Toys Related Quotes

Mistakes are like the memories you hide in an attic: old love letters from relationships that tanked, photos of dead relatives, toys from a childhood you miss. Out of sight is out of mind, but somewhere deep inside you know they still exist. And you also know that you're avoiding them.

A slinky is a toy made for stairs, but that’s entirely too tiresome. What about a toy for escalators that doesn’t move and does nothing and that’s the whole point? I think Americans would relate to and embrace that mentality.

All his life the example of a syllogism he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic - "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal" - had seemed to him to be true only in relation to Caius the man, man in general, and it was quite justified , but he wasn't Caius and he wasn't man in general, and he had always been something quite, quite special apart from all other beings; he was Vanya, with Mama, with Papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with his toys and the coachman, with Nyanya, then with Katenka, with all the joys, sorrows, passions of childhood, boyhood, youth. Did Caius know the smell of the striped leather ball Vanya loved so much?: Did Caius kiss his mother's hand like that and did the silken folds of Caius's mother's dress rustle like that for him? Was Caius in love like that? Could Caius chair a session like that? And Caius is indeed mortal and it's right that he should die, but for me, Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my feelings and thoughts - for me it's quite different. And it cannot be that I should die. It would be too horrible.

In a study of children's toy and television preferences, researchers Isabelle Cherney and Kamala London found that, when left alone, half of boys ages five through thirteen picked "girl" and "boy" toys equally - until they thought they were being watched. They were especially concerned about what their fathers would think if they saw them. Over time, boys' interests in toys and media become more rigidly masculinized and codified, whereas girls' stay relatively open ended and flexible.

But just exactly what is the “good” to which we aspire through doing and eating things that are supposed to be good for us? This question is strictly taboo, for if it were seriously investigated the whole economy and social order would fall apart and have to be reorganized. It would be like the donkey finding out that the carrot dangled before him, to make him run, is hitched by a stick to his own collar. For the good to which we aspire exists only and always in the future. Because we cannot relate to the sensuous and material present we are most happy when good things are expected to happen, not when they are happening. We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can’t slow down enough to enjoy them when they come. We are therefore a civilization which suffers from chronic disappointment—a formidable swarm of spoiled children smashing their toys.

Mistakes are memories you hide in an attic: old love letters from relationships that tanked, photos of dead relatives, toys from a childhood you miss. Out of sight is out of mind, but somewhere deep inside you know they still exist. And you also know that you're avoiding them.

We lords, at our oars, then? We sweating, pissing, swearing, grunting gentlemen? I think not, Palli. On the galleys we were not lords or men. We were men or animals, and which proved which had no relation I ever saw to birth or blood. The greatest soul I ever met there had been a tanner, and I would kiss his feet right now with joy to learn he yet lived. We slaves, we lords, we fools, we men and women, we mortals, we toys of the gods—all the same thing, Palli. They are all the same to me now.

It seemed to her many years since he had begun to prepare her mind for "the place," as she always called it. Her mother had died when she was born, so she had never known or missed her. Her young, handsome, rich, petting father seemed to be the only relation she had in the world. They had always played together and been fond of each other. She only knew he was rich because she had heard people say so when they thought she was not listening, and she had also heard them say that when she grew up she would be rich, too. She did not know all that being rich meant. She had always lived in a beautiful bungalow, and had been used to seeing many servants who made salaams to her and called her "Missee Sahib," and gave her her own way in everything. She had had toys and pets and an ayah who worshipped her, and she had gradually learned that people who were rich had these things. That, however, was all she knew about it.

Fuchsia took three paces forward in the first of the attics and then paused a moment to retie a string above her knee. Over her head vague rafters loomed and while she straightened herself she noticed them and unconsciously loved them. This was the lumber room. Though very long and lofty it looked relatively smaller than it was, for the fantastic piles of every imaginable kind of thing, from the great organ to the lost and painted head of a broken toy lion that must one day have been the plaything of one of Fuchsia's ancestors, spread from every wall until only an avenue was left to the adjacent room.

Many people with autism find it helpful to bring a toy or other item or an activity related to an enthusiasm to settings that may pose difficulties, such as restaurants, family events, or larger group activities at school.

It's strange, of course, no longer to inhabit the earth, no longer to practice barely learned customs, not to give roses and other auspicious things the meaning of a human future; to be no longer what one was in infinitely anxious hands, and even to put aside one's own name like a broken toy. Strange, to no longer keep wishing our wishes. Strange, to see elements, once related, flutter loosely in space. And being dead is toilsome, and full of the retrieving needed if little by little we're to feel a bit of eternity.

So it is that supernatural horror is the product of a profoundly divided species of being. It is not the pastime of even our closest relations in the wholly natural world: we gained it, as part of our gloomy inheritance, when we became what we are. Once awareness of the human predicament was achieved, we immediately took off in two directions, splitting ourselves down the middle. One half became dedicated to apologetics, even celebration, of our new toy of consciousness. The other half condemned and occasionally launched direct assaults on this "gift.

Mistakes are like the memories you hide in an attic: old love letters from relationships that tanked, photos of dead relatives, toys from a childhood you miss. Out of sight is out of mind, but somewhere deep inside you know they still exist. And you also know that you’re avoiding them.

Through The Mecca I saw that we were, in our own segregated body politic, cosmopolitans. The black diaspora was not just our own world but, in so many ways, the Western world itself. Now, the heirs of those Virginia planters could never directly acknowledge this legacy or reckon with its power. And so that beauty that Malcolm pledged us to protect, black beauty, was never celebrated in movies, in television, or in the textbooks I’d seen as a child. Everyone of any import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white. This was why your grandparents banned Tarzan and the Lone Ranger and toys with white faces from the house. They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental “firsts”—first black five-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor—always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit. Serious history was the West, and the West was white. This was all distilled for me in a quote I once read from the novelist Saul Bellow. I can’t remember where I read it, or when—only that I was already at Howard. “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?” Bellow quipped. Tolstoy was “white,” and so Tolstoy “mattered,” like everything else that was white “mattered.” And this view of things was connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense of dispossession. We were black, beyond the visible spectrum, beyond civilization. Our history was inferior because we were inferior, which is to say our bodies were inferior. And our inferior bodies could not possibly be accorded the same respect as those that built the West. Would it not be better, then, if our bodies were civilized, improved, and put to some legitimate Christian use?

