Uncertain Roads Quotes

A man who seeks only the light, while shirking his responsibilities, will never find illumination. And one who keep his eyes fixed upon the sun ends up blind..." "It doesn't matter what others think -because that's what they will think, in any case. So, relax. Let the universe move about. Discover the joy of surprising yourself." "The master says: “Make use of every blessing that God gave you today. A blessing cannot be saved. There is no bank where we can deposit blessings received, to use them when we see fit. If you do not use them, they will be irretrievably lost. God knows that we are creative artists when it comes to our lives. On one day, he gives us clay for sculpting, on another, brushes and canvas, or a pen. But we can never use clay on our canvas, nor pens in sculpture. Each day has its own miracle. Accept the blessings, work, and create your minor works of art today. Tomorrow you will receive others.” “You are together because a forest is always stronger than a solitary tree,” the master answered. "The forest conserves humidity, resists the hurricane and helps the soil to be fertile. But what makes a tree strong is its roots. And the roots of a plant cannot help another plant to grow. To be joined together in the same purpose is to allow each person to grow in his own fashion, and that is the path of those who wish to commune with God.” “If you must cry, cry like a child. You were once a child, and one of the first things you learned in life was to cry, because crying is a part of life. Never forget that you are free, and that to show your emotions is not shameful. Scream, sob loudly, make as much noise as you like. Because that is how children cry, and they know the fastest way to put their hearts at ease. Have you ever noticed how children stop crying? They stop because something distracts them. Something calls them to the next adventure. Children stop crying very quickly. And that's how it will be for you. But only if you can cry as children do.” “If you are traveling the road of your dreams, be committed to it. Do not leave an open door to be used as an excuse such as, 'Well, this isn't exactly what I wanted. ' Therein are contained the seeds of defeat. “Walk your path. Even if your steps have to be uncertain, even if you know that you could be doing it better. If you accept your possibilities in the present, there is no doubt that you will improve in the future. But if you deny that you have limitations, you will never be rid of them. “Confront your path with courage, and don't be afraid of the criticism of others. And, above all, don't allow yourself to become paralyzed by self-criticism. “God will be with you on your sleepless nights, and will dry your tears with His love. God is for the valiant.” "Certain things in life simply have to be experienced -and never explained. Love is such a thing." "There is a moment in every day when it is difficult to see clearly: evening time. Light and darkness blend, and nothing is completely clear nor completely dark." "But it's not important what we think, or what we do or what we believe in: each of us will die one day. Better to do as the old Yaqui Indians did: regard death as an advisor. Always ask: 'Since I'm going to die, what should I be doing now?'” "When we follow our dreams, we may give the impression to others that we are miserable and unhappy. But what others think is not important. What is important is the joy in our heart.” “There is a work of art each of us was destined to create. That is the central point of our life, and -no matter how we try to deceive ourselves -we know how important it is to our happiness. Usually, that work of art is covered by years of fears, guilt and indecision. But, if we decide to remove those things that do not belong, if we have no doubt as to our capability, we are capable of going forward with the mission that is our destiny. That is the only way to live with honor.

They stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned.

If I stop my car so you can cross the road, you better wave your thanks. I also don’t want you to dawdle. Knees to chest, bitch, knees to chest. -Driver’s etiquette 101 Lenore

The group made the salesman aware in no uncertain terms that his tendency to avoid problem-solving by ignoring a problem in the hope that it would go away was in itself his major problem.

The only thing more uncertain than the future is the past. —Soviet proverb

My journey, however, has followed a far less predictable story: stalled chapters, unexpected plot twists, and dozens of rewrites that have left the ending more than a little uncertain.

Dear Woman Who Gave Me Life: The callous vexations and perturbations of this night have subsequently resolved themselves to a state which precipitates me, Arturo Bandini, into a brobdingnagian and gargantuan decision. I inform you of this in no uncertain terms. Ergo, I now leave you and your ever charming daughter (my beloved sister Mona) and seek the fabulous usufructs of my incipient career in profound solitude. Which is to say, tonight I depart for the metropolis to the east — our own Los Angeles, the city of angels. I entrust you to the benign generosity of your brother, Frank Scarpi, who is, as the phrase has it, a good family man (sic!). I am penniless but I urge you in no uncertain terms to cease your cerebral anxiety about my destiny, for truly it lies in the palm of the immortal gods. I have made the lamentable discovery over a period of years that living with you and Mona is deleterious to the high and magnanimous purpose of Art, and I repeat to you in no uncertain terms that I am an artist, a creator beyond question. And, per se, the fumbling fulminations of cerebration and intellect find little fruition in the debauched, distorted hegemony that we poor mortals, for lack of a better and more concise terminology, call home. In no uncertain terms I give you my love and blessing, and I swear to my sincerity, when I say in no uncertain terms that I not only forgive you for what has ruefully transpired this night, but for all other nights. Ergo, I assume in no uncertain terms that you will reciprocate in kindred fashion. May I say in conclusion that I have much to thank you for, O woman who breathed the breath of life into my brain of destiny? Aye, it is, it is. Signed. Arturo Gabriel Bandini. Suitcase in hand, I walked down to the depot. There was a ten-minute wait for the midnight train for Los Angeles. I sat down and began to think about the new novel.

The road of 'God alone' struck me with unsettling fear. So I lingered in a kind of limbo. Unable to go back, unable to go on. Uncertain. Tentative. How strange that we tend to stand ankle-deep in the spiritual life even though the grounding depth of intimacy with God is the most nourishing experience of our lives and affirms our very being!

Faith isn't a feeling; it's a choice to trust God even when the road ahead seems uncertain.

