire from conquest, we assert with Parmenides the reality of the One (whatever it may be), we fall into the ridiculous contradiction of a mind that asserts total unity and proves by its very assertion its own difference and the diversity it claimed to resolve. This other vicious circle is enough to stifle our hopes