What about this, then?” The metal surface rippled at his touch, stretching and splitting into a million thin wires that made it look like a giant version of one of those pin art toys Sophie used to play with as a kid. He tapped his fingers in a quick rhythm, and the pins shifted and sank, forming highs and lows and smooth, flat stretches. Sophie couldn’t figure out what she was seeing until he tapped a few additional beats and tiny pricks of light flared at the ends of each wire, bathing the scene in vibrant colors and marking everything with glowing labels. “It’s a map,” she murmured, making a slow circle around the table. And not just any map. A 3-D map of the Lost Cities. She’d never seen her world like that before, with everything spread out across the planet in relation to everything else. Eternalia, the elvin capital that had likely inspired the human myths of Shangri-la, was much closer to the Sanctuary than she’d realized, nestled into one of the valleys of the Himalayas—while the special animal preserve was hidden inside the hollowed-out mountains. Atlantis was deep under the Mediterranean Sea, just like the human legends described, and it looked like Mysterium was somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. The Gateway to Exile was in the middle of the Sahara desert—though the prison itself was buried in the center of the earth. And Lumenaria… “Wait. Is Lumenaria one of the Channel Islands?” she asked, trying to compare what she was seeing against the maps she’d memorized in her human geography classes. “Yes and no. It’s technically part of the same archipelago. But we’ve kept that particular island hidden, so humans have no idea it exists—well, beyond the convoluted stories we’ve occasionally leaked to cause confusion.

All thinking is sorting, classifying. All perceiving relates to expectations and therefore to comparisons. When we say that from the air houses appear like toys to us, or human beings like ants, we mean, I suggest, that we are startled by the unfamiliar sight of a house that compares to the familiar sight of a toy on the nursery floor. We feel that but for our knowledge we might have been deceived and have almost mistaken the one for the other. Our guesses and methods of testing them have become somewhat unsettled, and we try to describe the experience by indicating possibilities which flitted through our minds. But, to repeat, there is no "objective" sense in which a human being can look "the size of an ant" simply because an ant crawling on our pillow will look gigantic in comparison with a man in the distance. In professor E.G. Boring's words, "Phenomenal size, like physical size is relative and has no meaning except as a relation between objects.

So often fictions that experiment formally do so at the expense of feeling. They toy on surfaces or are purely cerebral affairs, don’t explore human complexities. But the mostly unconventional narratives I’ve been discussing have dealt powerfully with core human matters. … And they have found patterns other than the wave to do this, or worked in a doubled, moiré relation with the wave, one pattern upon another. I believe they’ve done this organically: a meander or net or explosion was simply the pattern the material needed.

Fuchsia took three paces forward in the first of the attics and then paused a moment to re-tie a string above her knee. Over her head vague rafters loomed and while she straightened her-self she noticed them and unconsciously loved them. This was the lumber room. Though very long and lofty it looked relatively smaller than it was, for the fantastic piles of every imaginable kind of thing, from the great organ to the lost and painted head of a broken toy lion that must one day have been the plaything of one of Fuchsia's ancestors, spread from every wall until only an avenue was left to the adjacent room. This high, narrow avenue wound down the centre of the first attic before suddenly turning at a sharp angle to the right. The fact that this room was filled with lumber did not mean that she ignored it and used it only as a place of transit. Oh no, for it was here that many long afternoons had been spent as she crawled deep into the recesses and found for herself many a strange cavern among the incongruous relics of the past. She knew of ways through the centre of what appeared to be hills of furniture, boxes, musical instruments and toys, kites, pictures, bamboo armour and helmets, flags and relics of every kind, as an Indian knows his green and secret trail. Within reach of her hand the hide and head of a skinned baboon hung dustily over a broken drum that rose above the dim ranges of this attic medley. Huge and impregnable they looked in the warm still half-light, but Fuchsia, had she wished to, could have disappeared awkwardly but very suddenly into these fantastic mountains, reached their centre and lain down upon an ancient couch with a picture book at her elbow and been entirely lost to view within a few moments.

And I will read part, as much as time allows in the second half, of the new issue of Computer and Automation, the November 1971 issue. And the statement above the article is on the assassination of President Kennedy. It’s the pattern of coup d’état and public deception. And it begins with this quotation of author Edmund Berkeley.            We must begin to recognize history as it is happening to us. We can no longer toy with illusion. Our war adventures in Asia are not related to national security in any rational sense. A coup d’état took place in the United States on November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. That came eight years after I began my research. People talk about never having fascism in this country or never being overthrown – they have already been overthrown, and they’re not aware of it.

We shrink therefore from God, knowing that He wants to enrich our being, rather than our having—that He wishes to elevate our nature, not to submerge and lose it in trifles. He has called us to the superior vocation of being His children, of partaking of His nature, and of being related to Him as branches to a vine. Few of us completely want that elevation; it is our petty desire to have more,not to share the glory of being more.We want the poor shadows, not the light—the sparks, and not the sun—the arc, and not the circle. As the desire for the world and things increases in us, God makes less and less appeal. We hold back, our fists closed about our few pennies, and thus lose the fortune He holds out to us. That is why the initial step of coming to God is so hard. We cling to our nursery toys and lose the pearl of great price.