The uncertainty of the future is a great blessing for us humans! Let the road ahead of us be completely unknown for us so that we can have the marvellous joy of discovering it!

Any road not informed by the past will certainly be an uncertain one.

When you are traveling on an uncertain road, if your mind is also uncertain, then you should be afraid!

For ourselves, Mighty Father, I pray you keep us from the sin of hatred, keep us from the sin of vengeance, keep us from the sin of despair, but protect us from the wicked schemes of our enemies. Walk with us now on this uncertain road. Send angels to go before us, angels to go behind, angels on either side, angels above and below—guarding, shielding, encompassing.” He paused for a moment and then added, “May the Holy One give us the courage of righteousness and grant us strength for this day and through all things whatsoever shall befall us. Amen.

A world full of "certainties" All the plans, all the vanities. Where black covers the white Suited in "confidence"- the constant fight. A million roads I dream to take One destination, knowing not I turn where. A green veil covers for two years, some two decades. But the "plan" awaits, new roads to make. I pant, I struggle, I do my best While they say, "You are, dear, but so inadequate".

Ambiguity is exhausting to the Rider, because the Rider is tugging on the reins of the Elephant, trying to direct the Elephant down a new path. But when the road is uncertain, the Elephant will insist on taking the default path, the most familiar path, just as the doctors did. Why? Because uncertainty makes the Elephant anxious. (Think of how, in an unfamiliar place, you gravitate toward a familiar face.) And that’s why decision paralysis can be deadly for change—because the most familiar path is always the status quo.

I read this forward and knew i'd love the book. This book is for you. The men & women, lost & lonely, searching & wary, uncertain & ill prepared for what the heart can lead them into. Sometimes, love is right around the corner. Its the road not taken that has suddenly intersected with that congested road of life you're traveling, bringing you to a harsh & sudden stop. It's a look. It's a smile thhat warms you to the depths of your soul, steals your breath, and pulls you aside as that moment in time screams to a halt & leaves you struggling to adjust. It's the love you didn't expect. It's the love you didn't ask for, hadn't thought aobut, & you realize it's the love that heals the wounds in your soul. It's the love that will reveal the person you are, & the life, though never perfect, that you never knew you dreamed of. Call it destiny, call it fate. Or call it a gift from God. Whichever, its the dream & the everlasting hope for the future.

They rode back, Rawlins leading the riderless horse by the bridlereins. Blevins was sitting in the middle of the road. He still had his hat on. Whoo, he said when he saw them. I’m drunkern shit. They sat their horses and looked down at him. Can you ride or not? said Rawlins. Does a bear shit in the woods? Hell yes I can ride. I was ridin when I fell off. He stood uncertainly and peered about.

We grow accustomed to the Dark — When Light is put away — As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Good bye — A Moment — We Uncertain step For newness of the night — Then — fit our Vision to the Dark — And meet the Road — erect — And so of larger — Darknesses — Those Evenings of the Brain — When not a Moon disclose a sign — Or Star — come out — within — The Bravest — grope a little — And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead — But as they learn to see — Either the Darkness alters — Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight — And Life steps almost straight.

Quietly, as night shuts down the uncertain prospect of the road ahead, the wheels sink to stillness in the dust of the halting-place, and the reins drop from the driver’s loosened hands. Staying each his hunger on what pasture the place affords them, neither the white horse nor the black reproaches his fellow for drawing their master out of the way. They are far, both of them, from home and lonely, and lengthened by their strife the way has been hard. Now their heads droop side by side till their long manes mingle, and when the voice of the charioteer falls silent they are reconciled for a night in sleep.

However, at 17 years old, I was ready to face any challenge and tackle any obstacles blocking the road to my dreams. I was ready to take on the world. I was unstoppable. Bygones were bygones. The future, however uncertain it might be, awaited me.

It was sad to see his tall figure receding in the dark as we drove away, just like the other figures in New York and New Orleans: they stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned. Where go? what do? what for?—sleep. But this foolish gang was bending onward.

Is the road ahead uncertain? Great, be happy! Uncertainty means surprises, and if the path you're walking on isn't one full of surprises, you'll get bored! When you get bored, your life energy goes out! Walk in uncertainty, encounter new things just like an explorer and they will keep you energetic!

In a universe whose size is beyond human imagining, where our world floats like a dust mote in the void of night, men have grown inconceivably lonely. We scan the time scale and the mechanisms of life itself for portents and signs of the invisible. As the only thinking mammals on the planet—perhaps the only thinking animals in the entire sidereal universe—the burden of consciousness has grown heavy upon us. We watch the stars, but the signs are uncertain. We uncover the bones of the past and seek for our origins. There is a path there, but it appears to wander. The vagaries of the road may have a meaning, however; it is thus we torture ourselves....  Loren Eiseley, 1946...

Looking back, I know that the man possessed no gift of prophecy; he simply worked to assure his own future, while I skated uncertainly toward mine. It was his flat-voiced "Cherchez la femme" that still haunts me. Because our partnership was nothing but a bungling road to the Dahlia. And in the end, she was to own the two of us completely.

He was very lonely, he wanted to get back to New York. It was sad to see his tall figure receding in the dark as we drove away, just like the other figures in New York and New Orleans: they stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned. Where go? what do? what for?—sleep. But this foolish gang was bending onward.

Adeline stands on the path, uncertain what to do, where to go. There are grooves in her mind, worn smooth and deep. Her legs have carried her to and from this place too many times. Her body knows the way. Go down this road, and take a left, and there is her own house, which is not her home anymore, even though her feet are already moving toward it.