You can tell me all about the new job and lecture me about my lack of focus once I’m done with this mission and giving you this sweater in person. But you’d better meet me somewhere civilized and comfortable, because I’m done with impossible environments.” The comm goes still, and she feels a small ping of guilt for ignoring him. Most ships can’t even handle communications at this range, but the Resistance does have some wonderful toys. Vi puts her boots up and leans back in her seat, focusing on the unwieldy wooden knitting needles that look more like primitive weapons than elegant tools. “It’s all about forward momentum, Gigi,” she says to her astromech, U5-GG. “Better a hideous sweater infused with love than…I don’t know. What other gifts do people give their only living relative? A nice chrono? I shall continue to the end, if imperfectly.” She spins in her chair and holds up what she’s accomplished so far. “What do you think?” Gigi beeps and boops in what sounds

Take the oft-repeated injunction to get “its” and “it’s” straight. Everyone claims it’s remarkably easy to remember that “its” is possessive and “it’s” is a contraction. But logic tells us that in English, ’s attached to a noun signals possession: the dog’s dish, the cat’s toy, the lexicographer’s cry. So if English is logical, and there are simple rules to follow, why doesn’t “it’s” signal possession? We know that ’s also signals a contraction, but we don’t have any problems with differentiating between “the dog’s dish” and “the dog’s sleeping”—why should we suddenly have problems with “it’s dish” and “it’s sleeping”? This type of grammar often completely ignores hundreds (and, in some cases, well over a thousand) years of established use in English. For “it’s,” the rule is certainly easy to memorize, but it also ignores the history of “its” and “it’s.” At one point in time, “it” was its own possessive pronoun: the 1611 King James Bible reads, “That which groweth of it owne accord…thou shalt not reape”; Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, “It had it head bit off by it young.” They weren’t the first: the possessive “it” goes back to the fifteenth century. But around the time that Shakespeare was shuffling off this mortal coil, the possessive “it” began appearing as “it’s.” We’re not sure why the change happened, but some commentators guess that it was because “it” didn’t appear to be its own possessive pronoun, like “his” and “her,” but rather a bare pronoun in need of that possessive marker given to nouns: ’s. Sometimes this possessive appeared without punctuation as “its.” But the possessive “it’s” grew in popularity through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until it was the dominant form of the word. It even survived into the nineteenth century: you’ll find it in the letters of Thomas Jefferson and Jane Austen and the speechwriting notes of Abraham Lincoln. This would be relatively simple were it not for the fact that “it’s” was also occasionally used as a contraction for “it is” or “it has” (“and it’s come to pass,” Shakespeare wrote in Henry VIII, 1.2.63). Some grammarians noticed and complained—not that the possessive “it’s” and the contractive “it’s” were confusing, but that the contractive “it’s” was a misuse and mistake for the contraction “ ’tis,” which was the more standard contraction of “it is.” This was a war that the pedants lost: “ ’tis” waned while “it’s” waxed.

...How do little children show their love? Through little things. A little child, just because it is little, is utterly unable to show its love in any other way. At some time or other we have all had evidence of that, if only we have had eyes to see it. The most superficial observation of human life shows us how very little children will continually offer little things to their mother- a toy, a picture, a flower - as evidence of their love. To show their love they relate everything to their mother, and the means they make use of are the insignificant details of their little world, the things that lie immediately to hand. We notice too that the mother, although she has no need of the toy, the picture, or the flower, loves the child to make these offerings, because she wants the love that lies behind them. In themselves they are nothing, but insofar as they express the love of her little child, those nothings become most precious. The lesson is obvious. We who desire in the spirit of little children to offer our lives to God as one continual act of humble and confident love can do so only through the little ordinary details which lie around us in our daily life....for this reason the little things we do for him, in themselves apparently so insignificant, are to him infinitely previous.

Discipline As your baby becomes more mobile and inquisitive, she’ll naturally become more assertive, as well. This is wonderful for her self-esteem and should be encouraged as much as possible. When she wants to do something that’s dangerous or disrupts the rest of the family, however, you’ll need to take charge. For the first six months or so, the best way to deal with such conflicts is to distract her with an alternative toy or activity Standard discipline won’t work until her memory span increases around the end of her seventh month. Only then can you use a variety of techniques to discourage undesired behavior. When you finally begin to discipline your child, it should never be harsh. Remember that discipline means to teach or instruct, not necessarily to punish. Often the most successful approach is simply to reward desired behavior and withhold rewards when she does not behave as desired. For example, if she cries for no apparent reason, make sure there’s nothing wrong physically; then when she stops, reward her with extra attention, kind words, and hugs. If she starts up again, wait a little longer before turning your attention to her, and use a firm tone of voice as you talk to her. This time, don’t reward her with extra attention or hugs. The main goal of discipline is to teach limits to the child, so try to help her understand exactly what she’s doing wrong when she breaks a rule. If you notice her doing something that’s not allowed, such as pulling your hair, let her know that it’s wrong by calmly saying “no,” stopping her, and redirecting her attention to an acceptable activity. If your child is touching or trying to put something in her mouth that she shouldn’t, gently pull her hand away as you tell her this particular object is off-limits. But since you do want to encourage her to touch other things, avoid saying “Don’t touch.” More pointed phrases, such as “Don’t eat the flowers” or “No eating leaves” will convey the message without confusing her. Because it’s still relatively easy to modify her behavior at this age, this is a good time to establish your authority and a sense of consistency Be careful not to overreact, however. She’s still not old enough to misbehave intentionally and won’t understand if you punish her or raise your voice. She may be confused and even become startled when told that she shouldn’t be doing or touching something. Instead, remain calm, firm, consistent, and loving in your approach. If she learns now that you have the final word, it may make life much more comfortable for both of you later on, when she naturally becomes more headstrong.