You Learn (by Jorge Luis Borges) The poverty of yesterday was less squalid than the poverty we purchase with our industry today. Fortunes were smaller then as well. (The Elderly Lady) After a while you learn the subtle difference Between holding a hand and chaining a soul, And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning And company doesn’t mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts And presents aren’t promises, And you begin to accept your defeats With your head up and your eyes open With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child, And you learn to build all your roads on today Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. After a while you learn… That even sunshine burns if you get too much. So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul, Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure… That you really are strong And you really do have worth… And you learn and learn… With every good-bye you learn. {…}

Furthermore, the world is so complex, and fate so uncertain, that you can never really control other people or the environment effectively enough to be master of your own destiny. Reason is not powerful enough to build intellectual systems or models to allow you to accurately understand the world around you or anticipate what is to come. Your willpower is not strong enough to successfully police your desires. If you really did have that kind of power, then New Year’s resolutions would work. Diets would work. The bookstores wouldn’t be full of self-help books. You’d need just one and that would do the trick. You’d follow its advice, solve the problems of living, and the rest of the genre would become obsolete. The existence of more and more self-help books is proof that they rarely work.

The world thinks mathematicians are people for whom math is easy. That's wrong. Sure, some kids, like Urschel, have little trouble with school math. But everyone who starts down the road to creating really new mathematics finds out what Urschel did: It's a struggle. A prickly, sometimes lonely struggle whose rewards are uncertain and a long time coming. Mathematicians are the people who love that struggle.

To meet my natural companions among the mighty dead. To walk with them in conversation. To know myself in them, through them. Because they are what we’ve become. Every blessing from soup bowls to salvation they discovered for us. Individuals just as real as you and me, they fought over each new idea and died to give life to the dreams we live in. Some of them—a lot of them—wasted their days following error down nowhere roads. Some hacked their way through jungles of suffering to collapse in view of some far-off golden city of the imagination. But all the thoughts we think—all the high towers of the mind’s citadel—were sculpted out of shapeless nothing through the watches of their uncertain nights. Every good thing we know would be lost to darkness, all unremembered, if each had not been preserved for us by some sinner with a pen.

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul and you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t always mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child and you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong and you really do have worth. and you learn and you learn with every good-bye you learn.

Dusk settled over our shoulders like a damp purple blanket. The river- the churn and clank of boat traffic, the shush of water, and the tangy smell of catfish and mud- was slowly beaten back by honeysuckle and cicadas and some bird that cooed the same three syllables in a lilting circle. It was all so familiar and so foreign. I pictured a young girl in a blue cotton dress running down this same road on cinnamon-stick legs. Then I pictured another girl, white and square-jawed, running before her. Adelaide. Mother. I would've missed it if I hadn't been looking: a narrow dirt drive crowded on either side by briars and untrimmed boughs. Even once I'd followed the track to its end I was uncertain- who would live in such a huddled, bent-back cabin, half-eaten by ivy and some sort of feral climbing rose? The wooden-shake shingles were green with moss; the barn had collapsed entirely.

Even the gentle composer Richard Strauss was carried away by anti-French feeling. He told Kessler in the summer of 1912 that he would go along when war broke out. What did he think he could do, his wife asked. Perhaps, Strauss said uncertainly, he could be a nurse. “Oh, you, Richard!” snapped his wife. “You can’t stand the sight of blood!” Strauss looked embarrassed but insisted: “I would do my best. But if the French get a thrashing, I want to be there.”24

There was just enough room for the tonga to get through among the bullock-carts, rickshaws, cycles and pedestrians who thronged both the road and the pavement--which they shared with barbers plying their trade out of doors, fortune-tellers, flimsy tea-stalls, vegetable-stands, monkey-trainers, ear-cleaners, pickpockets, stray cattle, the odd sleepy policeman sauntering along in faded khaki, sweat-soaked men carrying impossible loads of copper, steel rods, glass or scrap paper on their backs as they yelled 'Look out! Look out!' in voices that somehow pierced though the din, shops of brassware and cloth (the owners attempting with shouts and gestures to entice uncertain shoppers in), the small carved stone entrance of the Tinny Tots (English Medium) School which opened out onto the courtyard of the reconverted haveli of a bankrupt aristocrat, and beggars--young and old, aggressive and meek, leprous, maimed or blinded--who would quietly invade Nabiganj as evening fell, attempting to avoid the police as they worked the queues in front of the cinema-halls. Crows cawed, small boys in rags rushed around on errands (one balancing six small dirty glasses of tea on a cheap tin tray as he weaved through the crowd) monkeys chattered in and bounded about a great shivering-leafed pipal tree and tried to raid unwary customers as they left the well-guarded fruit-stand, women shuffled along in anonymous burqas or bright saris, with or without their menfolk, a few students from the university lounging around a chaat-stand shouted at each other from a foot away either out of habit or in order to be heard, mangy dogs snapped and were kicked, skeletal cats mewed and were stoned, and flies settled everywhere: on heaps of foetid, rotting rubbish, on the uncovered sweets at the sweetseller's in whose huge curved pans of ghee sizzled delicioius jalebis, on the faces of the sari-clad but not the burqa-clad women, and on the horse's nostrils as he shook his blinkered head and tried to forge his way through Old Brahmpur in the direction of the Barsaat Mahal.

Many hundreds of craft of all sizes and nationalities - transatlantic steamers, full-rigged ships, barques, schooners, and fishing smacks - were running into the Sound from the open sea, making for the shelter of the roads of Elsinore. Not a single vessel was heading the other way, all were scudding in before the tempest; many of them, no doubt, had put to sea several days before, bound round the Skaw into the German Ocean, but had been compelled to turn back by the violence of the hurricane. They were all staggering along under the smallest possible amounts of canvas, pitching heavily into the frightfully high seas; here a full-rigged ship under close-reefed topsails; here a schooner under fore and main trysails; here a brig under bare poles; here a pilot-cutter under spit-fire jib, and the balance-reef down in her mainsail. Several vessels had lost spars or portions of their bulwarks; one Norwegian barque was evidently water-logged, and in a sinking condition, and was floundering slowly into smoother water, but just in time; and outside the Sound, on the raging Kattegat, were hundreds of other vessels, some hull down on the horizon, making for the same refuge, their fate still uncertain among those gigantic rollers, and, no doubt, with many an anxious heart on board of them.

I may love the great outdoors in winter, but even I draw the line at sunset. When November comes, I have no desire to leave the house after dark. My instinct is to hibernate the evenings away. I hate those strange walks along the high street, lit only by street lamps and the glow of shop windows, the cold seeping up your coat sleeves. I don’t like the way that 4 o’clock can feel so desolate, the air damp without the corrective force of the sun./ The very thought of driving seems nightmarish – those impenetrable roads their edges uncertain; the dance you have to perform with the full beam, flicking it on and off, on and off. Far better to stay at home.

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure that you really are strong and that you really do have worth And you learn and you learn with every goodbye you learn...

True, t is only individuals who starve, but what security has the working-man that it may not be his turn tomorrow? Who assures him employment, who vouches for it that, if for any reason or no reason his lord and master discharges him tomorrow, he can struggle along with those dependant upon him, until he may find some one else 'to give him bread'? Who guarantees that willingness to work shall suffice to obtain work, that uprightness, industry, thrift, and the rest of the virtues recommended by the bourgeoisie, are really his road to happiness? No one. He knows that every breeze that blows, every whim of his employer, every bad turn of trade may hurl him back into the fierce whirlpool from which he has temporarily saved himself, and in which it is hard and often impossible to keep his head above water. He knows that, though he may have the means of living today, it is very uncertain whether he shall tomorrow.

— I have fluctuated from one shadow of uncertainty and anxiety to another, all the summer, on the subject to which my last earthly wishes cling, and I delayed writing to you to be able to say I am going to London. I may say so now — as far as the human may say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ of their futurity. The carriage, a patent carriage with a bed in it, and set upon some hundreds of springs, is, I believe, on its road down to me, and immediately upon its arrival we begin our journey. Whether we shall ever complete it remains uncertain — more so than other uncertainties. My physician appears a good deal alarmed, calls it an undertaking full of hazard, and myself the ‘Empress Catherine’ for insisting upon attempting it. But I must. I go, as ‘the doves to their windows,’ to the only earthly daylight I see here. I go to rescue myself from the associations of this dreadful place. I go to restore to my poor papa the companionships family. Enough has been done and suffered for me. I thank God I am going home at last.

Hands relax and clench again tighter. This is not to be borne. We are so accustomed to the noise of the Front that now, when the weight of it suddenly lifts from us, we feel as if we must burst, shoot upward like balloons. “Why,” says Willy suddenly, “it is peace!” —It falls like a bomb. Faces relax, movements become aimless and uncertain. Peace? We look at one another, incredulous. Peace? I let my hand grenades drop. Peace? Ludwig lies down slowly on his waterproof again. Peace? In Bethke’s eyes is an expression as if his whole face would break in pieces. Peace? Wessling stands motionless as a tree; and when he turns his back on it and faces us, he looks as if he meant to keep straight on home. All at once—in the whirl of our excitement we had hardly observed it—the silence is at an end; once more, dully menacing, comes the noise of gunfire, and already from afar, like the bill of a woodpecker, sounds the knock-knocking of a machine gun. We grow calm and are almost glad to hear again the familiar, trusty noises of death.

I was coming to understand what an education was. To escape from the little island of the living. To know what thinking men and women have felt and seen and imagined through all the ages of the world. To meet my natural companions among the mighty dead. To walk with them in conversation. To know myself in them, through them. Because they are what we’ve become. Every blessing from soup bowls to salvation they discovered for us. Individuals just as real as you and me, they fought over each new idea and died to give life to the dreams we live in. Some of them—a lot of them—wasted their days following error down nowhere roads. Some hacked their way through jungles of suffering to collapse in view of some far-off golden city of the imagination. But all the thoughts we think—all the high towers of the mind’s citadel—were sculpted out of shapeless nothing through the watches of their uncertain nights. Every good thing we know would be lost to darkness, all unremembered, if each had not been preserved for us by some sinner with a pen. I

Karl was the last to be with him. He found him calm and almost gay. After he had gone, Ludwig put his few things in order and wrote for some time. Then he drew a chair to the window and set a basin with warm water on the table beside him. He locked the door, sat himself on the settle and with his arm in the water, he cut the artery. The pain was slight. He saw the blood flowing, a scene he had often thought on—to let this hateful, poisoned blood pour out of his body. His room became very clear. He saw every hook, every nail, every glint of the quartzes, the iridescence, the colours; he absorbed it: his room. It gathered about him, it passed in with his breath and was one with his life. Then it receded, uncertain. His youth began, in pictures. Eichendorff, the woods, homesickness. Reconciled, without pain. Beyond the woods rose up barbed-wire entanglements, little white shrapnel clouds, the burst of heavier shells. But they alarmed him no longer. They were muffled, almost like bells. The bells became louder, but the woods were still there. The bells pealed in his head so loudly that he felt it must burst. Then it grew darker. The pealing sounded fainter, and the evening came in at the window, clouds floated up under his feet. He had wished once in his life to see flamingoes; now he knew; these were flamingoes, with broad, pinkish-grey wings, lots of them, a phalanx—Did wild ducks not once fly so toward the very red moon, red as poppies in Flanders? —The landscape receded farther and farther, the woods sank deeper, rivers rose up, gleaming, silver, and islands; the pinkish-grey wings flew ever higher and higher, and the horizon became ever brighter—Now, suddenly, a dark cry swelled in his throat, hot, insistent, a last thought spilled over out of the brain into the failing consciousness: fear, rescue, bind it up! —He tried to rise, staggering, to lift his hand; the body jerked, but already it was too weak. —It spun round and spun round, then it vanished; and the giant bird with dark pinions came very gently with slow sweeps and the wings closed noiselessly over him. A