Tell me, Princess Olivia... why do you have to stay in your tower?" The soft entreaty made Livia feel as if she were melting inside. She laughed unsteadily, wishing for a moment that she dared to trust him. But the habit of independence was too strong. Shaking her head, Livia approached him, expecting him to back away from the doorway. He retreated half a step, his hands still grasping the edges of the doorway, so that she couldn't help but walk into an open-armed embrace. The bonnet ribbons slipped from her fingers. "Mr. Shaw-" she began, making the mistake of looking up at him. "Gideon," he whispered. "I want to know your secrets, Olivia." A bitter half smile touched her lips. "You'll hear them sooner or later from other people." "I want to hear them from you." As Livia began to retreat into the glasshouse, Shaw deftly caught the little cloth belt of her walking dress. His long fingers hooked beneath the reinforced fabric. Unable to back away from him, Livia clamped her hand over his, while a hectic blush flooded her face. She knew that he was toying with her, and that she once might have been able to manage this situation with relative ease. But not now. When she spoke, her voice was husky. "I can't do this, Mr. Shaw." To her amazement, he seemed to understand exactly what she meant. "You don't have to do anything," he said softly. "Just let me come closer... and stay right there..." His head bent, and he found her mouth easily. The coaxing pressure of his lips made Livia sway dizzily, and he caught her firmly against him. She was being kissed by Gideon Shaw, the self-indulgent, debauched scoundrel her brother had warned her about. And oh, he was good at it. She had thought nothing would ever be as pleasurable as Amberley's kisses... but this man's mouth was warm and patient, and there was something wickedly erotic about his complete lack of urgency. He teased her gently, nudging her lips apart, the tip of his tongue barely brushing hers before it withdrew. Wanting more of those silken strokes, Livia began to strain against him, her breath quickening. He nurtured her excitement with such subtle skill that she was utterly helpless to defend against it. To her astonishment, she found herself winding her arms around his neck and pressing her breasts against the hard plane of his chest. His hand slid behind her neck, tilting her head back to expose her throat more fully. Still gentle and controlled, he kissed the fragile skin, working his way down to the hollow at the base of her throat. She felt his tongue swirl in the warm depression, and a moan of pleasure escaped her. Shaw lifted his head to nuzzle the side of her cheek, while his hand smoothed over her back. Their breaths mingled in swift puffs of heat, his hard chest moving against hers in an erratic rhythm.

No, she couldn’t blame this one on him. This one was entirely hers. She’d sent him running away. Everyone knew it, too, which was nowhere more apparent than in the carriage once they were all settled in and headed off. Lisette was unusually silent. The duke’s wooden expression said that he wished he could be anywhere else but here. And Tristan was studying her with a cold gaze. He did that for a mile or so before he spoke. “You’re a cruel woman, Jane Vernon.” “Tristan!” Lisette chided. “Don’t be rude.” “I’ll be as rude as I please to her,” he told his sister, with a jerk of his head toward Jane. “That man is mad for her, and she just keeps toying with him.” Guilt swamped Jane. And she’d thought that spending half a day trapped with Dom would be bad? She must have been dreaming. “It’s none of our concern,” Lisette murmured. “The hell it isn’t.” Tristan stared hard at Jane. “Is this about Nancy? About the fact that if she has a child, Dom will lose the title and the estate?” “No, of course not!” How dared he! “Tristan, please--” Lisette began. “That’s why you jilted him years ago, isn’t it?” Tristan persisted. “Because he no longer had any money, and you’d lose your fortune if you married him?” “I did not jilt him!” Jane shouted. An unnatural silence fell in the carriage, and she cursed her quick tongue. But really, this was all Dom’s fault for never telling his family the truth. She was tired of being made to look the villainess when she’d done nothing wrong. “What do you mean?” Lisette asked. Jane released an exasperated breath. “I mean, I did jilt him. But only because he tricked me into it.” When that brought a smug smile to Tristan’s face, she narrowed her eyes on him. “You knew.” “Not the details. I just knew something wasn’t right. But since it was clear that neither you nor my idiot brother were going to say anything without being prodded into it, I…er…did a bit of prodding.” He smirked at her. “You do tend to speak your mind when you get angry.” Jane scowled at him. “You’re just like him, manipulative and arrogant and--” “I beg to differ,” Tristan said jovially. “He’s just like me. I taught him everything he knows.” “Yes, indeed,” Lisette said with a snort. “You taught him to be as much an idiot as you.” She glanced from Tristan to Jane. “So, is one of you going to tell me what is going on? About the jilting, I mean?” Tristan cocked an eyebrow at Jane. “Well?” She sighed. The cat was out of the bag now. Might as well reveal the rest. So she related the whole tale, from Dom’s plotting with Nancy at the ball to George’s involvement to how she’d finally discovered the truth. When she finished, Tristan let out a low whistle. “Hell and thunder. My big brother has a better talent for deception than I realized.” “Not as good as you’d think,” Jane muttered. “If I hadn’t been so wounded and angry at the time, I would have noticed how…manufactured the whole thing felt.” Lisette patted her hand. “You were young. We were all more volatile then.” Her voice hardened. “And he hit you just where it hurt, the curst devil. No wonder you want to strangle him half the time. I would have strung him up by his toes if he’d done such a thing to me!

Therefore, with these celebrity wannabees, 1) popularity—or the appearance of it—can be measured by how many Facebook friends or Twitter followers one has managed to acquire; 2) fame—however fleeting—can be attained by many through appearing on reality television shows or in videos gone viral on YouTube; even 3) wealth—or the appearance of it—can be attained through the buying of expensive homes, cars, and various adult toys on relatively cheap credit; and, finally, 4) real power is admittedly harder to achieve but not beyond the grasp of those willing to sacrifice ethics and do whatever it takes to attain it. This fourth quality or possession is probably as it has always been, but having easier access to the other three may just put this one within the grasp of more, especially those undeserving of it or who would possibly misuse it. Thankfully, not everyone in this category craves or seeks power. But beware those who do.