Standing on the pavement was a big fat man whom Dixon recognized as his barber. Dixon felt a deep respect for this man because of his impressive exterior, his rumbling bass voice, and his unsurpassable stock of information about the Royal Family. At that moment two rather pretty girls stopped at a pillar-box a few yards away. The barber, his hands clasped behind his back, turned and stared at them. An unmistakable expression of furtive lust came over his face; then, like a courtly shyopwalker, he moved slowly towards the two girls. Welch now accelerated again and Dixon, a good deal shaken hurriedly switched his attention to the other side of the road, where a cricket match was being played and the bowler was just running up to bowl. The batsman, another big fat man, swiped at the ball, missed it, and was violently hit by it in the stomach. Dixon had time to see him double up and the wicket-keeper begin to run forward before a tall hedge hid the scene. Uncertain whether this pair of vignettes was designed to illustrate the swiftness of divine retribution or its tendency to mistake its target, Dixon was quite sure that he felt in some way overwhelmed...

The flourishing of historical and political legends came to a rather abrupt end with the birth of Christianity. Its interpretation of history, from the days of Adam to the Last Judgment, as one single road to redemption and salvation, offered the most powerful and all-inclusive legendary explanation of human destiny. Only after the spiritual unity of Christian peoples gave way to the plurality of nations, when the road to salvation became an uncertain article of individual faith rather than a universal theory applicable to all happenings, did new kinds of historical explanations emerge. The nineteenth century has offered us the curious spectacle of an almost simultaneous birth of the most varying and contradictory ideologies, each of which claimed to know the hidden truth about otherwise incomprehensible facts. Legends, however, are not ideologies; they do not aim at universal explanation but are always concerned with concrete facts. It seems rather significant that the growth of national bodies was nowhere accompanied by a foundation legend, and that a first unique attempt in modern times was made precisely when the decline of the national body had become obvious and imperialism seemed to take the place of old-fashioned nationalism.

11. There Is No Education Like Adversity In 1941, as Britain was in the darkest days of World War Two, Churchill told a generation of young people that ‘these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.’ But why was Churchill telling them that those bleak, uncertain, life-threatening and freedom-challenging days were also the best days of their lives? He knew that it’s when times are tough, when the conditions are at their worst, that we learn what we are truly capable of. There are few greater feelings than finding out you can achieve more, and endure more, than you had previously imagined, and it’s only when we are tested that we realize just how brightly we can shine. It’s a cliché, but it’s true: diamonds are formed under pressure. And without the pressure, they simply remain lumps of coal. The greatest trick in life is to learn to see adversity as your friend, your teacher and your guide. Storms come to make us stronger. No one ever achieves their dream without first stumbling over a few obstacles along the way. Experience teaches you to understand that those obstacles are actually a really good indication that you are on the right road. Trust me: if you find a road without any obstacles, I can promise you it doesn’t lead anywhere worthwhile. So, embrace the adversity, embrace the obstacles, and get ready for success. Today is the start of the greatest days of your life…

Sociologist Barry Glassner (1999) has documented many of the biases introduced by “If it bleeds, it leads” news reporting, and by the strategic efforts of special interest groups to control the agenda of public fear of crime, disease, and other hazards. Is an increase of approximately 700 incidents in 50 states over 7 years an “epidemic” of road rage? Is it conceivable that there is (or ever was) a crisis in children’s day care stemming from predatory satanic cults? In 1994, a research team funded by the U.S. government spent 4 years and $750,000 to reach the conclusion that the myth of satanic conspiracies in day care centers was totally unfounded; not a single verified instance was found (Goodman, Qin, Bottoms, & Shaver, 1994; Nathan & Snedeker, 1995). Are automatic-weapon-toting high school students really the first priority in youth safety? (In 1999, approximately 2,000 school-aged children were identified as murder victims; only 26 of those died in school settings, 14 of them in one tragic incident at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.) The anthropologist Mary Douglas (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982) pointed out that every culture has a store of exaggerated horrors, many of them promoted by special interest factions or to defend cultural ideologies. For example, impure water had been a hazard in 14th-century Europe, but only after Jews were accused of poisoning wells did the citizenry become preoccupied with it as a major problem. But the original news reports are not always ill-motivated. We all tend to code and mention characteristics that are unusual (that occur infrequently). [...] The result is that the frequencies of these distinctive characteristics, among the class of people considered, tend to be overestimated.

Railways, by days and by night. The flowers in the cuttings with their sooty blossoms, the birds on the wires with their sooty voices, they are their friends and long remember them. And we also stand still, with astonished eyes, when-already from the far distant distance- there's the cry of promise. And we stand, with hair streaming, when it's there like thunder and as though it had rolled round heaven knows what worlds. And we're still standing, with sooty cheeks, when-already from the far distant distance-it cries. Cries, far, far away. Cries. Really it was nothing. Or everything. Like us. And they beat, beyond the windows of prisons, sweet dangerous, promising rhythms. You are all ears then, poor prisoner, all hearing, for the clattering, oncoming trains in the night and their cry and their whistle shiver the soft dark of your cell with pain and desire. Or they crash bellowing over the bed, when at night you're harboring fever. And your veins, the moon-blue, vibrate and take up the song, the song of the freight trains: Under way-under way-under way- And your ear's an abyss, that swallows the world. Under way. But ever and again you are spat out at stations, abandoned to farewell and departure. And the stations raise up their pale signboards like brows beside your dark road. And they have names, those furrowed-brown signs, names, which are the world: bed, they mean, hunger and women. Ulla or Carola. And frozen feet and tears. And they mean tobacco, the stations, or lipstick or schnapps. Or God or bread. And the pale brows of the stations, the signboards, have names, that mean: women. You are yourself a railway track, rusty, stained, silver, shiny, beautiful and uncertain. And you are divided into sections and bound between stations. And they have signboards whereon is written women, or murder, or moon. And then that is the world. You are a railway- rumbled over, cried over- you are the track- on you everything happens and makes you rust blind and silver bright. You are human, your brain giraffe-lonely somewhere above on your endless neck. And no one quite knows your heart.

The information in this topic of decision making and how to create and nurture it, is beneficial to every cop in their quest to mastering tactics and tactical decision making and are a must read for every cop wanting to be more effective and safe on the street. My purpose is to get cops thinking about this critical question: In mastering tactics shouldn’t we be blending policy and procedure with people and ideas? It should be understandable that teaching people, procedures helps them perform tasks more skillfully doesn’t always apply. Procedures are most useful in well-ordered situations when they can substitute for skill, not augment it. In complex situations, in the shadows of the unknown, uncertain and unpredictable and complex world of law enforcement conflict, procedures are less likely to substitute for expertise and may even stifle its development. Here is a different way of putting it as Klein explains: In complex situations, people will need judgment skills to follow procedures effectively and to go beyond them when necessary.3 For stable and well-structured tasks i.e. evidence collection and handling, follow-up investigations, booking procedures and report writing, we should be able to construct comprehensive procedure guides. Even for complex tasks we might try to identify the procedures because that is one road to progress. But we also have to discover the kinds of expertise that comes into play for difficult jobs such as, robbery response, active shooter and armed gunman situations, hostage and barricade situations, domestic disputes, drug and alcohol related calls and pretty much any other call that deals with emotionally charged people in conflict. Klein states, “to be successful we need both analysis (policy and procedure) and intuition (people and ideas).”4 Either one alone can get us into trouble. Experts certainly aren’t perfect, but analysis can fail. Intuition isn’t magic either. Klein defines intuition as, “ways we use our experience without consciously thinking things out”. Intuition includes tacit knowledge that we can’t describe. It includes our ability to recognize patterns stored in memory. We have been building these patterns up all our lives from birth to present, and we can rapidly match a situation to a pattern or notice that something is off, that some sort of anomaly is warning us to be careful.5

We’re so alone, she thought. We touch one another too firmly and wound or break, or else we pull away. We tell stories in which we are lone noble heroes, until we stand face-to-face with a goddess and see something older and bigger than each of us because it is each of us, our souls touching, the subtle interaction at a distance of minds with minds, when we reach the edge of loneliness and teeter uncertain at the brink.

Just another rite of passage, another of childhood’s puzzling and uncertain moments. American writers are mesmerized by childhood, the quizzical journey from innocence to adulthood. What a journey it is, too: precarious and wonderful; frightening and alluring; delightful and tragic. Not one journey, but many, and every one of them different. I am told that money and privilege sometimes make for a smoother passage. I would not know. I only know about being a soldier’s son: the military life and the unexpected fortunes such a life brings. Luck has a lot to do with it, and I was lucky in that my luck went sour early and put me on another road altogether, a road that took me deep into the mountains, a road that led to a trout stream and into the curious and captivating lives of three old men who, by having so little, laid claim to having everything that mattered, was worthwhile, and would last.

We know nothing. Gone is the memory of the stories we heard as children, now so much seaweed; still to come is the tenderness of future skies, a breeze in which imprecision slowly opens into stars. The votive lamp flickers uncertainly in the abandoned temple, the ponds of deserted villas stagnate in the sun, the name once carved into the tree now means nothing, and the privileges of people we never knew have been blown over the roads like torn-up paper, stopping only when some object blocked their way.

But isn't everything like that in our uncertain world? We spend our time pinching and scraping and searching for comfort and all kinds of good things and they usually arrive when you're not able to get any good out of them.