Human labour power is a unique commodity in that it produces surplus value – the amount of value that goes to the capitalist after the worker has been ‘paid’ for the part of the day that equates to the amount they and their family need to live on. The working day is split into two parts: necessary labour time and surplus labour time. Necessary labour time is the time it takes the worker (on average) to produce enough value to buy the commodities they need to reproduce themselves, ie to stay what is socially considered healthy enough to continue working. Surplus labour time is the time the worker works beyond necessary labour time. Since the going rate for labour power is necessary labour time, surplus labour time is surplus value that goes to the capitalist, realised through the sale of the commodities workers produce. For example: a worker in a toy factory is paid £10 a day to work 10 hours; she produces 10 toys a day, and a toy is worth £10 each. The capitalist is only paying the worker for her ability to work one hour each day to produce enough value to reproduce herself (one toy = one hour’s labour = £10). Her necessary labour time is one hour, and her surplus labour time that goes to the capitalist is nine hours. If the worker needs £10 a day to reproduce herself, then that £10 is the value of her labour power. If the capitalist cuts the daily wage below £10, he has pushed the wage below the value of labour power. (Indeed, struggles for better wages are usually struggles to push them back up to the proper value of labour power.) The price of labour power is determined like the price of any other commodity – on average, the cost of its production, ie necessary labour time. But if commodities are sold for the cost of their production then how does the capitalist make any profit? The capitalist purchases the worker’s human labour power  – the ability to work –  but, uniquely, always ends up with more than the amount it cost to purchase the commodity. The wage obscures the fact that the capitalist has only paid for necessary labour time. (Marx calls the social relations that are concealed by economic relations commodity fetishism.) Profit then is essentially unpaid labour. Wage labour is – especially for the poorest workers whose daily subsistence depends exclusively on the sale of their labour-power – wage-slavery. Marx’s investigations led him to realise that his analysis of capitalism must start with the commodity, since capitalism “presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities”.[66] What all commodities have in common is that they are all exchangeable  –  they all possess exchange-value. And as they are all products of labour, what they all have in common which gives them this exchange-value is general human labour in the abstract. Therefore, the total value of all commodities is determined by total socially necessary labour time – how long they took to produce. (The socially necessary labour time of each finished product includes that of each component that goes into it.)

On the other hand, existentialist ideas and attitudes have embedded themselves so deeply into modern culture that we hardly think of them as existentialist at all. People (at least in relatively prosperous countries where more urgent needs don’t intervene) talk about anxiety, dishonesty and the fear of commitment. They worry about being in bad faith, even if they don’t use that term. They feel overwhelmed by the excess of consumer choice while also feeling less in control than ever. A vague longing for a more ‘real’ way of living leads some people to — for example — sign up for weekend retreats in which their smartphones are taken away like toys from children, so that they can spend two days walking in the country landscape and reconnecting with each other and with their forgotten selves.

I thought I was going to bring Peace. I thought that I could bring it about Myself, but really I was just acting like a spoiled child with a New toy.

Lot of kids would give up any material thing in exchange for real time to spend with their family and too many relatives think a “gift” is a substitute for that time. Too many toys prevent kids from fully developing their gift of imagination and sharing a moment together with a family member or a friend is often the best we can give our children.

I hated the car, the rubber toys, disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives. The jingling of my tags drove me mad. You always scratched me in the wrong place. All I ever wanted from you was food and fresh water in my metal bowls. While you slept, I watched you breathe as the moon rose in the sky. It took all of my strength not to raise my head and howl. Now I am free of the collar, the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater; the absurdity of your lawn, and that is all you need to know about this place except what you already supposed and are glad it did not happen sooner- that everyone here can read and write, the dogs in poetry, the cats and all the others in prose.

The Revenant I am the dog you put to sleep, as you like to call the needle of oblivion, come back to tell you this simple thing; I never liked you-not one bit. When I licked your face, I thought of biting off your nose. When I watched you toweling yourself dry, I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap. I resented the way you moved, your lack of animal grace, the way you would sit in a chair to eat, a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand. I would have run away, but I was too weak, a trick you taught me while I was learning to sit and heel, and-greatest of insults-shake hands without a hand. I admit the sight of the leash would excite me but only because it meant I was about to smell things you had never touched. You do no want to believe this, but I have no reason to lie. I hated the car, the rubber toys, disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives. The jingling of my tags drove me mad. You always scratched me in the wrong place. All I ever wanted from you was food and fresh water in my metal bowls. While you slept, I watched you breathe as the moon rose in the sky. It took all of my strength not to raise my head and howl. Now I am free of the collar, the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater; the absurdity of your lawn, and that is all you need to know about this place except what you already supposed and are glad it did not happen sooner- that everyone here can read and write, the dogs in poetry, the cats and all the others in prose.

First of all, we can use imagination to see ourselves and our work in some perspective. Everyone knows how a child identifies himself utterly with all he owns and does, with all those who care for him. He is outraged if asked to share his possessions, the breaking of a beloved toy is a tragedy, if it rains on the day when a picnic was planned one would think the sun could never shine for him again. If a mother or nurse leaves him while he is awake, he has been most treacherously betrayed. In fact, much early education has as its one goal the teaching of the little egotist to see himself in somewhat truer relation to his world. More or less successfully, each of us has had to learn this lesson; but it is almost never fully understood. To our last days there is still a trace of that childish egotism in us—sometimes so very much more than a trace that an adult suffers, resents, sulks, and complains in a way only too reminiscent of the nursery.