It’s exhausting,” I said. “I have to battle this part along with the sense of frustration and hopelessness it creates. It’s so tough and strong that it seems undefeatable.” “What does the overburdened restless part want?” “It wants someone to bring it under control to rest and have peace. It’s like a hyperactive fidgety child, pacing back and forth, crying for someone to make it stop.” I was having trouble connecting my inner true self to the stressed part because of the intense energy it was creating. Keith guided me by helping me communicate with the stressed part. I needed to make it understand that by stepping aside it would allow the healing process of unburdening the emotional component that was holding in the shame. Without the burden of the disgrace, the anxious, stressed-out, perfectionist, striver part would not have to work so hard to compensate for its self-perceived shortcomings. Furthermore, relieving the humiliating burdens would bring rest, tranquility, and peace. The intense energy could then be orchestrated in better ways. At this point, we ended our session. I left his office once again annoyed and uncertain, wondering if I was ever going to be able to live a normal peaceful life. As I meditated on the session during the week, I understood what my therapist was explaining. I visualized fast-forwarding directly to the ultimate goal of un-blending the various multiple defender traits from the abuse. Getting to the root of the therapy and healing process of dealing with the disgraceful iniquity was my goal. I had trouble believing whether or not my logic in understanding the process was correct. It seemed too simplistic to me at first. I envisioned confessing all my scandalous deeds and desires for the world to know. I imagined no more secrets or lies and eliminating the need to masquerade with a phony façade to hide the atrocious creature I thought I was. Instantly, I was buoyant as helium. The crushing weight from the wicked acts was lifted from my shoulders. The mortifying and disgusting impressions I had were no longer there. I was able to get a brief glimpse of the divine true self. For a moment, I physically felt what life could be like while at peace with myself. Happiness and comfort engulfed me at the possibility of living a life free of judgment, low selfesteem, anxiety and paranoia. While in this good frame of mind, I became aware of all the goodness inside of me and the decent things I was doing in life. My human flaws appeared to be minor bumps in the road rather than being amplified into major roadblocks. I began to see how I pulled myself out of mental illness, addiction, and sexual perversion. I became conscious that I survived sexual abuse at an early age and persevered by holding it together. I was imbued with a sense of accomplishment. I now comprehended and conquered the difficult therapeutic work of dealing with the harmful emotions associated with bringing the misconduct to the surface.

There was such emotion in his eyes now, she felt as though her insides were pressing on her ribcage and twisting in her middle. For years she had thought him a stranger. Now, here, on this road by uncertain light she saw again such acute feeling in the beautiful eyes of the boy she had once adored. She let herself look at his arm so firmly about the little girl, a child he barely knew yet felt the responsibility to protect, and something hard and encrusted inside her shattered.

The funniest thing about life is when we walk on the uncertain road called life, we act as if the path is certain! Why? Because we are terrified of uncertain paths!

It's nice to know I'm not the only traveler on this uncertain road.

Embrace the present with all your vigour. Follow your heart and embrace the light, However uncertain seems your foresight.   The Now is the past of tomorrow, The future is born from its shadow. I embrace that what my soul reckons. Tread I must, when the Road Beckons.

But insurance is nothing more than a name we give to risk-pooling arrangements that are organized through private markets. When these markets fail, it is possible to pool risks in other ways. The corporation provides a perfect example of how people can arrange to share risks without the mediation of explicit market mechanisms. For example, there are many types of production processes that call for very specialized skills. The division of labour is itself an enormous source of efficiency gains. Unfortunately, acquiring highly specialized skills can be extremely risky for an individual, because the future is uncertain. While I may know that there is adequate demand for my skills now, I have no idea what things will be like five years down the road. As a result, no one may be willing to invest the time and energy needed to acquire specialized skills, because it is too risky. This efficiency loss could be avoided if it were possible to buy some kind of insurance that would compensate people when there was some fluctuation in the demand for their skills. Unfortunately, no one would ever want to sell this type of insurance because of obvious moral-hazard problems—people would lose all incentive to market or upgrade their skills. So private markets will simply fail to provide this type of insurance. Corporations, however, are able to provide such insurance to workers through bureaucratic means.

Rather than taking supply and demand as a given, the new breed of microeconomist helps nudge the two into line. In the early days of Airbnb, an online market for home rentals, its economists pored over customer data to spot market weaknesses. Costly enhancements, including professional photographs of every listing, are rigorously tested to make sure they work before being rolled out. The company also guides users uncertain about the right rate to charge for a listing. At Uber, a taxi service, prices surge during peak hours, pulling more drivers onto the road. At Poynt, a Silicon Valley startup offering a new type of cashless

Have you been travelling, my young friend? Come in out of the darkness and rain. Sit by the fire, eat, drink and rest yourself. Life is one long journey from beginning to end, you know. We all walk different roads, both with our bodies and our minds. Some of us lose heart and fall by the wayside, whilst others go on to realise their dreams and desires. Let me tell you a story of travellers, and the paths they followed. Of young ones, like yourself, sometimes uncertain of their direction, and often reluctant to listen to the voices of sense and wisdom. Of a mighty warrior, set on a course of destiny and vengeance, unstoppable in his resolve. Of an evil one and his crew, cruel and ruthless, bound on a march of destruction and conquest. Of a simple maid and her friends, homebodies whose only aims were peace and well-being for all. Of wicked, foolish wanderers, chasing fantasies and fables, consumed by their own greed. Of small babes who dreamed small dreams, not knowing what the future held in store for them. And, finally, of two friends, faithful and true, who had roamed many highways and together chose their own way. The lives I will tell you of are intertwined by fate—good and evil bringing their just rewards to each, as they merited them. Listen whilst I relate this story. For am I not the Teller of Tales, the Weaver of Dreams!

This is the road of the long slow decline. You know it well. You who have watched helpless as son, daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife, friend stood uncertain at its crossroads before taking that single decisive step. Maybe you took that step yourself. Either way, you know that there is no getting off of this road until the traveler has reached its inevitable end. The road twists and winds and goes on into an unseen, distant horizon. Sometimes there are breakdowns. Sometimes there is hope. Sometimes the ones we love crash and die. There may be rest stops along the way on this road, side trips into what looks like happiness or sanity. But these are only mirages that shimmer and dissolve when we reach out to grab them. They are not real life or real rest stops. In the end, the traveler must figure out why he got on the road in the first place before making that final choice to get off.

Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.” —Luke 6:35 (NLT) The late-night call to the hospital twisted my stomach into a hard knot. Danny, a strong, passionate college student studying for ministry, had been in an accident. He lay in a medically induced coma, survival uncertain. I was one of his teachers. I rushed to the hospital and joined his friends. Danny’s parents had not yet arrived; they faced an agonizing four-hour drive. As we waited, we pieced together the tragic story. Danny had seen a homeless man begging on the side of the road. He sensed God’s whisper to feed him; the fast-food gift certificates he had in his pocket would be perfect. While turning his car around, he was T-boned by a pickup truck. His girlfriend suffered minor injuries; the other driver wasn’t hurt, but Danny now fought for his life. We waited and prayed and tried to comfort his parents when they arrived. The waiting stretched into days. Danny’s father, however, was not content with waiting. He had a mission. The day after the accident, he drove to the fast-food joint, loaded up with food, drove to that fateful place, and finished the task his son had begun. While his son lay in a coma, Danny’s father fed that same homeless man who would never fathom the cost of his meal; God’s boundless compassion, disguised as fast food. Danny’s recovery was slow but strong. I saw him recently, working on campus. He waved. He'd just gotten married. Danny, by his life and through his family, has become my teacher. Heavenly Father, grant me grace to press through my heartaches to a place of total forgiveness, supernatural love, and abundant life. —Bill Giovannetti Digging Deeper: Jn 15:4; Eph 4:32; Jas 2:8

What the current aura of disenchantment means for the future of American and world politics is uncertain. Will members of the public turn their backs on politics and turn to aesthetic appreciation, enjoying the comforts of religion, or building Shangri-las in their own minds?20 The post–World War II record-low voter turnout in the 2014 midterm elections might be one indication that Americans are washing their hands of even the most basic expressions of political engagement. But there are other indications that the legions of discontented do not reject the idea of progress as such and will not retreat from politics; instead what we are seeing is a rejection of liberal universalist visions of progress and the political programs associated with them. In a 2013 address before the Federal Assembly, Russian president Vladimir Putin declared that “attempts to push supposedly more progressive development models onto other nations actually resulted in regression, barbarity and extensive bloodshed.”21 Putin’s military incursions in Russia’s near (and not- so-near) abroad aside, increasing numbers of Westerners seem to agree with the sentiment of his remarks, punishing establishment politicians as “globalists” and rewarding inward-looking populists. From Brexiteers bucking the European Union to America-firsters looking to make their country “great again,” from supporters of the National Front in France to loyalists of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands or the Freedom Party of Austria, nationalists are on the ascent, seeking progress for themselves and their compatriots on their own terms.

Faith isn't a feeling. It's a choice to trust God even when the road ahead seems uncertain.

To know what thinking men and women have felt and seen and imagined through all the ages of the world. To meet my natural companions among the mighty dead. To walk with them in conversation. To know myself in them, through them. Because they are what we’ve become. Every blessing from soup bowls to salvation they discovered for us. Individuals just as real as you and me, they fought over each new idea and died to give life to the dreams we live in. Some of them—a lot of them—wasted their days following error down nowhere roads. Some hacked their way through jungles of suffering to collapse in view of some far-off golden city of the imagination. But all the thoughts we think—all the high towers of the mind’s citadel—were sculpted out of shapeless nothing through the watches of their uncertain nights. Every good thing we know would be lost to darkness, all unremembered, if each had not been preserved for us by some sinner with a pen.

this love story has been a slow fall. and these wings have been a slow unfold. and there has been a fight here for my worth, and it sure has been a hard-fought one, and this road home has been a long one… but there’s a little bit of light here now. and even though it’s been a long time coming… the light is coming. and as uncertain as i am of how much farther i have to go, i know now that i’ve got it in me to keep going. and until i feel free… i know now that this heart won’t give up.

When life throws uncertain flints of doubt and disharmony, and the roads seem to be lonely. The wanton gust pulls your zest apart and you are left with your shattered heart. You may never know someone's full story so never be quick to judge someone's life because the universe itself keeps the untold mysteries in its murkiest heart.

So just as my years at university were ending, I was coming to understand what an education was. To escape from the little island of the living. To know what thinking men and women have felt and seen and imagined through all the ages of the world. To meet my natural companions among the mighty dead. To walk with them in conversation. To know myself in them, through them. Because they are what we’ve become. Every blessing from soup bowls to salvation they discovered for us. Individuals just as real as you and me, they fought over each new idea and died to give life to the dreams we live in. Some of them—a lot of them—wasted their days following error down nowhere roads. Some hacked their way through jungles of suffering to collapse in view of some far-off golden city of the imagination. But all the thoughts we think—all the high towers of the mind’s citadel—were sculpted out of shapeless nothing through the watches of their uncertain nights. Every good thing we know would be lost to darkness, all unremembered, if each had not been preserved for us by some sinner with a pen.

Failure is a frequent stop on the road to success.

Life is uncertain. That’s the magic of it. That’s why it’s a blessing. It’s a journey and an adventure, the likes of which no other person in the world will experience.

China has advocated a new type of great power relations, a Belt and Road Initiative as well as a ‘community of shared future of humankind’.

Kuche and Khotan in today’s Xinjiang were the hubs of a flow from India that reached the very centre of China then. Rulers of these kingdoms along the road had Sanskrit names that testified to their connection with India.

In 1896, a novel and shocking event occurred in England: Mrs Bridget O’Driscoll was run over and killed by a motor car. At the subsequent inquest the coroner expressed the solemn hope that such a death would never occur on the roads again

Although I remain uncertain about God or any particular religion, I believe in karma. What goes around, comes around. How you live your life, the respect that you give others and the mountain, and how you treat people in general will come back to you in kindred fashion. I like to talk about what I call the Karma National Bank. If you give up the summit to help rescue someone who’s in trouble, you’ve put a deposit in that bank. And sometime down the road, you may need to make a big withdrawal. People