These differences between the sexes emerge early on. A Canadian study invited boys and girls aged nine and ten to play games that measured competitiveness. Girls were reluctant to take toys away from each other unless it was the only way to win, but boys claimed toys regardless of how this affected the game’s outcome. Girls competed only if necessary, but boys seemed to do so just for the sake of it. Similarly, upon meeting for the first time, men check each other out by picking something “anything” to fight over, often getting worked up about a topic they normally don’t care about. They adopt threatening body postures’ legs apart and chests pushed out, make expansive gestures, speak with booming voices, utter veiled insults, make risque jokes, and so on. They desperately want to find out where they stand relative to one another. They hope to impress the others sufficiently that the outcome will be in their favor. This is a predictable event on the first day of an academic gathering when egos from the far corners of the globe face each other in a seminar room or, for that matter, at a bar. Unlike the women, who tend to stay on the sidelines, the men get so involved in the ensuing intellectual jostle that they sometimes turn red or white. What chimpanzees do with charging displays’ with their hair on end, drumming on anything that amplifies sound, uprooting little trees as they go, the human male does in the more civilized manner of making mincemeat of someone else’s arguments or, more primitively, giving others no time to open their mouths. Clarification of the hierarchy is a top priority. Invariably, the next encounter among the same men will be calmer, meaning that something has been settled, though it’s hard to know what exactly that is.

Their height exaggerated movement; even in relatively calm water, they tossed the men about like toy figures.

Why do siblings argue so much? Well, let’s start with a brilliant analogy from Elaine Mazlish and Adele Faber, authors of one of my favorite parenting books, Siblings Without Rivalry. They remind us that when a child gets a sibling, it feels to them similar to how it would feel for you if your partner got a second spouse. Imagine your partner comes home and says, “Amazing news! We’re getting a second wife! You’re going to be a big wife and now we’ll have a little wife and we’re going to be one big happy family!” If you’re like me, you’d look around the room thinking, “WHAT? Am I in an alternative universe? Why is this good for me?” All of your relatives and neighbors ask you if you’re so excited about this new wife, then nine months later everyone showers her with gifts and hugs, and forever after, you’re expected to love this woman and get along swimmingly. Imagine one day you take one of her items—something that used to be yours—out of her hand and everyone yells at YOU about it, saying, “You can’t do things like this! You can’t take a toy from a little wife! Look how small and helpless and innocent she is!” By this point, I think we’d be beyond confused . . . we’d be filled with the rage that comes from feeling unseen. This. Is. Siblinghood.

Both areas are relatively closed populations with low standards of living and both contain Native American reservations. In this context, if one were going to conduct a program of testing new technological toys on an unwitting population

The same pattern of movements may be performed by a swarm of fireflies, a flock of birds, a number of toy balloons or perhaps a flight of aeroplanes; the same machine, a bicycle or a cotton gin, a lathe, a telephone exchange or an adding machine, can be constructed from a large variety of materials and yet remains the same kind of machine within which elements of different individual properties will perform the same functionsyIn the same sense the peculiar properties of the elementary neural events which are the terms of the mental order have nothing to do with that order itself. What we have called physical properties of those events are those properties which will appear if they are placed in a variety of experimental relations to different other kinds of events. The mental properties are those which they possess only as a part of the particular structure and which may be largely independent of the former. It is at least conceivable that the particular kind of order which we call mind might be built up from anyone of several kinds of different elements — electrical, chemical, or what not; all that is required is that by the simple relationship of being able to evoke each other in a certain order they correspond to the structure which we call mind.

They Promote Role Reversal Role reversal is a hallmark of emotionally immature parenting. In this case, the parent relates to the child as if the child were the parent, expecting attentiveness and comfort from the child. These parents may reverse roles and expect their child to be their confidant, even for adult matters. Parents who discuss their marriage problems with their children are an example of this kind of reversal. Other times parents might expect their children to praise them and be happy for them, just as a child might expect from a parent. One woman I worked with, Laura, remembered her father running off with another woman, leaving Laura, then just eight years old, to cope with her severely depressed mother on her own. One day Laura’s father picked her up in a new convertible, giddy with excitement over his new toy. He expected her to be as thrilled as he was, never considering the contrast between his joyful new life and the gloom Laura lived in with her abandoned mother. Here’s another example of a father who expected his daughter to function in an approving, almost parental role, in spite of his past abuse of her.

With the abundance of toys available, a child's room (or the whole house) can be overtaken by Kid Stuff with just one Christmas or birthday and a small group of well-meaning relatives.  

I remember being amazed that death could so easily rise up from the nothing of a boyish afternoon, billow up like fog. I knew that West Baltimore, where I lived; that the north side of Philadelphia, where my cousins lived; that the South Side of Chicago, where friends of my father lived, comprised a world apart. Somewhere out there beyond the firmament, past the asteroid belt, there were other worlds where children did not regularly fear for their bodies. I knew this because there was a large television resting in my living room. In the evenings I would sit before this television bearing witness to the dispatches from this other world. There were little white boys with complete collections of football cards, and their only want was a popular girlfriend and their only worry was poison oak. That other world was suburban and endless, organized around pot roasts, blueberry pies, fireworks, ice cream sundaes, immaculate bathrooms, and small toy trucks that were loosed in wooded backyards with streams and glens. Comparing these dispatches with the facts of my native world, I came to understand that my country was a galaxy, and this galaxy stretched from the pandemonium of West Baltimore to the happy hunting grounds of 'Mr. Belvedere.' I obsessed over the distance between that other sector of space and my own. I knew that my portion of the American galaxy, where bodies were enslaved by a tenacious gravity, was black and that the other, liberated portion was not. I knew that some inscrutable energy preserved the breach. I felt, but did not yet understand, the relation between that other world and me. And I felt in this a cosmic injustice, a profound cruelty, which infused an abiding, irrepressible desire to unshackle my body and achieve the velocity of escape.

When he had ate his fill, and proceeded from the urgent first cup and necessary second to the voluntary third which might be toyed with at leisure, without any particular outcry seeming to suggest he should be on his guard, he leant back, spread the city’s news before him, and, by glances between the items, took a longer survey of the room. Session of the Common Council. Vinegars, Malts, and Spirituous Liquors, Available on Best Terms. Had he been on familiar ground, he would have been able to tell at a glance what particular group of citizens in the great empire of coffee this house aspired to serve: whether it was the place for poetry or gluttony, philosophy or marine insurance, the Indies trade or the meat-porters’ burial club. Ships Landing. Ships Departed. Long Island Estate of Mr De Kyper, with Standing Timber, to be Sold at Auction. But the prints on the yellowed walls were a mixture. Some maps, some satires, some ballads, some bawdy, alongside the inevitable picture of the King: pop-eyed George reigning over a lukewarm graphical gruel, neither one thing nor t’other. Albany Letter, Relating to the Behaviour of the Mohawks. Sermon, Upon the Dedication of the Monument to the Late Revd. Vesey. Leases to be Let: Bouwerij, Out Ward, Environs of Rutgers’ Farm. And the company? River Cargos Landed. Escaped Negro Wench: Reward Offered. – All he could glean was an impression generally businesslike, perhaps intersown with law. Dramatic Rendition of the Classics, to be Performed by the Celebrated Mrs Tomlinson. Poem, ‘Hail Liberty, Sweet Succor of a Briton’s Breast’, Offered by ‘Urbanus’ on the Occasion of His Majesty’s Birthday. Over there there were maps on the table, and a contract a-signing; and a ring of men in merchants’ buff-and-grey quizzing one in advocate’s black-and-bands. But some of the clients had the wind-scoured countenance of mariners, and some were boys joshing one another. Proceedings of the Court of Judicature of the Province of New-York. Poor Law Assessment. Carriage Rates. Principal Goods at Mart, Prices Current. Here he pulled out a printed paper of his own from an inner pocket, and made comparison of certain figures, running his left and right forefingers down the columns together. Telescopes and Spy-Glasses Ground. Regimental Orders. Dinner of the Hungarian Club. Perhaps there were simply too few temples here to coffee, for them to specialise as he was used.

Why can’t we make her a visiting member, just for tonight?” “Technically speaking, the club’s charter dictates that no females are allowed in the club, visiting or otherwise,” Q told him. “Okay, okay. But it’s like Katie said, she’s not just a girl. She’s a relative. That should count for something,” Hooter pointed out. “None of you guys have a little sister, and believe me you don’t know what pains they can be,” Matt tried to explain. “I sort of know how she feels,” Tony said. “It’s not much fun always being the littlest and the one that always gets left out.” “Come on, Matt, just for tonight. She can’t be that bad.” Hooter laughed, opening the tent. “Okay.” Matt sighed. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” As Hooter held open the tent flap, the newest temporary member of the Adventure Club stumbled out. In the light of the campfire her head was a blaze of red curls. Over her shoulder was a toy bow, with the arrows in a pouch on her back. She held a water gun in one hand and a plastic Heroic Hero sword in the other. She took a step toward the group and shot Hooter in the nose with her squirt gun. “I’m ready for the adventure, Chief,” she said with a dimpled grin.

We are fighting that force in the universe that nudges everything toward chaos. I mean that we are at war with time; we are enemies of entropy; we seek to snatch back those things that have been taken from us by the years—the childhood toys, the friends and relatives who are gone, the events of the past—everything, we struggle to recapture everything, back to the beginning of creation, out of this need not to let anything slip away.

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL FUNCTIONING Another coexisting regulatory problem may be how the child feels about himself and relates to other people. • Poor adaptability: The child may resist meeting new people, trying new games or toys or tasting different foods. He may have difficulty making transitions from one situation to another. The child may seem stubborn and uncooperative when it is time to leave the house, come for dinner, get into or out of the bathtub, or change from a reading to a math activity. Minor changes in routine will readily upset this child who does not “go with the flow.” • Attachment problem: The child may have separation anxiety and be clingy and fearful when apart from one or two “significant olders.” Or, she may physically avoid her parents, teachers, and others in her circle. • Frustration: Struggling to accomplish tasks that peers do easily, the child may give up quickly. He may be a perfectionist and become upset when art projects, dramatic play, or homework assignments are not going as well as he expects. • Difficulty with friendships: The child may be hard to get along with and have problems making and keeping friends. Insisting on dictating all the rules and being the winner, the best, or the first, he may be a poor game-player. He may need to control his surrounding territory, be in the “driver’s seat,” and have trouble sharing toys. • Poor communication: The child may have difficulty verbally in the way she articulates her speech, “gets the words out,” and writes. She may have difficulty expressing her thoughts, feelings, and needs, not only through words but also nonverbally through gestures, body language, and facial expressions. • Other emotional problems: He may be inflexible, irrational, and overly sensitive to change, stress, and hurt feelings. Demanding and needy, he may seek attention in negative ways. He may be angry or panicky for no obvious reason. He may be unhappy, believing and saying that he is dumb, crazy, no good, a loser, and a failure. Low self-esteem is one of the most telling symptoms of Sensory Processing Disorder. • Academic problems: The child may have difficulty learning new skills and concepts. Although bright, the child may be perceived as an underachiever.

... I've never met a magical creature before. All I know is what I've heard in stories. Father Christmas, for instance, with the elves who make the toys." Tergil was impassive. "We relate a similar tale," he replied. "It is called Santa Clause and his slave workforce". "Oh," said Thorpe. "It is an ancient story," said the elf, "about the perils of trusting strangers. It does have a happy ending, though. The evil Clause is beaten to death with hunks of reindeer meat.

From ancient times and into the Middle Ages, man had dreamed of taking to the sky, of soaring into the blue like the birds. One savant in Spain in the year 875 is known to have covered himself with feathers in the attempt. Others devised wings of their own design and jumped from rooftops and towers—some to their deaths—in Constantinople, Nuremberg, Perugia. Learned monks conceived schemes on paper. And starting about 1490, Leonardo da Vinci made the most serious studies. He felt predestined to study flight, he said, and related a childhood memory of a kite flying down onto his cradle. According to brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, it began for them with a toy from France, a small helicopter brought home by their father, Bishop Milton Wright, a great believer in the educational value of toys. The creation of a French experimenter of the nineteenth century, Alphonse Pénaud, it was little more than a stick with twin propellers and twisted rubber bands, and probably cost 50 cents. “Look here, boys,” said the Bishop, something concealed in his hands. When he let go it flew to the ceiling. They called it the “bat.” Orville’s first teacher in grade school, Ida Palmer, would remember him at his desk tinkering with bits of wood. Asked what he was up to, he told her he was making a machine of a kind that he and his brother were going to fly someday.

TAKE ONE STORY, viewed from two different angles. Take a rainy Sunday morning in July, in the late 1920s, when Eddie and his friends are tossing a baseball Eddie got for his birthday nearly a year ago. Take a moment when that ball flies over Eddie’s head and out into the street. Eddie, wearing tawny pants and a wool cap, chases after it, and runs in front of an automobile, a Ford Model A. The car screeches, veers, and just misses him. He shivers, exhales, gets the ball, and races back to his friends. The game soon ends and the children run to the arcade to play the Erie Digger machine, with its claw-like mechanism that picks up small toys. Now take that same story from a different angle. A man is behind the wheel of a Ford Model A, which he has borrowed from a friend to practice his driving. The road is wet from the morning rain. Suddenly, a baseball bounces across the street, and a boy comes racing after it. The driver slams on the brakes and yanks the wheel. The car skids, the tires screech. The man somehow regains control, and the Model A rolls on. The child has disappeared in the rearview mirror, but the man’s body is still affected, thinking of how close he came to tragedy. The jolt of adrenaline has forced his heart to pump furiously and this heart is not a strong one and the pumping leaves him drained. The man feels dizzy and his head drops momentarily. His automobile nearly collides with another. The second driver honks, the man veers again, spinning the wheel, pushing on the brake pedal. He skids along an avenue then turns down an alley. His vehicle rolls until it collides with the rear of a parked truck. There is a small crashing noise. The headlights shatter. The impact smacks the man into the steering wheel. His forehead bleeds. He steps from the Model A, sees the damage, then collapses onto the wet pavement. His arm throbs. His chest hurts. It is Sunday morning. The alley is empty. He remains there, unnoticed, slumped against the side of the car. The blood from his coronary arteries no longer flows to his heart. An hour passes. A policeman finds him. A medical examiner pronounces him dead. The cause of death is listed as “heart attack.” There are no known relatives. Take one story, viewed from two different angles. It is the same day, the same moment, but one angle ends happily, at an arcade, with the little boy in tawny pants dropping pennies into the Erie Digger machine, and the other ends badly, in a city morgue, where one worker calls another worker over to marvel at the blue skin of the newest arrival.

Rate of myelination in different brain areas The various brain areas begin and end myelination at different ages. For example, visual areas finish myelinating by six months. At that age an infant can see an object moving through space as a homogeneous object; before that, it’s just a collection of disconnected colors and edges. Watch babies wave a toy back and forth in front of their eyes. This rehearsal wires up the visual areas so they can begin to recognize and track objects. Over and over, the same groups of neurons fire together, forming visual functional groups that eventually work together well enough to let the baby recognize familiar objects. Babies’ other senses work along with sight to help form a mental image of objects. Here’s one study that continues to astonish me every time I think about it: Newborns, still in the hospital, were given pacifiers to suck. There were several different shapes: square, round, pointed. Large models of all the different-shaped pacifiers were hung above their cribs. The babies stared longest at the pacifier that matched the one that had been in their mouth. These infants appeared able to relate the mental image created with touch — what was in their mouths — with the one created with vision — what was dangling above their heads. I remember the first time our oldest daughter saw a book. She was about three months old — barely able to sit up — and we put a cardboard book with very simple pictures of toys in front of her. Instantly she put her face right above the book, and she inspected every square inch of the page from about an inch away. Then she sat back up and slapped the pages all over. We could almost see her brain working: “What is this? It’s flat but it reminds me a lot of the things I see around me.” She combined the senses of touch and sight together to examine a new phenomenon in her world. Speech begins with babbling at around six months of age. I remember our youngest daughter beginning speech by mimicking the up and down flow of the sentence before she began to make individual sounds. The flow of speech is supported by language centers in the right hemisphere; the details of speech are supported by language centers in the left hemisphere. Our daughter was practicing how to talk, using the brain areas that were currently available. Her right hemisphere appeared to mature before her left hemisphere. As the speech areas develop and these groups become more extensively coordinated, the child’s speech becomes clearer and connected. The auditory areas finish myelinating by two years. The child now has the brain foundation for speech production. She can distinguish the individual sounds that make up words, and can begin to string words together into phrases and sentences. The motor system is myelinated by four years. Before that, children are very slow to respond. Have you ever played catch with a three-year-old? He holds out his arms, the ball hits his chest, it falls on the ground — and then he closes his arms. It takes so long for the message to move from his eyes to his brain, from his brain to the spinal cord, and finally from his spinal cord to his arms, that he misses the ball. You can practice with him all you like, but his reactions won’t speed up until his motor system myelinates.

With treasure, you have something to hold on to. With people however, you have 'someone' to care for. The differences vary. But in the end, it's either you treat an inanimate object like a living entity, or you treat a living entity like an inanimate object, like a toy.